And felt all the world.
Or near enough. She sensed it was a great sphere, too large tocontemplate, and she could lose herself in all the textures from sand todiamond, but she pulled back to the now, guided by Thana’s cries. She openedthe ground under every nearby pair of running feet, dropping them into pits oftheir own, and the noise of battle became cries of alarm as they all fell.
It felt so wonderful, she could see why most people embraced thetraining.
Thana’s look of awe was something she would never tire of, evenas it seemed rather wistful at the moment. “Yes.” Thana squeezed her hand once,then pulled a pyramid from her pocket. “Now to find a mind pyramid.” She pointedat Sylph’s paragon of stone. “We’ll talk about that later.”
“All right. I’ll guard your back in the here and now.”
Chapter Sixteen
The entire forest was alive with complaints, voices raisedin anger, condemnation, fear, and a host of other emotions. Thana didn’t botherto try calming any of them. She just used her detector to find what she waslooking for, a mind pyramid.
Its owner glared from the bottom of a pit. She didn’t know howmany pyradistés were gathered in the forest, but they would probably all be asreluctant to cooperate as this fellow seemed to be.
And Thana was too tired for persuasion. “Give me your pyramids,or my friend will fill in your grave.”
Before he had time for words, the earth churned around him,pebbles raining down. His eyes went wide in the candlelight, and he flung asatchel up. Thana barely suppressed a cry as she caught it. She hadn’t even hadtime to ready herself.
Among a slew of other pyramids, some canceled, she found what sheneeded in the satchel and marched back to the stone prison, gratified to feelSylph with her.
Sylph, who now seemed as powerful as one of the ten spirits. Butnow wasn’t the time for such thoughts.
“Thana,” Gunnar called from his window. “What is going on? Isthis what you were waiting for? I—”
She held the pyramid aloft, catching him easily and hypnotizinghim. “Keep the others back, please, Sylph.”
“As you wish.”
The walls of the prison drew back like melting wax, giving Thanaroom to get to Gunnar while separating him from the others, who cried out inprotest. Relieved that mind magic came easy for her, she pressed the pyramid toGunnar’s forehead. She searched his memories, frowning.
And found nothing out of the ordinary.
She frowned harder. Tampering wouldn’t be easy to find, but ithad to be there. She looked through his recent memories, events unfoldingthrough his eyes. He’d gone hunting a pack of rogue pyradistés with the Orderand his difficult cousin, someone he didn’t see very often, whose company hedidn’t enjoy.
He’d missed Thana.
She bit her lip as he’d lamented that he must keep silent aboutCalla. She’d clearly resented the fact, too. Even if she hadn’t wanted to useher power, she still had to be kept a secret in case her abilities becameapparent in some other way. The desire to keep the common people from knowingthat nobles could be pyradistés was that great. It was all for the good of thekingdom.
And even though Thana knew why the Umbriels had to stay in power,she hated them in that moment. She’d been wrong about Calla, but there seemedto be plenty of wrongness to go around.
She let go of Gunnar slowly, and he slumped. He’d come aroundsoon enough.
Sylph touched her arm. “Well?”
“Nothing,” she said. The weight of someone else’s emotions lefther a little sick. Well, the weight and the guilt. “He wasn’t tampered with.”
“Oh.” The single word carried a lot behind it.
“Yeah.” Thana wiped the back of her mouth. “He’s not going to behappy.”
Luckily, she hadn’t been very deep in his memories, just enoughto see that he’d known Calla a long time. Memory erasure worked in threads, soif someone wanted to eraseGunnar’s memories of someone, they’d have to take every incident closelyconnected with that person. That would leave gaps that another pyradisté wouldnotice right away. Making new memories required an overlay of older memoriesand took a more skilled touch. There were still seams, though, and the memorieswould all be recent. To replace someone’s entire mind was unheard of.
Thana had seen no gaps, nothing amiss. There wasn’t a pyradistéalive who could rework a memory seamlessly.
She checked the rest of the Order, just to make sure, leavingCalla alone in the prison, cursing Thana’s name. Parts of the forest had gonequiet, but some of the captured pyradistés still yelled their heads off as thelight of dawn began filtering through the trees.
Gunnar finally stirred from where he lay among the Order. Thanahad tried to make them all as comfortable as she could. Her nerves were high,the bile bubbling in her stomach. When Gunnar blinked confusedly at her, sheblurted, “I’m sorry, Gun. I had to make sure, and I’m so sorry. I wasn’tcompletely wrong. Look!” She pointed into the forest.
He continued to stare. “I take it from that babbling that youfound nothing?”
She knew his tired tone wouldn’t last long. She had to turn thisback around a bit, prove they were a little bit even. “Yes, I know you weren’tlying about Calla the way you’ve been lying about other things, like theexistence of noble pyradistés.”
He sighed loudly as he sat up and stretched, rubbing his back.“Not hypnotized into lying, anyway.” He looked into the forest, to where thecries of the enemy had grown hoarse. “Yet the attack you envisioned happenedall the same. Where did they come from? How many are there?”
“I didn’t want to count in the dark,” Thana said as Sylph said,“Seventeen.”
Thana glanced at her in surprise, but she only shrugged. Tocapture them all, she no doubt had to pinpoint them, but it was disturbing tothink that the stone had told her where everyone was.
Gunnar stood, glanced at the Order before giving Thana areproachful look, and stepped farther into the forest. “That’s more than thefive we were chasing. If this is them, they found reinforcements.”
Thana hurried to catch up. “Don’t go among them alone, forspirits’ sake.” Her own anger wasn’t enough to overrule her sense of duty. Sheleaned
