Yes, Zofiya was there, but her etheric appearance was dire and strange. Like her brother, the shreds of power clung to her, but they were run through with a gleam of gold. It was impossible to taste her emotion among all that confusion.
Merrick brought her back to reality with a jolt, by the simple method of hauling back his Center. He looked around at the three other pairs, and his voice was grim. “We must form a Conclave to stand any chance against del Rue.”
“Sounds impressive,” Raed muttered.
The others were struck dumb for a moment, but Deacon Lujia voiced their concerns adequately enough. “A Conclave can only be made by the Presbyterial Council. None of us have any experience with forming one and…”
Her voice trailed off, and Sorcha jerked around, in something verging on horror. She’d just caught the tail edge of it; Merrick’s wild talent working on her fellow Deacons. Despite everything that they had been through together, she never would have thought he was capable of doing such a thing to members of their own Order.
Her eyes locked with his, while Raed stood by, completely unaware. She should have said something— reprimanded him at the very least—but then she saw the effect on the others. Calmness washed over them, and all doubt and fear drained from their faces. Although she didn’t know much about Conclaves, she knew one important thing—they forged Deacons into one unit with one purpose. Merrick was doing that very thing.
“I know how to do it,” her partner said softly. “The Conclave will be strong, and we will prevail.”
The look he turned on her was harder and darker than any she’d seen on his face before. She did not like it.
Many times Sorcha had wished that her young partner would grow up a little, but now that he was doing it, she found it deeply disturbing. She knew he was right, that things were dangerous, and that they had to work together, but to twist their own brothers in such ways felt wrong.
Some things you couldn’t walk away from unscarred. Some things there was no going back from. The chill of the Pattern against her back grew deeper and more profound.
Merrick was no fool; he knew about consequences and had decided to take them on. So Sorcha stepped back to observe what he would do next.
He did it all far too easily. He held the rune Kebenar before him, the one that showed the truth of a situation, and wove it between them. Something else was in there though, the strand of his wild talent binding them, calm and determined, to him.
It was similar to creating a Bond, but he was a Sensitive, not an Active. Yet there he was combining their powers, their runes and their spirits together. It was a beautiful and terrifying thing to watch her young partner create a Conclave.
When he was done, Merrick turned to her. His shoulders sagged a little, and she could feel the darkness in his soul was a little deeper than before. Sorcha couldn’t untangle her feelings of pride and fear however. He was much changed from the raw recruit of last year, full of hope and honest dreams. She would have seen him keep some of that in his life—but it was obviously not to be.
“It wears us all down in the end,” Raed muttered, though she could not tell if it was in response to her thoughts. “This has to be a fool’s errand. What can we accomplish by facing this del Rue?”
Merrick’s smile was bright.
“Everything,” he replied. “Del Rue is dangling us all like puppets from the shadows. He moves us about to achieve his aims. So tonight we drag him kicking and screaming into the light and expose him for what he truly is. Everyone in Arkaym should know the danger, and that the Order of the Circle of Stars has returned. The time for subterfuge is over.”
Raed held his gaze for a spell and then dipped his head in consent. “As always you show your elders the truth of things, Merrick.” He went to the door. “Shall we be about it then?”
The Deacons, as one, nodded. Sorcha opened the door, and gestured Merrick out into the light.
TWENTY-FIVE
An Unholy Enterprise
Merrick, with his Conclave at his back, walked down the corridors that seemed now very unfamiliar. Though he led the way, his heart was racing. His own body felt lighter and more insubstantial than even the Bond with Sorcha. The emotions of so many people in his head distracted him. The strands of the Bonds he had crisscrossed and tangled within him, and he felt as though if he let any of them slip he would be lost.
He had made a Conclave. Something only the Presbyters did, and yet he had gone and done it. Now he held the lives of seven other people in his hands. One wrong move and they could all forget to breathe.
Sorcha’s confusion and disappointment hammered away in the corner that he had shoved his primary Bond. A Conclave was a serious matter, and few of the Actives knew that it was Sensitives that formed them. He was, from recollection, right now acting as the nexus of the Conclave. He would be the only one to retain complete memory of proceedings during the event. It was one of the many secrets the Sensitives kept to themselves…that and the nature of the final rune of Sight.
By the Bones, he hoped he wouldn’t have to use that as well tonight.
Merrick, through effort of will, pulled together his scattering thoughts.
It was a short walk from the Arch Abbot’s rooms to the Devotional, but it felt like an eternity to get there; so many feet, so many breaths and so many thoughts to filter and make as one. He was suddenly given a great appreciation of what Actives went through every time they used their runes. His skin burned and his eyes watered, but he was giddy with the feeling. It was like walking a tightrope with a deadly fall on each side.
As they reached the end of the corridor to the Devotional, he paused at the great ironbound oak door. The sound of voices was coming from the other side, but not as many as he would have thought, and he could tell that the flame of del Rue’s attention was now directed at them. He’d naturally been aware when the Conclave was formed; there was no other rune activity within the whole of the Abbey after all. So because of that, they burned like a signal fire on a moonless night.
Sorcha’s blue eyes fixed on him with total trust. She nodded, and he opened the door to lead them into the Devotional.
Merrick had never seen the whole congregation of the Mother Abbey assembled anywhere before. The great vaulted space of the Devotional was full to the brim with his colleagues. Hundreds of Deacons, a virtual sea of brown, blue and green cloaks lay before him. Every wooden pew was filled, and they had taken up the aisles as well. If it had been a theater production it would have been a grand night indeed, Merrick thought, somewhat strangely.
Then he noticed the rest of the gathering was not just Deacons. Taking up the apse section at the front of the Devotional was a good number of armed Imperial Guards, and in their middle stood the Emperor, his sister and a smiling del Rue. Before them in turn, disturbingly on their knees, was the entire Presbyterial Council, from the Arch Abbot to the ancient Presbyter Mournling. All were bent in supplication—some to greater degrees than others. Merrick’s spiraling thoughts alighted on how another Order had once been slain for not showing the correct level of penitence to some horde-leading warlord. Was this what was going on?
“There they are, the traitors!” Del Rue’s voice echoed in the vast space of the Devotional and all heads turned as one to them.
Merrick’s mind was occupied with holding the Conclave together, and he felt as though he was trapped in amber. Sorcha was luckily not so encumbered. She smiled and stepped down the nave as if she were out for a stroll. “I think you are not familiar with our way of doing things here. The Devotional is for our Order, not yours. I believe you gave it up when the people of Arkaym had enough of your cruel endeavors, and the Emperor outlawed you all.”
The Emperor did not flinch, but a wave of whispers ran through those assembled. The Imperial Guards had not yet raised their rifles, but they looked ready to at a moment’s notice.
