Page 123 of Shardless
A single tear, followed by another and then another, streamed down Taly’s cheeks as an intense longing welled up inside of her. She knew this woman. Even if she couldn’t conjure a name, she had seen that face in her dreams ever since she was a child.
Both the man and woman stared at Taly for a long moment. The tiniest sliver of fear finally broke through the strange blanket of calm muddling her senses, and Taly took a tentative step back. The woman immediately held up her hands. “No,” she called gently, running towards the gate. “Please, wait! Cori, wait!”
Taly shook her head as she retreated another step. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who…” The scene vanished, and suddenly Taly found herself standing in front of that same burned-out cottage, the fragrance of summer flowers still filling her nose. “…that is,” she finished, her voice barely above a whisper.
Taly looked around incredulously, turning in a full circle as her heart thumped in her chest. Byron stood beside her, seemingly unaffected by whatever had just happened. In fact, if horses could shrug, she was pretty sure that was what he would’ve done.
What was that?What the hell had just happened? Those were the people from her nightmare, but she had seen them plain as day—both alive and unharmed. How? Restless spirits, maybe? Or perhaps that strange vision was all the work of an overactive imagination coupled with what was becoming a distinctly uncomfortable sense of hunger. Yeah… that made sense. Sort of.
“Shit!” Taly whispered as she tugged on Byron’s reins and continued on, her eyes darting around more frantically than before. “I hate Vale!” All she needed now was to hallucinate a few orbs of fairy fire and her day would be complete.
The relay center, a circular structure that backed up to the edge of the forest, was in view now, and she shook herself. She needed to focus, strange visions aside.
Tying off Byron farther behind the tree line, Taly crept forward, teasing out a small trickle of power as she crouched behind the cindered trunk of a burned-out tree. When she blinked, the visions sputtered to life. She could see the golden forms of a few shades shambling down the road just in front of where she hid, but they were faint and indistinct, blurring even further as they moved away. That wasn’t good enough. She needed to be able to see if anything was moving near the relay.
Feeling curious and just a little daring, she began pulling out more magic, wedging open the crack between the stones of that mental wall until the trickle became a steady stream. With that flood of power rushing her system, her field of vision exploded, allowing her to see farther than she had ever been able to see before. A golden fog drifted across the landscape in front of her, and even though she could only make out the faintoutlines of their physical bodies in the dim light, the shambling group of ghostly afterimages lumbering about the new town square all the way at the end of the main road were blinding against the darkening evening sky.
Damn,Taly thought, a wide grin splitting her face. While she would’ve given up almost anything to be rid of this curse, she couldn’t deny that having time magic could be sort of useful—putting aside for the moment that she had no idea what she was doing.
A low groan and the sound of twigs snapping had Taly shrinking back against the trunk. One of the shades had strayed beyond the main road and was trudging around the back of the nearby relay building. As it lumbered closer, she had to forcibly suppress a shudder when she saw its face, or what was left of it. A large portion of the creature’s cheek looked like it had been crudely excised with the edge of a dull blade, and the telltale yellow and black of decaying teeth were visible through the rot. The veins around the wound had turned black beneath its sallow skin and crept across the side of its face like a spiderweb, up over and around its single bloodshot eye.
Its golden aura walked two steps ahead, and as the creature drew nearer, the smell of decomposing flesh assaulted her senses. She clamped a hand over her mouth, but that didn’t completely silence the involuntary gagging noise she made as she tried to swallow back the bile that burned her throat.
The shade stopped, its body swaying uncertainly from side-to-side. The bones in its neck snapped dully as its head swiveled in her direction.
No, no, no. Go the other way!
Taly held her breath as the shade took a slow, deliberate step towards her. And then another, its dead eye searching. Reaching out a trembling hand, she picked up a nearby rock. This simple action seemed to trigger something, some divergence, because the creature’s aura split. One of the ghostly apparitions continued to move towards her, but the other turned and shambled off in the opposite direction.
Tossing the rock off into the distance, Taly listened for the low thump and rustle of leaves, not daring to even blink when the shade stopped its approach. The gilded image moving toward her began to stutter as the creature swayed listlessly from side-to-side, apparently uncertain which way to turn. The vision flickered in and out of focus, the edges of its spectral form turning to smoke before it abruptly caved in on itself and vanished completely.
The shade twitched, a full-body convulsion, as if the loss of its psychic shadow somehow made it lose its balance. Then with a grunt and a gravelly roll of its bony shoulders, it turned, stumbling slightly, and plodded around the building as it followed the path laid out by the second phantom.
The danger had passed.
Taly let out a hissing sigh as she sagged against the tree. She didn’t think she would ever get used to seeing those creatures.
Get going. She had already wasted too much daylight.
From where she hid, she could see two sentries standing motionless in front of the relay’s entrance. Their golden forms looked a little hazy from so far away, but they were still distinctenough that she could see their scraggly hair blowing in the gentle evening breeze.
Taly knew she wasn’t strong enough to fight them off on her own, and although she still had her pistols, guns were loud. If she fired off a shot, she’d attract every shade in town. She needed to find another way in.
I wonder if… maybe? Yeah, that could work.
Ducking into the shadows, she edged along the tree line until she came to the back of the relay building, praying it would still be there. The Shards must have been listening, because just as she remembered, a rickety ladder leaned against the side of a wooden boardwalk that ringed the building’s second floor, two half-empty paint buckets sitting nearby. Almost a month ago now, the mayor of Vale had made the mistake of hiring Caleb to repaint the public buildings. While the old salvager was a nice enough guy, he was lazy and absentminded. Taly had lost count of the number of times he had lost his painting supplies, and she was sure there were probably more than a few old ladders leaning forgotten against the sides of buildings all across town.
If Taly ever saw Caleb again, she was going to buy that beautiful bastard a drink.
Each rung of the ladder gave off a deafening creak as she gingerly made her way up, and Taly’s heart nearly stopped every time a twig snapped in the forest behind her. When she finally hauled herself up and over the balcony railing, her hands were trembling. She crouched next to a small open window, avoiding the soft beam of light that spilled out onto the planked walkway.
The hallway beyond the splintered sill looked empty, so before she had a chance to second-guessherself, Taly hopped up and shimmied through the casement, taking small, tentative steps just in case the floorboards decided to creak beneath her feet. She pressed herself against the wall as she slunk down the short expanse of corridor. Doors to what appeared to be offices lined the opposite side. The hinges had been ripped from the doorframes, the wood fractured, and several of the thresholds were streaked with trails of dried blood.
As she tried to step over the shredded remains of what used to be a throw rug, Taly’s toe caught on an uneven floorboard, and she barely managed to catch herself on the doorframe of the main relay room before she went sprawling face-first.
She held her breath, only letting it out when she saw that the relay room, a cavernous chamber flanked by a spiraling promenade, was empty.
A pyramidal obelisk carved from a single slab of hyaline crystal dominated most of the room, its tip stretching at least 20 feet into the air. Alternating bands of shadow and water crystals encircled the structure, and Faera runes were etched onto every available surface.
