Page 103
“You are allowing your proximity to distort your judgement,” he said. “The situation has evolved. Our understanding must evolve with it.”
“You believe them,” Maia said. “The Umbralyn. Who you had been so opposed to just weeks ago.”
Orell did not hesitate. “I believe the evidence.”
“And what evidence is that?” Julen demanded.
“That the Fracture cannot be contained through human intervention alone,” Orell replied. “That continued interference has exacerbated instability. That without Umbralyn correction, this city - and everything beyond it - would already be lost.”
“And what does that correction require?” Maia asked, noticing the slight unsteadiness in her voice.
“Order,” Orell said, as though the word settled everything. “The Vow begins with Hold, Colwyn. You’ve copied it a hundred times. Hold the line. Hold the dark. Hold, so that we never have to.” He set his stylus down. “They have been holding for three hundred years. Now they have asked to stop, and I find I no longer have an argument for why they shouldn’t.”
Maia looked at him for a moment. “Who asked you to do this?”
“No one asks me to do anything,” he said. “That has rather been the point.” He sighed. “Nineteen people died in a single night,” he continued. “Do you know what the council did the following morning? They argued about whether the word Umbralyn should appear in the record. For two hours. I sat and listened to men who have never been below the third tier to decide what to call a thing none of them had even looked at.”
“And what about the Umbralyn?”
“Read my notes in a week, Colwyn.” He set the stylus down, very precisely. “And then ask me what I would do differently.”
The silence that followed felt deeper than any argument. Maia stepped back, the space between them widening in a way that could not be crossed.
“You always said the Fracture was a problem to be understood,” she said quietly. “Not feared.”
“It still is,” Orell replied. “But understanding does not guarantee survival.”
“No,” Maia said. “It doesn’t.”
She turned to walk out of the room. Julen followed without being asked.
Orell did not call them back. The door closed behind them with quiet finality.
Julen exhaled sharply once they were out of immediate earshot and in the scribes’ quarters. The Umbralyn escorted them there but left them once they reached their rooms.
“What are we going to do? Orell’s clearly involved with whatever plans they have in mind. What do you think they offered him?”
Maia frowned. “Nothing. He believes them. Or they’ve given him reason to.”
She stopped outside Julen’s room, her hand lifting slightly toward the wall before she caught herself. She felt a pull towards the stone and closed her eyes, just for a moment.
“How are we going to find Caelith in time?” she breathed. “The city is changing, and we’re in no position to do anything about it. There’s no way we can search for him now.”
“I think you might be right,” Julen replied, voice tailing off.
Maia pressed her hand to the wall again before she could stop herself, but this time there was a response she was not expecting. There was no resistance. No hum. There was nothing but stone. She gasped, much to Julen’s surprise.
“What is it, Maia?”
“The fragments,” Maia said. “The wardlines… everything. They’re fading. Can you not hear it?”
“What do you—” his voice trailed off as he listened. The usual thrums and vibrations - the constant, unnoticed pulse of the city - were gone.
“They’re drawing the energy out,” Maia said. “All of it.”
Every ward in the city drank from the shards set into its stone, and every shard drew, in turn, from the Fracture. It had always flowed outward. Somebody had turned the current round.
She pressed her palm flat against the stone again. It wasn’t decay. Decay was random. This had a direction. Every fragment she’d touched in days felt thinner than the last, as though something on the other end of a very long thread kept pulling.
