Free Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) by Erica Lindquist, Aron Christensen Page B

hours of staring at monitors. Fractal patterns in red and green danced in the darkness behind his lids. There was a simpler pattern to all of this, if he could just see it. The hunter pressed his fingers against his closed eyes, making the shimmering shards of color jump and spin.
    Had the Cult of Nihil fragmented? Devros, Koji and Glaw were nowhere near each other. Maybe the church simply dissolved, scattering to the stars. One of the first accounts Coldhand had read was a police report from Stray. The Nihilists arrested in Gharib killed themselves shortly after capture, just like those on Koji and Glaw. But when the Stray police stormed the other cathedrals, they found only dusty, empty buildings. The Nihilists were gone.
    Coldhand cracked his eyes open again and frowned at the dark hotel room. There had been hundreds of the death-worshippers in Gharib. Half of those escaped the collapsing catacombs, but the Stray police only managed to arrest ninety-three of them.
    And that was only one of Gavriel's cathedrals. There had to be thousands of Nihilists on Stray. So why can I only find records of four?
    The remaining cultists must have gone somewhere. The ones on Glaw, Koji and Frast had to be stragglers, fledges fallen from the nest. But all three worlds were major ports. What if these cultists were part of larger groups, left behind because they arrived late or were troublemakers?
    Coldhand brought up images of the four known Nihilists. None of them were Arcadians, but the majority of Gavriel's following on Stray had been made up of fairies. The hopeless and unhomed Arcadians made perfect targets for the cult's escapist preaching. So where were they? Was Gavriel trying to keep the Arcadians close? Why? To keep himself in Xartasia's good graces? Did the princess care at all what happened to the broken fragments of her people?
    Or maybe I'm trying to build a nest from a single twig.
    It was a possibility. Coldhand had very little information and could have been taking it all in the wrong direction.
    A sound distracted the bounty hunter from his thoughts. Only after a minute sitting in stony silence did Logan hear the noise again and realize that it was his stomach gurgling. He had not even noticed the empty aching in his gut.
    Coldhand brought up the hotel's internal node and ordered some food at random from the room service menu. It was going to be expensive, but Logan had no desire to leave his desk long enough to find something else.
    The Cult of Nihil was moving off of Stray, or had already done so. Where could they go that such a large influx of fairies would not attract notice? One of the sparsely populated colony worlds, like Koji? No, the Central World Alliance watched their new colonies closely. They farmed and manufactured important products and foodstuffs for the older worlds.
    The vast city-world of Axis was home to ten times more Alliance citizens than any other planet. The appearance of a few hundred or even thousands more would never be noticed. The lower levels of the megatropolis were a mystery even to natives of Vanora and were an easy place to hide. The idea of finding the cult on Axis was a daunting one, but Coldhand did not think about it long.
    I found Vyron there, and he was just one man. It can be done.
    There were only a few other civilized planets where the Nihilists could go and escape the notice of the CWA. Glaw might have been a good choice, full of places to hide away from prying Alliance eyes. But they were all deep underground, but unlike even the lowest levels of Axis, Glaw was all tight tunnels and caves. It seemed unlikely that even the most despondent Arcadians would be willing to make their homes in a place where they could never fly. And if they endured the interminable tons of stone burying them away from the sky, someone would eventually notice the Arcadians in a place so alien to them.
    Coldhand had almost forgotten about the food he ordered until the door toned softly. He pulled on a