Free Shattering the Ley by Joshua Palmatier Page B

here.”
    She slid off of the stone ridge and picked up the red-streaked stone. The flows around her changed instantly, shifting before her. She stood a moment, considering, feeling the weight of the stone in her hands, heavier than she’d expected, her fingers brushing its grit and roughness. Then she stepped to one side and set the stone down in a new location.
    But even as she did so, the flows changed yet again, settling into new streams, ones that were decidedly worse than before. But she knew the red-streaked stone belonged there. She felt it, felt the eddies coursing through it.
    The other stones were wrong as well.
    She began moving them all, picking them up, setting them down in new locations, rearranging them. A few times, with a new arrangement, she’d step back and shake her head, then move in again. Some stones had to be stacked one atop the other, or next to each other, balanced precariously, although as soon as they were set properly she could feel the energy flowing through them and knew that they were right. Others were set to one side, solitary. Color did not matter, nor texture—or if it did, then the meaning was too complex or too subtle for her to see.
    Finally, all of the stones were in place except one. The size of her fist, blue-black with swirls of white in it, she held it a long moment, contemplating the pattern before her, then turned to the gardener.
    “This one doesn’t belong here,” she said.
    The gardener raised his eyebrows in surprise. “It doesn’t belong in the grotto at all?”
    She bit her lower lip at his reaction, glanced down at the pattern again, then back at him. “No.”
    He grunted, then stood slowly and took the stone from her, gazing at it in consternation, then at the layout of stone before them. Her father said nothing, although his expression was pinched with worry and resignation.
    Kara fidgeted as the silence stretched. For a brief moment, she thought she felt something else on the eddies surrounding her, another presence, but the impression was fleeting.
    Finally, the gardener nodded. “I believe you are correct.” He tucked the stone into one pocket and glanced toward her father. “I think the outcome of the test is obvious.”
    Her father stood slowly and nodded. “Yes.”
    “You are not surprised.”
    “No. As you said before, we knew. We simply . . . didn’t want to admit it. She’s too young.” Her father caught her gaze, gave her a strained smile.
    “She’s young, yes, but not too young. The talent is appearing earlier and earlier as the Baron continues expanding the ley network, as it continues to grow. And with the sowing of the tower, he’s increased the potential in Erenthrall itself greatly. I’m not surprised she was overwhelmed by the surge created in its sowing.”
    Kara’s heart shuddered. Something had changed as they spoke, something had shifted, like the lines of energy had shifted as she moved the stones. A distance had opened up between her and her father, a distance she felt even when he had smiled.
    “What do we need to do?”
    The gardener drew in a deep breath as he straightened, brow creased in thought. “Nothing for now. She should continue to go to school as usual. I’ll inform my fellow Wielders.”
    Kara started in surprise, glanced at the gardener’s brown robes in consternation. The Wielders wore dark purple jackets, not robes. And the Prime Wielders—like the ones that came to the school for the testing—wore cloaks.
    The gardener—the Wielder—studied her, then said to her father, although his eyes stayed on her, “I believe she has . . . great potential. Perhaps she will even become a Prime. She sensed that the stone did not belong, something I had not yet discovered in my own ministrations of the grotto.” He touched the pocket where he’d secreted the stone, and Kara suddenly remembered seeing him at the entrance to the gardens, doing what she had done here in the grotto—adjusting stones. “I have