Asunder: A Gathering of Chaos by Cameron Hopkin (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

Pacari, but the little gray creatures attacked ferociously. Gamarron would flail and curse and beat at himself when he felt those bites.

Except he didn’t. His eyes widened, taking on a panicked look, and his breath came more harshly, but he did not move at all. Like a pillar he stood, hands still pressing on Kest’s head. The panic passed from the monk’s face and was replaced by a deadly grim determination.

Kest despaired. The man is made of stone. I can’t beat him. The admission lanced his heart and burst the great chancre of pride and bitterness that had been growing in him since the day they had met. This man was stronger than he – older, wiser, more capable. There was no shame in following him. He opened his mouth to yield, but the black-robed warrior spoke first.

“Still you do not submit. You pointless, stupid, stubborn boy! You have exhausted my patience.” He looked like a judge, like a patriarch. Like the embodiment of death come to deliver justice. “If the lesson must be harsh, I will not flinch from it.”

Kest felt the shift in pressure in the graniteoak hands that held him, and fear bubbled up inside him. “Wait,” he gasped.

Gamarron’s thumb plunged deep into his right eye, and he screamed.

Chapter 7 Unexpected Counselor

Renna watched the king of the savages maim the beautiful young lad with a pang of regret. She had never seen such a perfect specimen of masculine beauty in her life – smooth-cheeked, tan-skinned, full chestnut hair left uncut and braided down the back. His heavy muscularity was different from the lithe boys she generally preferred, but as she had watched the two fight, she saw that he married those muscles to a surprising agility and vigor that she found delightful. Everything about him was entrancing – even the petty, childish anger with which the confrontation had begun. She was utterly charmed; and then that old oak tree of a savage had broken him. It was like watching someone take a knife to one of the ancient paintings of Nissa.

The girl Nira had a hand over her own mouth in horror as she saw the conclusion of the brawl. The boy was screaming and clutching at his face, and the girl turned away. I need to toughen her up. She won’t be much use if she turns gray every time something unpleasant happens. Renna sighed. She had never enjoyed travelling companions, especially women. The voyage from Far East to Megalith had been a bore and an annoyance from start to finish, and it was all because of the girl.

Two weeks they had waited since arriving in the city, always staying close to Megalith’s Great Coliseum. That was where she had seen the king of the savages in her vision, so it stood to reason that that was where he would appear. The days dragged past as if trapped in amber. She tasked Nira with watching the stadium for most of the day while she busied herself with reestablishing her apothecary contacts. In short order she was able to replenish her pouch with poisons, healing seeds, and weaponized plant cuttings. She even managed to find some time alone in their room to tinker with plans for a few forbidden insect varietals of her own invention.

Other Hands would have called the work heretical – she was a plant Hand, not an insect one. None of them ever considered that there was power among the Insectae. Certainly, none of them would have had the will to do as she had and take that power. She’d hidden her infused witchwood dagger for more than a decade now, waiting for the right moment, deciding how to use the stored Insectae power to bring her the influence she desired. The days passed in planning and plotting while the girl skulked about the Coliseum. In truth, she had set the girl on watch duty mostly to escape her presence. Youth was a tiresome thing.

Not that her distaste for the girl’s stupidity prevented her from experimenting with the remarkable ability Nira possessed. The girl seemed afraid to explore the boundaries of her powers, but Renna was insistent. Each evening they walked the promenade and manipulated the variables surrounding Nira’s power, trying to find the range of her abilities. Was a light touch enough to trigger a vision? Yes. Several passers-by were left gasping and in tears as they experienced glimpses of their possible futures for no discernable reason. Was touch necessary to trigger the power? Yes, at least so far. Repeated exposure to the others’ visions had hardened the girl to the point that she could touch someone without collapsing, but she still dripped tears whenever a vision triggered. Renna intended to run comprehensive tests to see if those tears had unique properties.

And then tonight, as they tested whether Nira might be able to keep her visions to herself rather than letting the person she touched share them, Renna had spied the king of the savages! He was arguing with a devastatingly pretty, exotic-looking lad. The black-robed northerner was disappointingly mundane when not seen in a vision. He was tall, yes, but the sense of majesty she’d seen before was muted. Her disappointment made her hesitant, and by the time she shook it off, the two men were fighting in the street.

She had stayed back – what if the city guard intervened? She had no desire to talk her way out of a jail cell nor reveal herself to the local Weavers. So she had watched, the girl at her side, wincing at every blow that landed on the beautiful boy until finally it was over. Nira still looked as if she wanted to vomit, but there was no time for that. She took the silly girl by her sleeve and towed her over to the pair. The older man was kneeling over the wounded lad, whose screams had stopped. He was unconscious, and his right eye was an empty pit welling blood.