Essence of Stone by Haley Rylander

Author:Haley Rylander [Rylander, Haley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Haley Rylander

20

OUTSIDE THE WALLS

A new determination possessed Renyra. Upon leaving the quarry, she had gone straight to the Archives, Firas in tow, and scrutinized his notes again and again, sending him to find any other books that could help them. To their preexisting list of books on geography, history, and weather, they added books on vierstone, trying to find some hint of what could cause what they had seen. There was nothing. No mention of lifeless vierstone, no mention of vierstone turning black, no mention of vierstone cracking, breaking, crumbling, or being compromised by any means, physically or otherwise.

“Earthquakes are caused by movement of the earth. They don’t occur this often or usually this far from mountains. There is no volcano nearby.” Renyra threw her hands in the air and looked at Firas in exasperation. “There is no possible explanation!”

Firas blinked slowly. “No explanation based on past experience.”

“That’s what I said!”

“No, it is not. Anything you read in these books was once unknown. We discover the reasoning behind things through experience and investigation.”

“How can I investigate something I can’t touch or see?”

“Study what you can touch and see.” Firas shrugged. “Make observations. Make notes. Think.”

Renyra did. She thought back to the cracks she had observed in the streets, to the vierstone quarry, to the dizzying split of reality, to Gellion.

“Paper.” Renyra grabbed for a pen as Firas slid a sheet of paper in front of her. She wrote down every observation she had of the earthquakes. Together with Firas, she compiled a list of the approximate dates of each reported quake and the locations of any observed damage to the city.

There had been at least six earthquakes over the last month. Reported damages were scattered widely over the city, no instance close to another. This was strange. Wouldn’t damage be concentrated in areas of weakness? Why would cracks in the ground or buildings never appear in the same area twice?

Every earthquake was accompanied by what she referred to as a ‘disturbance,’ yet neither this nor the shaking seemed to affect all areas of the city equally. Renyra had not even noticed the earthquake that had injured Gellion, yet other elves she knew in that part of the city reported strong effects. How could an earthquake be so centralized? Was every epicenter within the city? It didn’t make sense. She thought of her hunting trip weeks before. She had seen no evidence of damage.

“I want to leave Daro.”

Firas raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“I want to know if the earthquakes have affected any area outside the city.”

“How would you do that?”

“I can look for rockslides, fallen trees.” Renyra shook her head. “But to really find out I need to go to the nearest town.”

Firas stared at her. “A human town?”

“Don’t look at me like that. All I would need to do is ask one villager if they have experienced the ground shaking.”

“Yes,” said Firas slowly. “But you do not speak Albaren. And the human villagers are far more suspicious of elves than those in Tradira.

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