Read Online Shattering the Ley by Joshua Palmatier - Free Book Online Page B

the surrounding people as they moved down the crowded street. But her attention was focused on the gate, on the stone of the archway and the ley globes above it.
    She searched the entrance avidly and was disappointed to see that the gardener wasn’t there waiting for them.
    Her father paused at the entrance to the park, staring up at the globes above. He appeared nervous. Kara knew that he and her mother had talked long into the night, their voices hushed but hard. The initial argument had died down into silence, broken only by the clatter of dishes being washed from the kitchen, Kara trying to fall asleep in her bed. Then she’d heard her father’s chair scrape across the floor, and the clattering had stopped.
    Then, clearly, as if her mother had been facing the door, Kara heard her say fiercely, “It’s too early. She’s too young. We should have another few years with her at least!”
    Her father murmured something in return, and then her mother again, her voice muffled this time, as if her head were pressed against a shoulder, but still too loud and choked with tears. “I don’t want her to leave.”
    The pain in her mother’s voice had dampened Kara’s excitement and she’d rolled away, back to the door, drawing herself up into a ball. She thought about those few students at the school who had been tested and who had sparked light in the two clear globes the Head of the University placed in their hands. They’d gone to the University at the confluence of the two rivers the following day. None of them had returned to the school, and they were rarely seen in the district after that. She’d never thought about them much after they left, never thought about what happened to the students after the testing if either the Head of the University or the Prime Wielder singled them out. Those chosen had to study at the University or under the hands of the Wielders, but for some reason she’d never realized that meant they had to leave their home and their family behind, that they had to leave Eld. Once their studies were finished, they were posted throughout the city—the new Wielders focused on keeping the ley system running, those from the University helping with everything else.
    Curled up in her bed, she’d stared at the darkness of the wall closest to her and thought about leaving her apartment, her mother and father, Cory, Justin, and all of the rest of her friends, and suddenly the thought of Halliel’s Park wasn’t as thrilling.
    It had taken her a long time to get to sleep.
    But the excitement had returned the following morning, and grown the closer she’d gotten to the stone arch and the pathways that lay beyond. Now, with the energies of the park coursing through her, her father glanced down at her and with a sad smile said, “Shall we find the gardener?”
    They entered the park, something Kara had never dared to do on her own, even though the gates to the park were open to the public. She had rarely seen anyone enter other than the brown-robed gardeners, and had only heard people refer to the park when giving directions or as a reference for something else in the city. She suddenly realized how strange that was, as if the park didn’t exist, even though everyone knew it was there.
    Stepping onto the crushed stone path inside the entrance, Kara’s breath quickened. But then her father’s hand touched her shoulder in reassurance and she relaxed and began looking around.
    Pathways meandered through trees and shrubs and piles of stone with no obvious pattern, curving out of sight ahead, or dipping down as the ground undulated. They moved deeper into the trees, the walls that surrounded the park and the sounds of the people on the street falling away behind them. Around a sharp curve, they found a secluded area beneath a huge willow with a bench made out of flat, stacked stones. Farther along, the path split into three sections, weaving through each other like a maze, surrounded by waist-high lilacs,