Shatterglass

The child of a yaskedasu and someone from the First Class, tossed in among the prathmun. It made a kind of warped sense, if the Ghost told the truth. Maybe he thought it was the truth. Maybe it was simply the excuse he needed first to murder women who showed him temptation they would never give to a prathmun, then to rub the noses of those who used prathmun in the worst thing they could imagine public, unclean death.

She heard the claws on glass screech that was Chimes alarm. Tris ran, sending more breezes ahead to keep the Ghost from opening any doors. As she rounded the corner into the next street she found him, t ugging frantically at the handle of a door set in a cellarway. The building above it looked abandoned.

Tris slowed, panting. Chime flew at the Ghosts face, slapping him with her broad wings. He ducked his head and continued to tug, refusing to let go of the handle.

s no escape tonight,Tris called. here. Youve used your last yellow veil.

That got the prathmuns attention. He struck Chime, throwing her against the building, and scrambled up the stairs into the street. He fled down its length until he reached a brick wall. Digging his toes into its cracks, he began to climb.

Tris lifted her hands to the single heavy braid that went from her forehead to the nape of her neck. The tie dropped from it; strands pulled free of the braid. The power they released flowed, ripe and heavy, into Triss palms.

She took a deep breath. The prathmun raised a hand to hit Chime, who had recovered quickly, and fell from the wall to the ground. With the persistence of a terrier he began to climb the wall again.

Tri s held out her hands. The power in them trickled into the soggy ground of the alley. She set down protective barriers on either side, sinking them deep in the earth and up the walls of all the buildings. Only when her control was locked in place did she r e lease what she had taken from that one braid. It followed the channel made by her protections straight down the street. The ground quivered. The quivers spread and rolled forward, taking the shape of waves in the soil, rolling on like a small earthquake. The floor of the alley turned to earthen soup as Tris harnessed the tremors,

Directing them to flow as she wanted. Her teeth hurt, they were clenched so hard. Her eyes were locked on the Ghost.

He was three quarters of the way up the wall when the tremors struck. The brick under his feet quivered. Old plaster and mortar dropped away as the waves hit directly under the wall, held there by Tris. With a cry the prathmun fell to the street, into now-liquid ground. It swallowed him up to his hips before Tri s shoved all of the force she had released deep into the soil. She jammed it down through cracks and veins, letting it disperse into the earth that had lent it to her for a while.

In the ringing silence that followed, the brick wall grated and dropped. Triss thrust it back from the Ghost, into the yard it had shielded.

Tris walked down the alley, the dirt reasonably firm under her sensibly shod feet. She reclaimed her protections from ground and buildings, satisfied that she had done them no damage. No one here would die because she d allowed a place to be shaken past the point where it could stand.

At last she stopped a metre away from the trapped prathmun. He stared at her, sweat crawling down his face.

Orphaned a little girl twice,she said quietly, as cold as if she were trapped inside a glacier. took two of her mothers. A little girl who never did you harm. Lightning dropped in fat sparks from her hair to her feet. It lazily climbed back up her plump body in fiery waves.

Left her among strangers who might have thrown her into the street. Never once did you think of her.

Once did anyone think of me!he snapped back, his eyes black and empty. to haul dung but not fit to be seen - this place is rotten. If she dont like the smell of rot, she shouldnt live here, and neither should you.

Her lightning blazed as it flowed down her arms, gloving her from fingertip to elbow. Tris said quiedy. shouldnt live.She put her hands together, then pulled them apart, c reating a heavy white-hot thunderbolt.

Dema, let her do it!The familiar voice was Kethluns. t stop her!

her own sake, she must be stopped,Niko replied. Tris should have known that Niko would see this piece of the future. There were times when having a seer as a teacher was a pain.

give him up,Dema pleaded. you kill him, Ill have to arrest you and have you executed.

Argued Keth. s doing Tharios a service. He killed Ira. He killed Yali. Let him cook!

This what it comes to, Trisana?Niko called, his normally crisp voice gentle. you sank the ships at Winding Circle, you defended your home. If you do this, its murder. You will be a murderer by choice.

He deserves to die she shouted.

Do you deserve to kill him?Dema asked quietly. He was much closer to her. him to the State, Tris. Thats what its for. His first debt is to Tharios. Let him pay it.

She should have just killed the Ghost the moment they arrived, she thought ruefully. Now she was afraid they made sense. She let the lightning trickle into the earth, following the route of her tremors. The molten lava far below the surface wouldn t mind the extra power.

When the last bit faded, a long, wet nose thrust itself under her palm. Little Bear whined and -wagged his tail, nudging her for a scratch behind the ears. Tris murmured. She knew very well that the dog had helped to track her.

Chime landed gently across her shoulders. There she voiced the ringing chime that was her purr. Tris rubbed the dragons head with her fingertips, looking down at the Ghost. him then, Dema,she said clearly, I won t dig him out for you.

For the arurim prathmuni Dema ordered one of his people. wont befoul myself by handling the likes of him.

And thats where your world goes wrong, thought Tris as she walked by him.