Consensus Breaking (The Auran Chronicles Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

that surrounded the entire room. The walls were adorned with intricate displays of gold and silver. At regular intervals along the wall stood statues of bronze, similar in appearance to Japanese samurai, but each standing at seven feet tall.
    ‘Come on, save the gawping for another time,’ Barach said. He trooped off the platform, two of his coterie falling in line behind him.
    ‘Move.’ A staff jabbed Seb in the back. His Avatari swallowed the pain in a heartbeat and he stepped off the platform.
    They arrived at a set of steel doors at the end of the hall a few moments later. Barach stepped forwards and pressed a black glass panel on the wall. A green triangle, point facing downwards, lit up with a “ding”. A moment later the doors slid apart, revealing an elevator lined with leather and a small couch along one side.
    ‘No expense spared I see,’ Seb said.
    ‘Not all magekind are as incompetent with their finances as was the Magistry,’ Barach said as he entered the elevator. ‘In fact it should be impossible not to succeed in this realm, with our particular abilities.’
    Seb ignored the barb as Cade and Sylph were led in. The doors closed and his stomach fluttered as they began to ascend. They rose quickly, and within a couple of minutes the movement slowed to a halt at the fifty-fifth floor. The door opened and Barach stepped out. He nodded, and the mage that had stuck to Seb like a leech tugged him forwards by the elbow.
    ‘This is where you get off. Your friends will be taken somewhere more comfortable.’
    Seb exchanged a brief look of alarm with his companions before the elevator door slid shut. He resisted sending a pulse towards Sylph, no doubt the First had methods of reading their communications, and it wasn’t like they had anything they could do at this point.
    ‘See you soon,’ he managed.
    ‘You’d better.’ Sylph replied.
    As the elevator vanished into places unknown, Seb turned and regarded his new location. It was an open plan office of some kind, with large, glass-walled rooms containing varying assortments of tables and chairs. In some he could see business people sat in meetings, sometimes together, sometimes engaging with persons on one of the giant screens on the wall. He cast a casual sense out. Many were Aware, but only subtly so. None of them were Latent, or even magi, as far as he could detect. Aside from him, Barach and the mage that accompanied them there were no other magi around.
    That thought was shattered a moment later. A wide door opened up ahead. Seb’s sense bounced back with such force he nearly stumbled.
    A tall man, almost as large as Cian, stepped out of the office. Lightly tanned, with unnaturally white teeth and hair gelled so slick it could’ve been glued on, the man looked like he’d come straight from reading the news. He would’ve been almost comical if it wasn’t for the near tangible Weave-aura he projected. The man stopped in his tracks when he saw Seb and his escort approaching.
    ‘My lord, I present to you -’
    ‘Seb, young Seb,’ the man said. His face broke into a smile that was laced with insincerity. ‘Welcome to Domus. We’ve been looking for you for quite a while.’
    ‘Likewise. I thought I would’ve found you earlier, too.’
    A young man, barely Seb’s age, appeared out of a side office. Nervous eyes skittered between the man and Seb.
    ‘Yes, Christopher?’ the man said, his gaze not shifting. Seb was reminded of a predator eyeing its prey.
    ‘Apologies, sir,’ Christopher stammered, ‘Your nine o’clock is here.’
    ‘Send them away. Clear my morning calendar.’
    ‘But, sir, it’s -’
    ‘Clear it, Christopher.’
    ‘Yessir.’
    Christopher vanished, the door closing silently in his wake.
    ‘Now, let us step inside and talk away from prying eyes.’
    The man reopened his office door and beckoned them inside. Seb followed, almost tripping up as he saw what was inside.
    It was as far removed from an office as could be.