When he had first gifted her the ring, there had been a surge of cold as it had bonded to her. She was able to take the ring on and off, and it didn’t sever the bond, so either the bond remained within her, connecting her to Ceran, or Master Agnew was powerful enough to sever a connection between a Toral and Sul’toral.
She didn’t think that was the case, so the bond still had to be there.
But there were ways to diminish Toral power. She had seen it herself with Gabranth during the festival. Maybe there was something like that happening here.
But it wouldn’t have taken the Toral power from her completely.
The energy was within her. She could feel it, but couldn’t grasp it even if the bond was still there. Jayna focused her breathing. She didn’t have any way of tapping into her power, and though she had tried to call out to Ceran, he had not responded to her yet again. She had no enchantments. Everything in her satchel had been triggered by Agnew, as if he had known they were there.
She took a seat and lost track of time. Hopelessness began to build within her.
There was too much taking place in the city for her to be trapped.
The others in the city might not want to admit they needed her, but they did need her. She had seen it. She needed to keep the dular and the Sorcerers’ Society from attacking each other, and if she didn’t manage to escape, there would be more attacks, more deaths. Then there was whatever was taking place with the Ashara.
She remained motionless, trying to think through different possibilities for escape.
She couldn’t feel anything within herself.
That wasn’t quite right.
The only thing she felt was a strange vibration around her—no, it was in her pocket, of all things.
She reached inside and pulled out a coin.
Topher’s coin.
She looked at it.
The coin wasn’t spent, not the way the other enchantments had been.
How was that even possible?
She didn’t understand how Topher had placed power into his enchantment, only that he had managed to bridge it to himself in some way. If she could use it . . .
If she could use it, then she might be able to find some way to cross the distance between her and Topher with the power held within the coin. She might be able to reach him.
If nothing else, she could let him know she was still alive.
Jayna traced her fingers along the pattern on the coin, squeezing it between her hands. She closed her eyes, trying to reach for him as the coin continued to vibrate, but regardless of how long she sat there, there was no response.
She was still trapped.
19
Jayna drifted, dreams of her brother coming back to her, though in these dreams there was a dark energy surrounding him, closing in on him, starting to prey upon him. It seemed as if somebody stalked him, and nothing Jayna said mattered. Despite how much she cried out to him, he remained ignorant of the power around him. There was nothing she could do to get to him.
She woke, shivering, cold for the first time that she could remember while living in Nelar. The air within the cell had gotten much colder.
Jayna got to her feet, looking around her.
It was an unusual enchantment to turn the air cool like that, and more than that, it made it unpleasant for her. She still felt the vibration from the coin, and Jayna squeezed it again, still wondering if there might be some way for her to reach across the distance, to focus her power and contact Topher, though any awareness she might have of him seemed to be too difficult for her to reach. She had to remove whatever barricade this cell placed around her to tap into her Toral power. It was there. They hadn’t taken it from her. She would’ve known if they had.
The coin was the key. Unlike other enchantments, this one was still active.
Not only that, but the entire cell was enchanted in a certain way. She could use its power, as she could feel it flowing through her; she just had to gain a hold of it.
She squeezed on the coin again.
How could she reach him?
Somehow, she needed to link to the enchantment within the coin.
Though she couldn’t perform much magic of her own at this point, perhaps a linking spell would work, as it barely required any. It had also been the very first use of magic she had uncovered at the Academy. Why couldn’t she use it now? The magic of the spell was straightforward. It was just a matter of pulling across a distance.
But what about her connection to Char? Might she be able to use that to get his attention?
The sense of him had changed.
It had been subtle at first, but gradually got to the point that she could feel his presence in the back of her mind again, though much fainter than she was accustomed to. The shift within that linking spell had been so slow that she hadn’t even considered it.
Could he know she was here?
It was so faint that it was like pulling on a thin filament in the back of her mind.
She worried that she’d sever the link if she pulled too hard.
She closed her eyes and focused on the linking spell, then plucked at it gently, trying to get his attention. There was no response.
She tried again—but again, no real response.
There had to be some way for her to tap into that connection and find a way to reach through the distance. It was almost like the barrier that had been placed over her access to magic also somehow prevented her from reaching him.
Topher’s coin still vibrated and she turned her attention back to it, squeezing it and feeling for its energy within. If Topher could reach for her across the distance, then maybe she could reach him.
That was what she had to focus on now: linking to the coin.
Jayna had given up trying to use her own magic, but dular power was different. She had known that. The magic required to create enchantments was different from what sorcerers used. What if she could somehow use the power within the enchantment for herself?
She focused on the coin and it vibrated. She had to find a way to draw from Topher’s power inside of it.
She could feel it. It wasn’t nearly as much energy as she would normally draw upon, but there was something there. Now she just had to use it.
It was as if she were borrowing some distant source of magic. It came across that distance, through the connection she shared with the coin, though faintly.
Jayna attempted to create a spell, but it didn’t react the way she needed it to. She didn’t have enough power.
But maybe she could try something else.
Jayna thought perhaps she could use the coin to help her tap into the dragon stone energy, but nothing changed when she attempted to draw through the stone.
That wasn’t going to work.
Help.
That was what she needed.
Why did she need to try to do this on her own?
She only needed to use the power within the coin and try to communicate through it. There was enough power for that, she thought.
She closed her eyes, thinking about the linking spell she shared with Char. Could she draw the power from the coin and use that to tap into her connection with him? Even if she could, would there be anything he would do?
Probably not.
He wasn’t going to take action against Master Agnew.
He might not even believe she was here.
Jayna didn’t know if would be able to reach him, and even if she did, she didn’t know if it would make any difference. She needed to find a different kind of help—and the kind of help she thought she needed was the kind that had attacked the outpost before.
Ashara. Which meant getting Eva.
She didn’t understand why this enchantment was still active when the others were not, but it connected her to Topher.
She focused. If this subtle, simple pattern worked, she would only need to pour a hint of power into it to create enough of a linking spell to reach across the distance and get Topher’s atte
ntion.
She pushed power into the coin.
It involved layering an enchantment over an enchantment.
Jayna had no idea if such a thing was possible, but she remembered the shield she had seen in Telluminder’s shop, and if there were layered enchantments on that, then why couldn’t she do something similar?
There was no reason she couldn’t.
No reason she shouldn’t.
Jayna focused, letting power flow into the coin.
All she needed now was a way to tap into the enchantment.
She relaxed.
The linking spell took hold and the vibration stopped. Jayna hesitated, still squeezing on the coin. She worried she had changed something within it that might take away her ability to use it to communicate with Topher, but then the vibration shifted to a different frequency—a fluctuating buzzing that she could hear.
“Topher?”
There was no response.
Jayna tried something else.
The coin was vibrating to her, trying to communicate. She needed to create a buzzing within the coin, something that would vibrate and allow her to respond to Topher.
She pushed through the coin and the buzzing shifted.
She pushed again, this time being intentional about how she did it, and focused on his name, tracking that through her power.
“Topher,” she said, adding that into the spell and trying to communicate to him.
“Jayna?” His voice came strangely. It seemed to fill her mind, as if he were coming up through the coin, before reaching her ears. “How is this possible?”
“I don’t have time, Topher.” She tried to make sure she maintained the connection, but now that she had formed the linking to the enchantment, she still had power. “Your enchantment works. It’s incredible. I need your help. Actually, I need Eva’s help.”
“Why? Why didn’t you just come back—”
“Topher. I need you to send Eva to the outpost. I’m trapped in a cell beneath the outpost. She can find it, but she’s going to have to get Char to help.”
Jayna had no idea if Char would even help, but if he refused . . .
She had no doubt that Eva would fight her way through.
“I’m asking her now. She’s not sure she wants to.”
“Tell her that it was not just an enchantment. There is another Ashara.”
There was silence for a moment, then another vibration came. “What’s an Ashara?”
“Is that your question or hers?”
“That’s mine. Eva got up and disappeared. I don’t know where she went.”
“Did she leave?”
“I can’t tell. She’s been drinking. I tried to tell her not to, especially when you didn’t come back after leaving, but . . .”
Jayna squeezed on the coin. If Eva had been drinking, there might not be much she could do, though at the same time, she had seen Eva survive drinking incredible amounts and still come around much better than Jayna would’ve been able to do if she had been the one drinking. “If she’s still there, tell her that she needs to go to the lower level. That’s where I’m trapped. My magic doesn’t work here.”
“Your magic? But you’re a powerful sorcerer. And whatever else you are.”
The vibration within the coin was starting to fade.
“Something’s happening,” Topher said.
Jayna squeezed on the coin. She needed it, needed the communication, but she also needed the connection she had within the coin to access her magic.
“We don’t have much time left, Topher. Enchantments have a limited lifespan before they’re spent. I’m going to need you to go silent. I’m going to need to borrow the power that remains in this.”
“Be safe,” he said.
With that, he faded, though she could still feel a vibration within the coin.
The connection was still there, the power she needed, and she tapped into it. As she called that energy across from him, she could feel something, though the longer she held on to it, the more she began to wonder if she’d be able to keep hold of it. It might fade completely.
Jayna tried drawing on more energy, but the linking spell—and the enchantment—began to fade. She had one last thing she could attempt.
She focused on Char.
She could feel the energy from the linking spell she shared with him deep within her mind, and with the residual power that remained with the connection she shared with Topher, she plucked on it. She did it differently than she had before, and instead plucked it in the same way she had when she created a vibration within the coin. She tried to use the spell in a way that incorporated a clearer sense of communication.
“I need your help, Char,” she sent.
The linking spell with Char was the most solid piece of magic she had, and she didn’t even know if it was possible for her to have that severed. She also didn’t know if it was possible to communicate through it. If it were, then she would have done it before. Of course, she had never had the need before. But now there was desperation within her.
“I need your help, Char,” she repeated.
Each time she said it, she tried to slide more power toward him along that connection, but there was no response. In fact, it felt as if his connection to her grew fainter.
Her connection to power was getting weaker.
The energy she drew through the spell Topher had left for her was fading.
She needed to use everything she could one more time, blast it through, and maybe . . .
Maybe she could get Char’s attention.
Jayna harnessed the last of the energy within the coin. The vibration eased before falling completely still.
She held that power within her, then she sent one last cry.
“I need your help, Char.”
After that, the power was gone.
Now that it had faded, she no longer knew if she would find a way out. She no longer knew if it was even possible. She sat in the cell, looking around.
Topher and Eva would know she was trapped, but could they reach her? She had no idea if Char knew anything about what happened, and didn’t know if her attempt to call to him had even worked, but even if it did, would he come to her?
Could he?
Trapped as she was in this place designed to hold sorcerers, she couldn’t help but feel as if something else was happening, beyond what she had ever understood. She couldn’t help but feel as if the answers to the questions she’d had since working with Ceran were right there at the edge of her understanding. All she had to do was find that knowledge. But she didn’t know how. It was there, but she had no answers.
She sat back, staring at the door, twisting the dragon stone ring, trying to tap into power, trying to summon Ceran, trying everything she knew how to do and failing.
It was the first time in a long time that she’d been powerless.
Completely powerless.
Worse, she was powerless in a place that she shouldn’t be powerless—a place where she should be connected to her sorcery, a place that should be safe for her.
The longer she was here, the more likely it was that the dular and the Sorcerers’ Society would face each other, and the more likely a battle would wage that she could do nothing about. If that happened, she had a feeling the darkness would win.
20
Jayna drifted again, and she jolted awake to hear a strange thumping. Her heart hammered, and she wondered if maybe that was the thumping she had heard, but as her heart slowed, the hammering did not.
It was distant—a steady pounding sound.
She got to her feet. The air was even colder than it had been before, cold enough that she started to wonder if something about these enchantments was designed to suck her lifeforce, take her energy away, and keep her from responding in some way. But would that even be possible?
There had still been no response from Char.
The longer she was down here, the less likely she thought Char would find her. He might have
heard her plea for help, or maybe he hadn’t. She didn’t know if he could reach her across the distance that way, but even if he could hear her, would he know what it meant? Would he know to come looking for her?
The thumping persisted.
Jayna attempted to reach for power through the Toral ring again, knowing that if she could find a way to tap into that energy, then she might be able to call upon something more, something that had been separated from her. But each time she tried, she found it faded, faint.
She turned in place.
How long had she been trapped here?
It may have only been a few hours, but she’d drifted off, sleeping from time to time, which made her wonder if perhaps it had been longer than that. What if she’d been here for days?
The outpost and the sorcerers within, primarily Master Agnew, believed the dular had attacked. She suspected the Society would continue to press the dular, and would likely attack them because they felt threatened.
The thumping built up deep within her, a pressure that felt like it was coming from outside her cell. It was a buildup of energy, a staunch power that continued to beat against her, a steadiness and a constant rhythm. It wasn’t coming from her heartbeat, but it did seem to tap into some distant and deep part of her.
For a moment, Jayna thought maybe it came from the Toral ring, but she couldn’t feel any reverberation within it, even as she focused on it. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. She didn’t know what it was, nor how she would respond.
But she had to respond in some way.
Escape.
She closed her eyes, thinking about that drumbeat thump. The pounding came from within her mind.
It took her a moment to realize what it was: the linking spell. The thumping came steadily upon it.
Char.
He is trying to reach me.
Getting to that connection, that source of power, meant she might be able to tap into something else. She had seen how the linking had worked before, and how it had gifted her the ability to tap into magic through Topher’s enchantment. If she could use it like that, maybe she could access the magic she needed.
Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer Book 3) Page 22