Jayna focused on the tapping and latched on to it.
There was nothing else she could even try to do. She pulled the linking toward her.
Gradually, a sense of power came to her—it flowed slowly, as if through mud, a resistance that worked against her, but she pulled on it still.
She could feel energy building within her, and she could use it. It was more than what Topher had been able to give her, but then again, Topher had tapped into an enchantment, and she was linked to Char through more of a spell, the power of a sorcerer.
The power of two sorcerers.
As the power continued to build within her, and as she recognized that energy, she focused and attempted to push it out.
She needed to wrap it around the cell.
She created a focusing pattern, as simple as a circle.
She concentrated power through the circle, then harnessed the energy that came through the strange linking spell that bound her and Char and tried something different.
She tried tapping into the Toral ring.
There was a different sort of power there—faint, but much like the tapping, that faint energy that came across the linking spell, all she needed was to trigger it. No different than she would need to trigger an enchantment.
There.
The Toral ring began to bloom with power, the energy of the bloodstone within it. That energy started to expand and smoke started to drift outward.
That’s new.
It was the stored smoke within the Toral ring, within the bloodstone, and the combination caused it to push outward, expanding against her. She tried to fight against it, but couldn’t.
Jayna was tempted to call that energy back to her, to pull the smoke back, but there was no point. Why should she need to summon the smoke back to her when she could release it? It was a niggling thought in the back of her mind, but it triggered something deeper within her.
The smoke continued to flow out of the bloodstone, a cloud of it, and it drifted away from her, out of the circle she held, and started to float into the walls.
Strangely, the temperature in the room began to rise.
The heat began to build within her. It was as if releasing that energy from the bloodstone released something within the room—and it released something within her.
Jayna pushed.
Standing in that circle of power, she found that pushing that out was far easier than anything she had tried before. She could feel that energy sliding away from her, could feel the way it worked.
The smoke drifted into the walls, then it stuck.
The walls began to take on more of the smoke. It continued to siphon out of the bloodstone, far more smoke than she would’ve expected, filling the entirety of the cell. The cell itself was not that large, certainly not large enough to contain this much smoke, and if the walls hadn’t absorbed it, it would have overpowered her.
But the area around her started to clear.
Strangely, the more that smoke poured out of her, the more that the room started to fill with it, the layer of smoke taking over the walls, the more she began to feel power filling her.
She was tamping down the enchantments in the walls.
Not destroying them, but neutralizing them.
Was it her controlling that—or the smoke?
She squeezed power out, pushing against the walls around her. The smoke continued drifting out of the ring, flowing in a cloud, and as it billowed outward, now it seemed as if she truly was directing it. She forced more of it into the walls.
Suddenly, the wave of cold dissipated and a warmth flooded through her.
Power filled her.
She could use the energy of the dragon stone. She could feel her connection to sorcery returning.
Jayna stormed forward, reaching the door, and she pressed her dragon stone ring against it, pushing out with a blast of uncontrolled power and forcing it open. She stepped out, then felt the wave of cold attempt to wash over her again.
She dragged the smoke forward.
It was a strange thing to have some control over, but that control came from the bloodstone that surrounded the dragon stone, almost as if the combination of the two were meant to control some of that smoke. She would have to think about what that meant later, why that power would allow her to control the Ashara power, but for now she pushed the smoke out and around in a barrier that sealed off this wall as well. It neutralized the enchantments here, preventing them from pressing upon her.
Her power had returned.
She reached the door that led to the stairs.
Much like the last one, she could feel something within the door, some energy designed to prevent her from getting out, but she needed to escape. The smoke surrounding her, left her knowing she could get free of this.
Jayna created a small spiraling pattern around the doorway.
It was a tight circle, one she could concentrate her sorcery through, but rather than tapping into sorcery, she tapped into the Toral ring. There was no sense in holding back at this point. She was angry, and the more power she drew through the dragon stone ring, the angrier she got.
Agnew thought to hold her here?
She hadn’t attacked him. She had only attempted to save him. To help him. Had she not intervened . . . the Ashara would have harmed him. Killed him.
The same way he had attempted to kill the other sorcerers.
Had she not intervened with them, with Char, they would’ve died, no differently than the dark sorcerer had died out in the city.
Jayna started up the stairs.
Rage filled her.
She was tired of everything that had happened, tired of the way she had been used, and abused, and she was frustrated that Ceran hadn’t even bothered to help her. She was angry she couldn’t get through this on her own, but then . . .
She had succeeded. She had freed herself. It was through her actions that she had escaped from the cell. Now she wanted nothing more than to get up to the outpost, reach Agnew, and . . .
Jayna paused on the stairs.
Smoke drifted down the stairs toward her.
Could it be another Ashara?
She doubted that Asaran would come back, but maybe he had. Maybe since he hadn’t succeeded the last time, since Jayna had intervened and prevented him from completing his attack, he might have decided to return. She had no idea how long she’d been trapped in the cell, no idea of anything other than her anger and the frustration that continued to fill her. Nothing other than a desire to get out.
Jayna had to tamp that down. She used the bloodstone surrounding the dragon stone and pulled the smoke from the stairs into it.
If she could learn how to replicate it again, she wouldn’t be held once more. At least now she knew there was some trick to escaping if they attempted to hold her. She had not known there was any remaining smoke contained within the ring that could be used.
And knowing that gave her more confidence.
The smoke trailed into the ring, siphoning into her bloodstone, but the smoke felt different from when she’d done it before.
Maybe that difference was just an enchantment, much like the one that had been used in the attack on Raollet, though she didn’t know—she didn’t even care. She continued to pull the smoke into the ring and started up the stairs again. When she’d reached the door at the top, she pressed her hand against it, preparing a pattern to blast into it, when she decided to test whether it would open.
And it did.
She stood in the doorway, looking out at the outpost, and focused. She had to press down the frustration rising within her. It seemed to come each time she borrowed from the energy of the Toral ring, as if it were somehow influencing her more and more. Jayna had to be careful, knowing that the more she allowed it to influence her, the more likely she was to tap into dark energy.
Jayna stepped forward, noticing the smoke still trailing around the inside of the outpost, and looked along the hallway to see if anyone was there.
/> There was no one, nothing.
She didn’t feel any signs of sorcery, though Jayna didn’t know if she even would here. This place was filled with the sense of sorcery, but it also masked that energy. There was something in the walls themselves that kept anyone outside of the Society from knowing the actions of those inside.
Jayna started down the hall.
She reached the wide double door leading into Agnew’s room and glanced toward it, but she decided there was no point in going after him.
She had expected he would have detected something. She thought he would’ve realized she was free.
Could he not know?
Jayna continue to call on the power within the Toral ring, ready for an attack that didn’t come. She reached the main hall. The walls were bare, simple stone, but there was something about the area that struck her as strange. The Toral ring constricted, squeezing around her finger, and she wondered why. Then she remembered what she had gone through in this place before, what had been through here before.
Dark magic.
That was what she detected. There were dark magic users, which meant there might still be dark magic around here.
Jayna turned in place, still focusing on that power, still thinking about the energy there, and she began to look for any signs that the Order of Norej might have left within the Academy, but she didn’t see anything.
Could she feel it?
Jayna stopped in the hallway.
Where are the sorcerers?
There was no sign of them, no sign of anything here—nothing other than the energy she felt around her.
Jayna reached the library where she had researched with Char, but it was closed. She pushed open the door and found it unoccupied. She still had the book she’d taken off the shelf, and remained surprised that Agnew hadn’t bothered to search her, other than activating all of the enchantments she had.
Not only that, but he had known how to activate all of them. That suggested a level of skill and power that she hadn’t even contemplated before.
Could he do that with any of the dular?
She headed down the hall where the healing rooms were located but found them empty, then she stopped at the door at the end.
Smoke drifted out.
She had seen some smoke in this building. Little traces of smoke drifted from underneath the door. Something was here.
She tested the door, but it wouldn’t open.
There had been a particular spell Char used on the door to open it, but Jayna didn’t have any way of knowing how to do that. She pressed the Toral ring up against it and pushed a pulse of power through the ring, then it opened with a loud crack.
Smoke billowed out at her.
She reacted, stepping back, pulling the smoke into the bloodstone.
Something streaked toward her.
Jayna ducked, dropping down and kicking upward, then rolled off to the side. She held the ring out, trying to react, but didn’t know what was there.
Some energy had attacked her—and there was something familiar about it.
As the smoke began to clear, a figure stood in the middle of it.
“Eva?”
Eva blinked, squeezing her hands into fists. Blood streamed down from them, dripping onto the stones and turning into the smoke that trailed off and into Jayna’s ring.
“What are you doing here?” Jayna asked.
“Topher said you sent word.”
“How did you end up . . . The Society. They trapped you here.”
“I was too brazen when I came,” Eva said, leaving Jayna surprised at the admission. “I stormed in, trying to use my power, and hadn’t expected them to be able to hold me.”
“Who?”
“The old one.”
“That would be Master Agnew,” Jayna said.
“I wouldn’t have expected a sorcerer to be able to hold me so easily.”
“He’s gifted. Char has said that.”
Eva’s expression darkened for a moment and she nodded behind her.
“I thought they had you in this room. This was where the dark power was held the last time.”
“It was, but there’s a cell somewhere deep beneath the ground. I thought Topher had told you.”
“The information you shared was garbled,” Eva said.
Jayna looked along the hall. “Where is everybody?”
“I don’t know. They captured me and didn’t return.”
“How long have you been captured?” She needed to have a sense of how long she had been captured.
“Not long.”
That was the smoke she had detected. That was what she had felt coming down the stairs. That wasn’t the thudding though.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the linking spell between her and Char. She could still feel that energy beneath the surface of her mind; it was distant and faded, but she could reach for it.
Char wasn’t here.
“Thank you for coming,” Jayna said.
“How did you learn to do that?” Eva asked.
“Do what?”
“Take in the smoke.”
“I don’t really know. I started doing it when I faced the other Ashara. Topher told you about that, I hope. It wasn’t just somebody using Ashara-like enchantments. This was an actual Ashara, and it was different from the enchantments that we faced—or I faced—in Raollet’s shop. They had power like . . .” She looked up at Eva, not sure how to go on, but she needed to say it. “Like you.”
Eva nodded slowly, remaining silent.
“I don’t really know what to make of him, other than the fact that he has considerable power, and I struggled to stop him.”
“He came here?”
“He did. He attacked Char. I tried to help him by drawing off the smoke.” She shook her head. “And he attacked other sorcerers too.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t really know.”
It didn’t fit with the stories Raollet had shared with her about the Ashara. They were supposedly natural enemies to the El’aras, but not to the Society—unless the Society had done something to them, or to this one particular Ashara.
Jayna didn’t know, and that still didn’t explain the reason behind the enchantments either.
There had to be something more to it.
“Let’s get moving. I don’t want to be here when the sorcerers return,” Jayna said.
“You should know that something has changed in the time you’ve been gone.”
“How long have I been gone?”
“The better part of two days,” Eva said.
Could it really have been that long?
From the rumbling of her stomach, she realized it might’ve been. She had been trapped, fading in and out, then waking, frustration filling her. Two days without any food or drink. Two days that the sorcerers had abandoned her.
Two days that they had waited for her to die.
Agnew wasn’t going to come back for me.
He thought she was dular, but even then, could he really have been willing to let her just languish there? Could he have been willing to let her die?
She needed to talk to Char.
“What’s been going on?”
They started along the hallway, and Jayna paused, looking into each of the rooms, but they were empty. The sense of Char was still distant and faded, but near enough now that she wondered if he might still be here.
“The sorcerers have begun their attack.”
Jayna spun, looking at her. “They’ve done what?”
Eva nodded slowly. “They have begun their attack on the dular.”
21
It was later than she’d expected, darkness having fallen by the time they stepped out of the outpost. The street outside was quiet, though it was almost an eerie sort of quiet, a calm that she didn’t know whether or not to believe. There was a strange sort of energy to it, suggesting that what she detected was not real. Distantly, she could feel the same sort of heaviness s
he had felt before, the thudding deep within her, and she realized why.
Char was trying to get her attention.
He wasn’t too far from her.
“Char is trying to call me,” she said. “He knows this is wrong. He’s trying to intervene, but he’s not able to.”
“He’s a part of this. I’ve seen him with them.”
Jayna closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly, and she wondered if that was really the case. From what she could tell and feel, Char did not want to attack the dular.
“We need to find him.”
“No, we need to get moving.”
Eva grabbed her arm and smoke trailed around her hand, drifting up and along Jayna’s arm, pressing down into her as if to constrict her. It wasn’t something Eva did intentionally, at least not that Jayna could tell, but there was something distinct about the power she used, something strange and unpleasant in the way she constricted her energy upon Jayna.
“You need to stop,” Jayna said.
“Stop what?”
“Whatever you’re doing to me. Stop. It hurts.”
Eva released her and the smoke trailed away. “I’m sorry. Ever since . . .” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
It was dark—there was no moonlight and no lights in the street at all, though there was an energy in the air.
Every so often, she heard a different sound, distinct from what she felt within her, and she realized with a start that it came from explosions thundering around the street.
There was power building all around them, the kind of power that could be unleashed upon the city—the kind of power that meant something dangerous.
“We need to know more about this Ashara,” Jayna said.
“We do not.”
Jayna turned to Eva. “I understand you’re concerned about this, and you don’t want to get caught up in it, but I know something’s going on. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I feel like it involves this Ashara and whatever power they possess.”
“You know what kind of power they possess,” Eva said softly.
“Those are just stories. We don’t know what kind of power they really have. We know what you can do—”
Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer Book 3) Page 23