Festival of Mourn (The Dark Sorcerer Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  She pushed.

  When it came to using the magic of the dragon stone ring, she could either infuse it into patterns the same way she did with sorcery, or she could release it uncontrollably. She chose the latter this time.

  The power from the dragon stone exploded away from her.

  Then there was no sign of Gabranth or the others.

  Smoke continued to stream toward her though.

  Eva had suddenly appeared, looking at Jayna, then behind her.

  “I heard the commotion. What was that?” Eva asked, helping her to her feet.

  “That was the sorcerer responsible for the Festival of Mourn—the one I think Ceran wanted us to watch out for.”

  Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn't correct Jayna. “I need you to come with me. Topher is gone.”

  11

  Jayna wobbled in place for a moment trying to make sure she wasn't too injured. Pain came from where her head had struck the wall, but she had created enough of a barrier around her that she didn't think there were any other injuries. She had a bruised back and backside, but as far as she could tell, nothing more. Her legs still throbbed from where the crossbow bolt had struck her. Knowing that they were sorcerers and not merely volar explained why they had chosen the crossbow. The Society couldn't track that.

  She looked down at her hand, sending another pulse through the ring, wanting to signal to Ceran.

  Gabranth was too powerful for her.

  The others might be as well, but he had held her easily.

  And they had known him.

  He would need to come and help.

  She shook her head. “How could I have been so stupid?”

  “What do you mean?” Eva asked, pulling on her wrist.

  Jayna couldn't go after the sorcerers. Knowing they were in the city was enough, she figured. Ceran could find them.

  Besides, if Topher was gone, she needed to go back to the market and find out what happened to him. Maybe he had just wandered off.

  A troubling thought niggled in the back of her mind. They had targeted him before.

  “I should have known. Ceran had warned me that there was a dark sorcerer active in the city. I thought there was just one. But it seems there are at least three. Maybe even more.”

  And not just volar.

  What have I gotten myself into now?

  “I thought they were volar?”

  Jayna nodded. “So did I.” And most of the volar simply chased dark magic as an easy way to access power, but not all. Some were powerful. Sorcerers planning a festival meant real power would be unleashed. It would be dangerous. “But I suspect they were masking power.”

  It would be useful if she could learn how to do that. There were times when she would love to use her traditional sorcery. Magic she’d learned at the Academy had uses and benefits she couldn’t draw upon if she used the dragon stone ring. She might be able to do even more if she could use that power, rather than trying to call upon the energy of the ring.

  What prevented her was a concern that one of the sorcerers, especially somebody from the Academy, would detect her use of power. There was always a risk. If they were to find her using it, they would force her back to the Academy, and then . . .

  Then she had little doubt she would either be forced to serve at the Academy, or they would burn her magic off of her.

  It was that second possibility she feared.

  Sorcerers could lose their connection to magic. Everyone who trained at the Academy knew that such a thing was possible, even if none of them knew anyone who’d actually had such a thing happen to them. The kind of power she commanded, the kind of energy she now used through the dragon stone ring, was such that she wouldn’t be quite as limited, but there was still the possibility that if they stripped her of magic completely, she would lose even that.

  She traced her hand over the crater of rock where Rendal had disappeared. She couldn’t feel anything here. Not even a trace of magic, though she knew it had been here—a considerable amount of it.

  “What are you doing? I need you to come with me. Didn’t you hear what I said about Topher?”

  “I heard what you said,” she said, waving a hand at Eva. “But I’m trying to detect what happened here.”

  “Jayna!”

  She looked over at Eva. “Eva, the volar isn’t just a volar at all. He’s a sorcerer. A dark sorcerer. And they have the dwaring again.”

  Was this why Ceran had sent her here?

  He would’ve known I wasn’t ready. Not for that.

  Dark creatures were one thing. Gods, even the volar were daunting.

  Going after someone with the power of sorcery was a different kind of danger.

  He would’ve known she wasn’t a dular. They were permitted, tolerated even, mostly because they were relatively harmless, and because the sorcerers found value in the kind of enchantments they could make, but Toral were a different matter altogether. If one of the sorcerers were to uncover that she was connected in the way she was—and since she had pressed her ring up against Rendal’s head, she had certainly revealed that—she would become a target.

  She traced her hand across the stone, probing, feeling for the heat and energy that was here, thinking that if nothing else, there might be a bit of power she could uncover. There was nothing. Just an emptiness. There had to be power here though. She might not have known what kind of spell Rendal had used to blast her, but the energy of it was considerable—strong enough to throw her back and nearly tear through her barrier in the first place.

  She breathed out slowly, letting the tension out of her, and looked around the debris. “I don’t see anything. I don’t feel anything.”

  “Are you about done?” Eva asked.

  She turned to Eva. “I’m checking to see if he’s left any trace of his power here.”

  “And if you find it? What you going to do?”

  “I’m going to . . .”

  Jayna frowned. What was she going to do? There wasn’t anything she could do to chase down a sorcerer. Ceran wanted her to find dark magic, even dark creatures, but not sorcerers. She had no interest in revealing her presence out in the world. Anything she did would have to be limited.

  She breathed out slowly, shaking her head. “Fine. I suppose I wouldn’t do anything. Not to a sorcerer.”

  Even though this was a sorcerer who obviously didn’t follow the Society, she had to be careful.

  “Show me what happened to Topher,” Jayna said.

  Eva motioned for her to follow, and Jayna trailed after her through the street. She jogged, pain flaring briefly in her thigh before tamping down. She wondered how injured she still was from the crossbow bolt the night before, though she managed to ignore most of that pain. If she left it without rest for much longer, it wouldn’t heal.

  Now she had to worry about other injuries. Her back throbbed where she’d landed on the stone, and she tried to shake that pain off, but it was considerable. She jogged quite a bit farther than she thought she would need to. How far had she run after the volar—sorcerer?

  She had to stop thinking of him as a volar. Not only was he a sorcerer, but a sorcerer in pursuit of some darker power. Here she had feared the magic from the ring, but he was after something different. Dangerous. It was the kind of power Ceran warned her about.

  As they jogged, Eva looked over to her, her brow wrinkled.

  “It is possible that Topher just ran off,” Jayna said.

  “Possible, but I saw one of the men from the other night. The thin one.”

  Jayna nodded slowly. “He was with Gabranth. They must've been in the market.”

  But why there?

  What would Gabranth have needed in the market?

  The answer came to her: supplies.

  They were going to perform sorcery. Some kinds of sorcery involved simple patterns. The kinds she used in her attack spells were like that. She could trace them out, infuse them with power, and release enough energy to accomplish whatever
goals she had in mind. Others were used differently. They involved complicated patterns and items found in nature. The most complex—and the most powerful—combined the two. Sometimes they also used incantations that added to the spell.

  They had to be in search of supplies for the festival.

  And Topher had disappeared—probably abducted by Gabranth and his sorcerers.

  Gods, how did she get herself involved in this? She wasn't ready. Chasing dark creatures was one thing, but facing a dark sorcerer was something else, and much more than she was ready for.

  They reached the market, where Eva showed her a space that Jayna began to examine, walking around it. Nearby were other vendors, many of them selling food, including the woman who sold bread, which Topher had mentioned before. The Urguin watched them, saying nothing, and Jayna looked over to him, feeling a hint of curiosity, but she ignored that while she examined the ground.

  “This is where he was?” she asked, without looking up.

  “This is the last place I saw him. I don’t know what happened after here,” she said.

  Jayna took a deep breath, and she again probed with the dragon stone ring, but she added a hint of other magic to it as well. She used some of her sorcery, a bit of a tracking spell, but came up with nothing. It was blank. Emptiness. Nothing more than just the void of power.

  What was going on here?

  She had the tracking enchantment he’d given her, but when she pulled it out and pushed a little magic into it, she felt nothing. So much for him having any useful power.

  “Why do you think they would’ve come back after him?” Jayna asked.

  “I’m afraid of what was here,” Eva said. She crouched down and traced her hand across the surface of the ground, running in a small spiral. “I can feel something. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but there is a bit of energy here. I don’t know what to make of it. I have never felt anything quite like it before.”

  Jayna looked down, locking eyes with Eva. “We are going to have to talk about what you have detected before. And about what you might remember. I can help you.”

  “This isn’t the time,” Eva said.

  “When is it going to be the time? Eventually, you and I are going to need to have a real conversation.”

  And as much as Eva might fear the true nature of her power, might fear learning who—and what—she was, it might come down to Eva needing to learn. Especially if she were able to pick up on things Jayna couldn’t. If Eva were going to stay with her, she was going to need to relearn everything she knew, and she was going to need to use it, if only so they could keep each other safe.

  Eva stayed with Jayna for her own safety, but she might be able to help Jayna stay safe as well.

  “Not now,” Eva whispered.

  She stood, motioning for Jayna to follow.

  She headed over to the Urguin cart. It was a different structure than most of them. It looked to be a wagon cart that had folded up to create a tabletop, and a window was open so the Urguin could stand inside. He was small and thin, with dark hair and narrow eyes, and standing close to him, Jayna had a sense of energy coming off of him, something she only detected around those who use magic.

  “Why did you bring me here?” Jayna asked Eva.

  Eva looked at the Urguin man. “Tell him.” She said something rapidly in a harsh and rapid tongue. Urguin.

  The man's eyes widened for a moment, and he turned to Jayna. “You search for dwaring.” He had a slow and deliberate way of speaking, as if he weren't comfortable with her language.

  Jayna glanced over to Eva for a moment before turning her attention back to the man. “We do. Do you know about them?”

  “Dangerous. They feed.” He looked around, nodding behind her, and Jayna turned to see that he was looking in the direction of the shadowed part of the market that Topher had mentioned. “Unusual in this land. Not unusual in mine. We know them. Get powerful. Grow.”

  “They were here?”

  “Here. Gone. Do not chase. Far too dangerous.”

  She glanced over to Eva for a moment. “Somebody brought dwaring to the market?”

  Eva nodded. A hint of smoke trailed from her mouth, and it worked its way toward the Urguin. “Not somebody.” She nodded to the Urguin. “He doesn't really want to talk about it, but he was directed here with them.”

  “We would've known about dark power,” she said, twisting the ring on her hand. At least, she would have expected to have known about dark power. Why would she not have detected it?

  Unless it had to develop. Evolve.

  It had to feed.

  And now there were sorcerers intending to use the dwaring.

  “How many?” she asked the Urguin.

  “They should not have come. I didn't know what I carry. Vases sealed and locked.”

  “How many?”

  “I don't know.” His voice was still pinched, and she struggled to understand his accent.

  Eva said something to him in his Urguin tongue, and smoke trailed out of her mouth again as she did.

  He answered quickly.

  His face had gone pale. It might have been Eva's magic, but it might have been something else.

  “How many?”

  “Seven, as far as he knows. Maybe more, maybe less, but it seems a reasonable number.”

  “And now the sorcerers have the dwaring.” Once they fed, they would escape their hosts, and dark power would be freed. Incredible power. The Festival of Mourn.

  She had to find them.

  And she had to get Ceran involved. She couldn't do this by herself anymore.

  12

  Jayna stood in the kitchen of the small home, leaning against the counter. She was tired, far more so than she would have thought. She had been using magic, searching through different spells in the book she’d borrowed from Char, spells she thought she might use to track Rendal, but had so far uncovered nothing. Exhaustion began to work through her. She needed rest.

  They had alerted the city guards that Topher had been abducted, describing the abductors as carefully as she could, but she doubted they would be able to do much for him.

  And she suspected they didn't have much time.

  From what she had overheard in the Wandering Hen, the festival was going to happen soon.

  Involving dwaring in the festival meant there would be considerable power released.

  Maybe too much power for her.

  She looked at the ring. Where was Ceran?

  “Let’s talk through this again,” Jayna said, looking over at Eva. “As far as you were able to determine from the Urguin”—and she wondered just what the Urguin knew, if anything—“the dwaring will continue to grow and become more powerful. With enough energy, they would do what, exactly?”

  Eva sat in one of the chairs near the hearth. She had a glass of wine in hand and the bottle resting on a table next to her. “I don’t know.”

  “Whatever they do after they grow will likely allow them to attain more power. I don't know all that much about these festivals, only that it helps them harness that dark power so they can use it.”

  “I have some memories of something similar,” Eva said, tipping back her wine. “They are faint though.” She swirled the wine again, taking a long sip. It was her second glass this evening. Jayna was tempted to stay near the cupboards to prevent Eva from getting more than one bottle. There were plenty of nights when she would drink multiple bottles, though she rarely became severely intoxicated. “I wish I knew more. I think I could be more helpful if I did.”

  “You don't have dark magic,” Jayna said.

  Eva looked over. “What is my magic but pain?”

  She spoke so rarely of it that Jayna wanted nothing more than to reassure her, but she didn't know how. “It's not dark.”

  “I've told you the same about yours, but you believe me no more than I can believe you.” Eva turned away, swirling her wine and sipping at it.

  Jayna didn't have anything to say to her to counter
her fears. She didn't think what Eva did was dark magic, much like she didn't want to believe the power she used through the dragon stone ring was dark magic, but what if they both were?

  “We need to stop the festival,” Jayna said.

  Eva just nodded.

  It was times like these when Jayna knew not to push too hard. Times like these when she understood Eva needed to be left alone. She would work through it.

  Jayna wished she could speed up her friend's recovery and wished there were some way she could help her find those memories. Too often, the memories she came up with were ones that left Eva feeling as if she were dangerous.

  Jayna took a seat at the kitchen table, flipping through the pages of the spellbook. It had been a long time since she had one, since she had used it to try to find any magic that might be of value to her. Her time in the Academy had taught her how to use and access magic quite well—at least, well enough that she didn’t have to worry about gaining control over it when she wanted—but in the weeks and months since taking on the power of the Toral and the dragon stone ring, Jayna had not needed the same focus. She had become more reliant upon the power of the dragon stone ring, and she had been able to use that to perform different feats of magic than she would have while at the Academy.

  To stop the festival, she needed more traditional magic, but while that would help, it wouldn’t solve all of it.

  Jayna took a deep breath, letting it out as she flipped through the pages. She was tired. So very tired. It took a lot of energy and focus in order for her to work through the spellbook, her mind rolling through each of the spells, testing the intention behind them, and trying to determine whether there was anything she might be able to use them for. Most of the spells were easy enough for her to focus on, but not all of them. Some of them required a very different approach.

  “I haven’t found any tracking spell,” she said. “I keep thinking I might be able to use the enchantment Topher gave me, but even that hasn’t been that helpful.”

  If she could add to it, maybe it would be.