Seal of Light (The Endless War Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I need to check on something at the tower,” she yelled to Jef.

  He glanced up, still smiling, dirt smeared across his face and nodded quickly.

  Alena leaped into the air, pulling herself to the tower on a shaping of wind mixed with a hint of fire. She could use the warrior shaping, but that wouldn’t let her see anything as she traveled, and now that she sat on the council, she wanted to know what else had taken place within the city.

  As she surveyed, nothing new jumped out at her. She didn’t expect to discover anything, not after she’d trailed through the city dozens of times since the night of the attack and hadn’t ferreted out anything new, but that didn’t change the fact that she held onto a shaping of spirit as she did, gripping the hilt of her sword so that were she to need it, she could unsheathe in seconds and be ready to face the shadow shapers. She didn’t expect them in the daylight, but then, she hadn’t expected them in the first place.

  At the edge of the city, the homes and shops were unharmed. Smoke trailed from chimneys, swirling almost lazily into the sky as it drifted into the air. None of the flames were shaped, as far as she could tell, and with her connection to the draasin—and now the bond she shared to the hatchling—she was especially attuned to fire.

  The farther she went into the city, the more it became clear that an attack had occurred here. At first, it was nothing more than cracks in walls. Those could be repaired as the earth shapers made their way to the outer sections of the city, but it would take time to reach all of them. Closer to the tower, the cracks widened, some deep enough that they destabilized the buildings, leaving them leaning or worse as walls crumbled. A few had fallen completely. No shaping would restore those buildings. They would have to start anew, building again.

  The streets were filled with people moving quickly through their repairs. Atenas had been geared for war for so long that it hadn’t taken much to shift the focus into rebuilding. Shapers moved through the city, even now a week after the attack, focusing on the buildings most in need of help. Alena had assisted in the beginning but had discovered that the earth shapers and warriors who performed the repairs didn’t want a member of the Seat watching over them, so she had stopped.

  Then she reached the tower. No shapers worked around here. Thankfully, it hadn’t been damaged in the attack, though Alena had seen that the focus of the attack had been the tower. After learning that earth shapers had constructed it, she began to suspect that earth elementals infused the walls of the tower, holding it stronger than it would have been even were it shaped.

  Outside the tower near the shaper circle, she found the newly arrived warrior.

  Alena shouldn’t have been surprised by who she saw, or by what she carried, but was.

  “Bayan?” she asked. She eyed the draasin hatchling that curled around Bayan’s neck, wrapping his spiked tail around her arm. Bayan moved stiffly and turned to face her with widened eyes.

  The dark-haired woman let out a sigh of relief. “Alena. Stars, but am I glad to see you. Could you please take him off me?”

  Come to me, she told the draasin as she held out her arms. The draasin scurried around Bayan’s neck and jumped over to her. She hadn’t heard him in her mind, but now that she was close to him again, she did.

  “Why did you bring him to Atenas?” she asked Bayan.

  Bayan rubbed her neck and looked around the shaper circle before her eyes touched upon the tower. She nodded, and Alena wondered if she had needed to reassure herself that the tower still stood. Bayan had been here before the attack and had known what was coming.

  “Ask the draasin,” Bayan said.

  Why are you here? she asked the draasin.

  You needed help.

  Alena smiled inwardly. Help that a hatchling can provide?

  I am fire. You will need fire.

  Why?

  Voidan grows stronger.

  Have you seen him?

  I do not need to see. I feel him growing stronger.

  12

  Katya

  What is the elemental of spirit? Without an elemental, there can be no summoning. Without summoning, there can be no suppressing the dark. If the darkness is not suppressed, the light will fail.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  Katya managed to awaken.

  She ached all over and still didn’t know how she’d been attacked. Her head throbbed, pounding as if she’d spent the night drinking raspberry wine like she occasionally had when she was younger, but there had been no wine for her in years. Not since she’d spent time with Jasn, at least. Then it had been only for celebration, and never for overconsumption. It usually didn’t matter for him; he couldn’t get drunk anyway. She should have known then that he had a connection to the elementals.

  What had happened?

  You were foolish.

  Katya tried shaking off doubt, hating that it had immediately begun creeping in as soon as she woke. Couldn’t she get even a little reprieve?

  Do you really want one? You know that you deserve this. It’s your fault, isn’t it?

  Her head hurt to think about it. She had been attacked while searching for Olina, but other than that, she couldn’t remember much else. Darkness had claimed her, but so far she’d managed to resist.

  How much longer can you hold out?

  The question made her shiver. If the damned Khalan kept at it, she doubted that it would be much longer. He was skilled and had a subtle touch. Were she not Enlightened… but he’d cut her off from her access to the elements. If only she were able to reach them again, she might be able to escape.

  It was foolish of her to think that she wouldn’t be in danger searching for Calan. She had come willingly but thinking that she might be able to find him and bring him back to the barracks. If she were honest with herself—which lately she had not been—she would have recognized that she had only done it to get away from Jasn, trying to keep from feeling those old affections again. She couldn’t allow herself to feel that way for him. Not when so much was in danger.

  But she’d learned something coming here. The Khalan were more organized than she’d realized. There was a structure, one that the man who had attacked her led, though she doubted that he sat as high within the Khalan as he desired. There was something about him that reminded her of every man who chased power and failed. Too many managed to reach levels of authority within Hyaln and still wanted more than they were offered. That was the nature of studying there, and a danger, she had to admit.

  You wanted the same power. That’s why you returned.

  That’s not why I returned. I committed to the Hyaln.

  She cursed herself for bothering to answer. Why would she argue with herself? That was all the voice was—doubt. Wasn’t it?

  Watching the Khalan work the shadow, she began to understand—fully understand—the concern that Jasn had for what he called Tenebeth. This was a dark and dangerous power, but one that also seemed to have its uses. If she could find a way to use it, would she be able to escape?

  She forced the thoughts from her mind. First, she had to reach her shaping, then… then she would search for answers about what the Khalan had discovered.

  “She’s awake.”

  Katya didn’t move. There were others near her—she could hear their breathing even if she couldn’t sense them as she once would have managed—but showing herself awake carried risk as well.

  Darkness swirled around her. She felt its touch, felt something of a seduction, and resisted. Would it be so bad if she didn’t? If she welcomed the darkness, embracing it so that she could understand how it was that the Khalan managed to separate her from shaping? They were elemental summoners; they shouldn’t be able to separate her from shaping.

  Yet they were. Because you assumed that you knew what power exists and what does not.

  Stop it!

  The distant voice seemed to laugh. She hated that she mocked herself like this.

  “Yes. I see that sh
e’s awake.” This came from the man who’d held her. He was younger and had a lean face with hollowed cheeks. His brown eyes were nearly black in the falling daylight, and they watched her with what she could only assume was satisfied amusement. The Khalan were nothing if not pleased with themselves. “You fight well, shaper, but eventually you will fail.”

  Katya refused to answer him, refused even to acknowledge that she heard him.

  He knows.

  “What of her?”

  This came from the man she’d overheard called Sevn. A strange name, but then the Khalan were said to have claimed names, much as she had claimed names over the years. In some ways, she was not so different from them.

  You don’t take names for the same reason. You take them to hide. They take them to gloat.

  Did the voice actually try to help her?

  But it wasn’t a voice. It was her. She knew that.

  “Leave her out. Hold her, though,” the lead Khalan said.

  “You wanted answers, Shade.”

  The voice inside her chuckled at the name.

  Under other circumstances, Katya would have smiled too. Shade? Sevn was a strange enough choice for one’s name, but Shade… that had other implications. Katya had seen how names added certain influence. Did the Khalan know that as well? When she used the name Katya, especially in these lands, she became a different person. Perhaps that was only her, but she didn’t know if there was something more to it, some power to the name itself, as if claiming the name shaped something about her.

  There can be power in many things if you choose to use it.

  I am only Enlightened. My power has been separated from me.

  You are Enlightened, but you are more.

  Katya wondered why she would tell herself that.

  Maybe she’d been more injured than she realized. Or, she hated the idea of admitting, the Khalan might have found some way to access what had always been thought to be the purview of the Enlightened and had found a way to connect to spirit.

  “We will have answers from her, but leave the Wise woman out until we fully subdue this creature. Then we can work on her.”

  Katya tensed. That meant they had Olina.

  The Wise will be fine. She wanted to come here.

  Why would Katya tell herself that?

  Olina hadn’t been there when Katya had first been captured. She was certain of that. What did it mean that they had captured her?

  Not only her, it seemed, but the draasin.

  She was in more trouble than she realized.

  “You understand what that means, don’t you, shaper?” Shade said.

  Katya opened her eyes. There was no use in denying that she heard him. Either he had some way of detecting that she was awake—which, considering the way that he’d managed to use his summoning, she couldn’t put past him—or she had not disguised it nearly as well as she should have. Given the way her head hurt, that wasn’t terribly surprising either. With the constant barrage of the voice in her head, especially now that she’d been cut off from shaping, she wondered if maybe the Khalan had discovered a way to summon spirit.

  Light will not answer the same way as dark.

  What does that even mean?

  Search yourself for answers. They are there.

  “I understand that you risk more than you understand.”

  Shade leaned toward her. He was crouched close enough that she could smell him, like something cold and angry, a scent that reminded her of bitter ice and winter storms. “The Hyaln understand less than they think, shaper.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No? I’ve been thinking about why one of the Wise would travel through here, and then there is you. You can shape, and you’re not afraid of what I might do to you, which means that you either know of the Khalan or you’re stupid.” Shade’s smile widened. “Maybe it is that you’re stupid. That would be the easiest explanation, but it would make it less satisfying when I turn you.”

  Katya held her breath. Turn?

  The darkness. They will use it against you much as they did against Little Light.

  Who?

  The one who brought you to these lands.

  Jasn?

  Why would she call him that?

  A shiver worked through her. She wouldn’t.

  Maybe there was another answer to the voices she heard. The doubt had been building, especially in the last week, since he had gotten her free of the Varden… and since he had used his healing touch of water on her. Hadn’t he said that his healing had other effects?

  Could she be hearing an elemental?

  Katya swallowed. If that were the case, why had it taken so long for her to develop the connection? And if this were an elemental, why did it berate her in such a way?

  More likely, this was only her own mind, tormenting her. That made the most sense.

  You don’t even listen when you make sense.

  Who are you?

  That is the wrong question.

  Katya shivered. Could it be?

  What are you?

  The voice laughed, and she shivered again.

  “You recognize the danger, I see,” Shade said.

  Katya forced her attention back to Shade. She couldn’t let him know that she was going crazy, or that she had thoughts like she did. More than that, if she really did hear one of the elementals, she wanted to know which one, and whether she would be able to use it to help her escape.

  “I’m a shaper of Atenas,” she said. “The Order will—”

  “Atenas?” She noted hesitation in his voice. “Perhaps that is it. Perhaps the wise and her draasin were nothing more than chance. Perhaps.” He leaned close enough that she could feel the heat rising off him. It contrasted with the strange cold stink that he emanated. “We will know for sure soon enough.”

  With that, Shade stood and left her.

  Katya closed her eyes, trying to think about what she could do. She needed to get free, but first, she needed to release the connection that withheld shaping from her. Could the strange voice in her head help?

  13

  Ciara

  Training the girl might be a mistake. She has skill, and is more powerful than even Shade suspected. Had he turned her, she would have been useful.

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  The return to the tower left Ciara with a stomach fluttering. She rode atop Talyn with Jasn Volth sitting behind her, his breath nearly as hot in her ear as the wind gusting off the draasin. He pressed up against her, and she didn’t resist, letting herself sink against him. If she agreed to what Cheneth intended, she didn’t know how much time they had together. She just had to stop wasting so much time.

  “Are you sure about this?” Jasn asked her.

  “I’m not sure about anything.”

  This is where you must come, Little Light. Reghal’s voice appeared in her head, much as it had when she had suggested to Cheneth that they return here. So far, the lizard had not appeared.

  Tayln snorted, as if knowing her thoughts, and tipped her wing, diving toward the ground. The draasin shared her anxiety. The two of them had both suffered here, even if they had both managed to escape. The tower rose off the ground, piercing through the gray clouds, looming high enough that it could be seen from a distance.

  “This was where they kept you?” Jasn asked.

  She couldn’t answer. Her heart fluttered with the memories. Not only of what she had learned here but of the desire that she’d developed to work with shadows. Had Reghal not helped her, she would have attempted to summon Tenebeth. And then what would have happened to her? Would she ever have managed to get free?

  “This is where.”

  Cheneth reached the tower before them and waited along the top. He carried a short cane that Ciara suspected would help him summon, though he was Enlightened and had other ways of reaching power. Shaping. Something that she would never be able to do, but then, she had never expected the ability to summon elementals, a
nd could never have imagined doing something that other summoners could not do.

  Yet, there was more for her, wasn’t there? She had bonded to the draasin. In some ways, she was more like Volth, though Volth had developed even more talent in the time that he’d been in Hyaln. He’d always been a powerful shaper, and she’d discovered his connection to water by accident, but now he had movements that reminded her of summoning. Had he learned the rune traps as well? If so, all that remained for him was reaching spirit to be Enlightened, and he would have mastered each of the ways to reach the elements.

  He watched her, a knowing look in his eyes. Had he reached spirit already?

  Talyn landed with a flap of her massive wings, and she leaped from the draasin’s back, not wanting to consider Jasn Volth in that way any longer. Doing so only left her with more uncertainty.

  “Why did you want us to come here?” she asked Cheneth.

  The old man—and he seemed even older now, his face thinner, his eyes more sunken in some ways—tapped his cane. A surge of power came through it, but not as strongly as what Ciara would have done. Strange that she had gone from Tsanth thinking that she could learn how to summon from Cheneth to where she was now, thinking that she could correct his ability to summon. Stranger still that the enemy had been the one to teach her what the others could not.

  “I haven’t been able to tell where to find the Khalan. If we can discover where they hide—”

  “You think the three of us will be able to destroy them?” Jasn asked.

  “Not only the three of us,” Cheneth said. “I would ask others to help.” His gaze drifted to Talyn and Ciara knew he meant the Wise.

  “They might be able to speak to the draasin, and to ride them, but if the Khalan force the draasin to attack, there is nothing that they can do,” Ciara said. It had taken all of her newfound abilities to free the draasin. The only way that she’d been successful was because there weren’t any of the Khalan remaining to oppose her. But if they traveled to the Khalan, if they thought to bring the fight to them, they risked the Wise—and the draasin.