Seal of Light (The Endless War Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  And separated from Ciara and Cheneth.

  There was no way of reaching them. He might be able to ride the waves out to the island, but then he wasn’t sure that he would know how to find the Khalan fortress.

  Would they suffer because he had no way of getting to them?

  As he paced the shore, he felt another pressure in his mind, a remnant of the connection that had formed between he and Alena when he’d healed her. She was in danger.

  Jasn took to the air, holding the shaping as he searched the ocean. The Khalan were too far off shore, and without knowing how to find them, there was nothing that he could do. Can you help? he asked the water.

  That place is shielded from water.

  Shielded?

  There is no approaching, not without risking their summons.

  That was his fear. A sense came again, the alarm from Alena, and this time with even more intensity.

  She was in danger.

  Jasn might not be able to help Ciara, but could he do nothing when Alena needed help?

  Taking one last look toward the water, he used a warrior shaping and traveled.

  He didn’t need to guide the shaping. Cheneth had told him where to find Alena, as well as why she had gone there. He could reach her and find what had happened.

  When he landed in the shaper circle, he knew immediately what had set Alena on edge.

  Atenas was under attack.

  He recognized the attack as the same darkness that he’d felt near the tower. This was a pulsing darkness, a sense of shadows that loomed over the city, mixing with a cold breeze and a steady rumbling of thunder.

  How many of the Khalan approached?

  Jasn thought about what Cheneth had said of Lachen. Could he be one of the Khalan? Was it possible that he would face his old friend?

  He didn’t know how he’d react if he were forced to do so. No longer did he feel inadequate next to Lachen’s ability. If nothing else, his time in Hyaln had taught him about so many other ways to reach power that he recognized how Lachen had such skill, even if he couldn’t replicate it. And Jasn had ability to summon, had connected to water, could shape better than he ever had while in Atenas, and now could reach spirit.

  Still, he doubted that he would be able to harm his childhood friend if it came to that.

  Thunder echoed again. Shadows swirled around the courtyard, brushing too close.

  Jasn unsheathed his sword and quickly built a shaping through it. This time, he made a conscious effort to add spirit to the shaping. Light blazed from his sword, pressing back the shadows.

  They would know he was here now, but there was no way to change that. Better to get attacked openly than to face the risk of the darkness reaching him and somehow influencing him.

  Jasn left the courtyard outside the tower. The thick shadows were denser here. With his shaping, he pressed back the darkness… and saw two men slowly approaching.

  Their dress made them appear to be of Ter, but the way that they moved their hands, the steady rhythm that he recognized as a summons, told him that they could not be.

  “Leave,” Jasn said.

  “A shaper of Ter?” one of the men asked.

  Jasn realized that his sword had dimmed and so pressed his shaping through it, using only spirit this time. He wanted to conserve his strength and didn’t want to risk wasting energy that he might need.

  When his sword shone brightly, the men hesitated.

  “Not of Ter.”

  One of the men sneered. “Hyaln then. Surprising that you would risk yourself.”

  Jasn shook his head, readying another shaping. “Not Hyaln either.”

  He launched himself forward.

  The suddenness of it caught the first man off guard. Jasn spun, twisting on wind and water, and struck with his sword. Darkness parted before him, and the man fell. With a similar motion, he brought his sword around to the other man but found himself suddenly facing three. Two were men, and a third was an older woman.

  Her eyes narrowed as she saw him. “This is the Wrecker of Rens.”

  Jasn paused.

  “The Wrecker? He died in Rens,” one of the men said.

  Jasn smiled. Was that the rumor about why he no longer fought in Rens? If so, it seemed appropriate. A part of him—that part of him—had died in Rens.

  Three might be more than he could handle. Stars, but two were more than he could handle. I will need your help.

  You have it, Child of Water.

  Jasn pulled on the elemental connection and added a quick summons, and mixed a shaping of water. He sent this in a surge, a torrent of water that was like the one that Rehnar had taught him when he first began working with the summons but added to it the memory of the wave that he’d ridden across the sea.

  The power of the shaping, of the water, overwhelmed them. The three Khalan were thrown back.

  Jasn jumped forward, letting the water carry him, swinging his sword as he did.

  Something struck him, but he ignored it.

  One of the shapers fell.

  He was hit in the back, and one of his legs stopped working.

  Jasn staggered, spinning on the good leg.

  One of the Khalan stood in front of him. Jasn jabbed at him with the sword, but the man managed to press it back using a swirl of darkness.

  He tried stepping forward, but his leg didn’t work right, and he stumbled.

  Two of the Khalan stood over him. Jasn couldn’t help but notice that the woman carried a slender sword, the blade darkened, as if she summoned Tenebeth through the sword the same way that he summoned spirit through his.

  She raised the sword. Jasn doubted he would survive if she hacked his head off or stabbed him in the heart. There were things water could not heal.

  With one last effort, he pressed water out, using the connection to the elemental.

  The Khalan resisted. Jasn didn’t know how but suspected that they had summoned water, or perhaps the connection to Tenebeth gave them the ability to overcome his connection to water. Either way, his bond failed him.

  “Even the Wrecker can die,” the Khalan said.

  Jasn pressed out with a shaping of spirit, knowing that it wouldn’t be enough. “He already did.”

  The sword arced toward his head.

  36

  Alena

  The great summoner of Rens has revealed herself. I didn’t understand at first, but she has mastered summoning more than each of the elementals. Repairing the first seal would have required she summon something greater.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  “What is that?” Oliver asked from his window. He stood with his hands gripping the windowsill, staring into the night. He hadn’t moved for long moments, and Alena wondered if he listened to the steady rumbling of thunder, the sound of the Khalan coming closer.

  How much longer did they have before they were overwhelmed?

  Not long. And they didn’t have enough shapers to withstand the attack. Worse, she no longer knew who she could trust of the warriors. Oliver and Yanda, she trusted. Eldridge, now that she had tested him. She regretted the way that she’d come at him with her sword, but she had no choice when she had wanted to know whether she should worry about what he might do, and whether he had been compromised. From what she’d seen, anyone could be, at least until they managed to create enough spirit sticks.

  Through all of it, a nagging worry itched at the back of her mind.

  “What is what?” she asked, too weary to care. Her mind churned through what they needed to do and struggled to come up with the answers. Somehow, she had to defend Atenas against an attack that should not be possible and keep the city functional until the next attack. And the next.

  This must have been what the leaders of Par felt like.

  “There’s something burning down there.”

  “Burning?” she asked, looking up briefly.

  Oliver shrugged. “That’s what it looks like. I can’t say that I know
with certainty. It keeps moving, though, and there’s something else…”

  “Stop holding out on us,” Yanda said, jabbing him in the stomach.

  “I sense something of water. I don’t quite know what it is.”

  Alena hurried over to him, ignoring Jef lying on the ground, bound by her shaping. When she reached the window, she shoved Oliver to the side, unmindful of the fact that he was both much taller and much wider.

  From her vantage, she could see the entire expanse of streets below. Shadows moved. She didn’t need to stand at the window to know that, but there was the light that Oliver mentioned, one that reminded her in some ways of the light that she summoned from her sword.

  “Why would you sense something of water?” she mused.

  “I don’t know. The only other time I’ve noticed something like that has been when I’ve been around Volth.”

  Volth.

  Alena understood the nagging itch in the back of her mind.

  “Open the window,” she said to Oliver.

  “Are you mad? The window is sealed, and I think that we’ve proven that keeping it that way is the only way that we’ll be safe. Honestly, if Eldridge can force his way through it—”

  “Damn it! Open the window!” Alena unsheathed her sword.

  Oliver shook his head but shaped an opening in the window as she directed. “What do you think that you’re going to do, Alena? You’re skilled, but we don’t know how to fight this.”

  “Someone down there does.”

  “Who? That light? That’s nothing more than a fire.”

  “No. That’s Volth.”

  She stepped to the edge of the window and jumped.

  As she did, she shaped through her sword, forming a bright white spirt shaping that cut through the darkness. Blast, but the cold air felt wrong. So much about the shadows that pressed upon the city felt wrong. If they could somehow find a way to disperse them… but first, she needed to help Volth.

  And he needed help. Somehow—through the residual connection that they shared—she knew that he did.

  She landed with a soft whisper of wind. Light surged from her sword. Two attackers suddenly reached her. Alena spun, slicing through one, not bothering to focus on who it might be—and whether it was one of the Atenas warriors who the Khalan had somehow infiltrated. The other posed a more difficult challenge. They proved skilled with their staff, spinning it so that she had to stay just out of reach.

  Can you help?

  The hatchling roared, and she felt the heat of his body before he appeared.

  The other Khalan glanced up, but too late, and her sword sunk through his shoulder. The next attack caught him across the chest, and he fell.

  We need to find Volth.

  The draasin snorted fire, clearing away some of the darkness.

  Alena hesitated at the realization. If the draasin could push back the darkness, then she understood why Tenebeth had wanted to twist them first. If the greatest threat were removed, then he wouldn’t have to worry about what else they might do.

  She found a cluster of Khalan surrounding a fallen form. One of them raised a sword.

  Alena shouted. It didn’t matter what she said, only that she drew their attention.

  She leaped forward, using wind and fire and earth to propel herself, her sword burning with the spirit light. The draasin flew next to her, teeth and claws flailing, tearing at the Khalan. They fell before them.

  But Alena was too late.

  A woman held a blackened blade and swept it toward Jasn’s neck. He didn’t move—and she wondered if he even could, or if something had happened during the attack that prevented him from getting up.

  Horrified, she watched as the sword neared his neck.

  Then it stopped.

  Wind whistled around her, and she glanced up to see Eldridge hovering on his wind shaping. With a twist of his wrist, he snapped the sword out of the woman’s hand.

  Alena stabbed, catching her in the stomach, and twisted.

  The Khalan fell, sliding from the end of her blade.

  Somehow, darkness still pressed upon them. Others of the Khalan came, more than they could account for. She scooped Jasn into her arms and streaked toward the tower window, followed by Eldridge and the draasin.

  Inside Oliver’s room, she lowered Jasn to the ground. Wounds pierced him, and they tried to mend as she watched, but something impeded them.

  “Oliver!” she snapped.

  But the large man was already there. He crouched next to Jasn, his hands running along his sides, his cheeks, and down his arms. “These are deep. One pierced his lung and another his liver. These would normally kill a man.”

  “Normally?” Yanda asked, standing on the other side of Jasn. “These wounds will kill a man.”

  “This is the Wrecker of Rens. The man who cannot die,” Oliver said.

  The other scholar near the back of the room gasped.

  “Is there anything that you can do to help?” Alena asked. She’d seen Jasn heal from horrible wounds before, and had seen him heal others from wounds that he should not have been able to heal, but she’d never seen him like this. How could he survive this?

  “Yanda, we must wash through him. Are you prepared?”

  “You start at the heart. I can sense that you already have contained most of the damage.”

  “Most, but there is something I don’t fully understand.”

  “We will have to do what we can.”

  Oliver nodded. “With his connection to water, if we can bring him along, the elemental will complete the healing. That is how he’s lived as long as he has.”

  Alena stood back, watching the two most skilled healers in Ter work on Jasn.

  What was he doing back in Atenas?

  The answer was easy. He had come for her. Somehow—whether through the connection that forged between them or intuition—he had known that she needed help. And he had come.

  How had he shaped spirit?

  She found his sword, wondering if Cheneth had given him a spirit stick or taught him how to create one of his own. Runes etched into the metal were unlike any that she’d seen, and certainly not like the runes that she used with the spirit stick.

  Had he shaped spirit without the sword?

  Blast, but that would be useful!

  They needed him alive. Alena hated that she thought like that, but in order to protect Atenas, they would need him alive.

  Jasn gasped.

  Oliver leaned back and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow. Yanda kept her hands on Jasn, her forehead furrowed deeply. Power built from her, washing through Volth in waves. Alena had witnessed powerful shapings before, and had seen Volth when he had performed his healing, one where he had moved enormous amounts of water, but this was still impressive.

  “He is not responding,” Yanda said.

  “He’s responded,” Oliver answered, weariness heavy in his voice. “He breathes. You can step back, sense what he does for himself now.”

  “The wounds—”

  “Yanda, the wounds are not his problem,” Oliver said.

  Yanda lifted her hands from Jasn’s chest and leaned back. “I don’t understand. He’s there. I can feel it, but there’s something that prevents his recovery.”

  “Darkness,” Alena whispered.

  Oliver looked over. “What?”

  That was what kept him from coming back. Always before, water kept him alive, but what if water wouldn’t respond when the darkness, and when Tenebeth, permeated him?

  Was there any way to remove it?

  She glanced at her sword and realized that she had to try.

  Alena stepped forward, holding onto her sword. She shaped through it, drawing spirit that she forced through Jasn. As it struck, she felt a resistance within the shaping. “Oliver. Help with this.”

  “I can’t with spirit, not as strongly as you.”

  “Add water then. Guide me. You’re the healer.”

  Oliver closed his eyes and se
t his hands back on Jasn’s chest. As he did, Alena noticed how the shaping shifted, guided now by Oliver, and the way that he forced it through Jasn. He didn’t send it where she would have expected, not to the wounds that remained open as she had, but to his head, and to his heart. Oliver somehow pulled on the shaping that she used, drawing it from her with more focus than she managed alone.

  Then he released it.

  He leaned on hands and knees, panting. “That is all that we can do.”

  “Will it work?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. He needs time.”

  Alena waited, praying that the elementals were not done with him yet.

  As she did, thunder rumbled outside. Lightning flashed, again and again.

  And she felt the pressure of the darkness against the tower.

  “I think we’ve run out of time,” she whispered.

  37

  Jayna

  Scholars have infiltrated the Khalan. I have let them observe. We should have records of this success.

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  Night fell in full by the time they finished making camp. After the attack, and after she had secured Shade, the draasin crouched at the edge of the camp near Olina, who spoke to it in a hushed voice. Jayna hadn’t known whether the Wise could speak to the draasin, and still didn’t. It was possible that what Olina did was nothing more than soothing the creature, or it might be that she could speak to him.

  Shade remained near a small fire she had summoned, his wrists bound in front of him and his fingers completely restricted. She didn’t want to risk him managing a summons again. So far, he hadn’t shown any predilection to the ability to summon without moving his hands, and she didn’t want to give him the chance to try.

  “You will hold him?” Calan asked. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his chest thrust forward. When they had secured Shade, Calan had searched the Khalan, but had not found what he’d sought. Likely his sword. The warriors of Atenas were particular about their swords, and the hunters of the barracks especially so.

  “We need to know where to find the others,” Jayna said.