Seal of Light (The Endless War Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  She still didn’t know how they intended to gather the remaining darkness that had been unleashed into the world, but Eldridge claimed he had a plan.

  A building came into view, sitting atop a steep slope. Ciara wasn’t surprised at its shape. A central tower rose from a stout base, climbing into the sky like some dark finger. Tendrils of black haze swirled around it. The energy radiating from it pressed against her awareness, rubbing along her mind like a raw wound.

  She pointed, and Jasn only nodded.

  Talyn angled across the land, cutting first one way and then another. With each pass, she pressed fire and smoke out, sweeping darkness forward. As she did, it thickened, growing denser near the tower itself.

  Other draasin did much the same pattern as Talyn, each forcing the summoned effect of Tenebeth forward. Could it be this easy? Had they already fought the difficult battle when they had faced the Khalan at the tower, and then in Atenas? Would this be a matter of only drawing the shadows together and then sealing them?

  It will not be so easy, Little Light.

  Reghal’s voice in her mind sounded weary. What had he suffered in the time that she’d been gone? Where are you, Reghal?

  Where you must come, Little Light. I will guide you.

  She felt a presence from him, a drawing sense as he called her toward the tower, but she didn’t need him to guide her there to know that they must reach it.

  As she began to think that they would have to do nothing more than suppress the shadows, shapes began to pour out of the tower.

  At first, they came in ones and twos, and then more and more. Dozens. All of them summoning and controlling the shadows.

  Jasn squeezed her around the waist, his entire body tensing. “How are we supposed to fight all of them?” he whispered.

  Ciara didn’t know the answer.

  The ring of draasin roared. Flames spouted from them as one, and Ciara knew the battle had begun in full.

  43

  Jasn

  If this succeeds, I will bring Hyaln and Atenas along. Rens is a wasteland, and there is no value in their people.

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  The draasin circled around the tower. Jasn didn’t need to have Ciara or Alena’s connection to know that they were in danger of the Khalan summons. So far, they hadn’t been affected, but how much longer would that be the case? What would happen if the Khalan gained control of the draasin?

  As much as he wanted to stay with Ciara, he knew that was not his place. He couldn’t remain here when the fight was out there.

  As much as he hated it, he needed to be the Wrecker one more time.

  “Watch over me,” he said, “and I’ll watch over you.”

  He kissed her on the cheek, hoping that this would not be the last time, or the last kiss, that he would have with her. The fact that she was willing to be with him at all was a miracle, and he didn’t want to lose her, not as he had lost Katya.

  “Jasn—”

  He shook his head. “I have to fight. That’s what I am.”

  She smiled at him, and he noted that she almost seemed disappointed in him. “You’re not the warrior any longer. Find a different way to fight.”

  “If only there were one,” he said.

  He jumped from the draasin and into the wind, letting a shaping of water form around his feet, the same platform that he had used before. Jasn rode the platform forward, wrapping himself in a shaping of water as he did.

  It troubled him that he would disappoint Ciara so soon, but seeing the Khalan emerge from the tower made clear to him what he needed to do. Jasn Volth, the Wrecker of Rens, would now become the Wrecker of the Khalan. It didn’t have the same ring to it as the other, but then, he might not actually survive this.

  “You survived countless draasin attacks where you should have died,” he told himself.

  That thought strengthened him, but then he remembered that he had nearly died at least twice while facing the Khalan. What made him think that he would survive a third? If not for Ciara, and then for Alena with Oliver, he wouldn’t have survived. The darkness was enough that it pressed through him, defeating the protections of water.

  Maybe the Wrecker really had died.

  Other shapers joined him as they made their way toward the tower. He recognized Ifrit and wondered where she had been, and Calan—could that really be him? There were others, warriors from Atenas given a spirit stick by Alena, who rushed forward, seemingly unmindful of the fact that the Khalan would likely overpower them.

  The draasin swept in front of them all, pushing the shadows forward. When he’d first seen that, Jasn had the same sense that he suspected Ciara had. Could it really be that easy? Would they be able to simply press ahead, force the Khalan to retreat, and give Ciara a chance to place her seal around the tower?

  But then the Khalan had appeared.

  Jasn could feel the strength of their summons. He’d learned from skilled summoners while in Hyaln, but these were summoners who were more like Ciara than like him. They were skilled—powerful—and drew upon the strength of the elementals. Many had other abilities and could shape, or were Enlightened, or released trapped power from rune traps.

  What could simple shapers of Atenas do against that?

  Yet, those shapers came.

  Is there anything that you can do here? he asked of water.

  You can help resist the summons.

  I will do what I can to help you.

  That is not how you will help resist, the water elemental told him.

  I will fight. I will do what I can.

  You are a Child of Water.

  The water elemental had called him that ever since he’d first spoken to them, ever since he understood that water was the reason that he never died. What did it mean for him?

  The warrior is needed. The Wrecker. Will you help?

  You are no longer that man. You are a Child of Water.

  Jasn almost lost control of his shaping. Was water telling him that it wouldn’t heal him?

  No, he didn’t think that was the case. If so, water wouldn’t have saved him in Atenas or when they’d placed the first seal suppressing Tenebeth.

  What then? What did water want of him?

  You are a Child of Water.

  The comment came again, and this time with more force.

  What did it mean for him to be a child of water? He could heal and with enough strength and force to keep others from death? That he was more skilled than the healer guild, not because of his ability with shaping, but because of his connection to the elementals? That through his connection to elementals, others had reached the elementals?

  That was what water wanted of him.

  Would it matter? He had shaped Katya, and then Cheneth, but had not helped them find a connection to the elementals, had he?

  What if he had?

  Just because they didn’t know the connection immediately didn’t mean that they wouldn’t come to know that connection.

  Jasn turned his shaping and veered off toward Calan.

  The large man looked at him, his eyes narrowed. A shaping built, one that flowed from him and through his sword. Jasn quickly surged through water, sending it flooding through Calan. There was no time for a slow healing, no time for anything other than using the force of a wave like the one that he’d ridden into shore. It slammed through Calan, and the large man dropped to the ground, his shaping failing.

  Jasn released the shaping.

  “Volth!” Calan hollered at him.

  “Search for the elementals. Bond to them. Keep the Khalan from summoning.”

  He moved on. There was one of the shapers from Ter. He remembered seeing him as they fought in the streets of Atenas, this man skilled but falling back against the Khalan. He’d fought, even though he could not do much more than protect himself. Jasn slammed a wave of water through him and moved on again.

  He did this over and over, sweeping in a circle as he made his way around the perimeter before
realizing that there were others that he could try.

  Jasn reached the draasin and the Wise flying with them. Water swept through them, not only the Wise but also the draasin. Jasn had feared shaping the draasin at first, but water had urged him on, suggesting not only that he could do it, but that he needed to do it.

  He jumped from one draasin and Wise to the next, using water over and over again, his shaping like waves crashing into the beach.

  When he finished, he searched for other shapers that he might have missed. There, standing alone in the middle of the field and staring at the tower, he found one. A powerful shaping built, and Jasn recognized a summons as well, but it was directed at the tower.

  Was this someone of Hyaln?

  The shaping of water slammed into the person before he neared.

  Jasn dropped to the ground, ready to give the same warning that he’d given to others, to try and connect to the elementals and use that to protect them from the summons, when he realized who he had shaped.

  “Lachen.”

  He hadn’t seen his friend in months. A part of him still feared that Lachen might actually serve the Khalan, but Alena claimed that he didn’t and that he helped her. If he had healed one of the Khalan… Jasn didn’t want to think of what might happen because of that.

  Yet, all of this—his ability with water, the fact that he had gone to Hyaln to learn, him learning to be someone other than the Wrecker—was because Lachen had called him to the barracks and had asked him to serve. A tight smile spread across Lachen’s face.

  “Jasn. You have changed, haven’t you? No longer the Wrecker, and, perhaps, no longer the healer.”

  “I’m sorry that I shaped you. We need to reach the elementals and protect them from the Khalan.”

  “You can do that?”

  “My connection to water allows me to reach them. Do you hear anything?”

  He looked up. Some shapers had already begun attacking the Khalan.

  “When I trained in Hyaln, there were rumors of those able to speak to the elementals. I learned to summon, to control them, but I often wondered what it must be like to speak to them.”

  “Lachen! What are you going to do?”

  “Jasn, I intend to do what I have been doing for the past years.”

  “I don’t know what that is. You’re the reason that I went to the barracks. What did you intend?”

  Lachen stared at the Khalan emerging from the tower. “I hoped that I could discover why so many went to train and so few draasin died.” He looked over at Jasn. “I think I did, don’t you?”

  “Did you know?” When Lachen didn’t answer, Jasn pushed. “Did you know about the Khalan?”

  “I discovered what Nolan had planned. He thought to bring me into this plans and attempted to turn me. When I learned, I overthrew him.”

  He said it so casually, yet Jasn had seen how powerful Nolan had been. “How?”

  “He made a mistake thinking that I wouldn’t have the ability to overpower him. And he made a mistake thinking that I was alone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lachen smiled and flicked his eyes to the sky. A massive draasin appeared suddenly. The creature was enormous—much larger than most of the draasin he’d ever seen, and the heat billowing off it so intense that it took Jasn’s breath away.

  “I have bonded for many years, Jasn. That was when I understood that there was more taking place than we ever understood in Atenas, and I realized that we needed to have that understanding.”

  Jasn couldn’t take his eyes off the draasin. “How? How did you hide that?”

  “There are many ways to conceal power,” he said.

  “And my shaping?” Had he damaged Jasn somehow by using water on him?

  “Your shaping… that was refreshing, but I didn’t need it to make a connection to the elementals.” Lachen grabbed his arm and looked him in the eye. For a moment, Jasn saw the friend he once had, the boy he’d chased through the mountains. They’d barely managed to stay out of trouble. They had been brothers then. When Lachen blinked, that image disappeared. “I thought that we might need the Wrecker of Rens in this fight,” Lachen said. “But I think we need what you have become instead. Go, Jasn. Use water as you are meant to. Let me be the Wrecker instead.”

  With that, Lachen streaked to the air and landed atop the enormous draasin. A massive plume of flame jetted from the draasin’s mouth, and they attacked.

  Jasn stood transfixed, watching as Lachen attacked. As he did, he thought that they had a chance, that the combined effort of the draasin, and the shapers, and now led by the commander, gave them a chance to succeed. Maybe his fight was something other than what he had expected, a battle that he would wage with the elementals helping, and not one where he nearly died.

  A shudder rolled across the land and Jasn frowned.

  That sense pressed upon him, a painful sensation, mixed with a heavy drumming sound. Not drumming. Thunder.

  And darkness erupted from the top of the tower.

  44

  Ciara

  Power begins to build. I can control it.

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  Ciara circled on Talyn, the great creature catching the wind as she banked, spreading flames beneath her that pushed back the shadows. Jasn had surprised her. She had expected him to race into battle, the same way that he had raced into battle when they’d fought near the tower, but he’d chosen a different path. She could feel the way his shaping washed over those making their way around the tower, power that was something like a wave slamming again and again through the different shapers. And maybe it was. The effect was like a healing, but also an attack, something that suited Jasn better than she could ever have hoped.

  Where was Reghal?

  The lizard was down there somewhere, and he needed her help. That much she could feel. Whatever he battled put a strain on him, leaving him weakened. She feared that if she didn’t reach him in time, he would grow too weak to survive.

  Reghal!

  The call reverberated within her mind and even though he didn’t answer, she felt his response and knew where to find him.

  Ciara guided Talyn, sending the draasin toward the tower. Had she really expected that Reghal would have been anywhere else? He had remained to suppress the darkness while she had gone off for help. Where else would he have been able to face the darkness but near the tower?

  And here she had warned Jasn against being the warrior that he once had been. By racing to the tower, how did she do anything different?

  Where you must come.

  The memory of Reghal’s message stayed with her. Wherever he had gone, she had to follow. In some ways, it was reminiscent of following him through the desert all those months ago. Without him, she would have died of thirst, or from injuries from her fall. Now… now she was no longer powerless and still she followed him, this time because he might die if she did not.

  The tower loomed in front of her. Shapers attacked from either side, the air crackling with energy, and Ciara held an intent in mind, that of fire and light, using this summons as she blasted through the shadows. Hesitance and fear came through the connection with Talyn, but the draasin knew that she needed to succeed. He knew what was at stake.

  Shadows obscured the ground, but she felt the power radiating from the Khalan. This was where she needed to be. Down, she sent to Talyn.

  When she climbed off the draasin, she touched Talyn’s face and leaned into the elemental, now her friend. Go. Fight the shadows.

  Little Light—

  This is where I must be, Talyn. You help the others. Force the shadows into the tower.

  The draasin breathed out a thick plume of smoke and fire. The Mother chose well, Little Light.

  With that, Talyn took to the air and disappeared from view outside the thick fog of shadows.

  Ciara took a step, forming an image of her intent in mind. As she did, she held her arms out rather than bringing her hands together as she had done e
ach time before with this summons. If only she had her j’na, but that sacrifice had been necessary. The seal she’d placed on the tower in Atenas had served much the same role. What would be required here, if she managed to succeed?

  Light began to seep from her fingertips. It was faint at first but grew stronger with every step, and Ciara realized why she didn’t need her j’na. She was the j’na, the spear.

  She tried not to think about what that meant about forming the seal.

  Each step caused her to glow more brightly.

  As she did, the shadows parted, flowing back toward the tower that she couldn’t see—not this close to it, and not with the power the Khalan exuded—but she could feel it, a presence in her mind, one that would overwhelm her if she were to stop moving and stop the summons.

  Another step, and another. Reghal surged in her mind once more, and she knew where to find him. With another two steps, parting the dark with each one, she did.

  Reghal.

  He pushed against her leg and licked her, his tongue soft. He managed much less force than he had before as if staying here in the darkness had taken something from him. In some ways, he seemed smaller too.

  Little Light. You have found me.

  What do we need to do?

  We must create the seal that prevents Tenebeth’s escape.

  The same as before?

  Reghal licked her leg and pushed against her again. Similar, Little Light, but not the same. You must lead this time.

  Ciara swallowed, holding the intent of the summons of light within her mind. It wasn’t a summons that she had ever learned from Shade. From him, she had gained understanding of the summons, and the need to have an intent, and to hold that in mind as the summons was performed. He taught her movements and the way to use those movements as she summoned the various elementals. But he had not known the light. That came from her, from her connection to Reghal. It was something that she didn’t have to be taught; it burned within her.