The Chain Breaker: Books 1-3
Page 78
“I don’t know if you will,” Wrenlow said.
“I called you for help the last time, didn’t I?”
“I suppose you did.”
Gavin laughed. “Besides, I don’t know if you want to be here for any of this.”
“If it deals with the El’aras, probably not. I didn’t have the best memory of their visit the last time.”
Gavin chuckled again. Somewhere out in the forest, Gaspar prowled, and Gavin suspected that Davel was out there as well. The enchanters with them were working to create additional enchantments to be prepared for the possibility that the Fates might attack. Gavin had to hope that he had enough time before the El’aras arrived, where he could prepare and be ready for anything else he might encounter. Only, the longer he was here, the less confident he was that he would have the time he needed. He had no idea how long it would take them to arrive now that he’d triggered Anna’s enchantment.
Gavin took a deep breath, getting to his feet. “Where are you?” he whispered.
“Are you talking to me?” Wrenlow asked.
“Not you.”
There was a pause. “I hope you understand that I want to be a part of this, but I don’t want to get involved in the violence,” Wrenlow said. “Besides, you haven’t taught me as much fighting as you promised.”
“I’ve taught you some,” Gavin said.
“Some, but one of these times, I’d like to win.”
“Then you have to beat me.”
Wrenlow grunted. “You make it sound so easy.”
“It’s no different than what I was once told.”
Gavin made a small circle of the clearing, looking all around. There wasn’t anything else here, only the sense of the movement around him. Every so often, he could feel the energy near him. He suspected that came from the constables, though Gavin wasn’t entirely sure that was what it was.
He tapped the marker, running his finger around it. The marker was small and simple, yet Gavin suspected it was incredibly powerful. How could it not be, given that it was from one of the El’aras—and a powerful El’aras at that? He had never attempted to trigger the marker before, though he had held on to it and felt the temptation to call to Anna in the past.
Gavin paced around the forest. Davel had been unwilling to have the El’aras meet Gavin in the city, almost as if he thought that he could keep them from using their power, though Gavin knew better. And even if Davel couldn’t, the El’aras weren’t going to go around and use magic in ways that would be perceptible to anyone else in the city. The El’aras weren’t even known there.
He made a steady circle of the small clearing. “Where are you?” he whispered again.
“Here.”
Gavin spun around and came face-to-face with Anna.
She was even more beautiful than he remembered. El’aras beauty could be almost impossible. She had golden hair, crystal blue eyes, and deeply tanned skin. She wore a pale blue cloak with heavy embroidery around it. A curved sword hung from her waist, though Gavin had never seen Anna use a sword. As far as he knew, she preferred to allow others to do that.
“You came yourself,” Gavin said.
“You summoned. Isn’t that what we had agreed to?” She had a strangely lilting quality to her voice; a softness. The way she spoke pulled on him, as if it tugged on some deep part of himself that wanted to react, to answer her call.
Gavin shrugged. “I’ll be honest. I don’t know what we agreed to. All I know is that I’ve tried not to call for your help.”
“The help was freely given,” Anna said.
“I understand, but there are different types of help. In this case, I wasn’t sure that you’d want anything to do with what I needed to call you for.”
Before looking around the forest, he watched her searching for the others that had to be here. He didn’t think that he was alone here in the forest but didn’t know where the others had gone, waiting while he summoned Anna. Perhaps they were watching other parts of the forest, convinced that they would have to protect against the army of the El’aras, but that was unnecessary.
“What, exactly, is it?” she asked.
“This.” Gavin pulled the jade egg out of his pocket. Of all the people he’d interacted with, Anna was one he didn’t worry about taking the egg from him. Which made it even more surprising when she snatched it from his grasp. “You could’ve asked.”
“How did you acquire this?”
“It’s a long and somewhat complicated story. I take it you recognize it?”
“Recognize it? It is long thought lost.” She looked over at him. “Do you even know what it is?”
Gavin shook his head. “The constables call it the jade egg. They said the enchanters used it to help them place enchantments. The enchanters within the city believed that their ancestors poured their power into the egg, granting it that ability.”
He no longer knew what to believe. At this point, the only thing he thought he understood was how it had passed from one group to the other. The Triad had it first. Maybe to use it against the Fates. The enchanters had somehow gotten ahold of it. The constables had taken it from them. Now the Fates wanted it.
“This belongs to my people,” she said.
“Like the Shard?”
“Exactly like the Shard.”
“How did it curse the enchanters?” If it was an item of the El’aras, then what Zella and the others knew of it was wrong.
“There is danger in using an item like that without the necessary power to activate it.”
Gavin could imagine what had happened. The enchanters had tried to trigger the egg. They hadn’t been able to. And so, they had all worked together.
And it had left the egg changed, perhaps ever so slightly.
“They used themselves as a sacrifice.”
Anna nodded. “It is possible that would be enough to activate it.
“What is it?” Gavin asked.
“It’s an item of ancient and incredible power.” She held it carefully in one hand, squeezing it with just her fingertips. As she held on to it, the egg glowed softly. It carried a pale bluish light that seemed to mirror the colors of her cloak.
“How did your people lose this?” he asked.
“We were betrayed,” she said. There was a harshness in her words that didn’t fit with what he’d seen from her before.
Gavin stiffened. “Isn’t that always the case.” He understood betrayal. Having a friend who had betrayed him had been difficult, but he had a sense from Anna that her betrayal had been something else. Perhaps worse.
“There was one who came among us. One we trained. Allowing to know our secrets. When he came upon this, he took it before disappearing.”
“And why do the Fates think it’s theirs?”
“The sorcerers stole it from him long ago.”
Gavin grunted. “You were betrayed, then he was betrayed. I suppose that’s fitting.”
“The egg has never been theirs.”
Gavin stared at the egg in her hand. “I take it that if I ask for it back, you won’t allow me to reclaim it.”
“Why would you do such a thing, Gavin Lorren? Have I not told you that the egg belongs to my people?”
“You’ve told me what you believe.”
“Have I misled you in the time you’ve known me?”
“I suppose not,” he said, frowning.
“Have I helped you when you’ve needed it?”
Gavin nodded. “I suppose you have.”
“Then the egg is mine,” Anna said.
“I think there’s a price.”
“A price?” She turned, clutching the egg to her chest. “What sort of price do you think you could place on an item my people hold so dear?”
“The price of safety.”
“Your safety has never been an issue.”
“Not my safety.” Gavin turned, nodding behind him. “The safety of the city.”
“The city is not your concern,” she said.
“That is your price?”
“The Fates need to be neutralized,” Gavin said.
“Neutralized?”
“I don’t care what you do to them. I don’t care what any of your people do to them. All I know is that I want the Fates to be removed from the city. Them and their smoke creature servants.”
She stiffened. “What did you say?”
Gavin shrugged, turning back to her. “Their smoke creatures. They unleashed them on the city, and the smoke has been feeding on magic.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry, but I’ve seen it myself. We’ve barely survived several of the attacks.”
“What you are describing sounds like the semarrl—and the Fates would not have released them upon the city.”
Anna moved over a step, sweeping her gaze around her. She seemed unmindful of the fact that she stood here with Gavin, a man who had been trained to fight and kill—though, having been around the El’aras, he suspected that he didn’t pose her nearly the same threat that he posed others.
She didn’t have her usual protection, though. Why would she be so willing to risk herself by coming to him and answering his summons?
There was something more here that he didn’t fully understand, something more that she either didn’t want to tell him or couldn’t yet tell him. Gavin hated the uncertainty, hated not knowing, hated the idea that there might be somebody like Anna who knew more about him than he did. When she had been here the last time, she had made comments about his heritage that he had denied, but Gavin had increasingly begun to question whether or not she had been right.
Gavin chuckled. “Now you’re trying to convince me that what I saw was inaccurate?”
“It was inaccurate if you think the Fates would unleash that kind of devastation upon the city.”
“Then what is it?” Gavin asked, turning toward her. He reached for the El’aras dagger and felt the irony as he tried to grab for a weapon that he had taken from Anna and her people. None of them had tried to reclaim the weapon, though he doubted that they would have been able to. Perhaps he could have been overwhelmed if they had made a concerted effort, but instead they had worked with him, wanting to regain the Shard. Gavin still didn’t understand everything about the Shard, but he knew that ensuring its safety had protected the city in some way and had kept a sorcerer from accessing it.
“It was not the Fates,” Anna said.
“Who, then?”
“Another.”
Gavin shook his head. “I thought you said the egg was taken years ago.”
“Centuries ago. And that is a long time for one like yourself, not so long for one like us.”
“So it’s one of the El’aras.”
“Was,” she said in a whisper.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know. I’m afraid you must find the one who commands the semarrl.”
That fit with what the Keeper had said.
If not the Fate, then who?
The person I saw kill the Captain.
The words the Captain said came back to him: Don’t let him take it.
It had to be tied together.
“I don’t even know where to begin.”
“If these creatures have been attacking, that is where you need to begin.”
“Why?” Gavin asked.
“Because they will destroy you. Them. Everyone. They can be summoned, though. With enough power, they can be drawn. Find what calls them.”
Gavin’s mind raced.
The Keeper had mentioned something about the Triad’s plan.
A troubling thought came to him. What if the Triad had used the egg to create something that would summon the semarrl?
It could be used against the Fates.
And it would make sense the Captain would have it. He had acquired many of the enchantments that had been in the city after the war. The device might even explain the dead sorcerer. If the Triad had been using the egg to create a way to control the semarrl, Gavin could imagine it getting away from them.
“An enchantment?”
“None of your enchantments will hold for long. Not against the semarrl. Everything you try will fail in time.”
“Could the egg create something?”
“Not with the power we possess,” she said softly. “It would take much power, and at great cost.”
Gavin swallowed. Everything started to fit together. The enchanters served the Triad. The Triad wanted power. They could have used the enchanters to fuel the egg to create something that would help them overthrow the Fates but damaged themselves in the process.
“So we can’t do anything. That is quite reassuring,” Gavin said.
“It’s not meant to be reassuring. I am telling you the truth, Gavin Lorren.”
“Can you help?”
“Not with the semarrl. Unfortunately, their kind is deadly to mine.”
Gavin should’ve figured that. Knowing what he did of the smoke creatures, the way they seemed to feed on those with magic, it shouldn’t surprise him that they would feed on the El’aras.
“I have to do something,” he said. “If I can contain the smoke creatures, can you be responsible for removing the Fates from the city?”
Anna considered. “The threat of the semarrl is a grave danger to both sorcerer and El’aras. If you succeed, I will ensure that the Fates depart Yoran.”
“Good.”
“That is all?”
Gavin smirked. “That’s all? You make it sound as if it’s not a problem. Like you aren’t concerned this power exists, as if there’s no reason to be concerned about anything.”
“Not quite. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the power that exists, but what you must do is something different.”
“You’re saying that what I need to do—stopping these smoke creatures—is more dangerous than what I’m asking you to do.”
“Yes.”
“Great,” Gavin said. He shook his head, and he looked around. “Where are the others with you?”
“There are no others with me.”
Gavin frowned. “Why wouldn’t you have invited the others to come?”
“The agreement was with you.” She held his gaze, and a wave of something washed through him. Energy. Power. Loss. Anticipation. Dozens of emotions filled him.
“Don’t.” Gavin shivered.
Anna watched him. “You fight your true nature.”
“I don’t fight anything.”
“Only, I feel your nature has been awoken,” she said. “Much more so than it had been before.”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were with us before, you did not possess the same strength as what I detect within you now. Have you begun to embrace it?”
“I don’t know if I’m embracing anything,” he said. He frowned, reaching for that power. It was there, but he didn’t know what it was that she asked of him.
“You must be,” Anna said, “for I feel it within you.”
“You haven’t said what I called you away from.”
She started to look away, and her gaze swept over the forest. “My time has been challenging.”
“You still have Cyran.”
She nodded slowly, still not looking back at him. “He will find it difficult to escape us.”
“Why has your time been difficult?”
“There are reasons that I left the people for a time.”
“Because you are the Risen Shard?”
She looked over to him, and there was a brightness in her eyes, and something more. Was it doubt?
“I am the Risen Shard.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I have a destiny.”
“And what is that destiny?”
Sadness fell acr
oss her features. “One that I must face. That is what I have been doing since you last saw me, Gavin Lorren. I have been preparing, as I must.”
“I’m sorry I called you away from it.”
She waved a hand. “You offer me a distraction. It is welcome.”
He started to smile. He wasn’t so sure this kind of distraction was what she would welcome, but as he studied her, he couldn’t help but question what she was dealing with. Something bothered her more than what she was letting on.
She was El’aras. She was a mystery wrapped in mystery. He doubted that he would ever know.
Gavin reached for the core reserves within him. To deal with the smoke creatures, he would need something more. “When you were here before, you gave me something.”
“I did.”
“Do you have more of it?”
“It’s dangerous,” she said.
“It might be dangerous, but if I’m going to face the semarrl, I want any advantage I might find.”
Anna watched him for a moment. “When this is over, you will not be able to function for quite some time.”
She pulled out a small pouch from her pocket and shook it for a moment, then handed it over to Gavin. He sniffed the pouch, recognizing that there was a strange odor within it.
“How do you know?” he asked.
“I’ve seen it.”
Gavin dabbed his finger into the powder and touched it to his tongue. As soon as he did, there came another surge of energy. He worried whether he could take too much, but at the same time, he might need to take as much as possible for him to succeed. Defeating the Fates was all that mattered, and stopping the smoke creatures was crucial.
“With Thomas?” He dabbed three fingers into the powder, then licked them. Another surge of energy.
Anna cocked her head to the side, frowning at him for a moment. “Thomas wouldn’t dare take as much as you did.”
Was that a compliment? Gavin didn’t necessarily feel like it was much of one. “I took what I had to.” Gavin watched as she held on to the jade egg, which continued to glow. “What are you going to do to the Fates?”
“You asked me to remove them from Yoran.”
“I understand, but what are you going to do to them?”
“Only what must be done.”
He found Anna impossible to read, like a blank slate to him. As he looked at her, trying to interpret what she might be thinking, he couldn’t come up with anything. Perhaps that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he had her help, even if it took some strange form he didn’t fully understand.