“I might need to use the jade egg a little bit longer,” Gavin said.
She frowned. “Why?”
“If I am going to find what summons them and stop the semarrl, I’m going to need to have something that will help me call to them.” He might need that to protect the enchanters—and the constables.
“No.”
“I’m afraid that’s my price,” Gavin said.
“It will not be served as bait.”
“In this case, it needs to be. This way, I can also make sure you fulfill your part of the bargain,” he said, smiling at her.
“You doubt I would?”
“I don’t know. Should I?”
She shook her head. “The people will honor their bargain.”
There was a formality to what she said, more so than what Gavin thought was necessary, but he also worried that something he had said insulted her. He could see it in her eyes, could see the expression that suggested something else. Was it concern?
Why would she be concerned about me? She had come willingly. Freely. Why would she be concerned about anything that I said?
“I’m not trying to upset you.” He looked at the egg. “I’m going to need that, though.” He doubted that he could draw the semarrl to him without something that would tempt them. There was power in the egg, especially if he drew on it.
In his brief experience with them, he knew that they were tempted by the power. They would be drawn to it, and he suspected if he were able to summon enough energy, he might find something that would compel them to follow. The only other challenge was that he then would have to find some way to stop them. He didn’t know what that was going to take.
Anna watched him for a few moments. “You will return it to me.”
“And you will take care of the Fate?”
“I can manage a single sorcerer. It is agreed,” she said.
“It is agreed.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The outskirts of the city seemed like the right place for him to lure the semarrl. He had the pouch of powder in his pocket. Gavin held on to the jade egg. Ever since Anna had taken it, there was an energy flowing within, which he could feel as he clutched it. The constables had used the egg to try to create enchantments—a misuse of its magic, especially if it truly was an item of power that the El’aras claimed.
What might I be able to do with it?
Gavin tapped the enchantment. “Wrenlow?”
“I’m here.”
“I need you, Gaspar, and the enchanters to go back to the Captain’s fortress. Keep them safe.”
“From what?”
“I’m going to do something stupid.”
“Gavin—”
“I might be the only one able to do it.” He didn’t know if that were true or not, but he was determined to figure it out. And he would protect the others. “Just do it. And send Davel to me.”
There was a moment of pause.
“He’s coming.”
Gavin and Anna didn’t have to wait long. Davel strode out of the forest with two other constables who followed before pausing and waiting in the trees.
“This is her?” Davel asked, eyeing Anna.
Gavin made quick introductions. “I need traps. As many as you can make.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going to capture these things. You need to get your constables back to the barracks while I do it.”
“That’s not how things work in my city.”
Gavin smirked. “It’s your city now?”
“It’s always been my city.”
Gavin shook his head. “Fine. Then create a perimeter around me and make sure they come toward me. Not your people. But I need the traps.”
He held out the egg, then the spool of wire, ignoring the way Anna watched him.
Davel hesitated before taking it and starting to wrap it around the egg. “What makes you think you can do this alone?”
“A hunch.”
“You’re risking the city on a hunch?”
“I’m not risking it. I’m going to protect it.”
Davel grunted as he made enchantments, handing each one to Gavin. When he ran out of the spool of metal, he looked up.
Gavin grabbed the egg. “I need this for what I’m going to do, too.”
“Do I even want to know?”
“Probably not. Get your people out of here. I’ll let you know when it’s done.”
“If you try anything—”
“I’ve done nothing but help the city,” Gavin said.
Davel grunted again. “I suppose that’s true,” he said begrudgingly, then tapped something on his side as he strode away.
It left him and Anna to deal with the semarrl and the Fates.
It seemed like not nearly enough.
At the same time, it seemed like the only solution.
If anyone else were involved, and if Gavin and Anna failed, they would draw the attention to them. It was an unnecessary risk if Gavin intended to protect the city. Which meant that the two of them had to succeed.
He glanced over at Anna. The hood of her cloak was pulled over her face, concealing her, but Gavin still had the sense of her beauty. She flicked her gaze over to him.
“I had not expected to return to this city when I left.”
Gavin reached into his pocket, and he fingered the marker that she had given him. “Are you disappointed that I called?”
There was a moment when he noticed a conflicted expression crossing her brow. “Not disappointed.”
“Something’s worrying you.”
“That is of none of your concern,” she said.
“If you are going to get in trouble coming here…” Gavin had no idea how she could get in trouble. He had a sense that she was somehow El’aras royalty, though she had not said it. She was the Risen Shard, whatever that meant. She had access to power that was beyond what he could draw, even if he were part El’aras.
“No more trouble than I was destined to find.”
It was a strange choice of words, and Gavin commented on it.
“There is nothing you need to concern yourself with.”
He had a sense from her that she was not going to speak on the topic anymore.
“At least help me more about what we are dealing with.” Gavin looked around the forest, turning his attention to the street where he had first seen the smoke creatures. The semarrl. “I need to better understand the semarrl and what that threat is.”
“They are dangerous. They are death.”
She said the words so solemnly and so matter of fact that Gavin couldn’t help but feel as if there was something more to it. As he continued to look at her, he suspected that she wasn’t as truthful as she could be.
Gavin looked along the street. There was nothing other than a crowd of people. The forest ran near him, and he could make out Cyran’s old house in the distance. “What are these creatures exactly?” he asked. “You keep saying that they’re dangerous and that they’re death, but what are they?”
“There are creatures in the world that few have ever witnessed. Some suspect that the creatures were created by a sorcerer long ago. Either a sorcerer or a magic user who has tapped into one of the great powers in the world.” She nodded to the pocket holding the egg. “Some call those powers gods, but the El’aras know them as something else.”
The energy of the jade egg filled him with power that rolled through him, and he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something within the jade egg he could use. And if there was something he could use, he could easily imagine what the Fates wanted it for.
If a magic user who could tap into some greater power in the world, he wanted to ensure that the Fates could not acquire it. They already had enough power, and he didn’t want to be responsible for them gaining even more magical potential. It was not with what he had seen, the dangers he had experienced, and their willingness to attack so openly throughout the city.
“Once I draw the sema
rrl, I can trap them, but I don’t know if the enchantment will hold long,” Gavin said. “Without a way of truly holding the creatures, there may be nothing that can be done unless I can find the one controlling them.”
Whoever they were would be powerful.
If he were right—and increasingly, he thought he was—they had killed the Captain and all his guards to get the item that would control the semarrl.
“You will need to find the item of power and use it to bind them. Doing so requires somebody of considerable understanding of the flows of magic.”
“Couldn’t we just use the egg?” he asked again. It would be easiest.
“Not without making a greater sacrifice,” she said, shaking her head. “While you have talent, Gavin Lorren, you are untrained. You must force the person who released them to hold them once again.”
He had to draw that person out.
Gavin started moving along the street, gripping the jade egg. It didn’t glow quite the same way for him as it did for her, though strangely, it did continue to glow for him. Gavin didn’t know if something about him caused the egg to glow or whether Anna had activated something within it. More likely, it was the latter. He felt the warmth that flowed within it. He tried to hold on to that energy to use it.
Anna watched him, frowning.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You’re holding onto a kind of power I was not expecting,” she said.
He recognized that there was something within the egg that he could feel. The longer he held it, the more potent the feeling of whatever it was that he detected. Strangely, it felt as if there was a reverberation from some place deep within him, almost as if the egg were calling to that core reserve of power.
“Can you feel what it is you are doing?” Anna asked.
“I can feel something,” he admitted. “I don’t know what it is, only that there’s a sense within me that seems as if it’s tied to the power of the egg.”
“It is the power of the egg. It’s the power of trapped energy, and it is calling to part of you.”
“What part of me?” he asked softly, even though he thought he knew the answer.
He had long suspected what part of him was, some hidden and sequestered piece he still didn’t fully understand. Ever since he’d dealt with the El’aras, Gavin had begun to question who and what he was. Not enough that it mattered. He didn’t care. It didn’t influence what he did, but there was some part of him that had to wonder.
“You understand what you are,” she said.
“I understand I’m somehow tied to the El’aras.” Even saying it was difficult for him, though he knew it was true. He could feel the truth within himself.
“You are not just tied to the El’aras,” she said.
“What is it, then?”
“You are El’aras.” She smiled tightly at him and glanced at the sword he now carried. She’d looked to the blade a few times since arriving. “You don’t have to believe it for it to be true,” she said. “I felt it the first time I met you. And then when you were able to take the sh’rasn elixir, I realized you were truly one of the people.”
Gavin stared at her. “I’ve wondered how that is possible.”
“Because it is. I don’t know if you are fully El’aras or whether you are only half, though for someone who is half El’aras to tolerate the elixir would be surprising. Not unheard of, but surprising.”
“Why do I get the sense that you don’t care for people who are half El’aras?”
“It’s not me that you need to be concerned about,” she said softly.
Something that Thomas or one of the other El’aras had said to him came back. He didn’t remember it in great detail. At the time, he’d been trying to stay alive, but there had been something almost derogatory about a half El’aras.
“The El’aras don’t care for them, do they?” Gavin asked.
“If you take the time to understand, you will know.” She smiled. “I have seen you up close, Gavin Lorren.”
He waited for her to expound, but she fell silent. She smiled at him, as if she were telling him some truth that he should have known all along.
He watched her for a moment. “What does it mean?”
“Why must it mean anything? If you’ve chosen for it to mean nothing, then it means nothing. If you’ve chosen for it to mean something, then it means something. There is no reason it must mean anything to you.”
“Even though it ties me to the El’aras?”
“How does it tie you to the people? The only thing it does is reveal your heritage. It doesn’t make you anything you were not before.” She regarded him for a long moment, and he felt a pull from her, almost a desire to reach for her. “Did you know what you were before?”
It was a simple question, but it seemed laden with so much more than what Gavin had given thought to. “I know who I am, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“You have known that you were the Chain Breaker, but I’m asking if you know what you are.”
Gavin breathed out slowly. “I lost my parents when I was too young to remember,” he said.
“Many have,” she said.
He looked over. “Is that why you were in the city?”
She smiled tightly. “I was in Yoran because I am the Risen Shard.”
“So you were hiding.”
“Yes.”
It was the most admission that he had gotten out of her, and he wondered why. “Why?”
“I’m afraid we don’t have an opportunity to discuss this anymore.”
A strange haze appeared in the distance. Smoke.
“They’re here,” Gavin said.
“Then I must leave you,” she said.
“Are you sure? I could use your help.”
Anna frowned, shaking her head. “As much as I might be interested in seeing what the two of us could do together, I doubt there’s anything I could offer you. And I have my side of the bargain to fulfill.”
She leaned toward him and gripped his forearm, and then she kissed him on the cheek. A heat washed through him. He thought of Jessica and what reaction she might have if he acknowledged that he felt waves of attraction for Anna, but he thought that Jessica would understand. Jessica knew that Gavin would leave at some point, and now that he had spent some time around Anna, even Gavin thought that he needed to leave.
It was time for him to do so. It was time for him to understand who and what he was.
Why not with Anna?
Gavin pushed the thoughts away—thoughts of Anna, thoughts of the nature of the kiss—and focused on what he needed to do: Find the source and origin of the smoke creatures. Trap them and prevent them from returning.
He took a deep breath and found the energy within his core reserves, which flowed out of him into the jade egg. When he was done, he released that energy.
Finally, he held out the jade egg.
“Do you know what you did?” she whispered.
“I could feel it,” he said.
“Feeling it is different than knowing it.”
“I know I pushed something through the egg.”
“I thought you’d be able to better identify what it was that you were doing, but…” She smiled, and then she took the egg from him. “Focus on that pool within you. You have it. I could see it when I first met you. And think about what you want to do. That is how you control it. There is more to it, but we don’t have the time to go into it. Be safe, Gavin Lorren.”
She ran off, disappearing into the city. He watched for a moment but turned his attention to the smoke as the semarrl came near him.
Gavin held on to the El’aras sword and dagger. He thought he could find power within him; some way of reaching it and letting it explode out from him. It would take concentration, but it would take an understanding as well.
He unsheathed the sword and held it in front of him. The blade glowed softly, though it surged more brightly than before. He pulled one of the enchantments from his po
cket. He could feel that sense of energy and the trembling within it. It was almost as if it were calling to him, demanding that he release power. Gavin had to be careful not to release it any sooner than necessary.
Some pressure built upon him from a distance. He focused on his core reserves, testing as he pushed the energy through the enchantments he carried, readying for anything. Strangely, ever since holding the jade egg, he could feel that core reserve bubbling within him in a way it hadn’t before.
Gavin let that power build deep within. Then he raced toward the smoke creatures, ignoring the danger of it as they pressed upon him.
He had the enchantments. The combination of the two—one for repelling magic and the other for speed and strength—allowed Gavin to move quickly.
He hurried toward the nearest of the smoke creatures. When he met it, he thrust the enchantments forward. The suddenness of Gavin’s movements overwhelmed the creature. He pushed through the enchantments, using that core energy within him, and it exploded from him. Not nearly as potently as it had before, though this time with somewhat more control.
He could feel the enchantment taking hold, sealing the creature within. The semarrl stopped writhing within the enchantment, and he backed away, no longer holding quite as tightly as he had before.
Gavin spun. He stuffed the enchantment into his pocket, pulling another out. He had to be ready. He needed to find some way to call that energy to him, to draw these creatures' owner to him.
If it wasn’t the Fates, then he had to find out who it was.
Gavin continued to hold on to that sense of power, clutching it to him, focusing on it. Another creature streaked toward him. He pushed the energy outward through another trap, wrapping it around the nearest of the smoke creatures.
Once he captured it, he stuffed the enchantment back into his pocket, hurriedly grabbing another. He poured power into the next enchantment, trapping another smoke creature.
As he worked through them, he started to worry. How many smoke creatures would there be? He didn’t have enough enchantments for as many creatures as he’d detected.
The Chain Breaker: Books 1-3 Page 79