“What did you say?” he whispered.
Ciara breathed out and debated whether she would give him the satisfaction of hearing it again. The man leaned in, and in that way, he reminded her of the shadow man. “Get away from me. I told him he can’t have me, and neither will you.”
The man reached for her arm. Ciara pulled on the ropes, straining to get away from him, the memory of the shadow man’s touch too much for her. She didn’t think she could stomach that cold returning.
The ropes holding her left wrist fell away, and she started to fall. Those holding her right wrist were cut, and she dropped. The man caught her and lowered her to the ground more gently than Ciara would have expected.
Rather than cold, his hands burned where they touched, so warm that they were nearly hot, reminding her of the way the sun baked the rock. When he let her go, the imprint of his warmth remained, leaving her skin tingling.
“You are not of the dark,” he said to her, backing away so that he could look at her.
Ciara blinked and slowly looked up. “I am from Rens,” she said. “There’s nothing but heat and desert.”
“That is not Rens,” he said.
She laughed bitterly. Wetness from the water coating the blades of grass soaked into her elouf, leaving it damp. She shivered against the cold, somehow more uncomfortable than she’d been, but at least she felt something. When she’d been suspended from the post, she had gone numb, leaving her without any sense of herself. Now pain shot through her. Her arms burned where the rope had been, and her sides ached.
Ciara focused on the burning in her arms. At least there was warmth there. As she focused, it spread, working through her, being pulled along through her veins, gradually reaching her stomach and then making its way to her feet. She sighed softly.
“What do you know of Rens?” she asked. “You live in wetlands, surrounded by water and life. You know nothing of the struggle to survive.”
“Nothing?” the man said. “We have chosen these lands to survive. The draasin do not bother us here, and your riders have not found us. These are good lands, a place where we can survive, but they were not always ours.”
“They are not my riders,” Ciara said, her head sagging back to her chest. What did it matter if this man thought the draasin riders that attacked his people were hers? He believed that she was a rider, and she had only managed to summon the draasin once. That didn’t make her a rider, did it?
Had her people attacked those of this man? Were they to blame? She knew only of the reason the people of Rens had moved deeper into the desert, about how the shapers of Ter attacked, relentlessly fighting along the border, pushing their people away, but what if there was more to it? Hadn’t she seen her father use his j’na to calm the draasin when the village had been attacked? Hadn’t she used her j’na to summon the draasin? Maybe the people of Rens had attacked here.
The man scooted toward her, close enough that she felt the heat radiating from him. “You are of Rens. That is what you said.”
“That’s what I said.”
“But you fear the shadows.”
It was a statement, and one that Ciara once would have found strange, but after meeting the shadow man and after learning of the way he attempted to draw her, as if summoning her to him, she no longer found the question strange. “We have always feared the night and what comes with it.”
Ciara and the people of the village knew what prowled in the night. Dangerous creatures, lizards and fox, came out at night to hunt. All had eyesight much better than theirs. Fear of the night had kept her people alive.
But that fear stemmed from more than only those creatures. It came from the strange, shifting shadows that moved in the darkness, shadows that none wanted to face alone. It was the reason the nya’shin brought fire with them and made certain not to camp in the open. Was that not the same?
Had she not seen the shadow man, she might not have understood, but he had a darkness, a cold power, that she believed.
How much had the priests really known?
“Why did you come here?” the man asked.
Ciara sighed. She didn’t know why the draasin had brought her here. “It was not my choice. I summoned one of the draasin and it brought me to your lands.”
“Then you are a rider.”
Ciara looked up and brushed a strand of dark hair away from her face. “I have ridden, but that doesn’t make me a rider.”
He narrowed his dark eyes, a crease over his nose deepening as he did. “You didn’t choose to come here?”
Ciara sniffed. “Choose? Why would I choose to come and risk myself? You think I would choose to leave my home, travel to lands so welcoming,” she said bitterly, “and be taunted by the darkness while strapped to this post? Yes, that is exactly what I would choose.”
“But you are of Rens,” the man said again.
“You keep saying that as if it will make it any less true. I am from Rens, but I am not what you think. I don’t know what you’ve experienced, but it’s not the same as what I know of my people. We are peaceful, wanting only to survive.”
The man straightened his back and shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“And I don’t either. Why would you accuse me of things like this? What do you think my people have done?”
“Not think. Witnessed.”
“You’ve seen riders?”
He nodded slowly. “They are fearsome. They sit atop the draasin, commanding them to attack. And when one of the draasin attacks, there are no survivors.”
Ciara struggled to believe it possible that her people would be riders. That was not the Rens she was raised to know. That was not the Rens her father described, the lands long since lost.
“Tell me what you know,” she said to him.
He hesitated and glanced toward the west. “I should not even be here. If Olina learns that I’ve come…”
“Why did you come?”
“I…” He shook his head. “You do not act as I would expect a rider to act. But then I saw you atop the draasin. I saw the creature as it landed, and you climbed from its back. Whatever you say, you are a rider.” There was a sense of awe in his voice.
“Are you disappointed that I’m not?”
He smiled, and as he did, the creases in his brow faded. She suddenly realized he was younger than she had thought, perhaps only a few years older than her. His eyes had a depth to them that most lost while living on the edge of the waste. Fas once had eyes like that, but they had faded as well. “If you were a rider, I doubt I would have managed to lead you to K’ral. You would have killed me long before I had the chance.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I would like to know what it’s like to ride atop the draasin. Our people…” He sighed and crossed his hands on his lap. “It doesn’t matter. Our people are different now. We no longer know the skies as we once did.”
“Your people rode the draasin?”
“We called. Sometimes they answered. Sometimes they did not. Some could speak to them more directly, but even then, they were not forced as they are by the riders. They are elementals, and they should be free to fly without man to force them into their wars.”
“I thought you said the shadows were responsible.”
The man nodded.
“They are not man,” Ciara said. Whatever else he was, she was certain that the shadow man was not human. There was a cold and dark power to him that was unlike anything she could imagine. Only the power of the draasin rivaled what she’d experienced from the shadow man. “They are darkness, and they oppose the light.”
The man laughed. “You talk like Olina.”
Ciara thought of the woman’s staff and the carvings that were set into it, carvings that were so different than anything she’d seen, except also similar. The carvings reminded her of those her father had made on her j’na, and those he had placed on his. They were different than what the other nya’shin made, symbols unlike any of the lettering
used by Rens, or even old Rens.
“I need to speak to her,” Ciara said. She had to know why the carvings would be similar. What tied her father to this woman in such different lands, both of which apparently knew about darkness fighting the light?
“Olina?” the man said. “You cannot. She is the one who wanted you brought here. She thinks you have come to destroy, that you will summon the draasin.”
Talking had helped clear her mind, and she didn’t think that was what Olina had wanted at all. If she had, would she have sent Ciara out into the darkness? If the old woman believed she was possessed by darkness, that she could summon the draasin and use them to attack, why would she have Ciara left alone where the draasin could be called?
Unless she wanted to know.
“Where is she?” Ciara asked. She drew in a breath, feeling strength returning. She lifted her head and looked around, searching over the grasses for the woman, but was not tall enough to see far. Her legs were still too weak for her to stand and her arms burned, but not as they had.
Ciara realized that wasn’t true either. It wasn’t that her arms no longer burned, but that her whole body did. It was as if the fire that had started in her wrists had migrated through her, leaving her awash in heat.
“What did she do to me?” she asked the man.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
Ciara glanced at the sky. The streaks of orange and red hadn’t changed, even though the sun had come up in full. There should be nothing but blue, or white where the clouds obscured the sky, but she saw nothing. Even the grasses, once a vibrant green, had changed.
“What did she do?”
“Only what I had to.”
Ciara turned and saw the old woman descend from the sky. She trailed the cool breeze, and Ciara realized that the woman could shape wind, much like those of Ter.
“What did you have to do?”
Olina walked past Ciara, no longer as bent at the spine as she had seemed before, and reached for her j’na. Her hand ran along the surface, barely touching it. Unlike the spear Ciara’s father carried, the carvings on her spear were fresh and still raised. “You think I would not have noticed that you carry the mark?”
“What mark is that?”
“The mark of who serves the light. It is not commonly given anymore.” She turned from the spear and met Ciara’s eyes. “I have not seen anything like it in years, but that doesn’t mean I don’t still recognize it. It can be faked, though, which is why I had to know.”
“Know what?” Ciara was feeling stupid with her questions. She’d thought her mind was no longer muddled, but that didn’t seem to be the case.
“Whether shadow would claim you, and you it.”
Ciara thought of the way the shadow man had come for her and the way his cold touch had run along her arms, piercing through her. The woman had known and sent her out here to face him anyway? “Why would you do that? Why would you make me suffer like that?”
Olina tapped her staff on the ground. It struck the soft ground but still managed a loud crack that echoed across the early morning. “Why should I risk my people for someone of Rens when their riders have caused so much pain? Why risk the safety of K’ral until I know whether you will bring darkness and shade?”
Ciara sat quietly, rage building up within her at what the woman had put her through. Her breath plumed in the cool morning air, leaving a trail of fog that drifted into the wind. She took a few calming breaths, forcing the irritation away. “And now?” she asked Olina. “What have you decided of me now? Do you still think I will go with the shadow?”
Olina shook her head. “I watched the night.”
“You watched?”
The old woman took a step toward her and pointed the staff at her face. “You think I should not? I do not fear the shadows.”
“You should,” Ciara said softly. “His touch is like death. Cold and painful in a way that I have never known.”
Olina grunted and tapped her staff on the ground again. Again it snapped, echoing softly, the stone breaking free. “His touch is worse than death, Rider, but you have not learned that. Not yet. But if you wish to learn, you will. All that and more.”
Ciara swallowed, feeling her anger slowly easing, disappearing like her breath on the wind. “How will I learn?”
Olina tapped her staff a third time. This time, the earth seemed to crack with it, and thunder echoed in the sky. “Because another will teach. If you intend to become a rider, a true rider, then you will listen and you will learn.”
The woman turned away and started into the grasses, leaving Ciara staring, wondering what she meant. She glanced over at the man, but he had stood and pulled her j’na from the ground before handing it to her.
“You are lucky. Olina has not offered to teach anyone for many years.”
15
Alena
Some have speculated that the Wise waged war on Ter, but I do not think that is the case. The Wise prized the draasin, while these attackers—these riders—cared only for the destruction they caused.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
Alena sat in the dark tavern, wondering why Cheneth had summoned her to the Three Kings, a dingy tavern far from the tower. Volth had departed after she’d shown him where Issa disappeared—or died; she didn’t really know—and she’d returned to check on Wyath. Now she sat alone at a corner table, watching the noise around her as she waited for him to arrive.
How had he even managed to reach Atenas from the barracks? He was no warrior, not able to travel like she could, pulling lightning from the sky as she jumped. And neither was he a wind shaper, able to speak to the elementals, to call upon them to help him travel as Eldridge did. As far as she knew, Cheneth had no specific talent.
That wasn’t quite true. Cheneth might be the most brilliant man she’d ever met. He could see something and remember, piecing together parts of a puzzle that others might not even realize existed. In that way, Cheneth made her feel absolutely inadequate. It was something she was not accustomed to experiencing.
The door to the tavern opened and a stooped man made his way in, tapping along the wooden floor with a gnarled cane that matched the hand holding it. Alena turned away from the man and looked instead at the back wall of the tavern. A trio of portraits hung around the hearth, each depicting the old kings that gave the tavern its name. It had been many years since Ter had a king, many years since any other than the order ruled here.
A young boy scurried from table to table, offering drinks or laying out hunks of the stale bread the kitchen thought each person needed. Most in the tavern took it without objection and found themselves needing to order a drink to wash it down. She smiled to herself but waved him away when the boy approached.
“You are too conspicuous,” a warbly voice said.
Alena turned to see the old man sitting at the table next to her. “Am I?”
“One of the order doesn’t usually come to places like this.”
Alena crossed her hands on the table and leaned toward the old man. He smelled of aged fish and a hint of lemon. It was a strange combination, as if he’d come from working the docks of Garand, nearly three leagues from Atenas.
“How do you—” She frowned, studying the old man, before groaning. “I don’t think you disguise yourself nearly as well as you believe,” she told Cheneth. How had he managed to make his hands gnarled as well? Water and earth shaping could be used to create distractions—she’d done that herself before—but such shapings were difficult to maintain, especially when the focus was the shaper. What shapings would he have used?
“I think you’re the only person in all Atenas who might recognize me.” He hooked his cane on the edge of the table and leaned toward her as he smiled. Even his teeth looked worn and yellowed. “Wyath is restored?”
“You wouldn’t have summoned me if you didn’t already know.”
“Interesting choice, don’t you think?” Cheneth asked, leaning b
ack in his chair. He waggled a bent finger to the serving boy, who scurried over. Cheneth whispered something to him before turning his attention back to Alena.
“What choice is that?”
“Why, Volth, of course.”
Alena let out a soft sigh. There was much about Volth to appreciate. Not only his shaping, but he had a warmth, whether he knew it or not. If only he could step away from the darkness that shadowed him, he might be… What? Useful? That was the sort of thing the commander would consider, the sort of thing Cheneth considered. Not her. She wanted to learn. That was her reason for staying in the barracks.
“You knew who he was, didn’t you?”
“You mean the Wrecker of Rens?” When she nodded, he smiled. “Of course.”
“Do you know his connection to the commander?” She lowered her voice as she asked the last. Mentioning the commander in a tavern in this part of the city would draw attention. Not all loved his rule.
“They were childhood friends.”
“Are you certain?”
For a moment, the harmless old man faded and Cheneth’s serious expression returned, a blazing-hot intensity that stared at her. “Yes.”
Alena closed her eyes. It would explain much about why the commander had sent him to the barracks but nothing about why Cheneth claimed they could trust him. Even Wyath agreed, working with him more than she had been willing.
“And you still think we should trust him?” Alena asked.
“There are many things that I think. Volth is important in ways I’m still not entirely certain of.”
“Why? What is this, Cheneth? Why the sudden push to”—she dropped her voice even lower and sent the last on a subtle shaping of wind that would only carry to Cheneth—“hold the draasin? What aren’t you telling us?”
The boy returned and set a plate of steaming meat in front of Cheneth. Carrots and radishes were piled on the side, and Cheneth dug into them.
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