“I left Atenas and the healer guild to go to the front,” he said finally.
“You… You’re a healer?”
“Was, I think. I trained with Oliver.” With the way Bayan sucked in a breath, he knew she recognized his name. Most did. “He would have had me remain with him, to continue to study in Atenas, but after…” He shook his head. What did it matter if he told Bayan about Katya? What did it matter if she still might be alive? The hurt was still there. If she lived, why hadn’t she returned to him? “After something happened, I decided that I was no longer fit to be a healer. I took an assignment with the order along the front and was there for”—he counted the months—“a long time. Long enough to gain a reputation. Long enough that when I was summoned to return, I knew it was time to leave.”
“That’s how you’re here? You impressed the commander enough that you were summoned to learn here?”
Jasn swallowed. It sounded horrible to him when he thought of it that way. Maybe that was the entire reason that Lachen had brought him here. Did it matter if it was? Not to him, not really. Staying on the front and continuing his attempts at dying or coming here and learning what might kill him. Both were the same.
“That is the reason.”
He touched the stone, finding a piece with the strange symbols marked on them. Wyath had shared some of that knowledge with him, but Jasn still wasn’t strong enough to replicate it.
Footsteps thundered toward him, and Jasn turned to see Calan approach. From what Jasn had learned, Calan had been one of the very first instructors, even before Alena, which meant that he’d likely come to the barracks at the same time as Wyath. Had Cheneth been here then as well?
“Where is she?” Calan demanded as he approached. His hands were crossed over his chest.
Bayan shuffled to the side next to him. “She’s not here, Calan. As I told you before, I don’t know when she’s returning.”
“Don’t know or won’t tell me?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure she’ll be happy to speak to you when she returns—”
Calan cut her off by shifting toward Jasn. “And you. Where have you been? You haven’t been in the barracks since”—he frowned—“since my foolish student thought to attack the penned draasin. He said you worked together with Alena to keep him from killing the beast before he ran off. Bastard hasn’t been seen since.”
“There’s nothing to learn from a dead draasin,” Jasn said. Where had Thenas gone? “That is why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Calan grunted. “Not from these,” he said. “Where have you been? Were you with her?”
Jasn wondered why the animosity between Calan and Alena. The last time he’d seen the man, Alena had helped him, or at least she’d made it seem like she was helping him. The draasin hadn’t really been killed, not like Calan had thought.
“Not with her. I was called back to Atenas.”
“Called back? Your assignment is here. Who could call you back—”
“The commander.”
Calan’s mouth pinched into a tight line. “The commander. It’s about time this commander takes an interest in the barracks. I can’t say that I’ve been too happy about the way we’ve been staffed. Not nearly enough warriors sent here to learn, and far too many scholars.” He glanced at the pen. “What did the commander ask of you?”
Jasn hesitated, debating his answer. “He wanted to know how my training went.”
Calan looked over. “Indeed? He takes that much interest in you?”
“We knew each other once.”
Calan nodded and scratched at his chin. “Not many claim to know the commander. He rose quickly through Atenas, always impressing the order with his skill. I’m not too fond of the idea of one his age leading, but he seems to have done well.”
Jasn didn’t want to say anything that might be critical of Lachen. It was possible that he wasn’t the only person Lachen had asked to serve as some sort of spy in the barracks. Even Thenas was a possibility, though he didn’t seem the type Lachen would use for that purpose.
“What do you need Alena for?” Jasn asked.
Calan turned his attention back to the pen. “She was there when it escaped.”
Jasn glanced over at Bayan, but she stared at Calan though she made a point of not meeting his eyes. “When what escaped?”
Calan waved a hand. “The creature in the forest. The one you and Thenas argued over. Ifrit and I decided it was time for us to remove that creature from the barracks. One that size is dangerous and too close to the camp. Alena found us and offered to help.”
“She helped you destroy one of the caged draasin?” She hadn’t mentioned anything about that, and it was the sort of thing that Jasn would have expected her to at least comment on.
“Not destroy. But after she left, the creature escaped.” Creases in his brow deepened at the comment. “And Ifrit was hurt. Tarak has managed to keep her alive, but only barely.” Calan hesitated. “You were a healer, from what I understand.”
Jasn nodded carefully.
“You will find Tarak, offer your help.”
Jasn blinked. He hadn’t come to the barracks to resume his service as a healer, but so far, that seemed how he’d spent much of his time. He’d left Atenas to get away from that duty. After Katya was lost, he couldn’t remain, not in his previous role. “How did the draasin escape?”
“That’s what I want to know from Alena. She was the last to secure the bindings on its wings. I need to know if she secured them completely.”
Jasn felt Bayan tense and sensed the way her heart fluttered for a moment. She knew something, even if she didn’t tell Calan. Did she know about Alena? She had served as her student for many years, so it made sense that she would, but Alena hadn’t mentioned anything about Bayan’s inclusion.
If what she suggested was true though, Bayan would have potential to speak to elementals. Could that be the reason all were brought here?
“Alena would have secured the chains,” Jasn said.
“Yes. I’m certain that she would.” There was a hint to his tone that told Jasn that Calan wasn’t completely convinced. Jasn would have to warn her.
Though, what did he owe Alena? Nothing, as far as he was concerned. But he did want to know what she might know about the elementals, and he did want to learn if he could really develop the ability to speak to them more than simply allowing their power to work through him. More than that, he wanted to find Katya, and working with Alena—the last person to have seen her alive—seemed like the only way he could do that. He would protect her. For now.
Jasn turned away from the pen and started toward the healer. Bayan watched him for a moment, and he felt the way her eyes lingered on his back, the heaviness to her gaze. She was another person he had to understand. Bayan knew something, but maybe not everything. She could be useful, especially if Alena hadn’t shared her secret with Bayan. That gave him a certain kind of leverage.
There was another reason to want to work with Bayan. If she was Alena’s student at the same time as Katya, she might know something about what happened. Maybe not the same as Alena, but she might have a different understanding of events or had heard rumors. Jasn could use that.
Whatever else he did, and whatever else he learned in the barracks, he wanted to know what had happened to Katya. And if she lived, he would find her.
17
Jasn
My time wandering nears an end. The college has summoned me to return. I have seen enough to give me pause in returning, and need answers before I respond to the summons.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
“Why do you think I need your help?” Tarak asked Jasn.
He was a small man with narrow-set eyes and a high, sloping forehead he tried to hide with long hair combed forward. He crossed his arms as Jasn appeared at the door, and tried to push him back.
Jasn didn’t know Tarak well. He was one of the order but had specialized skill in healing. In that
way, he was much like Jasn. “Calan thought I could help.”
“You? You’ve been here”—he squinted, squeezing his lips together as he considered Jasn—“a month or two, and you think there is something you can do to help? I know you helped Wyath when he was injured, but that was before I’d returned.”
“Not only Wyath.”
Tarak waved his hand at Jasn, shooing him away like he was nothing more than a child. “Return to your lessons. There’s nothing you can do to help me.”
Jasn pushed into the room. He was well over a head taller than Tarak and didn’t like the idea of simply shoving past him, but he grew tired of trying to explain himself to everyone in this place. “I was the one who healed Thenas,” he said as Tarak started to object, running around Jasn to stand in front of him again. “I trained with Oliver. Now, where is Ifrit? Calan thought I would be able to help.”
“Oliver?” he said.
The room was different than many of the others. Rows of cots were set up, leaving it something like a hospital, though Jasn hoped there would never be a need for so many beds. If all were filled, it would mean that most within the barracks had been injured. Pots of oil were set into the wall, heated with shapings that gave the air a sickly, familiar odor that reminded him of the time spent in Atenas. Only one of the cots had anyone on it.
Jasn made his way to Ifrit. He only knew of her and was surprised to see she was young and had the dark complexion of someone who lived along the border with Rens. Black hair spilled around her shoulders. She breathed slowly but was otherwise motionless.
“You can tell Calan that I’ve done what I can,” Tarak said.
“I don’t doubt that,” Jasn said, “but let me see if I can help.” He looked over to the small healer and forced a smile. “Listen, I mean no disrespect. All that I want is to help.”
Tarak watched him for a moment. “How long did you study with Oliver?”
“Three years.”
“And you’re here now?”
Jasn nodded and turned his attention back to Ifrit. “Healing… Well, it wasn’t for me.”
He took Ifrit’s shoulders between his hands and squeezed gently, connecting to her. She was soft and warm, but he immediately sensed the injuries within her. Tarak’s healing layered atop her, essentially preventing her from dying, but it would not save her. It wasn’t crude—Jasn could tell the man had some training—but Oliver would have found it distasteful.
“Fluid sits around her heart,” he said to himself, “and the fracture of her leg is significant. She has lost much blood.”
“Fluid?” Tarak asked.
Jasn ignored him as he readied a shaping. Once he started, he would need to work quickly. It was much like what had been necessary with Wyath, only this time Jasn didn’t have someone else to help stabilize the healing.
With a surge of water, he stripped away the shaping that Tarak had done. Ifrit gasped and then her breathing stopped.
“What have you done?” Tarak shouted. “Do you know how long that took to hold?”
Jasn used a different shaping of water and began layering it over Ifrit. He began by removing the fluid around her heart. If he left it alone, the pressure would limit her breathing. It might be the reason she failed to improve already. With another shaping, he sent waves rolling through her, starting at her heart because it seemed the most injured and running out from there in all directions.
Tarak grabbed him, and Jasn threw him off using a shaping of earth.
He continued to press, pulling through his shaping, but he couldn’t draw enough water on his own. Reaching for water he sensed around him, he felt it stirring deep within him, and he called to it. At first it didn’t answer, but slowly, it built before running through him in gradually increasing waves that he directed through Ifrit.
This shaping didn’t require the same strength as the one he’d used on Wyath, but there was a different level of skill involved. That had been brute force and power. Without it, Wyath wouldn’t have survived. This was the soft caress of rain, the pulling of the current as he stepped in a stream, and he directed it, controlled it.
Ifrit took another breath and he stepped back.
Jasn released the shaping and looked around, but Tarak was gone.
“What are you doing here?” Ifrit asked. Even recovered, her voice was strong and commanding.
“Calan asked me to help.”
She rolled to her side and started to sit. Jasn placed a hand on her shoulder to keep her from moving too much. Healing like he’d used would take days to recover from.
“Step back, student,” she said.
“Not here,” he said. “You need to rest.”
She resisted a moment and then fell onto her back. “Why did Calan ask you to help?”
“Because I was a healer once.”
“You? I’ve heard the stories, Volth. There’s no healing in what you did.”
“No,” he agreed. “But before. There was before.”
She took a few deep breaths. “Where is Calan? Did he chase the draasin?”
“What draasin?”
“It escaped. We were…” She looked up at him as if debating what she should share. “No matter. Bad enough the damn thing escaped, but it was injured, too. Calan should have gone after it.”
Jasn wondered if that was where Calan had been going when he’d found him. He’d made a comment about making sure that Ifrit would survive but hadn’t he been equipped as if he were planning something? Was that where Alena had gone? When she’d sent him back to the barracks, making a point of suggesting that he return rather than directing him to—a sharp change from how she’d spoken to him in the past—she hadn’t said where she was going other than alluding to the fact that she had something else she needed to do. If it wasn’t the draasin, then what else would it be?
He touched Ifrit’s arm, sending a sensing of earth and water through her as he did, and nodded mostly to himself. “The healing will leave you weakened for a few days,” he said, beginning to tell her what he’d told countless others while studying in Atenas. “You will need rest and plenty of food.”
In that way, it was much like shaping, only with shaping, there was a period of recovery. Normally when he worked a shaping like he’d used on Ifrit, he would be tired, unable to shape for a little while, even if only for a few hours. At least now he didn’t feel quite as wiped. Was that because he had grown as a shaper in his time in the barracks or because he hadn’t shaped her himself? What price did he pay for using the power of the elementals?
Ifrit brushed him off and sat up. Already she seemed stronger than she had before. She shouldn’t be quite so refreshed already, but maybe Tarak’s healing had held more than he realized. The man had managed to stabilize her wounds and keep her mostly safe.
“Do you think this is the first time I’ve required healing?”
“I tell everyone the same. It’s up to you to decide whether you’ll listen.”
“Everyone?” she asked. “You’re a soldier, not of the guild.”
“A soldier now,” he agreed. “Anyway, that doesn’t change the fact that you should rest.”
He turned away. Now that Ifrit had been healed, he had an urge to see what Calan had been doing. Calan didn’t seem the sentimental type, so Jasn hadn’t expected the man to worry about whether Ifrit would be well. But then, Jasn didn’t know Calan all that well, only what he knew from rumor.
He reached the door and pulled it open, stopping when Ifrit called to him.
“What was that?” she asked.
Jasn turned. “I didn’t say anything.”
A frowned furrowed her cheeks. “I thought I heard…” She shook her head, looking at her hands and turning them over.
Jasn watched her for a moment, and when she said nothing more, he left her alone.
The winds outside had shifted, carrying a hint of warmth from the south that mixed with a piney scent coming out of the mountains. The steady clang of swords rang out through the
barracks as students practiced. Jasn had no interest in joining them, not after completing a healing. Besides, he’d spent countless days practicing with his sword, and so far he’d barely ever even used it. The weapon was a relic of a time long past, when men fought without shaping. The battle for the front had been done with shaping. Other than watching how Calan used his sword, he’d rarely actually seen anyone attack with it.
Where was Calan anyway? If he blamed the draasin for Ifrit’s injury, then it was likely that he would go after them, even if the attack hadn’t been intended to harm them. And Bayan. Jasn needed to find her and learn what she might know of Katya.
He found himself along the edge of the camp, stopped where the barracks’ shaper circle had been erected. The stone circle was much like the draasin pen, infused with shapings of earth, trapping it in place to prevent damage while using shapings of lightning to travel. It was much like the one in Atenas, though the stones in the barracks were less polished, and if anything, the earth shaping infused into them was more solid. Jasn wasn’t entirely surprised given what he’d seen from the barracks and how skilled the shapers were.
Bayan sat on a fallen log at the edge of the forest, staring into the trees. That wasn’t quite right, he realized. She stared up and into the trees.
When he neared, she sighed. “How is Ifrit?”
Jasn took a seat next to her. What brought her out here? “Healed, as far as I could tell.”
“Tarak healed her?”
“No.”
“So you haven’t completely given up healing.”
Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) Page 15