Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  When Olina didn’t answer, Ciara pressed. “The first time I saw the shadow man—Tenebeth,” she corrected herself, using the name that Olina had given him, “was in the waste. My village is near the edge, close enough that we can see the dust storms as they rise, but usually far enough that we manage to find water. When that dried up, I risked crossing.”

  “Why would you do such a thing?”

  “I am a water seeker,” she answered. The lack of change of emotion on Olina’s face told Ciara that the woman recognized the term. “I can’t manipulate it, not as some in the village have learned to do, but I detected a vast expanse of water in the middle of the waste.”

  Olina leaned forward, and brought a finger to her lips. “He would not come to those lands, Rider, so where did you see Tenebeth?”

  Ciara thought back to the night she’d fallen from the shelf. She’d nearly died then, and the lizard had come and licked her. But hadn’t she seen the shadow man there as well? He had come, almost like a dream—though that might have been her nearly dying more than anything, moving toward her in swirls of color. And she would have gone with him, drawn to him, had it not been for the blasted lizard licking her.

  “In the desert,” she said.

  But was it the desert? Hadn’t she crossed the waste when they found the shelf, the massive rock that dropped to hard ground far below? The waste was a massive expanse of sand and dunes, but they had crossed the waste before stopping.

  “Not the desert, then,” Olina said as she watched Ciara’s face. “Tell me about him.”

  “There is nothing more to say. He walked with me some of the time.” But not all, and not when the lizard had been with her. At the time, she had thought it strange, but now she wondered if they had been battling for possession of her. Why? What would have happened to her if she would have gone off with the shadow man? Would the lizard have chased her, or would she have needed to choose, much like she ultimately did? “He offered me the chance for…” She paused and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

  Olina stood and crossed over to Ciara. She rested a hand on the j’na, touching the symbols along the shaft of the spear. “Why does it not? Tenebeth seeks to know what is in your heart, and he will use that to draw you into his plans. So, Rider, what is in your heart?”

  Ciara thought about the offer, the temptation that she’d felt at hearing it. For so long, she had longed to be more than what she was. As nya’shin, the village respected her, but not as they would were she a shaper.

  That was what the shadow man had preyed on. Power. Ability. Strength she didn’t possess. That had been the offer, and she had managed to refuse. Twice.

  Would she be able to refuse a third time if he came for her?

  Olina watched her and shook her head slowly. “You may keep it to yourself, Rider, but you must understand what he wants from you and what he offers. If you cannot, then you will be drawn by him.”

  “If not an elemental, then what is he?” She remembered well the power she felt when she had been near him, one that had turned dark and cold the second time he approached.

  Olina glanced at the sky and then at the stump she’d sat on. “The draasin live in the light. Most within this world does, thriving in the sun.”

  Ciara sniffed, wondering if her people would ever really thrive in the light. They suffered and struggled, but did they thrive? Could they?

  “Tenebeth lives in the dark spaces and opposes the light. He is power, much like the light is power.” Olina frowned. “In some ways, Tenebeth is like an elemental, but different. Much like the light is connected to life, and each elemental a part of that life, so too is Tenebeth, only the connection is different. With each that he claims, his connection strengthens. The same as it does when others call him.” She touched her neck again, and her eyes closed. “But Tenebeth cannot claim the connection to the elementals himself. That was never his power. That is why he needs others, those capable of finding the light, of speaking to it, to do what he cannot. Were he able, he would command the elementals, but he cannot.”

  What Olina told her was almost too much for her to take in. What could she do against a being as strong as the shadow man? For as long as she had lived, she had wanted power, but the power to help her people. When the shadow man had come to her, he had offered her what she wanted, but there would have been a price. Ciara didn’t know what that would be, but she had felt it, a deep sense within her of a toll she wasn’t able to pay.

  But that wasn’t entirely correct. She might have been able to pay the price the shadow man asked of her—all he wanted was for her to go with him, though she suspected it would have required much more than that—but she wasn’t willing.

  “Why does he want me?” Ciara asked.

  “Because you have proven to be a rider. You can call the draasin.”

  She shook her head. “He came to me before I ever called the draasin.”

  Olina sighed. “You must have spoken to the draasin before. Tenebeth only turns his attention on those able to reach for the light.”

  “What about other elementals?”

  “The others are not the draasin.”

  Ciara thought about how the lizard had climbed on the draasin she’d found on the hard waste. Hadn’t the lizard healed the draasin? They had to be related somehow. And Olina still hadn’t answered when she had mentioned the lizard.

  “Then why am I here?” Ciara asked.

  “That is not for me to know. You say the draasin brought you here. Perhaps it is to teach you to call to them, though it seems another has taught you.” Olina touched the j’na again, her fingers lingering on the carving.

  Ciara had never recognized the marks her father made along the side, but the more she learned about how he used his j’na, the more she believed the markings were important.

  “Tell me about these markings then,” Ciara said. “You said they were the markings of someone who fights for the light.”

  “They are. And they are placed by another, but not one who would be found in Rens.”

  “My father placed these carvings on my j’na.”

  Olina’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Then he has trained in Hyaln.”

  Ciara laughed at the idea of her father ever having been anywhere but the village. As far as she knew, he had barely wandered as one of the nya’shin. “My father hasn’t left Rens since he was raised to ala’shin. Before that, he served as nya’shin.”

  “What is a nya’shin?”

  “I am. We are water seekers, gifted by the Stormbringer with the ability to find water. Without the nya’shin, we would long ago have died.”

  And now it didn’t matter. Her people were gone, part of the village destroyed, taken by… who? Ter? Ciara no longer understood anything.

  Olina touched the spear, tracing her fingers down the side. “In Hyaln, we call this jainah. They are the staves of the wise, only given to those who can claim true wisdom.”

  Ciara glanced past Olina to the woman’s spear, leaning against the stump. It was long and slender, but not entirely unlike her j’na. “Is that where you received yours?”

  Olina nodded. “Training in Hyaln is difficult, even for those selected by the enlightened.”

  “What does it mean to be enlightened?”

  Olina shook her head. “The answer belongs to Hyaln.” She tapped the j’na. “This shape is not one I have seen before. There is skill in its making, but it is less ornate than those given to the wise. My jainah took three years and twelve of the wise to carve. There are still messages that I find, though with each year it becomes more difficult.”

  “Well, my j’na took my father…” Ciara trailed off, not certain how long it had taken her father to carve. She had a growing unease within her. Why would the j’na that her father carved be so similar to Olina’s jainah? And why would her father know so much about things he should not? If Olina was right, and if he really needed to have trained in Hyaln to know how to make the carvings, what did that mean? Co
uld her father really have left the village?

  Ciara felt the urge to return to her home, but for reasons she’d never had before. She had thought her people had remained along the edge of the waste, helpless, but if her father had been able to speak to the draasin all along, then they hadn’t been helpless. Why had they stayed?

  Olina turned away and reached for her staff. She pressed it into the ground with each step, and a surge of energy came from it as she did. It was a mixture of heat and pressure, and she felt it inside her in a way that made it hard to breathe.

  “Tell me, Rider, what you learned from your father.”

  Ciara shook her head. “It seems that I didn’t learn much of anything,” she said. Her father might have taught her about her people and about what it took to be nya’shin, but there seemed so much more he had failed to share with her.

  Olina pressed her staff into the ground. Again, Ciara felt the way power surged from it. Heat mixed in.

  Why should Ciara feel it?

  “Not much of anything?” she said. “You called the draasin?”

  “He was there with me. He helped with the summoning.”

  Olina stepped forward again, and this time her staff pressed even deeper. The shaft started glowing with a soft white light. “If that was all him, the draasin would not have allowed you to ride. You would not have been brought to me. He taught you more than you realize.”

  She thought of the tapping, the steady rhythm he had used to draw the draasin, and the familiar way that it had called to her. Ciara had felt something similar as a child, had known that rhythm before and would have been able to dance to it with her eyes closed. Even now, she could feel the solid cadence of the tapping and the emotion that it stirred in her chest.

  Without thinking, she lifted her j’na and pressed it to the ground with a sharp flick of her wrist. The motion was different than what Olina used—hers was a steady pressure into the ground while Ciara used a quick snap—but there came a flash from the j’na and a sizzle of heat that reminded her of Rens.

  Olina smiled and took a step to the side. She pressed again with her staff, and Ciara copied her, snapping her j’na to the ground.

  This time, Ciara felt the surge of power from her j’na that was much like what she’d experienced when summoning the draasin.

  “Yes, you have learned more than you realized.” Olina stopped and leaned on her staff. “The technique is different, but I recognize the teachings of Rolan in the way you press, mixed with Uyrea in the speed. I never was able to master those techniques, which is why I followed Polis.” She lifted her staff again and pressed it deeply into the ground. The grasses around them flattened as if a massive hand pressed down atop them. “Whoever your father might be, it is clear he studied in Hyaln.”

  Olina started away, leaving Ciara standing with her j’na still pressed into the mud. She pulled it out, the end caked with black earth, and trailed after Olina. “Then why did he send me here? If he knew how to summon the draasin, why did he refuse to teach me?”

  Olina paused long enough to look over at Ciara. “You continue to think he refused. From what I can tell, you learned much. Perhaps not the same as you would had you studied in Hyaln, but you have learned the beginnings of how to call to the draasin. Others will follow.”

  She started toward the hillside. “Perhaps you should return to him. You have a technique that I could never replicate, which makes teaching it difficult.”

  “That’s the problem,” Ciara said. “I can’t return to him. The draasin brought me here. I can only believe that they brought me to learn from you.”

  That had to be the reason. Otherwise, why would the draasin have taken her away from her home and brought her to these strange and wet lands where there was nothing familiar?

  Olina leaned on her staff and looked over the town of K’ral. Ciara stopped next to her, waiting for the old woman to say something, perhaps to tell her some secret. But she said nothing.

  From here, K’ral was a large town, much larger than her village, and dozens of people moved through the early morning streets. Smoke trailed up from chimneys scattered throughout the town, and the scent of baking bread rose over the wet earth and green aromas that filled her nostrils.

  “This land is my home now, but it wasn’t always that way,” Olina said. “When I trained in Hyaln, I was one of the wise, skilled in ways that even the enlightened were not.” The smile slipped on her face and she shrugged. Her fingers trailed along the length of her jainah, almost a caress. “None of that matters anymore. I am to serve K’ral.” She tipped her head back and turned to Ciara. “I cannot say why you have been brought to us. Perhaps the draasin know more and could answer were they to return, but it has been many years since they have answered the call of anyone in Tsanth, even from the Hyaln. And maybe that is the reason you are here. Perhaps you are meant to help Tsanth find the draasin again.”

  Ciara couldn’t take her eyes off K’ral. “I need to get home. I need to help my people, my father…”

  “You are here now, Rider. This can be your home.” Olina started down the hillside leading into K’ral.

  Ciara hesitated, holding tightly to her j’na before following. The soft ground squished beneath her foot, and Ciara knew that this would never be her home. Somehow she would have to find a way to reach the draasin again, discover why they had brought her here, and then… Then she needed to return to Rens and find out what had happened to her people. But how, since Olina seemed unwilling to teach?

  23

  Alena

  The Khalan seeks a place of power. They will not share with me where. I either need to take a more active role, or I will not learn what I desire.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  Alena had made it to Rens, immediately feeling the sharp change of the heat that overwhelmed her, nearly sucking the breath out of her lungs. She’d been to Rens often enough since coming to the barracks, and each time, she expected it would get easier, but it never did. Rarely did she come alone, as she was now. When she hunted with Calan, he always enjoyed the search for the draasin, and she had made a point of coming with him, not willing to let him hunt without her.

  Cheneth had paired the hunters, and Calan had chafed under the dictum that he work with Alena. She had made a point of trying to prove herself, knowing he would only judge her on how successful they were in their hunts. Alena had done all she could to stop him from actually harming the draasin, but that had grown increasingly difficult over the past year.

  The shaping she’d attached to Volth had drawn her here, but she didn’t know why. Where was he?

  All around her was more of the same bleak landscape Rens was known for. Not all Rens; there were parts, mostly those that Ter had taken long ago, where grasses grew long and tall, where the spindly icanth trees grew in great rows, holding water like long reeds, and where water actually flowed. Those places had become part of the rest of Ter, absorbed like so much else.

  Alena had always felt there was value in Ter taking on more land. The order provided a lawfulness, and the warriors kept peace. But over time, her feelings on that had changed, tied to the conversations she’d shared with the draasin.

  Ter had attacked in Rens because of the draasin, with the order intending to keep the people of Rens safe from the draasin, but it had soon become something else. Alena hadn’t been a part of the order then and wasn’t sure what she would have done had she been asked to help with those earliest invasions. Would the draasin have reached out to her sooner? It hadn’t been until she had gone to the barracks, until she was faced with the possibility of attacking them, that the draasin had first spoken to her.

  Alena well remembered that first time. The voice had exploded within her mind during a hunt. Wyath had led her, guiding her as she crept up on the draasin, intending only to see one of the creatures, not to actually attack. When the voice had come, she hadn’t known what it was.

  Wyath had. That had been when Alena
first knew she was a part of something more, when she learned that there was something beyond even the wisdom of the order.

  Joining the order had been a difficult decision for her. Growing up along the border with Tsanth, she had a different appreciation for other people than what she’d found within Ter, different than what she’d seen from others within Atenas, and that was supposed to be a place of learning, a place where scholars studied and understood the elements, but Alena had discovered there was much they didn’t understand.

  She pushed away thoughts of Atenas and focused on finding Volth. That blasted man had to be here somewhere. Her shaping told her he was near, but she couldn’t find him. She didn’t find anything really. Nothing but heat and the sun.

  Why had she been drawn here, then? What had pulled her here of all places?

  Maybe the connection hadn’t worked as she intended. That would be unusual. It wasn’t a particularly difficult shaping, requiring only a mix of earth and air to follow, but it was possible that Jasn had discovered it and modified it somehow.

  No, she didn’t think he had.

  Then where was he?

  She shifted her focus to earth, listening for a change, but found nothing.

  Not earth then, but could she find him with water? He was tied to water almost as tightly as she was tied to fire, so if she listened with the right sensing, she might be able to detect him.

  Alena focused, straining for water. In these lands, there was no water.

  That wasn’t right, she realized. There was water, but it was faint and trapped deep beneath the earth just over the ridgeline. Alena lifted to the air on a shaping of wind and came to land in the remains of an old village.

  There was nothing else there, nothing that would tell her where to find Volth, but that didn’t change the sense of water.

  She searched among the rubble, looking for why she would be drawn here as she followed the shaping to him. The rock reminded her of an old Rens village, and from the way it piled into a heap, swept over by dust and time, she figured it had been gone for years.