Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Running a finger through the dust, she paused. Not years. The dirt around here had been swept, but not by wind and time. It had been moved by an earth shaping, one crafted with subtlety and meant to mask what had happened.

  Her heart quickened and she strained again for water. The sense of it was there, but it was weak and distant, not at all enough to signal that someone lived.

  There had to be another way to search for him. Earth and water sensing weren’t working, but would fire? Alena was better connected to fire than the other elements, and the connection to the draasin had strengthened that bond, adding to her skill.

  Holding fire, she stretched out, using a trick she’d learned when searching for the draasin. It involved focusing on differences in temperature, something that required a subtle touch. Out here in Rens, there was no real difference in the temperature, nothing but the steady heat. But that wasn’t where she detected the hint of moisture. Shifting her focus to reach beneath her, she used fire sensing to delve beneath the ground, sweeping out in a wide arc all around.

  There she detected the variation in temperature, and the change was marked. Massive heat existed beneath the ground. She should have been able to detect it more easily than she had, but she’d been so focused on using a combination of water and earth that she hadn’t.

  What was this place?

  Not only had there been an earth shaping that attempted to obscure it, but there was enough fire beneath the ground to indicate one of the draasin.

  Blast! What if was one of the draasin?

  But one of the draasin wouldn’t be trapped beneath the ground. Something else, then.

  Alena had to know. Using earth, she poured a shaping into the ground, pulling aside rock and lifting it atop the rest of the rubble of the fallen village. It moved slowly, and the effort of the shaping was taxing, draining her quickly. There was no finesse to moving rock like this, nothing but brute-force shaping.

  The farther she went, the more certain she became that there was something deeper in the ground. The earth began to press up against her. No, that wasn’t quite right. It pressed up to assist her. Alena grabbed the rock and pulled, moving with more and more speed, unmindful of the waste of shaping energy. It would take her time to recover, and it might be that she didn’t have time to spare, but whatever—or whoever—was beneath the ground was her focus now.

  A wide cavern opened up beneath her. With a blast of earth and wind, Jasn Volth surged toward her. Blood poured from a deep gash on his head, but that mended as she watched. One arm twisted strangely behind him, bent at a painful angle that rotated around, healing as he came to land on the ground next to her.

  She had known he had skill with water shaping, but skill enough to heal himself like this? Who had such ability? Focusing inward with this intensity wasn’t possible! But then, what Jasn did wasn’t necessarily shaping, was it? The elementals healed him. Hadn’t he said that when he was in Rens, he had wanted to die but couldn’t?

  “How did you find me?”

  She felt the shaping he held, a dangerous collection of earth and wind. After tearing rock from the ground, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to defend against him if he tried to throw her into the pit she’d opened. Unlike him, she didn’t have any ability to heal herself.

  “I tied a shaping to you when we were at the Sanash in case you decided to disappear.”

  He frowned, his brow furrowed. “Normally I’d be upset, but seeing that I wouldn’t have managed to escape without your helping, I don’t think I have that luxury.”

  “What happened?”

  He glanced at the pit. A shaping she didn’t recognize washed away from him. “We came to Hessan, mostly for me. I wanted to see it, to determine what steps to take next. Someone had been here, but I wasn’t able to tell who. When I went into the building”—he looked at the pile of rubble, his frown deepening—“the wall collapsed, burying me. It was all I could do to hold the earth in place so that it didn’t crush me.”

  Alena considered how much earth and rock she’d moved. That should have been enough to crush someone. How had he enough strength to hold it in place?

  “You shouldn’t have been able to hold that much.”

  He grunted. “Don’t sound like you’re disappointed,” he said. “And I wouldn’t have been, but I used one of the marks like Wyath placed in the barracks. The kind that seal in earth.”

  Alena tried to hide her surprise. Using an earth seal, or any seal for that matter, was not a trivial shaping. The shapers who managed to do so had studied and trained for years before succeeding, and mostly on shapings that weren’t so critical. Never would a shaper have started with a shaping designed to keep them alive.

  “It didn’t hold quite as well as I hoped,” Jasn went on. “That’s why I have this.” He pointed to his head. “Had, I guess.”

  “You said ‘we.’”

  He nodded. “Bayan was with me.”

  “Where is she?”

  Jasn shook his head. “I thought she went to find help, but seeing as she’s not with you, I’m not sure.”

  “She wasn’t with you inside the building when it collapsed?”

  “Not inside. And I couldn’t reach her afterward. I think she tried…”

  Jasn went to the edge of the pit and stared down into the earth. Alena stopped next to him, wondering what drew his attention. She would think that after escaping from the rock, he would want nothing more than to leave it alone.

  “There’s something else, Alena.”

  “What?”

  Jasn pointed. “Down there. Don’t you sense it?”

  She frowned and realized that she did. The massive swell of heat was still beneath her. She had found Jasn, but that had been more chance than anything else. What she’d sensed had reminded her of the draasin.

  “I always wondered why they came here, why the attack was so powerful for a place like this. It was different than so many of the others along the border of Rens. The attacks this deep were always more ferocious.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He smiled tightly. “Now I think I understand. It doesn’t change the fact that so many died, but at least I understand.”

  “Volth?”

  “That’s what you’re sensing, Alena,” he said. “Down there. The heat. I sensed it as well.”

  “The draasin?”

  “Not the draasin. Eggs. This is their nest.”

  24

  Jasn

  The College of Scholars has remained neutral longer than what Hyaln can claim. Is it possible that one of the college violated that neutrality? Is it possible that I will violate that neutrality?

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  When Jasn first felt the stirring of rock above him, he’d allowed himself hope. The shaping came slowly and with great strength. Maybe Bayan hadn’t abandoned him as he feared. Where was that damn woman? She should have at least tried something to get him free, but then, maybe she thought him dead. Many had been left for dead in Rens over the years—what was one more shaper, even one they called the Wrecker of Rens? Then the rock continued to move, peeling away from him and easing his shaping. He pushed outward, flexing with earth until it exploded away from him, freeing him from the weight that had nearly crushed him. With a shaping of earth and wind, he leapt from the cavern to find Alena.

  She stood at the base of the cavern, glowing with a red-hot shaping of fire, one that Jasn doubted he could maintain. “What did you see when you were down here?”

  “Honestly? I saw nothing but rock. I was trying my best to keep it from crushing me.” The irony wasn’t lost on him. All the time spent over the past year willing to die, and then he was crushed under the weight of Rens collapsing on him. Had he known that was the way to succeed, he might have tried it sooner. Now, though, he wanted answers, not death.

  “I feel the egg but can’t find where it is.”

  Jasn closed his eyes and reluctantly dropped to the groun
d within the cavern. It should be safer now that Hessan wasn’t trying to fall on his head, but he still didn’t like the memory of what had happened to him here. With Alena’s shaping, he could see. When he had been here alone, there had been only darkness. How long had he been there, waiting to find out what would happen, waiting to find out when his shaping would finally give out and the rock would crush him? Hours? Nearly a day?

  The sun was at nearly the same angle as it had been before, making him wonder if it had been a day. How had he managed to maintain the shaping so long? Fatigue alone should have led to his failure.

  But maybe he hadn’t maintained the shaping by himself. He hadn’t died, and from what he’d discovered of the water elementals, they had some interest in keeping him alive. One of these days, he’d learn to speak to them and finally ask why. For now, he should be grateful.

  “There’s at least two,” Jasn said, brushing past Alena and sensing the heat rising from her body, fully aware of how powerful a shaper she was. “There might be another, but I’m not as skilled with fire as some.” The realization of what they were had come to him slowly while trapped, but he hadn’t been able to reach them. Not without help.

  She smiled tightly and slid forward, moving into the dark shadows of the cavern. It was much larger than he’d assumed and extended far beneath the surface of what had been Hessan. No air moved, nothing that would signal there was an outside access.

  Caverns such as this didn’t frighten him, not as they once did. As a child growing up in the Gholund Mountains, Lachen had often led them into the caves worked into the mountainside, telling him tales of monsters that lived within, frightening him. He remembered a time when they had come across such a monster, the way the golden eyes glowed deep within the cave, and he’d run out, terrified. Lachen had run after him, no less scared. The wolf that emerged was no monster, at least not of the sort that Jasn had come to imagine, but it was no less frightening.

  There was something about this cavern that unsettled him, though not in a way he could put a finger on. There was power here, and the heat pressed on him, hotter even than above ground, where the sun baked the rest of Rens, but neither bothered him. As much as he trusted that Alena could speak to the draasin, he didn’t want to get between one and her eggs.

  “We should leave,” he whispered.

  “We’ve never found a nest,” Alena said. “We’ve found draasin of all sizes, but never a nest. We haven’t even confirmed that they hatch from eggs.”

  Jasn sniffed. “I thought we’d found enough fragments to prove it.”

  Alena stepped forward, waving her arms excitedly. “Not with any certainty. There haven’t even been any sightings. This would be the first.”

  “I’m thinking about what happens when she returns,” Jasn said. He had noticed the heat when he’d been trapped, but now it seemed it was increasing.

  Jasn saw the first draasin egg. It was nearly two feet tall and oblong, resting on the ground at an angle. It was scaled, much like the draasin, and pulled the heat from Alena’s hand toward it, as if feeding on her fire.

  Jasn grabbed for her hand and pulled her back.

  Alena glared at him.

  “Don’t you sense it?” he asked.

  “Sense what?”

  Jasn positioned himself to get in front of the egg, blocking Alena from reaching for it. “Don’t you sense the way that it’s pulling on fire? What do you think will happen if you touch it?” Would it draw so much fire from her that she couldn’t tolerate it?

  The ground trembled for a moment and he looked up, wondering if Alena was shaping earth, but she seemed as surprised as him. When it came again, rock and debris fell from overhead and crashed into the ground, sending up a spray of dust.

  “I thought I was done with this place crashing down on me,” he muttered.

  Alena leaned around him and reached toward the egg. Fire trickled from her, easing away. When the shaping touched the egg, the egg pulled on it, dragging it from her. Her shaping intensified, growing more and more as the egg pulled it away from her. Alena gasped and the color in her skin faded.

  Jasn touched her hand; it had gone cold. She shook, trembling as the fire shaping was drawn from her. It was enormous, pulled with such strength that Jasn couldn’t imagine her surviving.

  “Let go of the shaping!”

  Alena looked up at him, her eyes wide and scared. “I. Can’t.”

  Jasn turned from Alena to the draasin egg. If he did nothing, the egg would continue to pull fire from her, and he didn’t think she would be able to survive what was happening, especially not after what she’d gone through to save him.

  Could he separate the egg from her shaping?

  Not with fire. If he used fire, he risked the egg pulling on him the same as it did on her. Earth and water countered fire. Could he shape it strongly enough to help?

  But how?

  Jasn pulled on earth and water, twisting them together as he readied a shaping. How could he use it to help Alena?

  Her lips had gone blue. She no longer trembled but was stiff and still. The draasin was pulling the remaining life from her.

  Damn! He had to try something.

  Earth was too risky, but water he could use, especially if he could reach for the elementals. Only, he still had no idea how to reach them consistently.

  He took her hands and readied water alone. Jasn wasn’t sure water would be enough, not to counter the fire shaping that was being pulled by a creature that was pure fire. He needed help, but would he get it?

  Please help, he begged as he readied the shaping.

  Water surged from him, flowing into Alena. Her body was cold, and the clinical part of his mind, the part that had been trained by the healer guild, couldn’t find anything particularly wrong with her. There was nothing but the effect of her shaping. He sensed her fatigue and the way the shaping pulled strength from her, but he couldn’t find anything else that might be wrong.

  Yet he sensed her life leaching away. Every moment he waited, she grew weaker.

  Jasn pulled on water and forced healing into her. There was no time for gentle healing; doing so only risked her failing. So he shoved water into Alena, using that to push life back into her.

  For a moment, he thought it worked. Warmth returned, but it was fleeting.

  Jasn swore to himself. If he could only speak to the damn elementals, he might be able to get her help. Wouldn’t water elementals be able to counter whatever the draasin egg was doing to her?

  Only, he couldn’t seem to reach them, not as he had when he’d used their strength to heal Wyath, or even Ifrit. It was as if they didn’t listen or refused to answer.

  “Alena can help, damn you!” he swore at the egg.

  He pulled on the shaping, drawing more and more water, but he didn’t pull on it enough.

  Alena fell.

  Jasn held on to her hands, squeezing them tightly as she dropped, keeping her from hitting the ground.

  Please.

  He begged whatever elemental might listen, not knowing how to reach them, only that he had to. His strength faded; he didn’t have enough to keep pushing water into her, and if he didn’t have help, she would die. Jasn didn’t want to be the reason Alena died, not if he could help it. Too many had died around him, so many that he hadn’t been able to save in spite of his gifts.

  What had he done before when using the shaping that had healed Wyath? Nothing that was different than any other time he had healed, or was it?

  Damn the elementals anyway! If they weren’t willing to help when he needed, and if they were willing to let Alena die, then maybe he didn’t want to speak to them.

  But he wasn’t willing to let her die.

  There was another shaping, but it was risky. He’d focused on pushing water into Alena in the healing, but he could add earth. Doing that risked losing control, and earth wasn’t the same. Jasn had seen a way that it could work but had never attempted it.

  If he did nothing, it w
ouldn’t matter anyway.

  He mixed earth into water, using the draw of the life all around him. This had been the key, he suspected, and when he’d suggested the shaping before, he had been surrounded by others he could borrow from. Now there was only him. Hopefully doing this wouldn’t weaken him so much that he died.

  Damn her for risking herself so foolishly.

  He turned his shaping inward. Most claimed that shapings couldn’t be used on the shaper, but Jasn had seen that wasn’t the case. Water shaping worked for him, and he imagined that the others would as well. Now he had to test the earth shaping on himself.

  Jasn layered it quickly, using water to stabilize what he did, drawing strength from himself and pulling it through the shaping and over to Alena. The work weakened him, but there wasn’t any other choice.

  A connection between them formed. As it did, Jasn shared in what was happening to Alena. He sensed the pain, the agony she felt as the draasin egg sucked life from her. He gasped, feeling his own life and warmth sucked from him by the draasin. How could something so small have such a profound effect on him?

  He needed more time, but that required separating the connection. Jasn released water, but nothing changed. He tried letting go of earth, but the shaped connection between them remained.

  Jasn realized his mistake. He had thought to help Alena, to heal her, but the connection he’d formed between them did nothing more than weaken them both. The draasin would pull from both of them, tearing out not only her life but his too.

  25

  Jasn

  The Khalan must have trained the shin. The summons and the focus are much too similar, choosing a staff with rune traps etched onto the surface. How did they choose those with the potential? Did they know that the shin would resist Ter as they have?

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars