Jasn staggered, falling to the floor of the cavern next to Alena. She stared at him, eyes glassy, probably already dead. No, not dead yet. If she was dead, he would feel that through the connection. Much longer and he would be dead.
The magic dragged on him, the connection he’d formed to Alena pulling both ways so that her fire shaping latched onto him, dragging fire away from him. The pull was enormous, strong enough that Jasn couldn’t resist; there was nothing he could do to stop it.
After all this time, he would finally die. And it would be one of the draasin to kill him.
He let out a soft sigh and crawled forward. If he was going to die, he would like to see the draasin egg up close and know what it was that killed him.
He’d thought it a simple egg that shared the coloring of the draasin and the scales, but up close, he could see variations to it, a pattern that swirled along the outside of the shell. Jasn reached for the egg, his arm cold. His joints weren’t working right, as if the heat sucked from him prevented him from moving as he should. When his hand settled on the draasin egg, he found it warm and smoother than he would have expected.
Of course it would be warm. The draasin sucked heat and life from him, from Alena, and for what? What did his fire do that helped the draasin?
Jasn leaned against the egg, resting his head on it for warmth. At least he would have that as he died.
But… he wasn’t dying. The weakness he’d felt and the cold torment of his joints began to lessen, and strength slowly eased back into him.
Jasn took a shaky breath and as he inhaled, he drew in more vitality.
“Now you help?” he said, as if the elementals could even answer.
He looked over at Alena but realized he didn’t need to. The connection between them told him she was coming around as well. Color returned to her cheeks and warmth returned to her body. Did the draasin lose warmth as they gained it, or did the water elementals somehow help with that as well?
Jasn stayed close to the egg, resting on it since he had no idea of what else he could do. It wasn’t as if his warmth helped the draasin, but he wasn’t sure that his body would respond to him as he wanted it to, either. Moments passed before he heard Alena take in a quick breath of air, and she slowly opened her eyes before sitting up and staring at him.
“What did you do?” The accusation in her voice was thick, and Jasn didn’t like the way she came across.
“What did I do? Nothing other than try to help you.”
She leaned to the side, resting her hand on the ground as she did, wobbling a little. Her gaze stopped on the draasin and she let out a pent-up breath. “You didn’t destroy it.”
Jasn laughed. “Destroy the egg? I knew what would happen to me if I considered it,” he said, “and to be honest, I didn’t even think of it.” Destroying the egg might have been easier. That way, he could have stopped whatever it was that drew on his and Alena’s ability to pull fire.
“How?” She scooted closer toward him.
Not to him, he decided, but to the egg.
“I don’t know,” he answered.
But he thought he did. The draw of fire was still there. He detected how the draasin egg still pulled the element, mostly from Alena. When he’d been near death, he had felt the way the draasin dragged all his shaping energy from him, but now the water elementals helped restore him, flooding him with water-infused strength. Jasn didn’t know if it would last, but maybe it would be enough for them to discover a way to slow the draasin.
Alena reached for the egg. This time, he didn’t stop her. What did it matter anyway? The draasin had done as much as it could to them, hadn’t it?
“The shell. It’s almost soft,” she said, her voice coming out in a whisper. She ran her hand along the glowing shell. “And it’s warm. Do you think it’s because it pulls fire from me?”
“Us,” Jasn corrected.
She looked at him askance.
“It’s drawing fire, and I think it’s drawing it off both of us.”
“How is it managing that?”
“My stupidity,” Jasn said. He should have known better than to forge the connection between the two of them, especially without knowing what it would do to him, but he’d thought… What? That he could overpower the fire shaping of a draasin?
And for all the help he’d wanted from water elementals, he hadn’t gotten any real assistance until his life had been in danger, not Alena’s. Why had they helped before when he’d been healing others? The elementals had aided him when he healed Thenas, and Wyath, and even Ifrit. Why not Alena?
More questions. Maybe he would never get the answers, would be left only with ongoing questions.
Alena lifted her hand off the draasin egg and watched him for a moment. Her deep blue eyes widened and she shook her head, slowly at first. “What did you do? Why can I sense the way fire is pulled from you? Why can I sense you more completely than I ever have before?”
Jasn sniffed. “I thought you were a skilled shaper. Can’t you tell what I did?”
“There’s nothing that would do this unless you used the water elementals. Is that what you did? Is that how I sense you now?”
“The damn water elementals didn’t answer when I tried reaching for them,” Jasn said. “So I used water and earth and worked the shaping on myself, thinking I could use that to help you. As it turns out, it didn’t work quite like that.”
“You shouldn’t be able to work a shaping on yourself,” she said.
“Why not? I’ve used water shapings on myself before—”
“Those were aided by the elementals.”
Jasn wasn’t completely convinced that they were. “So I tried this. And it tied us together, and then I wasn’t able to overcome what the draasin was doing to you. So like I said, my stupidity.”
Sitting next to her had given him time to recoup his strength, time enough that he felt he might be able to get up and leave the cavern. Maybe enough to shape his way out of Rens, but perhaps not much more than that.
“We can’t leave it here,” Alena said.
Jasn snorted. “You want to take a draasin egg out of here? Do you want the draasin to come after us?”
She shot him a sharp look that silenced him. “You do remember that I can speak to them? When the mother comes for the egg, then we’ll give it back. But I’m not so certain any draasin will be coming for these. Think of how they were trapped beneath the ground. There was no way the draasin would have reached them.”
Jasn looked around, wondering if that was completely true. There might be another way to access this cavern. Or there might have been, before the walls had caved in, leaving what had been the draasin nest damaged.
“Where are the others?” he asked. When Alena looked at him, eyes full of a question, Jasn explained, “There were three eggs here that I sensed while trapped. Where are the others?”
Alena stood, touching the top of the egg again, as if to reassure herself that it was safe and whole, before walking toward the fallen debris. “I can’t tell. They might have been damaged when the cavern started to fall.”
Jasn tried fire sensing, but the egg overwhelmed his ability to feel anything other than it. “I can’t tell either, but what if Mama returns for her eggs and one is missing and the others are damaged? Do you think you can explain that to her? I know you’re connected to them, but how deep does that connection run? Would the draasin understand if you explain an accident and that you had nothing to do with what happened to their eggs?”
The ground rumbled again and Jasn was thrown to the side. Alena leapt past him, going for the egg and lifting it with a shaping of earth and wind. The egg was nearly as tall as her torso, but she managed to hold it to her without falling.
“We need to get out of here,” Alena said. “Before the rest of the cavern falls down on us.”
Jasn glanced at the egg. They shouldn’t take it with them, but he doubted Alena would leave it behind. “Fine. What do you plan to do once we leave?”
/>
The ground trembled again and she tipped her head toward the clear sky overhead. “Outside.”
Jasn grunted and lifted to the air with a shaping of wind and earth, coming to land on the lip overlooking the cavern. Alena floated up from the floor of the cavern after him, still clutching the draasin egg. In the bright sunlight, the purple and red scales appeared almost pure black.
“That was—” Alena didn’t get a chance to finish.
The ground rumbled beneath them, and then a piece of rock exploded into the air. Jasn shaped earth and pushed away, protecting them from flying debris before jumping in front of Alena to help her. Some pieces managed to get through, spraying across his face and tearing his skin. One punched into his shoulder and went clear through, almost like a spear.
Jasn bit back a scream but already began to feel his flesh mending. The connection to the water elementals was strong since they’d come across the draasin egg, and he healed even more quickly than usual.
For earth to fly with such force, it had to have been shaped, but where were the shapers? Who would attack?
Rens had no shapers, at least not like Ter. They had some ability to use the elements, but their ability was different from his and required time for it to build. Jasn had never learned how Rens shaping worked, and he knew that they weren’t completely helpless, but they also shouldn’t be able to hide from them.
He saw nothing to explain the shaping.
He turned back to Alena. “Where do you intend to go?”
“I don’t intend to go anywhere. I needed your help with one of the draasin. That was the reason that I came here in the first place.”
“What do you want to do with the egg?”
Wind swirled around them, and the earth surged again. There was no doubting that it was shaped now, but who?
“The barracks,” she said.
“Are you certain that’s wise? How many know about your abilities?”
“It’s not only my ability. There are others with similar skills. Eldridge. Wyath. Maybe even Cheneth—”
The rock exploded from the ground again, spraying toward them. They were being targeted by someone near enough to know where they were. Jasn pulled on wind. Earth might work, but he was weakened from what had happened with the draasin and wasn’t sure he would be strong enough to stop the rock by using earth alone. Wind could redirect it, though, and he sent the rocks showering into the cavern below.
“Fine. Then we need to go. I don’t know how long we can hold off this attack.” And he didn’t know if the attack would follow them. If it did, he might not be able to keep them safe. “Can you shape to travel?”
“I will have to,” she said.
Her shaping built with ferocious energy, lightning streaked from the cloudless sky, and she disappeared with the thunder.
Jasn waited, watching to see if the attack would follow her or if it would remain focused on him. Another blast built, stronger than the last. This time, Jasn recognized something in the shaping. Could this be Lachen’s attack? Had the damn man learned of the draasin eggs?
Without waiting for an answer, Jasn pulled a mixture of each of the elements together, binding them so that he could travel on lightning, and streaked after Alena.
As he landed in the shaper circle in the barracks, he was surprised to see Alena wasn’t there yet. Had the attack followed her? She should have managed to travel fast enough that it couldn’t reach her, but what if she wasn’t able to? What if carrying the draasin egg had slowed her or had leached enough strength that she couldn’t finish the shaping?
Unless she had stopped someplace else with the draasin egg. That made more sense than the other possibilities, though he wouldn’t have been all that surprised to learn that the attack had trailed after her. Throwing around that much earth might be a simple shaping, but it took strength. He wouldn’t have been able to do that much earth shaping after what he’d been through. Stars, it might be days before he’d be able to do much of anything.
No one else was near the shaper circle in the barracks. Water and earth sensing told him others were here, but not where they might be.
Another shaping built and he stepped away from the shaper circle, expecting Alena to return, but she was not here.
Calan landed in a flash of light and looked at Jasn with a dark smile. “What are you doing here?”
“Returning with Alena from a mission,” he said. He wouldn’t be the one to tell Calan what they had been doing, but he couldn’t hide from him the fact that they’d been gone. He might be covered in blood anyway, his clothing torn during the attack and in their efforts to keep the draasin egg from killing them.
“You look like you died,” Calan observed.
“I’ve looked worse.”
He laughed and clapped Jasn on the shoulder. “So I hear. Were you able to help Ifrit?”
Jasn glanced back at the barracks before answering. “Ifrit should be fine. I was able to heal her, though I haven’t had a chance to check on her again since I left with Alena.”
Calan nodded and started toward the center of the barracks. As he did, another shaping built, and Jasn looked to the shaper circle in time to see Alena arrive. She still clutched the draasin egg to her, and her eyes went wide when she saw Calan.
Calan stopped and turned toward her. A tight smile spread across his face. “Is that…” He stepped forward, ignoring Jasn, and touched the scaled surface of the egg. “Blast! It is! You’ve managed to find one of the draasin eggs?”
Alena backed away, silently staring at Calan, her eyes wide with unease.
26
Alena
Was it Commander Lachen or his predecessor who decided to train hunters of the draasin? It surprises that they have been successful, which suggests they had additional help. Atenas has never been that competent.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
Alena clutched the draasin egg, feeling the heat pulsing from it. Holding on to the egg had required every ounce of her focus and delayed her arrival. Had she more strength, she might have traveled to someplace deeper in the forest, perhaps even to the other draasin pen, where she could use the stone to mask the egg’s presence, but she wasn’t sure she would be able to handle the shaping if she did that—traveling on such a shaping required focus, even more when she was less certain of the destination—so instead, she brought herself back to the barracks.
Calan watched her, took a step toward her. Alena wasn’t sure what the man intended, but she’d seen the way he attacked the draasin with furious rage in the past, and she wasn’t about to let him have the egg before she had the chance to study it and understand how it had nearly killed her.
“What do you intend to do with it?” Calan asked.
Volth stepped between her and Calan, and she felt his shaping building. That she did made her nearly drop the egg again. It wasn’t that he used a blunt shaping—if his time in the barracks had done anything, it was to turn him into a subtle shaper—but because of whatever he’d done to heal her.
“What does it matter?” Alena stepped away from the shaper circle. She couldn’t go anywhere now anyway, not without using strength she simply didn’t have, but she could use the strength of the barracks. There were others here who understood what they were trying to do, if only they were here.
Calan eyed the egg, his gaze lingering on it longingly before coming up to her face. “It matters. Where did you find it, at least?”
“Rens,” she said, and wished she hadn’t. If Calan went searching for eggs, his hunt would take on a different twist, a darkness that she had hoped to protect the draasin from. Calan was skilled and might be able to destroy fully grown draasin, but it was difficult even for him. Destroying draasin eggs would be something else entirely. He wouldn’t have to risk himself to do it, not as they did with the adults.
“Rens?” He turned toward the south as if he intended to jump on a shaping to find eggs of his own.
The only thing that p
rotected the eggs was how difficult they had been to find. But knowing they were buried and what a draasin nest looked like gave them an advantage.
“Let me examine it,” Calan went on.
“Cheneth first,” Volth said. “And then he can decide—”
Calan rounded on Volth, building a powerful shaping. To Volth’s credit, he faced Calan without flinching. Most within the barracks feared and respected Calan, but then again, Alena didn’t think Volth was like the others. He had faced nightmares for months with the threat of death hanging over him, almost as if he wanted it, so what was a man like Calan when faced with that?
“You should return to your studies. You have barely passed the first trial.” Calan’s eyes narrowed and he leaned into Volth. “Do not think I will be as soft with you for the second.”
Volth smiled and placed his hands out in front of him and pressed. Earth and water surged through him, forcing Calan back. There was nothing subtle about that shaping.
“And you should be more careful,” Volth said. There was a hint of menace in his tone, enough for her to recognize that he would have been terrifying while in Rens. How had she thought otherwise? She knew what they’d called him; he probably had earned his nickname many times over while he was there. His tone shifted, and he lowered his hands. “Touching the egg is dangerous.”
Calan glanced at the draasin egg.
“The draasin somehow attempts to feed on the shaping,” Jasn went on.
Alena felt her stomach drop. Would Volth reveal to Calan what had happened? That she had been foolish, attempting to shape the egg after discovering that something was off when she did? She should have known better, but she had been drawn to shape fire toward it, almost as if the draasin within the egg called to her. Then again, that might have been what had happened. Could the draasin speak to her, even before fully formed?
There was still so much about the draasin that she didn’t know, and she felt at their mercy. They were powerful and nearly overwhelmed her mind, and if she didn’t learn some measure of control, she would be bound to suffer again.
Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) Page 22