33
Jasn
The college is unsettled. I have returned to find discord that should not exist and alliances where we should be neutral. An ancient text is missing from the archives, and I fear what it means.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
“I see the draasin,” Alena said.
Jasn could more than simply see the draasin, he could feel the heat coming off it. The sense was different than from any of the draasin he’d experienced in the barracks. That had been a dry, painful heat. This burned through his body, leaving him feeling a painful agony.
They streaked past the draasin and landed in a grassy clearing much like what they had left. An old woman crouched on the ground and a Rens warrior clutched her long spear, preparing to pull it from the ground.
Jasn had seen many such warriors in his time in Rens. One had left a spear plunged through his shoulder, but as usual, the elementals had healed him.
He was starting to shape an attack upon the warrior when the voice of water exploded in his mind.
Do not harm her.
Jasn shifted his shaping toward the ground, preparing a buffer for their landing. Alena dropped next to him. Wyath came more slowly and landed with a thundering surge of earth. Wind whipped around and he wondered why Wyath shaped it with such strength.
“Is there anything you can do?” he asked Alena.
Her eyes were wide as she stared at the draasin circling in the sky. It breathed fire toward them that Wyath waved away with a shaping of earth and water.
“I can’t reach her. She’s silent.”
The Rens warrior held her spear, prepared to strike. “You won’t use your tainted draasin against us.”
The old woman reached for the warrior’s arm and pulled it down. “Easy, Rider. They are the help.”
The girl—Jasn realized she was barely more than a girl—hesitated, lowering her arm a moment. “They are of Ter. I’ve seen attacks from them before. Whatever else you think, Olina, they will not help.”
The draasin dipped toward them, drawing Jasn’s focus. He used water and pressed up, pulling on the moisture in these lands. There was plenty, enough to provide significant strength to his shaping.
The Rens warrior watched him, her eyes narrowing.
“Olina?” Wyath said as he stepped toward the girl and the woman. He breathed out a sigh that came something like a laugh. “Cheneth, you sneaky bastard.” Wyath turned toward the two women and raised his hands. “We are friends of Cheneth, Enlightened of Hyaln.”
The woman, Olina, nodded. “Why have you come?”
Alena turned toward her and motioned to the draasin. “The draasin. She’s been tainted by…”
“Tenebeth. Yes,” the Rens warrior said.
Alena tipped her head. “We would heal her.”
Olina shook her head. “There is no healing from that, not for one of the elementals.”
The wind kicked up again, and Jasn realized that it spun around the draasin in a torrent. That was part of the reason the draasin hadn’t descended and attacked. It had been held on a shaping. But who could do that?
Jasn knew the answer. Eldridge.
He’d seen the wind strength the man had, much more than any other shaper he’d ever met. That strength was tied to his ability to speak to the elementals.
Could they use the combined strength of the elements to help the draasin? Alena with fire, Wyath with earth, Eldridge and wind, and him with water.
The ground surged and Alena was flung into the air, tossed down the hill. Flames raced after her.
Jasn didn’t have the chance to react, and she was still weakened by the connection to the egg that pulled on her fire shaping.
A dark shape streaked toward them, dark as night, and landed on the ground only a few paces in front of them.
It took Jasn a moment to recognize Thenas.
He had changed. There was no question that he had embraced the darkness. It oozed from him, much like the new strength that he possessed oozed from him.
The shaping he worked was immense. Thenas sent it toward all three of them at the same time, forcing Jasn back a step. Wyath surged through the earth to solidify his connection, and Eldridge did the same with the wind. Each pushed back.
But Tenebeth had made Thenas strong. Thenas smiled and used a dark shaping on them.
“I have you to thank,” he said to Jasn. “Your healing opened me to such power, and this beast as well. You could have had the same, if only you hadn’t resisted.”
Jasn drew upon water, pulling on each of the elements as he had never done before. Water poured through him, slamming into Thenas, but did nothing to slow him.
“At least now I understand what she hid all these years,” he said, his eyes drifting toward the hillside. “If only Calan knew, but I think even he was too foolish to appreciate what he could have had.” He pushed outward, the strength of his dark magic forcing each of the Ter shapers back another step. “Now that I’ve been paired, there is little any of the hunters will be able to do to stop me.”
The shaping that built was almost more than Jasn could suppress.
He leapt toward Thenas with his sword unsheathed and was thrown back. Wyath tried reaching him and was swept away on a shaping of wind. Even the old lady attempted to thwart him but could not.
Thenas smiled, and an enormous shaping built. The draasin howled.
“You think your shaping can stop me?” Thenas cried. “She said you were foolish, Volth, but I did not think you would fall so easily.”
Then his chest exploded, and the tip of a long spear pierced his skin.
Thenas reached for it, wrapping his hands around the spear and trying to push it back, but the spear had penetrated his heart. Jasn could sense the way his blood spilled from the gash. It was the kind of wound that would be fatal.
“Let Rens stop you, Tenebeth,” the warrior said. Her mouth twisted in a fierce scowl, and Jasn wondered if she might make a run at Thenas to grab the spear, but she didn’t. She only waited.
Thenas dropped to his knees as his life poured from him. “You think you can stop him? He is greater than them all. And he will blot out the light.”
Thenas fell forward and said no more.
The Rens warrior walked over to him and grabbed her spear, pulling it from his chest. “How do you intend to help the draasin?”
Jasn had no idea. He had thought that he could use the combined elemental draw, but when they had attempted that on Thenas, they had failed. If not for the Rens warrior’s attack, he suspected they would have been overwhelmed.
What could they do?
Jasn looked at Wyath and Eldridge. Neither man spoke, watching him.
It was then that Jasn realized they hadn’t used each of the elementals on Thenas. Fire had been missing.
“We need fire,” he said. “Alena—”
“She is hurt, Jasn Volth,” Eldridge said. “The connection is weak.”
“I don’t know if it will work without a connection to fire.”
“Rider,” Olina said. “You must call fire.”
The girl looked back at Olina. “I don’t speak to fire.”
“You are a rider. You can speak to fire.” Olina turned to Jasn. “You have each of the others?”
Jasn nodded. “As much as we can.”
“It might work,” she said to herself. “It has never been tried, but it is possible.” She turned to the girl. “Use your pattern, but slower; feel the rhythm of the flame within you.”
The draasin swooped, shooting fire toward them. Eldridge directed it back into the sky with a shaping of wind. Without Thenas, the focus for the draasin had shifted.
The girl watched Olina for a moment and then nodded. She began to make a small circle, moving slowly and pressing her spear into the ground. At first, Jasn didn’t think she did anything, but he began to feel the way power built each time she pressed her spear into the ground.
“Now the others,” O
lina told him. “Add earth.”
Wyath nodded and surged earth into what the girl was doing. Jasn felt it as a rumble through the ground as it hardened. Each time her spear tapped down, it rang out with a sharp crack.
“Wind,” the woman said.
Eldridge focused his shaping on the pattern and added the strength of what he could do to it. It built, and each time the spear struck the now-hard ground, it rang out more loudly. On and on it went, power building even more.
“Water,” Olina urged. “You must direct it as a healing focus.”
Jasn turned the water into a fountain, sending it spraying toward her pattern. He expected it to crash into her, but instead it joined into the pattern, mixing as if he were combining a shaping. He pulled on the elemental strength, using as much power as the water elemental could lend, and sent it toward her.
The shaping built.
Jasn could feel it deep within him.
The draasin dove toward them.
“Now,” Olina said.
The girl lifted her spear. Light streaked from the tip and hit the draasin.
The massive creature fell in a heap on the far side of the hilltop.
“Damn!” Jasn swore. “We didn’t want to kill it!”
As he ran toward the draasin, Wyath caught him by the arm and pulled him back. “Easy, Jasn. Look.”
Jasn stopped and saw the elemental begin to move. The massive creature sat up, stretched her long, leathery wings, then her talons, digging them into the soft earth where she had landed.
Did it work?
He directed the question to water, wondering if the elemental would be able to answer.
At first, the water elemental was silent. Jasn wondered if it would answer. When it did, there was relief in the elemental’s tone.
You have done well. Better than the Mother expected.
What does that mean?
It means she is restored.
34
Ciara
Shapers alone cannot stop Tenebeth. They will need something more. I fear I must abandon impartiality. If I do not, darkness will escape in full.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
Ciara sat cross-legged on the ground, her j’na resting over her knees. She still wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that shapers from Ter had helped with the draasin. She had known them as savages, but that wasn’t what she’d seen from them at all.
Could they really have only wanted to help?
That hadn’t been her experience, though. Shapers from Ter had attacked her village and had destroyed her homeland. Whatever else they did, there was no doubting what they had done in the past.
She couldn’t take her eyes off the muscular man who leaned over the dark-haired woman. A water shaper—she was certain of it—the strength he had displayed had been tremendous. He spoke softly, but loud enough for her to hear.
“Can you tell?” the man asked.
The woman nodded. “She speaks to me again,” the woman said. “We need to return to the barracks for the egg, but she will help.” The woman looked at the draasin, watching without any sign of fear. The draasin rested quietly, long tail curled around it, looking more like some massive desert fox. Though it was hidden behind the elemental, Ciara sensed the lizard working its tongue over the draasin’s scales. The others hadn’t seemed to notice yet.
The man sighed. “You will go. Wyath can help,” he said, glancing at the older man standing with his arms crossed, speaking to another hawkish man. “I need to find Bayan and then speak to Lachen, find out how much he knows.”
“Do you really think it wise to go to the commander with questions like that? What if he—”
Ciara didn’t get the chance to hear the rest. Olina leaned over her and flashed a smile that was missing a few teeth. She had recovered her jainah sometime after the draasin had been saved.
“You have been quiet,” Olina said.
“What is there to say?”
Olina tipped her staff toward the shapers of Ter. “You could speak to them. They might have answers to your questions.”
Ciara wondered if they would have answers or if she would be left with only more questions. “All I want is to go home,” she said softly. “I wanted answers, but this is more than I can understand.”
Olina settled down next to her. The ground was hard now, more like the rock found in Rens than the soft and soggy ground she’d known since coming to K’ral. “More? You are a rider. Perhaps you can be a summoner. I would send you to Hylan if I didn’t fear what you might find.”
“What of my people? And my father,” she started but cut herself off. Her father remained in the village, but her people? How many had been lost now? How many remained? Were she to return, there might not be anything for her to help. “I can’t stay here,” Ciara said. This wasn’t home. These lands, as wet and soft as she found them, were so different than her homeland. She could never be comfortable here.
“No. You cannot stay here,” Olina agreed.
Ciara looked over to the old woman. She had half expected Olina to ask her to stay, but if she wouldn’t, what did that mean for her? “They intend to take the draasin with them,” Ciara said. That much she understood from what she’d overheard, just as she understood that they apparently had a draasin egg.
“You understand why?”
Ciara nodded to the dark-haired woman. “She speaks to them.”
Olina nodded. “She does. She is strong.” There was respect in her tone. “One like her could have risen to the level of the wise, but no longer. And the others, they each speak to the elementals, much as you do.” She said nothing for a moment and then waved at the older man.
As he approached, Olina nodded to him and stood. “You will tell Cheneth what I said.”
“He will know.”
Olina glanced down. “Will he teach this one?”
“I can’t speak for him, Olina.”
“You must tell him that she called the nobelas as well as the draasin, and both without training. Let him decide the next step.”
The man called Wyath stared down at Ciara. “I will tell him.”
“Darkness threatened, but there can be healing. First we must throw away old barriers,” Olina said.
Wyath smiled at her. “I am not your student, Olina.”
“No, but you will tell him what I said.”
“I will tell him.”
Olina leaned on her staff and fixed Ciara with an intense stare. “You question where you should go and what you should do. Let Olina the Wise tell you,” she said. “Go to Cheneth to learn.”
“I need to return home.”
“Your home? What will remain of it when Tenebeth comes?” Olina shook her head. “You have shown that you can do much more. I understand why he came for you now.”
Wyath watched her, arms crossed over his chest. She sensed a bright power from him, much like what she sensed from Olina. “Why should I learn from this Cheneth? What can he teach me?”
Olina tapped her staff. It snapped loudly across the hard stone. “Because he was once my student in Hyaln. And he is enlightened. He will teach you what it means to call the draasin and become a rider, only I think that you will be more than simply a rider.”
Ciara ran her fingers along the shaft of her j’na, considering what she should do. Did she go with him, or did she attempt to return to her home?
Then she thought of the draasin and the darkness that she’d seen within it, darkness that was now gone. She thought, too, of the voice of the lizard and its strange ability to heal.
She wanted to know more about them. She needed to know more. The next time the shadow man came, she wanted to be ready. And, she had to admit to herself, she wanted to know more about the power she had used. Could she use that to help her people?
Ciara stood and slung her j’na up onto her shoulder, staring at the draasin. How could she choose anything other than a chance at understanding, even if it meant going with shaper
s of Ter?
“I will go,” she whispered, setting her j’na to the ground softly. Light flashed from it, and she thought she heard an echoing voice in her head.
Ciara wasn’t sure if it was the lizard or Tenebeth.
Out soon - Book 3 of the Endless War: Summoner’s Bond
Ciara has traveled to the barracks but the promised teaching has not come to pass, leaving her worse off than before, and her people without the nya'shin for protection. If she can't master the summoning, she fears the darkness will claim her.
But now that the darkness has revealed itself, Jasn must find a way to save Alena from her connection to the draasin before that connection kills her. Only then can he search for whether Katya was destroyed by the darkness, or learn if he can still save her. With her shaping limited, Alena discovers a different reserve of strength, one that will be vital in the coming days.
The real war now begins. They all must learn how to suppress the danger of Tenebeth, discover and stop those responsible for summoning the dark, or none will survive.
About the Author
DK Holmberg currently lives in rural Minnesota where the winter cold and the summer mosquitoes keep him inside and writing.
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Also by D.K. Holmberg
The Endless War
Journey of Fire and Night
Darkness Rising
Summoner’s Bond
The Dark Ability
Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) Page 28