Summoner's Bond (The Endless War Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  That was something he suspected more and more the longer that he was here in Hyaln. She had used him, targeting him like some sort of asset. Surprisingly, that made it easier to discover that she was alive.

  “What can you tell me?” he asked.

  “Can or should?”

  “I’m here, Katya,” he said. Rehnar still called her Ilyana, but he couldn’t bring himself to use any name other than the one that she had claimed during the time that he had known her, just as he couldn’t bring himself to call her Issa, the name she’d gone by when she was in the barracks. He didn’t know which of them—if any—had been her real name, but maybe that didn’t matter.

  Katya sighed. “You’re asking questions that have difficult answers to explain. Hyaln is a place shrouded in secrecy. Cheneth should never have sent you here, but then, I begin to suspect that Cheneth never did anything that he was supposed to do.”

  “What is the divide with the wise?”

  Katya licked her lips, and Jasn looked away, fearing that she would draw him into the same feelings that he had struggled with since realizing that she still lived. “To understand the divide, you have to understand Hyaln. This is a place of study, where those who seek to understand the elements can come to train.”

  “Only the elements? Because it seems to me that Regnar is teaching me about summoning the elementals as well.”

  “What are the elementals but extensions of the elements?” Katya asked.

  Jasn frowned at the comment. That didn’t fit with his understanding of the elementals, though he had not been able to speak with them for long, and he was pretty certain that Rehnar had used only elemental power to beat him each time he trained with the man.

  “Hyaln has spent centuries searching for understanding, striving to know what it means to reach the core of the elements. There are those who think that there is something greater than only the elements, that there is something beyond the elementals. Most who have studied in Hyaln agree that must be true, but the majority feel that the only way to reach those higher powers, that greatness that is beyond the elementals and the power of the elements themselves, is to use the gifts that we’ve been given.”

  “Like shaping.”

  “Shaping is a part of it. So too is summoning. The rune traps are another.”

  “Rune traps?”

  Katya drew a shape in the dirt. Jasn recognized the shape. It was similar to what was used on the draasin pen. “These shapes—in Hyaln they are called runes—can trap and hold elemental energy. They can take years to master even something as simple as—”

  Jasn made the shape that he’d needed to survive the rock collapsing on him, pressing earth into it as he did. There came a soft rumble, and he knew that it set.

  “I see that you’re familiar with some of them.”

  He shrugged. “Only a few. I imagine that there are others?”

  “A great many others,” Katya said. “And the order that they’re used matters almost as much as the pattern and rune itself. We have some in Hyaln who study only the rune traps. Others study only the art of summoning, and others will study only shaping.”

  Jasn sat back, listening to the sound of the waves crashing below. What she described was more like a joining of the scholars with the Order. Not having them together weakened them both.

  “You said the majority,” he prompted.

  Her face darkened. “Yes. A majority of those in Hyaln recognize that the way to reach the power in the world is through the elements. We have mastered many ways in which to do that. But not all of them recognize that. We have long understood that there is power in both the day and the night, and there are those who would like to understand even more power, who think that there is a way that they can harness and use both.”

  What she described sounded too much like Tenebeth.

  “And that’s why you went to the barracks.”

  “I went to the barracks to discover what Cheneth might intend. There were some who were concerned that he had broken off for a darker reason.”

  Jasn stared out at the flat expanse of the sky. There was nothing but gray. No clouds, nothing but the stretch of sea that separated the horizon. “Cheneth seeks to fight Tenebeth,” Jasn said.

  “I saw that he collected those with certain talents,” Katya said.

  “Like those with the ability to speak to the elementals?”

  She nodded.

  “How many in Hyaln can speak to them?” When she didn’t answer, he pressed her. “If the wise left, there aren’t any, are there?”

  “There are ways in which the elementals are reached, but few are able to directly communicate with them.”

  Jasn frowned. “Why?”

  She shook her head. “The Wise never explained their reasoning.”

  “But you suspect.”

  “When Cheneth began collecting those with the ability, I realized there might be something more than most in Hyaln understood.” She leaned forward and fixed him with a hard expression. “Tell me again how many in the barracks were able to speak to the elementals.”

  Jasn shrugged. “I don’t think Cheneth can.”

  “No. I don’t either.”

  “But there’s Alena. Myself. Thenas developed the ability, as did Ifrit.”

  “And Wyath,” she said.

  Wyath’s ability was unique in some ways. He was able to speak to earth even before Jasn had healed him, but after that, he developed something more than just the ability with earth. Alena had mentioned how he could hear the other elementals. Perhaps not speak to them, but he could certainly hear them.

  “Would you like me to try the healing on you?” he asked Katya.

  She breathed out softly. “Do you think it would work without an injury to heal?”

  He hadn’t considered that before, but then, he hadn’t intentionally tried to give someone the ability to speak to the elementals. Had it not been for Thenas, he wouldn’t have known what he could do. In some ways, were he not careful, that ability was more of a curse than anything.

  “It’s hard to say what would happen. Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe it does only work when I’m trying to heal an injury. Or maybe you would end up with the ability to speak to one of the elementals.”

  If she were able to summon the elementals like Rehnar, adding the ability to speak to them would make her even stronger.

  “I doubt the Varden would be pleased.”

  “What’s the Varden?”

  “You have much to learn about Hyaln. You have been here a few weeks, but not long enough to really understand. Hyaln has been in place for countless years, and there are those who specialize in certain areas of knowledge. Each area chooses one to represent them. This is the Varden.”

  “It’s like the council in Atenas.”

  “The council consists of warriors only. Each member has the same background, and most have the same skills.”

  “Other than the Commander.”

  She smiled. “The current Commander is unique.”

  Jasn wondered what she meant by the comment. Lachen was unique, but then, he was no longer the man that Jasn had once known. Were it not for Lachen, he wouldn’t have ended up in the barracks. He might still be in Rens, still facing draasin that he now understood to be tainted, or fighting the last remnants of the people of Rens, driving them deeper into the waste. But Lachen had called on his old friend, and used him, pulling him into a grander war than any that Jasn had ever known.

  “The Varden is not the same?”

  “Each member of the Varden has an equal voice.”

  “No one leads?”

  Her slight smile spread. “I wouldn’t say that. There might be equal voice, but that doesn’t mean equal influence. Lately, the summoners tend to speak more loudly than many of the others, though the shapers have a strong voice as well.”

  “How many different areas are there?” She’d mentioned summoning—and Jasn had begun to learn some of that from Rehnar. And he knew shaping we
ll enough from his time in Atenas, and from working with Alena. He suspected that the rune trap would be another. How many of the Varden would there be?

  “The current configuration is for summoning, shaping, Enlightened, and runes.”

  He laughed. “Current. As in it could change?”

  She nodded. “It’s not a given the power will remain the same. Were I to gain the ability to speak to the elementals, there would need to be another voice of the Varden, such as we once had with the wise.”

  “I find it hard to believe that there wasn’t anyone here who could speak to the elementals.”

  Katya stared out over the water. “Hyaln is many things, but we have limits.” There was something she left unsaid.

  Jasn let the silence linger. There wasn’t the need to create any more awkwardness between them. After everything that had happened to them, there was enough of that.

  “You said the summoners tend to have more influence. They lead the Varden?”

  She nodded. “Summoning is many things. Rehnar has shown you much of that. It is a way to connect to the elements in a different way than shaping allows, one in which you connect through the elementals and can direct the power that they possess. Few ever manage much strength with summoning, few manage anything more than a basic skill, but there are some who have developed it to such a level that they can control the elementals with little more than a…”

  “Tap of a spear?” Jasn answered.

  She nodded. “Little more than that.”

  “What do you mean that they control the elementals?”

  “Have you not noticed that was what you have been learning? When you work with Rehnar, there is an understanding that you will learn the way that you can direct the elementals. The technique is something that most can learn, but especially those with shaping ability.”

  Jasn thought of Ciara and the power that she managed to summon. She had no real shaping ability, at least, not that he’d seen, but she might be a more potent summoner than anyone who was in Hyaln. She was raw and needed training, but she would likely be able to call upon more power than even Rehnar.

  “So they control the elementals,” Jasn said.

  “There is more to it. A separation even within the Varden.” Katya frowned, and he could tell she was uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t even tell you this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’m not even certain the conflict is real,” Katya said. “How could I when none even speak of it? I am not as skilled at summoning as some, and certainly not as skilled as the Khalan.”

  “I’ve heard you use that term before. What is it?”

  “They are the summoners. There are those like Rehnar who can summon, who have much skill and have mastered techniques that others struggle to understand. With what he can do, there is significant power, especially when combined with shaping. And then there are the Khalan. They have something almost supernatural about their ability to summon.”

  Then Ciara would be—or could be—among the Khalan. If that were the case, why had Cheneth objected to her coming with him? She could bring him to Hyaln, but he didn’t want her remaining behind, as if unwilling for her to risk herself too greatly.

  “That’s where the rift exists, isn’t it? Between those like Rehnar, and the Khalan?”

  “The Khalan think they can control more than only the elementals. They think they can call upon the fundamental powers of the world and use this to their own ends. Those of the Khalan have enough control, and enough strength of will, that they are able to do that.”

  She fell silent, and Jasn watched her for a moment. There was something that she wasn’t saying, something that he missed, but he wasn’t sure what. Were it not for the nearly two years they had spent together, time where he had no idea that she was anything other than another shaper of the Order, he wouldn’t have recognized it. But there were certain ticks that had been her, and he recognized the way that she bit the inside of her lip and rubbed two fingers on her temple.

  “What did you do before you studied the barracks?” he asked.

  She blinked and stopped rubbing at her temple for a moment. “Why is that important?”

  “We were together for two years before I thought you dead. But you weren’t in the barracks for two years. You were there for six months, possibly less.”

  “It was about that long.”

  “What of the time that you were in Atenas before then?”

  Katya sighed, and a soft shaping built. She made no effort to mask it, though he suspected that she could. This was water and a hint of earth, with a touch of fire. And suddenly, Katya no longer sat across from him.

  He’d seen this woman, a face that he knew in Atenas as Mychelle, one of the scholars who had come to Atenas.

  “How?”

  “A mask,” she said, releasing the shaping so that Katya now looked at him again. “One that allowed me access to places I would not otherwise have been.”

  Jasn laughed bitterly. “Now I understand why Rehnar said names don’t matter. Of course, they don’t when you can take on any face you want.” He focused on water, reaching briefly for the elemental for help. “Is this even your real face?”

  “You’ve touched my face. You know this is me.”

  The tenderness in her voice caught him off guard. Not only had he touched her face, but he’d kissed her lips, held her body against his… And so much of it had been a lie, much like the quiet conversations they had shared, the dreams of a life they would one day lead. None of it had been real. Not even her name.

  Jasn controlled his breathing and forced the emotion from his mind. That wouldn’t serve him, not with what he needed to do. “The control you’re describing sounds too much like what Cheneth fears with Tenebeth.”

  Her face remained neutral, but he’d known her. She couldn’t hide her emotions with him as well as she thought.

  “The Khalan broke free of Hyaln, didn’t they?” he asked.

  She looked at him with sadness in her eyes, and he wondered if it was because of the Khalan, or because he had forced the conversation away from the reminiscing. “Much like with the wise, some have left, disappearing nearly one year ago.”

  His breath caught. One year couldn’t have been a coincidence. But the wise hadn’t attempted to summon Tenebeth. Would the Khalan?

  “That’s the reason I returned, Jasn,” she said softly. “The Varden called me back. Called all who would return back to Hyaln so that we could understand what it meant that the Khalan had left.” She met his eyes and shook her head slowly and sadly. “You’ve asked how much of it was real. This,” she said, sweeping her hand down the front of, “me. This is all real. The conversations we shared were real. I am real.”

  “But Hyaln was more important.”

  She never took her eyes off him, but she inhaled deeply. “Unfortunately, yes.”

  14

  Ciara

  I doubt Jasn knew I studied him. How could I not when his ability might be key to preventing catastrophe?

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  Ciara awoke to throbbing in her head. She opened her eyes, but there was nothing more than the same darkness that she’d seen when they were closed.

  Where was she?

  Captured. That much she knew.

  She focused on her breathing, on reaching for water sensing to detect what might be around her, letting her nya’shin training take over. First, she listened for the pounding of her blood within her, holding onto that connection. She might only be a water seeker, not able to shape it, but she was able to detect water as long as she wasn’t too dehydrated.

  The sense of her heartbeat came slowly, as if from a great distance. How weakened was she? If she had water, she would be able to sense better. When she’d been stuck on the waste, nearly dying of thirst, her ability to sense water had faded as well.

  What of Reghal? Could she reach him? The lizard had brought her gourds before that had saved her life. Now s
he was connected to him, able to reach him with only a thought… but why hadn’t he come to her to help? Why had he left her alone when she was attacked?

  Her experience with him told her that he wouldn’t have. Not if there was anything he could have done. The lizard was bonded to her in a way, connected so that he would not have left her.

  That meant that whoever had taken her had managed to separate her from him.

  She worked her tongue over the inside of her mouth. It was dry, and her throat hurt. The more she thought about it, her entire body hurt, throbbing with the pain of the attack.

  Was anything broken? She wasn’t skilled enough with water to detect whether she was more injured than she realized, and her inability to reach for the connection made it even more difficult for her to know.

  “You are awake.”

  The voice was the same as the awful man who had attacked her. She could still see the green light surrounding him, the same green light that came from Tenebeth, a light that shined too brightly in her nightmares.

  But this light was real. It started slowly, building brighter and brighter, until the shadows of his face loomed into focus. He leaned over her, close enough that she could hit were she able to easily move her arms. His breath smelled of the pine of the forest and the damp earth, almost sickly sweet, like the scent of rot.

  “You cannot hide from me.” He tipped a cup toward her mouth, and she refused it, clamping her lips shut, afraid to accept anything from the man who would attack her. The man chuckled softly and pulled it back. “Such spirit. Not surprising, given your heritage. Rens always had more spirit than they were given credit for. Drink. This is water only.” As if to prove it, he brought the cup to his mouth and took a long drink before offering it to her again.

  Ciara resisted, but the cool water slipped past her lips and wet her tongue. There was no flavor, nothing that would make her think it had been poisoned, only the wetness of the water.