But what she intended… Alena wasn’t certain that she was ready for the scrutiny that would come if she approached the council.
It was possible Cheneth intended something else for her, but she wasn’t sure she could push for a seat on the council. Not that he would understand. He would see her as a tool, and one who could reach the target he had in mind. Most within the Order would have no claim, but then, most were not Alena.
She had risen quickly through the Order, gaining notoriety for her shaping skill. That was the same reason that Cheneth wanted her in the barracks, she presumed. Once, she had been considered one of the most promising shapers to have appeared in a generation.
Then the Commander had appeared.
Alena hadn’t wanted the notoriety. She hadn’t wanted the responsibility that the council wanted to thrust upon her. Phinar had asked her to work with him, and she had served the councilor, gaining insight that few of her age ever managed. When he died, she had to decide how long she wished to remain within the Order. It was at the same time that Cheneth had called her to the barracks, and about the same time that she could no longer ignore the voice of the draasin in her mind. Had she not feared what those voices meant, she might have remained here in Atenas.
Sleep didn’t come to her easily tonight, though it rarely did anymore. Alena rolled from her bed and stood near the window of the small room. This was a guest room, one assigned to visitors of some status. Rarely did shapers claim these rooms, especially those of the Order. Most had a place within the palace that they kept as their own. Not Alena. When she had gone to the barracks, she had left.
The cloudy window made it difficult for her to see much outside. She pulled it open and breathed in the chill air. She could start a fire in the small hearth, but she chose not to. There was no reason for her to need fire, nothing that would change the way that she felt or calm the fluttering inside of her.
Shadows drifted down the street, and Alena glanced up, expecting to see clouds obscuring the moon, but there was nothing.
She leaned out the window to watch those shadows, curious. There was a familiarity about the way that they moved, the writhing arms of shadows that left her thinking of the way that Thenas had attacked. And these arms of shadow traced up the tower.
Her heart hammered.
It wasn’t just her imagination. They were coming for her.
Alena leaned away from the window, pulling on a shaping of each of the elements, hating that she hadn’t learned what Ciara had done in order to defeat Thenas. It was a summoning of some kind, one that called to light, were Cheneth to be believed, and it managed to press back the darkness. Could Alena do anything similar? She might not be the same kind of shaper as Ciara, but then, Ciara couldn’t shape, either.
What of fire?
With her connection to the draasin, fire seemed the most natural to her. Fire was light and seemed like the most obvious way to push back Tenebeth.
She hated facing it without knowing.
More, she hated the idea that there was someone in Atenas who used Tenebeth. It was bad enough where there were those with the ability to counter that dark power, but here where none even knew what they faced… She had to do something.
Grabbing her sword, she ran to the window and jumped out on a shaping of wind.
It carried her over the street, where she turned and looked back at the tower.
The strands of shadow wavered over the street, undulating like weeds in a river, and slowly climbed along the side of the tower, rising like vines from the ground below.
What did it mean that the darkness had come the same night that they had come to Atenas? The same night Bayan had come?
Alena hated that she questioned, but then Bayan had been tainted by Tenebeth. She had been used by him to attack in Rens. She had to admit that it was at least possible that Bayan was partly responsible.
A cold wind started to blow through, and thunder echoed distantly.
That was odd. Atenas rarely had storms. Rains, certainly, but most of those were shaped, controlled by the guilds in such a way so that the shapers in the city didn’t have to fear their training.
She dropped to the ground at the base of the tower. Pulling on the wind, she sent a shaping high above the tower, using that shaping to close the window she’d left open when she departed.
Alena scanned the street, wondering if she would even be able to find someone here. It was possible they came in shadows.
But then, she knew how to move unobserved as well. It was a shaping that few in Atenas ever learned, one that for all her ability, she had not learned before she had gone to the barracks. Holding earth and bending it, she concealed herself behind the shaping. Not only the shaping, but she had to conceal everything else that she did. It took a deft touch and much practice. Few mastered it, which was part of the reason there were so few masters in the barracks. Volth had managed to accomplish it fairly easily, but then, there was much about Volth she hadn’t identified when he first came to the barracks.
Blasted man!
Oliver was right. Volth sat at the forefront of her mind, too close to be safe, especially now that she knew spirit shaping existed. But even if she wanted to forget about Volth, there was the connection to him, that shaped sense that gave her something of an awareness of him, almost like what she shared with the draasin. Even now, she could sense him, though he was too distant for her to know much more than the vaguest sense. Anger. That seethed through the connection. Had she not been the target of his anger as often as she had, she might not even know what emotion he felt.
Alena slowly eased herself along the street, moving on a subtle shaping of wind to remain as silent as possible.
There were no others out in the night. The taverns had all closed, and no music drifted along the street as it often did earlier in the evening, a bawdy sort of revelry that gave the city the sense of life that made it so appealing when she had first come, and so different than the home she had come from. The shaped lanterns stationed along the street glowed softly, with only enough light to see the street, nothing more than that. She was thankful for that much. Were there less, she would have needed to shape some into existence and reveal her location. This way, she could stay hidden, wrapped in her shapings of earth.
She moved away from the tower and began to think she should return when she heard a muffled voice.
Alena froze, her breath catching, and let the shaping of wind carry the words to her.
“You’re too aggressive.”
“Not too aggressive. We followed them here. You know what will happen if they succeed.”
“This is still too aggressive. You risk exposing us before we are ready.”
The other person laughed, a soft chuckle that her shaping pulled close. “We have already been exposed. That one thinks he is better prepared than the rest.”
A muted tapping drifted down the street. Could this be the same people who had abducted Ciara?
She hadn’t abandoned hope of rescuing her, even though Cheneth claimed she needed to let others search and that she wasn’t prepared for what she might find. Ciara wasn’t ready for the torment that they might inflict on her, either.
Alena drifted closer. As she did, she felt the effect of their shaping.
It was as if night itself poured from them. She lost track of what they were saying, focusing instead on whether she might be able to resist the shaping. If she could counter it in some way, would it be possible to keep them from attacking the tower? Would it be possible to keep them from attacking her?
She had to test it now before it mattered.
Alena carried herself on the wind, still masked with earth as she went back to the tower. The vines of darkness wrapped around it, climbing beyond the window she should be behind, and up to the higher levels.
Pulling on fire, focusing on this most of all, she sent a shaping into the shadows along the wall. She sent as much fire as she could, drawing on the strange connection she shared with
the draasin, and added to it the other elements, that of earth and water and even wind, trying to pierce the blackness as it worked its way up the stone.
The thing reacted like a creature alive.
It began to writhe, slowly turning in her direction, slithering away from the wall, across the street. Toward her.
Alena shifted the direction of her shaping, pulling it back, trying to use it to defend herself. She pulled on fire, drawing it in a tight circle, attempting to burn her way through the shadows, but that didn’t work. Using the other elements made no difference either.
The shadows came closer, almost to her. A cold wind blew out of the north. Alena shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly around her shoulders.
As the shadows neared her, she did the only thing that she could: she pulled on the traveling shaping and carried herself back to the barracks.
21
Alena
Placing my other stones required more patience, but when I discovered what Jasn learned in the barracks, I knew what moves I would need to make. Many there would be useful.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
“Why have you returned?” Cheneth stood framed by his door, his eyes burning with a dark intensity as he looked out into the night. He carried a cane with him that Alena rarely had seen him use, and she realized he must use it in the same way that Ciara used her spear.
“Let me in first.”
Cheneth hesitated, then tapped his cane on the ground three times. A faint sheen glowed from the end, but nothing like the bright light that burst from Ciara’s staff. “Place your hand here,” he said.
Alena stared at him incredulously. “Cheneth—let me in so I can tell you why I returned.”
When he didn’t move, she shook her head and slapped her palm down onto the cane. The warmth washed over her, pushing back the chill that she’d been feeling since going to Atenas.
“Satisfied?”
“As much as I will be here,” he said.
He stepped away from the door, letting her in.
Once inside, she watched as he waved the cane around the room, creating a seal. She wondered if he sealed them in or something else out. After what she’d seen in Atenas, she no longer knew.
“The council has been corrupted,” she said.
“That’s what Oliver feared,” Cheneth said. “But nothing we didn’t know.”
“Did you know that Oliver killed one of them?”
“Oliver?”
She nodded and took a seat in the chair across from his desk, resting her head on her hand. Only now that she was back in the barracks was she feeling tired. While in Atenas, she hadn’t been able to sleep, she hadn’t been able to slow her mind, to shut down the concerns she felt. But she had to return. She couldn’t leave Bayan there alone, not when she didn’t know what they were dealing with.
“Said he used your spirit stick and discovered at least two members of the council were not who they claimed to be.”
“Which two?”
“You don’t even think you need to question?”
Cheneth tapped his cane at her as he walked past, taking a seat on the other side of the desk. “Which two?”
“Margo and Hester.”
He closed his eyes and pressed the tips of his fingers together. Alena hadn’t noticed it before, but there was strength in his hands, and he wore a small band of black metal on his left index finger. She’d never seen that before. “Two of the council. And I imagine he fears the others have been compromised as well.”
She nodded. “Think so.”
“And you? What did you decide?”
That he asked told her all that she needed to know about his plans. “Did you expect me to gain a seat on the council?”
“I expected you would do what you needed to serve the Order. In spite of everything that we do here, you’re still a warrior of the Order, Alena.”
“That’s not why you want me to serve on the council.”
“Not entirely.”
“Is it these others who infiltrated the council?”
Cheneth sighed. “These others, they are concerning, but not as much as my ignorance.”
“What ignorance?”
He placed his hands on the desk. “The Commander.”
Alena leaned back and propped her legs up. “What about the Commander?”
“You can’t tell me you don’t share the same questions everyone else within Ter shares. None knows how he quickly came to power. None know where else he might have studied. And none know what agenda he might have.”
“And you would have me attempt to discover, and not Volth?”
“I’ll admit it’s tempting. Volth… they were connected once. Childhood friends. But much changed between them. Volth became the Wrecker of Rens and Lachen became the Commander. I suspect neither really knows the other anymore.”
“Lachen sent him here in the first place.”
Cheneth nodded. “Which gives me a measure of hope he might have discovered what we are about and thought Volth might be able to help. The alternative is more frightening.”
“What alternative is that?”
“That Lachen knew and sent Volth here to disrupt what we did.”
“Why is that frightening? Didn’t you have him go to Hyaln so that he could learn?”
“I did, but did I do it by choice, or was it the will of another?”
Alena stared at him, wishing that she better understood everything that Cheneth did. It might help her understand what she could do to help the barracks, and even to help in Ter.
“Lachen can’t force you to make a decision you wouldn’t have otherwise made,” she said.
“You do not know about Hyaln, Alena. There is much that happens there that others would say is impossible.”
“Such as shaping spirit?”
Cheneth smiled slowly. “Such as that. Why else do you think I can call myself Enlightened?”
Alena had wondered what Enlightened meant, but for Cheneth to admit to shaping spirit—an element that she hadn’t even known was possible before she’d found Oliver—made it clear just how little the shapers of Atenas knew about the elements.
“How is it that you know what you do, but the shapers of Ter know nothing about spirit?” she asked. “There have been shapers in Ter for hundreds of years. The tower has stood for nearly three hundred. And all that time, none has known about spirit?”
“Are you certain that they haven’t?” Cheneth asked. “Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean others haven’t.”
“I think they would have said something…”
Or would they? What if they were shapers with different abilities? Or those not thought to be shapers at all?
“The College of Scholars?” she asked.
“Do you think Eldridge shapes spirit?” Cheneth asked.
Eldridge had a casual competence with wind, but that came more from his ability to speak to the wind. The man didn’t seem to have any other ability with shaping, but it was possible that he hid it from her.
“I think I’m beginning to realize how little I know.”
Cheneth leaned toward her and smiled. “That is the first step to understanding.”
“There would have to be others able to shape spirit,” she said. “It can’t only be those from Hyaln—” She frowned and looked up, understanding coming to her. “Is that why you sent Volth to Hyaln?”
“Ah, now you begin to see.”
“Your Hyaln claims the shapers of Ter who can shape spirit?”
Cheneth sighed. “Hyaln has long been a place of study, a place where those with ability can learn, but it is a place where only those with certain abilities may go. There is a price to learning.”
“What kind of price?”
“The same kind of price all must pay, Alena. You must struggle for knowledge, and once it is gained, you must use it in a way that benefits others.”
She laughed. “I would say that not all f
rom your Hyaln feel the same.”
“No. They do not. And that is why I left.”
She sighed, glancing around his small room. The cot where Ciara had slept remained much as she had left it, with a few thin sheets pulled neatly up. A basin rested next to the cot, and the hearth was cold, no fire burning from it. Alena would have welcomed the warmth, tonight especially.
“So Hyaln claims all shapers who can reach spirit. And now when they attack, Atenas has none able to defend it. That’s why you gave Oliver the spirit stick.”
Cheneth reached into a desk drawer and set a ring on top of it, what looked like a pair to the one he wore. “The spirit stick, as he would call it, is effective against others shaping spirit. But more than that, it can help him shape spirit. Given what Oliver will need to do, I thought that it would be helpful.”
“What is it that you would have Oliver do?”
“He will have to heal those twisted by spirit. He is a healer, and only he can protect those who aren’t able to protect themselves. I thought it best he possess that item, one that has much power with it, and one I suspect he will use wisely.”
“And that.” She nodded to the ring.
“This will protect you. Had we more time, I would teach you to defend against a spirit shaping. You are powerful enough to manage it, Alena, but I think for now this is safest.”
She took the offered ring and turned it in her hand, staring at the metal. It felt heavier than it should, and the light seemed to bend around it. In addition, there were small symbols etched into the metal. A few she recognized, but not all.
“How will this protect me?” she asked.
“This is meant to deflect spirit shaping. You’ll know when someone attempts to shape you when you’re wearing it, but other than that, they will only know that you managed to block them. Few enough have the ability, so those trained by Hyaln will know something is not quite right, but this will give you the chance to know who that might be.”
She held tightly to the ring and then slipped it onto her finger. “I thought the purpose of the barracks was training us to hunt the draasin. And then I thought it was to protect our minds from the influence of Tenebeth.”
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