“It is. It was.”
“This is different,” she said, looking up from the ring. “This feels like we’re fighting a different war than I realized.”
And not the one between Ter and Rens.
“It is the same war, Alena. Only, the others have been working in the shadows for so long that we have not realized that we were fighting. I came here thinking to learn what I could to stop the war, but found a different reason than I ever would have expected for it.”
She sat up in her chair and leaned forward until Cheneth met her eyes. “Why are they attacking now?”
Cheneth sighed. “The same reason man has done things for generations. The same reason that we first attempted to shape the elements, and now we attempt to understand the elementals. They seek power. But I fear if they reach for this power, they will gain strength we will be unable to withstand. More than that, I fear that they do not understand what they have disturbed.”
Cheneth grabbed his cane and squeezed the end. He lifted it, and she thought he might tap it, but he didn’t. “They think that they can control Tenebeth, but we’ve seen what that power does to those it touches. They have knowledge, which makes them strong, but they have arrogance, which makes them dangerous.”
He sighed again. “You asked why. And why now. Because of them, Tenebeth is free. And once he has fully managed to escape, we will all be facing a battle that we will not be able to win, not unless we can come together. That’s what I would have of you, Alena. I would have you secure the Order and discover what Lachen intends. And if he sides with these others, you will have to destroy him.”
22
Ciara
I did not anticipate the reach of the darkness. It must have been released far longer than I realized. The darkness is stronger than it should be.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
Stars twinkled overhead, bright and burning in the night sky. Clouds rolled in, and with it came the distant and muted sounds of thunder. Ciara shivered, remembering the last such storm, and the way that Tenebeth had come with it.
Shade watched her and chuckled again. He shifted the thick cotton wrap he wore, revealing a leather band hanging from his neck. “You still fear the night?”
“Still?” She raised the flagon of wine to her lips, enjoying the sweet flavor. The one thing Shade had been good for was continuing to supply her with wine.
He laughed again. “Rens taught many things. Learning to fear the night was a mistake.”
Ciara turned her attention away from the stars. There was nothing for her in the sky, nothing but danger. She shivered in spite of the warmth of the Terran cloak, the wool softer than spun shepa fur. Shade had not offered her anything else to wear, and Ciara might not have taken it if he had. “There are many things that hunt in the night,” she answered.
“There is power in the night, much like there is power in the light.”
She set her empty cup down, wishing that Shade would have brought more. On a night like tonight, she enjoyed the taste of the wine, the sweetness of it, and the slight bite as it rolled down her throat. Were he to let her, she would remain here.
Ciara tried squeezing her fingers, working feeling back into them, wanting to do something—anything—to regain movement in them. Why were they so numb? Were they always like that, or was it because of all the wine she’d been drinking?
Shade moved his fingers so well. She wanted to copy the patterns she saw him make, the small movements he used, the steady circular patterns he created. She might not be able to move her individual fingers, but could she bring her whole hand together?
Shade looked away, watching the sky with the same intensity that he often turned on her. Ciara no longer feared the piercing way that he stared. Why had she ever feared it? Shade might be quiet, and aloof, but there was nothing to fear.
As she rubbed her fingers, brushing the tips together, she wondered why she couldn’t sense water. She should be able to detect her own pulse, but more than that, she should be able to detect Shade’s as well. Even the draasin…
The longer that she pressed her fingers together, using a steady circle as she tried to force feeling back into them, the more she realized it was more than water that she needed to reach. In a moment of clarity, she remembered that she couldn’t reach Reghal either. Why did she continue to forget about him? It was as if the connection to the lizard failed here, but if there was a connection, why did he not attempt to reach her? Why was there no real connection when she needed him the most?
Unless he couldn’t reach her, the same way that she couldn’t reach him. Was it possible Shade had managed to capture the nobelas lizard? Was that something he kept from her, waiting for the right moment to reveal it?
She blinked at the sudden clarity of thought returning, but then it was gone. She could remember a strange lizard, but why would she have been thinking about it? What was special about the lizard? In Rens, there were hundreds of them, some so foolish as to remain out in the sun too long, burned by the heat and left to rot. Ciara wondered why she should think of this one.
The massive draasin perched on the edge of the tower, looking over the harsh landscape, her thick wings folded against her, heat coursing from her body. In the time that Ciara had been here, she had become more comfortable with the draasin and wondered what it might see.
She had only been to the top of the tower at night, never during the daylight, as if Shade wanted to prevent her from knowing where she might be, the same way he attempted to prevent her from remembering who she was supposed to be. Was she ala’shin, as he continued to call her? Or was she something else?
“What power?” she found herself asking, hating that she caved into his desire for her to ask more questions. Each time she fell silent, he did the same, giving her time to question, to wonder, but never giving answers.
“You have felt that power your entire life, ala’shin. You understand the power of the sun, the burning fire that comes from it, much as you know the power of darkness and the way it changes the world.”
She rubbed her hands together. Why were they so numb? If only she could move them, could bring the ends together… She worked the tips against each other, feeling a fogginess fade from her mind, and blinked again.
Sashi stood on the edge of the wall, ignoring her. Had the draasin been there the entire time? How long had she been here? Her mind felt off, and as she continued to work the tips of her fingers together, she realized that it had felt that way for several days, with only brief spurts of clarity of thought.
What was Shade doing to her?
“Light and dark have as much effect as any of the other elements,” he was saying, “but few have ever attempted to shape them.”
“There are no…” She caught herself before finishing, about to say that there were no shapers of light and dark, but then what would she call Thenas? Had he not managed to exude darkness, to bring strands of blackest night into existence? But if that were true, then it meant the opposite was also true. Could there be shapers of light, those able to command such brightness that they countered the dark?
The idea triggered something of a memory. Shade turned to her and pressed his lips together. A part of her cried out, demanding that she pay attention to what he did, but the concern faded, like so much else during her time here, leaving her staring at the massive draasin sitting on the wall.
She remembered her home, her childhood, and the lessons that her father had attempted to teach, but when she had been in Rens, the draasin were never so docile as this. This creature… she appeared as if she waited for Shade to call to her, as he had demonstrated that he could so many times, to the point that Shade rode atop her back one night, circling in the sky before landing once more.
Could Ciara ever learn to do something similar? The idea seemed impossible. How could she, a girl barely able to become one of the nya’shin, ever learn something like that?
She was better off returning to her h
ome, to Rens, and learning what she could from the other nya’shin.
“I think it is time for us to return,” Shade said.
She sighed. The colors of the sky called to her, flickering at times and tugging on a memory of something she thought that she should recall but couldn’t. Whatever thought she strained for was right at the edge of her mind, keeping her from grasping it.
When Shade took her hand, she didn’t resist, and he pulled her away from the night and the sky and the cool breeze, away from all the things that were different than her homeland. Perhaps it was good that she went with Shade.
23
Shade
I don’t know how many have been truly tainted by the darkness. Some believe themselves able to use it and resist the effect, but connecting to the elemental power of the world does not allow one to resist. Such a connection changes everyone, it is only a matter of how much.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
“She comes along nicely,” Shade said, speaking through the stone set on the table and sending the words across the distance, carried on a breath of wind.
He stood, leaning over the table, his hands resting on either side of the stone, staring at the marks that he had set there himself. A lost art, much like the making of the j’na. Fascinating the girl would still have it. Even more fascinating she had no idea what the title she claimed would mean. In time, he would teach her what it meant to be ala’shin.
The faint green light that shimmered from the stone swirled up as the voice answered, “You risk much bringing her there, Shade. You know how valuable the temple is to us.”
Shade bit back the retort that came to mind. A good thing they weren’t across from him, able to watch his expressions. “I risk nothing. She is controlled. Besides, your pets will go nowhere without their masters.”
“Controlled. Sevn claims she fights it.”
“She fights nothing. She has much potential, which is why I must wipe more than I have with others. Trust me on this.”
“You have one month to show demonstrable progress. After that, we will have to dispose of her.”
Dispose? They were fools if they thought to dispose of this girl. Untrained, she demonstrated real potential. Had they managed to get to her before the shapers of Ter, Shade would have had no difficulty turning her. Now it required a bit more finesse, but not anything he had never done before.
“You would make a mistake acting rashly in this case. Think of Sevn. Had you used your timeline, he would have been a lost cause.”
There was a slight pause as there often was when conversing this way. “We have considered the impact of losing one like Sevn. Even yourself, Shade.”
Shade took a deep breath, inhaling the swirling greenish light. He remembered little of his time before joining and had long ago realized that it no longer mattered. What did matter was the fact that he helped shape the balance within the world. That was more important than anything as simple as his previous name, one he now guarded carefully, especially as he understood how important names could be.
“Trust me that she can be valuable. I saw the way she summoned the light.”
There was another pause, and he worried that he’d pushed too hard. Few saw the benefit in summoning the light, thinking that what they did with the night was more than enough, but Shade understood. There must be a balance. That was their purpose. They might control the dark, but they had to balance that control with what they were able to do with the light.
“Sevn confirmed what you witnessed.”
Shade didn’t send his frustration through the connection. That wouldn’t do anything other than show them how easy it was for him to be irritated, but having Sevn decide whether he would have the opportunity to continue what he did… that rankled.
“As I said, she has the potential to be a powerful summoner once I wipe away these memories and start fresh.”
“You must be careful, Shade. One like her, with abilities such as she has demonstrated, might have connections we do not fully understand.”
“Such as her j’na?”
Sevn would have shared that finding with them, so it did him little good to withhold anything about what he’d discovered. The j’na had been the piece that told him that he had made the right decision. How perfect he would find something like that carried by a girl with her abilities. The only part that he didn’t understand was what she had used for the tip. Traditionally, j’na carried an osidan tip, one found by the wearer, drawing in the power of the elementals to be stored within the osidan. What she carried was something else, and not osidan. The surface was smooth and slick, and warm. When he broke her, he would discover the secret and the reason that osidan had not been chosen. But not too soon. Asking her about it too soon risked her reverting to a state that he needed to keep her from until he managed to completely convince her about what they did.
“Yes,” Shade said, eying the j’na as it rested along the wall. “Such as her j’na.”
The strange end of the spear glowed softly. He would understand why, even if that was a secret she wanted to keep to herself. The answer was the key to understanding how she managed to summon the light, something that even they hadn’t managed to discover.
“One month, Shade. And then we will come.”
The connection broke off. Even if it hadn’t, Shade was tempted to destroy the stone in order to break it off.
Could he break her in one month?
He didn’t know. The others had taken longer, but then he had made a point of working with them slowly, first building a connection and then using what he learned to wipe away everything they knew so he could start with them anew. But neither of the others he’d discovered had anywhere near the potential he sensed from the ala’shin.
To break her, he would need to work more quickly than he ever had. There was risk, but then, there was also the potential of a great reward. If he were the one to do it, and if he could turn her to help, he would have a level of control over her, and in turn, over the others.
This was something he could do. He would do.
Shade took the stone and squeezed it in his fist, wanting to crush it, before he set it back down, staring at her j’na as he did, an idea of how he would reach her growing in his mind.
24
Ciara
There has not been evidence of others similarly tainted since Bayan returned. There must be others, much as there must be other tainted draasin. If we could find a way to cleanse them, we would not have to destroy an asset. All of the elementals must be viewed as assets when playing this game, as must each shaper. The outcome is all that matters.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
Ciara fought against dreams.
They were strange dreams, filled with memories she knew were not real, those that could not be real. Dreams that called to her, claiming she could sit atop the draasin, that she had ridden one of the ancient beasts of fire. That was how she knew they were nothing more than dreams.
Other dreams intruded. A strange lizard continued to appear, one that looked so different than the lizards that were so common in Rens. This creature seemed to watch her, its eyes full of light and color and something she would almost believe to be intelligence, but none of the lizards had ever been known to have intelligence.
Maybe it was her fear of them that made her dream of the lizard, though Ciara had never believed that she would—or should—fear them. They were harmless unless disturbed. This creature, though, it watched her with unnerving intensity.
She dreamed of faces of men and women she did not recognize, though even in the dream, a distant part of her claimed she should. They were strange faces, and they had powers… Shapers. She was certain of it.
Not a dream then, but a nightmare.
One of those faces welcomed her, had a warm smile and exuded strength. But he was of Ter. Even in the dream, she knew enough to back away from him, to avoid the trap of falling for his charm
s. Ter had harmed her people often enough over the years. She would not allow herself to fall for anything more.
The fear for this man almost stirred her from her sleep, but she drifted, falling into the dream even more. She saw her father, aged beyond what he should be, stressed with some knowledge that he wouldn’t share, shadows darkening his face. The village seemed decimated, empty, even the shepa nowhere to be seen.
But then the dream faded, and she was back in her village, sitting across the fire with her father, Fas sitting at her side, needing to hide her flush at her awareness of his warmth and the casual way that he leaned into her. Eshan was there, his j’na resting across his legs, shooting looks to Fas that Ciara couldn’t recognize. A bottle of wine passed around the group. A celebration, then, and a happy time. A good dream.
Ciara stirred, the other dreams—nightmares, really—trying to intrude, but she refused to let them. She stayed in the dream, stayed in the confines of the happiness, feeling nothing but the welcome of her village, the warmth of the fire and the wine as it trailed down her throat, nothing other than contentedness.
When she finally awoke, everything but the last dream was forgotten.
25
Jasn
Even Enlightened, I do not control enough spirit to cleanse a draasin.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
The copse of trees carried a fragrance of something like pine and cut grass, fresh scents that Jasn welcomed after all the time that he’d spent inside the Hyaln castle.
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