We need to escape, Ciara said to Talyn. Shade will return.
That one is powerful, Little Light.
Can you help us?
We are bonded. I will help.
Talyn lowered her head, and Ciara hurried to the draasin, settling Doln on her back before climbing on behind him.
“Come on,” she said to Sinsa.
The other woman—a girl, she decided—backed up, raising her hands in front of her and shaking her head. “I can’t ride on the draasin.”
“You can if you want to return home.”
“Do you command her?” she asked. “Shade always said controlling the draasin was one of the hardest summons. That was why he warned me away from here.”
Talyn snorted, and steam erupted from her nostrils.
“Not control. Not with the draasin. You can summon, and you can ask, but control with the draasin is an illusion.”
The answer seemed to satisfy Talyn.
Sinsa approached slowly.
As she did, darkness began to seep through the doorway.
Ciara leaped from Talyn’s back and ran toward Sinsa. She slammed her j’na into the ground in three sharp cracks, each louder than the last, and light burst from the end, pushing back the darkness.
“Hurry! Shade returns!”
It wouldn’t be only Shade this time. He would have others, possibly the same two he’d brought when he came for her the first time. And it was possible there were others.
Ciara needed to return, to find Cheneth so that she could ask what had happened and find out how Shade managed to steal her memories, but first, they had to escape.
Sinsa ran toward the draasin and climbed onto her back.
The inner wall exploded inward.
Ciara pushed against it, using a summoning of earth and wind, reacting as quickly as she could to keep from getting crushed under debris. With a summoning of wind, she cleared the dust from the air. When it settled, Shade stood a dozen paces from her, holding his j’na, now glowing a dark green. Four others stood alongside him, each with something like a j’na, and each with the same greenish glow. Darkness pooled at their feet, either summoned or directed by Tenebeth. Ciara no longer knew whether Shade controlled Tenebeth, or whether it was the other way around.
Shade made a dozen sharp taps on the ground. Through the new connection to Talyn, Ciara felt the way the summons was directed at the draasin, intending to control her.
Fight this! she urged.
With our bond, he cannot control, Talyn answered. The draasin roared, and the sound thundered in the small space.
Two of the men with Shade took a step back at Talyn’s rage.
Ciara summoned earth, calling for help in opening a pit in the ground that swallowed them before either could react.
That left three.
They worked together, much like they had when Ciara had been attacked the first time, targeting her j’na, trying to keep her from using it in the summons.
Then, she hadn’t known anything other than how to step in the summons. Shade had taught her enough to defend him. Would he appreciate the irony?
She might not be able to use her j’na, her arm frozen in the air from competing gusts of wind that tried to pry her fingers free, but she no longer needed it for her summons.
Visualizing the intent and the summons, she called to wind, requesting it to help her. Wind answered, coming slowly at first, but then with increasing force.
Shade glared at her, but then his eyes widened, and she suspected that he understood.
Talyn, would you help?
The draasin turned to Shade and the others, and flames raced from her nostrils. Were it not for a quick summons, they would have been burned. Instead, Shade’s j’na was burned, and the others’ were as well.
Ciara called on earth, asking it to open another pit in the tower, and they fell, disappearing.
She raced back to Talyn and climbed onto the draasin, sitting next to Sinsa and behind Doln. Let’s go.
The draasin roared, and with one more summons to earth to split the wall open, Talyn crawled from the tower and took to the air on a great flap of wings.
51
Ciara
When I assumed the role of Commander, I discovered the elementals behaving in ways we had never seen before. There were many possible answers, but none that really made sense.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
The dark sky made it difficult to see anything. As usual, clouds obscured the night, blocking the stars. Ciara held her j’na overhead, and the light from it seemed to burn away some of the darkness, punching holes in the clouds that let some of the starlight—and a gentle breeze—through.
“How did you do that?” Sinsa asked.
“Do what?” Ciara answered.
“That. The clouds. The draasin. Shade. All of it.”
Ciara sighed. She felt tired but not exhausted, nothing like the fatigue that Shade always claimed came after a long day learning how to summon. Perhaps that was how he had controlled her, always forcing her to sleep, but that had been the way to her freedom as well. Were it not for the dreams placed in her mind, the memories that Reghal had gifted to her, she wouldn’t have managed to escape. He would have forced her to summon the night, and she suspected that she would fully serve Tenebeth then.
“Summoning. I think that’s why he wanted us. We can summon the elementals.”
“That was summoning the elementals?” Sinsa asked.
Ciara breathed out heavily as Talyn pierced the clouds. Starlight suddenly burst around her, giving her a sense of relief that she hadn’t known that she needed. “That’s the elementals. Like the draasin, or the wind.”
“But you didn’t use any summons. That looked like shaping to me.”
Fas had once described the way that he shaped water to her, referring to it as a power that came from deep inside himself, one that required strength and energy. He told her how he felt weakened after he shaped and that it would take time for him to recover. What she had done, the summoning, hadn’t weakened her, not as Fas had described.
“It was summoning,” she said, partly to affirm it to herself. “But not as Shade instructed. I was able to hold the intent as he described, but then I also added to that a visualization of the summons.”
“You summoned each of the elements at once?”
Ciara nodded, leaning over the side of Talyn as she glanced down at the ground below. There was nothing else, only blankets of clouds. With a soft summons to the wind, she asked it to blow through, to draw away the clouds. A cool breeze picked up, fluttering in her face and sending her hair gusting over her shoulders. Slowly, the clouds parted, leaving an expanse of faded brown below.
There were other draasin here, Ciara said to Talyn.
It’s possible. These lands have learned to summon many of the elementals.
We must help them.
Little Light, she began, twisting her neck so that one eye met Ciara’s. We should return.
If they have been tainted by Tenebeth—
There is nothing that you can do.
I am not certain of that.
Talyn stared at her and then turned away. Ciara detected her assent—but continued disagreement—through the connection they shared.
She still marveled at that. The connection was much like what she shared with Reghal and allowed her to speak to the elementals, but more than that, it gave her a sense of them. There was power that she didn’t have to summon in that connection, though she wasn’t certain she was meant to use it. But it was the connection to Reghal that gave her hope for helping the draasin. Nobelas had proven he could help the other elementals and that he could heal the draasin. If that didn’t work, then Ciara would have to return to Ter and find others connected to the elementals and use that strength to try and strip Tenebeth’s connection from them.
A shadow streaked below.
Can you follow? she asked Talyn.
The draasin
turned, a motion that was simply a tipping of her wings, with her tail swinging out behind her. They dove toward the shadow, streaking quickly through the sky.
As they did, Ciara began thinking about what she had done when she had prevented Thenas from attacking. That had been a summons, but now that she understood summoning better, she recognized that there had been no focus, not as what she would need to draw away Tenebeth.
She needed light to counter dark, like the light she summoned through her j’na.
Could she draw on that without standing on the ground and striking the spear?
Why would it be any different than the others summons that she managed to visualize?
Ciara focused on her intent. That had to be the first step. With that in mind, she created the image of the steps that she would take, mixing with it the snap of the j’na and the sound it made striking the ground. There was a pattern, one that repeated, and she brought this into her mind, holding it there.
The end of her j’na began to glow.
Ciara continued, pulling on the summoning with even more force.
The other draasin appeared in view.
Ciara stood on Talyn’s back, holding her j’na out, pointing the end toward the distant draasin. Is it tainted?
In these lands, it is hard to tell.
Will it harm the draasin if they are not tainted?
You summon the Light. There is no harm in that.
Ciara continued her summoning, letting the strength of it build. They reached the draasin and flew alongside the massive creature. As they did, it turned its head and started to shoot fire.
Talyn turned, exposing her belly to the other draasin, catching the fire.
Are you hurt?
Fire does not harm fire, Little Light.
They angled, turning toward the draasin, and Ciara pointed the j’na. She unleashed the light, letting the summoning streak across the distance like a bright explosion of white light, something that seemed to burn like the sun.
The summoning struck the draasin.
It shook.
Ciara watched as darkness seemed to slither free, dropping away like something tangible.
The draasin turned its head toward them and roared. Flame erupted from his nose but aimed toward the ground, not at Talyn. Then the draasin flapped his massive wings and streaked away.
You were right to help, Little Light.
We should look for others.
How many others do you expect to find?
Ciara stared at the ground, uncertain. She might have to summon them, to use a combination of the techniques that Shade had taught to draw the draasin to her. But could she not? If there was something that she could do, how could she avoid it, especially knowing that when the draasin were tainted like that, they served Tenebeth?
As many as it takes.
Talyn snorted, fire streaming from her, and Ciara sensed her approval.
52
Alena
The scholars within the college refused to answer, which told me that they knew more. They did not know that I learned how to conceal myself so that I could sneak into the college. The college also believed themselves hidden. This was unfortunate.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
Alena raised her sword, aiming it at the Commander. If she was going to fail, and if the city were to fall, then she would do everything that she could to stop the man responsible for it.
The shaping built quickly. Each time she called on spirit, she became stronger with it, able to pull on more and more. This time, she sent a tight shaping of fire through the sword as well and unleashed it on the Commander.
He raised his hand and seemed to catch the shaping because it disappeared.
His eyes flashed with anger, and his jaw clenched. It was easy to forget that he was a young man, the same age as Volth, and blast it if he didn’t remind her of Volth as well. They both had the same sharp jawline, the same wide shoulders, and the same undercurrent of danger. They could almost be brothers. And to hear it from Volth, they had been as close as brothers once.
The Commander tapped his foot three times, and the ground trembled. He made a small movement with his hand, and the wind whipped up, a warm breeze that seemed to come from Rens rather than the north.
The ground shook, widening near the shadow shapers.
It was then that Alena realized that the Commander wasn’t attacking her, Oliver, and Wansa. He attacked the shadow shapers.
He unsheathed his sword and jabbed it into the ground. The hilt flared with a bright white light, much like what Ciara managed to do with her spear.
Could the Commander summon the same as Ciara?
That would explain why he had always seemed to be so powerful. But where would he have learned it?
“You can assist or you can stand there watching, Alena,” he said casually.
He tapped his sword again, and the light pressed back all of the darkness, blindingly bright. The ground cracked again, spreading like the mouth of an enormous snake, and swallowed three of the shadow shapers. With another tap, the ground closed again, crushing them.
The other two shadow shapers moved quickly.
Alena leaped at the nearest, realizing it was Not-Margo.
With a shaping of fire and spirit, she caught Not-Margo and severed her hand. Another sweep and she took off her leg. The woman didn’t even have the courtesy to scream. She simply fell wordlessly to her death.
Lachen had dispatched the other shaper and had him on the ground, about ready to pierce with his sword.
“Wait!” she shouted.
Lachen hesitated, a question in his eyes.
The shadow shaper glared at her, but she ignored it as she knelt next to him. Using a shaping of spirit through her sword, she pierced his shoulder. “Where is she?”
A dark smile pulled at the shadow shaper’s mouth. “You will never find the one you lost. She’s gone and will never return.”
“Where. Is. She?” With each word, she twisted the sword, biting into his flesh with steel and the spirit shaping, but he still refused to answer.
Lachen placed a strong hand on her wrist and pulled her up. A shaping built, one that flared his sword a bright white. She studied it, expecting to see markings that indicated that he had a spirit stick as well, but there were none.
Could he shape spirit without them?
Lachen’s face pinched into a tight frown of concentration. The other man’s jaw worked soundlessly, clenching as he struggled to resist the shaping that Lachen used on him. Then he stopped breathing.
Lachen took a step back and shook his head. “He refused until the end.” He slid his sword back into his sheath and glanced around the city. “Too late. I made it back too late.”
“Where have you been?”
He turned his intense gaze to stare at her. “Cheneth must have thought to send you. Interesting choice considering the way you abandoned Atenas.”
“I have served in the barracks. I didn’t abandon Atenas.”
“Where is Jasn?”
Alena debating answering, but this was the Commander. The way he had dispatched the shadow shapers made it clear that he still served Atenas… unless that was what he wanted her to believe. It was possible he only faked his service.
“Test me if you must,” he said.
Alena raised her sword and shaped spirit through it before settling that upon Lachen. The shaping delved deeply, quickly pushed through his mind, bypassing his thoughts and memories but making clear to her he hadn’t been tainted, not like Wansa had. As she withdrew her shaping, she realized he had aided her as she searched through his memories, guiding her quickly but not lingering.
She pushed again, but his mind had closed.
“Are you satisfied?” Lachen asked.
“You aren’t tainted like Wansa was,” she said, “but that doesn’t mean you serve Atenas.”
“And neither does your presence here, Alena.”
She look
ed down at Oliver and Wansa. They both still breathed, but neither had moved. “What now?” she asked.
Lachen shook his head. “Now that Atenas has been attacked? Or now the darkness has been unleashed on the world?”
“Tenebeth was already free,” she said.
Lachen tipped his head as he considered her. “Is that what you believe? A part of him was free. But with each of these…”
“Shadow shapers,” Alena offered.
He smiled. “Fitting. Well, with each of these shadow shapers, a little more of Tenebeth managed to escape. These fools thought that they controlled it, that they could control it, but this is not some elemental to direct.”
“What is it, then? What is Tenebeth?”
Lachen eyed the tower, his frown deepening. A shaping built from him and he tapped his sword on the ground. The ground answered with a soft rumble that made its way over to the tower and began to creep up the walls of stone. Lachen tapped his sword again, and the entire tower flashed a moment, light pouring from it.
Stars, but the man was powerful.
“Tenebeth. Voidan. The Lord of Night. Choose the name you would have for it, but it is the darkness and the emptiness, that which was there before creation, and before the light. And the darkness would return, Alena. It is up to us to prevent the return of nothing, to maintain the light.”
“How?” she found herself asking.
Lachen smiled, and she had an unsettled feeling looking at him. She could feel the overwhelming strength that he commanded, power that made what she was capable of channeling seem insignificant. But there was a reassurance to him, and she understood how this man had become the youngest Commander ever, a man who had managed to rise quickly through the Order and assume control.
“Do you finally care enough to know?”
“I’ve never stopped caring.”
“Not about yourself. Or about discovering fire. But you’ve never cared about Atenas, Alena Lagaro.”
She hated that he was right—and worse, she hated that he knew. “What would you ask of me?”
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