“Are you ready?” he asked her.
She could only nod. She was ready, and she understood what he was doing while she got herself back together. He was going to bring her with him, but she had to be ready to keep up.
And she was.
They started off, heading across the ground. As she went, her feet squishing with each step, the water dripping off her, ice began to form in her hair. Ryn wrapped her arms around her. She wasn’t accustomed to suffering while traveling with Olandar Fahr. She was accustomed to being comfortable, to him taking care of her, but perhaps that was another message he was trying to give her. He would still protect her, but maybe he was done taking care of her.
As they walked, she began to grow numb. Everything within her ached, the cold biting through her, and she took step after step, hurrying after him, the movement keeping her from freezing. Eventually, they would reach their destination, or she would freeze completely. She no longer knew which it would be.
It was late in the day by the time Olandar Fahr finally stopped. They paused in front of a cave entrance, and he glanced over at her. “How are you feeling?”
“Cold.”
“Did you think that you could make it?”
“I didn’t have any choice.”
“You could have lain down, and you could have given up.”
She couldn’t have, and she thought he knew that. Then again, all of this was a test. She was as certain of that as she was of anything. Olandar Fahr wanted to know what she was capable of withstanding, and though she thought he should know that by now, having found her where he had, having seen the way she had struggled, perhaps he wanted to prove to her that she could still withstand much more than she believed.
Ryn shook her head. “I couldn’t have given up.”
“Why is that?”
“I was with you.”
“Did you believe that I was going to protect you?”
“You weren’t going to let me die.”
“How did you know?”
“I guess I didn’t. I just didn’t think you would.”
“Because you had faith.”
Ryn nodded. “I suppose I did.”
“For what must come, and for what I must do, I need to have faith. Not only do I have to have faith that what I’m doing is right, and that I know each step I take is what must happen, but I must also have faith in those who follow me. Not all who follow me do so for the same reason as you. Some view me as a means to greater power, and in their willingness to follow me, I have allowed them to reach for power they wouldn’t otherwise have. Unfortunately, that has enabled some to follow who should not.”
“This was all about you wanting me to have faith?”
“This was about me asking you to demonstrate that you could have faith.” He smiled at her, and something strange happened then. Warmth radiated from him, sweeping across her, and as it did, her gown went completely dry. The chill that had worked through her faded, and she was no longer so miserable. Heat radiated from Olandar Fahr, a power she had never seen him display, and yet it was unsurprising that he could do so. She had seen other sorts of things from him, not the least of which was his strange ability to travel from place to place. “How is that now?”
“Better,” she breathed out. She still held her arms wrapped around her, but the cold no longer threatened to overwhelm her.
“That is about all that I can offer. I will keep you warm here, Ryn, but once we walk through here, you will need to come to terms with what you find.”
“What’s inside?”
“Inside here is the power of the Elder.”
“Which one?”
“Do you think it matters?”
“You wouldn’t have brought me here to this one if it didn’t.”
Olandar Fahr smiled. “Very good. So many think all that matters is the fact of power, and they don’t take any time to consider the means to it, or the way that it interacts. From what I can tell, the power of the Elders interacts in a specific way, and in doing so, it grants the user a different sort of ability.” He glanced over at her. “If you had grown up in Elaeavn, the land of your people, you would have been subjected to a different type of power. Having grown up outside of the city, you were kept away from it, and in my mind, that’s unfortunate.”
“I never knew anything about the power of those people until my mother told me.”
“It fades over time. The longer one is away from the source, the more the abilities fade. That’s the reason that the punishment the people of Elaeavn inflict is so devastating. Few remember why, but exile forces the people away from the source of their abilities, weakening them and those who come after.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
Olandar Fahr smiled and shook his head. “I am not of Elaeavn.”
“Is that what would happen to my family?”
“Only you can answer that, Ryn Valeron. What did your family tell you about who you were and what you came from?”
She thought about what her mother had shared with her, but there hadn’t been much. Her mother had kept from her anything about what it was like in Elaeavn, and because of that, Ryn knew nothing about her people.
In some ways, she would’ve liked to have kept it that way. There was nothing for her there, and she wanted nothing to do with them, other than the fact that she now wanted to understand why Lareth had been so angry at her father, and her mother, to the point where he would chase after them, destroying everything about them.
“They didn’t say much of anything,” she said.
“A shame, really. You should know where you came from. But I will do my best to help you find that out.” He turned back to the entrance to the cave, looking at it for a long moment. “Are you ready?”
“Am I ready for what?”
“For the first step in understanding.”
Ryn stared at it. After a moment, she nodded.
26
Daniel
Daniel struggled with the rocking way the A’ras ship traveled, differently than that of the Binders, streaking through the water at an incredible pace. Carth pushed on the ships with the shadows, sending all three of them speeding through the water. Daniel felt useless, unable to do anything but simply watch from the deck.
The island grew more distant. Flames crackled along the shoreline, the A’ras’s impotent attempt to fight their way free, but there was nothing they could do. They were stranded, forced to wait until Carth and the others returned for them, though Daniel had no idea what Carth would do with them, or whether she actually would return.
“They aren’t stuck there,” Lucy said.
Daniel glanced over. She had her arms crossed over her chest, and her eyes were narrow, a tight glare on her face. “How aren’t they stuck? We took their ships.”
And the ships they had come in on had sailed away, guided toward the fleet. Carth had added to her numbers and had not lost a thing.
Daniel still didn’t know how much of what had happened she had anticipated. They had gone to the ships, only four of them, and had overpowered them. If Carth had known he was ready for that kind of fight, she hadn’t given any indication.
It was part of what troubled him. Had she used him—and Lucy—to defeat the A’ras with minimal impact on the Binders?
The other possibility was that she didn’t trust the Binders in a confrontation with the A’ras. He didn’t think that was likely, considering how much Carth had trusted them with so many other things.
“The island has enough supplies for them to survive,” Lucy said. “Carth had no intention of letting them perish.”
“Is that what you Read?”
Lucy nodded.
“And what if Carth wanted you to Read that? What if she revealed that information deliberately?”
“I’m sure she did.”
“How much time have you spent talking with Carth?”
“Enough, why?”
“You haven’t been spending much time w
ith the Binders.”
“They’ve been helping me get a handle on my abilities. That was the whole purpose of us staying in Asador.”
“I’ve seen the way Carth uses people. Everything is strategy to her. I suspect Carth intended for you to Read her, and she shared only what she thought would be beneficial.”
“You’re right, but we’re also traveling with her and need to have some trust in what she’s sharing with us.”
He didn’t know. There just seemed to be too much about Carth that was mysterious and different. The fact that she was sharing with Lucy troubled him; from what he knew of Carth, she wasn’t someone to share it easily.
What did she hope to gain?
He thought about the lessons she had shared, lessons she had mentioned learning from her experiences. None of it made sense.
“It has to do with us needing these ships,” he said, turning back to Lucy.
He watched her and realized that she knew something more than what she was telling him. Maybe it was more than what she had Read. If it was, why wouldn’t she share with him?
“What else is Carth after?” he asked.
“I’m still trying to work that out,” Lucy said.
They fell into a measured sort of silence, neither of them speaking. Daniel struggled to keep his footing as they crashed through the waves, and the distant island grew ever more difficult for him to detect. There were flames along the shores, but those flames gradually became smaller and smaller until they were so small as to be nothing.
One of the Binders called to Lucy, and she hurried off, joining the other women as they worked on pulling on the lines, getting the sails prepared, shifting them so they caught the wind, letting it snap around them.
Everybody had a task on board the ship. Even Lucy, though hers was mostly to learn.
The only person who didn’t have a task was him.
“Do you intend to keep watching?”
Daniel glanced over to Rayen. He hadn’t noticed her join him, but she had, standing comfortably on the stern along with him, rolling with each wave. Her eyes narrowed as she looked out into the distance. He couldn’t tell if shadows streaked from her, though he suspected that they did.
“What else am I supposed to do?”
Rayen laughed softly. “What else? You’ve been given your assignment.”
“Have I?”
Rayen turned toward him, shaking her head. “Do you believe that Carth would let you get away with doing nothing on board one of her ships?”
“I don’t believe there’s anything I can do. I’m different than the Binders, and they seem more interested in keeping Lucy a part of what they’re doing than me.”
“Because she will be brought along with the Binders.”
“Then what assignment did Carth give me?”
“She has asked that you work with her.”
She said it in a way that left him feeling as if he should have known that already, but he hadn’t seen that from Carth. He hadn’t seen anything that would suggest her wanting him to work with her.
“She hasn’t asked me to do anything.”
“Has she pulled you aside and spoken to you about strategy?”
Daniel nodded.
“Then she has shown her interest and willingness to work with you. You have to be capable of receiving that information.”
Daniel stared at Rayen. “That’s how she intends to share with me?”
“You have to be ready for whatever she offers. She won’t make the offer more than once.”
“She could’ve made it clearer.”
“She could have, but would you have been willing to listen?”
He wasn’t exactly sure what Rayen was getting at or what Carth intended from him, but he liked to think that he would have been willing to listen. Then again, maybe not. Even now, he wasn’t sure he was prepared for whatever it was Carth might offer him. Would it be answers? Would it be something more than that?
A place. Wasn’t that what he wanted?
He had left Elaeavn, thinking that he needed to help, but not really sure what that involved. And even now, after everything he’d been through, he couldn’t claim that he really understood. Lucy seemed so certain of what she needed, and she probably was. She needed to understand what it meant for her to have these augmented abilities.
Daniel made his way toward Carth, and Rayen watched him, saying nothing. He thought shadows streamed out from her, though he wasn’t certain; shadows always seemed to stream from Rayen. It was how she controlled her ability.
Carth glanced over. “You can go rest, Daniel Elvraeth.”
“I don’t want to rest,” Daniel said.
Carth studied him for a moment, her gaze lingering. “What would you rather do, then?”
“If it were up to me, I would prefer to know what you intend for me.”
“Does it matter?”
Daniel shrugged. “Probably not, but seeing as how you have plans for all things, I suspect you have a plan for me.”
“I wouldn’t be doing my people any favors if I didn’t have a plan for everyone I surround myself with.”
“So what is your plan for me?”
Carth studied him for a moment before looking past him and nodding. Rayen joined them, taking over steering the ship, and Carth motioned for Daniel to follow. They went below deck and back toward Carth’s quarters. Daniel had never spent any time within her rooms. It was almost too personal being back here in her space, and he paused in the doorway as he looked around.
“You can enter,” Carth said.
“Why did you bring me down here?”
“I thought you and I could talk a little bit.”
“Talk about what?”
“Talk about what you intend.”
She sat at a table. A game board rested on top of it, alternating squares of black and white. Strangely sculpted pieces were arranged on top of the board, and a single piece sat in the middle. Carth pressed her hands together, leaning forward on her elbows as she looked up at him.
“What I intend with what?”
“That is what we have to talk about.”
“Why do I get the sense that I won’t care for this all that much?”
“I don’t know. Is there some reason you shouldn’t?”
Her gaze flicked to the door and then back to him. Daniel took a step inside, closing the door behind him. The only seat other than her bed was the chair across from her. He took it, and up close, the sculptures on the game board all had a distinct feature to them. Some of them were similar, and it took him a moment to realize that each side of the board appeared to be a mirror of the other.
“How do these pieces not slide around as we sail?”
Carth chuckled. “You are one of the first people who’s ever asked me that.”
“It’s not a good question?”
“It’s a practical question. And it tells me a little bit about your mindset.”
“This is the game you were telling me about.”
Carth studied him for another moment before tipping her head in a nod and motioning toward the game board. “It is. It’s called Tsatsun, and it’s a game of strategy. Men have been playing it in various forms for thousands of years.”
“Why do I get the sense that you chose the word men intentionally?”
“Perhaps I did, or perhaps it was unintentional,” Carth said.
“And this is the game that you believe will allow you to get inside the mind of your opponent?”
“I’m not the only one who feels that way, Daniel Elvraeth.”
“So how does it work?”
“Each piece has various properties to it. Some are better suited for pursuit. Some are better suited for defense. Some are better at attack.”
“And what about that one?” He pointed to the piece at the center of the board.
“That is referred to as the Stone. It’s a unique piece. In order to win the game, you must push that piece to the other side of the board.�
��
“Stone?” Daniel lifted the piece, feeling a little resistance. Something held the piece to the board. It had to be a magnet, which at least explained why the pieces didn’t slide all over. It was a strange piece, carved something like a tower, and there were four windows near the top. “It’s interesting that this piece is referred to as the Stone.”
“Why does that interest you?”
“I suppose because of the Elder Stones. Isn’t that the point?”
Carth stared at the piece in his hands, watching him. “It’s interesting to me that this piece is referred to as the Stone, especially as it is crucial to winning. Even more interesting is the strategy required in order to win. The winning play is one where you manage to secure it on the opposite side of the board where your opponent can’t reach it.”
“I don’t see why this game is so difficult.”
“The difficulty isn’t in the ultimate goal. Oftentimes when dealing with strategy, it’s not understanding the goal that is the challenge. It’s the journey in reaching the goal that proves the most difficult. Think about what you know of the Forgers.”
“They want to attack.”
“But that’s not all they want. Think about it in simpler terms.”
Daniel frowned, staring at the piece. He twisted it in his hands. It had seemed completely smooth before, but the longer he held it, the more he became aware of slight indentations along the surface. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them, however subtly.
What was it that the Forgers wanted? All his life, he had believed that the Forgers wanted to harm him. Could they be after something else? Maybe it wasn’t about harming them but about power.
“They want to rule.”
“The Ai’thol want to rule.”
“The Forgers don’t?”
“What role do the Forgers play?”
“I don’t know the dynamics all that well. I thought the Ai’thol and the Forgers were the same thing.”
“There are similarities, but they aren’t the same. The Forgers serve the Ai’thol in some fashion.”
“Some fashion? That seems pretty vague.”
“When it comes to the Ai’thol, we don’t have many details. I have spent years searching for more information about the Ai’thol, and I’ve never managed to get much from them.”
Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga Book 2) Page 29