Shadows Within the Flame (The Elder Stones Saga Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “There is benefit in remembering where we come from.”

  Rayen looked around, her jaw clenched. “I haven’t forgotten where I come from.”

  “And yet you haven’t returned either.”

  “There hasn’t been any time for me to do so.”

  “I tried to make that excuse, too. Time is what we make of it.”

  “And I would rather look forward than continue to look back,” Rayen said.

  Carth smiled tightly. “Which is why you have yet to pose much of a threat with Tsatsun.”

  Rayen shot her a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means the same as I’ve told you every time we play. In order to master the game, you have to learn from your experiences. In order to learn from your experiences, you have to reflect upon them.”

  “Just because I don’t want to visit my homeland doesn’t mean I don’t reflect upon my experiences,” Rayen snapped.

  “I was just making a comment,” Carth said.

  “It was one that I did not need,” Rayen said.

  Daniel stared at Carth for a moment, and he realized that the comments she had been making were not completely for Rayen. They might’ve been more for his benefit than for hers. It was the kind of thing he had come to realize Carth would do.

  Rayen strode forward, giving space, and Daniel glanced over to Carth. “Was all that for my benefit?”

  “Why would you think that?”

  “Because you’ve been working with me on Tsatsun.”

  Carth stared straight ahead, but he had the sense that she was aware of everything around them. “Perhaps it was for both of your benefit.”

  “What part of my past do you think I need to reflect upon?”

  “When it comes to the game, you can learn lessons from every encounter you have, but when it comes to life, we all need to take a moment to evaluate our experiences and how they have influenced us. Sometimes they aren’t as obvious as you would think.”

  “I know how my experience in Elaeavn has influenced me,” he said.

  “You think you know, but unfortunately, most people aren’t aware of what they’ve experienced and how that impacts them. All I’m asking is that you take a moment, perhaps more than just a moment, and reflect—the same thing I’ve asked all the Binders I’ve worked with. I’ve found that the most skilled players are able to reflect on their past and can use those lessons to carry themselves forward. Too many are like Rayen, refusing to look back into the past, afraid of what they might find or remember, and though they move forward, in some ways they are always trapped.”

  Daniel considered how that might work, but it didn’t make complete sense to him, though he wasn’t sure Carth wanted it to make sense to him now. Her lesson was for later, another thing for him to reflect upon and ponder. And if he was able to do so, what might he discover?

  As they weaved through the city of Nyaesh, wandering from place to place, he thought about his experience in Elaeavn. That was what she was getting at. He had been born and raised within the Floating Palace. That time in the palace had influenced him, teaching him to become the person his father wanted him to be. He was to lead, though he no longer knew if he wanted that for himself.

  “Does anything here trigger you?” he asked Carth.

  “I see enough of my past in every step I take.”

  “What sort of things?”

  She pointed down a narrow alley. A few people moved along it, but not nearly as many as were on the street. Those who did were dressed in ragged clothing, nothing like the much nicer—and finer—clothing of the merchants who made their way to and from the docks. They passed an occasional soldier, though none of them looked like the A’ras he had encountered. There were groups of children making their way in throngs, and he kept a close grip on his pockets, knowing that children could often be thieves.

  “When I was here, there was an apothecary down there. A woman who sold medicines. Her shop was destroyed while I was still in Nyaesh.”

  “Why was it destroyed?”

  “It’s possible that it was because of me, a way of getting to me, or it could have been mere chance. I’ve never really known.”

  “Was it someone you knew well in there?”

  “Not well, but someone who was kind to me. When I was young and wandered the streets of Nyaesh, finding kindness wasn’t always easy.”

  “Finding kindness isn’t always easy in Elaeavn either.”

  Carth glanced over. “Most who know that I grew up on the streets after my parents died think I had a tortured childhood, but I’ve met quite a few who experienced a much worse childhood than I did, and they had an intact family, and an intact home. Just because your parents are alive and you have someplace to go doesn’t mean that it’s the kind of place where you want to spend your days.”

  Daniel smiled to himself. “My parents were fine. The palace was fine. None of it was warm, if that makes any sense.”

  “It makes perfect sense. There’s a difference between a building and a home, regardless of who lives there.” She was silent for a moment as they continued along the street. “What do you see around you?” Carth asked.

  The change in topic jarred him from his reverie. Was she trying to lull him into some misstep? Or was this all part of another test, her way of challenging him? It was difficult to know when it came to Carth. Everything could be a lesson.

  “I see the city. I see people making their way through it.”

  “Do you notice anything unusual?”

  “Should I?”

  “I’m not certain. I find there is something unusual, but then, I spent many years living within Nyaesh.”

  “What is it that’s unusual?”

  “For a city that should have a considerable A’ras presence, from what I can tell, there isn’t one.”

  “Why do you think that is?”

  “It could be that they’ve changed their patrol patterns,” Carth said.

  There was an edge to her tone that suggested that wasn’t the case. “And if they haven’t adjusted their patrol patterns?”

  “Then I have to wonder what has happened here. Typically the A’ras patrolled the streets, especially near the shores. There is enough movement in and out of the city that it’s necessary to keep an eye on things.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  She smiled at him. “And how could you? But you know the A’ras are typically found within the city. The fact that there are none suggests that something is amiss.”

  Daniel worried that might be the reason the A’ras had left. Could they have been chased out of their own city?

  If so, they would have—or should have—said something to Carth. She was one of them, or had been, so it seemed to him that they would want to include her in whatever was taking place.

  “Where would you have us go?”

  “The only place we can go.”

  He realized they were heading straight through the city. Rayen continued to make her way in front of him, though occasionally she cast a glance back, and Daniel saw a tinge of worry at the corners of her eyes. He didn’t need to know Rayen well to recognize it. It was there, haunting her.

  She must have recognized that something wasn’t quite right.

  Daniel looked over to Carth but didn’t See anything obvious. She wasn’t holding on to her connection to the shadows, and he didn’t detect any sense of heat rising from her to suggest that she was using her connection to her other ability.

  The entire city was otherwise quiet, but the longer Daniel watched, the more he realized that, though there were people making their way through the streets, there was an edge to the city, one that he didn’t fully understand.

  He turned to Carth, intending to say something, but she shook her head, almost anticipating what he might say.

  Rather than speaking up, he observed. He didn’t know what they might come across, only that something was taking place here.

  The street widened into a large squa
re, and Carth paused as they reached it. Her gaze drifted along the street, beyond the square and into the distance. It didn’t take Daniel much effort to figure out what she was looking at.

  It was a palace.

  “Is that where we need to go?” Daniel asked.

  “I thought so, but—” Carth cut off abruptly and grabbed him, pulling him toward her as shadows swirled around her.

  The suddenness of it jarred him. He said nothing, afraid to speak, afraid to draw attention to them, afraid even to move.

  He leaned toward her. “Do you need me to Slide?” he whispered.

  She frowned for a moment, and then she shook her head. “We might need to eventually, but for now…”

  For now, she wanted to observe. He’d seen that side of Carth before. It was the cautious one, the one that thought to take everything in before making a decision. It was the planner. That Carth was the one he feared.

  Covered by the shadows, he couldn’t see what she saw and didn’t know what she knew, so he had no idea what had forced her attention upon him so directly.

  He could only wait and observe. Until then, he had to think through what he was seeing.

  And exactly what was that?

  Nothing that was clear.

  But Carth wanted him to see beyond what was obvious. Obvious was easy; she wanted him to move beyond it, to look for things that were more difficult to find. He thought he could, but what would it take?

  Attempting to See through the shadows was difficult, though not impossible. Shadows surrounded everything, though strangely, not near Carth. He leaned forward just enough to get a better view of what was on the other side of the shadows.

  As he watched, there was movement, but he couldn’t tell just what it was. It took a moment, but when he saw, his breath caught.

  “Forgers,” he whispered.

  “Not Forgers. A’ras—but something is wrong with them.”

  34

  Lucy

  The ship hugged the dock, a surging movement every so often causing them to slam against it, though without much real force. There was enough impact that it jarred Lucy, forcing her to maintain her focus. She looked around at the other Binders, and they were all unfazed by the movement. Most of them had quite a bit more experience sailing than Lucy did, and she suspected that many of them had been sailing almost as long as Carth.

  She didn’t like waiting here. Carth had something in mind for her, but she wasn’t entirely sure what that was, at least not yet.

  The other woman had allowed Lucy to Read her, enough to know what she intended. This was similar to what they had experienced in the strongholds of the C’than, with power from the Elder Stone flowing throughout the city. It was that power that had given the people of the city a certain strength. It was that power that Carth intended to neutralize, though Lucy wasn’t entirely clear what Carth hoped to accomplish by doing so.

  She glanced at the other Binders with her, debating whether to ask one of them to accompany her before deciding against it. She was to investigate, nothing more.

  She Slid.

  She emerged in a place that Carth had shown her in her vision. It was still within the city, and from this vantage, she could make out the central palace. She looked around, searching for anything that would be unusual. Men and women marched along the street, some of them in pairs and trios, and as they marched, others around them scattered, getting out of the way. They were soldiers, and the maroon fabric wrapped around their arms or their necks, or sometimes even around their waists, appeared to denote their rank. Most of them carried curved swords, and given what she had Read from Carth, she knew that they would be skilled swordsmen. It had been a warning to her. Carth had wanted her to avoid these people, observe only, and yet, she had also wanted her to detect whether or not there was any C’than presence within the city.

  Lucy wasn’t sure how she was supposed to go about doing that other than to follow the images Carth had given her. In those images, she had been able to make out certain details, but not enough to fully identify where she was to go to find these places of the C’than.

  Would they have infiltrated Nyaesh?

  That had been Carth’s concern, enough that she had wanted Lucy to go and investigate, but if Carth was really troubled, Lucy didn’t know why she wouldn’t have come herself, other than the fact that something else seemed to trouble Carth—the possibility of another source of danger, though Lucy didn’t know what that might be.

  A small building greeted her. It was similar enough to several of the strongholds they had visited in their journey, and more than that, she detected a single marking on the stone that she’d seen in other places. That marking had significance, even if Lucy wasn’t sure what it was.

  She tried to Read others within the building, detecting that there were some here but not determining what purpose they had.

  Lucy continued forward. The building was small, and she had no sense of resistance as she had in some of the other places, but when she focused on attempting to Slide, she found that she struggled. She had to be able to push through this, knowing there was something here, though how was she going to be able to get inside and find out what it was? Her time was limited. She didn’t know how long Carth would be off with Daniel, but she did know that Carth wanted her to resolve this as quickly as she could, and somehow, this was Lucy’s task, even though fighting was not a skill of hers.

  Pushing again, Lucy pressed herself up against the resistance, and it began to part.

  She surged through it and emerged inside the small building. Lanterns hung on the wall, though they were nothing like any lantern she’d seen before. They glowed with a steady orangish light, not burning oil, and there was no flickering flame. Everything about the lanterns seemed to be lit as if by magic.

  Not magic, but C’than engineers.

  She was certain that was the key, though she wasn’t sure why Carth would have wanted her to come here, and on her own. With the lanterns glowing, she didn’t have a sense that this place was abandoned the way the others had been. And if it wasn’t abandoned, then Carth wouldn’t want her to do this on her own. Carth would want to be here with her, to give her whatever help was needed in order to understand what the C’than were after.

  Lucy made her way carefully down the hallway. She had a sense of something unusual here, though what was it?

  She strained to Read, looking for anyone that might be here, but she wasn’t able to detect anything—or anyone. If there were any of the C’than here, she wasn’t aware of them.

  Lucy paused, walking along the hallway, searching for any evidence of the C’than. A door at the end of the hallway caught her attention. It was locked, but that wasn’t going to impede her. She focused on the other side of the door and started to Slide.

  As she did, she met with some resistance. It was subtle, and slightly different than the kind of resistance she had encountered when attempting to Slide into the building in the first place, but enough of a barrier that she understood it was meant to prevent someone from entering.

  A library.

  Shelves lined with books stretched two stories overhead. The room was enormous, easily the size of the tavern in Asador, and the number of books here overwhelmed her. Was this what Carth had wanted her to find?

  Standing near the door, Lucy realized that she wasn’t alone.

  A man sat hunched in front of a desk, facing the door but seemingly oblivious to the fact that she had entered. He scratched a pen across the surface of a paper, pausing every so often, as if he were collecting his thoughts, before continuing on. Lucy tested him, straining for his mind, searching to see if she could uncover anything.

  For a moment, she thought he might have some way of blocking her, but his thoughts were there.

  He was researching.

  He kept the topics he studied at the forefront of his mind, and it was clear to her that he was looking into metals and how they could be combined.

  An engineer.
r />   She pushed harder, digging deeper into his mind, straining for a connection to Alera.

  It was there, as was a connection to others. There was an entire network within the C’than who had conspired together, and with that knowledge, she realized who they were, and what they were after.

  They thought they could negotiate with the Ai’thol. They thought they could trade knowledge. They disagreed with the ruling C’than and… with Carth.

  Lucy Slid to him, grabbing him, and Slid again, jerking free of the barriers around the building. She emerged on the rocky slope of the island of the stronghold.

  The man started to fight, but Lucy held on to him, throwing him forward.

  “What is this?”

  “This is you facing punishment.”

  “Punishment? Who are you? What have you done?”

  “I know that you have been working with Alera.”

  The man blinked. “You’re with her.”

  Lucy nodded. She looked up at the rocky tower. There wouldn’t be any way for her to Slide inside. If nothing else, she needed to alert the C’than inside that there was a traitor among them. They could keep him here the same way they kept the other engineer.

  “Why?”

  “You aren’t of the C’than. You can’t begin to understand.”

  Lucy forced her way into his mind.

  Diving this deep into the man’s mind, she was aware of the faces and names of his coconspirators. Alera was gone, but how many others had fallen with her? Not enough—not nearly enough.

  And because of it, the C’than were in danger.

  That was what Carth feared. Lucy wasn’t entirely sure why, other than Carth viewed the C’than as a way of balancing the power of the Ai’thol.

  These C’than viewed themselves differently. They saw how the Ai’thol had taken power, claiming it from the Elder Stones, and they had begun to think they could do it better.

  With that power, they had wanted to rule.

  Was that the purpose of the C’than?

  This man, this engineer, thought she couldn’t begin to understand because she wasn’t C’than, and yet, as she probed deeper and deeper into his mind, she thought she did understand. Her insight into what he was doing and how he was thinking showed her just what the C’than was supposed to be.