The Fates of Yoran (The Chain Breaker Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Even after your experience?”

  “Especially because of my experience.”

  Gavin started to wobble. He needed to focus more on his core power, letting it fill him. If he didn’t, then he would fade even more.

  “He just doesn’t want to acknowledge he might have a hint of enchanter magic,” Gavin said to Zella. “Most of them have it.”

  “Most of them?”

  Gavin nodded. “Enough of them, at least. Now, whether that’s true is a different matter, but from what I’ve been able to determine…”

  Zella watched him. “What makes you think this?”

  “What I saw taking place when Davel was making enchantments. But it was more than that. It was the way the smoke creatures were coming at those constables. They wouldn’t have unless there was some reason.”

  “You don’t know that,” Gaspar said.

  “I don’t. But I suspect it.”

  Gaspar leaned back, laughing. “Just because you suspect something doesn’t make it true.”

  Gavin shrugged. “No, it doesn’t, but it’s most likely true.” He leaned on the table, looking at Zella. “As to why I came here, I wanted to warn your people, but I think we also need your help.”

  “To combat these smoke creatures.”

  “That, and to stop the Fate. Together.” He looked to the constables briefly before turning his attention back to Zella.

  “From what I understand, when you faced one of the Fates, you were very nearly killed.”

  “Very nearly,” Gavin agreed.

  “What makes you think you would fare any better with our help?”

  “Nothing, I guess. All I know is that there is a way to harm them. I’ve done that. And with the right enchantments, I think we can kill him.” That had to be the reason the Fate had turned away when Gavin had gone to Zella and the others.

  “They don’t fear us,” Zella said, looking away. “They view us as less than them. The same way the sorcerers always did. We have always been less.”

  She turned away, and Davel watched her, though Gavin couldn’t read the look in his eyes. Could that be the reason for the attack? Not just revenge, but removing some element of magic the Fates didn’t approve of?

  “When I first came across him here, he was after something,” he said. “I’ve been trying to figure out the reason the Fates would have suddenly started paying attention to Yoran. They had ignored the city up until now, ignoring the fall of the Triad. They hadn’t been concerned about anything else that had happened, so why now?” He looked at the others. “There are only two things I can think of—the sword and the egg. The sword is an El’aras creation, so I don’t know that they would care about it so much.” It still didn’t explain why the sword would open the connecting chamber to the lairs beneath the city, but that was a different matter. “But given what we’ve seen from the smoke creature attack, I have to think it’s the egg.”

  He turned, looking across the room.

  “Davel,” he shouted.

  The constable sat up straighter.

  “I need you to come over here,” Gavin said.

  Davel glared at him. “I don’t do what you ask.”

  “Fine. Come over here so that we can talk about the jade egg.”

  Davel continued to glower at him, and Gavin smiled to himself.

  Davel got up and took a seat across the table from Gavin, positioning himself in such a way that he could look at everybody else around the table.

  “I need you to tell me exactly how you acquired the jade egg,” Gavin said.

  “Do you really still think this is tied to events that are decades old?”

  “At this point, nothing would be altogether surprising, especially when it comes to the type of magic here and the kind of magic you’re trying to hide.”

  “The jade egg was given to us by the enchanters when they aligned with us. They told us that it was something they made.”

  “They did make it,” Zella said.

  “Are you sure about that?” Gavin asked.

  “Why?”

  “Because, for a long time, the jade egg was protected by the constables.” Gavin looked over at Davel, watching him. He thought about the lower level of the barracks, a place where magic could be concealed. The constables essentially had a sorcerer’s lair. “When you moved it,” he said to Davel, “or when you reached out to the Mistress of Vines,” he said to Zella, “I think it drew their attention.”

  “We drew their attention?” Davel said.

  “Yes. I think the Fates thought the jade egg was lost—or destroyed. Knowing it survived…”

  Knowing it survived would have granted them a particular type of power.

  Now they could either give it to the Fate—or protect it.

  “I don’t think that fits,” Davel said.

  “No? What if I showed you the sorcerer’s lairs for the Triad?” Gavin knew he was reaching. He still wasn’t sure that the places he’d found were truly the Triad’s, but if they were…

  That might explain much more than what he already understood. He might be able to see if there was some reason for the jade egg, which might tie back to what Cyran had been after. Knowing Cyran, Gavin couldn’t help but wonder if it was all part of some grander scheme.

  Had I played into that? Perhaps I had been used all this time.

  “We’ve not been able to find them,” Davel said.

  “And you said you’ve looked?” Gavin asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And you haven’t found anything.”

  “Did you hear what I said?” Davel asked.

  “I’m just trying to get the point across that you claim you looked for them for how long? Twenty years? And in that time, you haven’t found anything?” He glanced from Gaspar to Zella. Zella watched him, saying nothing, but Gaspar was shaking his head slightly.

  “If you know something, then let it out,” Davel said.

  “I might just stay here and enjoy this feeling for a while longer,” Gavin said.

  “Careful,” Gaspar whispered. “If you reveal what you know, you lose the advantage.”

  “What advantage is there to those locations?”

  “I don’t know,” Gaspar said.

  “Listen, if the constables and the enchanters are all descended from the same sort of people”—Gavin smiled at Davel as he said it and turned to Zella—“then it seems to me we need to work together to better understand everything going on within the city. And as much as you might want to claim that the events from decades ago don’t matter, I believe they do. I think it’s merely a matter of timing.”

  “What sort of timing?” Davel asked.

  “I don’t really know, but I have to question what happened to the Triad.”

  “What?” Davel asked.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Zella questioned.

  “All those years ago. The Triad were powerful sorcerers, were they not?”

  “They were. Incredibly powerful,” Davel said.

  “And because of the enchanters and the constables, you were able to overthrow their oppression.”

  “We were.”

  “Did you kill them?” Gavin asked.

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “It’s a matter of understanding just what happened. Did you kill them?”

  “No,” Davel said. “They were banished from the city. They left. There was no further danger from them, and there would’ve been great danger had we gone after them.”

  Gavin looked over at Gaspar and watched him for a moment.

  “What are you getting at?” Gaspar asked him.

  “It seems the enchanters believed the sorcerers were destroyed, and the constables were content with them being sent from the city.”

  “And?” Gaspar said.

  “And that’s it.”

  “They haven’t returned,” Davel said. “They won’t return. It would be too dangerous for them, especially knowing what they do
of our ability.”

  “But it’s not your ability, is it? You’d borrowed that ability in working with the enchanters, and since you betrayed them, whatever protection the enchanters offered you is no longer there. Wouldn’t you say that’s true? Listen,” Gavin went on, “if the sorcerers were expelled from the city but not killed, it’s possible the Fates wanted revenge.” He leaned forward. “Why haven’t the Fates come before now?”

  “Because we’re at the edge of the forest. There isn’t anything here,” Gaspar said.

  “And because the constables have prevented any danger from occurring to others within the city,” Davel said.

  Gavin looked from one to the other. “Or because they waited.”

  “Waited for what?” Davel asked.

  Gavin shook his head. “I don’t know. The right time to come after the egg?”

  “If they wanted the egg, they could have come for it at any time,” Davel said.

  “Fine. There’s another reason they might have waited.” They looked at him, and he made a point of meeting each person’s gaze, so what he said next would have a more significant impact. “Maybe they waited until now for revenge.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Gavin led Davel, Gaspar, Zella and a few other constables and enchanters through the city, keeping an eye out for the smoke creatures. It was almost as if the people were aware of the crowd making their way through the streets and were avoiding them. They passed businesses with storefronts darkened, homes with an occasional lantern glowing, and chimneys that spewed comfortable smoke out of them—nothing like the terrifying smoke creatures that had chased him through the city.

  With as many enchanters as there were with them, along with constables who he suspected had power, Gavin worried that they were putting themselves in danger by venturing out here like this. Another part of him wasn’t nearly as concerned about the possibility of an attack as he had been before. If there was going to be a smoke creature attack, he would have to be at the forefront of stopping it, using the enchantment he and Davel created. So far, there’d been no sign of the smoke creatures.

  Gavin held the El’aras dagger regardless, watching for it to glow as they moved through the streets.

  “Here?” Gaspar asked as they approached the building. The awning loomed in front of them, shadows around it.

  Gavin couldn’t help but feel as if the shadows were somehow significant. “Here. This is where I followed the Fate,” he said, glancing over at Davel and then at Zella. “It’s similar to what I found after Cyran attacked.”

  “Have you given much thought to the targets he gave you?” Gaspar asked, pulling off to the side of the street. “Presuming your theory is correct, after all. What did those targets have in common?”

  “I’ve been trying to figure out the connection between them. So far, I can’t piece it together, but I am concerned that you’re right. That there is something that links all of them together. Perhaps he was going after the egg, the same as the Fates, but I don’t really know.”

  Gaspar studied him. “What can you remember about the targets?”

  “You were there for some of them.”

  “The Captain. The El’aras. The connection between the two of them is fairly straightforward.”

  Gavin wasn’t entirely sure. Cyran had wanted the Shard, but what was there about the Captain?

  Enchantments?

  Even that wasn’t a target that Cyran had given him.

  “There were others.” He thought about the merchant with the children that he’d smuggled. “I thought that maybe he was trying to disrupt the power in the city. But if this was all about magic, then I don’t really know how that fits.”

  “At least you started to see that he was using us.”

  Gavin started to smile.

  He could tell just how hard it was for Gaspar to admit that they were a team. It was equally difficult for Gavin. They didn’t always work together—and they didn’t always work well together—but in his time within Yoran, they had become a team.

  It was almost as hard for Gavin to admit that.

  “He was using us, but I still don’t know why,” Gavin said.

  “Get through this, stop the Fates, and we can figure out the rest.”

  Gavin nodded. Gaspar was right.

  “Let’s get moving,” he said.

  He reached the door underneath the awning and looked around, prepared for smoke creatures or the Fate, but he didn’t see any glow from the sword. Stepping inside, he made it through the main part of the home and into the back room. He pulled open the trapdoor.

  This door had been blocked to him before when he had tried to come out. Something had sealed off, likely magically, making it so that he couldn’t navigate through here. There was no sign of anything here now. Gavin had no idea why he should be able to pull it open so easily.

  “This?” Davel asked him.

  “I know it looks simple, but this is anything but.”

  Gavin descended the broken ladder and headed along the hallway. He reached the door leading into the lair and debated how to open it. He thought about using either the El’aras dagger or the sword, but he didn’t know if that would reveal a different sort of truth about it. Instead, Gavin pushed on the door, holding on to that core energy within him, and it came open with a soft hiss. He tried not to think about how that hiss reminded him of what he heard when he placed the dagger against the door.

  Once inside, he strode forward.

  “You said you’ve been looking for the sorcerer’s lair. This is it.”

  “It stinks,” Zella said.

  Several of the other enchanters filed in, Mekal among them. They hurriedly made a circuit of it, and the constables followed them, creating their own pattern and looking along the side. Gavin couldn’t help but feel amused at how both parties investigated, as if one side would find something the other had missed.

  He searched the room again, as well. Something was off.

  The body.

  “When I first came here, there were the bones of a sorcerer,” he said, motioning toward the back of the room. “And…” He headed toward the wall. The bones were gone. “I don’t know what that means,” he muttered.

  “You don’t know what means?” Gaspar asked.

  Gavin shot him an annoyed look. “There was a dead sorcerer here. If we presume that this is one of the Triad’s lairs, then it’s possible it was a Triad who died here.”

  “That’s not necessarily the case,” Davel said.

  “Why not?”

  Davel crouched down to the ground and ran his hand through dust. That dust had to be the remains of the sorcerer who’d died, and Gavin resisted the urge to shudder.

  “The Triad had plenty of sorcerers who worked underneath them. Each sorcerer in the Triad had others who served them. It was a pyramid of power, with the Triad sitting at the top of it. Far beneath each sorcerer were the enchanters,” Davel said, getting to his feet and wiping his hands on his pants. “When the rebellion came, it started at the bottom, working its way up.”

  “So the enchanters attacked the lower-level sorcerers first.”

  “Those were the easiest,” Davel said.

  Zella nodded.

  “And when they got to the Triad?” Gavin asked.

  “When they got to the Triad, I think the Triad realized that either they were going to have to use their magic to continue to attack, or they were going to have to disappear. Two disappeared.”

  “Two?”

  “Well, there was one who decided to stay and fight. Howarth. A powerful sorcerer and one of the first to have settled within Yoran. Then there was Ilian, a man who was harder than any of the others. And Fenna.” He shook his head. “She was the worst of them all. No one was sad to see them gone.”

  “They didn’t have silly names like the Mistress of Vines?” Gavin realized he should have asked about the Triad's names before now, and the fact that he hadn’t was probably to his disadvantage. “I would’ve
expected them to create terrifying nicknames.”

  “I think the Triad was enough.”

  Gavin snorted. “You’re probably right. Though I don’t know. Howarth? That doesn’t sound altogether terrifying. Neither does Fenna.”

  “It would have were you here then,” Gaspar said, and he swept his gaze around before settling on Gavin.

  Only one had stayed.

  Gavin looked to where he’d seen the bones.

  Could that have been Howarth?

  There had been the same smell that he’d noticed in the barracks.

  And the smoke had been in Cyran’s lair.

  Could the Fates have used their magic on the Triad?

  “What makes you think this is the Triad?”

  “There are three chambers like this,” Gavin said.

  Gaspar started laughing. “This and your friend’s.”

  “And one more.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “I’m afraid he’s right,” Davel said. “Each sorcerer may have had their own chamber. It’s not at all surprising they would have retreated like this. I admit it’s a little bit more extensive than I would’ve expected, but the home above is quite nondescript and not at all what I would’ve expected with one of the Triad. When they were here, they were a bit… let’s say, flashier.”

  Gavin stepped toward the door, and he pressed the sword against it. There came a steady rumble as a section of the wall rolled apart.

  He pulled the sword away. “Why don’t we go down here.”

  The others looked at the now-open corridor. Gavin stepped inside, and they followed. He hurried through it. Having been here before, knowing where he was going and what was around, he wasn’t nearly as concerned as he had been the first time. He reached the branch point and turned, heading toward the other sorcerer’s lair he knew. When he reached the door, he pressed the sword against it, and it came open as it had before. Gavin stepped inside and waited for the others.

  “They’re connected,” Davel whispered.

  “If you go through that door”—Gavin motioned toward the other doorway with the El’aras writing on it—“you will find that not only are they connected, but there’s a similar nondescript building above this one. It’s more of a warehouse and a home, but it is still protected.”