Endless Night (27 page)

She sliced again, swinging the j’na so that it connected with his stomach. Darkness burbled free, and the light from her spear forced it away.

Again she attacked, and again her spear struck flesh. Each time, the light in the draasin glass threatened to fade, but she used her mental summons and it returned as bright as before.

Thenas stopped moving, but darkness still swirled around him.

She had raised her j’na, ready to stab him, needing to end him so that he couldn’t attack again, when the lizard raced across the rock and bounded onto his chest.

Slowly, methodically, the lizard began running his tongue along Thenas’s face. With each pass, the color returned, reminding her of what had happened when she had touched him with her j’na. This time, she had wanted only to stop him, less concerned about saving him. But the lizard chose to save him.

Ciara staggered back, sinking to the ground, the weight of what she had done making her weak. She propped herself up with the j’na, managing to watch as the lizard worked his way around Thenas before finally climbing down.

Did you heal him?
she asked.

That one was beyond saving. We released the darkness.

Why release it?

There must be darkness and light. There cannot be one without the other.

But Tenebeth attacks.

That which is Voidan attacks, but even he is not the darkness, only a conduit. Much like the Mother is but a conduit.

I don’t understand.

You do not have to. Not yet.

Why did you not come when I called before?

You did not know how to summon Reghal before, Ciara S’shala.

Ciara started to object, to tell him she could speak to him and that she had summoned him when she had been in Tsanth, when she realized what he had said.

You are Reghal?

The lizard brushed against her leg, and there came a flash of light as if sealing the connection between them.

Ciara staggered back from the power that surged between them. Not only could she hear Reghal, but she could
feel
him, as if knowing his thoughts. As he would know hers.

What happened?

Reghal licked her leg.
The bond is set, ala’shin.

With that, he made his way to the draasin and curled up with her but kept his glowing eyes fixed upon Ciara.

She stared until she realized she didn’t know where Jasn Volth had gone.

She found him near the pool, one arm half in the water. Tentatively, she touched his neck, feeling for a pulse, and leaned close to listen to his breathing. It came slowly but steadily. At least Jasn still lived.

His eyes flickered open and he took a deep, gasping breath. When he saw her, his gaze darted past her, looking into the darkness before settling once more on her. “Is he gone?”

She nodded.

“Chased away?”

She swallowed and shook her head, wondering how Jasn would take the news that she had killed Thenas. “Destroyed.”

He scooped a handful of water from the pool and took a drink. Sitting up, he took her hands and held her gaze. “Good.”

T
he air thinned
this far to the north. Wisps of clouds blew past Jasn, but nothing more substantial than that. Gray skies threatened to spill rain but never did.

Below him, the ground had changed to hard rock with little vegetation. Nothing seemed alive. How could this be where he was meant to travel?

“Are you sure I should leave you here?” Ciara asked.

Jasn glanced at her, standing next to the draasin. Since seeing the way she had defeated Thenas, he hadn’t been able to look at her the same way. There was power to her unlike anything he’d ever seen, power he couldn’t deny. But she had a gentleness to her as well and had
wanted
to help Thenas in spite of everything he had done.

“I think you have to leave me here,” he said.

“I could go with you…”

Jasn crossed the distance between them. “And I would like that, but you’re needed in the barracks. You’re the only one able to hold back Tenebeth’s attacks if he comes again.”

Ciara squeezed her spear and lifted it off the ground slightly. Jasn held her gaze until she looked away. If only there was some way that she
could
come with him, but Thenas wasn’t the only person Tenebeth would have turned. That was the entire reason for the war; Ter was convinced that Rens attacked and so invaded. And Jasn had participated, destroying so much as the Wrecker of Rens. Knowing what he did about Ciara and the way she wanted only to protect her people, he couldn’t help but feel guilty.

“When will you return?” A soft flush came to Ciara’s cheeks with the question, and water sensing told him how her heart fluttered.

He suspected she detected the same within him.

“I don’t know what will be required of me. Cheneth hasn’t been exactly forthcoming about what will be expected of me here.” But Cheneth
had
wanted him to try to find Hyaln, claiming they would know how to find Katya. Jasn wondered if he might be able to find more than where Tenebeth might have drawn Katya. If he could learn some of what Cheneth knew, maybe he would be better equipped to face the darkness.

Ciara tapped a hand on the draasin’s side, a movement that reminded him of what she did when summoning the creature.

“What of you?” he asked, watching the draasin.

Ciara’s eyes took on a troubled expression. “For so long, all I wanted was the ability to shape water so that I could be a true nya’shin, and now I have…”

“You have something more,” Jasn finished for her. “What you can do is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You need to continue to learn what that means so we are ready when the next attack comes.”

“I wish…” She shook her head. “It does not matter.” Ciara tapped her spear on the ground. The smooth black stone on the end flashed with a burst of color and then faded. With a nod, she climbed onto the draasin and looked down at Jasn. “Be careful, Jasn Volth. There is much I would like to learn from you.”

She flushed as she said it but stared at him almost defiantly.

Jasn nodded.

At her tap on its hide, the elemental took to the air, leaving him standing alone on the rock.

Jasn watched as the draasin disappeared before turning to stare at the mountains. Olina had said he would find Hyaln beyond the mountains and that he would have to search for it on his own. The draasin could not come.

After taking a deep breath, he pulled on each of the elements and crafted his shaping.

* * *

T
he shaping to
get him beyond the mountains had drained more strength from him than it should have, but something like a barrier prevented further travel. Without his connection to the water elemental, he doubted he would have passed the barrier. Was that why Ciara had not been allowed to come? Was there a connection to the elementals required, an ability to speak to them that he didn’t know if she possessed?

The farther he went, the more he began to wonder if this wasn’t a mistake. What did he think to accomplish by coming here? Cheneth thought he might find answers, but what if there was nothing? What if he wasn’t meant to find Hyaln?

He shared a renewed connection with the water elemental since Olina had tested him, but was there anything he could learn in Hyaln that would help keep Tenebeth from invading his mind again? Was there really anything that would keep him from ending up tainted like Thenas?

Yet if it meant he might be able to find—and help—Katya, it was a chance he was willing to take.

The mountains were nothing more than a distant memory. Nothing but the same hard rock spread out around him. He felt the distant pulling of water and suspected he neared the ocean, but he couldn’t see it. Nothing else pulled on his senses.

Jasn lowered himself to the ground as doubt crept into his mind.

What was he doing here? This wasn’t what Lachen had asked him to do. The commander—his old friend—had wanted him to learn what he could in the barracks. But maybe he needed to find Lachen, discover what
he
knew about Tenebeth, and then return to the barracks.

Jasn reached another barrier. This time, it did not yield before him.

He lowered to the ground. If he couldn’t get beyond the barrier, he wouldn’t be able to find Hyaln, and then he wouldn’t be able to learn what Cheneth suggested he could by coming here.

With a frustrated sigh, he turned and looked behind him. He should have returned with Ciara. They could learn together. He might not be able to do the same things she could, but now that Alena had recovered, they could work together, figure out how to hold back Tenebeth.

A shaping built nearby and Jasn spun.

A figure appeared in the distance. Jasn watched as it became clearer. Long, dark hair draped over the woman’s shoulders, and there was a sway to her walk, one that was almost familiar…

The barrier dropped.

Jasn felt it as an easing of the shaping.

As it fell, he reached toward the woman with a water sensing. The woman paused, face shrouded in shadows, waiting.

His shaping washed over her and his breath caught.

No! It couldn’t be possible, not after all this time.

Jasn started forward until he was nearly in front of her. His heart hammered wildly and he made no effort to slow it.

“Katya?” he said in a whisper. “Is it really you?”

A sad smile parted her mouth as she nodded.

C
iara returned
to the barracks with reluctance. She hated the idea of leaving Jasn behind, especially not knowing what he might face, but she understood it was something he felt he had to do alone. Only then could he return to the barracks, if he did return.

Why, then, did she feel she’d left a part of herself with him?

The thought was foolish. She shouldn’t have feelings for a man of Ter, especially one who had been given the epithet the Wrecker of Rens, a story she still needed to hear and understand, but she couldn’t deny the way she felt when he gazed at her with that hot, intense stare.

The draasin carried her across the sea. Cool air streaked over its spikes, spraying her with a fine mist that she chose not to wipe away. Through the mist, she felt connected to water, almost more than she would otherwise. Sitting atop the draasin, she felt a similar connection to fire, and to the wind blowing across her face, and could almost imagine the same connection to earth. To reach them, she suspected that she would only have to imagine the summons. The j’na strapped to her back still served a role, but it had changed.

The flight took her back over Rens, over the waste, and she searched for her home, but not with the same fervor she once would have. With the summons, she could call the draasin, ride to Rens. She was no longer separated from her home as she had been. Cheneth and Olina might call her ala’shin, but she was a rider.

Ciara still didn’t know what to make of that.

Or what to make of the connection she shared with the lizard. The sense of Reghal was there in her mind. All she had to do was call it forth, let it fill her, and she would know what he was thinking, would know where to find him. Strangely, he managed to follow her across the sea, almost as if he could fly, but she didn’t think that was possible. Reghal still kept secrets, but they had bonded. Ciara would understand what that meant, would explore
why
they had bonded, but first she would return to the barracks.

From her hot homeland, the ground changed, growing a brownish green. A distant river ran through, and a massive city sprawled to the north. She wondered if that was Pa’shu or one of the other great Rens cities that were no longer Rens but Ter now. Question for another time.

Then the Gholund Mountains swept up, rising high into the sky, dark greens from the densely needled pine trees and thick oaks growing through the forest. The draasin swooped to the west, circling toward the barracks before finally landing in the clearing far outside the camp.

She jumped down and patted the draasin’s side. Sashi was what Alena called her. Perhaps she should as well. In Rens, sa’shi meant wound and scar, a strange combination, but maybe one that fit. “Will you remain, or will you fly free?”

Ciara no longer feared that she could summon. The movement and the connection was there in her mind, all she had to do was imagine the summons and the power returned. In some ways, it was similar to how she reached Reghal, but not quite the same.

Sashi sent an image to her, one that resembled Alena, and Ciara understood. “She will know we’ve returned,” Ciara said.

The draasin curled against the stone building, settling her wings around her. Ciara waited, making certain Sashi rested comfortably before starting toward the barracks.

The sense of Reghal followed her, and she wasn’t surprised to note that he appeared almost like a flickering motion in the trees, as if chasing her.

You don’t have to hide,
she said to him.

Not from you. But there are others.

Ciara smiled at the idea of a shy elemental but would not force him to come out. He had saved her enough times that she didn’t want to pressure him to do anything but what he was comfortable with.

Once down in the barracks, she was met by Cheneth, as if he had been waiting for her. He hurried toward her, reaching her as she stepped out of the forest. “You’ve returned. Did you manage to bring Jasn to—”

“He’s there.”

Leaving him had been harder than she expected. There was a connection between them, even if she wasn’t entirely sure what would come of it. Probably nothing. Jasn Volth still searched for his lost love. That was the reason he’d gone to Hyaln in the first place.

Cheneth sighed. “I wasn’t certain you would survive the crossing. I feared Tenebeth might attack.”

“He did.” Ciara explained what had happened with Thenas and how they had defeated him. She left out the part with Reghal. That didn’t seem appropriate to share. Besides, having his presence in her mind now kept some of the loneliness at bay.

“You have survived more than what most would have,” Cheneth said. “And now there is something else I must ask of you.”

* * *

T
he inside
of the stone building was different than the residences of the camp. Within the building, Ciara felt the pull of earth, the connection to a deeper power. Elemental power. She had the sense that were she only to summon, that power would answer her.

Chains curled around the dark shape of a woman and she writhed as Ciara entered, thrashing against the bonds. Both the chains and another power that Ciara couldn’t see held her in place. Dark energy radiated from her but struck an invisible barrier and went nowhere.

Alena stood watch along one wall. Her eyes were hollowed, deep pits that showed fatigue in the lines around them.

“Who is she?” Ciara asked.

Alena barely moved. “Her name is Bayan. She was—is—one of my students.”

“Like Jasn?” Ciara asked.

“She was never quite like Jasn. She couldn’t speak to the elementals.”

“Then why would Tenebeth want her?”

“She had another ability. She could detect what someone else shaped, and the intent, more discreetly than any other shaper I’ve known.”

If Tenebeth was creating some sort of army, having abilities like that would be valuable.

“She was with Volth when he found the draasin egg,” Alena said.

Jasn had told Ciara only a little about what happened then. The ground collapsed and he had fallen, nearly destroyed by the weight of the city above. Had he not managed to shape earth around him, he wouldn’t have survived. There was more to it—Ciara could tell he’d held something back from her, but she had no idea what that might be.

“Can you help her?” Alena asked. “Like you did with Thenas?”

“Thenas is dead.”

Alena barely reacted to the news. “Can you help her?”

Ciara considered the woman watching her with dark eyes, bound by stone and the Stormbringer only knew what other shapings.
Could
she help her? She wasn’t certain whether she could. But she needed to try. If draasin could be brought back from the connection to Tenebeth, shapers should be reachable as well.

She took a step, tapping her j’na. Light surged from the end.

Bayan writhed on the ground as if burned.

“When I make the first pass, you will need to release your shaping,” Ciara said.

Alena stepped out of the shadows and nodded.

Ciara started with the pattern, stepping and striking her j’na to the ground. Each time she did, light surged from the end of it, flowing through the draasin glass.

She made the first pass and Alena dropped her shaping.

Bayan struggled against the chains, darkness flowing out from her. There was not the same power of control Thenas had possessed, but still she summoned Tenebeth with what she did.

Another strike of her j’na.

The steps seemed off, and it took Ciara a moment to realize it wasn’t the steps, it was her ability to use the j’na in the pattern.

She focused on the summons, creating the image of what she wanted in her mind.

Step.
Crack
. Step.

Power surged within her and flowed out from her, much like the darkness flowed from Bayan. Ciara continued making a steady pattern around Bayan.

As the energy built within her, she paused and then released it, letting it flow from her and into Bayan.

Light enveloped her.

The woman gasped, her back curving as she convulsed against the chains. Light and dark warred, but the power Ciara had called overwhelmed what Bayan possessed.

But not enough. Ciara couldn’t call as much power as she needed to free Bayan.

Reghal,
she sent.
Can you help?

This time when she summoned, there was a powerful connection to the nobelas lizard. With a soft
pop
, Reghal appeared and danced into the light, climbing onto Bayan. He started to lick her face, her arms, everywhere exposed skin was found. Ciara continued her summons, adding what she could to what the lizard did for Bayan.

The darkness faded completely.

Reghal glanced up at her.
You are ala’shin
.

Then he disappeared again with another
pop.

“Is she…” Alena started.

Ciara watched the other woman, searching for signs of the darkness, but there were none. Her skin had lost the touch of shadows and her eyes had taken on a deep brown shade. She no longer thrashed against the chains. Instead, she breathed easily, steadily, and finally opened her eyes.

“Alena?” Bayan whispered.

“I’m here,” Alena said, rushing forward.

“What happened?”

“You were…” Alena glanced up to Ciara before answering. “You were attacked. You’re better now.”

Bayan let out a long sigh. “So much pain and darkness,” she said. “I don’t know what happened. How did I get back to the barracks?”

“That’s a different story.”

“I think I remember… some.” Bayan looked past Alena and met Ciara’s gaze. Her eyes widened. “You’re the one they want. The one they fear,” she said in a whisper. “You’re the reason they summon.”

* * *

B
ook
4 of The Endless War:
Summoner’s Bond

Those who fight the darkness have scattered as the ancient power grows stronger.

When Ciara is abducted by summoners of dark power, they seduce her with lessons on how to summon the elementals, an education she never received in the barracks. Only a distant part of knows that she must find a way to escape before they manage to turn her to their side.

Alena has gone to the Seat of the Order to help stop the threat uncovered there, but she discovers the threat goes deeper than any realize, and for her to succeed and free the order, she may have to destroy it first.

In Hyaln, Jasn finds an old friend, but she is not the person he remembers. Hyaln offers to teach, and he discovers strength that he never believed he possessed, but it still might not be enough, as they discover they fight not only the threat of darkness, but those who seek to control it.