Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  If anybody were to come along, it would draw attention, but Jayna didn’t expect to be here for very long. She closed her eyes, feeling for the linking spell buried deep within her mind. It was there, giving her an awareness of Char, and she latched on to it. She pulled that awareness forward and used it to help her reach through the spell when she tugged on it.

  It felt like a string plucked between them.

  There was a time when the linking spell was little more than a nuisance, something formed when she had first gone to the Academy, before she truly understood the consequences of her actions. She had found the spell far more valuable than she had ever expected, and the longer it existed between them, the more she valued it.

  The door to the outpost came open, and Char stood there. He was dressed in his maroon robes, the same ones she’d seen him wearing through the city when he’d been assaulted. His eyes were darkened, and he looked as if he hadn’t gotten much sleep. His dark hair was disheveled, and when he smiled his loopy smile at her, she couldn’t help but smile back.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “That’s all I get?”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to visit.” He glanced over her shoulder and stepped forward, pulling the door closed behind him. “I don’t know if it’s a good idea for you to be here.”

  “Because of what happened in the city yesterday?”

  “You know?”

  “I was there. I helped two of your sorcerers before the Society could get to them—”

  “They thought someone was hurting them.”

  Jayna glowered at him. “Would I hurt sorcerers?”

  “Well . . .”

  “Char. You know better than that.”

  “I know that things are unsettled right now.”

  “I’m aware of that. That’s sort of why I’m here.”

  “Sort of?”

  Jayna shrugged. It was more than that, though she didn’t know how to even broach the topic with Char. What would he think if he were to learn the real reason for her visit?

  She had to get to it. These days, she had to have many difficult conversations, but she continued to find herself avoiding them, which did her no good.

  “Before I got caught in the riot, I planned on coming to talk to you about something I uncovered.” She remembered the dark sorcerer who had been left dead outside of the market. “Well, two things, really.”

  He frowned, his brow furrowing. “What exactly did you find?”

  “Besides more dark sorcerers in the city”—he arched a brow at her and she shook her head—“something that leads me here, of all places.” She smiled, but Char didn’t react. He knew her too well, so he must have known she was trying to placate him, to get him to fall into a false sense of security. “Fine. I’m not here only because of what happened yesterday.” It was partly that, but she needed other answers. “Part of what I’m looking into is the founding of the Sorcerers’ Society.”

  “The what?”

  “I need to know more about the founding of the Society. I figured if I came to the outpost, I could find some records that would help me learn more about it.”

  “Of course there are records here,” Char said, “but why would you need access to them?”

  “It’s a long and a complicated story, but if you would permit me to have a look at them, I should be able to—”

  “I don’t know if I can show you what you’re looking for, Jayna. I want to help you. I really do. I just . . .”

  “Char. I’m not trying to do anything here that is going to harm the Society. I’m just looking for information to help me understand what’s taking place here in Nelar.”

  That was near enough to the truth that she didn’t feel guilty lying to him about it. “And everything I’ve found leads me to question the founding of the Society. If you would help me with that, I’m sure we can find something that will provide an explanation.”

  Char leaned against the door, shaking his head slowly. “I feel like there’s something more here. You’re not telling me everything.”

  “I’m telling you everything you need to know.”

  “That’s not the same as telling me everything,” Char said.

  Jayna watched him, waiting, anticipating that he might argue with her more, but he didn’t.

  Finally, he sighed. “You can come in, but I don’t need you causing any trouble for me.”

  “When have I ever caused trouble for you?”

  “Every single time I’ve seen you since you’ve come to the city,” Char said.

  “That might be fair,” she said.

  “Might? It’s true. You’re constantly getting caught up in some dark sorcerer issue, and . . .” He looked over his shoulder, back at the building, tipping his head to the side. “And I shouldn’t even be talking about this out here. If Master Agnew finds me doing this, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s already concerned about my relationship with you.”

  “Relationship?” Jayna asked, arching a brow.

  “I know we don’t have a relationship,” Char said hurriedly, flushing slightly. “But he’s concerned about the fact that the two of us have been spending time together. He feels like it’s detracting from my studies. And, to be honest, he’s not wrong. The time I’ve spent working with you, and trying to understand more about your friend Eva, has been taking away from my studies. As much as I feel like I need to know what’s going on with you so I can help, I’ve also been finding myself drawn into much more dangerous things than I’d ever expected.” He shook his head. “You know I came to Nelar to learn how to heal.”

  “I know you did,” Jayna said.

  “And you know that has been difficult. Especially since the Society has been viewed with a lot more skepticism now than they had been before. People haven’t been coming here for help.”

  “Where have they been going?”

  “Ever since the attack on the manor homes, people have been going to the dular, as if they would offer them more than what we can provide.”

  “Maybe they can,” Jayna said.

  “Not you too.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I know you’ve given up your ties to the Society, but I would’ve expected you to still recognize the value of sorcery.”

  “I do,” Jayna said, “but I also recognize that the dular have a different kind of magic, which has different uses than sorcery.”

  “I’m not saying it doesn’t,” he said. “All I’m saying is . . .” Char shook his head. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Maybe nothing.”

  “Can I come in now?”

  “You don’t have somebody for me to heal this time?”

  “Nobody else is with me.”

  “That’s unusual,” he said.

  “Unusual or not, it’s the truth. I don’t have anybody with me, and I don’t intend to ask you to heal anybody, and I’m not here to cause any trouble. All I want is information. And the kind of information I’m looking for isn’t even the kind of information you need to keep hidden. Why would the Society care if someone learned about their founding?”

  Char bit his lip for a moment. “I suppose they wouldn’t. If you do find something that makes you think you need to do one of your Jayna kind of things, would you at least do me the courtesy of telling me what it is?”

  “One of my Jayna things?”

  “You know. The kind of things that lead to dark sorcerers getting attacked in the city, violence spreading, houses burning.” Char shrugged. “That sort of thing.”

  “Sure. If I do find something like that, I will make a point of letting you know that you have dark sorcerers in the city, and I’ll see if you would be so kind as to work with me to try to remove that threat.” She shook her head. “Honestly, Char. It’s almost like you don’t even care that there might be some danger here.”

  “I know there is.”

  “Do you? That’s good. I was worried that you might—”

&nbs
p; “It’s you.”

  Char held her gaze for a long time before spinning, pushing open the door, and motioning for her to follow.

  He guided her into a room off of the main entrance. It was in the opposite direction from the way she had gone when she had been looking for healing in the past. Rather than leading her down the narrow hallway to the left, he brought her to the right side of the outpost. The room looked to be little more than a closet, but there were hundreds of books crammed into wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling shelves, even piled up along the floor.

  “What is this?”

  “This is the library within the Nelar outpost.”

  “This is the library?”

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?” Char asked, chuckling softly.

  “I would’ve used a different term, but sure.”

  “We’re just an outpost, Jayna. And not even a large one at that. The influence we have here has waned over time.”

  “Because of the dular,” she said.

  “Maybe,” Char agreed, then shook his head. “But it might be more than that. There are other reasons that the outpost’s importance has dwindled. It’s also partly because we’re situated so far at the edge of the kingdom.”

  “The Society doesn’t care so much about being at the edge of the kingdom,” she reminded him.

  “Not usually, but in this case, with the El’aras so close, the Society hasn’t felt a real need to push their own influence.”

  “I would’ve expected the proximity to the El’aras would only strengthen their desire to do so.”

  “I don’t think the Society wants to antagonize the El’aras,” he said.

  That didn’t sound like the Society.

  “I don’t know why. I’m not really part of those conversations,” Char said. “And to be honest, I don’t really want to be.” He shrugged. “None of it makes a difference to me. All that matters is that I continue to work as diligently as I can, and I continue to progress with my healing, and eventually . . .”

  “Go on,” Jayna said.

  “You’re only going to taunt me.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Because eventually, I intend to go back to teach at the Academy.”

  Jayna smiled. “I didn’t realize you wanted that.”

  “You’ve known I always had an interest in learning. Where else can I do that but at the Academy? At least the library there is larger than what we have here.” He swept his hand around the inside of the small room. “Remember that library? Or maybe you don’t, considering how you took off from the Academy.”

  Jayna glared at him. “I remember the library. I remember sitting at one of the alcoves, the two of us studying long into the night, chasing some piece of magic that neither of us could quite perfect.”

  “And now you’re back in one of the Academy libraries.”

  “This isn’t one of the Academy libraries,” she said. “This is an outpost library.”

  “You don’t think it’s still a Society library?”

  “I don’t really know.” She looked around. The library had a faint glowing light coming up from the floor, drifting up softly, shimmering along the stones around the perimeter of the room. All of it was enchanted. It gave a warm light, bright enough to read by. “You think you can help me find what I need to?”

  “I can try,” he said, shaking his head. “I really do have things I need to be doing today.”

  “I’m not going to keep you from your assignments.”

  “You already have,” Char said and glanced at the door. “We should probably close that. I don’t want Master Agnew to realize I have you in here.”

  “What would he say if he realized you had some woman inside of the outpost?”

  “You aren’t just some woman, are you?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “You’re Jayna Aguelon, sorceress.”

  She laughed softly, closing the door and locking herself in with Char. “I’m not so much a sorceress.”

  “No. You’re something else.” Char watched her for a moment before tearing his gaze away and looking around at the books. “Now for us to figure out where we might find what you’re looking for.” He shrugged. “I can’t say what we might find here, and I can’t tell you whether there’s anything you’re looking for here, but I can help.”

  “That’s all I’m asking for,” she said.

  “You’re asking for more than that,” he said.

  “I wasn’t. But . . .” She shrugged. “If you think we might find something that would help me with other aspects of what I’m doing in the city, I wouldn’t be opposed to it.”

  “You have been opposed to it,” Char said. “I’ve tried to offer you information about your friend, but you haven’t wanted to know anything about her.”

  “That might have changed,” Jayna said softly.

  “Why?”

  Jayna forced a smile. “I don’t want to go into it now, but let’s just say that I think I’ve learned something about her.”

  Char watched her for a long moment before shaking his head. “I don’t know where we’re going to find what you’re looking for, but if it’s going to be anywhere within the outpost, it’s going to be here. Unfortunately, nothing here is organized all that well, so it’s going to take time.” He glanced over to her. “You have some time, don’t you?”

  Jayna took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Did she?

  There was something going on. Dark magic. Someone hunting sorcerers, or dark magic users. A dark sorcerer trying to instigate something in the city and get the dular agitated. The enchantments made to look like the Ashara were involved in all of it.

  And given what had happened, Jayna felt that figuring out whether the Ashara were truly involved was the most pressing need. She needed to help Eva understand herself and whether there was anything for her to be concerned about when it came to all of this.

  “I have time, but do you?”

  “For you, I always make time.”

  He held her gaze then looked away, and Jayna felt a stirring of guilt and regret mixed with a bit of longing. She wasn’t sure how to handle these emotions, or how to react to them.

  She and Char had always been friends, from the moment they had come to the Academy. They were never more than that—other than one late night where they had kissed. They had both wanted only friendship.

  But the way Char had looked at her just now . . .

  She couldn’t think about that. She didn’t have time for those sorts of emotions, not with everything that was going on around her. But every so often, she found herself casting a glance in Char’s direction, wondering what things might have been like had she found a way to remain in the Academy. They could’ve come to the outpost together. They could’ve trained together. They could have been together.

  Now, given what she had done, the way she had pursued power and the reason behind it, they would never be.

  It was one more thing dark magic had stripped from her.

  15

  Many of the books in the library were old, some of them impossibly so. She had to pull out each book one by one and look at the cover before shoving it back into the shelving. There was something almost cozy about the library. Maybe it was just that she was surrounded by books again, something she had not had the luxury of since leaving the Academy. Or perhaps it was just working with Char, and the reminder of what her life might have been like had she remained.

  “It would help if these were organized in some way,” Jayna said.

  The air inside of the room had grown hot and even more humid than usual; she wished the sorcerers had enchanted it in a way that would have regulated the temperature a bit more.

  That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t some sort of preservation spell placed upon the library. Knowing what she did about the library at the Academy, and the way the sorcerers protected the books there, she knew there would be something in place. She just didn’t have any way of cooling herself. Ther
e were no windows. No airflow. It was simply hot and still. Sweat streamed off her brow, and she wiped it away, turning back to Char.

  “I’m sorry our way of organizing things doesn’t satisfy you,” Char said.

  “This isn’t your way of organizing things. Not at all. This is somebody else’s.”

  “Fine. It’s not mine, but that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

  Jayna just chuckled. “It doesn’t? I would’ve thought that a lack of organization was wrong—and that this would’ve bothered you a lot more than it seems to.”

  “I’ve learned to deal with it. I’ve learned to deal with a lot of things,” he said.

  Jayna arched a brow at him. “Would you stop?”

  “Only if you stop.”

  “I’m just telling you that I’m having a hard time trying to find anything here other than the history of Nelar.” She pushed another book back into place after having barely glanced at the cover. “Not that the history of Nelar is altogether uninteresting. Given what I’ve learned, I imagine that everything we might find here would be incredibly intriguing, but I don’t know if that’s how I want to spend my time searching.”

  “You’re looking for something on the founding of the Society. Maybe there’s something in the history of Nelar that could reveal that to you.”

  “Only if the Society was founded here,” Jayna said.

  She paused, holding on to one book. It was a little thinner than some of the others, and the lettering embossed on the cover didn’t give her any hint as to what it was. She had to pull it fully off the shelf, flip it open, and skim the contents long enough to take in what was there before she realized that it was simply an inventory of supplies found within the outpost.

  She pushed it back in irritation—one more book that seemed out of place and had no logic behind why it was here, or what purpose they had in keeping it here.

  Why not organize this section?

  “Could the Society have been founded in Nelar?”

  Char glanced over to her. Sweat streamed down his brow, though he didn’t seem to be bothered by it. Maybe he had grown accustomed to it during his time at the outpost, but he was wearing the heavy robes of the Society, much more than Jayna’s jacket and pants, and she was still hot.