Festival of Mourn (The Dark Sorcerer Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You do,” Eva said.

  Jayna looked at her, holding her gaze, then turned her attention to the smooth surface of the pale white dragon stone ring.

  Did she?

  She had certainly felt that energy before, but never easily.

  And there was always the fear of what might happen were she to delve too deeply into that power. There was pain. The cold, horrible pain.

  And the darkness that she knew existed within that power.

  But now they didn’t have much time.

  The rent in the sky grew ever larger, and though Gabranth ignored her, knowing he didn’t need to pay any attention to her now, soon he would finish, and when he was done, he would have all of the power of Asymorn, that dark energy freed, and he would be able to unload it upon her. Upon Jayna. Upon any others who were here. All of them would suffer under that power.

  The real power of the ring was darkness.

  That dark energy was there, always a promise.

  But to stop darkness, she needed darkness.

  Jayna took a deep breath, and she pressed the ring up against the barrier.

  She started calling on that energy.

  There was always the superficial power, but beyond it came something more. She had feared reaching or risking falling victim to that something more. She had drawn upon it only a few times by accident, and each time, she had come away feeling darkened, dirtied, as if she were already starting to fade.

  In this case, she would need to call upon it intentionally; she would try to reach for that power so it would grant her something more than she could ever imagine having on her own. It was that something extra that she needed to find right now.

  She stared straight ahead. Her focus went elsewhere, to the power within the ring, to the power at the fringe of the ring, and to that something beyond.

  It was that something beyond that the dragon stone ring helped her tap into, and Jayna needed to tap into it if it would help her stop this dark energy, even if doing so meant she had to access a dark energy herself.

  She started summoning power.

  Pain filled her quickly, forcing up her arm, into her chest, and all the way through her, faster than it ever had before.

  She wanted nothing more than to release the energy, but she had no choice but to let it continue to fill her. She needed that power. She needed every bit of it so she could stop Gabranth.

  It came to her slowly.

  At first, it came up through the dragon stone ring, but gradually it built, drawing off of that peripheral energy. Normally, she didn’t focus on it, but now she used it directly. The true power of the Toral ring. There was darkness within it. There was no denying that fact, but there was something else buried there as well.

  Heat. Flames. Light.

  It was a mixture.

  Perhaps that was what she needed to hold on to. The mixture of the light in the dark.

  Jayna held on to as much power as she could. It filled her.

  Gabranth ignored her, as if knowing she could do nothing.

  And she couldn't. Not against the barrier.

  The cold was overwhelming. Nauseating.

  But it was nothing compared to the energy she glimpsed. Was it Ceran's true magic? Or maybe this was something more—the power he had warned her against pursuing.

  Whatever it was, she would have to use it.

  She could practically feel the terror in the sky as dark energy opened in front of her. She wanted nothing more than to close it.

  She wouldn't get many chances. Just this one.

  She focused.

  Distantly, she was aware of Eva whispering something to her—reassurance or something else—but she realized the words Eva said were not words Jayna understood; rather, they were a steady murmuring in Eva’s native tongue. There was a harshness to them, along with a heat, as if she were speaking through crackling flames that burned at her.

  Jayna ignored that.

  She pushed out power.

  She brought her hand down, slamming it onto the stone of the ruined temple.

  It cracked, shattering and exploding the way the stone inside of Master Raollet's shop had exploded, but an order of magnitude more; energy roiled outward, and the ground trembled.

  The stone she'd been standing on dropped out from beneath her, sending her toppling into a shadowed chamber below.

  But it dropped Gabranth down, as well.

  His spell faltered.

  She didn't have much time.

  She staggered forward, still holding on to the ring, still having some power remaining, and she blasted at the sorcerer, sending a twisting spiral of power at him. It streaked like a crossbow bolt unleashed at him, and it hit some protective barrier around him. Gabranth’s power started to dissipate, and he shifted.

  As he did, the tear in the sky shifted with him, closing.

  He frowned at her. “Did you really think I could be stopped so easily?”

  That was easy?

  That had taken everything Jayna had and more.

  But they were through the barrier.

  She started toward him, trying to find the strength within her.

  “You are through only the first layer, but it’s not over,” he said.

  “You won’t be able to finish it.”

  Jayna held her hands out to either side, and filled with that strange power within her, sent streamers from her hands, wrapping them around each of the remaining captives with dwaring hosted within them, and started to pull the power of the dwaring down, forcing it away from the tear in the sky.

  She needed the enchantments, but she needed to prevent the dwaring from fueling Asymorn and his release.

  “You know so little, Toral. Perhaps your Sul’toral could teach you, if only he weren’t terrified of the lessons you might learn.”

  He turned toward her, and he began to twist his hands, the pattern far more complicated then Jayna could follow. She noticed he was spinning his hands, and power was building as he did so, a spiral of energy that continued to grow, rising up as his hands created the pattern. He smiled at her, a dark energy within his eyes.

  “And now you will be added to the rest.”

  “No.” She looked over to Eva, but she remained over Jayna’s shoulder, whispering softly. The smoke swirled, and it radiated outward, flowing out from Eva and into Jayna.

  Strange that she would use it in such a way.

  The cold continued to fill her, but it wasn't quite as overwhelming as it had been before. Maybe there was something about the way Eva used her smoke that alleviated some of the cold feeling, though that was a thought for another time.

  She staggered forward. Gabranth had still not fully recovered, and there was no barrier blocking her. Up above, she could feel sorcery. She had no idea what it was. Other Celebrants?

  Or worse, the Society?

  She reached Gabranth. “What did you do to my brother?”

  He looked at her, darkness flashing in his eyes. Power continued to build from him.

  He was going to try again.

  “What did you do to him?”

  He started to smile.

  She kicked. He dropped to his knees.

  The ground began to tremble, and darkness started to split the sky again. She didn't see Gabranth using another spell, but he had already proven he didn't need to hold on to a spell the same way she did. He knew far more than her.

  She didn't have time. She wouldn't find her answers.

  She wasn't going to learn what happened to Jonathan.

  But there was something she could do. She could stop Gabranth.

  The cold still filled and overwhelmed her. She mixed Toral ring power with a blade of light and blasted it through him.

  Gabranth's eyes went wide, and the tear in the sky collapsed with an explosion.

  He sank down to the stone, and Jayna sank down next to him.

  Tears streamed down her eyes.

&nbs
p; 25

  Jayna struggled to get to her feet. She was holding on to the power, which she still vaguely felt, but strangely, as that energy streaked out from her, she could feel it drawn off from some distant location. It was a sort of power she had never known before, but she knew it was important for her to understand. She tried not to think what it meant, tried not to recognize that whatever it was, whatever power she was holding on to, had tinges of darkness within it.

  In fact, it was more than tinges of darkness. She could feel the dark energy there, and despite any protestation she might make to the contrary, that dark energy filled her. It was that dark energy that had allowed her to break through the barrier.

  Now she had to use it for something else: to find a way to help the remaining injured. She felt sorcery, and she looked up. A lone figure in the scarlet robes of the Society jumped down one of the tilted rock walls that had collapsed during the explosion.

  She had no idea why Char would have come.

  Char reached her, helping her to her feet. “I felt a surge through our link and knew I had to come. Who was that?”

  Jayna wondered why he should suddenly feel a surge, but was thankful he had. She was getting tired. She couldn’t hold on to this energy for much longer, though she had a feeling she needed to—at least for a little while. If she lost control . . .

  She couldn’t think that way. She couldn’t lose control. At this point, losing control meant she was going to lose, period.

  She was determined not to lose.

  “Gabranth, one of the Celebrants of Asymorn,” she muttered.

  “When this is over, I need you to tell me everything you can about this.”

  “When this is over, I’m not sure you’ll want to know everything about it,” she said.

  He looked around, his entire posture tense, and she could feel the magic radiating off of him. He was upset. Possibly even angry. But he was here.

  “Can you help them?” he asked, looking to the others who were injured.

  Jayna went to Topher and grabbed for her own belt knife, cutting the bindings of his wrists and ankles, freeing him. She checked his neck, feeling for the pulse, thankful he was still breathing and had good circulation.

  They would have to heal him after this was all over.

  She went on to the next injured person, checking him like she had with Topher, and when she was satisfied that he was equally intact, she looked over to Char. “I don’t know what more to tell you. We interrupted the festival before they succeeded, and killed the sorcerer responsible,” she went on, looking over to Gabranth, still unable to believe he was dead, “but we still have dwaring to deal with.”

  She looked up, and the rent in the sky was gone. Everything within her felt off. The energy pulsed somewhere distantly, yet the more she held on to it, the more she began to worry she would be drawn into the darkness, forced to serve that dark energy, forced to use power she knew she should not.

  She looked around the crumbling temple. “I can pull the dwaring back, but I don’t know if I have enough strength to push them into the enchantment,” she said, looking over to Eva.

  The smoke still swirled around Eva, but it wasn’t quite as prominent as it had been before. It lingered, drifting toward Jayna, and it seemed as if Eva needed to push her smoke into Jayna to protect her in some way.

  “I can help,” Char said.

  Jayna swung her head over to him. His dark hair stood on end, and in the shadows of the deep night, she couldn’t make out his features that well, but imagined him looking at her with his usual earnest expression. “You don’t want anything to do with this.”

  Somewhere nearby, she could feel magic surging again. The Society was coming.

  She wanted to leave, but if she did, the dwaring might not be dealt with the way they needed to be. The Society would question dark magic. They wouldn’t have encountered it the same way she had, and they wouldn't know what to do.

  She had to deal with it.

  “Maybe I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t help. This is about healing, isn’t it?” Char asked.

  Jayna nodded slowly. “It’s about healing, but it’s also going to be difficult.”

  “Because it has something to do with dark magic?”

  Jayna sighed. She needed to act quickly. What was she doing having a conversation with Char at this point?

  Before the Sorcerers’ Society reached her, she had to remove the dwaring. And then destroy them. Somehow.

  “Dark powers fill these creatures,” Jayna said.

  “What happens when you capture them?” he asked.

  “Then we have to hold them.”

  “Can you?”

  Jayna didn’t know. They still had the first dwaring they’d captured tonight, and though they had pulled it off, holding it in the enchantment, she didn’t know if the enchantment would hold it indefinitely. Most enchantments eventually faded.

  “I’ll deal with that when this is done,” she muttered.

  “Then let’s get it over with,” Char said.

  She looked over to Eva, who just nodded.

  Jayna sank to her knees in the center of the clearing. “I’m tired. I can pull the dwaring off, but you’re going to have to pull it out of them,” she said, looking over to Char. “It’s difficult.”

  “I can do it,” he said.

  Jayna forced a smile. “If anyone can, it’s you.”

  Even if he could do it, did she want him to? This meant involving him in her life, in her magic, and it meant bringing him into something he wanted nothing to do with.

  And if she didn’t . . .

  Jayna knew what would happen if she didn’t. The dwaring would finish feeding. Already she had seen the dwaring starting to stretch, straining to escape from their hosts, slowly expanding as the power began to stretch outward, flowing fingers of darkness stretching away from them.

  She nodded. She pulled out the remaining five enchantments and handed them over to Char.

  “What are these?”

  “These are the enchantments I made to contain the other dwaring.”

  “You made them?”

  “You don’t have to say it like that. I know they aren’t nearly as good as yours, but they were the best I could do at the time.”

  “I wasn’t trying to criticize you,” he said hurriedly. “I was just trying to say—”

  “I know what you’re trying to say. And it’s fine. I made them.”

  “These will work great,” he said.

  She looked over, waiting for him to admit he was being sarcastic, but she didn’t have any sense of that from him.

  Save the captives.

  That was what she had to do now. She still had strength to do that.

  She had to work quickly though. She could feel the dwaring straining against her hold. More than that, she was still aware of the strange and distant power stretching away from her. The longer she held on to it, the more she began to worry she would lose control over it and the more it started to squeeze in on the periphery of her vision. She could see the magic starting to constrict. But it was fading quickly.

  It was a strange thing to be aware of.

  She stretched out her hand and twisted it in a spiral of power, which she looped around the man. He was muscular, and appeared to be a few years older than Jayna. His eyes were closed, his breathing irregular.

  If she didn’t pull the dwaring out of him quickly, he would die.

  The dwaring started to retreat, pulled back down into him. She tugged on it even more, constricting it. The strange power she held on to allowed her to sweep around in him even more effectively than she normally could. The more she looped power, the easier it was for her to hold on to the dwaring, and the more certain she was that she could trap it.

  “Now,” she said to Char.

  “What do I do?”

  “Can you feel the darkness within him?” Jayna watched him, and Char had his hand resting atop the man’s chest, with a spell drifti
ng from him and out into the man.

  “I can feel something,” Char said.

  “Activate the enchantment. Pull it down inside.”

  “I think I can do it.”

  He triggered the enchantment. Jayna wasn’t surprised he knew how. Char was gifted, and it didn’t seem as if it would take all that much for him to trigger something like the enchantment.

  “You have to trap it inside,” she mumbled.

  “I’m trying,” he said.

  “I know you are,” she said.

  She could feel he was trying, and she knew that even as he strained, he came closer to doing it than she would have the first time she had attempted it.

  “Just guide it into the enchantment. Eva will help.”

  “I need to stay with you,” Eva said, her voice a hoarse whisper.

  “You don’t have to be worried about me.”

  Eva ignored her, and the smoke still drifted from her, swirling outward.

  As Jayna took a deep breath, she realized she breathed in some of Jayna’s smoke.

  Just what I need.

  She started to draw the dwaring out, siphoning it into the enchantment.

  There came a struggle.

  Jayna constricted her power even more tightly, forcing it down into the enchantment. It held.

  “Hand it here,” Jayna said.

  “Why?”

  “I need to seal it off.”

  He reluctantly handed the enchantment over, and Jayna traced her fingers along the surface of it, sealing the dwaring inside. When it was done, she turned to the next man.

  She had to work quickly. It meant Char had to work quickly too.

  “I don't know how fast I can go,” she said to him. “I used too much energy stopping Gabranth.”

  She found herself staring at Gabranth. She didn't think he moved, though she wouldn't put it past somebody with his power to somehow survive what would kill any other sorcerer. He was powerful—powerful enough to know how to create a festival like this so he could unleash dwaring and think to control them so he could summon Asymorn. Powerful enough that he could keep her from reaching Ceran.

  She sent a pulsing of power through her ring.