Seal of Light (The Endless War Book 5)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Are you a wind elemental?

  The wind whipped again.

  Katya’s breath caught. Could it be possible that she had somehow managed to speak to an elemental? Could Jasn actually have the ability to help open shapers to the elemental connections? If that were possible… she could think of how powerful such an ability would be in the right hands—or the wrong ones.

  Why do you torment me if you’re the wind?

  You have forgotten so much about yourself, including the person you once had been.

  I have not changed that much.

  You have changed. Each time you assume another name, you change, to the point that you no longer know who you are.

  She wished that she could argue with the wind, that there was anything that she could even say that would counter what it told her, but there wasn’t.

  When she had gone to Hyaln to learn, she had been a wind shaper first. The other elements came later, but wind had been the constant, the one that had helped guide her as she reached for the others. Once she understood that she could reach spirit, she had let that change. No longer did she reach for the wind with the same fervor. Now she defaulted to spirit, and when that was gone, when spirit failed… Katya didn’t know what to do.

  You have always known. It is what you choose that will define who you can be.

  What would Katya choose?

  She squeezed her eyes closed. It was easy to assume the name here. Easy for her to be Katya, as that is the mantle she had worn for so long while serving in these lands. But Katya was with Jasn, and she could not be with him anymore. The Khalan was right that she needed to accept certain things that she could not change. She could not change the fact that she had lost Jasn. She had never had him—the real her, that is. Katya may have known Jasn Volth as her lover, but that was not her, no more than Issa was her, or Ilyana, or Thera, or… the list was long.

  There was only one person that she was, but it had been so long since she had used that name, so long since she had claimed the person who left Yala all those years ago. Could she ever return to that person?

  If she did, what would happen?

  Names had power. She had come to believe that. She had to believe that.

  She swallowed and closed her eyes. Tears formed there. If one of the Khalan came to her then and saw her, what would they say?

  It didn’t matter. Perhaps it never mattered, any more than all the names that she had claimed over the years mattered. None of them were her.

  I… I am Jayna.

  The wind kicked up, whistling through the grasses, and spiraled around her with something almost palpable. A shimmery shape took form, coalescing out of the night.

  Jayna. I am Serain.

  She took a careful breath. Could she really be speaking to one of the elementals? They were powerful and wild, but this one seemed only to want her as her. Jayna. A name she had not spoken in decades, a name she had abandoned the moment she stepped foot in Hyaln, afraid that it would single her out as too backward, like the rest of Yala. When she had first come to Hyaln, she had been Ilyana, and to those who knew her the longest, she still was.

  But that was not who she really was.

  And the elemental had known it.

  What else would it know? What else could it show her?

  The elemental seemed to be waiting for something, so Jayna did the only thing that she could think of. She said its name.

  Serain.

  With a flash of light, a connection formed between them.

  24

  Ciara

  Those who study the elementals believe there is much power in names. The elementals have never proclaimed their names, and have protected themselves from sharing their names. The college suspects there is a reason, that they do not share because names give control.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  Movement stirred Ciara awake.

  She rolled to the side, her head no longer resting on Jasn Volth’s chest. Strange that he had been so cold when she had drifted to sleep, and now was much warmer.

  Ciara looked over at Talyn. The draasin curled her tail around her, the spike nearly pressing into her back. That was the explanation for the warmth.

  She sat up and looked around for Reghal, but the lizard was nowhere to be found. Where did you go?

  Away.

  She heard his voice as through a great distance. Ciara had often wondered how the lizard moved so easily, disappearing and reappearing as if distances didn’t matter to him, and it was possible that they didn’t. She didn’t know anything about nobelas—and from what Cheneth said, it seemed that others didn’t either.

  Where was Cheneth? He still lived, and she should have dragged him over toward the draasin to rest, but she’d been so distraught seeing Reghal licking Jasn that she hadn’t been able to focus on helping Cheneth as well.

  She touched Jasn, running her fingers along his arm, and then stood.

  Sometime while she slept, his neck had straightened, and now Talyn’s tail curled around, cradling him. The leg that had been bent behind him now stretched out to the side. She didn’t remember doing that, but she must have, wanting to situate him so that he rested naturally.

  Ciara staggered beyond where Talyn rested. The draasin looked up, fixing her with a pair of golden eyes, and then settled her head back on the ground. Strange that she didn’t move, as if she mourned Jasn’s passing as well.

  A small fire crackled about a dozen paces from Talyn, and Cheneth sat next to it, resting his head on his hands as he stared into the flames. He looked up as she approached.

  “You’re awake. I didn’t want to bother you where you rested.”

  Ciara nodded, still numb. They had defeated the Khalan here and had done some good, suppressing whatever effect that the Khalan had with Tenebeth so that this place would not be used against them anymore so that the darkness would remain suppressed. She knew that she should feel pleased and that they had succeeded, but all she felt was empty. Hollow.

  “We did it,” she said. She took a place next to Cheneth and wrapped her arms around her legs, staring into the flames. Watching them made her aware of a pattern to the way fire danced, almost as if she could reach through that pattern. It was similar to what she used when she summoned fire, the movements—much like the flame itself—strangely regular.

  Cheneth chuckled and rubbed his hands together. “We. I think that you did it, ala’shin.”

  Ala’shin. Hearing Cheneth call her that made her remember all the times that Shade had called her the same. At that time, she had wanted only to please him, to serve her people as ala’shin. Now… now she didn’t know what she wanted.

  That wasn’t entirely true. She wanted to stop Tenebeth.

  There had been a time when she would not have thought herself capable of anything more than serving as a water seeker. Now she knew that she was more, that she was a summoner, but still didn’t know why or how it could help her people.

  “Weren’t you able to help them when Tenebeth attacked?” Cheneth asked her.

  “I helped,” she said. But she hadn’t known what she did then. Now she understood. And even then, she hadn’t been able to stop Jasn from dying.

  “I don’t think that we’re meant to stop death,” Cheneth said. The man was reading her thoughts, using spirit, she knew. Even if she wanted to stop him, she didn’t know how. “We are meant to use the powers that we’ve been given, and try to do as much good with them as we can.”

  Ciara turned to the tower, where she could still feel the power pulsing. There was no doubting that she had done good there. They had contained Tenebeth, even if she wasn’t certain what she had done. Without Reghal, she wasn’t sure that she would know.

  “I feel it also,” Cheneth said.

  “I don’t know what we did.”

  “I’m not so certain that you have to. The light knows what was required.”

  Ciara stared at it for a moment and then turned back to the fir
e, letting the calming flames dancing within relax her. She needed the relaxation. Maybe she needed more rest.

  “What are the Ter customs for the dead?” she asked.

  Cheneth frowned. “They are different than those within Rens, I believe.”

  “The sun claims those of Rens. The dead are stripped so that clothing could be reused, and coated with oils. Within my village, they were set upon the sacred rock until the sun dried them, then they are burned.”

  Cheneth took a deep breath. “Very different, then. In the eastern part of Ter, they are hung from trees. A strange custom,” he said with a shrug. “Most of Ter prefers to bury the dead. They believe that brings them closer to the Creator.”

  “Nothing with water?”

  “Not in Ter.”

  “Then we will bury him.”

  Cheneth glanced over. “Who?”

  “Jasn Volth. If the custom is to bury him, then we should.”

  “I don’t think he’d like that very much,” Cheneth said.

  Ciara took another deep breath. “Then what would he like? If we don’t bury him, I don’t see him wanting to be hung from a tree—”

  “Jasn didn’t die, ala’shin.”

  She jerked her head around to meet his eyes. “I saw him, Cheneth. No man can survive an injury like that.”

  “There is one man who can. Water touches him, Ciara, much like nobelas has touched you, or fire has touched Alena, earth for Wyath. He isn’t dead. Stars, I don’t know if he can die.”

  Ciara started shaking, unable to control herself. “I saw him, Cheneth. I rested next to him. His neck—”

  “Is a bit sore.”

  Ciara jumped to her feet.

  Jasn stood across from her, one hand pressed against his neck, the other tapping absently along his leg. A water summons, she realized. His normally vibrant skin was a shade lighter, and his eyes had taken on a sunken, almost hollow appearance. He lived. Somehow, he lived.

  “How?” she said, starting toward him before catching herself.

  Cheneth nodded to them. “I think that I will inspect the barrier you placed, Ciara. I will see if there is anything that we can learn for when we do it the next time.”

  He left them alone, with Ciara staring at Jasn, still unable to believe that he lived. It was impossible, but somehow he was there, standing as if nothing had happened to him.

  “How?” she asked again. This time, she didn’t catch herself as she started forward and touched his hand, then his face. His skin was warm, and he smelled the same, not the stink of death. She created a quick summons and pressed it through him, surging light through her connection with his skin. Not only did he live, but he remained vibrant. Strong. “How are you here? I saw you dead. Your neck—”

  Jasn took her hand from her arm and held it between his. He guided her back toward the fire, where he took a seat and waited for her to follow. When she did, he stared at her, his deep blue eyes holding hers so that she didn’t know what else to say.

  “I have tried to die more times than I can count,” he started. “Before I understood my connection to water, I thought myself cursed.”

  “You are water blessed,” she whispered.

  “Blessed. I don’t always feel blessed.”

  “Why did you want to die?”

  Jasn closed his eyes and turned away from her. Thankfully, he didn’t release her hand. “Someone close to me was gone. I… I wanted revenge.”

  “Katya?”

  Jasn nodded. “I knew her as Katya. They knew her as Issa in the barracks. She was Ilyana to Hyaln. I don’t know who she is, only that when she died—or when I thought she died—I wanted vengeance.”

  Ciara sat back, staring at this powerful water shaper. There could only be one place where he would have wanted to seek revenge, one place where he would have believed her to have gone. “You fought in Rens, didn’t you?”

  She knew that he had, and knew that others had a name for him, but she’d been so focused on learning how to summon and understanding the abilities that she had developed, that she hadn’t given it the thought that she needed. Had that been a mistake? Had Jasn ever attacked her village?

  “Fought. Tried to die. Failed.”

  “How many of my people did you kill?”

  Jasn opened his eyes. Redness lined them and tears welled that he made no effort to hide. “Your people called me the Wrecker of Rens. The Man Who Cannot Die.”

  Ciara tensed. She’d heard him referred to as the Wrecker before but hadn’t understood what it meant before. Maybe she’d chosen ignorance, not wanting to believe that this man she had begun to have feelings for could actually harm her people, but wasn’t he a shaper of Ter? How many of them had attacked her people? They had been forced back, driven from the border where life existed and thrust deeper into Rens, nearer the waste where water was scarce.

  What would have been her life had Ter never attacked?

  Ciara couldn’t let herself think like that. There was no world where Ter hadn’t attacked, just as she knew that Ter claimed that Rens had attacked first.

  “How many died, Jasn?” Her voice was a whisper now.

  He sighed but didn’t look away from her. “Too many died. I blamed your people. I blamed the draasin. I blamed the war.” He took a breath. “I wanted only to end it.”

  “The war?”

  He shrugged. “The war. Myself. Any of it. It had been going on for too long without respite, a war that my people no longer remember the reason for. It had become about claiming land and destroying Rens. I don’t know what it might have been before.”

  Few of the elders of her village ever talked about what life had been like before the war. There were those who knew and those who did not.

  “I’m sorry, Ciara.

  “For what?”

  Jasn looked at her with hesitancy in his eyes. “I am not the same person I was then. I am no longer the Wrecker of Rens. That man died there, or if not there, then shortly after I came to the barracks. My eyes have been opened.”

  Ciara thought about the stories she’d heard growing up, how so many had died and the continued destruction. Jasn had been a part of that. He had killed her people, destroyed Rens, and had been willing to die doing it.

  How many families had been torn apart by what he had done? How many had suffered because of his connection to water, and because of the way that water restored him rather than simply letting him die? How much of Rens had suffered?

  She released his hands, forcing herself to ignore the pain behind his eyes as he watched her, ignoring the sadness that reddened his eyes.

  He might have changed, but could she forgive what he had done to her people? And did she want to?

  25

  Jasn

  Exiling the Wise might have been a mistake. Perhaps there is some way to learn to speak to them, though our attempts to learn have failed.

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  Jasn sat alone by the fire, watching Ciara as she spoke softly to the draasin. Night had fallen, and the flames leaped higher than they had before, casting away the shadows. The fog that hovered around the tower dissipated leaving nothing more than a starry sky. A warm breeze blew in from the ocean, carrying the scent of the sea and the sound of circling gulls. Had they been there before? The warmth had not, and the clear sky had not. That, more than even the soft glowing off the walls of the tower, told him that they had succeeded here. Tenebeth had been suppressed.

  All because of Ciara.

  Not him. He might have fought off some of the Khalan, but he’d barely done enough and had nearly died in the attempt. Were it not for Ciara, the Khalan would have succeeded.

  A lump formed in his throat as he thought of her, and it refused every effort he made to swallow it back. Maybe it would choke him. After all that he had done, didn’t he deserve it?

  He wasn’t surprised to live, though from Ciara’s reaction, his injury must have been particularly gruesome. That wouldn’t be the first time that water h
ad restored him when he should have died, and he doubted that would be the last. It had been the first time that water restored him when he wanted to live.

  Had wanted. Watching Ciara’s reaction to hearing him describe what he’d done in Rens had torn his heart out. If he could have died from anything, that would have been it. Instead, he had to suffer with pain that water could not take away. Better to suffer a physical assault than to deal with the pain of revealing what he’d done to her people.

  Why did you bring me back?

  Water delayed answering, but the answer came. You would have remained broken?

  I think I am always going to be broken.

  Only because you choose it, Child of Water.

  I choose nothing.

  Which is why you are broken.

  Jasn felt as Cheneth appeared through a strange combination of water and spirit. Since recovering, his connection to spirit had strengthened. That had never happened before. Always before when he recovered from an attack, he had returned no more or less powered than he had been before. This… this was noticeable.

  “You don’t have to sit alone,” Cheneth said.

  “I think that I do.”

  “Do you? Has she turned you away so soon?”

  Jasn shook his head. “I told her who I am.”

  “Am or was? Because I do not think they are the same.”

  Jasn hadn’t either, but could he ever really escape what he had done and who had been? “When I went to Hyaln, I thought that I could become someone else. I thought that maybe that was the reason you had sent me there. Now I’m not so sure.”

  “You went to Hyaln because I thought that your ability would help others learn to reach the elementals,” Cheneth said, settling to the ground next to him. The firelight danced along his gaunt face but somehow managed to avoid creating shadows.