“The only example I have is the one I’m most familiar with.” He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “Have you ever felt the way the wind pulls on your face, that gentle sensation that brushes against your skin like a lover’s kiss, playfully tugging at your hair or your clothes?”
Jasn sniffed. “Yes.”
“And have you ever known the harsh, painful wind, scraping across your flesh as if trying to tear the skin from you?”
Jasn nodded. There had been times in Rens when it had felt that way.
“Then you know which you prefer.”
“That’s no answer,” Jasn said.
Eldridge stood and reached for the door. “Thank you for healing Wyath. He’s more important than you realize.”
“You still didn’t answer me.”
“No? Then you will have to come up with your choice on your own. None can do that for you, but know that there are others like you, and they are willing to help.”
As Eldridge pulled open the door and stepped through, Jasn shuffled to the edge of the cot. If he said nothing, he might never get the answers he needed. “Like Alena helped with her student who died?”
Eldridge turned back, brow furrowed in a puzzled expression. When it relaxed, he nodded slowly. “That’s it then. You knew her.”
“I knew her.”
Eldridge studied him for a moment. “You cared for her.”
Jasn didn’t blink, didn’t breathe. Cared seemed such an understatement about his feelings toward Katya, and he’d never had the chance to really show her the depths of his emotions.
“You’ll have to ask Alena about what happened with her.”
“Oliver says she still lives.”
Eldridge took another step into the hall. “Oliver knows many things, but this is not something that he understands.”
“What happened with her?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible Rens claimed her, and if they did, then she is truly gone. As to the rest… that is what we must understand, the reason I have come to the barracks, and the reason I remain. You must find your reasons.” His mouth tightened into a thin line, and he nodded before closing the door again, leaving Jasn sitting alone in shadows.
11
Alena
I believe I have discovered who released the darkness. I have yet to learn how. The knowledge required is protected by the college and should be difficult to obtain.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
“You need to talk to him.”
Alena leaned on the edge of the window, staring out one of the upper levels in Atenas when Eldridge returned. It had been so long since she’d been in the tower that she’d almost forgotten what sort of vantage she had within these walls. In some ways, it was better than shaping herself above the clouds. At least here, she didn’t have the same sense of movement and could simply stand and watch the city beneath.
“I need to find the draasin.”
Eldridge shook his head. “That can wait. You said the draasin escaped.”
Escaped, but not unharmed. Alena could tell that much, even if she couldn’t hear Sashi in her mind the way she had. “What would I say to him?”
“He seeks answers. You were there.”
“There, but I don’t know that I even understand,” she said. Was it coincidence that Volth knew her previous student? Not just knew, but had a relationship with her? Doubtful. Those sort of coincidences didn’t happen.
“That’s why you must speak to him.”
Alena turned away from the window and sighed. Oliver had left them alone in his room, giving them a chance to speak. She wondered if he sat somewhere else, listening to their conversation. He might be weak within the order, but he had a sharp mind and she wouldn’t put it past him to have come up with some way to use a wind shaping to his advantage.
“You know what happened to her,” Alena said. “How am I supposed to explain that?”
“He thought her dead,” Eldridge said. “We thought her dead, but if Oliver heard she lives, then I suspect it true.” He approached, his hands stuffed into his pockets. His eyes, always so sharp, made a point of fixing her with a heavy expression, almost as if chastising her. “You’ve heard the rumors about him?”
She glanced over at Wyath. He rested on the cot, breathing slowly and steadily, his pale features relaxed. Thanks to what Volth had managed, he would live. “They are more than rumors.”
“Yes,” Eldridge said. “Considering what we’ve seen, I think we can agree that they are more than rumors.”
Alena sighed. The rumors about Volth were part of the reason she had been so against teaching him in the first place but probably why Cheneth had been so eager to assign him to her. He must have known even then. Stories of a warrior so powerful that he could destroy much of Rens and survive when others around him died. A man who could not die. Now she suspected she understood: the elementals had healed him, even if she didn’t know why.
“Is he the right person for this work?” she asked.
“Only the elementals can decide. If they chose him, they must know something that we don’t.”
“Or they didn’t choose him. How do we know he’s not with Rens?” She wouldn’t put it past them to try to place someone with her, to use her bias toward the draasin against her. It was what she would do if she could figure out what they even wanted.
“I’ve spoken to him. And I’ve spoken to Oliver.” The way he said the last made it clear that it was important. “Volth went to Rens thinking he would die. That he didn’t…”
“I know.” She studied Wyath, wishing she understood. They knew there were other elementals. She spoke to fire and Eldridge to wind. Cheneth didn’t speak to any as far as she knew, but he had the knowledge necessary to tie them all together. There were others, but they were shielded from her, more to keep them safe than her.
None had shown much talent with water. They needed the connection to water, and from what she’d seen with Volth, there was incredible strength to be had with such a connection. So many had died might have been saved had they a better connection.
“When will he be ready to return?” Eldridge asked, nodding toward Wyath.
“Not soon. We should let him rest a day or two. It would be good for him to be under the care of a healer for a few days.”
“We don’t have a few days, and I don’t think we can risk leaving the barracks for that long, anyway. Wyath might be able to remain here”—and she could tell that he wasn’t convinced—“but we cannot. Volth needs to come with us.”
“But?”
“I’m not so sure that he will.”
Alena sighed. “There’s another issue that we have to deal with when we return.” Eldridge arched his brow and waited. “Bayan saw what I had to do to keep Calan from killing the draasin. Before we left, I saw her with him.” Blast that woman if she said something and ruined everything they had been working on.
“Then there’s even more reason for you to hurry back.”
“Only me?”
“I have”—he glanced out the window and sniffed softly—“other things that need to be done before I can leave. I will return as quickly as is safe.”
“What of Volth?”
Eldridge smiled. “Like I said, you need to speak to him.”
“There’s nothing I can say to him that will help.”
“Don’t be so certain. Sometimes explaining what you know is all that is needed. Think of what he’s gone through. What he’s going through. How much of this is completely new to him.”
“Eldridge, it’s completely new to all of us. At least, those of us not in the college.”
“Even those in the college don’t have all the answers.”
“Cheneth seems to,” she said.
Eldridge’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps. He is capable, and he tells us what we need to know.”
Alena stalked away from the window and stopped at the row of shelves containing Oliver’s books. Man
y looked no different than what she’d seen with Cheneth. If she didn’t know better, she would suspect Oliver to be one of the scholars rather than of the healer guild. “What we need to know or what he thinks we need to know?”
“Are you doubting Cheneth now?”
Alena bit back the first comment that came to her. She doubted Cheneth as much as she doubted the commander, and for nearly the same reason. Both men thought they knew what needed to happen and shared only what they felt necessary, yet neither man recognized how that affected those around them. The order was supposed to provide stability and strength to Ter, but it had been used as a hammer, crushing everything that opposed them.
“I will go to him.”
A flicker of movement caught her attention and she turned. Jasn separated from the shadows, wrapped in a dark cloak that covered him from head to foot. His eyes blazed with anger, and power burned from him.
“There’s no need,” he said.
Alena almost smiled. Volth had learned much in such a short time. She should be pleased—he was her student, after all—but she didn’t care for the fact that he’d managed to sneak up on her like that. “Warrior Volth,” she said. “I can see that you’ve mastered shielding yourself. That is good. When we return to the barracks, there are other lessons you will need to work on.”
He flicked his gaze to Eldridge. Alena didn’t need to turn to know that Eldridge lounged near the window. She detected the steady and slow pulsing of his heart. Had he known, or had even he been surprised?
“I will leave you to… talk.” Eldridge climbed through the window and stepped out on a shaping of wind, quickly disappearing.
Alena turned her attention back to Jasn. He was a strong man, not only with physical strength but also with shaping. That had been evident from the beginning. The tales of what he’d done, how he’d gone into Rens—even the knowledge of what he’d done while there—gave him an air of darkness. The stories about him made him seem nearly as powerful as the commander. She’d seen that his ability was still raw, but there was potential if she could hone it. It all depended on what he chose to do with his talent.
“How long have you known?” he asked. He stood at the edge of the light from the crackling hearth, shadows stretching over his face. Other than that, only his sword was visible, a flash of blackened silver that occasionally caught the light from the flames.
“Known what?”
He snorted and took a step toward her. There was a slight menace in the way he moved that hadn’t been there before, as if his return to Atenas had awoken a darkness inside him. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. If he was close to her student, he might resent her, blaming her for what had happened.
Alena slowly readied a shaping. Volth might be a strong shaper, but she had learned from the very best shapers, and not all from Ter. That training had given her experience and had also taught her the ways to mask her shaping. She might have nothing to fear from him, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be ready.
“Do you know who she was to me?” he asked.
“I didn’t. Now I do.”
He stepped forward, the shadows slipping from his face, stretching slowly as if forced away. “What happened to her?” His voice went soft with the question, and the pain—the hurt—was still raw as he asked.
Alena took a breath and shook her head. “I don’t know that I can answer, not entirely. All who come to the barracks are screened.”
“By whom?”
“The scholars, mostly. They decide whether a student has the potential…” She hesitated, not certain how much to explain.
“Whether they can reach the elementals?”
Alena tipped her head in a nod. “The barracks are designed to train hunters, to teach about the draasin so that we can know how better to attack.”
“What of Calan? Thenas?”
“Calan was one of the first instructors, brought in by the commander himself when the barracks were founded over a decade ago.”
“That would be before Lachen.”
Volth said the name so casually that she knew there was more history between the two men than she had suspected. That would be another thing she would need to learn. “Before him, yes,” Alena agreed. “Commander Nolan saw to the creation of the barracks. Calan and Wyath were among the first. There were others, nearly a half dozen, chosen for their proven ability with the draasin. Many died in the beginning. Those who survived… They became the instructors.”
“So is the intent of the barracks to hunt the draasin or not?”
“For some. Not for others.”
“That’s no kind of answer.”
“It’s all I have,” Alena said. “It’s not as simple as you would like it to be. When the Cheneth found out about the barracks, he took the opportunity to learn, and over time—”
“Over time, he took over.”
Alena nodded.
Jasn started pacing and made his way to the window. “You said most are screened by the scholars. Why is that?”
“You know why that is.”
“I wasn’t screened. Lachen brought me to the barracks.”
“Yes. Why do you think I was so reluctant to work with you?”
He turned back to her, one hand resting on the windowsill, the other slipping under his cloak and resting on the hilt of his sword. “I thought you had heard stories about me.”
“I had.”
He nodded. “What you’ve heard is likely true.”
“That you’ve destroyed entire villages by yourself? That you have survived where everyone around you has died?”
“I failed when everyone succeeded,” he said, “but yes.”
“Why did you want to die?”
“How are you so certain I don’t still want that?”
“I’ve seen you. When you were with me in the waste, there was a vibrancy to you. I hadn’t seen it before, but it was there. Then when you found Calan’s student with the draasin, you came alive again. There might have been a desire within you to die, but I’m not so certain it’s still there.”
Jasn sat on the window. His gaze turned to the door. “Oliver tells me that you know that Katya lives.”
Katya. That hadn’t been the name she’d gone by when she was in the barracks, but it suited her. Back then, Alena had known her as Issa. She had been a talented shaper, in many ways much more skilled than what Volth had demonstrated, and the darkness that Alena had caught hints of from him was much stronger in her as well. “I don’t know what happened with her, only that she should not have survived.”
Jasn stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me what you know.”
Alena considered how to answer. What he wanted to know about Issa would be more than she could explain, but there might be something she could do that would bring him the closure he wanted. Doing so delayed her going to the draasin. But if Cheneth was right—and the damned man often was—they needed Volth. Could she really leave without knowing he’d come with her?
“Come with me and I’ll show you.”
12
Alena
The earliest days of the war between Ter and Rens consisted of intense fighting. On my travels, I see evidence for this everywhere. From the husks of cities long gone, to the burned away landscape that no longer sustains life, all suffered because of the endless war. Even now, with the war easing and the fighters of Rens fading from the front, their remains this divide.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
Burned husks of trees rose from the ground like the fingers of some sort of giant trying to crawl his way free in a massive clearing. The ground between the edges of the forest was scorched as well, leaving fading ash and the residual hint of char that lingered long after the flames had been extinguished. Alena hadn’t been here in months.
“Where are we?” Jasn asked.
She looked around, thinking of all the times she’d practiced fire shaping here. This had been a safe place then, even with the draasin chained as
they were. The connection to the draasin had given her more gifts than she ever would have expected, helping her understand the way fire could be used, guiding her so that her shapings were more finely tuned. The draasin had proven to be teachers unlike any she’d ever had in Atenas.
“This is—was,” she said, catching herself, “a place called Sanash.” The word had many meanings in the old tongue, but what it really meant was fire.
“What is it for?” He trailed one hand along what had been a towering oak but was now only a tall, burned-out reminder of the forest that had been here.
“A place to learn, to understand fire.”
He let go of the branch and looked over at her, his brow knitted tightly. “Do you think such places are necessary? Rens can teach all that we need about fire.”
Alena sighed. She doubted that she had spent nearly as much time in Rens as Jasn, but the time that she had spent let her know the people there were not to blame. They wanted peace, no different than the people of Ter. “Rens has taught you hatred. That is all.”
“You don’t believe that Rens should be attacked?” he asked. “It’s not only the draasin, but you sympathize with the people as well?”
It was a dangerous line of questioning, especially given the connection she suspected between Jasn and the commander. “I think the original reason has changed,” she said carefully.
He moved to another burned tree, the bark blackened and almost shiny. Many of the trees here had hardened, augmented by earth to counter the fire as they studied and learned how best to use the element. This was where the draasin had first taught them how to use stone infused with earth and how it could create the chains that would hold the creatures.
“The reason? They sent the draasin to attack. Was that not reason for us to fight back?”
“Do you still believe that after everything you’ve learned?”
Jasn turned away without answering. As he wandered to the next tree and traced his fingers along it, she wondered what he sensed, what he might be reaching for. She detected the faint trail of his shaping, even if she wasn’t certain what he did. He had learned much from his time in the barracks, even as she’d tried not to teach him.
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