Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Why did you bring me to this place?” He paused and placed both hands on one of the trunks. With a surge of earth shaping, he pushed it down. “I can sense her here, you know? Did you want to torment me?”

  “You wanted to know what happened. This was where we were. Sanash hasn’t been used since… since the accident.”

  “How did it happen?” He turned toward her, pain twisting his face. His eyes caught beneath the shadows slipping through the clouds overhead. “How did Katya disappear?”

  Alena took a step toward him. She should not be hesitant, not with him, not when he needed to know what had happened. And what had happened to Issa had troubled her. She tried to suppress that fact, but she wasn’t strong enough to ignore the way it bothered her.

  “She wasn’t Katya to me,” she began. “She went by Issa. We—I—used this place as a way to learn, keeping the draasin away from the deep part of the forest. Here they could fly, even chained, and attack.” She pointed to the trees around them and remembered the way the draasin would soar, hovering just above the tops of the trees, waiting for her to shape stone to demonstrate how she could counter the effect of fire. At first, she hadn’t known why the draasin would teach her how to defend against fire, but over time it began to make sense. If she could learn fire’s weakness, she could understand how to prepare for it. In some ways, using earth and water to protect against draasin fire had made her a much better shaper of all the elements.

  “Issa?” Jasn said the name as if he’d heard it before. “Did she train with you here?”

  “This was my place,” she said. “It was where I learned. Where I spoke to the draasin openly. She followed me here.”

  Jasn made his way to another trunk. With a shaping of earth, he pushed it down. It fell with a soft thud, the earth-infused husk of tree still solid in spite of the fire that had raged through here, a fire that had blazed brightly and hot, with energy unlike any that Alena had ever seen.

  “What happened then?”

  Alena closed her eyes, remembering how the draasin had soared, the chain hanging from his neck as he glided above the trees. Flames spewed from his mouth and Alena pushed back against them. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

  “Issa, your Katya, followed me. In some ways, she was much like you. She wanted answers and was impatient, pressing to learn specific shapings. When they didn’t come as easily as she wanted, she grew frustrated. I don’t think that she cared for my teaching style, but much like he did with you, Cheneth assigned her to me.”

  Jasn stared at her. “Could she speak to the elementals?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s the point of the screening, isn’t it? The scholars—well, Cheneth at least—are searching for those with the ability to speak to elementals.”

  “That is a part of it,” she said, “but there is more. I am probably not the one to explain it to you.”

  “Because you’ve explained so much already?” he asked, annoyance plain in the question.

  “No, because there is much that I don’t understand.” That was changing—Alena could feel that changing—but not quickly enough.

  Jasn made a track through the remaining trees, circling along the edge of the forest. Was this what Eldridge had wanted of her? Did he expect she would somehow convince Volth that he should return to the barracks when his connection to the commander made that unlikely? Now that she knew about his ties to Issa, she doubted even more that he would return.

  “Tell me,” he said, pausing about twenty paces from her, staring into the forest.

  His eyes had a faraway look to them, as if he were listening to sounds she couldn’t hear. Did he hear the call of the elementals? Some streams ran through here—that was part of the reason the draasin had suggested she use this place—and there might be water elementals within, but it was just as likely that he considered a way to attack, or to leave. Either would be likely.

  “What does the commander know of the barracks?”

  Not Lachen this time, Alena noted. “I’m unsure of the commander’s knowledge. The barracks were founded by his predecessor, a response to the draasin attack.”

  “Does he know you can speak to the draasin?”

  Alena hesitated before answering. Jasn had ties to the commander, so whatever she told him had the potential to get back to Lachen, but if she didn’t speak openly, it was possible that Jasn wouldn’t return to the barracks. They needed his connection to water. It was one elemental that had been difficult for them to reach so far.

  “I don’t think so,” she answered, settling on honesty.

  He nodded as if expecting that. “Cheneth keeps it from him?”

  “Cheneth keeps his own counsel,” she said. “He might be one of the scholars and shares with them, but he is also more than one of the scholars.”

  She didn’t fully understand how, or what it meant, but Cheneth was not a simple shaper. Though neither was Eldridge. At least with Eldridge, she understood that his connection to the wind tied him to their cause, but she had no such sense with Cheneth. As far as she knew, he had no ability to speak to the elementals, nothing that would explain his support for them other than a scholarly interest.

  “Lachen said something to me,” Jasn said, turning away from the forest. He shivered slightly. “He told me that there was power stirring in the darkness. Do you know what that means?”

  She shrugged. “He could mean the elementals. They are more active than they have ever been before. There is a reason they reach for connections to shapers when they never have before.”

  “Are you so certain that they never have?” Jasn asked.

  “We would have heard. We would have known.”

  “Like with Rens?”

  “Rens is different. They don’t speak to them.”

  “How can you be certain?”

  She closed her eyes, thinking of Sashi, hoping the draasin was unharmed. “Because they told me.” Alena took a deep breath, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin. “We would have known if Rens spoke to them. Whatever they used in their attack was different.”

  Jasn frowned. “It seems to me that we might not have known,” he said. “Who would believe if you said that you spoke to the draasin? Most in Ter, and especially in Atenas, think the draasin are more like wild creatures. Powerful and deadly, but no brighter than your average wolf.”

  Alena snorted. “They’re probably smarter than you and me.”

  Jasn tipped his head to the side as he considered the comment. “Even more reason to fear them, wouldn’t you say?”

  “They don’t want to harm us,” she said, stepping toward him. This was something he had to understand. If he was going to be useful to them, if he was going to work and learn in the barracks, he had to understand the draasin. Otherwise, he would be no different than Calan and his students. “They have tried to help us understand the elementals. They want to speak to us. For some reason, they need to speak to us.”

  Jasn watched her for a moment. “It seems they have harmed many of the order already. How can you claim they don’t want to?”

  Alena could feel the distant connection to the draasin remaining in the barracks as it crawled at the back of her mind. There was darkness and pain there, but she also detected the interest the draasin had in reaching her.

  “They fight, and they hunt, but they fear something. They need us, and I don’t quite know why.”

  “Need us for what?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. And it frightens me.”

  13

  Ciara

  It has been asked how Rens continues to oppose Ter. The answer, from what I have seen, is that Rens itself no longer leads the resistance to the war. Other fighters, those who have discovered the secret for controlling the draasin, sustain the war. It is a dangerous game they play, and one where more than either Ter or Rens will suffer.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  The air whistl
ed in Ciara’s ears, reminding her of when she’d fallen from the side of the rock. It was hot and gusted past the draasin’s dark scales, off the massive spikes protruding from its back, leaving thin streamers of mist in the air. Ciara clutched one of the spikes, not knowing what else to do.

  Somehow, she still held her j’na. It had caught between her and the draasin, and her chest pressed against the long length of carved wood, pushing painfully. She shifted one of her hands and grabbed the middle of the spear, pulling it to the side, where it settled between a pair of spikes.

  She turned her head and nearly vomited. The ground was impossibly far below, nothing more than a streak of reddish brown, with occasional flashes of color. She couldn’t tell which direction they flew and ducked her head to keep her gorge down.

  “Please,” she begged softly, “bring me back down.” The words caught in the wind and were blown away, disappearing like nothing more than a sigh.

  The draasin streaked through the air, at one point tilting as it flew, the massive wings beating at the air, sending her clutching at the spikes again, determined to hang on. If she lost her grip, she’d drop to the ground, and she doubted there would be anything any magical lizard could do to help her then.

  After what seemed an eternity, the draasin began to descend. They circled a few times, moving ever more slowly before settling to the ground with another burst of wind, this time mixed with a spray of dust and what felt like water.

  Ciara trembled against the draasin’s side, afraid to even move. As the draasin lowered its head and waited, she lifted her j’na and climbed from its back, dropping to the ground.

  Was this where her people had gone? Had the draasin brought her here to find them?

  But this didn’t seem a place where they could have been taken. Lush grass grabbed at her feet. Not cracked and browned, but fresh and vibrant. She took a hesitant step away from the draasin, each step feeling like walking on mud, but softer and more pleasant. Once she moved away from the draasin, the air had a pleasant scent to it: none of the hot, bitter smell of dust and dirt that she was accustomed to smelling so close to the waste.

  A cool breeze swept around her, brushing back her hair and carrying the taste of salt. Ciara stood motionless with her eyes closed, letting the wind play around her shoulders, tugging on her hair and sliding through her elouf. When she shivered, she opened her eyes.

  The draasin had gone. It circled overhead, flying in a dark spiral before moving off toward the west.

  She was left alone.

  She shivered again, this time not because of the cool nip to the air.

  A series of questions raced through her mind, none with answers.

  What had happened? Her father claimed they had summoned the draasin, but if they had, then why had it not remained? Where had it brought her? How would she ever manage to make it home? And where were the rest of her people?

  More than she ever had while stranded on the waste, Ciara felt alone.

  “What have we here?”

  Ciara spun, raising her j’na and preparing to throw it. A tall man appeared before her, covered in long, flowing robes that seemed woven of the hides of strange animals, stripes of silvers and browns meeting in long, ornate seams. He had a bald head and dark skin and stood barely a dozen paces from her.

  How had he approached without her knowing?

  Maybe it was the shadow man. She had assumed she hadn’t sensed his heartbeat because she’d been disconnected from water, the dry and hot air diminishing her ability to sense, but now she doubted that was the case at all.

  She focused on water, listening for the connection, reaching for the way water pulsed within this man. It was faint and slow, but the sense was there, a steady and distinct rhythm. Ciara found herself relaxing but held the j’na on her shoulder, ready to throw.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The man tipped his head, studying her as he did. “I would think the question should be mine to ask. You arrive near my home, dressed like that and holding a weapon aimed at me.” His words had the sharp edge of an accent, fast and clipped. He glanced at the sky, his eyes widening as he caught the fading shadow of the draasin. “You are a rider.”

  “A what?”

  He looked back to her. His eyes were a deep brown, the color of the wet rock that she so rarely saw in her part of Rens. “Are you not? Is that not why you’ve come?”

  Ciara couldn’t decide if he sounded interested or scared. She glanced toward the sky, looking to see what he might have meant, but saw nothing. The draasin had disappeared, leaving her stranded with this strange man and feeling a rising uncertainty. Should she summon the draasin again? She had her j’na and she remembered the way her father had tapped the spear into the ground, the flash of light and the steady drawing of power that came with it, but what if it didn’t work here? What if the summons only worked in the desert, near where the draasin could be found?

  “I don’t know why I’m here,” she answered softly. She lowered her j’na; she wasn’t going to attack this man, not without knowing where she was and what she might find. Besides, water sensing told her she wasn’t alone, that there were others nearby. Even were she to attack, it was likely she would be overrun by whomever this man was with. “The draasin brought me here.”

  He turned toward the sky, which was full of thick, white clouds that actually blotted out the sun, staring for long moments and saying nothing. When he finally did speak, he didn’t take his eyes off the sky. “Fire. You speak to it, yes?”

  Did he think she could actually speak to the draasin? Her father had shown her some of how he called to them, but that was different, wasn’t it? “I don’t speak to it.”

  “You must speak to fire. Otherwise, how would you ride?”

  “I don’t know what I did.”

  His gaze jumped to her j’na. “You must know something. You come by fire.”

  She looked at the draasin glass, not sure what to say. “I don’t know how I came here.”

  The man crossed his hands beneath his belly, tucking his hands into his sleeves. “If you are not a rider, how are you here?”

  Ciara looked around. Trees taller than some of the rock formations scattered throughout her part of Rens rose in the distance. The strange, soft grass stretched all around, sweeping in gentle rises, some growing much taller. Yellow flowers bloomed in some places, and she recognized their fragrance on the wind that carried with it the hint of salt. In the distance, she felt water so massive that she thought she must be imagining it.

  “I search for my people,” she answered.

  The man frowned and then glanced to the sky. “Your people will not be found here, Rider.”

  “Where am I?” she asked, not looking back at the strange man. The draasin had brought her here, and if what her father said about them was true, that they were powerful and intelligent creatures of light, creatures that battled against the darkness, then the draasin must have had a reason, hadn’t it? But why, when this was so far from anyplace she’d ever been, and so different than anything she could ever have imagined?

  “Where?” the man repeated. “You do not recognize these lands?”

  Ciara shook her head. There were stories about places like this. Old Rens was said to once have been a lush land much like this, a place where water ran in wide rivers through the old cities, where trees much like she saw in the distance grew tall and proud, and where life flourished. That had been long ago, before the war, before the cities were built, before her people struggled with each day, begging the Stormbringer for the rains that brought life to the desert. That had been a time before the nya’shin, when her people had thrived. So much had changed, and so much had been lost.

  “I’ve never seen anything like them,” she said. “But they are beautiful.”

  “You have only been here moments and you think the lands of Tsanth beautiful?” He tipped his head. “If beauty will hold back fire…” he started before shaking his head and clenching his
jaw. “You have seen nothing, Rider. Let me show you beautiful. Let me show you why you should not harm us.”

  The man started away from her before Ciara could object and tell him she had no interest in harming anyone, heading through the grass toward a trail that Ciara couldn’t see. The man seemed to know where it was intuitively and weaved through grasses that rose ever higher, quickly reaching above her shoulder and then above her head. A narrow space was worked between the grasses, wide enough for her to walk, and she followed, fearful of losing him. If she did, she doubted she would find her way back. These tall grasses were so high that she could easily imagine wandering for days, losing herself as she struggled to find her way free.

  Yet as she walked, she had the sense of something. There was a strange warmth to the air that lingered where they walked. It eased if she stepped off the trail, only to return when she came back to it. Ciara could almost close her eyes and sense her way along, not by the sense of water but by the warmth she detected.

  At one point, she bumped into the man as she followed him. He glanced back and smiled at her.

  “Where are we going?” Ciara asked.

  “You would learn of Tsanth? Is that not why you came? Or did you come for another reason?” He looked to the sky again and made a motion with his hands.

  “What is Tsanth?”

  “Is that not why you’ve come?”

  He had a strange way of speaking. Not only the clipped and rapid way he asked questions, but the smile that punctuated everything he said. He continued forward, leading her as he walked, and she realized heat radiated from him as well.

  “I came…” she started, but was unsure why she had come. Fas was hurt. The summons of her father using his j’na. And the draasin. Hadn’t she come to find the rest of her people, those taken before her return? Wasn’t that why he had summoned the draasin? “The draasin brought me here.”