Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “This is where I am needed,” he answered, as if that explained everything. It didn’t, not to Jasn. “There is a purpose in everything that I do, just as there is a purpose in everything the commander does.”

  “Does he know about you?” Jasn asked.

  Cheneth sighed. “He might. I admit I do not know all of what the commander has learned. I’ve said it’s possible that he’s enlightened, but it is also possible that he serves Tenebeth.”

  Jasn leaned back in his chair. Lachen might be powerful, and he was certainly complex, but he didn’t think his old friend served the kind of darkness Cheneth described, but what did he really know? How much did he understand about Lachen anymore?

  “Who else is enlightened?” he asked.

  Cheneth met his eyes and didn’t answer.

  “If I am to help—and that’s why you’re telling us this, isn’t it? You want our help?—the connection to the elementals matters for some reason, I suspect. So if you want our help, you need to share what you know.”

  “You have learned more than any of the enlightened know. More than I knew before recently.”

  Jasn glanced at Alena, but she stared at the fire as if captivated by the flames dancing around the draasin egg. Her shaping was still dragged from her, drawn away by the draasin. How long would that last? If the connection between them was broken, what would happen to Alena?

  “What of Wyath?” Jasn asked. “Bayan?”

  “Wyath is one of the first of the order to demonstrate a connection to the elementals. He came to me after you found the tainted draasin, and I have shared with him what I shared with you.”

  “He’s changed,” Alena said softly.

  Cheneth frowned. “He nearly died. Twice.” He looked at Jasn a moment before shifting his focus back to Alena. “That last… Without your taking him to Atenas, he would have died.”

  “That’s what changed him,” Alena said. “I think Jasn’s healing did something. He is aware in ways that he wasn’t before.”

  “What do you mean?” Jasn asked. What had he done when he’d healed Wyath? Nothing that he hadn’t done before. But he wasn’t in control of those healings. But he wasn’t in control of those healings. Letting the water elemental work through him demanded he give up his control, surrender it to the elementals. In that way, Eldridge had been right.

  Alena didn’t meet his eyes when he answered, still staring at the fire. “He can hear some of the draasin. Not the same way that I can, but it’s more than he was able to before.”

  Cheneth stopped pacing. As he did, Jasn realized power faded from the room, as if he had been shaping and suddenly released the shaping. “He… hears them?”

  Alena nodded. “When I chased the draasin and we saw the shadowed rider, Wyath was with me. He could hear when the draasin spoke.”

  Cheneth turned to Jasn. “Who else have you healed in that manner?”

  Alena answered for him. “Ifrit and Thenas.”

  A frown deepened on Cheneth’s face. “What of them now?”

  “I haven’t the chance to check on Ifrit,” Alena said. “And I have not seen Thenas since he attacked the draasin.”

  “We must find them.”

  “Why?”

  Cheneth looked at the door. “Another story, but one that I believe, if I am to believe any of this. It is said that those able to speak to the elementals are the most at risk for corruption by Tenebeth.”

  “And now that Thenas has been healed by Jasn…,” Alena started.

  Cheneth nodded carefully. “I can hope this darkness has not found him yet. Thenas is a strong shaper and would make a dangerous ally for the darkness.”

  And if he was turned, Jasn knew it would be his fault. Or, perhaps more accurately, the fault of the elementals working through him.

  “What of the others in the barracks?” he asked. “How much do we tell them?”

  “Nothing for now.”

  “But they could help—”

  “Would they believe?” Cheneth asked.

  Silence fell between them until Alena broke it. “Is there nothing that we can do to help the draasin already corrupted?”

  “Alena,” Cheneth said, his voice pained, “this darkness is powerful. Anything you do risks your life.”

  She sighed. “But if we can’t save them, we may lose them all.”

  Cheneth nodded, sadness narrowing his eyes. “And we must be prepared for that possibility. You are a hunter of fire, even if you have chosen otherwise.”

  Alena stopped in front of the hearth. With a shaping of fire, she suppressed the flames enough so that she could lift the draasin egg and then clutched it against her chest once more.

  “What are you going to do?” Cheneth asked.

  “You’ve already told me what must be done. I haven’t understood before now what the draasin feared, but now I do. They fear the corruption from Tenebeth. They know what could happen, and they hide from it. That’s what led to the draasins’ willingness to come to this place to begin with. We have seen their numbers fade and have been powerless to do anything about it. But,” she went on, looking down at the egg, “that doesn’t have to be the case now.”

  “You intend to see it hatched?” Cheneth asked.

  “I think she needs to,” Jasn said.

  Alena looked at him.

  “Whatever the egg has done to you, there is no way to stop it. My shaping only slows it, but I don’t think it has stopped anything. To do that, you either have to destroy the draasin egg or you’ll have to see it hatched.”

  “I suspect that you’ll need to find a powerful female,” Cheneth said. “Gender is thought to matter for the hatching.”

  “It’s a good thing we know of such a female,” she answered.

  “You said that draasin was claimed.”

  Alena nodded, and her brow furrowed. Jasn wondered what it must have felt like to experience the draasin falling to Tenebeth. She was able to speak to them, so she would have heard it happening, even if she didn’t know what it meant.

  “I think it was,” she said. “So I will have to find the draasin and somehow help her.”

  “You could just find another female,” Jasn suggested. “That would be less risky. You can speak to them, so can’t you call out to the draasin and tell them what you need?”

  He didn’t really know how it worked. His ability with water was different; the sense he had from Alena was that she was able to consciously speak to the draasin, to reach out for them. How different would it be for him if he were able to speak to water in the same way?

  “That won’t work,” Alena said. “Distance matters. I don’t know why, but the closer I am to the draasin, the easier it is for me to speak to them. And without knowing where to find one of them…” She shook her head. “Besides, I doubt I’ll find a female anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “We’ve never found many females. We haven’t understood before.”

  “I suspect the females are targeted by Tenebeth,” Cheneth answered. “They are as powerful as the males, and with the females, the draasin mating and the eggs are controlled by hims.”

  Jasn sighed. “Can’t we just try to find another male and see if it will work?” He thought of the remaining draasin in the pen. That could be their answer.

  “We can try,” Alena said, but she didn’t sound optimistic.

  Cheneth nodded. “Try it.”

  “And when it fails?” Alena asked.

  When, not if, Jasn noted.

  “There might not be anything more that you can do.”

  “But you won’t try to stop me if I go after her?”

  Cheneth took a deep breath. “Do you really think I can stop you?” he asked. “Were you to go, is there anything that I can do?”

  Alena nodded. “Then we will try. And when it fails—”

  “If,” Jasn said.

  “—then I will go after her. She deserves that much after what she gave to us, Cheneth. Especially if it’s because of Then
as that she was tainted. Think of how much time she spent confined, and now, if she’s been turned as you suspect, we need to try.”

  “You will have to do it on your own,” he said. Alena arched her brow and he continued on. “You saw a shadowed form atop the draasin. A rider. If the rider can shape, there is nothing that I’ll be able to do to help.”

  Jasn doubted that was completely true. From what he’d seen, Cheneth had more ability than he let on.

  The old man sighed and shook his head. “Besides, I will need to remain to protect the egg. I suspect there are those here who would like to see even something so harmless destroyed.”

  Jasn didn’t think of the egg as harmless, not after what he’d seen happen to him and Alena, but he also thought Cheneth was right. Calan would go after the egg, and likely Ifrit would as well.

  “I will go,” he said.

  “Dangerous,” Cheneth said. “Your connection to the elementals places you at risk.”

  “I’ve survived along the border of Rens for a year. And if I don’t go, I’m not sure how well Alena will do. She needs my shaping to keep her strength up.”

  Cheneth studied him, his deep, piercing eyes seeming to see through him, and then he nodded.

  30

  Alena

  I departed. Had I not, I would not have survived. Somehow, I must find a way to return to the Khalan.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  The walk through the barracks seemed to take far longer than it should have. With each step, Alena clutched the draasin egg more tightly, holding it against her, fearful that Calan or Ifrit would reach her before she had a chance to get it to safety. But where was safety for the draasin egg? Was it that even possible?

  And when had the focus of her life shifted to saving the draasin?

  Alena and Jasn turned down another side street. This would take her past Tarak, but his door was closed. She doubted that they could trust him any more than they could trust Calan.

  Blast this place! And blast her stupidity in using fire shaping on the draasin egg. What had she been thinking? Volth had even warned her against it, but had she listened?

  “What will you do with the egg when the draasin can’t help?” he asked.

  He led them through the streets, his broad back providing some protection. Blood stained his cloak and the tears in it were impressive, even knowing what he’d gone through. How was he able to survive all that he had? Could the elementals really care so much about one person that they kept him alive?

  “If the draasin can’t hatch it,” she said, still not certain whether that would be true, “then he can keep the egg safe.”

  “You intend to free him within the pen?”

  Alena hadn’t really given it that much thought, but there would be little the draasin could do while chained to the wall. The stone would block the draasin’s access to fire and make it less likely he could protect the egg. Freeing him from the stone chain would help, but it would endanger anyone else who might try to enter the pen.

  Blast!

  She wanted to scream but didn’t dare draw any more attention to them than they already had. One step at a time. Reach the pen. Speak to the draasin. Move on if needed.

  It bothered her that she didn’t hear the draasin in her mind as she expected. When she had returned, she had been so focused on getting the egg to safety and then been so distracted by Jasn’s willingness to help her that she hadn’t taken the time to focus on the draasin in the pen.

  She should hear it in her mind, even if only weakly. Always before, she had heard the creature, but now it had gone silent.

  What did that mean?

  Perhaps he was angry about what happened with the others. As far as she knew, the draasin spoke through a connection she didn’t fully understand. Not with as much consistency as she would like, but it allowed her a glimpse of something greater.

  “We’ll do what we have to,” she said.

  We. Not I.

  She cringed as she said it. When did she start relying so much on Volth? That troubled her almost as much as not hearing the draasin. Alena had long prided herself on her independence, but now she not only wanted his help, she suspected that she needed it. He had helped heal her—saved her, really—and now she didn’t think she could risk going after the draasin without his assistance.

  “Come this way,” he said. “There’s someone two buildings down making their way toward us.”

  She didn’t have to ask how he knew. Normally, she would have known as well, but the draasin egg drew steadily from her, taking enough strength that she’d lost the connection to water and earth she once had. Jasn also had the advantage that he was more tightly bound to water than she was. There were uses of water that she’d only glimpsed, much like there were ways she’d learned to use fire that others didn’t—and couldn’t—understand.

  They ducked between two dorms. One, she noted, was Bayan’s. “We will need to find her,” she said, mostly to herself.

  “Either she’s the reason the walls collapsed on me, or whoever was behind it took her.”

  Alena hadn’t considered that he might have been sabotaged. It made sense. If he truly could use water in the ways that he did and could reach the water elementals, this darkness that Cheneth feared, this Tenebeth, would fear that as well, wouldn’t it?

  “Not much farther,” Jasn said.

  “I think I know the barracks,” she snapped.

  He ignored her tone. “You’re distracted. Between the”—he nodded at the egg—“well, that, and its effect on you, you could use some help. Don’t think I don’t know how hard that is on you.”

  She opened her mouth to make a snappy comment but bit it back. That he was right didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Just get us there.”

  They turned and Jasn stopped suddenly.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “Where is she?”

  Ifrit. Alena recognized the woman’s voice. They hadn’t spoken since she’d seen Ifrit attempting to destroy the draasin. The same rage she’d felt then boiled to the surface, only this time, she wasn’t willing to simply hide the fact that she’d helped the draasin. What did it matter now?

  “Who do you seek?” Jasn stepped to the side, continuing to block Alena with his body. She wasn’t a small woman, but he was broad shouldered, and with the cloak covering him, he created even more shading to hide her.

  “Step aside, student. I sense her with you. You have my gratitude for the healing, but do not make me force you out of the way.”

  Jasn chuckled. He had always been confident, but now he took on an arrogant tone. Maybe that wasn’t quite right. He’d been arrogant when he came. In the time that he’d been in the barracks, she’d learned that it was deserved. At least part of it was deserved.

  “You may try, Ifrit. You’ll find that I fight as well as I heal.”

  Ifrit lowered her voice, but it carried to Alena. “Did you know what I would hear?” she asked Jasn.

  He stiffened. “And what do you hear, Ifrit?”

  “A soft murmuring. A calling. I can almost understand it, but it is distant. Faint. What does it mean?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think it means?”

  Alena leaned past Jasn so that she could see the troubled expression that crossed Ifrit’s face.

  “I don’t know what it means. There is a call to action, to help, but from who? Has this happened each time you heal someone?”

  Alena started forward, but Jasn pushed his hand behind him and blocked her.

  “Talk to Cheneth. He will have answers, but be prepared to listen.”

  Ifrit started to move down the street but paused. Alena could no longer see her from behind Jasn’s body. “Tell her… Tell her that Calan came to me. Warn her that there is anger in him. I… I feel it.” Ifrit let out a sigh and then continued down the street, disappearing from view.

  Jasn turned. “How is it that my healing allows others to
hear the elementals?”

  “I don’t know,” Alena answered, shaking off the hand that held her back, never mind the fact that she didn’t mind the strong grip holding on to her cloak. “Cheneth said those chosen for the barracks had potential. Not all realize that potential, but enough. Maybe you healed the potential, opened it so that they could reach it.”

  Jasn’s eyes narrowed. “Why them? Ifrit and Thenas?”

  “Couldn’t it have been anyone?”

  “They were both Calan’s students. Don’t you find that a strange connection?”

  Alena pushed him forward, toward the draasin pen. “Calan might enjoy the hunt a little too much, but that’s only because he’s been hurt. Most who come here are damaged in some way, Jasn. That’s what it takes to face the draasin without fear.”

  He sniffed. “You no longer feel fear around them?” His gaze drifted to the egg and a smile parted his lips.

  “I no longer look at them as savage monsters,” she said. “I seem to recall that you had a similar belief when you first arrived. How do you feel about the draasin now?”

  Jasn started across the street toward the draasin pen. As he did, Alena began to feel the soft pull of the creature, but it was distant, as if faded from what it should be.

  “I recognize that they are more than I realized, but they might also be exactly what I feared.”

  “How is that?”

  Jasn swept his gaze around the barracks, and a strong shaping came from him. She didn’t know whether she sensed it because of its strength or because of the connection between them. Perhaps both, she decided.

  “When I first learned of what happened to Katya,” he started, his voice catching as he said her name, “I blamed the draasin. I changed that day. I had always been a healer, but from that day onward, I wanted more. I wanted vengeance. When I went to the front, I saw draasin attacking some of the cities along the border. I saw shapers die and knew, I knew, that was how Katya died.”

  They stopped outside the pen. Alena glanced at the letters carved into the stone and reached toward one of them, pushing a faded shaping of earth through it to open the pen. She wasn’t strong enough.