Rehnar stood at the edge of the rock, a slight smile on his face.
“You would attack me again?” Jasn said, leaping to his feet. He readied a shaping of wind and earth, prepared to strike Rehnar. Either that or he would take to the air and disappear from Hyaln, what Cheneth wanted be damned.
“Not shaped. You’re a fool if you think it’s about what you want, or what I want. This is about more than that.”
Another invisible attack struck him, this time sweeping him back, knocking him to the stone. Jasn struggled to get up but was hit again as he did, a steady rhythm to it, one that almost matched the waves…
He released his shaping and stared at Rehnar. “This is water?”
The old man grinned. “So many in your Atenas think that there is nothing more than healing to water, but does the crash of the waves heal you as it strikes the rock?” He shook his head, and another wave of attacks rolled over Jasn.
Can you stop this? he asked of water.
There is much you can learn.
Water receded from his mind, and he knew that he would have no further answers.
“Think of the shores of a river,” Rehnar went on. Suddenly, Jasn was squeezed, pressed between two invisible hands, as if his insides were going to be squeezed from him. “The shores resist, but over time and with enough force, they can be worn away. Such is how it is for water. Not only healing but strength and power and so many things your fools in Atenas think to overlook.”
Jasn stood, ignoring the pressure, and reached for water, pulling on his connection to the elementals, and pressed against the shaping or the summoning that Rehnar used against him, but anything he did was only destroyed by the onslaught of his power.
But could he add to it? Redirect it in some way?
Jasn focused on that and managed to push the strange, unseen current away, shifting it to the rock next to him.
Rehnar nodded, and then it was gone.
“Good. So you can learn.”
“Learn what? How to call on water?”
“There are many things that you can learn in Hyaln. What is it that you would like to know?”
The question was posed in such a way that Jasn actually believed that Rehnar might take his interests into consideration. Then another attack struck, this one nearly knocking him off his feet.
Jasn stood slowly, ignoring the way that the summoned waves of water crashed over him, frustrated at the way that Rehnar attacked without end. This would stop.
He stepped forward, drawing on water. As he did, he felt the soft sway to the way that the waves crashed on the beach far below. He let the sense of the waves wash over him, the steady rolling sense of water as it struck one after another.
Jasn moved with it, and as he did, he timed his pulse of water shaping with it.
The first one did nothing, but the second… that knocked Rehnar off his feet.
The pressure against Jasn eased. Rehnar smiled. “Good. Now you begin to see how you can use water. That is the first step in the summons.”
The summons. He could speak to the elementals, but did this mean that Rehnar intended to teach him to summon the elementals as well?
“What of the other elements?” he asked.
“The others have their own rhythm, and like with water, it is one that you can learn, but you must be willing to listen for it. You cannot get too eager, or they will overpower you.” As if to prove his point, he sent a shaping of earth at Jasn, knocking him to the ground.
This time, when Jasn got up, he didn’t mind. If Rehnar was going to help him learn this, then he would be able to be much more powerful than any simple shaper. Maybe he could learn enough to help defeat Tenebeth.
7
Ciara
Shaping came naturally for me. Given instruction by Hyaln, I progressed faster than any before me. A good thing I did, especially when I discovered the treachery.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
“You would leave us.” Cheneth circled his desk and sat on the edge of it, peering over the wire-framed glasses he wore.
Ciara rarely saw him with his glasses. With them on, he seemed diminished in some ways, lessened, though she had no way of fully describing why she had such a sense. “I would prefer to attack Tenebeth if that’s what you ask.”
How had he learned?
When she reached the heart of the camp, Cheneth had come hurrying from his dorm and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her back inside and sealing the door shut. She might not be able to shape, but she could sense what he did, and the power behind it, leaving a tingling sense that washed over her skin.
“Do you think that we are doing so little here?” Cheneth asked.
Ciara glanced around his dorm. Books were stacked on the desk, and a pen rested on top of one of them. A small fire crackled in the hearth behind him, and the cot she used while here had been pushed against the wall. This place had become her home in the camp, but there was nothing about it that was home to her. The only thing that was hers was the elouf folded and set on the floor with her shaiza resting on top of it. Neither was needed in Ter. Now she wore a thick wool cloak and a heavy dress of gray, clothing that would have been both impractical and too hot for her in Rens. The only item of Rens that she carried with her was her j’na, and even that was unusual compared to others, tipped with draasin glass rather than osidan.
“I don’t know what you do here. From what I’ve seen, there is shaping taking place here, but you’ve disappeared when you promised to train me. The others here have tried to fumble along, first attached to a draasin egg or fighting with others in your camp, but there is nothing here that indicates to me that you intend to oppose Tenebeth.”
She let out a frustrated breath. Saying the words was hard, especially since Cheneth had been if not warm to her, at least welcoming. Olina called him Enlightened, though had not explained what that meant. So far, she figured that Enlightened meant that he knew about Tenebeth but had no way of fighting him.
Cheneth drummed his fingers on his desk and then nodded. “You are protected in some ways,” he began, “you who are of Rens and who trained as nya’shin. That was the intent of the training. And that is the intent of the training here.”
“Protected how?”
“From the touch of Tenebeth.”
“But your students here are not protected, Cheneth. I faced one of them too many times to keep track. He was touched by Tenebeth.”
“Not only touched, but claimed,” Cheneth said softly. “There is a difference, and it is not insignificant. Impressive that you managed to defeat him. I doubt that anyone here would have managed the same, at least where they are now.”
“I don’t understand,” Ciara said, looking about the dorm. “What is the point of your training if not to defeat him?”
Cheneth sighed. “The training was designed to end the war, not defeat Tenebeth. Stopping him will require defeating not only the power but those who have been tainted by him. There are many who go willingly. Not all, as you saw with Bayan. She was forced, or at least it seems as if she was forced.”
After speaking to her, and using the name Voidan, the same name that the elementals used for Tenebeth, she thought that Bayan had been forced, though it was possible that she had not been, and that she had willingly gone. If that were the case, would she return? Would she go back toward the darkness and risk everyone here?
It didn’t seem likely, not after what she’d seen of Bayan. That was a frightened woman, the same fear that Ciara felt, only now she had the stirrings of understanding of her purpose. She wanted to defeat Tenebeth, to keep others from his influence. She needed to defeat him.
“You intend your students to face those who have gone willingly? I have seen the power that they gain. There is a darkness to it, and I was lucky to have survived.”
Cheneth drummed his fingers on the desk again, and Ciara recognized that there was a pattern to it. Such subtlety. Enough that he would summon without seeming
to summon the elementals. Could she do such a thing?
She must be able to. Not only that, but she thought that she could be able to reach the elementals without any physical movement. She had already started to develop that skill and could practically feel the movements in her mind, but she had never really attempted it.
“There was no luck to it, just as it was not luck that brought you to us. You are your father’s daughter, Ciara S’shala. Daughter of one of the first ala’shin, destined for power. That is what Tenebeth fears, and rightly so.”
“Then why don’t you want me to face Tenebeth? Why would you keep me here, preventing me from pushing him back? I have spoken to your Bayan. She fears the army that he’s building, and she tells me of the draasin that he’s claimed.”
Cheneth’s drumming stopped. There was a soft release of power, though Ciara couldn’t tell exactly what happened. “Ah. There is the source of your desire.”
“What desire?”
“You would save the draasin. You are of Rens, and you are a rider. The connection to them is in your blood, much like the ability to summon the elementals is in your blood.”
Ciara leaned back in her chair. The j’na rested against the arm of the chair, and she ran her fingers along it, feeling the patterns that her father had placed there what seemed long ago, but what had only been months. “I would save the draasin, but I would keep others from facing a similar attack,” she said. “I know the fear of the dark. I know the way that it creeps toward you, trying to crawl under your skin, the way that blowing sand gets beneath your elouf. He uses that fear.”
“From what I have learned, he does.”
Ciara stood and tapped her j’na softly, enough for the draasin glass to flare with a flash of white light. “I can’t remain here any longer, Cheneth.”
“That is not what I would ask of you.”
“Then what would you ask of me? So far, you haven’t taught me, and you haven’t asked me to help. What I’ve done has been out of necessity.”
“You’ve done more than you realize, Ciara S’shala. From what I understand, you saved your village. You saved the draasin egg. And you have brought a man with potential to a place where he could learn.”
She swallowed. Not only because she wished she wouldn’t have had to leave Volth in Hyaln, but partly because she wished that she could have stayed with him. Volth had been right when he sent her back. She might have been able to learn in Hyaln, but she was needed now. That was part of the reason that she had returned, and the source of the frustration that she’d felt since she was back. If she couldn’t be useful here, then she would go where she could help.
“I don’t know what you intend.”
“I think it is not so much about what I intend, but about what you are willing to do. You are right when you tell me that we have sat back for too long. The blame for that lies with me. I have spent too long trying to understand, studying when I should have been moving, preparing when I should have been acting. All that time, I have thought that Hyaln would move, never knowing that Hyaln might be the reason that we face what we do.”
“And you sent Jasn Volth to them?”
“There are those in Hyaln who will train him. There are those who remain loyal to the oaths they swore, but there are others. I can no longer deny that Hyaln is fractured.”
Ciara knew next to nothing about Hyaln, and not enough to understand the significance of a fractured Hyaln, but she understood how capable Cheneth was, and if there were others like him, others with his same abilities but who acted on behalf of Tenebeth, then there was real danger. “Then why did you established this place?”
“To stop a war.”
“A war? Now we know Tenebeth has an army. Is that what you will stop?”
He nodded slowly. “An army of draasin. That is the other purpose of this place.”
Ciara tensed and squeezed the j’na. “You would have them hunt the draasin?”
“Only those who have been tainted. The others, if there is a way to protect them, I will do that as well.”
“But we can heal them! We have restored the draasin!”
Cheneth slapped his hand on the table. “And how many were required for us to defeat him?”
Ciara lifted her j’na without intending to and tapped it on the ground. “It took four, as you well know.”
“Four. When two—sometimes one—is enough to defeat them. We need to stop them from attacking, and then we need to defeat Tenebeth.”
“I refuse to believe that we must sacrifice the draasin.”
“Ask nobelas what it believes is necessary, Ciara S’shala. I imagine that your bonded will tell you much the same. There is no way to save all the draasin, not without risking the very same shapers who will be needed to defeat Tenebeth.”
Is that what you believe? she sent to Reghal. Do you think that the draasin should be destroyed? That we should hunt those who have been tainted?
The answer is complicated.
It is not complicated. Not when you’re talking about something that I can do. I saw how you sought to protect the draasin, healing those that had been attacked. You would let them be destroyed now?
Reghal didn’t answer, and Ciara wasn’t sure that she wanted his answer.
She turned from Cheneth, unable to listen to him any longer. What he wanted was nothing like what she thought was needed. How could she sit by if he intended to destroy the draasin? She was a rider—a real rider, not one tainted by the effect of Tenebeth—and she would not sit back while the draasin were destroyed.
8
Ciara
I have talent with summoning, but nothing like what the Khalan possess. My rune traps are elementary, and I have no ability to speak to the elementals. I have no peer when it comes to shaping.
—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors
Ciara found Alena outside of her dorm, catching her as the woman rested her hand on the door. Power built from her, much like it had from Cheneth. How was it that Ciara could detect what she could only believe to be shaping?
“Ciara,” Alena said. “I haven’t seen much of you since you healed Bayan.”
Ciara gripped her j’na. The longer she held her spear, toting it around the camp, the more that she became aware of that blasted woman’s comments about the size of the spear. If she didn’t intend to use it as a spear, could she shorten it and still have the same effect? Olina used her cane much like Ciara used the j’na, so it was possible that she could. The Stormbringer knew that there had been a precedent for it, if not for the nya’shin.
“I should have come to you sooner. I imagine that you were disappointed that Cheneth had me bring Jasn Volth to Hyaln.” The two of them were close, and more than simply because she was his instructor. Ciara hated that she cared about that relationship, and hated that her mind kept coming back to him.
“Not for the reason you might think,” Alena said. She frowned. “You tried asking Sashi to take you from the barracks.”
“I asked. She did not agree.”
Alena huffed, a slight smile pulling on her mouth. “Well. There goes my belief that the draasin would do anything for you and nothing for me.”
“I don’t command them,” Ciara said.
“You summon.”
“They are different.”
“So it seems. Did you come thinking that you could convince me to coax the draasin into helping you?”
Ciara nodded toward Alena’s door. “May we...”
With a surge of power, a pattern emerged on the door, and Alena pressed on it, opening it. The inside glowed with the soft light from the fire in her hearth, casting dark shadows on the bed and table in the room.
Not a fire, Ciara realized. The young draasin that she’d assisted with. Now she understood the protections that Alena placed on the door. The creature curled along one wall, already much larger than he had been when first hatched. He glowed a soft orange, the light that she’d mistaken for the hearth, and steam rose
from his sides.
“He has grown.”
Alena snorted. “Grown? He eats enough to have grown. Did you know that at this size, the draasin can consume an entire deer? I’ve never had trouble hunting, but it’s taking all my skill to find enough for him to eat. I look forward to when he’s large enough to hunt on his own.”
“You could ask Sashi.”
Alena shook her head. “Sashi should be able to help care for the draasin. I think the females normally would, but she remains fearful. The only times when she does not is when she…”
“When she is what?” Ciara prompted.
“When she is with you.” Alena stopped next to the small draasin and patted his side. “She tells me what you did for her when Thenas came.”
“I did what I had to in order to protect her.”
Alena sniffed. “You did more than that.” Alena watched her for a moment. “And you don’t even know what that is yet, do you? You still don’t fully understand what you can do.”
“Cheneth has taught what he can,” she said, thought that wasn’t quite true. That was the source of her argument with Cheneth. She wanted more than what the scholar had been willing to teach. She needed more than what he had been willing to teach.
Alena said nothing for a while, patting the draasin as she stared at him. Without looking up, she asked, “Why did you come here? What is it that you want from me?”
“I…” Ciara wasn’t entirely sure what she wanted from Alena. Help with the draasin. That might be enough. If she could convince Alena to speak to the draasin, to share more than images, would Sashi be willing to help? “Cheneth intends to let the hunters destroy the draasin.”
Alena looked over slowly. “I suspected as much.”
“You suspected, but you do nothing?”
“What is there for me to do?” Alena asked. “There are hunters as skilled as myself, and I am only one person. I might be able to slow them, to convince the draasin to play up their injury, but that leaves them missing toes. And now Cheneth has taken a new tact.”
Summoner's Bond (The Endless War Book 4) Page 4
