Summoner's Bond (The Endless War Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Something else, then.

  Ciara slid her foot across the ground, but that wasn’t quite right. Shade hadn’t yet demonstrated using a larger summons. And here Ciara had thought he’d shown her everything other than how to summon the night. Could she figure it out on her own? Using her legs, she’d managed to summon more earth, so it seemed that she should be able to use them to call to fire as well.

  But not sliding her feet. That didn’t quite feel right.

  Maybe a step.

  She took an exaggerated step and set her foot back down, pushing against the stone. As she did, she felt a surge of heat along her arms and a flush that raced through her legs. Ciara smiled. This would work.

  Holding the intent in mind of wanting to force the draasin to look at her, she took another step, pushing her leg again.

  The draasin’s ears perked up slightly, and she turned one eye.

  That wasn’t quite what Ciara wanted. She wanted proof, something definitive that would tell her the intended summons worked. If she could control the draasin, she could really control fire.

  That would be a way to truly protect her people. Even more than reaching the night, and the darkness, having the ability to control the draasin—even if she never rode it—would be enough. Then she could return home.

  Ciara took another exaggerated step, this time dragging her foot as she landed. At the same time, she squeezed her fingers together in the tight pattern that Shade had taught her of fire, holding the intent as firmly in mind as she could imagine.

  With a sudden jolt, the draasin jerked her head around.

  Ciara smiled.

  The smile faded when she looked in the draasin’s eyes. Hadn’t she seen those eyes before? Maybe only in her dream, but there was a familiarity in them that Ciara should have recognized. It made the pain and something like betrayal all the starker.

  She took a step back… and bumped into something.

  Ciara spun. Shade stood there, watching her, his eyes flicking to the draasin and then back to Ciara. He carried his j’na and tapped it on the ground in two sharp motions. The draasin settled her head back on the ground, but not before Ciara was certain that she’d seen the anger in the draasin’s eyes. She didn’t want to be summoned, at least not this way.

  “I’m sorry, Shade,” Ciara stammered. “I wanted to see the draasin, to see if I could control it. Being able to control the draasin will help when I return to my village.”

  She wanted honesty but feared that she might have shared too much, especially after what had happened with Sinsa.

  “I warned you not to summon the draasin.” Shade spoke softly, and with an angry edge that terrified Ciara. “Doing so is dangerous before you’re ready.”

  “But I am ready,” Ciara said.

  Shade met her eyes. “Are you? When you awaken the draasin, do you know what will happen? Controlling the draasin requires focus and constant summoning, or you will lose the connection.”

  Ciara glanced at his hand and the way that he made small circles with his fingers. Was that him summoning? Was that the reason that he did it? The draasin had seemed confined, content even, when she had appeared, so it was possible Shade did manage to continuously summon her, and that was how he controlled the elemental.

  She took a step back, her legs feeling weak. “I’m sorry, Shade. I just wanted—”

  “I know what you wanted.” His voice softened, and the harsh lines of his face eased. “You don’t understand yet, ala’shin, but you will. In time, you will understand.”

  “I just want to help the people of my village,” she said.

  Shade met her eyes, and his piercing gaze held her with a dark intensity. Ciara didn’t want to look away, but she couldn’t help that she saw the draasin moving behind her. Had Shade summoned her? The great elemental lifted her head and made a point of meeting her eyes. Something familiar reflected there, and Ciara forced herself to look away, to resist the urge to summon the draasin again. Doing so would only risk angering Shade, and might even be part of a test.

  She sagged, her legs growing heavy.

  Ciara brought her hands up to catch herself, but her fingers felt numb. She looked to Shade for answers, wondering what he might have done to her, but his face was an unreadable mask. “My fingers…”

  “You’re tired, ala’shin. Attempting a summons on one of the draasin is difficult, especially when you haven’t had the proper training. You should return to your room and rest.”

  Shade watched her, saying nothing until Ciara started out of the room.

  When she did, he turned back to the draasin and the elemental lowered her head, cowering once more against the wall.

  43

  Shade

  The Hyaln brought me along quickly. Shaping does not have to be done the way Atenas has long taught. Shapers must be tested and tempted forced to use power. Only then can they learn whether they have the potential. The temptation draws strength from them, whereas the training of Atenas only creates tentative shapers.

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  Damn her for not coming!

  Shade looked around the top of the temple, expecting that she would have been here, but she was not. As he did, he detected her elsewhere. He had grown closer to her in the time that she’d been here. That was the risk with what he did. Not only would she grow more attached to him, but he ran the risk of growing more attached to her.

  He had some shaping ability, enough that he could detect the water without a summons, and had long ago tied himself to her, holding an awareness of her heartbeat as he moved about the temple. And now her pulse quickened, but she was not where he expected to find her. Instead, she was several floors away. Near the draasin.

  Shade descended through the temple, ready to snap. After she had escaped the temple, he had known there was a setback, but this was too much. He wouldn’t be able to control her, and if he couldn’t, it meant that the others would come. And then they would assume control of her training. Doln was almost ready. Another week and he could use her in the training, but not if he lost her to them.

  He began his summons as he reached the door to the draasin, pulling on both fire—fearing that she might have managed to separate his summons—and readying a summons of night. Already he had used the latter on her more than he thought would be safe to maintain the continuity of his training—breaking really—but anything else ran the risk of losing her. The more that he worked with her, the more that he understood just how talented that she was, the more he was determined to overcome her resistance. She really would be his greatest accomplishment.

  Shade stepped to the door and touched it with a shaping. She shouldn’t have been able to open this, should she? He suspected that she had some ability with shaping, but she hadn’t shown it in the time that she’d been in the temple.

  When he opened the door, he found her, with the draasin focused on her.

  She had severed his summons.

  With a snap, he drew the draasin’s attention back to him. It would not do any good if she were to realize she could control the draasin. Not at all. She might begin to question, and questions led to other issues that there wasn’t the time for.

  The ala’shin started to back up, into him. With a summons of night, he sent it surging through her, starting with her fingers and then moving to her legs.

  Had he failed? Had everything that he’d hoped to gain from her failed him?

  No! She could be salvaged. She had to be salvaged.

  She dared to apologize to him, as if she could apologize for defying him like this.

  “I warned you not to summon the draasin.” He spoke softly. He struggled to shake off the anger, attempting to suppress it from her, but he wasn’t sure that he succeeded.

  He lost track of what she said next, not that it mattered. She had defied him.

  Perhaps he could still salvage something of this, but it would take time for him to sort it out. With a heavier draw on night, he
pulled more of the darkness, feeding it into her.

  He could see it as it settled through her, as she began to fade, her fingers growing numb and her legs weighing more than they should. She wouldn’t understand what he did—or why—but one day she would thank him. When she understood the balance, and her role in it, she would be a force that would have to be accounted for.

  But that would take time. For now, she would have to return to her room.

  “You’re tired,” he heard himself saying.

  She left him, and he turned to the draasin, calling to the damned beast, forcing it to hold his attention. With a summons to the night, one so deep that he had to open himself up to it and welcome the cold once more, he layered that upon the draasin. He would not have this creature risking what he made. Already he had risked too much.

  The summons with the draasin took a long time, too long.

  When it was done, he realized that something was not quite right. With his connection to the ala’shin, he recognized that she had not returned to her room. Instead, she had gone somewhere else.

  Someplace she was not to have gone.

  “No,” he whispered, turning to the door.

  As he did, he could swear the draasin laughed at him.

  44

  Ciara

  Even if we had more time, I don’t know that I would train the young any differently.

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  Ciara did not return to her room, not at first.

  Her legs were heavy, and she struggled with the stairs as she made her way down, but with the sudden numbness returning to her fingers, the same as happened to Sinsa, only moments after Shade had found her with the draasin, she knew he was responsible for it. She had managed to summon the draasin without any fatigue. When she’d summoned earth to hide her along the way, she had no fatigue. That wasn’t the reason that her fingers didn’t work.

  She squeezed them together, trying to get blood to flow back into them. She needed some feeling, something so she could hide if needed. Her legs didn’t work as they should either, and she suspected that was from whatever Shade had done to her as well.

  But what was it?

  Could he use a summoning against her? What reason would he have other than the fact that she had defied him? That didn’t seem like the kind of thing that he would do, but then there had been real anger in his eyes when he found her.

  She didn’t want to return to her room. She didn’t want to rest.

  But where could she go?

  For a moment, she thought of going to Sinsa, to share what had happened, but what would she be able to do? With her fingers equally numb, and with her skill less than Ciara’s, she wouldn’t be able to perform a summons.

  Yet she wanted to know. Where in the tower could she go to learn why Shade might torment her like this?

  The answer came to her like a voice in her head, one that reminded her of the strange lizard from her dreams, and one that she had never considered before: she could go to his room. There had to be something there, some answer, and she would find it. And then… then she would return to Rens.

  Ciara stumbled, holding onto the wall as she made her way down the stairs. She reached the level where she thought she would find Shade’s rooms and staggered down the hall, hurrying as quickly as she could now, fearing what would happen were she too slow. Shade might find her, and then… she didn’t know what he would do.

  She almost turned back. She risked his willingness to teach by coming this way, by ignoring what he asked of her, but then, hadn’t she risked that by going to see the draasin?

  And what did she really risk? He might have taught her how to summon the elementals, and she had gained great strength in it, but she hadn’t learned how to control the draasin. If she hadn’t learned that, what else might she be unprepared for?

  How could she really be ready to summon the night?

  Steeling her resolve, Ciara pushed forward. Each step felt awkward, as if her legs worked less and less well, almost as if she weren’t meant to make it down the hall. Would she even have made it to her room had she tried, or would she have passed out on the floor?

  The answer didn’t come, and for that reason, she continued on.

  There was only one door on this floor. Ciara had never come here, had never been asked to come, and Shade had hinted that she should not attempt to do so, so she wasn’t sure what to expect. The door at the end of the short hall was stout, and shapes were carved into it, striking a memory Ciara thought she should have. The memory faded, like so much else while she was in the tower.

  She tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Leaning against it, she realized she needed to return. Staying here opened her to more difficulty, and she still had enough strength in her legs to crawl down the hall, where she could reach the stairs at least. If Shade found her there, at least she had an explanation, and she wouldn’t have to tell him that she’d tried coming to his room.

  But she wanted to get to the other side of this door.

  The shapes reminded her of those that she’d seen in her village, but more than that, they reminded her of what she’d seen in her dreams. Could she summon the elementals into them?

  How, when she could barely move her legs and her fingers?

  She slapped her hand on the door and held the intent in her mind. As she did, she visualized her fingers moving, trying to get them to make the shape that she needed for the summons, but her fingers didn’t work.

  Power still surged.

  Ciara blinked. Had she summoned without using the pattern for summoning?

  She tried again, holding the intent in her mind, this time using earth. She visualized what she needed her fingers to do. They didn’t work, but there came a steady rumble as earth answered.

  One of the shapes on the door flashed, but none of the others reacted.

  Ciara tried again, but this time, as she held the intent in her mind, she focused on forming a summons of each of the different elementals, drawing on each of the elements. Were she using a physical summons, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Her fingers, even when not numb as they were now, wouldn’t work to make such a summons all at once. Even in her mind, she struggled. The summons required something like splitting her focus, a division of her mind, so that she could demand each of the elementals respond.

  She thought she heard sound on the stairs. If this failed, she would be stuck trying to explain to Shade what she had been doing. She could claim confusion, or weakness, or any number of things, but she wondered if he would believe it. He seemed to see through her when she tried deceiving him. And worse, she feared angering him, leaving him to attack her as he had Sinsa.

  She held onto the intent of the summons.

  There came a surge of power, this time from each of the elements, drawn from nameless elementals around her.

  The patterns on the door flashed, and then it clicked open.

  Ciara fell inside and hurriedly pushed the door closed.

  Darkness surrounded her. In that moment, she feared she had made a grave mistake and that she should have considered what—or who—might be on the other side of the door. There had to be others Shade worked with, other instructors much like him. She might not have seen students other than Sinsa and Doln, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t here, in another part of the tower, perhaps one she couldn’t access.

  She rolled onto her back, frozen for a moment. If the sound she’d heard in the hall had come from Shade, he wouldn’t be long before he made his way down here. He would find her, and she would have no explanation about how she managed to get inside.

  But maybe this was a test. Knowing what she did about Shade, it was possible he wanted to test whether she could reach the inside of this room. It had required a summons unlike anything that she’d ever attempted and was possible that he intended for her to try, but she didn’t think so. He hadn’t taught her anyway to summon more than one elemental at a ti
me. In fact, hadn’t he made a point of telling her that it wasn’t possible to work more than one summons at a time? Was he keeping something from her, or was it only a test?

  She crawled to her knees and moved forward. A soft white light glowed near the back of the room, one that reminded her in some ways of the greenish hue. But this was different, more like a pure light, one that had less of the sickly sense of the green.

  Ciara made her way toward it.

  A table blocked her way so she weaved around it. Then she came upon a cot.

  She grasped the edge of the cot and pulled herself up.

  Ciara gasped. Lying on the cot was Doln.

  He wasn’t supposed to be in the tower any longer. Sinsa told her that Doln had returned home. Why was he here? And what had happened to him?

  He didn’t move, and his arms lay straight against his sides, as if rigid. Strangely, his eyes were open but glassy.

  “Doln,” she whispered. Ciara hesitated to speak too loudly, not wanting to draw any attention. If Shade somehow knew she’d made it into his room, she would be caught in a matter of moments. And she could barely summon so there would be nothing she could do…

  But that wasn’t quite right. She could summon, and using a technique he hadn’t taught her.

  What if she shared that with him? How much more might he teach? Would she be able to reach the draasin? Would he help her summon the night?

  Did she want to?

  A voice in her mind warned against that. Strangely, the voice reminded her of the lizard, though why should that be?

  Doln didn’t answer.

  She touched his shoulder and wanted to squeeze, but her fingers didn’t work. She pressed on him, trying to move him, but that didn’t work either. He needed help, but not the kind of help she could offer.

  Ciara left him, determined to come back.

  The white light drew her attention, and she continued toward it. What was it? What would glow so softly in this room?