Summoner's Bond (The Endless War Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “What do you mean, especially now?”

  “Well, how many shapers remain in the city? And how many of them are shapers of power?”

  “There are the heads of each guild, one for each of the elements, and there are those like your Yanda who remained—”

  “Not my Yanda, but that’s not even the question. The question is how many warrior shapers, true soldiers for the Order, remain in Atenas. Not nearly as many as we once had, back before the war began. So many have been sent to the front, and many of those have been lost.” He looked at the tower and shook his head. “I can’t believe no one thought about how we weakened ourselves before now.”

  “That’s supposed to be the responsibility of the Seat,” Wansa said. “And we have betrayed the Order. We have betrayed Atenas. And we have betrayed Ter.”

  Alena pulled on another shaping of spirit, sending it through her sword. “Not yet. We can still overcome—”

  An explosion cut her off.

  This was a true explosion, not a shaper appearing on a bolt of thunder and lightning, and they were tossed from the middle of the street.

  Earth simply flung her toward a nearby bakery.

  Alena cushioned the blow with a shaping of wind, shifting it so that she didn’t collide with the force the blow intended.

  Where were Oliver and Wansa?

  The shadows returned, the cold fog creeping back up along the street.

  With a shaping of spirit, she dispelled the fog and the shadows, sending them back into the side alleys.

  She moved carefully forward, afraid to reveal herself too soon, but by then, it probably made little difference. With the sword glowing as it did, there was no hiding her presence.

  Rather than trying to hide that she was here, she decided to pull on even more strength of spirit. The sword bloomed with light, almost as bright as when Ciara summoned.

  A dark shape appeared in front of her. Alena felt it as a breath of cold air and felt the pulsing power from the shape. The ground threatened to surge again, but Alena tamped it down with a shaping of earth.

  “Who are you?” she demanded.

  The figure stepped forward. A woman, one with lean features and pale gray eyes, carried a short stick that she tapped into the ground. This was the same kind of person who had captured Ciara. Could she find out from the woman where Ciara had been taken? Was there anything that she could tell them?

  Alena sent a trickle of spirit shaping toward the woman and met resistance, but not before she realized that this was the imposter Margo.

  “You were killed,” Alena said.

  The woman stepped forward, tapping her short staff on the stone. Wind swirled, silencing everything around them, essentially trapping Alena with this non-Margo. “The other might have been.”

  “We know about you now. You’re no longer able to hide your presence.”

  The woman smiled, her mouth pulling in a tight line. “There was only a need to hide until we gain enough support. Now that we have…”

  She tapped her staff, and the ground started to part, splitting like some creature’s mouth opening, readying to swallow Alena. The wind pushed from above, and if she did nothing, she would be swallowed by the earth.

  With a sweep of the sword, she disrupted the shaping that held her and jumped to the side, avoiding the crack in the earth.

  There didn’t seem to be any shaping used by Not-Margo. Ciara had shown how she could call on the power of the elementals to power what she created, and Alena wondered if this woman did something similar. With the elementals, there would be no fatigue, no weakening, not like the tiredness that Alena would experience. She would grow weaker every time she shaped if she didn’t find a way to end this quickly.

  She maintained her connection to spirit. Losing that could be dangerous. If this woman could summon shadows and darkness—Tenebeth, in some way—there would be no shaping that Alena could prepare that would protect her, nothing other than the shaping of spirit that she managed to cling to through her sword.

  Could spirit defeat the woman?

  She attempted to shape it on her, but the other woman deflected it, not only resisting it but smiling as she did. “Interesting that you’ve learned spirit. Few ever realize there might be more. But you are inexperienced,” she taunted.

  A shaping flared from her and the ring on Alena’s finger went cold.

  The other woman frowned. “Perhaps not as inexperienced as I thought.”

  With a tap of her staff on the ground, she sent wind and earth attacking Alena.

  If these were elementals attacking, there was nothing that she could do that would stop them. Perhaps she could speak to fire if she attempted to attack her with that, but there were no draasin in Ter. Any that once had been here had long ago been chased from Atenas. The only draasin anywhere other than Rens were in the mountains outside the barracks.

  Alena wouldn’t be able to withstand the force of an elemental attack for long.

  Shifting her shaping, she pressed fire through the sword.

  To her surprise, the shaping exploded, fire amplified just as spirit had been by the markings made along the edge.

  Not-Margo took a step back and swirled her staff in a defensive sweep in front of her. The wind swirled and pressed the flames back.

  Alena jumped forward, carried on the wind, and swung with her sword.

  As she did, she hoped the steel would hold. She hadn’t tested whether it would work the same as her other blade and worried that maybe she should have kept the blade intact and somehow found another way to carry the spirit stick with her, but now there was no time for regrets.

  She shaped through the sword as she did, adding earth and fire to it, pulling back from the spirit shaping.

  When the sword struck, Not-Margo managed to block it with a sweep of her staff, but the shaping of earth forced the staff to the ground. Alena shaped earth, sealing the staff to the ground. If she couldn’t make her summons, she wouldn’t be able to attack.

  Not-Margo kicked at Alena, her boot connecting with the sword blade.

  Alena clung to it. If she lost her sword, she could still shape, but she wouldn’t be able to use spirit. The ring helped her resist it, but she feared she needed to do more than simply resist spirit. She needed to find a way to stop Not-Margo and then find the others who were already in the city.

  Not-Margo pulled the staff from the stone with an explosion of rock.

  She smiled at Alena.

  Alena pulled fire through her sword, ignoring the other elements, drawing strength from the hatchling back in the barracks. Flames that raged from the sword threw Not-Margo back.

  Alena didn’t wait and spun, driving the sword toward her again. Not-Margo managed to deflect it, but her staff splintered.

  Spinning once more, Alena thrust toward Not-Margo, but the woman disappeared on a surge of shadows.

  47

  Ciara

  I have always preferred to send shapers deeper into Rens to face the elementals and those within Rens who might control them. A tactic, and one that requires sacrifice, but I knew the warriors would be needed for something greater.

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  “You disappoint me, ala’shin.”

  Ciara couldn’t speak. Her body didn’t work. Only her mind felt intact, and there was a growing sense of cloudiness there.

  “You were to have been my greatest accomplishment, and with such potential. I should have suspected you could shape before now.”

  Shape? Ciara couldn’t shape.

  “A shame you found this room before you were ready. I thought Doln would have made an excellent pairing for you when he was prepared, but he has resisted, much as you have resisted. I had been curious how you managed to resist me, but now… knowing that you can shape answers many questions.”

  Ciara worked her tongue inside her mouth and managed to free her lips. A voice screamed in the back of her mind, one that grew increasingly distant. S
he reached for that voice, something telling her that she needed to reach for it, that she had to, and held on.

  “Not. Shaper.” The words came out slowly and as barely more than a whisper.

  Shade leaned closer to her. “Perhaps not any longer, but you must have once had some ability. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to open this door.”

  But she hadn’t shaped. She had summoned… only he didn’t know how to summon the way that she had.

  Could she do it now? Was there any sort of summons she could work that would allow her to get free? Having Shade stand across from her terrified her. Memories of Sinsa’s bruising came to mind, but more than that was the quiet rage he carried with him. Would she end up like Doln?

  “A shame. Now we must start again. This time will be more difficult, but I think you will be worth it, though wiping your memories a second time might leave you with less capability than I would like. It’s a risk I must take.”

  Darkness itself seemed to reach for her.

  Ciara panicked.

  She held onto the white pulsing light, forming that as the intent in her mind. With it, she visualized the movements necessary, calling to earth and wind, begging rather than demanding they help.

  But why would they help her? She had forced the elementals to answer her summons, much like Shade intended to force her to do whatever he intended.

  A heavy rumbling echoed through the ground.

  The darkness receded a moment. “A shaping? Hmm. I thought I had separated you from that. It’s a mistake I will not repeat.”

  Ciara fortified the intent she fixed in her mind. The earth rumbled, and this time, she was tossed, sent flying, sudden wind catching her and tossing her until she struck the wall.

  Her breath was pressed from her. She’d lost control of the summons, and it had rebounded. Earth and wind went silent. She couldn’t move, and Shade stalked closer, now close enough that she could feel him looming toward her.

  Something had changed. The light was nearer. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw it pulsing on the ground, just out of reach. If she could only move her hand…

  Muscles worked for a moment.

  Her hand struck something solid.

  Ciara sighed. Light surged. And pain shot through her.

  Suddenly she could move.

  Her fingers were wrapped around something hard, with shapes etched along the side.

  A j’na.

  Her j’na.

  Light surged again.

  Memories flooded into her.

  Not dreams, but memories, her memories, restored.

  And she remembered what had happened.

  Little Light!

  The lizard. Reghal.

  She remembered.

  You must fight!

  Shade closed in, now close enough that he would touch her if she did nothing.

  She swung the j’na, at the same time holding onto the intent, using the knowledge Shade had given her and adding with it the understanding that she had acquired on her own. She pressed a request to earth, a summons and not a shaping, as she swung the spear at Shade.

  Earth surged, thrumming through the spear.

  He caught her j’na with his. Light flared from the end of her j’na and mixed with the greenish light that erupted from the end of his.

  “I see that you have been restored, ala’shin. Interesting. You will make a most entertaining puzzle to solve.”

  “I. Am. No. Puzzle.” Ciara grunted with each word, spinning her j’na and slamming it into the ground. Anger coursed through her. Shade had used her, had somehow done something to her mind, stealing her memories. But now they were back, and she would see revenge served.

  Light flared from the draasin glass at the end of her j’na, filling the room.

  Shade closed the distance between them, slamming his j’na against hers and pressing her back. “You might be a shaper, but I have known summoning for a long time. And the power of the elementals will overwhelm even your ability to shape.”

  Ciara used the lessons he had given her but added to them, splitting her focus as she used a summoning for wind and earth, mixing fire into it. Shade danced back, tapping on his fingers, forming a steady motion with them.

  Her mind began to grow distant.

  That was what he’d done to her.

  With a tap of her j’na, she overwhelmed his summoning. “I am no shaper,” she said.

  She lunged toward him. She couldn’t let him regain his balance, not if she intended to escape. And not knowing where she was, she wasn’t certain that she could escape. They had grabbed her while she was still in Ter, and had claimed Sashi as well.

  Ciara would need to rescue the draasin as well.

  Light surged from the end of her j’na, this time destroying the greenish light Shade summoned. He swung his j’na toward her, but she called to earth to strengthen her, and to wind to speed her movement, and even to fire and water. These were not demands, but requests to the elementals, asking for their aid.

  And within her mind, she felt the connection to Reghal. That connection was something that had been missing, an emptiness within her, and she understood that it had been him who had helped her with the visions. Without Reghal, there would have been no dreams, nothing that suggested that she was not where she was supposed to be.

  Can you help?

  Not here, little Light. You must get free. Then I can aid you.

  His voice was distant but stronger than it had been even when she first had been trapped here.

  She continued swinging her j’na, summoning the elementals, forcing Shade back.

  His smile faded, and his jaw adopted a determined clench as he tried to push her back, but Ciara fought with desperation and the aid of elementals she now understood better than she had before her capture.

  They reached the door, and Ciara brought her j’na down, flaring the light again. Shade pushed against her, darkness pushed against her, but her light managed to suppress it.

  “You could have controlled the darkness,” he said.

  “There is no control with Tenebeth.”

  Shade laughed. “You’re a fool if you believe that.”

  “And you’re a fool if you believe darkness can overcome the light.” She slammed her j’na again, and brilliant white light surged, filling the room with the force of her summoning. “Even at night, the stars burn brightly.”

  He started to say something but held back. There was another surge of darkness, one that briefly obscured the light from the end of her j’na. When it faded, Shade was gone.

  48

  Shade

  I came to Atenas when the war had only begun.

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  Holding onto the stone was the hardest thing that he had done, but he could not let her escape. And she would. Now that she had defeated him—and by the darkest night, how?—she would take the draasin and escape from the temple. If he let her, then he would lose more than the ala’shin.

  With a summons into the stone, he whispered through the connection, his voice carried across the world to the other summoning stones. “She has escaped.”

  Three words, each one too painful to speak, but necessary.

  Shade waited, holding on to the stone, afraid to lose it. And he should have been free of the stone. That was what he had intended by now, but then, he had intended to have helped her reach a summons of night, to call on the darkness, to join him.

  “We are coming.”

  And with those three words, Shade knew that Sevn had surpassed him.

  All the planning that he’d done. Everything. Now it was lost.

  He didn’t dare move, not until they reached him. The ala’shin had already proven she could overpower him. He had made a mistake thinking that he had suppressed her, overlooking her ability to shape, but something else had happened, something he hadn’t accounted for. More than a mistake, he had assumed he had control when control was nothing more than an illusion.
Didn’t he know that? Wasn’t that how he had managed to reach as high as he had?

  Damn her!

  When they appeared, they did so as a coalescing of shadows.

  It was a trick learned from a combination of wind and dark, one that required the summoner to submit to change, something few ever managed to achieve. There was nothing, and then there came the ever-thickening mist, the fingers of darkness that appeared.

  Sevn led them, and Haj came with him.

  He had seen neither since he’d brought the girl to the temple, determined to make her into the summoner he knew she could be. The others questioned because of Sevn, and now he had been proved right.

  “Where is she?” he said, appearing from the shadows.

  “The draasin,” Shade answered.

  “She is either recaptured or destroyed,” Sevn said. “There is no other option.”

  Shade clenched his jaw to keep from snapping. Already he had lost, regardless of what happened with the ala’shin. Better that they managed to secure her and bring her back into her training, even if Shade weren’t the one to do it.

  “As you wish,” he said.

  Sevn’s eyes narrowed. “If it were as I wished, we would not have gone chasing after her. She already proved dangerous before we ever found her in Ter. I’m still uncertain whether she could be controlled.”

  “You saw what she managed to summon,” Shade said.

  “Yes. And now she is trained.”

  “Not trained—”

  “Don’t,” Sevn said. His voice was soft, but there was a drawing power of his summons in it. The others with him all stepped back, recognizing the power. Even Shade nearly took a step back involuntarily. “You have trained her, or she would not have managed to defeat you. Now. We will find her. And destroy her.”

  When Sevn led them away, Shade could not help but fear that they still made a mistake. He had failed them, but there had to be a way for him to redeem himself. If he captured the girl, that might be enough.

  There was another alternative, but it would be tricky.