Endless Night

by D. K. Holmberg

  We cannot tell, small one.

  He raced forward on the wind and realized Reyanne trailed him. The shaping she used appeared to exclude the wind, which meant she didn’t travel the same way other warriors managed. Could she exclusively use earth as she shaped? No earth shaper had managed to travel in such a way as far as he knew. Water, if the connection was right. A few fire shapers were rumored to have such an ability. And wind. Wind was the most common. But not earth.

  Yet she followed him.

  “You should stay back in the city, Bishop. Let the warriors handle this.”

  He ignored her. Once, he would have been content simply letting the warriors take care of it, but that had been before he went to the barracks and before he understood there was another war they fought, one that was not about borders or the people within the different countries. No, that war was about control. Not only for the elementals and their freedom but for maintaining control of their minds.

  What can you tell me? he asked the wind.

  It swept away from him as the elementals raced away for answers, gusting against the shaping he used to travel. In moments, they returned a surge of wind, forcing him to adjust his shaping.

  Darkness falls.

  Eldridge sighed. Darkness. Tenebeth. And only him to face it. The warriors of Jornas would help—he had no doubt about their ability—but they would not know what they faced. And if Tenebeth had twisted the elementals and forced them to aid him, there would be little they would be able to do to defeat him. There wouldn’t be much that Eldridge could do, for that matter.

  Take her from here, he asked of the wind. If Tenebeth came, and if Reyanne was attuned to the elementals, she would be in danger. That was the risk with Tenebeth, the way other shapers were exposed. Eldridge hoped his connection to the elementals, the duration that he’d managed to speak to the wind, would protect him, but even that was not guaranteed. Only knowing that Tenebeth existed made it more likely he’d be safe.

  The wind started to push against Reyanne, but she used a shaping that swept it away. “What is this, Bishop?”

  Eldridge allowed himself to slow. They were near the outer edge of the city, with only the wall separating it from the rest of Rens. In the distance, Eldridge could feel a growing chill blowing in. Mixed with the chill was a new odor, one with undertones of rot. The elementals were right: darkness was coming.

  “This is me getting you to safety,” he said.

  Reyanne laughed. “The scholars now think to protect those of the order?”

  Eldridge met her eyes. “No. I intend to protect you.”

  The wind kicked up, sending dirt swirling around him. The elementals mixed within it, but he noted they were less present than they had been. His connection to the wind remained potent, but faded. He suspected he would be able to reach to the elementals and draw on their strength, and possibly even pull them back toward him, ask them to help, but doing so might place the elementals in danger when Tenebeth came. And he would be in danger as well.

  “You speak to earth, Reyanne.”

  “Speak? I can shape each of the elements, if that is what you mean.”

  “It’s more than that, and I will explain to you later, but you are unsafe here.”

  “I am unsafe, but one of the scholars is not?”

  “It’s unsafe for me too,” Eldridge said.

  The wind gusted, now threatening to throw him from the sky. Without his connection to the elementals, Eldridge suspected that it would. Even connected, even with the elementals guiding him and assisting him as he maintained his place in the air, he struggled.

  The sky darkened, as if thick clouds suddenly settled across it.

  Damn. How much time did he have?

  Thunder rumbled, and Eldridge readied for an attack. Sharp needles of rain began pelting him, and he shaped a buffer of air to prevent 0the rain from hurting too much.

  They couldn’t remain here. If Tenebeth himself came in the attack, Eldridge would be overmatched. If someone he’d claimed came with him, then he would definitely be overmatched. Without having others—with his impressive ability with healing, Volth might be able to help—Eldridge might not be able to do anything if they were truly attacked.

  Turning to Reyanne, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye. As he did, the elementals surged toward him, sending him flying back uncontrollably, where he knocked into Reyanne.

  A blast of fire erupted around him.

  A chill raced along his spine that had nothing to do with the temperature of the air.

  A draasin.

  “Riders!” Reyanne shouted.

  Her shaping exploded from her, streaking toward the draasin. Earth flung on the wind, mixed with heat and water in power that Eldridge had rarely seen from anyone in the order. He understood now how she had managed to rise as high as she had, and as quickly.

  Other warriors from the city appeared. Deidre shaped lightning mixed with wind and sent it at the draasin. Another shaper, a younger man with haunted eyes and a burn across one of his cheeks, built his shaping, melding it into the attack that Deidre used on the draasin.

  Even combined with Reyanne, the attack wasn’t enough.

  The draasin seemed to capture the shaping and simply deflected it.

  Not the draasin, Eldridge realized, but the rider atop the draasin.

  They had known Rens had riders, but it wasn’t until going to the barracks that he had learned those riders weren’t truly of Rens. And it wasn’t until recently that he understood about Tenebeth and what he intended.

  The draasin flipped his wings, slicing through the cold air, ignoring the shapings thrown in his direction. Eldridge added his connection, pulling on the wind, and on the elementals that he detected there, but the shaping was not strong enough to overcome what the dark riders commanded.

  The draasin started to spit fire. Reyanne used a shaping of earth, throwing it at the draasin, and caught it in the mouth, sending it dropping to the ground.

  The young man shouted, “We’ve got it!”

  But the draasin’s tail swung toward him. The long spikes on the powerful appendage made nearly as good a weapon as the fire the creatures could spit, and one of them struck the warrior in his stomach, piercing him completely. His victory scream cut off suddenly as he plunged with the draasin.

  The elemental managed to right itself and shook the warrior free. He dropped to the ground. Eldridge didn’t dare risk going after him. Even were he to reach him in time, there would be nothing that could be done, not without more shaping talent than existed here.

  The draasin snapped, lunging toward Deidre. She and Reyanne combined their shaping and wrapped the draasin in bonds that began to constrict the wings.

  For a moment, Eldridge thought that might be enough. Maybe he had underestimated the potential of the shapers found outside the barracks. These warriors fought against Rens and the draasin constantly. Of course they would have found tricks to protect themselves.

  Deidre screamed.

  Eldridge glanced over. He couldn’t see anything wrong, but her body convulsed, her back going straight and her legs flailing in the air.

  She started to fall.

  Help her, he asked of the elementals.

  He didn’t have time for much else. The draasin and its rider turned their attention to him and Reyanne. They needed to find a way to slow the draasin or they would be overwhelmed. And if Eldridge failed, he knew what fate awaited Reyanne.

  Though he couldn’t ask the elementals to risk themselves against the rider—if the darkness had claimed the draasin, there was a chance it would claim the wind as well—but he could ask that they slow the creature.

  We need to escape, he sent to the wind.

  You will have the time you need, small one.

  “We have to go,” Eldridge shouted. The wind picked up in a violent gale, throwing the draasin backward.

  “We can’t go!” Reyanne said. “Deidre is injured, Jaren possibly dead. The oth
ers haven’t come. If we leave, the city will suffer.”

  And if they didn’t leave, more would possibly suffer, he knew. But Reyanne could not know that yet. She needed more time.

  The wind continued to push against the draasin, and Eldridge began to feel hope that the wind elementals might be strong enough to press the draasin away from the city. Maybe they would be able to do more than simply delay the attack. But then the wind shifted painfully. Now it tore at his skin, the sharp needles of rain becoming more like knives.

  Had the wind been turned?

  Gods, he hoped not. If Tenebeth could turn every elemental that he touched, nothing would slow him.

  The draasin righted itself, soaring with more stability on the wind.

  Reyanne readied a shaping, but Eldridge knew it wouldn’t be enough. He had done all that he could, and there wasn’t anything more he would be able to add.

  He could stay and try to fight, knowing that he would fail, or he could run and lose Reyanne to the darkness.

  Looking upon Jornas, on what would be lost if the draasin remained unopposed, he hated the decision he had to make, but if he died, he wouldn’t be able to help anyway. Better to run, learn more, and bring the fight back to this place than to die uselessly.

  As he began the shaping that would carry him away, he felt a familiar sense of lightning and thunder in the air. Reyanne shouted excitedly.

  More warriors would appear.

  And if they sided with Tenebeth? What then?

  Then he would demand the wind carry him as quickly as it could. Jornas would be lost, but Eldridge would live to attempt the fight another day.

  When the lightning came, a flash of light so bright that it blinded him momentarily, he felt confusion at first. Calan and Ifrit appeared on the storm.

  Calan surveyed the attack, noted Eldridge, and frowned briefly before turning his attention to the draasin. The stone chains wrapped around his neck and wrists swung in the air as he threw them toward the draasin. Ifrit grabbed the other side, and together they managed to secure its wings.

  The rider attacked.

  She wore all black and leapt on a sizzling connection to Tenebeth. Eldridge didn’t know if it was shaped or if the connection came another way and these twisted disciples of Tenebeth were able to tap into some dark power directly.

  The attack streaked toward Calan, but he deflected it with a shaping of wind and earth rising from the ground.

  “The rider!” he shouted to Reyanne. “Disarm the rider!”

  She couldn’t take her eyes off Calan, and Eldridge understood. As a shaper, seeing someone trained at the barracks and who had the confidence that Calan managed must be impressive. Eldridge had been around shapers with the skill that Calan possessed long enough that it no longer had the same effect, but he remembered well the way he’d felt when he first watched Wyath shaping. Now there were others, like Calan and Alena, who shaped with the same skill.

  The rider attacked in a flurry of power.

  Calan was thrown back, the stone chains knocked from his hands. Had Ifrit not been there, holding tightly to the chains, the draasin would have been freed. Instead, the draasin tilted to the side, long claws reaching to try to throw the chains off.

  Eldridge used wind, sending it in a spiral at the rider.

  She threw off the wind with nothing more than a shrug.

  “Reyanne!” Eldridge shouted.

  She managed to pull herself back together and called on earth, drawing it up and around the rider, trapping her legs. As she did, Eldridge used wind and forced the rider down.

  He glanced at the draasin. Calan sorted himself out again and grabbed the end of the chain. Between him and Ifrit, they pulled the draasin down, drawing the creature to the earth, and pinned it there with the chains.

  The rider thrashed, but Reyanne held her in a more potent grip than she could escape from. Eldridge turned his shaping, drawing the air from her lungs.

  The rider’s thrashing eased and then stopped completely.

  “Hold her in earth,” he said to Reyanne.

  To her credit, she nodded rather than argued. Then he released the connection to the wind, letting it flow back into her lungs.

  “Can you keep her confined?”

  Reyanne shot him a sharp expression that was all the answer he needed.

  He turned to see Calan standing atop the draasin, sword in hand. With a furious jab, the sword plunged into the back of the draasin’s neck and the elemental sank to the ground, blood pooling along the side of its long neck.

  Ifrit held on to one end of the stone chain, but the tightness to her eyes made it clear to Eldridge that she wasn’t certain she agreed with killing the draasin. Short of having elemental shapers from each element, Eldridge knew of no other way of stopping it.

  “Who are they?” Reyanne asked in a whisper.

  Eldridge watched as Calan severed one of the draasin claws and then he and Ifrit removed the chains, coiling them once more around his neck. “They are draasin hunters.”

  “And that is why you want me?”

  He turned to Reyanne and then looked past her to the bound rider. Would they be able to learn anything from a rider tainted by Tenebeth? Would it even be safe to keep her confined? He would have to find a place to hold her, but where?

  “Not for that,” he said. “But a task no less dangerous.” He pulled his focus back to Reyanne. “Now. Will you come with me?”

  She stared until Calan disappeared on a bolt of lightning. Ifrit lingered, her lips moving silently, making Eldridge wonder how tightly she had connected to the elementals because of Volth’s healing, and then she shaped herself away.

  Only then did Reyanne answer. “I’m not sure I have much choice.”

  41

  Alena

  I thought the ala’shin would be the one I would send to Hyaln, but it is Volth who must go. If I am right about what I suspect, he is the only one who might be able to gain the knowledge we need.

  —Rolan al’Sand, Enlightened of Hyaln

  Alena sat in her dorm, watching the draasin as he climbed over the obstacle she’d made of a chair and a small rock, wanting to give the hatchling something to distract him. Otherwise it would be her that he climbed all over, tearing at her neck and ripping small gashes in her flesh with his tiny—but sharp—talons. She doubted he harmed her intentionally, but she was not a draasin, and though she could use earth to toughen herself, she preferred to leave him on the ground where she could watch.

  The fire dancing in the hearth blazed brighter than most, as if having the draasin in the room with her made it stronger than it would be otherwise. She stared at the flames, almost convinced there was a pattern swirling there. Her fingers tapped on the arm of her chair, and the fire surged.

  Alena shook herself, trying to clear her head. Shaping the fire—even unintentionally—would do no good. Neither would simply watching the draasin. She needed to get herself moving. There were other things in the barracks to worry about now that she’d recovered her ability to shape, not the least of which was how to keep the hatchling hidden. The others in the barracks feared the draasin, and for good reason, but they wouldn’t be afraid of the hatchling. And she didn’t know what they would do to the little one if given the chance.

  Then there was what Calan might intend now that he knew of the draasin and Tenebeth. She needed to bring him around. Or Cheneth needed to bring him around. Calan was a skilled hunter, but more than that, he was a powerful shaper. If anyone could help in the days ahead against a threat so powerful as Tenebeth, it would be Calan.

  A hard pounding at the door caused her to look up.

  She glanced at the draasin, wishing he would hide.

  The draasin stopped crawling over the rock and started toward her bed in the corner, crawling up onto it and burrowing beneath the covers.

  Had he understood her?

  The pounding at the door came again.

  Stay hidden. She didn’t know if the draasin could h
ear her like the older ones did or if it mattered, but if the elemental could stay out of sight, then he would be in less danger.

  Cheneth stood on the other side of the door. He wore his usual cloak, his glasses hung low on his nose, and he carried with him a short walking stick. “Are you alone?”

  “The draasin is here,” she said.

  “Good.”

  Cheneth pushed into her dorm and closed the door. Using a shaping more complex than she would have managed so quickly, he placed a seal around the room and then tapped his walking stick on the ground once as if to emphasize what he did.

  Power surged.

  She stared at the walking stick. “That’s like Ciara’s spear, isn’t it?”

  “They are similar but not the same.”

  “She said you taught her father.”

  Cheneth made his way into her dorm and stopped in front of the fire, propping up the chair she had tipped over for the draasin and pushing the rock out of the way. When he sat, he tapped the walking stick on the ground twice in sharp succession, and the draasin popped his head out of the blankets on her bed.

  “I thought you said you can’t summon the elementals.”

  “Summoning is a very different thing than what I can do. When I know they are present…” He tapped again, and the draasin kept his head up, eyes swiveling around. His tiny wings unfurled and he attempted to flap them.

  “Enough,” she said, going to the draasin and patting him on the head. “Don’t get him too worked up, Cheneth. I don’t want others to know he’s here.”

  “There are enough who know that it no longer matters.”

  “It matters,” Alena said. She could defend the draasin from only so many people. If they came for him, how far would she go? Would she be able to prevent Ifrit from reaching him? Calan? How many others would she be able to stop if it came to it?

  Not enough, she knew. Not nearly enough.

  Cheneth took the walking stick and set it over his legs. He pulled his glasses off and tucked them into his pocket. “I taught Ciara’s father,” he said. “The war had only just begun. Ter attacking in Rens, making a play for the border cities. Hyaln had sent me away, asking me to observe and report back.”