“Get Alena. Tell her to check the draasin,” Cheneth said to Bayan.
She nodded and ran off, leaving Jasn holding Wyath. “I did what I could.”
The scholar lifted Wyath away from Jasn, carrying him with seeming ease. “From what I hear of your healing ability, you did more than most.”
Jasn shrugged. “It’s been awhile since I healed anyone.”
Cheneth set him down on the ground and ran his hands over Wyath’s body. “He appears stable. You did well.”
“The lungs will need to be watched. Over time, they can—”
“He’ll be fine, Jasn.” Cheneth glanced at the end of the camp. “Go and rest. A healing like that will have drained you. Find Alena when you are up.”
Jasn started toward his dorm, but something drew him down the street and toward the pen, where he found the door shaped open. Glancing inside, he saw Alena leaning over the draasin, almost as if whispering something quietly in its ear. She was dressed in armor, large plates of mail covering her arms and abdomen, that he’d never seen her wear before.
The draasin didn’t move as Alena stood there, her hands pressed on the chain but no shaping building. She wasn’t trying to prevent it from attacking, but it still wasn’t trying to harm her.
“Are you going to come in?” Alena said, looking up.
“What are you doing?” Jasn stood in the doorway.
She walked away, making no effort to keep her eyes on the creature and no attempt to shape as she walked away from it. The draasin barely moved, lying with its head down as if sedated.
Did his shaping still hold? Had he harmed the draasin somehow with what he had done? The idea didn’t bother him, but he thought Wyath might be disappointed to learn that Jasn had damaged the barracks’ draasin.
“What Cheneth asked of me,” she said. She pushed past him and grabbed his arm, pulling him away from the pen. Once outside, she slapped a hand to the stone and pressed a shaping of earth through it. The door slipped closed, sealing him away from the draasin and the heat rolling out from it.
“I heard what you did for Wyath. It’s good that you were here for him.”
He could tell how hard those words were for her to say, and he suspected how much she hated saying them, but he didn’t know what he’d ever done to deserve the anger she felt toward him. “Did I…”
She turned toward him. “Did you what?”
“Did I do anything that harmed her?”
She flicked her gaze toward the pen. “That was you?”
Jasn nodded. “Wyath demonstrated the shaping that he used on the draasin. When he got injured…”
“How?”
“There was noise in the street. The draasin pulled on the chain.”
“That is all?”
“I shaped the creature so I could reach him.” And it had worked. With a shaping like that, he might finally know enough to attack. With more practice, he might know enough to control the draasin. Ter could finally end the war.
“A shaping like that is difficult, even for one with more experience. I thought you were an earth shaper first?”
“Water,” he said. “I trained as a healer in Atenas.”
Her mouth pulled into a tight line. “That’s how you healed yourself when the little one attacked.”
He nodded.
“It’s a good thing you were there for him then.” They reached the edge of the camp. There was a wide clearing free of buildings and trees. Alena tipped her head back and sniffed. Her nose crinkled as she did, and her eyes took on a distant expression. “You said you heard a noise that distracted the draasin?”
“We heard something.”
A massive shaping built from her and then dissipated. “That’s what this is about.”
“What?”
“Find Eldridge,” she said, slipping a stone into his hand. A single dark mark was etched into it. “Give him this and tell him I need him.”
She hurried toward her dorm, leaving Jasn to chase after her. As he stood in the doorway, she grabbed her armor, slipping it over her shoulders.
“I don’t know where to find Eldridge,” Jasn started.
Alena pushed past him, and a shaping built from her, but this was one Jasn recognized. There was no attempt to hide the shaping, nothing but the massive power building from her. In a moment, a bolt of lightning would pull her away as she jumped.
She shot him a glare. “Find him,” she snapped.
“What then?”
“Then? Since you seem to be comfortable with them, maybe you should spend some time in the smaller pen,” she suggested.
The shaping erupted around her, carrying her away.
How would he reach Eldridge? He’d met the scholar only a few times. Why would Alena want him?
He held the stone in his hand and studied the marking on it. The stone itself didn’t appear to be anything all that unique, but the mark reminded Jasn of those he’d seen on the buildings around the barracks, especially those around the pen.
That wasn’t quite right. The mark was more like the one he’d seen on the building deep in the forest outside the barracks. What purpose would there be in using a mark like this?
“What do you have there?”
Jasn turned to see Porter approaching. He was a wide man and not nearly as muscular as his friend Thenas, with a belly that hung over his belt. The other times Jasn had seen him, Porter had gone unarmed, but today he wore his sword strapped to his waist and a long cloak hung over his shoulders. Many in the barracks preferred not to wear their swords. Most of the time, there was little reason to do so.
“Nothing,” Jasn said.
Porter stopped, and his eyes darted to the ground where Alena had been standing before going to Jasn’s face. “Heard something happened to Wyath.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Porter nodded. “Good. Need his skill. There are some things I can’t learn from Calan, especially if he keeps taking Thenas like he did today.”
“He doesn’t take you?”
“Nah, you got to pass the second trial before.”
Jasn sniffed. “If that’s the case, I have a long time before Alena will bring me.” He hadn’t even passed the first test.
Porter laughed. “She can be difficult, can’t she? I can’t remember the last person she passed through.”
“Not even Bayan?”
Porter shook his head, and they started away from the edge of the camp. “Bayan studied with Marak before Alena.”
Jasn didn’t know any instructors by that name. “What happened?”
“You’ve seen what we do here. When even the most experienced instructor in the barracks gets injured, well… anyone can, you know?”
“How did it happen?”
“They don’t like to talk about it. Happened deep in Rens. Alena and Marak. They used to go together often, and this time, Calan went along. Found a big, nasty draasin.” He stretched his hands apart about two feet. “You should see the talon Calan keeps. The way he tells it leaves you wondering if maybe that wasn’t the one that took Marak’s life.” He lowered his voice. “After that, Bayan started studying with Alena. She’d already passed the first trial by then, but I don’t know if Alena cared for that so much. Probably would rather have Bayan pass her test.”
“They’re not the same?”
“Every trial is different, but they try to make you overcome your weaknesses. We all have them, you know? Come here out of Atenas, all of us raised to the order and thinking we know everything, but…” He shrugged. “Most of those who come here can only really shape a single element. They can reach the other elements, can travel, but much more than that and they’re useless. Those are some of the first to wash out. Others, well, they can shape, but they can’t quite make it past the idea of facing one of the draasin.”
Porter stopped near the practice yard and grabbed one of the thick wooden swords from the rack. The yard was nothing like what was in Atenas and barely had enough space to move around.
Porter swung the sword, moving with surprising quickness, and smiled again. “At least you can shape. And it sounds like you’re not afraid of them,” he said. “Heard you spent some time in Rens.” He hesitated, but Jasn didn’t offer anything more. “Anyway, you get past those, and you should manage the first trial.”
“And then what?” Jasn asked. He needed to get to Eldridge, but Porter was telling him more about the barracks than he’d ever learned.
“Then?” he repeated, swinging the sword over his head. The attack would be useless and would expose his abdomen to someone trained with a sword—or a spear as was more likely in Rens—but Jasn didn’t point that out. “Then you get the second trial. Pass the second trial and you can hunt with them. Make it through the third trial and you get to be an instructor. Not many do, but those who do…” He swung his sword down in a quick arc, the wood humming in the air. “Then you get to take out the draasin. Maybe I’ll start a collection like Calan, though I think I’d prefer their teeth.”
Jasn didn’t want any reminder of any draasin, and certainly not anything that would make him remember what had happened to Katya. “I think I’ll leave it—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish.
An explosion crashed through the air, filling the barracks.
Porter paused in midswing and dropped the practice sword. “That came from the end of the camp.”
They both took off running, following the draw of energy that was nearly palpable in the air. Jasn needed no sensing or shaping as they ran; they could almost taste the sizzling energy.
They reached the end of the barracks, near the exact spot Alena had been before she’d disappeared. A man lay on the ground, covered with burns that made him unrecognizable. Porter ran forward, but Jasn beat him there, building a shaping of water and settling it overtop the warrior.
The burns were extensive. How had this person managed to make it back here?
Any shaping he tried would fail, yet if he did nothing, this person would die anyway.
Jasn lifted the burned man and carried him toward the stream at the edge of the barracks.
“What are you doing?” Porter asked.
“We need water.”
“Healing doesn’t require—”
Jasn cut him off with a shake of his head. “Water. Trust me, it helps.”
As he settled the burned person into the water, others emerged, coming to help, but Jasn ignored them. He pulled on a powerful shaping, sending it winding through the burns. Using the water, he pulled on the energy and the power he sensed within the water itself.
It had been over a year since he’d used a shaping like this. The last time had been before Katya died. Since then, no healing ever seemed to matter.
Jasn didn’t know why he felt compelled to try. Maybe it had something to do with the times that he’d used water recently, or maybe it had been the months since he’d performed a similar shaping. Either way, it came to him naturally.
The shaping built, drawing more and more strength. Jasn pulled the water itself from the stream, forcing it into the shaping. It was a trick he’d learned long before, one that had been the reason Renis discovered him, the reason that he’d been brought to Atenas in the first place. None of the masters at Atenas had taught him this trick—it was simply something Jasn knew.
The shaping took on a life of its own, wrapping around the person in the stream. The burns peeled away, leaving raw and ragged flesh, but soon, even that cleared. As it did, Jasn realized who he healed.
Thenas.
He gritted his teeth and pressed on. The shaping wasn’t complete. Burns worked down the throat and extended into the lungs. If he didn’t heal those, Thenas wouldn’t survive.
The shaping built on its own and required less and less strength from him. When it finished, Jasn sat back and pulled Thenas out of the water. There were no signs of scars and he breathed slowly.
“Damn,” Porter said.
Jasn stood and wiped his hands on his pants. “You’ll need to get him to the infirmary.”
“How? I mean, you shouldn’t have been able to do that…”
Jasn shrugged. “I studied healing with Oliver,” he said as if that answered everything, backing away.
His arm got caught in a firm grip as he did and he jerked back, trying to break free but failing. Jasn turned and saw Eldridge, barely five feet tall with ears two sizes too large, holding onto his arm.
“Come with me,” he said.
Jasn nodded, unable to do much else. “Alena wanted—”
“I know what she wanted.” He glanced to Porter, who was helping carry Thenas away from the stream, making his way to the infirmary. “Probably better had you let him die,” he said softly, “and might wish it was you when Alena learns you saved him.”
24
Jasn
I have not determined the impact of an elemental’s death. Given the enormity of their power, there must be consequence.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars
The clearing at the end of the barracks was empty when Jasn returned with Eldridge. The air stank of charred flesh, and Jasn could think of nothing more than the way Thenas had arrived, his body horribly burned but still alive. How had he managed to survive the return? What must it have taken to push himself like that?
Then there was what had happened to him. Jasn had seen burns in his time at Atenas, some severe, especially with fire shapers first learning their craft, but nothing like that. In Atenas, there were always masters able to extinguish flames before they burned uncontrollably. What had happened to Thenas he’d only seen in Rens, and that from the draasin.
“You’re no ordinary healer, are you?” Eldridge asked.
“I’m not a healer,” Jasn said. He’d said the same in the months since Katya’s death, months spent turning him into something else. Those months had made him into a man Katya would not have recognized, but the draasin had burned her beyond recognition as well.
“Maybe, maybe not,” Eldridge said. “What did Alena have for me?”
Numb, Jasn pulled the stone out of his pocket and handed it to Eldridge. The man took it and held it up to the sun, letting the light play off the letter carved into the side.
“She tell you what this is for?”
Jasn shook his head, listening to the sounds of voices moving through the barracks as Thenas was carried to the infirmary. Wyath had almost forced him to use a shaping like he’d used on Thenas, and he’d been thankful when he hadn’t needed to, but seeing a warrior return, charred and blackened like Thenas, had brought back memories he thought were better buried. All the time in Rens, and he hadn’t used that shaping. He’d been in the barracks for a few months and he did?
“She sent me to find you,” Jasn said. “After Wyath was attacked—”
“Wyath was attacked?”
“Something happened with the draasin. He got distracted and she caught him with her tail. The chain landed on his chest. Punctured chest. Broken ribs. One pushing into his lungs.” Jasn recited his findings with clinical precision. “I did what I could to help him.”
“Of course you did. And Alena?”
Jasn pointed to the ground. “She left from here. Gave me that,” he said, pointing to the stone, “and sent me to find you. Then Thenas returned.”
Eldridge nodded. “Come on then.”
He grabbed Jasn’s arm in a firm grip and before Jasn could move, a massive shaping built, tearing through them. A surge of wind lifted them skyward. Wind whistled around them, ripping at his clothes and stealing his ability to speak, carrying them faster than a simple wind shaping should allow. When they landed, they were atop hot rock, the sun burning overhead, the air blistering. Jasn sucked in a breath and coughed as he looked around.
They were in Rens, but no part of Rens that he’d ever seen. Rather than heaps of sand or cracked, rocky ground dotted with spiny plants, this was all flat rock. After his time in the cool mountains, the air was almost impossibly dry.
“What are you doing?” Jasn demanded. Since his raising to the order, he hadn’t had anyone handle him with quite the same level of simple ease, as if he were nothing more than a novice first come to Atenas.
Eldridge released his arm and Jasn pulled away. “You wouldn’t have been able to follow otherwise.”
He’d never seen a shaper travel like Eldridge had. The man had used wind alone.
Eldridge fixed him with a gaze harder than stone, flinty eyes catching him with more intensity than even Lachen could manage, almost as if reading his thoughts. He held out the stone and pressed a shaping through it. It surged with incredible strength and then faded. Jasn could almost detect a direction to the surge, but that made little sense. He shouldn’t be able to pick up on another’s shaping to that degree. “Now come on. Alena needs my help.”
He started across the rock, leaving Jasn staring after him, unsure whether he should follow. Jasn could shape his return; at least, he could mostly shape a return to the barracks. Obscured as it was, finding it even after he was within the Gholund Mountains might be difficult, but he thought he could find Masul, and from there, he figured he could make it back. Curiosity more than anything else made him follow Eldridge.
They reached a rock ledge and Eldridge cupped his hand over his eyes. He whistled softly as he did. “At least I know how your young friend got baked.”
“How?” Jasn saw nothing other than more rock that stretched out below them.
“You have water talent, that is unmistakable, and you’re too dependent on earth. You lose that and you might learn to keep your focus more diffuse. Too many think control equals mastery, never bothering to learn the subtleties. I’ve known sensers so skilled, they could find you here from Atenas. Never think you know enough. You get past that and you could be useful.”
Eldridge slipped over the ledge on a shaping of wind, sliding across the rock. Jasn watched, trying to think of what shaping he might have used that allowed him to travel that way, skimming above the ground, but couldn’t think of anything quite so useful.
Journey of Fire and Night (The Endless War Book 1) Page 20
