Journey of Fire and Night (The Endless War Book 1)

by D. K. Holmberg

  The man didn’t answer but chose to walk alongside her now rather than behind her. She’d given up the idea of catching him with her spear. As much as anything, she was curious what she might find.

  The closer they got to the source of the light, the clearer his face became, making him something more than simply a shadow in the darkness who tapped his way along as they walked. Lines on his face catching shadows began to smooth, making him more youthful and foreign at the same time. Dark hair reflected the soft light, leaving him with a strange, almost translucent appearance.

  They made their way down a rocky decline, forcing Ciara to pick her way carefully. Her ankle injury was nothing more than a memory, leaving her wondering if maybe the injury might not have been imagined. Could she simply have dreamt the whole thing? Maybe this was the dream. Or a nightmare. Finding a strange man, one of the deadly shapers of Ter, leading her across the rock toward some unknown lights…

  Maybe, she realized, she had died. What if this was the way the Stormbringer led her into the next life, away from this one? Surely she should have died on the rock from lack of water, or either one of her falls. It seemed impossible to believe that there was some sort of magical lizard that had helped her and had scared away the fox trying to attack.

  Or maybe she still lived and this was a sickness dream, a trick of her tired and weak mind trying to find meaning in the time before she died.

  Ciara stumbled and a sudden gust of bitterly cold wind lifted her, carrying her to the ground.

  She tried running before the shaping faded, leaving her to sprawl across the rock and nearly lose her spear, scraping her knees through her tattered elouf. Scrambling forward, she tried getting to her feet and pulled away from the man. There was something wrong about the way the wind touched her and carried her. Too many of her people had died because of those shapings, too many lost because of suffocating winds or storms that simply descended from the sky.

  “You think I’ve come to harm you? I’ve come to offer you something greater, something more than you could ever imagine, but you have to be willing.”

  Ciara curled her arms around her body and backed away from him. “Don’t use that on me again,” she warned. What did he think to show her? He spoke of power, but what could he teach her?

  “There will come a time when you won’t fear the touch of the wind or the heat of the sun.”

  “I don’t fear those things. I fear the shaper who controls them.”

  “Hmm,” he said. “What if you controlled them?”

  He reached toward her j’na before withdrawing his hand and started off, this time in front of her, leaving his back exposed.

  Ciara lifted her j’na and considered. She could throw it again, take the opportunity to catch him in the back, but what would that make her? She wouldn’t be any better off than she was now and would be left more lost than anything. At least now she had the hope that he knew where he led her.

  More than that, she felt a rising thrill at the possibility he offered. What if she really could learn to shape? Wasn’t that what she wanted?

  The closer she got to the light, the less it seemed pure and simple. Shapes seemed to move within it, dark shadows that flickered at the edge of her vision streaking to join into the light.

  Ciara’s heart began fluttering as fear rose within her.

  Whatever they approached wasn’t natural. Power left her skin tingling and the hair on her arms standing on end. The air smelled of heat and rain and earth and ash, a strangely intoxicating scent that left her swooning.

  Light slowly reached her, calling her forward.

  She staggered and leaned on her j’na, catching herself before falling. Her hand gripped the carvings set into the wood by her father and she squeezed, wishing she could see him again. How disappointed must he be that she had not returned?

  The light swallowed her.

  Ciara looked for the man, but he was gone. Where was he?

  Had he led her across the waste only to torment her?

  Then she felt a presence at her side and saw what appeared to be shadows drawing toward her in a shape that vaguely reminded her of the man. He took her hand and squeezed with strength, becoming more visible as if solidifying his presence with the gesture.

  Ciara squeezed back, terror clenching her chest, and she had to force herself to breathe, to continue onward.

  “Why are you doing this?” she asked softly.

  “You ask the wrong question,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper.

  “What’s the right question?”

  “You’ll have to submit, and you’ll learn.” His voice was a soft seduction. “Come with me, and you’ll have answers. You’ll have to come willingly. I can’t force you into this.”

  She moved forward, unable to control herself, forced to walk or propelled by a shaping from this man, giving lie to his claim. Either could be the case, but Ciara could no longer tell the difference. Her j’na dragged alongside her, and the strength leached from her arm so that she struggled even to lift it. The draasin-glass tip touched the ground and she tripped, falling backward and jabbing the j’na into the ground.

  With a grunt, she caught herself before falling completely. The shaft of the spear began to catch streamers of the green light all around her, reflecting it outward. Ciara tried lifting the spear from the ground but couldn’t. The draasin-glass tip had been buried too deeply. She was pulled by the man, but she refused to leave her j’na.

  “I can’t force you to come with me,” he said again, but why did he pull on her? “I can teach you to save your people. I can show you power, teach you to shape, to draw water like a true nya’shin.”

  As if to emphasize what he said, the awful light around her intensified. She squeezed her eyes closed but still couldn’t force out the brightness. He pulled on her hand, and she knew that all she had to do was let go. Could she believe him? Didn’t he offer her exactly what she wanted?

  But what would she lose? She knew nothing about the man, nothing except the fact that he wanted her to leave her j’na behind, but the j’na was a part of her, and she was nya’shin, even if she couldn’t shape. Her father had claimed her when he gave her the j’na.

  Another sensation reached her, a strange and rough sense drawing across her leg. It burned, tearing at her flesh, almost making her release the j’na. Ciara reached down with her free hand to find the lizard licking at her. It pushed against her leg, driving her from the light.

  “Where have you been? You shouldn’t be here. If he sees you…”

  “You must come.” This time the shadow man’s voice was more urgent, but strangely distant as well.

  He stepped toward her, and darkness sizzled around him. The lizard shoved against her legs as if helping her to resist the shadow man, knocking her into the j’na, freeing it from the ground.

  Light exploded and then faded, leaving nothing but spots of color and an afterimage, as if she’d stared too deeply into the sun. Even that began to fade, leaving her with nothing but an empty sense of the light she’d seen that she somehow missed.

  “Another time,” the shadow man said, his voice fading with the light.

  Ciara swallowed. Night had returned, but there was a different quality to it. Less of the cold and more of a steady warmth that blew across the waste. The lizard still pushed on her, driving her back, and Ciara didn’t resist.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  The lizard licked her leg again and nudged her more gently this time.

  A voice filled her head, and she knew with certainty that it came from the lizard, but not what it meant.

  Darkness comes. You were chosen.

  Ciara blinked, surprised she had just heard the lizard. “Why was I chosen? Is that where you were taking me?”

  You must fight the darkness. You must fight the drawing of night. All will suffer if you fail.

  29

  Jasn

  I fear a great fracture exists. Already they have b
egun attacks, using strange weapons, diverting our attention from the real threat. I’ve spent too much time studying the war, and nearly overlooked this other danger. Hopefully, others have not, or we might be too late.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  “Can I see him?” Jasn asked.

  He stood at the door to Cheneth’s dorm, waiting to see how Wyath was doing, still not certain about what happened with Alena. After healing Wyath, he’d managed to carry him as far as this building, but Jasn hadn’t discovered what happened to him in the time since he’d gone with Alena. Could it only have been earlier today?

  So much had transpired since then, too much for Jasn to wrap his mind around. Alena had healed the draasin, hell, he’d healed one of them, and she’d claimed to speak to them. How was that even possible?

  She hadn’t given him any answers, only led him back to the barracks in silence. Jasn hadn’t wanted to return to his dorm, not certain that he could sleep anyway, and found himself wandering here.

  Cheneth stood with arms crossed over his chest, the sleeves of his robe draping down toward his waist and fluttering in the lantern light, sending strange shadows sliding across the ground. Thick spectacles were smeared with ink. Had Jasn not had his other experience with Cheneth, he might think the old man grandfatherly. Now he saw him as almost dangerous.

  “You may see him,” Cheneth said after a pause. He stepped aside and let Jasn inside.

  A cot had been brought in and was pushed to the side of the wall. A basin of water rested next to it, and a rag lay over the top of the basin, dripping onto the stone floor. Wyath lay atop the cot, a thin sheet covering him from the waist down, leaving his top half exposed. Ropy muscle lined with old scars covered his chest.

  Wyath breathed slowly, but he breathed. After the chain falling on him, nearly crushing him, Jasn should be pleased that he still breathed at all.

  “Has he awoken yet?” Jasn asked.

  “Not yet. You did well with your healing,” Cheneth said. “Tell me, how long did you study with Oliver?”

  “Long enough to know that there were things I did that I should not.”

  “Is that what you were told?”

  Jasn sighed. He hadn’t been told anything.

  “You have questions,” Cheneth said.

  Jasn looked up but didn’t know what to say. What could he say after what he’d seen today? “I have a few.”

  “Alena came to me. She told me what happened and that you have passed the first trial.”

  Had he not heard her claim to speak to the draasin, he might have thought what Cheneth told him the most impossible thing to believe. “There was no trial,” he answered.

  “It’s up to the instructor to decide when the first trial is passed.” Cheneth motioned for Jasn to follow as he made his way over to his desk. “It’s been years since any made it through her first trial,” he said. “The last who attempted…” The scholar shrugged, as if the fact that someone had died under Alena’s instruction mattered so little. “Well, she was not ready. Not all are, particularly for what Alena can teach.”

  With that, Jasn knew with certainty that Cheneth knew Alena’s secret. “And what can she teach?” He took a seat across the table from the scholar, sitting uncomfortably. He shifted his sword to find a way to better situate it and found the blade strangely warm. What had the draasin done when the damn thing licked his blade?

  “There’s a war, Jasn. All of us have to determine which side of it we’re on.”

  “I know which side I’m on.”

  “Do you?” Cheneth sat back and steepled his hands together atop his desk, fixing Jasn with a curious smile.

  “I’m on the side of Ter.”

  “Ah, yes. Ter. A place of great learning, where the famed Tower of Atenas teaches young shapers the way to control the elements.”

  “You would have shapers learn a different way?”

  He laughed softly. “You think only of control. In that, you are so much like your childhood friend. But control is not real, not when dealing with the elements, and not when there are elementals with more control than you can ever know.”

  “Elementals?”

  Cheneth set his hands on the table and picked up his pen and tapped it against his chin. “What do you think powers the elements, Jasn? What do you think pushes this world forward?”

  “The Creator brought light from the darkness, granting some men the ability to harness the elements,” he answered, speaking the words taught by the priests. Some claimed the connection to the elements brought them closer to the Creator, but Jasn had never felt that to be true. Using the elements always felt like fighting a raging torrent, always a constant battle for control. It was nothing like when he submitted to water…

  “The Creator. And did he not place the elementals here?”

  “What are elementals?” Jasn asked.

  “Creatures of great power that use the energy of the elements as part of their being, that are each of the elements.”

  What Cheneth said would be considered blasphemy to the priests, but the scholars never seemed to care much about what the priests thought. “You mean like the draasin?” he asked.

  “The draasin, and others,” Cheneth said.

  “What others?”

  Cheneth leaned back in his chair and sighed. For a moment, he looked very old and weary as he pushed his glasses back up on his nose with an ink-stained finger. “There are answers, Jasn Volth, but you must be ready for them. You must be willing to learn.” His eyes narrowed, focusing with a dark intensity, and Jasn found himself almost taking a step back. “As I said, there’s a war. The one we’ve been fighting is but the beginning. From what I can tell, the real was is yet to come. When pressed, which side will you choose?”

  Jasn stood along a narrow bridge, the distant Tower of Atenas barely rising above the horizon like a blackened finger. It reminded him of his blackened blade now that the draasin had licked it, changing the steel into something else. Harder, he discovered. Whatever the draasin had done to his sword had made the steel more impressive and was the reason that Thenas’s sword had broken during their fight. It might be the reason he still lived.

  “You return.”

  Jasn turned at the voice and saw Lachen hovering above the ground, his tightly controlled shaping no longer quite as impressive as it once had been. Still impressive, but now that Jasn had met the shapers within the barracks, he’d learned that what Lachen was capable of doing with shaping was not so different than himself. He needed more practice, but now that he’d passed the first trial, he would be granted the opportunity to learn.

  “You wanted a report. Isn’t that what your summons was for?”

  Lachen studied him, eyes narrowing a moment. “A report. That’s all you have for me?”

  Jasn didn’t know how to answer. After everything that he’d seen, he wasn’t sure what to tell his old friend, but was that who asked? The intense way that Lachen stared at him made him question whether it was Lachen or the commander, the leader of the order. Lachen was the playmate he’d had as a child, the friend who had chased him through the woods, who had left the village with him long ago. This man was cold and calculating and a more talented shaper than Jasn could imagine, one who practically exuded power and one who knew things that Jasn could not begin to understand.

  Jasn had wanted a chance for revenge, and hadn’t Lachen offered that to him? Were he only to learn how to hunt the draasin, wouldn’t Lachen have had him assigned to Calan?

  Instead, he had chosen Alena. There had to be a reason.

  There were more secrets in the world than he’d known. Maybe secrets that Lachen hadn’t learned about. It was possible that there were secrets that Lachen shouldn’t know about, or at least ones that Jasn should keep from him until he better understood what else was happening.

  “You asked me to learn. You didn’t tell me that I’d be tested.”

  “We’re all tested. It is how we change.�
� Lachen studied him, making a slow circle around him, eyes dropping to his sword for a moment. “And I see that the barracks has changed you.”

  Learning about Alena left him with more questions than answers. Maybe in time, he’d get them and finally have an explanation for why he lost control when shaping water and what happened to him.

  Did Lachen care about any of that?

  “You found a measure of peace. That’s all I wanted for you.”

  “That’s why you had me go to a place where they keep draasin in pens?”

  Lachen frowned. “There are many things warriors can learn in the barracks, especially those like you.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Lachen smiled and nodded toward the north and the barracks. “How was Alena?”

  He snorted. “She doesn’t care much for you.”

  “No. She shouldn’t. She remains angry about what happened with Nolan.”

  “And what happened with him?” There had always been rumors about the former commander, but Jasn had never dared ask Lachen if any were true. How could he ask his old friend if he’d deposed the previous head of the order?

  “Only what needed to happen,” Lachen answered.

  Jasn waited for him to explain, but he didn’t.

  “Did she tell you?”

  “Tell me what?”

  Lachen looked over, his brow furrowed. “When I saw you and how you’d relaxed, I thought you learned.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It should be Alena who tells you, not me. I thought you would learn while there, that it would bring you a measure of peace.”

  Did Lachen know about her ability to speak to the draasin or was there something more?

  “Katya. That’s how she died.”

  Jasn felt his heart nearly stop and didn’t need for Lachen to go on, registering his words only distantly, somehow already knowing what he was to say.

  “Alena was her instructor.”

  Book 2 of The Endless War: Darkness Rising