But each time they disappeared, he realized something. They were coming back together.
He started to flow through various fighting techniques. Gavin knew nearly fifty different ones honed over decades of training. Tristan had taught him to fight in many of those techniques, wanting to ensure that Gavin would be able to handle himself regardless of which type of attack came at him—to know the strengths of the fighting style and the weaknesses so that he could counter them.
He had learned to fight with swords, knives, and daggers, but not nearly as much as he had trained in hand-to-hand combat.
He became lost in the rhythm of it, sliding from one technique to the next. Tristan had trained him in his movements, and though he’d never taught Gavin how to fight smoke, somehow the techniques he used seemed right.
As Gavin let the sword carry him through those movements, the end of the blade glowed with his core reserve power, and he knew he would defeat the smoke creatures. Unless the energy within him faded. There was a limit to how much power he had, how much he could push out from him. Eventually, that limit would overwhelm him, and he wouldn’t be able to withstand anything more.
Gavin felt pressure building around him again. It was the first time since facing the smoke creatures he’d felt it. He could feel the creatures starting to push in upon him—the sense of their energy, the connection of magic they had. All of it started to squeeze, working their way around him.
Gavin tried to ignore it, focusing instead on the power within him and the core reserve of energy that flowed. He was bolstered by the powder Anna had given him, but the smoke creatures were pushing, pushing, pushing.
He found himself moving through much more compact motions. The smoke creatures dissolved under the sword contact, but then reformed.
This won’t work.
Gavin stopped and braced himself. The creatures swirled around him, pressure continuing to build and slamming into him.
There was nothing he could do.
He allowed the smoke creatures to push in on him, and he focused on how they were doing so. Gavin reached for his core power. Then he pushed it out.
It was almost the same as what he had done when he broke free from the chains Tristan had placed around him. Only, this time there was something different about it.
As Gavin pushed, he could feel the pressure circling around him, which reminded him of the Fates. The Fates’ power had bulged, stretching as he’d attempted to strain beyond it. This was more restrictive, as if anything he might do would continue to squeeze and overwhelm him as the energy collapsed around him.
He was the Chain Breaker.
Power filled him.
Gavin unleashed it, and the smoke creatures were thrown back.
He sagged. He’d been using too much strength.
All to do what? He hadn’t done anything to the smoke creatures. All he’d done was delay them. As they continued to press around him, Gavin doubted he could withstand them much longer. Once they reached him, once they overwhelmed his enchantments…
He had no idea what would happen to him when they did.
He tried to ignore the pressure swirling around him. They circled toward him, and he drew on his core reserves, pushing out once again. He used it to explode that power out from him.
Gavin wouldn’t have many more chances.
Where was the person who was responsible? Someone had stolen an item from the Captain and could use that to control them, which meant they had to be somewhere nearby.
Gavin had made a mistake attempting to fight these creatures rather than searching for the one in control. The semarrl continued circling, pressing in upon him.
Movement in the distance.
A rooftop.
Gavin frowned, though he quickly tried to make it appear as if he wasn’t aware of it. He turned, again calling upon that power deep within him. He would have only a few more chances.
He drew on that power and then jumped. He exploded up, letting it carry him toward the street. Then another jump. This time, he landed on the rooftop. A cloaked figure turned toward him—the same person he’d chased out of the Captain’s fortress, he suspected—holding an onyx sphere that reminded Gavin of the jade egg.
“There you are,” Gavin said.
The figure backed away.
Gavin could feel the smoke creatures swirling in the distance. There was one thing he could try, though he didn’t know if it would be effective. What he needed was an opportunity. Only a moment, nothing more than that.
He pushed the core energy through the enchantment to force the smoke creatures back. It allowed him to face this person alone.
“I need that item,” Gavin said.
“I don’t think so.”
There was something in the voice familiar to Gavin. Had he faced this person before? Given what he had encountered in Yoran, he wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had.
He took another step toward the figure. “I think I do. Now.”
Gavin darted toward them, and the figure slipped back, twisting hurriedly away from him. When they did, the hood of their cloak fell back.
Gavin stopped, frozen in place. “Tristan?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gavin continued to keep the smoke creatures at bay. Even as he did, he could feel his strength fading. He needed all his strength to face Tristan.
Am I really going to have to fight him?
Reaching—and killing—the Captain required skill. Gavin had thought it required magic though the dagger hadn’t glowed when he’d been there. If it had been Tristan, he wouldn’t have needed any magic.
“What are you doing here?” His gaze drifted to the dark egg. He didn’t know what else to call it, but it seemed fitting. Don’t let him take it.
Tristan looked different than the last time Gavin had seen him, with a bit more weight, though he seemed even more muscular than before. His hair had the same streaks of gray, though the lines around the corners of his eyes had deepened. Shadows circled around him, though that might’ve only been Gavin’s imagination. He had on a heavy black cloak, one that would blend into the darkness.
Within Tristan’s smile, there was something that reminded Gavin of all the times he had trained under the man standing before him—the torment, the torture, all the lessons that Tristan had taught him.
“I’m doing what you were not able to do,” Tristan said.
“What I couldn’t do?”
“Yes.” Tristan held the egg out, and power started to batter Gavin. “Interesting. It seems as if you have an enchantment.”
“I do,” Gavin said.
“I’m sure you’re aware that enchantments fade with the proper exposure.”
“I’m aware.”
“I imagine you think you can hold on to the enchantment long enough for you to take this from me.”
“I hope so,” Gavin said.
“And if you cannot?”
“Then you’ll destroy me. Others in the city. Everything.”
A strange smile twisted Tristan’s face. “Maybe.”
“Why?”
“Because it must be done.”
“And you’re the one who stole that from the Captain,” Gavin said, nodding to the onyx sphere.
Gavin had so many questions when it came to Tristan’s sudden appearance here, but even as he asked them, he couldn’t help but feel as if there was something he needed to better understand. Until then, he couldn’t begin the next step in whatever he would have to do. Almost as if this were the next step in some training.
“You cannot begin to understand,” Tristan said.
“I think I can. I think you’re trying to prove you can do something.”
Tristan nodded to him. “Think whatever you would like.”
Gavin circled around him, holding on to the enchantment. The longer he waited here, the more his strength would begin to fade. Were it not for the powder Anna had given him, he might have lost his strength already.
He worr
ied what would happen to him when the effects of the powder faded, when his strength faded. It was possible he would lose all remaining strength and be overpowered.
Gavin moved to the side, holding on to the energy within him and bracing himself with the powder. He let that sense flow into him, through him. There was considerable power still within him. He had to try to find whatever it would take to push back Tristan.
He had to get the dark egg from him.
“All I need is that,” Gavin said, nodding to the egg in Tristan’s hand.
“Is that all you need?” Tristan asked, a twisted smile on his face. “You’ve been chasing me. All this time, you’ve been looking for understanding, wanting to find me.”
“Because I thought you were dead.”
“Perhaps you would have been better off thinking I was.”
“Perhaps I would have,” Gavin said. He darted forward, but Tristan moved just as quickly. Of course he would.
Tristan had trained him, and anything Gavin might do—every fighting technique and style he’d learned over the years—had originated from Tristan. That wasn’t to say that Gavin hadn’t expanded on that. In the days since leaving his mentor, Gavin had continued to train, searching out others to help him augment his fighting styles.
He liked to think that he’d become a more skilled fighter, though Gavin didn’t know if that was enough against somebody like Tristan. Against somebody who had taught him and trained him and proven time and again that he could overwhelm Gavin.
Strangely, now that he stood across from Tristan, there was a part of him that wanted to find out. He wanted to challenge himself, test himself against his old mentor. Wasn’t that what he’d been looking for during his time in Yoran—a way to test himself?
Tristan watched him. “You don’t have much time, Gavin. They’re coming for you. You called them here.”
“I’m not their target, though, am I?”
Tristan shook his head. “No.”
“You sent them against the Fates.”
“Perhaps.”
Gavin had been trying to figure it out. “You used the appearance of the egg.” He waited for a reaction but didn’t see much of one from Tristan’s face. Could Tristan have been the one to steal the jade egg from the El’aras in the first place? “You’ve been trying to draw them out,” Gavin said.
“Perhaps.”
“Why?”
Tristan backed away from him. Most of the rooftop was flat, but he started to climb a section that sloped upward. When he moved overhead, he would have a better vantage. “Because it was necessary, Gavin Lorren,” Tristan said. “And you are not ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To do what I trained you to do.”
“I won’t be used.”
“You have always been used,” Tristan said with a laugh. “All of you have been. That’s what made you so useful.”
“Until you were attacked.”
“Was I?”
“Your students rebelled. They attacked you,” Gavin said.
“Or did I want them to rebel? How else would I have maneuvered them into place?”
Gavin couldn’t imagine that Tristan would’ve wanted to be attacked the way he was. But seeing him now, the way that he looked at Gavin with a strange, dark expression in his eyes, Gavin couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps that was what Tristan had wanted after all.
“Why?”
Tristan smiled. “Had you only done what you were hired for, none of this would’ve been necessary.”
Gavin shook his head. “You haven’t hired me.”
“You have always been under my control.”
There was something in the way he said it that made Gavin pause.
He’d been looking for a connection. Cyran in the city. The Mistress of Vines. Now the Fates and the semarrl. The connection was Tristan.
Could he have coordinated all of this?
Gavin couldn’t even put it past him. Tristan was a skilled manipulator. He had always been that way.
“What are you going to do, Chain Breaker?” Tristan asked, his voice soft.
The pressure behind Gavin persisted. He was going to have to do something soon. His gaze darted toward the dark egg. He had to get that to control the semarrl and remove them.
Taking a deep breath, Gavin focused on the core reserve power within him and on the enchantments that he had. One for speed and strength. One for magical repelling. That was all.
And that was all he needed.
He slipped the El’aras sword into its sheath, and he unsheathed the dagger. As useful as the sword was, the dagger served a very different purpose, and it suited him far better than the sword.
“Interesting choice,” Tristan said.
“You have no idea.”
“Oh, I have quite the idea.”
Gavin darted toward Tristan, using his enchantments. He twisted the blade, driving it toward Tristan, who countered and blocked him. Gavin twisted his wrist several times, jerking his hand from side to side, trying to find a way through Tristan’s defenses. Tristan pushed him back.
His old mentor laughed, backing up. “And to think I wondered how much you might have learned in the time since I trained you. Not enough.”
Gavin grunted. “More than you taught.”
“I think not. Everything you’ve learned from me you’re bringing to bear upon me. You don’t need to fight against me. You could fight beside me.”
“If you wanted that, you would have been honest with me from the beginning.”
“Perhaps,” Tristan said.
Gavin summoned a hint of strength, and he jumped. While in the air, he twisted, kicking. Tristan flipped and blocked one kick, and he spun around so that he could avoid another. He was still quick, though Gavin noticed he had a faint limp.
If Tristan were El’aras—and Gavin thought he was, given everything Gavin had learned from him and how Tristan hadn’t seemed to age at all—then he would have power of his own. Hopefully, he didn’t have access to the powder that Gavin did. Hopefully, he wouldn’t be able to use the same power that Gavin could use.
Hopefully…
Gavin twisted again, jerking the dagger around. Each time that he turned with the weapon, he wasn’t fast enough.
Gavin had been drawing on his core reserves for much longer than he had ever attempted before. He was tired. It was a different sort of exhaustion than he had experienced in quite some time. He staggered, sweeping forward, but he couldn’t be fast enough. He tried, but there was no speed. No strength.
Tristan drove his blade forward and cut into Gavin’s arm.
Heat flowed through Gavin, but he pushed core energy out. It was almost too much. He needed to be cautious with the power that he drew, as Anna had warned him. If he called that power too quickly, he would find himself weakened in a way that would become unusable for him. Gavin had to find something else that he could do.
He drove toward Tristan, but Tristan was too fast. Gavin backed up, twisting his blade to block anything that Tristan might do to him.
What would he need to do? Tristan would know his fighting style. He would know everything Gavin had learned over the years. But he wouldn’t know that Gavin had begun to understand the core power within him. Tristan might have his own version of strength, but what if he couldn’t use it?
Tristan had tried to train Gavin. Others. He had wanted to use them so that they could do what he could not. Tristan had the skill—and he probably had enchantments.
But Gavin had something more than enchantments.
He focused on his core reserves. Doing so meant he would draw upon all the strength he had remaining.
Gavin surged, darting forward. He used everything he could, pouring it through the enchantment but also calling upon that strength to help guide him. He could feel that power filling him, and he slammed himself forward.
There wasn’t nearly as much technique to what he was doing now. It was more about getting to Tristan and o
verwhelming him. He twisted the blade, thrusting it forward.
Tristan fell back. Gavin jerked his hand around, driving the blade at Tristan a second time, who blocked again. Gavin turned, and each time he did, he shoved the dagger forward, trying to carve into Tristan. Each attempt was blocked.
Tristan’s face wrinkled in concentration.
Gavin continued battling. He forced his way forward, using everything in his power to find whatever it would take to overwhelm Tristan. This was a fight different than any sparring match he’d ever had with Tristan. This was not just for himself but for others. People he cared about. For Yoran.
He needed to get that dark egg. Only then could he stop what Tristan intended.
He pulled upon that core energy again, and he jumped. When he flipped, he twisted and dragged the dagger down. It sliced along Tristan’s back, cutting into it.
Tristan spun quickly and brought his dagger out. Gavin blocked, then parried Tristan’s attack. Gavin jerked his blade around and cut Tristan again, and then he twisted once more.
He slammed his fist forward. Tristan blocked him, but Gavin hooked his leg, knocking Tristan to the ground. Gavin dropped down and grappled with him.
Tristan was still strong, and he knew fighting styles and techniques Gavin had yet to learn. But Gavin had something that Tristan did not. He had a connection to some deep part of himself that Tristan could not access.
Gavin called upon that. “You wanted me to be the Chain Breaker.”
“And you have been,” Tristan said.
“No.”
“What do you think you’ve done?”
“I’ve done what I needed to do,” Gavin said.
“You’ve done what I wanted you to do.”
Tristan started to laugh, and Gavin pressed down on him. He twisted, pinning Tristan’s arms beneath him, and he grabbed the dark egg. It was cold, slick, unpleasant.
Gavin stuffed it into his pocket. “How do you control them?”
Tristan glared at him. “If you want it so badly, you will have to figure it out. Trust me when I tell you that they don’t like to be used any more than you do.”
“How do I use it?”
Tristan laughed again. Gavin thrust his knee down on Tristan’s side, and Tristan grunted.
The Fates of Yoran (The Chain Breaker Book 3) Page 25
