Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (10 page)

“
Y
ou need
to talk to him.”

Alena leaned on the edge of the window, staring out one of the upper levels in Atenas when Eldridge returned. It had been so long since she’d been in the tower that she’d almost forgotten what sort of vantage she had within these walls. In some ways, it was better than shaping herself above the clouds. At least here, she didn’t have the same sense of movement and could simply stand and watch the city beneath.

“I need to find the draasin.”

Eldridge shook his head. “That can wait. You said the draasin escaped.”

Escaped, but not unharmed. Alena could tell that much, even if she couldn’t hear Sashi in her mind the way she had. “What would I say to him?”

“He seeks answers. You were there.”

“There, but I don’t know that I even understand,” she said. Was it coincidence that Volth knew her previous student? Not just knew, but had a relationship with her? Doubtful. Those sort of coincidences didn’t happen.

“That’s why you must speak to him.”

Alena turned away from the window and sighed. Oliver had left them alone in his room, giving them a chance to speak. She wondered if he sat somewhere else, listening to their conversation. He might be weak within the order, but he had a sharp mind and she wouldn’t put it past him to have come up with some way to use a wind shaping to his advantage.

“You know what happened to her,” Alena said. “How am I supposed to explain that?”

“He thought her dead,” Eldridge said. “
We
thought her dead, but if Oliver heard she lives, then I suspect it true.” He approached, his hands stuffed into his pockets. His eyes, always so sharp, made a point of fixing her with a heavy expression, almost as if chastising her. “You’ve heard the rumors about him?”

She glanced over at Wyath. He rested on the cot, breathing slowly and steadily, his pale features relaxed. Thanks to what Volth had managed, he would live. “They are more than rumors.”

“Yes,” Eldridge said. “Considering what we’ve seen, I think we can agree that they are more than rumors.”

Alena sighed. The rumors about Volth were part of the reason she had been so against teaching him in the first place but probably why Cheneth had been so eager to assign him to her. He must have known even then. Stories of a warrior so powerful that he could destroy much of Rens and survive when others around him died. A man who could not die. Now she suspected she understood: the elementals had healed him, even if she didn’t know why.

“Is he the right person for this work?” she asked.

“Only the elementals can decide. If they chose him, they must know something that we don’t.”

“Or they didn’t choose him. How do we know he’s not with Rens?” She wouldn’t put it past them to try to place someone with her, to use her bias toward the draasin against her. It was what she would do if she could figure out what they even wanted.

“I’ve spoken to him. And I’ve spoken to Oliver.” The way he said the last made it clear that it was important. “Volth went to Rens thinking he would die. That he didn’t…”

“I know.” She studied Wyath, wishing she understood. They knew there were other elementals. She spoke to fire and Eldridge to wind. Cheneth didn’t speak to any as far as she knew, but he had the knowledge necessary to tie them all together. There were others, but they were shielded from her, more to keep them safe than her.

None had shown much talent with water. They needed the connection to water, and from what she’d seen with Volth, there was incredible strength to be had with such a connection. So many had died might have been saved had they a better connection.

“When will he be ready to return?” Eldridge asked, nodding toward Wyath.

“Not soon. We should let him rest a day or two. It would be good for him to be under the care of a healer for a few days.”

“We don’t have a few days, and I don’t think we can risk leaving the barracks for that long, anyway. Wyath might be able to remain here”—and she could tell that he wasn’t convinced—“but we cannot. Volth needs to come with us.”

“But?”

“I’m not so sure that he will.”

Alena sighed. “There’s another issue that we have to deal with when we return.” Eldridge arched his brow and waited. “Bayan saw what I had to do to keep Calan from killing the draasin. Before we left, I saw her with him.” Blast that woman if she said something and ruined everything they had been working on.

“Then there’s even more reason for you to hurry back.”

“Only me?”

“I have”—he glanced out the window and sniffed softly—“other things that need to be done before I can leave. I will return as quickly as is safe.”

“What of Volth?”

Eldridge smiled. “Like I said, you need to speak to him.”

“There’s nothing I can say to him that will help.”

“Don’t be so certain. Sometimes explaining what you know is all that is needed. Think of what he’s gone through. What he’s
going
through. How much of this is completely new to him.”

“Eldridge, it’s completely new to all of us. At least, those of us not in the college.”

“Even those in the college don’t have all the answers.”

“Cheneth seems to,” she said.

Eldridge’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps. He is capable, and he tells us what we need to know.”

Alena stalked away from the window and stopped at the row of shelves containing Oliver’s books. Many looked no different than what she’d seen with Cheneth. If she didn’t know better, she would suspect Oliver to be one of the scholars rather than of the healer guild. “What we need to know or what he thinks we need to know?”

“Are you doubting Cheneth now?”

Alena bit back the first comment that came to her. She doubted Cheneth as much as she doubted the commander, and for nearly the same reason. Both men thought they knew what needed to happen and shared only what they felt necessary, yet neither man recognized how that affected those around them. The order was supposed to provide stability and strength to Ter, but it had been used as a hammer, crushing everything that opposed them.

“I will go to him.”

A flicker of movement caught her attention and she turned. Jasn separated from the shadows, wrapped in a dark cloak that covered him from head to foot. His eyes blazed with anger, and power burned from him.

“There’s no need,” he said.

Alena almost smiled. Volth had learned much in such a short time. She should be pleased—he
was
her student, after all—but she didn’t care for the fact that he’d managed to sneak up on her like that. “Warrior Volth,” she said. “I can see that you’ve mastered shielding yourself. That is good. When we return to the barracks, there are other lessons you will need to work on.”

He flicked his gaze to Eldridge. Alena didn’t need to turn to know that Eldridge lounged near the window. She detected the steady and slow pulsing of his heart. Had he known, or had even he been surprised?

“I will leave you to… talk.” Eldridge climbed through the window and stepped out on a shaping of wind, quickly disappearing.

Alena turned her attention back to Jasn. He was a strong man, not only with physical strength but also with shaping. That had been evident from the beginning. The tales of what he’d done, how he’d gone into Rens—even the knowledge of
what
he’d done while there—gave him an air of darkness. The stories about him made him seem nearly as powerful as the commander. She’d seen that his ability was still raw, but there was potential if she could hone it. It all depended on what he chose to do with his talent.

“How long have you known?” he asked. He stood at the edge of the light from the crackling hearth, shadows stretching over his face. Other than that, only his sword was visible, a flash of blackened silver that occasionally caught the light from the flames.

“Known what?”

He snorted and took a step toward her. There was a slight menace in the way he moved that hadn’t been there before, as if his return to Atenas had awoken a darkness inside him. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. If he was close to her student, he might resent her, blaming her for what had happened.

Alena slowly readied a shaping. Volth might be a strong shaper, but she had learned from the very best shapers, and not all from Ter. That training had given her experience and had also taught her the ways to mask her shaping. She might have nothing to fear from him, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be ready.

“Do you know who she was to me?” he asked.

“I didn’t. Now I do.”

He stepped forward, the shadows slipping from his face, stretching slowly as if forced away. “What happened to her?” His voice went soft with the question, and the pain—the hurt—was still raw as he asked.

Alena took a breath and shook her head. “I don’t know that I can answer, not entirely. All who come to the barracks are screened.”

“By whom?”

“The scholars, mostly. They decide whether a student has the potential…” She hesitated, not certain how much to explain.

“Whether they can reach the elementals?”

Alena tipped her head in a nod. “The barracks are designed to train hunters, to teach about the draasin so that we can know how better to attack.”

“What of Calan? Thenas?”

“Calan was one of the first instructors, brought in by the commander himself when the barracks were founded over a decade ago.”

“That would be before Lachen.”

Volth said the name so casually that she knew there was more history between the two men than she had suspected. That would be another thing she would need to learn. “Before him, yes,” Alena agreed. “Commander Nolan saw to the creation of the barracks. Calan and Wyath were among the first. There were others, nearly a half dozen, chosen for their proven ability with the draasin. Many died in the beginning. Those who survived… They became the instructors.”

“So is the intent of the barracks to hunt the draasin or not?”

“For some. Not for others.”

“That’s no kind of answer.”

“It’s all I have,” Alena said. “It’s not as simple as you would like it to be. When the Cheneth found out about the barracks, he took the opportunity to learn, and over time—”

“Over time, he took over.”

Alena nodded.

Jasn started pacing and made his way to the window. “You said most are screened by the scholars. Why is that?”

“You know why that is.”

“I wasn’t screened. Lachen brought me to the barracks.”

“Yes. Why do you think I was so reluctant to work with you?”

He turned back to her, one hand resting on the windowsill, the other slipping under his cloak and resting on the hilt of his sword. “I thought you had heard stories about me.”

“I had.”

He nodded. “What you’ve heard is likely true.”

“That you’ve destroyed entire villages by yourself? That you have survived where everyone around you has died?”

“I failed when everyone succeeded,” he said, “but yes.”

“Why did you want to die?”

“How are you so certain I don’t still want that?”

“I’ve seen you. When you were with me in the waste, there was a vibrancy to you. I hadn’t seen it before, but it was there. Then when you found Calan’s student with the draasin, you came alive again. There might have been a desire within you to die, but I’m not so certain it’s still there.”

Jasn sat on the window. His gaze turned to the door. “Oliver tells me that you know that Katya lives.”

Katya. That hadn’t been the name she’d gone by when she was in the barracks, but it suited her. Back then, Alena had known her as Issa. She had been a talented shaper, in many ways much more skilled than what Volth had demonstrated, and the darkness that Alena had caught hints of from him was much stronger in her as well. “I don’t know what happened with her, only that she should not have survived.”

Jasn stared at her for a long moment. “Tell me what you know.”

Alena considered how to answer. What he wanted to know about Issa would be more than she could explain, but there might be something she could do that would bring him the closure he wanted. Doing so delayed her going to the draasin. But if Cheneth was right—and the damned man often was—they needed Volth. Could she really leave without knowing he’d come with her?

“Come with me and I’ll show you.”

B
urned
husks of trees rose from the ground like the fingers of some sort of giant trying to crawl his way free in a massive clearing. The ground between the edges of the forest was scorched as well, leaving fading ash and the residual hint of char that lingered long after the flames had been extinguished. Alena hadn’t been here in months.

“Where are we?” Jasn asked.

She looked around, thinking of all the times she’d practiced fire shaping here. This had been a safe place then, even with the draasin chained as they were. The connection to the draasin had given her more gifts than she ever would have expected, helping her understand the way fire could be used, guiding her so that her shapings were more finely tuned. The draasin had proven to be teachers unlike any she’d ever had in Atenas.

“This is—was,” she said, catching herself, “a place called Sanash.” The word had many meanings in the old tongue, but what it really meant was fire.

“What is it for?” He trailed one hand along what had been a towering oak but was now only a tall, burned-out reminder of the forest that had been here.

“A place to learn, to understand fire.”

He let go of the branch and looked over at her, his brow knitted tightly. “Do you think such places are necessary? Rens can teach all that we need about fire.”

Alena sighed. She doubted that she had spent nearly as much time in Rens as Jasn, but the time that she
had
spent let her know the people there were not to blame. They wanted peace, no different than the people of Ter. “Rens has taught you hatred. That is all.”

“You don’t believe that Rens should be attacked?” he asked. “It’s not only the draasin, but you sympathize with the people as well?”

It was a dangerous line of questioning, especially given the connection she suspected between Jasn and the commander. “I think the original reason has changed,” she said carefully.

He moved to another burned tree, the bark blackened and almost shiny. Many of the trees here had hardened, augmented by earth to counter the fire as they studied and learned how best to use the element. This was where the draasin had first taught them how to use stone infused with earth and how it could create the chains that would hold the creatures.

“The reason? They sent the draasin to attack. Was that not reason for us to fight back?”

“Do you still believe that after everything you’ve learned?”

Jasn turned away without answering. As he wandered to the next tree and traced his fingers along it, she wondered what he sensed, what he might be reaching for. She detected the faint trail of his shaping, even if she wasn’t certain what he did. He had learned much from his time in the barracks, even as she’d tried not to teach him.

“Why did you bring me to this place?” He paused and placed both hands on one of the trunks. With a surge of earth shaping, he pushed it down. “I can
sense
her here, you know? Did you want to torment me?”

“You wanted to know what happened. This was where we were. Sanash hasn’t been used since… since the accident.”

“How did it happen?” He turned toward her, pain twisting his face. His eyes caught beneath the shadows slipping through the clouds overhead. “How did Katya disappear?”

Alena took a step toward him. She should not be hesitant, not with him, not when he needed to know what had happened. And what had happened to Issa had troubled her. She tried to suppress that fact, but she wasn’t strong enough to ignore the way it bothered her.

“She wasn’t Katya to me,” she began. “She went by Issa. We—
I
—used this place as a way to learn, keeping the draasin away from the deep part of the forest. Here they could fly, even chained, and attack.” She pointed to the trees around them and remembered the way the draasin would soar, hovering just above the tops of the trees, waiting for her to shape stone to demonstrate how she could counter the effect of fire. At first, she hadn’t known why the draasin would teach her how to defend against fire, but over time it began to make sense. If she could learn fire’s weakness, she could understand how to prepare for it. In some ways, using earth and water to protect against draasin fire had made her a much better shaper of all the elements.

“Issa?” Jasn said the name as if he’d heard it before. “Did she train with you here?”

“This was my place,” she said. “It was where I learned. Where I spoke to the draasin openly. She followed me here.”

Jasn made his way to another trunk. With a shaping of earth, he pushed it down. It fell with a soft thud, the earth-infused husk of tree still solid in spite of the fire that had raged through here, a fire that had blazed brightly and hot, with energy unlike any that Alena had ever seen.

“What happened then?”

Alena closed her eyes, remembering how the draasin had soared, the chain hanging from his neck as he glided above the trees. Flames spewed from his mouth and Alena pushed back against them. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

“Issa, your Katya, followed me. In some ways, she was much like you. She wanted answers and was impatient, pressing to learn specific shapings. When they didn’t come as easily as she wanted, she grew frustrated. I don’t think that she cared for my teaching style, but much like he did with you, Cheneth assigned her to me.”

Jasn stared at her. “Could she speak to the elementals?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s the point of the screening, isn’t it? The scholars—well, Cheneth at least—are searching for those with the ability to speak to elementals.”

“That is a part of it,” she said, “but there is more. I am probably not the one to explain it to you.”

“Because you’ve explained so much already?” he asked, annoyance plain in the question.

“No, because there is much that I don’t understand.” That was changing—Alena could
feel
that changing—but not quickly enough.

Jasn made a track through the remaining trees, circling along the edge of the forest. Was this what Eldridge had wanted of her? Did he expect she would somehow convince Volth that he should return to the barracks when his connection to the commander made that unlikely? Now that she knew about his ties to Issa, she doubted even more that he would return.

“Tell me,” he said, pausing about twenty paces from her, staring into the forest.

His eyes had a faraway look to them, as if he were listening to sounds she couldn’t hear. Did he hear the call of the elementals? Some streams ran through here—that was part of the reason the draasin had suggested she use this place—and there might be water elementals within, but it was just as likely that he considered a way to attack, or to leave. Either would be likely.

“What does the commander know of the barracks?”

Not Lachen this time, Alena noted. “I’m unsure of the commander’s knowledge. The barracks were founded by his predecessor, a response to the draasin attack.”

“Does he know you can speak to the draasin?”

Alena hesitated before answering. Jasn had ties to the commander, so whatever she told him had the potential to get back to Lachen, but if she didn’t speak openly, it was possible that Jasn wouldn’t return to the barracks. They needed his connection to water. It was one elemental that had been difficult for them to reach so far.

“I don’t think so,” she answered, settling on honesty.

He nodded as if expecting that. “Cheneth keeps it from him?”

“Cheneth keeps his own counsel,” she said. “He might be one of the scholars and shares with them, but he is also more than one of the scholars.”

She didn’t fully understand how, or what it meant, but Cheneth was not a simple shaper. Though neither was Eldridge. At least with Eldridge, she understood that his connection to the wind tied him to their cause, but she had no such sense with Cheneth. As far as she knew, he had no ability to speak to the elementals, nothing that would explain his support for them other than a scholarly interest.

“Lachen said something to me,” Jasn said, turning away from the forest. He shivered slightly. “He told me that there was power stirring in the darkness. Do you know what that means?”

She shrugged. “He could mean the elementals. They are more active than they have ever been before. There is a reason they reach for connections to shapers when they never have before.”

“Are you so certain that they never have?” Jasn asked.

“We would have heard. We would have known.”

“Like with Rens?”

“Rens is different. They don’t speak to them.”

“How can you be certain?”

She closed her eyes, thinking of Sashi, hoping the draasin was unharmed. “Because they told me.” Alena took a deep breath, feeling the warmth of the sun on her skin. “We would have known if Rens spoke to them. Whatever they used in their attack was different.”

Jasn frowned. “It seems to me that we might
not
have known,” he said. “Who would believe if you said that you spoke to the draasin? Most in Ter, and especially in Atenas, think the draasin are more like wild creatures. Powerful and deadly, but no brighter than your average wolf.”

Alena snorted. “They’re probably smarter than you and me.”

Jasn tipped his head to the side as he considered the comment. “Even more reason to fear them, wouldn’t you say?”

“They don’t want to harm us,” she said, stepping toward him. This was something he had to understand. If he was going to be useful to them, if he was going to work and learn in the barracks, he had to understand the draasin. Otherwise, he would be no different than Calan and his students. “They have tried to help us understand the elementals. They want to speak to us. For some reason, they
need
to speak to us.”

Jasn watched her for a moment. “It seems they have harmed many of the order already. How can you claim they don’t want to?”

Alena could feel the distant connection to the draasin remaining in the barracks as it crawled at the back of her mind. There was darkness and pain there, but she also detected the interest the draasin had in reaching her.

“They fight, and they hunt, but they fear something. They need us, and I don’t quite know why.”

“Need us for what?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. And it frightens me.”