Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (17 page)

With a shaping of earth, he held the rock in place, fortifying it. As he withdrew his shaping, he realized that what he’d placed there would not be enough, not without somehow holding the shaping in the stone. Doing that would require maintaining, or sealing the shaping inside.

Could he replicate the shapings that he’d found on the draasin pen? They had used the strange carvings to hold power within them. If he could do the same, he wouldn’t have to hold the shaping.

But how could he add earth power to the mark if he had to hold the shaping to keep from being crushed by the stone?

Jasn didn’t miss the irony of how he had worked so hard and for so long to die in Rens, and now that he wanted to live, wanted to learn why the elementals had saved him for so long, he might finally succeed in finding death.

There wasn’t much room for him to move, though earth sensing told him that space opened up to either side if only he could free himself long enough to get to it. Using his sword, he pressed the blade into the stone and made the same symbol he’d seen on the pen. He didn’t dare shift his focus or remove the shaping that he held.

As he completed the mark, there was a quick flash and he felt his shaping practically sucked into the stone. Jasn released it. The stone held, sealed over him.

He let out a sigh. That would give him time to see if he could discover some way to get free from the pile of rock. Muted shouts tried to make their way through. Likely Bayan struggled to reach him. At least she hadn’t been in here with him. There was little enough space as it was, and he shuddered to think what would have happened had they both been inside the building when it began to collapse. He had seen enough die in Rens already, and he didn’t need to see her crushed as well.

Jasn paused and scanned the surroundings, detecting that something else was in here with him. It was distant, but he could sense the pull of heat, a drawing on him stronger than should have been found this deep in the earth.

What was it?

After checking to make certain the stone would hold, he pushed away from the mark he’d sealed with earth and tried going deeper into the cavern, but there wasn’t the room for him to move freely.

What did he sense?

He felt his way along, squeezing between the stones. There was
just
enough room for him to maneuver, barely more than that, and he slipped into a space with the walls pressing around him, threatening to suffocate him.

As he neared the open area next to him, the rock cracked again.

It came first as a continuous snap, then slowly spread out all around.

Jasn barely had time to react. He was caught between the rock, squeezed by it, and readied a shaping. He couldn’t get his sword up to make another mark in the stone, not as he had the first time.

Instead, he pressed into the rock, holding it with his shaping. Above him, rock and stone from Hessan slowly collapsed around him, bearing down on the earth shaping he struggled to maintain.

He had to get out or he would be squeezed as it collapsed. He had to somehow manage to get away, but how? All his energy was focused on simply holding the shaping in place to keep the earth from crushing him.

Jasn hoped Bayan could free him. If she couldn’t, he didn’t want to think of what it would be like as his shaping slowly faded and the rock above him settled, gradually crushing the life out of him. The image of the fallen pen in the barracks, and the draasin crushed inside, came to mind. How long until he ended up like that?

A
lena strode into the barracks
, searching for Jasn Volth. After bringing him to the Sanash and showing him where Issa had died, she’d expected him to return here for answers. He wouldn’t have known that Cheneth was gone, nor could he know that Cheneth would have no more information than she had, but she’d seen the naked desire in his eyes for understanding, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to provide that for him.

After spending time in Atenas, the barracks were a welcome change. The solid, squat buildings served the purpose of providing a layer of protection and concealing the presence of the barracks, but there was something more to it as well. The buildings here made no effort to be anything more than they were and did not attempt to stretch to the sky and overpower those around them, not like the tower in Atenas did. There was a certain pompousness to the tower that she didn’t find in the barracks. Perhaps that was why she liked it here so much better.

She saw none of the people she expected to see, none that she
needed
to see. Cheneth would not have returned, and Eldridge would be off wherever he’d gone, but she’d expected to find Bayan or Volth, but neither were here.

Pausing in the middle of the street, Alena reached out with water sensing and mixed earth within it. Even Calan was gone. That shouldn’t surprise her. Likely he’d gone after the draasin, seeking revenge when none was needed or even possible.

Connected to the elements as she was, she sensed it when Ifrit approached. The small woman had hard, sharp eyes and had never shown any leanings toward helping the elementals. Not like Bayan. At least with Bayan, the girl had the good sense to be respectful with the draasin. Even if she didn’t believe that there was any reason to care about the creatures, the draasin could do her harm.

“You will not find them here,” Ifrit said.

Alena nodded to the younger woman. “No? Then where did they go?”

Ifrit sniffed. “Your students or Calan?”

Would Ifrit actually share with her what had happened with Calan? She didn’t expect that she would, not considering what she’d seen of Ifrit and how she had participated in the attack on the draasin.

“Either.”

Ifrit glanced at the trees—looking south, Alena noted—before looking back at her. “They are gone. Calan went first, searching for the injured beast. She was hurt before we even…” She shook her head. “Does not matter now, does it? I realize I’m lucky to be alive. And then, after your student healed me, he disappeared as well.” She hesitated, a frown furrowing her brow. “He is unique, is he not?”

“Calan or Volth?”

Ifrit laughed, and it made her seem more girlish and less angry. Alena found it unsettling to hear Ifrit sound like that given everything she’d see the woman do over the years. “Both, I suppose, but it’s Volth in particular. I’ve never seen a healer with quite the touch that he has.”

“Volth healed you?” That hadn’t been her expectation when he returned, and she had thought he might be too tired after healing Wyath.

Ifrit tilted her head in a nod. “Healed. Maybe more.” She said the last almost too softly for Alena to hear.

Alena waited for her to say more, but she didn’t. “Where did they go?”

“You don’t know? I thought you kept tabs on your students. I thought you were—”

Thunder exploded in Alena’s head and she heard nothing more.

Lren. You must come.

She grabbed her head from the strength of the calling, Sashi had been absent from her mind for days, at least since the time she’d helped free it, and coming back to the barracks hadn’t changed that. There was something different about the draasin since she’d returned, though Alena couldn’t put a finger on what it was.

Ifrit didn’t seem to notice Alena was in pain. She pushed the sense of the draasin back, trying to keep it from dominating her. Were she to let it, the draasin would overwhelm her mind, and it took every bit of focus for her to resist.

Where are you?

Near water. Come. You are needed.

Ifrit was still talking, but Alena had no idea what she was saying. “I need to find them,” she said, thinking that Ifrit was still talking about Volth and Bayan.

“Haven’t you heard anything I’ve been telling you?”

Alena blinked. Did she admit that she hadn’t? That the draasin commanding her to come had pushed away any sense of her surroundings? Revealing that would open her to more questions. “I’ve heard, but that doesn’t change that I need to know where my students have gotten off to.”

She turned away before Ifrit had the opportunity to say anything more, hoping to hide the way her heart skipped inside her chest. Ifrit was a skilled shaper and would recognize that it did and would likely have questions about
why
.

I will come. I need time to prepare.

There is no time.

As she neared the destroyed pen, she paused, considering the way the stone had crumbled under the shaping. This was not Calan’s work. They had been trying to attack the draasin in the third pen. Alena remembered all too well the pain the draasin had experienced when it had been crushed by the weight of the shaping. Thinking of it caused tears to well in her eyes. The draasin would not want her to mourn them, but she did.

What of the other?

I should know why you’re trying to get me to hurry. What will I face?

She stopped at the remaining pen and noted earth seals in place around it that weren’t there before. They were stout, meant to hold the draasin in place, but she realized they served another purpose. They reinforced the stone, making it stronger as earth infused it, perhaps strong enough that an earth shaping couldn’t crush the draasin inside.

Darkness.

Alena shivered, studying the pen.

The sense of earth coming off this pen was much more than it had been before. Some of that had been Wyath’s work, reinforcing the stone so that Calan or his student wouldn’t attempt to attack the draasin again, but some was even newer than that. Cheneth? He hadn’t been here, she didn’t think. Eldridge didn’t have the necessary ability with earth to do this, so who?

She trailed her hand over one of the marks. Each line contained more earth power than she would have thought possible, the groove in the stone made precisely so that earth was trapped and held, fortifying the stone. Alena didn’t think that she would even be able to enter the pen. Hopefully that meant the draasin inside was safe. It could also mean that no one could get inside and that the draasin would suffer, but she didn’t think that was the case. If the person who had placed the stone seal wanted to harm the draasin, she doubted they would have had any difficulty.

Lren
.

This time it was less a command, almost as if it came from a different draasin. When it didn’t come again, Alena pulled her hand away from the stone. She would have to take the time when she returned to understand what had been done here. If she could replicate it, it might be possible that she could better protect the draasin in the future.

At the stone circle, she stopped and used a mix of earth and wind to listen for the residual shaping that might have come through here. Detecting another’s shaping was a difficult task, but she had learned over the past ten years how to track shapings. At first, she had learned how to do it so that she could follow the others at the barracks, wanting to know where they disappeared. Originally she thought Calan was the interesting one, assuming that his loud and often brash style meant he knew tricks she could learn, but it was Wyath who had been the one to teach her.

She was preparing a shaping, readying the combination of each of the elements that would lift her into the sky on a bolt of lightning, when a shadow stepped out of the trees. Alena nearly directed the shaping at the shadow before recognizing who it was.

“Wyath. So you’ve returned.”

He stepped forward and smiled, his gaze darting all around him, skipping to the rest of the barracks. “Returned and restored.”

“Oliver said you weren’t willing to wait to recover.”

“There was no need. Whatever Jasn did healed me faster than anything I’ve ever experienced.”

“You’re the second one to say that.”

“Thenas?” he asked.

“No, Ifrit. She was injured in their… Whatever it was they were trying to do. Tarak tried healing her, and it seems that Jasn Volth finished the healing.”

A troubled look crossed Wyath’s face. “Ifrit now as well? Ah Cheneth,” he whispered to himself, “do you know what that means?”

“Cheneth isn’t here.”

Wyath was acting strangely, from the way he spoke to himself, to the nervous way he rocked from side to side while standing. Wyath had always favored his injured hip but now he rocked as if it didn’t bother him.

Please, Lren,
the draasin sent again.

This time she recognized the urgency from Sashi. She had to discover why, but first she had to find out what Wyath knew.

“I know Cheneth isn’t here,” Wyath said. “And you need to be going, don’t you?”

She frowned. “Wyath?”

He laughed softly and tapped his leg. “Doesn’t hurt as it once did. Like I said, recovered and restored. Not only that, but there was another benefit of his healing, but I’m not sure I know what it means just yet.” He met her eyes. “Where is Thenas?”

“Calan’s student? I haven’t seen him since he attacked Volth.” She hadn’t given much thought to him after the attack, though considering the way Calan had attacked Sashi, she probably should have.

“Not the barracks,” Wyath agreed. “And I think we need to find him. Like me, he was healed by Jasn. I need to see if he had the same outcome as I did.”

“You saw what happened to him after Volth healed him. What outcome do you mean?”

Wyath started toward the shaper circle and stepped into the middle of it, holding Alena’s gaze. “The same one that lets me know the draasin are calling you.”

With a surge of shaping, he disappeared.

Alena stood for a moment before focusing on the draasin begging for her help, though the call was now quiet in her mind. It came from the same direction Wyath had gone. “Blast it,” she whispered. Alena took off on a surge of lightning.

She trailed behind Wyath. Traveling on this shaping, one that only warriors were able to use, gave a sense of speed and solitude, but there was movement with it, rough and violent. Wind whistled around her, and she shaped it to stay on course. Fire burned, and she held tightly to it as well, trying to follow the flows as she sensed Wyath. Earth provided the strength as she traveled, and water lent an energy to the shaping that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

When she emerged from the shaping, she found Wyath standing along a ridge overlooking the ocean. She hadn’t expected him to travel quite so far, thinking he would instead bring her into Rens. Water crashed against the rocks far below her, the steady pulling of the waves a sharp change to her water sense.

“Why did you come here, Wyath?” she asked.

“You were always so skilled.” He nodded toward the south, out over the ocean. Three dark shapes circled high above the water, the draasin flying with a sort of urgent speed. One dove suddenly, reaching for the water before pulling up, a massive sailfish clasped in its talons. Alena had a distant sense of the draasin’s satisfaction, almost enough to know what it was thinking, before it faded as the three creatures streaked ever farther south, finally fading completely from view.

“You sense them still?” he asked.

“I do.”

Wyath turned, looking north. Alena didn’t know quite where they were, so north could be Ter for all that she knew. “Do you sense it now?”

“Sense what?”

But even as she asked, she knew what he meant. Pain drifted through the connection she shared with the draasin, though Alena had no idea how. It was vague, an indistinct agony that left her with little understanding of where to find the draasin, but somehow, she still knew it was the same draasin as before, the one that had called to her.

“She is out there, injured. Now I see that something… dark… comes for her. Maybe it already has,” Wyath said, mostly to himself.

“How do you know this?” Alena asked softly.

Wyath turned toward her. His eyes were round and bright, burning with the intensity of the sun. “I hear it. Not as you do, I don’t think, but since I was healed, there are whispers in my mind. If I focus on them, I can almost make out what they’re trying to say.”

“But you’ve always been able to speak to earth,” Alena said.

“I could speak to earth, but this is different. It’s like the healing awoke something in me. I don’t know how to explain it any better, but the longer I hear them, the more I can tell that they’re concerned.”

“You think they’re elementals?”

Wyath nodded. “They can be nothing else.”

If Wyath had something woken in him, had the same happened with Thenas and Ifrit? And if that had happened, what would it mean for the elementals? For the draasin?

“Why did you come here?” she asked.

“Because this was where you were summoned,” Wyath said.

She shook her head. “Not here. I don’t know where I was summoned, only that the draasin called me.”

Wyath pointed toward the north. “I can’t hear the draasin as you do, not clearly and not yet, but I hear the way the earth calls to me. There is great pain near us. That is why the draasin wanted your help. And earth calls to me, which is why I came to you.”

He lifted into the air on a shaping of wind and earth, sliding in a way that Alena had yet to master as completely. She followed on the wind, trailing him, reaching for the distant and silent sense of the draasin, wishing there was something that would tell her what happened to them, but she found nothing. Other than the three draasin, there were none here that she was aware of, not like the many draasin that she found in Rens.