Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (24 page)

J
asn stared at Cheneth
. He’d seen the transformation before but hadn’t known what it was. He’d known shapers to hide their ability from others—wasn’t that what Alena did at times?—but never so completely as what he’d seen Cheneth manage. The man exuded power. Had Jasn not recognized the difficulty of the shaping Cheneth had placed on the walls, stairs, the entire building for that matter, he might have been caught more off guard. As it was, he had been waiting for Cheneth to reveal himself.

Alena stared at the scholar with wide eyes. She still clutched the egg to her chest. Jasn kept waiting for her to set it down—the damn thing had to be heavy—but she didn’t seem interested.

“Enlightened?” she asked when she regained the ability to speak. Her eyes didn’t move from Cheneth. “I thought you were from Ter.”

“I serve no land,” he said, “and all of them. As do all the enlightened.”

Enlightened. That seemed as preposterous a name as “the commander.” And Cheneth seemed to have no more shame than Lachen at the title. “Not the darkness?” Jasn asked. “Not this Tenebeth?” Even the name felt foul on his tongue, but strangely familiar in some ways.

Cheneth’s face clouded a moment. “Not Tenebeth, though I suspect that there are some in this land who do.”

“Lachen?”

“I do not know who the commander serves,” Cheneth said. “I have not been able to tell with him. It is even possible that he is one of the enlightened.”

Jasn wondered what Lachen truly was. His old friend had changed since they had last truly known each other, to the point where the boy Jasn had known was no longer; now there was only this strangeness that was the commander. Should he still even call him Lachen anymore, or had he become his title?

“Tell me,” Jasn began, “why we should fear Tenebeth.”

Cheneth took a deep breath and stood, then began pacing. There was a rhythm to his steps as he made his way across the floor, almost a tapping to the way he walked. “Tenebeth is a myth. At least, that is what I have always believed. He is darkness. He—or more accurately
it
, as we cannot really attribute gender to a creature of power such as Tenebeth, even though stories claim he usually appears in the form of a man—apparently has been known by some for many years.”

“You went searching for answers and returned with… a myth?” Alena asked.

Cheneth paused and glanced at the fire, motioning to Alena. “You should set the egg down, Alena. You will not be able to hold it until it hatches.”

A flush worked up her face. Normally a lovely woman, the extra coloring made her even more attractive. “And where do you propose I set it?”

“I think the hearth will do nicely,” Cheneth said. “You can keep it as warm as you like.”

“A fire won’t hurt it?” Jasn asked.

“It is a creature of fire, Jasn Volth. Fire will only help.”

Alena flushed again and brought the egg to the hearth, setting it down carefully. She propped a few logs against it and lit them with a shaping. Flames curled around the egg, leaving it unharmed in the middle of the fire.

Alena stood in front of the hearth for a few moments before turning away and taking the chair Cheneth had vacated.

He began pacing again, resuming his rhythmic tapping. “In the stories, Tenebeth is more than simply darkness. In most, he seeks power and seeks to destroy.” He stared at the flames dancing around within the fire. “The elementals we know are born from light. They create life, they
are
life. What I can find tells me that Tenebeth would change that and would twist these elements, turn them into something they are not so that they serve darkness rather than light.” He sighed again. “But everything I’ve found tells me that he cannot do it alone. He is powerful, but the light has ensured there are limits to his power.”

Jasn shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He had come to the barracks to learn to hunt the draasin, to face fire, but what Cheneth described was even greater than that. And he still didn’t know how it was tied to what had happened to Katya. If she wasn’t dead, was there some connection to this Tenebeth?

“What is this about, really?” he asked Cheneth.

“I have answered that question already.”

“No. You’ve told me what you care about. But this is about more than Ter and Rens.”

Cheneth smiled tightly. “Obviously.”

“Except that’s why I was sent here. Lachen wanted me to learn how to hunt the draasin. He thought it could turn the tide of the war. And he sends an attack deeper into Rens.” Where the draasin eggs were hidden, though he didn’t need to say that.

“Think of the Wrecker of Rens, the man unable to die, now with the ability to hunt draasin alone. How powerful would that make the order?”

“That’s not what you want, is it?” Jasn asked.

Cheneth hesitated. “I have never sought to strengthen the order.”

“Then why are you here?” Jasn asked.

“This is where I am needed,” he answered, as if that explained everything. It didn’t, not to Jasn. “There is a purpose in everything that I do, just as there is a purpose in everything the commander does.”

“Does he know about you?” Jasn asked.

Cheneth sighed. “He might. I admit I do not know all of what the commander has learned. I’ve said it’s possible that he’s enlightened, but it is also possible that he serves Tenebeth.”

Jasn leaned back in his chair. Lachen might be powerful, and he was certainly complex, but he didn’t think his old friend served the kind of darkness Cheneth described, but what did he really know? How much did he understand about Lachen anymore?

“Who else is enlightened?” he asked.

Cheneth met his eyes and didn’t answer.

“If I am to help—and that’s why you’re telling us this, isn’t it? You want our help?—the connection to the elementals matters for some reason, I suspect. So if you want our help, you need to share what you know.”

“You have learned more than any of the enlightened know. More than I knew before recently.”

Jasn glanced at Alena, but she stared at the fire as if captivated by the flames dancing around the draasin egg. Her shaping was still dragged from her, drawn away by the draasin. How long would that last? If the connection between them was broken, what would happen to Alena?

“What of Wyath?” Jasn asked. “Bayan?”

“Wyath is one of the first of the order to demonstrate a connection to the elementals. He came to me after you found the tainted draasin, and I have shared with him what I shared with you.”

“He’s changed,” Alena said softly.

Cheneth frowned. “He nearly died. Twice.” He looked at Jasn a moment before shifting his focus back to Alena. “That last… Without your taking him to Atenas, he
would
have died.”

“That’s what changed him,” Alena said. “I think Jasn’s healing did something. He is aware in ways that he wasn’t before.”

“What do you mean?” Jasn asked. What had he done when he’d healed Wyath? Nothing that he hadn’t done before. But he wasn’t in control of those healings. But he wasn’t in control of those healings. Letting the water elemental work through him demanded he give up his control, surrender it to the elementals. In that way, Eldridge had been right.

Alena didn’t meet his eyes when he answered, still staring at the fire. “He can hear some of the draasin. Not the same way that I can, but it’s more than he was able to before.”

Cheneth stopped pacing. As he did, Jasn realized power faded from the room, as if he had been shaping and suddenly released the shaping. “He… hears them?”

Alena nodded. “When I chased the draasin and we saw the shadowed rider, Wyath was with me. He could hear when the draasin spoke.”

Cheneth turned to Jasn. “Who else have you healed in that manner?”

Alena answered for him. “Ifrit and Thenas.”

A frown deepened on Cheneth’s face. “What of them now?”

“I haven’t the chance to check on Ifrit,” Alena said. “And I have not seen Thenas since he attacked the draasin.”

“We must find them.”

“Why?”

Cheneth looked at the door. “Another story, but one that I believe, if I am to believe any of this. It is said that those able to speak to the elementals are the most at risk for corruption by Tenebeth.”

“And now that Thenas has been healed by Jasn…,” Alena started.

Cheneth nodded carefully. “I can hope this darkness has not found him yet. Thenas is a strong shaper and would make a dangerous ally for the darkness.”

And if he was turned, Jasn knew it would be his fault. Or, perhaps more accurately, the fault of the elementals working through him.

“What of the others in the barracks?” he asked. “How much do we tell them?”

“Nothing for now.”

“But they could help—”

“Would they believe?” Cheneth asked.

Silence fell between them until Alena broke it. “Is there nothing that we can do to help the draasin already corrupted?”

“Alena,” Cheneth said, his voice pained, “this darkness is powerful. Anything you do risks your life.”

She sighed. “But if we can’t save them, we may lose them all.”

Cheneth nodded, sadness narrowing his eyes. “And we must be prepared for that possibility. You are a hunter of fire, even if you have chosen otherwise.”

Alena stopped in front of the hearth. With a shaping of fire, she suppressed the flames enough so that she could lift the draasin egg and then clutched it against her chest once more.

“What are you going to do?” Cheneth asked.

“You’ve already told me what must be done. I haven’t understood before now what the draasin feared, but now I do. They fear the corruption from Tenebeth. They know what could happen, and they hide from it. That’s what led to the draasins’ willingness to come to this place to begin with. We have seen their numbers fade and have been powerless to do anything about it. But,” she went on, looking down at the egg, “that doesn’t have to be the case now.”

“You intend to see it hatched?” Cheneth asked.

“I think she needs to,” Jasn said.

Alena looked at him.

“Whatever the egg has done to you, there is no way to stop it. My shaping only slows it, but I don’t think it has stopped anything. To do that, you either have to destroy the draasin egg or you’ll have to see it hatched.”

“I suspect that you’ll need to find a powerful female,” Cheneth said. “Gender is thought to matter for the hatching.”

“It’s a good thing we know of such a female,” she answered.

“You said that draasin was claimed.”

Alena nodded, and her brow furrowed. Jasn wondered what it must have felt like to experience the draasin falling to Tenebeth. She was able to speak to them, so she would have heard it happening, even if she didn’t know what it meant.

“I think it was,” she said. “So I will have to find the draasin and somehow help her.”

“You could just find another female,” Jasn suggested. “That would be less risky. You can speak to them, so can’t you call out to the draasin and tell them what you need?”

He didn’t really know how it worked. His ability with water was different; the sense he had from Alena was that she was able to consciously speak to the draasin, to reach out for them. How different would it be for him if he were able to speak to water in the same way?

“That won’t work,” Alena said. “Distance matters. I don’t know why, but the closer I am to the draasin, the easier it is for me to speak to them. And without knowing where to find one of them…” She shook her head. “Besides, I doubt I’ll find a female anyway.”

“Why?”

“We’ve never found many females. We haven’t understood before.”

“I suspect the females are targeted by Tenebeth,” Cheneth answered. “They are as powerful as the males, and with the females, the draasin mating and the eggs are controlled by hims.”

Jasn sighed. “Can’t we just try to find another male and see if it will work?” He thought of the remaining draasin in the pen. That could be their answer.

“We can try,” Alena said, but she didn’t sound optimistic.

Cheneth nodded. “Try it.”

“And when it fails?” Alena asked.

When, not if, Jasn noted.

“There might not be anything more that you can do.”

“But you won’t try to stop me if I go after her?”

Cheneth took a deep breath. “Do you really think I can stop you?” he asked. “Were you to go, is there anything that I can do?”

Alena nodded. “Then we will try. And when it fails—”

“If,” Jasn said.

“—then I will go after her. She deserves that much after what she gave to us, Cheneth. Especially if it’s because of Thenas that she was tainted. Think of how much time she spent confined, and now, if she’s been turned as you suspect, we need to try.”

“You will have to do it on your own,” he said. Alena arched her brow and he continued on. “You saw a shadowed form atop the draasin. A rider. If the rider can shape, there is nothing that I’ll be able to do to help.”

Jasn doubted that was completely true. From what he’d seen, Cheneth had more ability than he let on.

The old man sighed and shook his head. “Besides, I will need to remain to protect the egg. I suspect there are those here who would like to see even something so harmless destroyed.”

Jasn didn’t think of the egg as harmless, not after what he’d seen happen to him and Alena, but he also thought Cheneth was right. Calan would go after the egg, and likely Ifrit would as well.

“I will go,” he said.

“Dangerous,” Cheneth said. “Your connection to the elementals places you at risk.”

“I’ve survived along the border of Rens for a year. And if I don’t go, I’m not sure how well Alena will do. She needs my shaping to keep her strength up.”

Cheneth studied him, his deep, piercing eyes seeming to see through him, and then he nodded.