Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (19 page)

* * *

D
arkness had fallen
over the town, and Ciara rested on pile of blankets Olina had given her, snuggling toward the fading embers within the hearth and wishing for more warmth. Gusts of wind howled outside and occasionally managed to work through the door and around the window of Olina’s home, stealing the warm the hearth provided and leaving a gentle breeze behind. Ciara shivered. Nights in Rens could be cold, but never quite like this.

At least she had the blankets. Some were finely made, woven of a thick wool much like the shepa the village produced, but they were softer and more brightly dyed than anything her people would have found practical. Others were soft and smooth and simple. Ciara preferred these the most, piling them beneath her head and overtop her body as she struggled to find sleep. After spending the past night outside, hanging from the post, she wanted nothing more than for the dead of sleep to claim her, but it wouldn’t.

The darkness frightened her tonight. Ciara had always found her people’s fear of the dark foolish, but now that she’d met the shadow man and now that she’d felt his touch, she no longer believed it was silly. Now she trembled in ways that had nothing to do with how cold she might be.

A steady pattering struck the top of the house and her eyes snapped fully open.

Rain?

It had been nearly a month since the last storm, and that had been brief, barely more than enough to refill their stores, leaving them with water that should only have lasted a few days. They had managed to stretch it longer—her people
always
managed to stretch their water supply longer—but no rains had come after.

Ciara sat up and stared at the fire, wishing Olina hadn’t tamped it out for the night. The old woman might be able to shape fire, but Ciara had no such ability. She wrapped one of the blankets made of thick fur around her shoulders and went to the door. The wind gusted with more force, driving as if trying to enter the house. It blew back her hair, and she pulled the blanket more tightly around her shoulders, straining to remain warm.

As she stood there, she felt the cold creep through the cracks, and she shivered. The way it seeped around the edges of the doorways, the way it slowly oozed into the house, it reminded her of the shadow man.

Ciara took a step back, afraid to be too close.

“He is out there tonight.”

Ciara turned to see Olina watching from the doorway leading to her room. “Who is?”

“Darkness. We call him Tenebeth. He stalks the night, promising power and control. Once bound, a part of him has become free.”

“The shadow man,” Ciara whispered.

Olina tipped her head and studied Ciara. “Shadow man. As good a name as any to describe him. He is powerful and seductive. Far too many have lost themselves to Tenebeth.”

“What is he? An elemental?”

“Not an elemental, but something greater. He possesses power the elementals do not. He is darkness and night, suppressed for thousands of years by the light. Now something has changed, and he touches the world once more.” Her gaze lingered on the fire. “It is because of Tenebeth the wise departed Hyaln, for Tenebeth forces the draasin to fight in ways they would not.”

“The wise?”

Olina nodded, waving her hand around her as she motioned toward the rest of K’ral behind the walls of her home. “These fools would call them riders, but they were more than that. They shared a connection, but that has been lost. Corrupted by the darkness.”

Darkness. Her father warned of darkness like this, and she had known it was real, had walked alongside the shadow man, but somehow had managed to stay apart. The lizard had helped, guiding her back into the light, but why?

“If he’s darkness, what is the light?”

“You must find your own light,” Olina said.

Ciara shook her head. “My father said the old priests once spoke of a battle between darkness and light. He said the draasin fight on the side of the light.”

“They try to,” Olina said. “But Tenebeth’s touch is powerful, and those who serve him are capable of wielding a dark power, one strong enough to compel even the draasin. Others think they can wield his power without serving. They are even greater fools.”

“I don’t understand.” But she did, didn’t she? She’d felt the way the shadow man had touched her; she’d been seduced by his call, drawing her across the waste with the promise of power. Ciara had very nearly claimed that power and would have followed him had it not been for the lizard and the memory of its touch on her skin and the way it had healed her.

The lizard was an elemental as well, Ciara suddenly realized. That explained how she had been saved, how she still lived when she should have died. But why help her? What reason did the lizard have to save her rather than letting her go? Why risk her going to the darkness?

“You felt it when he came the other night. I know you did because
I
felt it. I was there, watching with you. And he comes again, though this time he becomes impatient. Tenebeth is powerful, more than even I can withstand when he forces his will. You need the assistance of others if you will survive.”

Ciara sighed and nodded toward the rattling door. Wind gusted against it, growing ever more powerful. She wanted to back away, but where would she go? If Olina refused to help, what would she do? What
could
she do?

“What others?” He’d already come for her twice. What if he did again?

“The elementals, child of Rens. If you can’t learn listen to fire, he will come to possess you. Little by little, he will swallow the light.”

D
aylight had returned
and Ciara now stood well outside K’ral, overlooking the sweeping plain before her. The tall grasses were even greener than the day before, if that was possible, as if the rain from the night had brought out colors that weren’t there previously. Her feet were damp and covered by mud that squished around her toes as she walked, an unpleasantly soft sensation.

Olina sat on a stump with her arms crossed over her chest. Her gray hair was pulled back and tucked behind her ears. The simple robe she wore provided warmth in the early morning chill, likely more than Ciara’s elouf and the blanket she wrapped around her shoulders. She’d chosen the one with fur, thinking she might find a little more warmth with it than the wool. Still, she shivered.

“What
can
you tell me about Tenebeth,” Ciara asked. Olina had been vague about the shadow man, and Ciara wondered how much of it was out of fear and how much simply because she didn’t know the answers. But this, she felt certain, was part of the reason the draasin had brought her here.

Olina glanced at the sky, and the tips of the fingers on her right hand went to her neck before dropping back into her lap. “You know as much as I know.”

Ciara doubted that. She had experienced the shadow man, she had nearly been drawn to him, but what did she really know about him?

“Why does he fear the draasin?”

Olina grunted. “You think Tenebeth fears the draasin? You haven’t been listening, girl. Tenebeth fears nothing and seeks to draw more into the shadows. With each summons, he grows stronger. I feel it, even if the fools in Hyaln do not.”

Each time she’d tried understand Hyaln, Olina had changed the subject. Something had happened, but the old woman didn’t want to share.

“You need to learn a way to resist,” Olina said. “If you don’t…” She snapped her fingers together, as if Ciara she know what she meant.

Whatever the shadow man might be, there had been reluctance when it came to the draasin. Wasn’t that part of the reason Fas had been healed? There had been shadow within him when she’d returned. She hadn’t known what it was at first, but she’d seen the way the shadows departed, only leaving when the draasin were summoned. Somehow that summoning had freed him.

She had her j’na. Olina hadn’t taken it from her, though the woman sought to study the marks made on the shaft of the spear and had traced them onto a thick sheaf of parchment she’d coated with wax. Ciara thought the process strange until seeing how heavy the rains were the night before. Now she understood why the parchment was waxed, but not why Olina would go to such effort to copy the marks carved into the shaft of her spear by her father.

“Then what can we do?” she asked. “If he fears nothing, why fight?”

“I didn’t say he fears nothing, only that it is not the draasin.”

Ciara lifted her j’na and tapped it into the soft soil. It sank deeply and she pulled it free, wishing she could have learned how her father managed to summon the draasin before she departed Rens. At least then she might know what it was she needed to do so that she could return. Without the draasin, Ciara wasn’t sure she even had a way to return. She would be stuck in Tsanth, working with Olina, trying to find some way back to her home. Only this time, she wouldn’t be able to simply walk back.

“What are the lizards?” Ciara asked as silence stretched between them. She wasn’t sure why Olina had brought her here, only that the woman seemed to believe Ciara could learn something simply by sitting atop the hill with wet and muddy feet while staring at the morning sky. All that Ciara had learned was that having too much water was nearly as bad as having none at all.

When Olina didn’t answer, Ciara pressed. “The first time I saw the shadow man—Tenebeth,” she corrected herself, using the name that Olina had given him, “was in the waste. My village is near the edge, close enough that we can see the dust storms as they rise, but usually far enough that we manage to find water. When that dried up, I risked crossing.”

“Why would you do such a thing?”

“I am a water seeker,” she answered. The lack of change of emotion on Olina’s face told Ciara that the woman recognized the term. “I can’t manipulate it, not as some in the village have learned to do, but I detected a vast expanse of water in the middle of the waste.”

Olina leaned forward, and brought a finger to her lips. “He would not come to those lands, Rider, so where did you see Tenebeth?”

Ciara thought back to the night she’d fallen from the shelf. She’d nearly died then, and the lizard had come and licked her. But hadn’t she seen the shadow man there as well? He had come, almost like a dream—though that might have been her nearly dying more than anything, moving toward her in swirls of color. And she would have gone with him, drawn to him, had it not been for the blasted lizard licking her.

“In the desert,” she said.

But was it the desert? Hadn’t she crossed the waste when they found the shelf, the massive rock that dropped to hard ground far below? The waste was a massive expanse of sand and dunes, but they had crossed the waste before stopping.

“Not the desert, then,” Olina said as she watched Ciara’s face. “Tell me about him.”

“There is nothing more to say. He walked with me some of the time.” But not all, and not when the lizard had been with her. At the time, she had thought it strange, but now she wondered if they had been battling for possession of her. Why? What would have happened to her if she would have gone off with the shadow man? Would the lizard have chased her, or would she have needed to choose, much like she ultimately did? “He offered me the chance for…” She paused and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”

Olina stood and crossed over to Ciara. She rested a hand on the j’na, touching the symbols along the shaft of the spear. “Why does it not? Tenebeth seeks to know what is in your heart, and he will use that to draw you into his plans. So, Rider, what
is
in your heart?”

Ciara thought about the offer, the temptation that she’d felt at hearing it. For so long, she had longed to be more than what she was. As nya’shin, the village respected her, but not as they would were she a shaper.

That was what the shadow man had preyed on. Power. Ability. Strength she didn’t possess. That had been the offer, and she had managed to refuse. Twice.

Would she be able to refuse a third time if he came for her?

Olina watched her and shook her head slowly. “You may keep it to yourself, Rider, but you must understand what he wants from you and what he offers. If you cannot, then you will be drawn by him.”

“If not an elemental, then what is he?” She remembered well the power she felt when she had been near him, one that had turned dark and cold the second time he approached.

Olina glanced at the sky and then at the stump she’d sat on. “The draasin live in the light. Most within this world does, thriving in the sun.”

Ciara sniffed, wondering if her people would ever really thrive in the light. They suffered and struggled, but did they thrive? Could they?

“Tenebeth lives in the dark spaces and opposes the light. He is power, much like the light is power.” Olina frowned. “In some ways, Tenebeth is like an elemental, but different. Much like the light is connected to life, and each elemental a part of that life, so too is Tenebeth, only the connection is different. With each that he claims, his connection strengthens. The same as it does when others call him.” She touched her neck again, and her eyes closed. “But Tenebeth cannot claim the connection to the elementals himself. That was never his power. That is why he needs others, those capable of finding the light, of speaking to it, to do what he cannot. Were he able, he would command the elementals, but he cannot.”

What Olina told her was almost too much for her to take in. What could she do against a being as strong as the shadow man? For as long as she had lived, she had wanted power, but the power to help her people. When the shadow man had come to her, he had offered her what she wanted, but there would have been a price. Ciara didn’t know what that would be, but she had
felt
it, a deep sense within her of a toll she wasn’t able to pay.

But that wasn’t entirely correct. She might have been
able
to pay the price the shadow man asked of her—all he wanted was for her to go with him, though she suspected it would have required much more than that—but she wasn’t
willing
.

“Why does he want me?” Ciara asked.

“Because you have proven to be a rider. You can call the draasin.”

She shook her head. “He came to me before I ever called the draasin.”

Olina sighed. “You must have spoken to the draasin before. Tenebeth only turns his attention on those able to reach for the light.”

“What about other elementals?”

“The others are not the draasin.”

Ciara thought about how the lizard had climbed on the draasin she’d found on the hard waste. Hadn’t the lizard healed the draasin? They had to be related somehow. And Olina still hadn’t answered when she had mentioned the lizard.

“Then why am I here?” Ciara asked.

“That is not for me to know. You say the draasin brought you here. Perhaps it is to teach you to call to them, though it seems another has taught you.” Olina touched the j’na again, her fingers lingering on the carving.

Ciara had never recognized the marks her father made along the side, but the more she learned about how he used his j’na, the more she believed the markings were important.

“Tell me about these markings then,” Ciara said. “You said they were the markings of someone who fights for the light.”

“They are. And they are placed by another, but not one who would be found in Rens.”

“My father placed these carvings on my j’na.”

Olina’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Then he has trained in Hyaln.”

Ciara laughed at the idea of her father ever having been anywhere but the village. As far as she knew, he had barely wandered as one of the nya’shin. “My father hasn’t left Rens since he was raised to ala’shin. Before that, he served as nya’shin.”

“What is a nya’shin?”

“I am. We are water seekers, gifted by the Stormbringer with the ability to find water. Without the nya’shin, we would long ago have died.”

And now it didn’t matter. Her people were gone, part of the village destroyed, taken by… who? Ter? Ciara no longer understood anything.

Olina touched the spear, tracing her fingers down the side. “In Hyaln, we call this jainah. They are the staves of the wise, only given to those who can claim true wisdom.”

Ciara glanced past Olina to the woman’s spear, leaning against the stump. It was long and slender, but not entirely unlike her j’na. “Is that where you received yours?”

Olina nodded. “Training in Hyaln is difficult, even for those selected by the enlightened.”

“What does it mean to be enlightened?”

Olina shook her head. “The answer belongs to Hyaln.” She tapped the j’na. “This shape is not one I have seen before. There is skill in its making, but it is less ornate than those given to the wise. My jainah took three years and twelve of the wise to carve. There are still messages that I find, though with each year it becomes more difficult.”

“Well, my j’na took my father…” Ciara trailed off, not certain how long it had taken her father to carve. She had a growing unease within her. Why would the j’na that her father carved be so similar to Olina’s jainah? And why would her father know so much about things he should not? If Olina was right, and if he really needed to have trained in Hyaln to know how to make the carvings, what did that mean? Could her father really have left the village?

Ciara felt the urge to return to her home, but for reasons she’d never had before. She had thought her people had remained along the edge of the waste, helpless, but if her father had been able to speak to the draasin all along, then they hadn’t been helpless. Why had they stayed?

Olina turned away and reached for her staff. She pressed it into the ground with each step, and a surge of energy came from it as she did. It was a mixture of heat and pressure, and she felt it inside her in a way that made it hard to breathe.

“Tell me, Rider, what you learned from your father.”

Ciara shook her head. “It seems that I didn’t learn much of anything,” she said. Her father might have taught her about her people and about what it took to be nya’shin, but there seemed so much more he had failed to share with her.

Olina pressed her staff into the ground. Again, Ciara felt the way power surged from it. Heat mixed in.

Why should Ciara feel it?

“Not much of anything?” she said. “You called the draasin?”

“He was there with me. He helped with the summoning.”

Olina stepped forward again, and this time her staff pressed even deeper. The shaft started glowing with a soft white light. “If that was all him, the draasin would not have allowed you to ride. You would not have been brought to me. He taught you more than you realize.”

She thought of the tapping, the steady rhythm he had used to draw the draasin, and the familiar way that it had called to her. Ciara had felt something similar as a child, had known that rhythm before and would have been able to dance to it with her eyes closed. Even now, she could feel the solid cadence of the tapping and the emotion that it stirred in her chest.

Without thinking, she lifted her j’na and pressed it to the ground with a sharp flick of her wrist. The motion was different than what Olina used—hers was a steady pressure into the ground while Ciara used a quick snap—but there came a flash from the j’na and a sizzle of heat that reminded her of Rens.

Olina smiled and took a step to the side. She pressed again with her staff, and Ciara copied her, snapping her j’na to the ground.