Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (28 page)

Read Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) Online

Authors: D.K. Holmberg

Ciara

Shapers alone cannot stop Tenebeth. They will need something more. I fear I must abandon impartiality. If I do not, darkness will escape in full.
—Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

C
iara sat
cross-legged on the ground, her j’na resting over her knees. She still wasn’t sure what to make of the fact that shapers from Ter had helped with the draasin. She had known them as savages, but that wasn’t what she’d seen from them at all.

Could they really have only wanted to help?

That hadn’t been her experience, though. Shapers from Ter
had
attacked her village and
had
destroyed her homeland. Whatever else they did, there was no doubting what they had done in the past.

She couldn’t take her eyes off the muscular man who leaned over the dark-haired woman. A water shaper—she was certain of it—the strength he had displayed had been tremendous. He spoke softly, but loud enough for her to hear.

“Can you tell?” the man asked.

The woman nodded. “She speaks to me again,” the woman said. “We need to return to the barracks for the egg, but she will help.” The woman looked at the draasin, watching without any sign of fear. The draasin rested quietly, long tail curled around it, looking more like some massive desert fox. Though it was hidden behind the elemental, Ciara sensed the lizard working its tongue over the draasin’s scales. The others hadn’t seemed to notice yet.

The man sighed. “You will go. Wyath can help,” he said, glancing at the older man standing with his arms crossed, speaking to another hawkish man. “I need to find Bayan and then speak to Lachen, find out how much he knows.”

“Do you really think it wise to go to the commander with questions like that? What if he—”

Ciara didn’t get the chance to hear the rest. Olina leaned over her and flashed a smile that was missing a few teeth. She had recovered her jainah sometime after the draasin had been saved.

“You have been quiet,” Olina said.

“What is there to say?”

Olina tipped her staff toward the shapers of Ter. “You could speak to them. They might have answers to your questions.”

Ciara wondered if they would have answers or if she would be left with only more questions. “All I want is to go home,” she said softly. “I wanted answers, but this is more than I can understand.”

Olina settled down next to her. The ground was hard now, more like the rock found in Rens than the soft and soggy ground she’d known since coming to K’ral. “More? You are a rider. Perhaps you can be a summoner. I would send you to Hylan if I didn’t fear what you might find.”

“What of my people? And my father,” she started but cut herself off. Her father remained in the village, but her people? How many had been lost now? How many remained? Were she to return, there might not be anything for her to help. “I can’t stay here,” Ciara said. This wasn’t home. These lands, as wet and soft as she found them, were so different than her homeland. She could never be comfortable here.

“No. You cannot stay here,” Olina agreed.

Ciara looked over to the old woman. She had half expected Olina to ask her to stay, but if she wouldn’t, what did that mean for her? “They intend to take the draasin with them,” Ciara said. That much she understood from what she’d overheard, just as she understood that they apparently had a draasin egg.

“You understand why?”

Ciara nodded to the dark-haired woman. “She speaks to them.”

Olina nodded. “She does. She is strong.” There was respect in her tone. “One like her could have risen to the level of the wise, but no longer. And the others, they each speak to the elementals, much as you do.” She said nothing for a moment and then waved at the older man.

As he approached, Olina nodded to him and stood. “You will tell Cheneth what I said.”

“He will know.”

Olina glanced down. “Will he teach this one?”

“I can’t speak for him, Olina.”

“You must tell him that she called the nobelas as well as the draasin, and both without training. Let him decide the next step.”

The man called Wyath stared down at Ciara. “I will tell him.”

“Darkness threatened, but there can be healing. First we must throw away old barriers,” Olina said.

Wyath smiled at her. “I am not your student, Olina.”

“No, but you will tell him what I said.”

“I will tell him.”

Olina leaned on her staff and fixed Ciara with an intense stare. “You question where you should go and what you should do. Let Olina the Wise tell you,” she said. “Go to Cheneth to learn.”

“I need to return home.”

“Your home? What will remain of it when Tenebeth comes?” Olina shook her head. “You have shown that you can do much more. I understand why he came for you now.”

Wyath watched her, arms crossed over his chest. She sensed a bright power from him, much like what she sensed from Olina. “Why should I learn from this Cheneth? What can he teach me?”

Olina tapped her staff. It snapped loudly across the hard stone. “Because he was once my student in Hyaln. And he is enlightened. He will teach you what it means to call the draasin and become a rider, only I think that you will be more than simply a rider.”

Ciara ran her fingers along the shaft of her j’na, considering what she should do. Did she go with him, or did she attempt to return to her home?

Then she thought of the draasin and the darkness that she’d seen within it, darkness that was now gone. She thought, too, of the voice of the lizard and its strange ability to heal.

She wanted to know more about them. She
needed
to know more. The next time the shadow man came, she wanted to be ready. And, she had to admit to herself, she wanted to know more about the power she had used. Could she use that to help her people?

Ciara stood and slung her j’na up onto her shoulder, staring at the draasin. How could she choose anything other than a chance at understanding, even if it meant going with shapers of Ter?

“I will go,” she whispered, setting her j’na to the ground softly. Light flashed from it, and she thought she heard an echoing voice in her head.

Ciara wasn’t sure if it was the lizard or Tenebeth.

* * *

O
ut soon - Book
3 of the Endless War:
Summoner’s Bond

C
iara has traveled
to the barracks but the promised teaching has not come to pass, leaving her worse off than before, and her people without the nya'shin for protection. If she can't master the summoning, she fears the darkness will claim her.

But now that the darkness has revealed itself, Jasn must find a way to save Alena from her connection to the draasin before that connection kills her. Only then can he search for whether Katya was destroyed by the darkness, or learn if he can still save her. With her shaping limited, Alena discovers a different reserve of strength, one that will be vital in the coming days.

The real war now begins. They all must learn how to suppress the danger of Tenebeth, discover and stop those responsible for summoning the dark, or none will survive.

About the Author

D
K Holmberg
currently lives in rural Minnesota where the winter cold and the summer mosquitoes keep him inside and writing.

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