Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (3 page)

Rather than pushing on earth, she tried to pull against their shaping, working to slow what they did. Bayan’s shaping slipped, and Alena knew she’d detected what Alena had done.

“Hold it!” she snapped.

There was nothing to do but continue. She would have to come up with an explanation for Bayan at some point when this was done,
if
she managed to stop what Ifrit and Calan did.

Their shaping reached Sashi. The elemental roared. She heard it
and
felt it. It came with a cry for help, fear and anger mingling within her mind. The draasin had allowed themselves to come to the barracks under the assumption that Alena would keep them safe.

She couldn’t stop Calan or Ifrit, not with a masked shaping. And she wasn’t about to reveal herself to them. Even more would be risked then.

Maybe she didn’t have to. Could she loosen the chains around the draasin? If she allowed it to escape, it
might
have a chance.

Alena turned her attention and began unraveling the dense shaping that had crafted the chains in the first place. Their making had required skilled earth shapers to add strength and flexibility to the stone but also trap the power of the shaping within, using the binding symbols Cheneth had demonstrated. None in Atenas knew how to create such symbols, and she hadn’t seen then before coming to the barracks. Freeing the chains, weakening the earth trapped within them, was almost as difficult as pulling on earth.

“Try shaping the mark,” Bayan suggested.

Alena glanced at her and saw the way Bayan studied her, the curious expression she wore. There
would
be questions, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to answer them. She might need to involve Eldridge, if he would ever return, or even Cheneth, though she didn’t want to think of his anger at learning she had been the one to reveal the secrets.

The idea had merit, though. Alena focused on the mark, sensing them even from a distance. She pressed fire and wind through them, countering water and earth that had made the chain.

Sashi roared again, this time almost completely in her mind.

Alena dropped to the ground and focused on pushing through the symbol. She wasn’t strong enough.

Fire suddenly filled her and she poured it into the mark. Somehow, she
felt
it as the symbol split, losing whatever stored energy it had.

The draasin roared, and fire raged against earth.

Calan and Ifrit’s shaping pushed, but Alena took the opportunity to add her shaping to Sashi’s and pushed against them. Fire exploded in a plume visible through the trees. Someone screamed, and Bayan’s shaping failed completely.

The ground trembled and she fell, crashing into one of the nearby trees. Bayan went sprawling and landed, looking up with bewilderment on her face.

A painful shriek echoed through the trees, and Sashi exploded from the pen with a surprising spray of earth and fire. A defiant shout went through her mind. With another streak of fire, she sprayed the ground before taking flight and shooting above the trees. She circled once and then raced to the south, quickly disappearing.

She held on to the tree for a moment before going to check on Bayan. Her student looked up at her, eyes wide.

“What happened?” Bayan asked.

“Blasted Calan, that’s what,” Alena swore.

“You…” Bayan swallowed, unsure what to say. “You
helped
it.”

“I helped
her
, not it.” She stood, facing the trees as she felt Calan’s shaping build. Was the blasted man going to chase after Sashi? If he did, Alena would have no choice but to go after him and ensure that he didn’t harm the elemental.

She waited, but Calan never went after the draasin.

She started to relax, but then she felt another surge of fear and terror, but so quick and powerful that she couldn’t do anything. It mixed with a crushing sense of earth shaping. The smallest draasin struggled and then fell silent.

No!

The shout did no good. The draasin was gone.

Alena fell to her knees, ignoring Bayan’s stare.

T
he winds outside Atenas swirled
, sending the scents of the city and her people fluttering toward Jasn. After the months spent studying in the barracks, time where he’d been surrounded by nothing by forest and streams and the draasin, it was a notable change. Why, then, did he find himself missing the solitude of the barracks?

Since leaving his home, taken away by a scholar named Renis, he’d spent nearly all his days in Atenas. It was a city as much as it was a center of learning, the tower marking the place of study rising high above the horizon so that none could miss its presence.

Jasn didn’t need to see the tower to know that Atenas was there. The tower itself was a marker, a place where those gifted with the ability to shape and control the elements could learn, but in many ways, it was more than that. Atenas marked the heart of the order, a place of power for the warriors, so it should be his home.

Still, he hesitated.

“Have you made a decision?” Lachen asked.

It had been a week since he’d seen his old friend last, a week since he’d helped Alena heal the draasin and learned her secret, and a week since Lachen had shared
his
secret with Jasn.

“You know I support the order,” Jasn said.

Lachen smiled, though Jasn could tell it was forced. The smile never reached his eyes, not as it did when they were children. Then, Lachen had smiled easily and often. “The strength of the order is about to be tested. I need you to finish your training at the barracks.”

“You need me to spy for you.”

Lachen met his eyes with a shrug. “I said there would be a sacrifice. In the days ahead, all must make sacrifices if we are to survive.”

Jasn sniffed, suppressing a surge of irritation. Why did he feel that he was being used by both sides? “I think we can both agree that I’ve already made sacrifices.”

“You have. As have I.”

A shaping built off in the distance; powerful, if he could detect it from here. Jasn listened to the draw of the shaping and realized that he sensed dozens of shapings, more than he’d ever been aware of during his time in Atenas before. Was he that much more sensitive to them because he’d been gone so long, or had he already learned so much that he was more attuned to shaping? That seemed unlikely, but then so too did some of the control and skill that he’d witnessed from the hunters at the barracks.

“What sacrifices has the commander of the order been asked to make?”

“The kind that made me commander.”

Jasn shook his head and looked away. Few knew how Lachen supplanted Nolan as commander, and Jasn wasn’t about to ask. “I wouldn’t know anything about that.”

He glanced at the landscape around him. Here were the sloping hills where he’d first learned to reach earth, learning to first sense and then control the powers of the land, using it to create barriers and dig trenches, all the techniques that warriors of the order were expected to know to prepare for their role in the war with Rens. Now that war was winding down, shapers had less need to know how to disrupt the earth, to destroy buildings and level entire cities with little more than a thought. Jasn had once thought himself a skilled earth shaper, having mastered all that he could learn in Atenas, but he’d been wrong. From the first time he’d worked with Alena, he’d learned how little he knew and how skilled the damn woman was.

And now he knew something more about her. Now he knew that she had been Katya’s instructor in the days before she died. Why hadn’t Alena mentioned
that
fact?

Lachen smiled again, as forced as before. “Tell me, my friend”—Jasn found his heart clenching when Lachen called him friend—“Have you felt the stirring power in the darkness? When you sit under the blanket of night, have you felt the power all around you, that power that drives the world, and known that you can only touch a portion of it? Have you felt the way that power surges beyond your reach and known that others can touch it?”

Jasn turned to him, and for the first time when speaking to Lachen, saw an earnest expression that he recognized. He spoke with an intensity that burned within him and a longing that hung on his words, Lachen’s desire for that power clear.

“What kind of power are you talking about?” Jasn asked.

“The kind the draasin possess. The kind others possess.”

Jasn tensed and was careful what he asked next. Alena might have hidden the truth of what happened to Katya from him, but there were other things that
had
been shared with him. Cheneth had called the draasin elementals and explained that they were creatures of power, of pure fire and wind. “Not the order?”

“The order touches barely the edge of the elemental power,” Lachen answered.

Had he used the term
elemental
intentionally? Maybe Jasn needed to share with Lachen what he’d learned, but he still wasn’t sure that he should. He could return to the barracks. That was what Lachen wanted of him, so that he could discover what Cheneth had planned, but Jasn didn’t need to return to know that. He’d seen the way Alena deferred to the draasin, had heard her claims of the ability to speak to them. Wasn’t that enough to share with Lachen?

But he didn’t. Jasn kept that fact to himself, hadn’t shared that even after learning about Alena’s role in Katya’s death. He still didn’t know why.

A shaping built from Lachen, powerful and complex, more than Jasn could follow. Had he not spent as much time in the barracks as he had, time spent learning from shapers like Alena and Wyath, shapers who possessed more shaping ability than he thought possible, he might not have understood just how complicated was Lachen’s shaping. But he’d learned to watch for the subtle twisting of power and noted the way Lachen wound it together, binding the different elements in a pattern of incredible complexity before casting it out and away from him.

Lachen held his breath for a moment and then released it in a soft huff. “Power builds, Jasn,” he said softly. “Power that will change the world. We must be ready.
You
must be ready.”

“You speak of things that I don’t understand and choose not to explain when you ask me to make choices. Now you speak of power and preparation, but you say nothing of
how
.”

“Don’t I?” Lachen asked. “Haven’t I asked you to study in the barracks?”

“How will that help me prepare?”

Lachen smiled, and there was darkness in it. “Your studying in the barracks is how I prepare.” Faster than a thought, he pulled a shaping of lightning and disappeared, traveling in a streak toward Atenas.

Jasn hesitated. He didn’t have to follow, but between Cheneth keeping the draasin alive and now Lachen talking about changing power, he needed to know more.

He also
wanted
to know more. Since Katya’s death, he’d wanted nothing more than to be given the chance to attack, to find a way toward vengeance, and if he joined her in the after, then so be it. Now?

Jasn sighed. He didn’t know what he wanted.

Drawing on each of the elements, calling fire, wind, earth, and water to him and binding them together, he pulled a shaping of lightning toward him with a sigh and followed Lachen.

The shaping brought him to the base of the tower, within the city of Atenas itself, leaving him standing in the center of a wide stone shaper circle. Jasn hurried out of the circle; some had been injured lingering too long, until another shaper arrived to fill the small area. Three circles were placed at the base of the tower, each constructed of stone that had been infused with each of the elements and shaped to hold that power within them. It was a difficult shaping, and one only a few were able to manage. Jasn had never seen the point before, but now that he’d been to the barracks, he understood why power would be infused into other objects. The stone pens holding the draasin had been enchanted with earth and water, binding the draasin in place. So had the chains. If Alena could really speak to the draasin as she claimed, how much of that was really necessary?

The sounds of the city assaulted him. Atenas was the tower itself as well as the city. Up close, the tower was a massive, looming structure that blotted the light of the sun, casting everything nearby in its shadow. The city sprawled around its base, no building taller than three stories, almost deferring to the might of the tower. A large, enclosed plaza held the trio of shaper circles, keeping people from accidentally wandering in and risking injury, but also served to ensure privacy for those returning. Jasn had never cared so much for that before but saw value in it now.

He made his way toward the wide doors at the base of the tower and hesitated, using water and earth to attempt tracking where Lachen had gone. The plaza was empty, though it was early in the day, so not entirely surprising. He expected
some
presence here, yet there was none. Even the activity within the city seemed subdued compared to normal.

Rather than going into the tower, he turned to the wide iron gates leading into the plaza. They were shaped closed, requiring earth and fire to open, ensuring that only shapers—and warriors, at that—were able to enter.

Outside the gate, only a few people passed by on the street. Wagons loaded with supplies made their way along the wide street, heading toward the south end of the city. Men dressed in the finery of Atenas, that of tight breeches and long, flowing shirts belted at the waist, cast a glance in his direction before continuing in either direction. A few small children ran past, one kicking a leather ball while the others tried to catch him.

“You’re standing looking as if you’ve never seen the city before,” Lachen said.

Jasn turned to him, noting that he’d masked his presence, much like Alena had proven capable of doing. It was a trick of shaping that would be useful if he could ever master it. “Why have you come here?”

“Must there be a why? I’m the commander of the order, and this is Atenas.”

“And in all the years I’ve been in Atenas, I think I saw you in the city maybe a dozen times.”

Lachen shrugged. “There are other ways I lead, especially regarding the war. And the council serves well enough, for the most part. I provide guidance, but they don’t always care for my interference.”

Jasn thought that a strange way to phrase it. “You’re the commander.”

“And you sit among the order. You know that I lead only when it comes to war.”

Jasn took in another line of wagons making their way through the street. “All of this is for war?” he asked. “Rens is mostly settled.”

“Settled, but still they attack. Strange that the people of Rens retreat, yet still we’re attacked. Draasin drop from the sky, appearing as if on a shaping. The ground trembles, swallowing shapers too slow to change it. Floods sweep men away. And the wind tears at unprotected flesh.” Lachen’s eyes narrowed. “The borders might be settled, but we still fight. That’s why we must remain ready.”

Jasn counted the wagons and stopped when he reached two dozen. Whatever Lachen claimed, this was more than about readiness. This was a continuation of full-on war, but why?

“We’ve never been able to reach deep enough into Rens to understand completely,” Lachen said. “Not with the way the draasin attack anytime we get too close. You of all people should understand that.”

“And something has changed? You think our warriors can penetrate places we’ve been excluded in the past?” He was surprised by the open way that Lachen discussed the plan, as well as the casual manner in which he spoke.

“Yes.”

Jasn looked over, waiting for Lachen to go on.

“Places like the barracks have helped,” he began, and Jasn noted he said “places.” Were there others? “The draasin can be contained with stone and water. Fire held by earth. Wind counters water, strengthened by fire. Each element has weaknesses, and it is those we will use.”

Jasn found his heart pounding faster in his chest. Would Lachen notice? Probably. He was a more highly skilled water shaper than Jasn, a more skilled shaper in general, so it was likely he would pick up on the way Jasn’s heart rate changed when he spoke of containment.

Cheneth had mentioned other elementals, creatures like the draasin but different, creatures that used the power of the elements in ways he didn’t fully understand. Was
that
what Lachen intended to attack?

“How do you think I can help?” he asked.

“What makes you think you aren’t helping?”

“I’m here rather than in the barracks.”

Lachen nodded. “Yes, you’re here. I would prefer that you master the barracks first, then we will see how you can help with the others.”

Lachen started down the street and didn’t bother to glance back to see whether Jasn followed. Likely he sensed it, but what was his old friend playing at?

Jasn had to remind himself that the man walking in front of him wasn’t the same one he’d known as a child. Lachen might share those memories, but there was none of the bond they’d shared growing up, climbing along the hills as they chased deer and rabbits. There was none of the connection that should be between them from the experience of coming to Atenas together, brought by Renis after he’d stopped in their village. All that he was left with was this shell of a friend, a man who shared those memories but didn’t seem to have any of the same connection to them that Jasn had.

“What other places are there?” Jasn asked as he caught up.

Lachen glanced over, his eyes narrowing.

“You said places like the barracks. That means there are others.”

The corner of Lachen’s mouth quirked slightly. “You can be clever, can’t you?” he said, more to himself. “But that is what I said.”

“Other places.” Jasn glanced around and lowered his voice. “To hunt draasin?”

“Not draasin.”