Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (5 page)

Oliver studied him for another moment, and his eyes narrowed. “Then you don’t know what happened with her.”

“What do you mean?” This wasn’t the reason he had come to speak to Oliver. He’d wanted to know whether his mentor knew anything about the elementals. Given the way he knew about shaping, and the sometimes supernatural ability he had with healing, Jasn had immediately thought of Oliver when he’d learned of the elementals. What if Oliver could speak to them, much like Alena could speak to the draasin? And if he could, was there anything he could do to teach Jasn?

Oliver stood and pushed his chair out of the way and turned to the hearth. “I think that you need to go. If you’ve gone where I suspect you have, I cannot condone what you learn. I wish you to find peace, Jasn. That’s all that I want for any student, but given what you’ve gone through, I want it for you most of all.”

Jasn wasn’t ready to leave, not if Oliver really did know about the barracks, or if he knew about the elementals. “You don’t think I should learn to hunt the draasin?”

Silence hung between them for long moments.

“That you need to ask tells me how little you have learned from me.”

Jasn stood and started toward the door. Maybe it
had
been a mistake for him to come here. How would he even have asked what he wanted to know? If he was wrong, Oliver would ask questions that Jasn wasn’t sure he had answers for. And if he was right… there might still be questions he didn’t have the answers for.

“I’m sorry that I came here,” Jasn said, resting his hand on the door. He readied a shaping, peeling away the layer of protection Oliver had placed, still not certain why he had.

Oliver turned to him. “Where did you learn that?”

“Learn what?”

“When you shaped, I felt almost nothing of it. Where did you learn it?”

Damn. Alena had demonstrated the shaping, but he hadn’t really thought about what he was doing when he used it. Most of the time, he shaped instinctively, especially now that he’d become more skilled with the technique of masking. “I thought you knew where I had gone.”

“Who’s your instructor?” Oliver asked again.

“Alena.”

Oliver closed his eyes and sighed. “That bastard. He
knew
and still he sent you there. How did he manage to pair you with her?”

“The commander only suggested the pairing.” Cheneth had agreed, and Jasn suspected Alena still hadn’t forgiven him for assigning her another student.

“I thought…”

“Perhaps you don’t know all that you think you do,” Jasn said.

Oliver slammed another shaping of water into place, sealing them once more in the room. Jasn readied another shaping to leave, but Oliver grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him back a step. He was stronger than Jasn would have expected, stronger than someone only able to weakly shape earth should be.

“You can’t kill them,” Oliver said, pleading.

Jasn frowned. “I can’t?”

“I know what you think, but it’s wrong. The commander hasn’t told you everything. Chances are Alena hasn’t told you everything.”

Jasn waited, feeling a thrill rising through him with the possibility that Oliver might share with him that he knew how to speak to the elementals, that he knew of the draasin and what they really were, maybe even that he knew of whatever secret war Lachen feared. What he said next was none of those.

“She’s not dead, Jasn.”

“Who?” he asked, but in his fluttering heart, he already knew who Oliver referred to.

“Might be as good as dead, but Katya… She’s not dead.”

W
hen the wind shifted
, Ciara felt the drawing of sand as it brushed against her skin, a painful, raw sensation that her thin elouf did nothing to mask. She even kept her foul-smelling shaisa veil in place, keeping sand from blowing into her mouth and avoiding tasting the sand from the waste. The clothing did nothing to prevent it from creeping through the folds in the fabric, though, leaving her wanting nothing more than to remove the veil completely.

It was a measure of her discomfort that she even considered it. No one was even around to witness her shame, but that didn’t make her any less embarrassed. She trudged on, fighting across the rolling dunes of endless sand.

At least she had water. The strange lizard had directed her to the spindly plant where the thick gourds grew; they somehow sucked up water from the depths of the ground and stored it within their thick hides. Ciara felt almost embarrassed by the riches of water she carried with her, as if she should suffer more than she did, but crossing the waste this time was much different than the last.

Using her knife, she stabbed into one of the gourds and drank the water within. Crossing the waste was dangerous enough, and she had no waterskin. The gourds provided, though.

She couldn’t remember reaching the top of the shelf again. How had she climbed it? The last time she’d been through here, she’d fallen and nearly died. If not for the lizard… she didn’t know what would have happened. Maybe nothing. Had the lizard carried her up the side of the shelf as well?

“You could slow down,” she said to it, pausing to take another drink. How many of the gourds remained? She’d lost count and didn’t have the energy to check.

It glanced up at her and ran its tongue over its lips, the same tongue that had coated her in the strange crust that had healed her. She didn’t understand anything about the lizard, other than that it had helped her. Of that, there was no longer any doubt. But had she really heard it speak in her mind?

The voice hadn’t come again, not since the single time, making Ciara wonder if maybe she hadn’t imagined it in the first place. She’d been sleep deprived and scared, and the heat of the desert had burned upon her, leaving her the potential for visions. Only, she didn’t think that was what she’d experienced.

The strange shadow man who’d led her across the waste and nearly attacked her hadn’t been a vision, had he? Why the voice then?

Ciara took another drink and continued on. Sand sloped ever upward, and the gray-scaled lizard pattered forward, undulating in that strange way he did when he walked so that the sunlight caught on whorls of blue along his sides. His fat tail traced a straight path across the sand, and she managed to follow it.

“Where are you leading me this time?”

The lizard didn’t answer, but she no longer expected it to.

She followed, pausing every so often to take another drink. The hot sun baked her, and a part of her knew she shouldn’t be crossing in the day, that night would be cooler, but there were other dangers at night. She and Fas might have survived the last time, but she’d barely managed to do so, and she still didn’t know if Fas lived.

The lizard led her toward a wide, packed path. Were it anywhere other than the waste, she would have thought it some sort of dry streambed, but no water flowed through the waste, not even after the Great Storms. Almost nothing lived here.

Once, she had thought nothing lived in the waste. When she’d crossed with Fas, it had been too dark, but in the daylight, she caught glimpses of waxy yellow plants atop the dunes. The lizard never led her near them, and she never wandered away from it.

“I need to stop,” she said.

The lizard turned and made a soft hissing noise in the back of its throat. It had done the same each time she refused to follow as it intended.

Ciara sighed and threw her hands up. “I’m hungry and thirsty.” And exhausted and scared. How many days had she wandered so far? She’d lost count at this point. As far as she knew, it could be days or weeks.

The lizard came back to her and nudged her leg with its long, narrow head. It was stronger than it seemed and she stumbled, trying to use her j’na to catch her. When she fell, the gourds spilled out around her.

She took a pair and stabbed them, drinking as much as she could, and chewed on the thick rind. It wouldn’t be enough to sustain her indefinitely, but there were worse things she could eat, and the water was clear, if not slightly bitter.

The lizard nudged her again, and she collected the gourds before standing and following its trail across the sand.

She lost track of time. The sun shifted in the sky, but it seemed to move slowly, as if time passed differently in the waste. She pulled on her elouf, trying to free the sand burrowed into places she’d never be able to get it free from, and moved the shaisa to keep sand from her mouth, but nothing seemed to stop the relentless shifting of the sand. The wind didn’t help.

Her mind began to wander. At first, she recognized that it was happening, knowing it was a combination of the heat and fatigue. Nothing else would explain the way she could practically
see
the wind, swirls of translucent shapes moving in the hot breeze as if urging her on.

Even the sand seemed to push her, sliding her forward as if the waste tried to shove her away. Ciara wanted nothing more than to lie down and move with the sand flows, but every time she attempted to slow, the lizard nudged her again and sent her staggering forward.

Eventually the heat rising off the ground—had the dunes flattened so much, and why were there cracks in the ground?—created images in front of her. They had to be images a part of her knew, because there was no way she should see wagons, or the great chemel, or even a flock of ragged-looking shepa.

Ciara stumbled and caught herself with her j’na, plunging the spear into the ground. The earth was harder than it should be, and she staggered until the end of the spear caught. Light danced off the draasin-glass tip, shining like the sun itself. She glanced down to the lizard to ask why she should now have visions, especially now that she had plenty of water and no reason to have them, but the lizard was gone.

“Where did you go?” she said.

The vision of wagons and chemel neared, and she fell forward. Strong hands caught her and she jerked. Had the strange shadow man returned? The thought of seeing him again terrified her in some deep way she couldn’t really explain.

“Ciara,” a soothing voice said.

She blinked, seeing nothing but a dark figure in front of her, and swung with her j’na, slicing outward with the spear. She reached for her knife, but that had been lost somewhere, leaving her with only the spear. As nya’shin, the spear alone should be enough for protection.

“Ciara,” another voice said.

This sounded like her father, but her father was with the village and lost to her. The strange shadow man claimed they lived, that the Stormbringer had provided enough rain, even if only to give them another few days, but she hadn’t been sure whether to believe him. Seeing what had happened to the lizards, she doubted that she should trust him at all. The lizard had helped her. What had the shadow man done?

Then her j’na was forced down, the tip buried into the sand, and the spear itself pried from her grip. She let it fall.

She was carried gently and placed onto a hard surface. A shadow covered her, and for a moment she panicked, kicking as hard as she could. Someone held her down. Was it the shadow man? Had he come back for her?

Water dribbled into her mouth and she swallowed, wondering why she’d be so thirsty. She had gourds, dozens of them, enough to drink freely, but she’d been drinking from them over the past few hours, so maybe she didn’t have as many remaining as she thought.

“Where did she get the osidan?” someone asked.

It wasn’t the shadow man, but Ciara didn’t recognize the voice and wanted to grab her j’na, tell them it wasn’t osidan, but she couldn’t move. Her body felt exhausted in ways that she couldn’t explain. Everything about her hurt, reminding her of when she’d fallen from the shelf along the edge of the waste.

“A different color of osidan,” someone else—her father?—said, though that couldn’t be right. Her father was with the village.

Someone was brushing her hair, and then she was rolled, first one way and then the other before they settled her back on the hard surface. Ciara tried moving, but a comforting hand pressed against her shoulders, keeping her from going anywhere. A soft
shushing
whispered near her ear. Distantly, she heard the hissing sound of the lizard.

More water dripped into her mouth and she took another drink, licking her lips and thinking of the lizard as she did. Where was it? Why abandon her when she needed it the most?

“How did she find us?” a voice, this one sounding so much like Fas, asked.

“The lizard brought me to you,” she said. Her voice came out in a croak, the water pouring over her lips and mouth not making a difference. She ran her tongue over her lips, trying to wet them, but they felt thick and cracked.

“What did she say?”

“Sun sickness. How long has she been out there?” This one sounded almost like her mother, but that couldn’t be, as her mother had been dead for years.

“She’s been gone…”

Ciara strained to listen, her mind starting to clear, if only a little. Had it not been a vision? Had she actually reached the village?

“Too long to survive,” someone else said. “Especially without water.”

“She sent it with me.” Now she was sure it was Fas, but how could he have found her?

“On the waste, alone? The Stormbringer must have watched over her.”

“Not Stormbringer,” she said.

The soothing hand touching her hair continued. Water dripped into her mouth, slowly, but more than she should be allotted, especially if she had returned to the village. They’d waste water on her.

Ciara managed to open her eyes. A thin sheet hung over her, shielding her from the heat of the sun. A grizzled man with gray hair so much like her father’s looked down at her. Could he be her father?

“Her eyes are open.”

“I can see that her eyes are open, Usal,” her father said. He touched her cheek, running a callused finger across skin that ached where he touched. “She’s badly burned. I can heal her—”

Ciara pushed up, and whoever held her shoulder tried to keep her from sitting too fast. “No. Don’t waste water on me.”

Her father met her eyes, and she could see the emotion flickering across them. “We have water to spare.”

He and another person placed hands on each of her cheeks. Ciara tried resisting, but cold washed through her more suddenly than she could react. It felt like she was plunged into an overpowering storm with sluicing rain sweeping through her. Her hands balled into fists, and pain surged. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe.

Then it was over. Pain eased away, leaving her weakened. She struggled to focus, unable to wrap her mind around what had just happened to her. Pain that she hadn’t known she had been fighting was gone, leaving her feeling refreshed.

Hands came away from her face, and the pressure on her shoulders eased as whoever had been holding her down relaxed their grip.

Ciara sat up and slowly looked around. “You shouldn’t have—”

Her father pulled her j’na closer and rested it next to the wagon she was lying in. “You are nya’shin, Ciara. You must be healed.”

“How can I be nya’shin if I can’t shape water like the others?”

He looked past her and she followed the direction of his gaze to see Fas watching her through somber eyes. His usually dark skin had a waxy appearance, as if the injury that he’d only barely recovered from the last time she saw him still lingered.

“How did you survive?” He hesitated, then approached cautiously and took her hands.

When the others around them backed away, her father squeezed her shoulder slightly and went with them, leaving her with Fas.

Fas smelled of heat and sweat, but also something sickly. “You gave me more of the water than you should have. It wasn’t until I was nearly across the waste that I realized what you’d done.”

“You needed to warn the village,” she said.

“You needed to return with me.”

“I returned.” Ciara still didn’t know how it had been possible.

That wasn’t quite right. She knew exactly how it had been possible, only she didn’t know whether she could believe it. Had the lizard really led her across the waste and back to the village? Why drag her so far away from her people in the first place… unless that wasn’t what it had done at all.

She hadn’t considered that possibility. Maybe the lizard had brought her back to the village a different way, one she never would have found on her own.

If that was true, then where had it gone?

“How long have I been gone?” she asked.

“Nearly two weeks.”

Two weeks. She would have expected days, possibly even a week, but two weeks? It seemed impossible that she could have been gone that long, but then, it was impossible that the lizard guided her across the waste.

She shifted where she sat and felt pressure against her back. Reaching behind her, she pulled a gourd from the cloth of her elouf, somehow lodging inside and making it back with her.

Fas studied it for a moment before his eyes went wide. “That’s
wisani
.” He used a word in old Rens, one Ciara didn’t recognize.

Ciara shrugged and reached for her spear, stabbed the top of the gourd with it. Water dripped out and she brought it to her mouth. Fas stretched toward the gourd as if intending to take it from her.

Ciara jerked her hands back and took a deep drink from the gourd, trying—and failing—to keep the water from dribbling down her chin. In spite of having access to so many of the gourds, she still struggled with losing even a drop of water.