Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2) (25 page)

T
he walk
through the barracks seemed to take far longer than it should have. With each step, Alena clutched the draasin egg more tightly, holding it against her, fearful that Calan or Ifrit would reach her before she had a chance to get it to safety. But where was safety for the draasin egg? Was it that even possible?

And when had the focus of her life shifted to saving the draasin?

Alena and Jasn turned down another side street. This would take her past Tarak, but his door was closed. She doubted that they could trust him any more than they could trust Calan.

Blast this place! And blast her stupidity in using fire shaping on the draasin egg. What had she been thinking? Volth had even warned her against it, but had she listened?

“What will you do with the egg when the draasin can’t help?” he asked.

He led them through the streets, his broad back providing some protection. Blood stained his cloak and the tears in it were impressive, even knowing what he’d gone through. How was he able to survive all that he had? Could the elementals really care so much about one person that they kept him alive?

“If the draasin can’t hatch it,” she said, still not certain whether that would be true, “then he can keep the egg safe.”

“You intend to free him within the pen?”

Alena hadn’t really given it that much thought, but there would be little the draasin could do while chained to the wall. The stone would block the draasin’s access to fire and make it less likely he could protect the egg. Freeing him from the stone chain would help, but it would endanger anyone else who might try to enter the pen.

Blast!

She wanted to scream but didn’t dare draw any more attention to them than they already had. One step at a time. Reach the pen. Speak to the draasin. Move on if needed.

It bothered her that she didn’t hear the draasin in her mind as she expected. When she had returned, she had been so focused on getting the egg to safety and then been so distracted by Jasn’s willingness to help her that she hadn’t taken the time to focus on the draasin in the pen.

She
should
hear it in her mind, even if only weakly. Always before, she had heard the creature, but now it had gone silent.

What did that mean?

Perhaps he was angry about what happened with the others. As far as she knew, the draasin spoke through a connection she didn’t fully understand. Not with as much consistency as she would like, but it allowed her a glimpse of something greater.

“We’ll do what we have to,” she said.

We. Not I.

She cringed as she said it. When did she start relying so much on Volth? That troubled her almost as much as not hearing the draasin. Alena had long prided herself on her independence, but now she not only wanted his help, she suspected that she
needed
it. He had helped heal her—saved her, really—and now she didn’t think she could risk going after the draasin without his assistance.

“Come this way,” he said. “There’s someone two buildings down making their way toward us.”

She didn’t have to ask how he knew. Normally, she would have known as well, but the draasin egg drew steadily from her, taking enough strength that she’d lost the connection to water and earth she once had. Jasn also had the advantage that he was more tightly bound to water than she was. There were uses of water that she’d only glimpsed, much like there were ways she’d learned to use fire that others didn’t—and couldn’t—understand.

They ducked between two dorms. One, she noted, was Bayan’s. “We will need to find her,” she said, mostly to herself.

“Either she’s the reason the walls collapsed on me, or whoever was behind it took her.”

Alena hadn’t considered that he might have been sabotaged. It made sense. If he truly could use water in the ways that he did and could reach the water elementals, this darkness that Cheneth feared, this Tenebeth, would fear that as well, wouldn’t it?

“Not much farther,” Jasn said.

“I think I know the barracks,” she snapped.

He ignored her tone. “You’re distracted. Between the”—he nodded at the egg—“well,
that
, and its effect on you, you could use some help. Don’t think I don’t know how hard that is on you.”

She opened her mouth to make a snappy comment but bit it back. That he was right didn’t make it any easier to hear. “Just get us there.”

They turned and Jasn stopped suddenly.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Where is she?”

Ifrit. Alena recognized the woman’s voice. They hadn’t spoken since she’d seen Ifrit attempting to destroy the draasin. The same rage she’d felt then boiled to the surface, only this time, she wasn’t willing to simply hide the fact that she’d helped the draasin. What did it matter now?

“Who do you seek?” Jasn stepped to the side, continuing to block Alena with his body. She wasn’t a small woman, but he was broad shouldered, and with the cloak covering him, he created even more shading to hide her.

“Step aside, student. I sense her with you. You have my gratitude for the healing, but do not make me force you out of the way.”

Jasn chuckled. He had always been confident, but now he took on an arrogant tone. Maybe that wasn’t quite right. He’d been arrogant when he came. In the time that he’d been in the barracks, she’d learned that it was deserved. At least part of it was deserved.

“You may try, Ifrit. You’ll find that I fight as well as I heal.”

Ifrit lowered her voice, but it carried to Alena. “Did you know what I would hear?” she asked Jasn.

He stiffened. “And what do you hear, Ifrit?”

“A soft murmuring. A calling. I can almost understand it, but it is distant. Faint. What does it mean?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “What do you think it means?”

Alena leaned past Jasn so that she could see the troubled expression that crossed Ifrit’s face.

“I don’t know what it means. There is a call to action, to help, but from who? Has this happened each time you heal someone?”

Alena started forward, but Jasn pushed his hand behind him and blocked her.

“Talk to Cheneth. He will have answers, but be prepared to listen.”

Ifrit started to move down the street but paused. Alena could no longer see her from behind Jasn’s body. “Tell her… Tell her that Calan came to me. Warn her that there is anger in him. I… I feel it.” Ifrit let out a sigh and then continued down the street, disappearing from view.

Jasn turned. “How is it that my healing allows others to hear the elementals?”

“I don’t know,” Alena answered, shaking off the hand that held her back, never mind the fact that she didn’t mind the strong grip holding on to her cloak. “Cheneth said those chosen for the barracks had potential. Not all realize that potential, but enough. Maybe you healed the potential, opened it so that they could reach it.”

Jasn’s eyes narrowed. “Why
them
? Ifrit and Thenas?”

“Couldn’t it have been anyone?”

“They were both Calan’s students. Don’t you find that a strange connection?”

Alena pushed him forward, toward the draasin pen. “Calan might enjoy the hunt a little too much, but that’s only because he’s been hurt. Most who come here are damaged in some way, Jasn. That’s what it takes to face the draasin without fear.”

He sniffed. “You no longer feel fear around them?” His gaze drifted to the egg and a smile parted his lips.

“I no longer look at them as savage monsters,” she said. “I seem to recall that you had a similar belief when you first arrived. How do you feel about the draasin now?”

Jasn started across the street toward the draasin pen. As he did, Alena began to feel the soft pull of the creature, but it was distant, as if faded from what it should be.

“I recognize that they are more than I realized, but they might also be exactly what I feared.”

“How is that?”

Jasn swept his gaze around the barracks, and a strong shaping came from him. She didn’t know whether she sensed it because of its strength or because of the connection between them. Perhaps both, she decided.

“When I first learned of what happened to Katya,” he started, his voice catching as he said her name, “I blamed the draasin. I changed that day. I had always been a healer, but from that day onward, I wanted more. I wanted vengeance. When I went to the front, I saw draasin attacking some of the cities along the border. I saw shapers die and knew, I
knew
, that was how Katya died.”

They stopped outside the pen. Alena glanced at the letters carved into the stone and reached toward one of them, pushing a faded shaping of earth through it to open the pen. She wasn’t strong enough.

“Issa—your Katya—didn’t die that way.”

Jasn sighed. “I know. And she might not even have died, but that would be worse, wouldn’t it?”

“Why is that worse?”

Alena frowned as he reached toward the wall of the pen. He used a shaping of earth in a subtle crafting and the stone began to part.

Jasn nodded toward the darkness inside the pen. “I’ve struggled with the fact that she might not have died. But if she didn’t, why hasn’t she returned?”

He sealed the pen closed again, plunging them into darkness. Heat filled the room and the draasin snorted a small trail of flame.

“After hearing Cheneth, I can only think of one reason, and that’s because she was corrupted by Tenebeth. And if she’s gone, what if she’s now the one using the draasin and attacking along the border?”

Alena shook her head until she realized Jasn wouldn’t be able to see it. “Cheneth also said that Tenebeth seeks those with the ability to speak to the elementals. When Issa was here, she couldn’t.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Alena thought of what she remembered of Issa. Dark skinned, tall, and lovely. She had powerful shaping from the beginning and needed guidance. Cheneth had seen potential within her, but Alena hadn’t been certain. Still, she took her as a student, determined not to share too much with her. Issa never discovered that Alena could speak to the elementals, and she’d never displayed any ability to speak to them herself.

“Why do you ask?” Alena focused on the lanterns she knew were in the pen. Shaping light into them wouldn’t take much, even weakened as she was. The lanterns came to a soft glow, and she saw Jasn staring at her as if he knew exactly where to find her.

“Because of Ifrit. And Wyath. Probably Thenas. Each person I healed developed the ability to hear the elementals. Why not Katya?”

Alena opened her mouth, but there was nothing to say. She didn’t know what had happened to Issa after she disappeared. Dead, or so she had thought, but what if not? What if there was a different—and far darker—explanation?

Nothing she could say would put his mind at ease.

The draasin snorted, drawing her attention. She was thankful for the distraction.

Lren. You have brought one of the young with you, but it is too soon for that one.

The voice was distant and she had to focus on it, but it was there. That distance was likely the reason she hadn’t heard him before.

“What did he say?” Jasn asked.

Alena looked to see him staring at the draasin, his eyes narrowed. “He says that it is too soon for this egg.”

She took a cautious step toward the draasin.
Can you help the egg hatch?

The draasin snorted.
You ask for something that cannot be.

Why?

The draasin took a few small steps along the wall and turned toward her. He flicked his tail and it slammed into the stone wall, sending a small trail of rock crumbling down toward the floor of the pen.
You have known to count the spikes, have you not?

Alena nodded. That meant that Cheneth was right and that only the female draasin could help hatch the egg.
It has attacked me.

Not attacked, Lren. You have drawn him, and he is already powerful. The one you hold could be great one day.

How do you know?

Look at his wings and the coloring. They are vivid, even here. That one must be given a chance to survive, the chance that many of my kind have lost, but the egg is fragile and weak. He does not have much time.

Alena swallowed. She didn’t need the added pressure from the draasin.
I must find a female.

If you would see this one survive, yes.

Alena looked over at Jasn and saw that he still stared at the draasin. A puzzled look pinched his face. He took another step, moving closer to the draasin than she had ever seen him.

How much time do we have?

The draasin snorted.
I am young and have not seen many hatch. You ask what I cannot answer.

But you have an idea.

As I have said, the shell is fragile. There is not much time. You must find a mother to feed the egg.

Feed?

Fire. He requires fire or he will perish.

At least now Alena understood why the draasin pulled fire from her, though she had understood, or thought that she’d understood when it—he—had latched on to her shaping.
And you cannot provide this fire?

The connection does not work in such a way.

Alena wanted to ask what that meant but had the sense that the draasin wasn’t even certain.
What do you know of Tenebeth?
she asked instead.

The draasin snorted and flicked his tail again.
I do not know this word.

The darkness that you fear.

The draasin do not fear,
the draasin said, lowering his head and snorting steam at her.

You have allowed yourself to come here and be confined. There is something you fear. I need to know if I am to help.
Alena hesitated, thinking of the draasin that had been taken, drawn by the shadows.
There was a draasin here, a female, that has been taken. I would save her if I can.

There is nothing you can do to save her.