Endless Night (3 page)

“
T
hat Rens girl
hasn’t left his dorm since we returned,” Jasn said to Wyath.

They stood in the midst of the barracks, the steady sounds of activity all around, that of swords clanging as warriors practiced, the pulsing pressure of distant shapings, and the occasional murmur of voices. All of it sounded too… normal, especially after what they’d been through. Jasn hadn’t expected normal. Stars, but he didn’t know what he should expect, only that facing the darkness that was Tenebeth should have changed something other than him.

Instead, he had returned to a sense of normalcy in the barracks. Maybe not for Alena, but Jasn had worked with Wyath in the meantime, continuing to master his ability with shaping, learning tricks he had never considered while in Atenas. In the week since they’d been back, Wyath had taught him shaping tricks he thought Jasn might need, starting with ways to shield his shaping, masking it so that others wouldn’t know he was there. He continued to force Jasn to stretch himself, straining with the effort of his shaping, and asked him each day to focus on water, wanting him to develop his ability there as much as he could.

And now, when he
wanted
to use water, he couldn’t. Even connected to water and connected to earth, he couldn’t sense past the boundaries of Cheneth’s dorm. The damned man was more skilled than he had let on, using whatever it was that made him enlightened, and skilled enough to seal out Jasn’s ability to reach into the building and understand what might be happening inside.

“As far as we know, she hasn’t.”

Jasn grunted and shook his head. Leave it to Wyath to point out what he should have puzzled out on his own. Cheneth was a skilled shaper, and it was possible he’d moved the girl without them knowing. “And we haven’t seen him, either.”

Wyath nodded. “Maybe you haven’t.” Wyath smiled. “Why don’t you ask it, Volth?”

“Ask what?”

Wyath chuckled and took a few steps through the streets toward the edge of the barracks. No, that wasn’t quite right, Jasn realized. He seemed to hover above the ground, using a connection Jasn couldn’t detect. Likely earth, and shielded from him. Had Wyath been healed so well that he had gained that much power?

But he must have. There was now a nervous sort of energy about him, an excitement that Wyath seemed to possess, one where he almost
wanted
to move.

“Ask about Alena.”

Jasn shook his head. He tried to keep thoughts of Alena out of his mind. But the shaped connection to her had forged something between them that he couldn’t completely exclude. As much as he might
want
to push away thoughts of Alena, they were with him constantly.

And he felt guilty because of that. As far as he knew, Katya lived. He couldn’t betray her in that way, not if there remained a chance to save her.

“She’s with the draasin, Wyath. You know as well as I that she intends to see that egg hatched. Just as you know we
need
to see that egg hatched.”

Wyath sighed. “Not so sure about need, but I understand that she thinks it’s important. So does Cheneth.”

“She
rode
the draasin,” Jasn said. “Like those in Rens.”

“
Not
like Rens. You of all people know that now.”

No. Even if he still believed that Rens had ridden the draasin, he knew they would not have used them to attack. From what Cheneth had discovered, that was something else, maybe even Tenebeth. But they didn’t know why. Not yet. And maybe that was not for him to understand.

“What does it mean? What does any of this mean? Cheneth knew about the riders before coming here, and he kept that from us. There is an entire people who seemed to know about riders of draasin.” That was what they had learned from the old lady where they had found Ciara. “While we have assumed Rens controlled them. When will we take this to the council? The order needs to know—”

“The order knows what it needs to know,” Cheneth said, emerging from the trees near the edge of the barracks and coming toward them.

Jasn jerked his head around to stare at the elderly scholar’s form. With his wire-framed glasses and the stoop to his posture, there was nothing about him that was threatening, yet Jasn knew there was so much more to him than anyone else understood.

“’Bout damn time you returned,” Wyath said.

“Return? I’ve been here.”

Wyath grunted. “Maybe you’ve been here, Cheneth, but you’ve been tied up with that Rens girl while the rest of us are left waiting.”

The sudden irritation in Wyath’s voice surprised Jasn. He’d thought Wyath didn’t mind the secrecy Cheneth worked under, but maybe he was wrong.

“What I’ve been doing is learning what she might know. You were there, Wyath. You saw the way she summoned…” He turned his attention to Jasn. “Yes. Anyway. There is much to be learned from her, just as there is much she can learn from us. That, I believe, is the reason she’s here.”

Wyath spat a length of grass onto the ground at his feet. “The reason we’re here is so we can learn enough to keep ourselves safe. Not so sure that’s happening anymore.”

Cheneth faced Jasn but spoke to Wyath. “The mission hasn’t changed, Wyath. Perhaps your understanding has changed, but I suspect that has as much to do with the healing you received as anything else.”

“You don’t think the order needs to know what you’ve learned?” Jasn asked.

Cheneth started through the street, not waiting to see if they would follow. Wyath shrugged and hurried after him, lacking the pronounced limp he’d possessed ever since Jasn had come to the barracks.

When Jasn caught them, Cheneth glanced over. “What do you know about who controls the order?” he asked as they started through the main part of the barracks.

Squat buildings lined both sides of the street, each made of the same dark stone and strong enough that he suspected they could withstand a true draasin attack. The distant sound of swordplay carried to them, less than it had been when Jasn first came to the barracks. Fewer people walked along the streets, and though that could be the time of day more than anything else, he’d overheard Wyath talking to Eldridge about the need to recruit more with the ability to reach the elementals. The two of them seemed to have a plan in place about how they intended to do that, but it was one that Eldridge hadn’t shared before he’d departed again.

“If you intend to ask about my connection to Lachen, then do it,” Jasn said.

Cheneth stopped outside a building no different than any of the others. He traced a series of patterns on the door, and then the pressure of a shaping escaped as the door opened. When they were inside once more, Cheneth sealed the door closed again and followed it with a shaping that enclosed them all in the room. His technique might be different than the shapers of the order, but he had just as much skill as anyone that Jasn had met.

“Yes. Your connection to the commander,” Cheneth said, taking a seat behind his desk and setting his glasses next to a stack of books. Once they were off his face, his entire demeanor seemed to shift. No longer did he have the thin, bookish appearance of the scholars, almost as if the glasses managed to obscure the brightness in his eyes. “Lachen knows something about what we do. That much was clear the moment he decided to send you here. But I still am not certain what, exactly, it is that he knows, and I haven’t been able to find out anything more. The commander has hidden his agenda well, which makes him dangerous. Now that we know what we face—with Tenebeth and the ability to taint the elementals—we can’t afford to have such dangers.”

“You’re not only concerned about Lachen,” Jasn said.

Cheneth leaned forward. “Eldridge told me that you were tainted, but you managed to heal yourself.”

“That’s what the water elementals claimed.”

“Hmm. And are we certain that you are truly healed?”

Jasn frowned. Was that the reason Cheneth had brought him here? Was that the reason Wyath had remained at his side much more than was necessary? He had thought it tied to what they had done, the way they had saved the draasin, but what if there was another reason?

“The water elementals wouldn’t speak to me otherwise,” Jasn said.

Cheneth nodded curtly. “That is probably true enough. And that they speak to you at all is a blessing. Without you, we would have lost the female draasin.”

“Is that all you care about, Cheneth?” Wyath asked. “The draasin?”

Cheneth sighed. “I came to the barracks to understand the war and found something else entirely. Connections to elementals different than anything I’d ever encountered in Hyaln, and that when the wise remained.” He shook his head. “Now I think my task is to understand the elemental connections and how Tenebeth impacts them. I care about the same thing that you should—and that the order should—that we learn what we need to survive what comes.”

“And what is it that comes?” Jasn asked.

Cheneth frowned. “Darkness comes. You faced Thenas. There will be others like him, others who have been equally tainted. That is what we must be ready to face. If we are not, if any of us is not, then we will fail.”

Jasn almost said nothing, but he knew the reason Cheneth had brought him here. “You mean Katya.”

“Your Katya. We knew her as Issa. If she has been claimed, you must be ready, protected, so that they cannot claim you as well. But that’s not who I meant.”

“Who, if not Katya?”

Cheneth grabbed a cane resting against his desk and tapped it once on the ground. “More urgent than Katya is Bayan.”

Bayan had been missing since he had nearly died. Jasn wanted to go after her, but where would he even start to look? Someone—he suspected Thenas—had abducted her while he was buried beneath the rock, but without a way to find her, there was nothing they could do.

“I’ve told you I can help,” Jasn said.

“Not with this. We need you here, learning what you can do, what your connection to water can do. Besides, I think Alena needs you here.”

Jasn sighed. He knew she did. The connection between them told him how Alena suffered, how the connection to the egg continued to draw on her, pulling her shaping ability away. And the longer it happened, the less likely she was to survive.

“You’re going to leave Bayan?”

“No. Eldridge searches. Wyath will search. We will not leave her.”

“And what can I do?”

“You can help Alena find a solution to her problem. She does not care for the one I offered.”

Jasn opened his mouth to say something about his desire to find Katya, to understand what had happened to her, but closed it. She had been gone for over a year. It was possible Katya really
was
gone, or if not, far enough removed that there was nothing he could do for her.

But Alena… he
could
still help her. Only, he didn’t know if she would let him.

J
asn made
his way through the barracks, his mind churning. He could sense Alena in the distance, and knew that she remained deep in the forest near the female draasin they had healed, but not much else. Somehow he had to find a way to help her.

The barracks was otherwise quiet today, and had been in the days since their return. Eldridge had stopped back in the barracks only briefly before departing, and now Wyath was gone, chasing after Eldridge as they searched for Bayan. That left Jasn feeling more isolated than ever. If he didn’t have anyone here to work with, what was the point of his presence?

“Volth.”

He spun at the voice and found Ifrit watching him. She had dark eyes and a sharp jaw, and he had healed her. That meant something had changed for her, much like it had with Thenas. His change was Jasn’s fault. Without Jasn choosing to heal him from the burns, would Thenas ever have managed to reach the elementals? Would Tenebeth have claimed the draasin?

“Ifrit, now isn’t the time—”

“Time? What do you have but time? Your instructor has barely come out of her dorm since you returned.”

“She’s been unwell.” That was enough of the truth and all that he wished to share. Anything more and he would be open to questions he didn’t really want to answer. Besides, there was the strange connection between them that remained. Knowing that was his fault as well didn’t make it any easier to bear. And somehow, he felt the way that connection
fed
off him, as if stealing every bit of excess shaping energy he possessed.

“Unwell. Then she should see a healer.”

“I’m a healer,” Jasn said but immediately wished that he hadn’t.

“Yes. About that.” Ifrit leaned toward him. “Your healing. Where did you learn it?”

Jasn considered how much to answer. If he shared too much, she would only ask other questions. He didn’t know how much Cheneth
wanted
him to share, at least not yet. “I studied with Oliver in Atenas.”

“Oliver,” she said softly. “That would explain your skill, I suppose.”

“Yes.”

“And what of—”

He lost track of what she said next, noting that Cheneth’s door opened and the scholar popped his head out. The girl had remained in Cheneth’s dorm. Jasn wondered what they talked about, and why the old woman from Tsanth had sent her to the barracks to learn.

“Volth!”

He turned back to see Ifrit watching him.

“Have you not been listening?”

He grunted. “I’m sorry, Ifrit, but I need to see Cheneth before he leaves again.”

She shook her head. “Don’t we all. Fine. We will discuss this later.”

“Discuss what?”

“Your healing.”

With that, Ifrit turned and started down the street. Jasn watched her for a moment. What had changed for her with the elemental healing? With Thenas, he had been opened to the elementals enough that he caught the attention of Tenebeth. With Wyath, he claimed to have a new ability with the elementals that he didn’t possess before. And what of Ifrit? He had used the same healing on her. That healing… that had to have had some effects and had to be the reason she wanted to speak to him.

He hurried and caught up with Cheneth. The old scholar moved carefully, almost limping as he headed away from the barracks.

“Where are you going? You only just returned.”

Cheneth paused and met Jasn’s eyes. “You question me now?”

“I question everything now,” Jasn admitted. Nothing that he thought he understood was as it should be. There were powers in the world that he didn’t understand. Many of them, it seemed, with the elementals and what they represented.

Cheneth pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Good. That is as it should be, Jasn Volth.”

“What of the girl?”

Cheneth’s eyes narrowed. “Now you ask about the girl? I thought you were concerned about finding your Katya and doing what you can to help Alena.”

“The girl is of Rens,” Jasn said.

“She is of more than Rens,” Cheneth said softly.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that she must learn. And we must teach.”

“Why?”

Cheneth paused as he made his way up the path leading away from the barracks. Where was the blasted man going after he had been gone for the past week? “You ask why when you have seen that there are powers in the world beyond what you can shape?”

“I ask why because we’ve brought someone from Rens who might have significant strength. I would like to know
why
.”

Cheneth snorted. “Go see for yourself, Jasn Volth.”

The scholar continued up the hill and reached the edge of the trees. Jasn considered going to Cheneth’s dorm and seeing if there was anything about the girl he should be worried about, but he should really be worried about
everything
he’d seen the past few weeks. All this was the reason Lachen had asked him to keep watch on the barracks.

But he wanted answers of a different sort. Now that they’d managed to find some stability, even if it was brief, he needed to know the answer to the question that had brought him here in the first place.

With a shaping of wind, he reached Cheneth before he made it to the trees.

“I thought we were finished here,” Cheneth said.

“Not finished. What of Bayan?”

“You know that Eldridge and Wyath search for her.”

“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?”

“You are skilled, but this is something you are not ready for. I had my reservations about allowing them to go, but Wyath was insistent, and Eldridge… Well, he is Eldridge. Besides, Wyath is talented, even more so since your healing.”

“And what do you hear?”

“Speaking to the elementals is not my gift.”

“But you’re enlightened. You knew of the elementals before the rest of us.”

“I trained in a place where all know the elementals.”

“Hyaln.”

“Yes. Hyaln. The elementals are known, and I have some talent in another area, but it is not in speaking to them. Others have a greater claim to that.”

“Then why are you the one running the barracks?”

Cheneth flashed a bright smile. “An intriguing question, and one that I’m afraid I must defer in answering.”

Cheneth turned as if to leave, but Jasn caught him.

Standing as he did at the edge of the trees, with shadows drifting down, Cheneth pulled his glasses down. Piercing eyes met Jasn’s. “I can’t tell you what you want to know about your Katya.”

Jasn blinked. That hadn’t been the question he wanted to ask, but it was one that he had.

“Alena has shared with you what happened.”

“No. Alena shared with me what she believes happened. She thought Katya disappeared. But there’s more to it.”

“There is always more to the story.”

“Do you think it was Tenebeth?” Jasn asked. Had she been taken by the darkness, there might not be anything that he could do for her. Defeating Thenas had required that they destroy him, and to do so, they’d had to combine a shaping from each of the elements. Without that collaboration, Jasn wondered if there was anything he could do to save Katya—and that was if he could find her.

Cheneth folded his glasses and stuffed them into a pocket before letting out a slow sigh. “I don’t know, honestly. We know so little about Tenebeth. That’s the reason I leave here again. Katya—Issa—we thought had died. She was incredibly skilled, almost as if she had trained elsewhere.”

He said it so quickly that Jasn almost missed the significance. “What elsewhere?”

“Do you think that Atenas is the only place where the elements are studied? I think I’ve shown you that is not the case.” To prove his point, a shaping built around him, more powerful than most in the barracks would have thought Cheneth could produce.

“You think she studied where you trained?”

“Hyaln?” Cheneth shook his head. “It is possible, but few reach Hyaln. I think that I would have known were she from Hyaln. There are other places, in other lands, where shaping of a different sort can be learned.”

“So if she did? Why would that matter?”

“It would matter, Jasn Volth, because I should like to know
why
she came here. What information did she seek?”

Jasn had been under the impression that Katya had been claimed by Tenebeth, but what if that wasn’t it? What if Katya had been someone else entirely?

If that was the case, then everything he knew about her, everything that had happened between them, would have been a lie.