The Dark Fragment (The Dark Sorcerer Book 6)

  THE DARK FRAGMENT

  THE DARK SORCERER BOOK 6

  D.K. HOLMBERG

  Copyright © 2022 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover by Damonza.com

  All rights reserved.

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  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  The city was quiet but still magically active.

  During her time in Ishan, Jayna had grown accustomed to the magical feel of the city. Some of it came from activity within the Society, along with an energy and bustle that emanated from the various sorceries they performed, and some of it had to do with the number of enchanters in the city. But what she felt now was a strange emptiness despite the crowds within the city itself.

  When she had been in Nelar, she had Eva with her most of the time. Even when Eva wasn’t with her, she had Topher with her. Now that Topher had returned to Nelar, establishing himself with the dular within the city, she had only Char as her closest friend. And he was often too busy for her.

  She worked her way through the marketplace, pausing at a few different enchantment stands, quickly determining the purpose for most of the enchantments before moving on. None of them were especially useful to her, at least not now that she was able to create far more complicated enchantments on her own. There were times when she still needed the help of enchanters to create the kind of effects she desired, but increasingly she did not require anyone’s assistance.

  There was one enchantment stand with some intriguing possibilities, though. She stood by the large bench, flipping through the various enchantments and testing each one without even asking the enchanters who ran the booth, an older woman with gray hair that had streaks of purple. She felt a tug along the linking spell that she shared with Char.

  “I know you can hear me,” Char said. “And don’t close yourself off to me. I just need your help with something.”

  She smiled tightly and turned off to the side if she spoke aloud. Though she had learned how she could communicate through the linking spell, Jayna still didn’t have the same level of control over it as she needed. She had learned to exclude Char from her mind, but it was sometimes difficult.

  “What is it?”

  “I think I have a lead on where she went.”

  Everything within Jayna went cold.

  Since Eva had disappeared into the strange pit, she’d been looking for what she needed to do to go after her. Access to the pit had simply closed off after Eva had gone through, leaving Jayna unable to follow Eva, regardless of what she tried—and she had tried everything.

  It wasn’t only Eva who had disappeared. Asaran had gone with her, but neither of them had been seen. Something had happened, and something had drawn them in, which both had felt compelled to follow, but Jayna did not know what that was.

  “What kind of a lead?”

  “Come by the Society House, and I can share it with you.”

  She hesitated. She’d been avoiding the Society House, partly because she had been wrapped up in other things. For one, she had learned the secret of her brother’s imprisonment—and even helped get his freedom. That had taken quite a while, though it had been worthwhile. Jonathan didn’t even know the depth of what she had done for him, nor did he realize just how powerful she had become, which she intended to keep hidden. It was simply better for him to think of her as the young girl he remembered all those years ago and not the Toral she had become.

  “I’m a bit busy right now,” she whispered.

  “You mean wandering through the market and seeing if you might find anything that reminds you of Eva?”

  “That’s not what I’m doing,” she snapped.

  “Can I help you find anything?” asked the old woman who ran the enchantment stand, and she looked at Jayna with a strange expression in her eyes, a mixture of confusion at Jayna seemingly talking to herself and the fact that she was standing twisted to the side, as if she didn’t want to get too close. “I have a nice assortment of….”

  “Explosives,” Jayna said. “And they are quite nice, but you must be cautious about how you seal them inside. This one,” she said, tapping on the enchantment, “has a bit of seepage. I can feel some of the power drifting out.” She watched the woman as she said it and realized that she already knew. “I see. You don’t care if somebody buys this and has the seepage.”

  “Sorcerer?” the woman asked in a shocked tone.

  “Something like that,” Jayna said, and she tapped on the enchantment, tracing a quick pattern that caused some of the power to dissipate from it. At least it wouldn’t explode in the street that way. Not that there was much danger anyway, as there wasn’t that much power in the enchantment in the first place, but any power that exploded could give sorcery a bad name. Now that she was a part of the Society, she had to do her part to ensure that others didn’t give them a bad name. At least now that she had cleansed the Sul’toral influence from the Society.

  “I have my permits with the Society,” the woman said.

  “I’m sure you do, but the Society is reviewing all granted permits and licenses.”

  At least, they were now. Or they would be. Jayna had not really come out here to test enchantments. Char was right; she had come out here because she wanted something that would remind her of Eva and perhaps give her greater insight into what had happened to her friend and where she had gone. In the last three months, Eva had been silent. She missed her grumpy friend. And she hated how she felt as if she needed to be doing something for her and had not yet done it.

  “And you are?”

  “A concerned member of the Society,” Jayna said. She held out her hand briefly, showing the marker for the Society.

  The woman’s eyes widened, and she took a step back.

  Only then did Jayna realize that she had held out the wrong hand. She had revealed her Toral ring.

  “Don’t be like that,” Jayna snapped. “Just take your belongings, make sure that you seal off the enchantments, and if you really need to sell explosives,” she went on, shaking her head since no one really needed to sell explosives. However, Jayna had certainly taken advantage of enchanters willing to make that sale, “do so in a responsible way.”

  She turned away, slipping through the market, and frowning absently. What sort of way would be responsible when it came to explosive enchantments? She couldn’t even fathom anything that would truly fit that label. Maybe it would be better if
she were to have said nothing.

  She wandered through the market and kept looking at various stands, noting the different enchantments. She had borrowed Char’s knowledge about enchantment detection, and used that to help her pick up on the various types that were here. It was a simple matter to trace the different kinds of enchantments. The spell wasn’t even that difficult. It was just another aspect of layering together knowledge so that she could build a pattern, essentially a language, which permitted her to recognize various concepts.

  “Come on, Jayna,” Char’s voice repeatedly said through the linking spell. “You’re ignoring me.”

  “I’m not ignoring you,” she said.

  “Just come to the Society House.”

  “I need to check on Jonathan,” she said.

  “From what I’ve heard, he’s preoccupied.”

  Jayna breathed out slowly. “I know he is.”

  “You don’t mind that he’s taking jobs in the city again?”

  She smiled to herself. That was one diversion that she was more than happy to have a hand in. Having Jonathan as a diversion had truly allowed her to move past Eva’s absence, at least for a little while. “He’s doing something important.”

  “Stealing?”

  “It’s really what he’s stealing that’s important,” she said.

  “What don’t you mind him stealing?”

  “Not what, but who, and it’s from someone dangerous.”

  There was a moment of silence. Jayna had stopped on the street corner, and there was a crowd near the entrance to a tavern not far from here that drew her attention. Had Eva been here, she would have guided Eva to a place like that, or perhaps they would’ve preferred a tavern not quite so busy, as Eva generally liked quieter establishments where she could sit and drink her wine without worrying about anybody interrupting her.

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “Don’t worry about it. There are certain things that I’m still tasked with.”

  “He hasn’t even been reaching out to you, Jayna.”

  He meant Ceran. “But he will,” she said.

  Maybe that was part of her agitation as well. Not only was it Eva’s absence, but Ceran’s absence kept getting to her. She needed to help her friend, but she felt as if she had to go after Ceran and had not uncovered any evidence of where he was. There simply was nothing to suggest what the others had done to him or how they had managed to imprison him. Despite every attempt that she made to reach out to Ceran, he was quiet to her. And that, as much as anything, had her on edge, because Ceran had never been this silent. There was still the connection through the Toral ring, and the sense of power that flowed in it, giving her the awareness of him and his power, but nothing more.

  “While you’re waiting, come back to the Society house,” he urged.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Why do you sound so annoyed?”

  “It’s not with you. It’s more with the situation, and to be honest, it’s also with the King.”

  “There it is,” Char said.

  “You knew.”

  “I know there is a bit of political gamesmanship going on in the palace. Rumors have started to spread.”

  “Well, I don’t really care for any political gamesmanship,” Jayna said.

  “Oh, I know.”

  “I’d much rather just blast her and keep her from trying to pull this on me.”

  “So do it.”

  It was Jayna’s turn to pause, as she turned on the street, wandering past the tavern, and glancing into it briefly. “You’re giving me permission to attack a member of the Society?”

  “I’m permitting you to deal with threat to you. But then again, I’m not exactly sure you need my permission.”

  “No,” she agreed.

  “But I would caution you to at least consider whether this is an actual threat, or if this is really more a matter of your own struggles with her.”

  “It is an actual issue,” she said.

  “I believe it. I just want you to recognize you might be a bit biased.”

  She paused at the tavern and glanced inside, noticing a minstrel playing. That was the reason for the crowd. The minstrel was playing at a rapid tempo, and most of the people inside the tavern were dancing, clapping, and singing along to the minstrel. There was an overwhelming sense of activity, along with an energy that was there, that left her feeling as if she were drawn into the tavern, so that she could check it out, perhaps have a drink, and even think about Eva a little bit less.

  “Fine, I’m biased,” she said. “Now, do you mind concluding your conversation? I’m getting a little tired and might have to stop and get a drink.”

  “What you need to be doing is coming here.”

  He fell silent, and she pushed the barricade back in place, sealing him off and resuming the quiet. She figured that in doing so, she could keep him from hearing her, and hopefully, she could keep him from detecting her thoughts. She wasn’t sure if it would work, as he had grown increasingly skilled with adjusting the linking spell.

  She continued her way through the market while debating whether she’d get a drink as she’d claimed before deciding against it. She wasn’t sure if she was going to find anything more than what she already had.

  Still, if he had come up with anything that might help her understand what had happened to Eva, she thought that she needed to do it, as she wanted to help her friend as much as she could, even if that involved dealing with the Society more directly than she had been in quite some time.

  She looked over to the palace in distance as she turned away. Political gamesmanship. That was what she had referred to it as, but it was more than that. Karina had been a pain for her. And it was incredibly difficult for her to find a way to work with the other woman, even though that was what the King wanted from her. And yet, she couldn’t fully blame her, as she thought Karina really did want to work on behalf of the kingdom, even though she did so in ways that seemed as if she were trying to get closer and closer to the throne.

  In the distance, she caught sight of the hint of what the enchanters of the city called a facade. It was a magical illusion, little more than that, and it stretched off in the distance to conceal someone. It was a simple matter to dismiss it, if that was what she wanted to do, though Jayna didn’t need to do so. In her case, all she wanted to do was see through it. This one was relatively skillfully made and had more complex layers than usual.

  And she cast a quick spell, borrowing again from the knowledge that Char had taught her, layering together a sequence of what amounted to magical letters that allowed her to craft a spell that she could use to be able to see beyond the facade.

  There was only one reason that she did it: so, she could see if that was Jonathan. The King had requested that Jayna get involved in a dispute with one of the wealthy landowners, something Jayna had been reluctant to do, but for her to keep it from Karina, Jayna had intervened. This particular job had been a bit challenging to arrange, partly because Jonathan had been bothered by this landowner before and wanted revenge.

  And there he was now. He was still the same man as he had been the last time she’d seen him, tall, powerful, and intimidating—even for her. Now he had something of a haunted expression in his eyes that she could spot from a distance. Time in prison had given him that gift, she suspected.

  What is he doing?

  Jayna slipped along the street, staying in the shadows. She didn’t have to work very hard to create her own facade, though it was a bit more complicated. What Jayna did now created a layer of power that she swept over herself, wrapping it in such a way that she could hold it around her to hide within. When she was satisfied, it wasn’t going to reveal her presence; only then did she move forward.

  Jonathan was following someone. It was with a younger woman, the facade holder, and he was talking to her. She thought that she might be able to add another spell so that she could listen to her brother, but she didn’t want to do that. In thi
s case, she wanted nothing more than to see that he was well.

  After all the time that he’d been away, the time that it had turned out that he had been in prison, Jayna wanted to make sure he was still safe. And each time she checked in on him, she found that he was, but she still wished she could do more for him.

  “If you’d like, I can keep an eye on him for you,” a voice said from a distance.

  Jayna spun and immediately prepared a starburst spell, but she didn’t unleash it.

  “William, do you really need to do that?”

  He was a tall man with a fit build and was always well-dressed, much as he is today. There was an air of mystery about him, though some of that came from his unique connection to power. She wasn’t sure that she fully understood it yet, as she had not experienced anybody with the ability to disrupt magic so well before William.

  “Why? Just because I can sneak up on you?”

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “That is even more reason for me to do it. You keep watching him.”

  “I didn’t actually come looking for him this time. I just happened upon him.”

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on him, as you requested.”

  She had hated that she had to ask it of Williams, but given her service to the King, and everything that she had done to help protect the city and the crown, she had been given a measure of flexibility, including William’s willingness to look out for her brother while Jayna was off doing other things. That included searching for Eva, though William had made it clear that he was interested in going with her, though she had kept him from that.