The Paper Dragon (The Chain Breaker Book 5) Read online

  Gavin had a sudden feeling of power. It left his skin tight, and something around the El’aras ring began to constrict, leaving his finger throbbing.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “El’aras,” Anna whispered. “There’s another family here.”

  Chapter Eight

  Given Gavin’s experience with other El’aras, he wouldn’t have expected her to react in quite that way. When he had first met Anna, he had encountered El’aras and had been forced to face off against them. It was then that he had come to learn that not all of the El’aras families were united. He hadn’t guessed that they would have open confrontation, though.

  “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I told you there has been some discord,” she answered.

  Anna nodded to Theren, who began to tap his fingers at his side. An enchantment that reminded him of the way Gaspar and Imogen communicated.

  “Where are they?” Gavin asked.

  “Unfortunately, I do not know,” she said. “I don’t even know which family this is.”

  She stepped forward with her hands down at her sides, though she moved her fingers in a slight pattern that Gavin suspected was designed to call upon more power.

  “Why are you concerned?” Gavin asked.

  “It means that the El’aras are far more divided than I thought.” She furrowed her brow. “Perhaps it was a mistake coming here.”

  Gavin started to pull on the power within him, but Anna shook her head. “Not yet,” she said. “We must not let them know you have an understanding of your connection. They must think you’re still learning it.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on.”

  “You have connected to the ring,” she said. “It means power that can be useful. And there are some who would try to take it from you.”

  “They can have it. I can’t even get the damn ring off, so if they want it—”

  “It’s not that simple,” Anna said. “It binds you to the El’aras and bridges you to our people.”

  Gavin had not felt that it had bridged him to anything.

  “Be ready,” she whispered.

  He didn’t know if she was saying that to him or the warriors. Maybe both.

  Gavin saw the three warriors he had spotted earlier. Theren was nearby, and Thomas stood on the far side of the clearing. Thomas held his sword unsheathed, motionless, but Gavin didn’t need to be close to feel the tension racing within him. The third was a slender woman who was nearly his height. She twisted with a graceful fluidity.

  Gavin stepped forward and Anna caught his wrist, shaking her head.

  “Let them deal with the vanguard,” she whispered.

  Gavin frowned. The vanguard?

  A blur of shapes streaked into the clearing, moving so fast that he could scarcely follow.

  The El’aras leapt into action.

  Gavin believed himself a skilled fighter. He had trained and mastered various fighting styles, and he was the Chain Breaker, after all. But watching the El’aras swordsmen and the way they moved through various patterns left him with his mouth agape. Would he ever have the ability to withstand anything like that?

  Possibly not.

  He was tempted to react, to help, but there wasn’t anything he could do. Blades glowed softly as the El’aras swept through their movements. They clanged off of unseen weapons, the attackers moving with a blur.

  Holding on to his core reserves started to change things for him, allowed him to see more clearly. Even without accessing the ring on his finger, he was aware of the change in movement. The combat slowed down.

  “Oh,” he mouthed.

  Anna looked over to him. “Once the vanguard approaches, you must be ready to act. They are here for me, but it might not be the only reason that they are here.”

  Gavin looked over and held her gaze, but he saw something unreadable in her eyes. He knew this situation had to do with the El’aras, but Anna didn’t want to expand on why they had come. It had to be more than just her presence. She had been here in the city before…

  And the other El’aras had attacked when her presence had been discovered.

  He needed confirmation.

  “Why would they come now?” Gavin asked.

  She glanced down to his ring. “Because we’ve been out in the open, here in the forest.” She shook her head. “Perhaps the city offered more protections than I realized.”

  “Do you need the ring? If you use it, you might be able to—”

  She raised her hand, cutting him off. “You have bonded to the ring. I cannot use it.”

  “There has to be something that can help you.”

  “There is not,” she said.

  He could practically feel power building from her.

  The energy permeated everything.

  Gavin glanced down at the El’aras sword, noting the blade’s soft glow. Was it from her power, or was it from the magic that came from all around him?

  Perhaps both. Surprisingly, it didn’t glow nearly as brightly as he would’ve expected, given everything that was happening.

  “Now,” Anna said.

  A dark, swirling energy began to fill the center of the clearing.

  Anna stiffened. “This might be more than just El’aras.” A faint trace of blue light began to glow around her. “It’s possible there is a Toral here.”

  Gavin remembered what he had heard from Jayna and how she believed that some Toral were tied to dark magic. If that were the case, it was entirely possible that the reason the Toral was here was because of dark magic—because of the hyadan. It had to be connected, didn’t it?

  Anna darted forward with her hands above her head. She clapped them together and forced power out from her. That energy crashed into the darkness, snaking around it.

  She brought her arms back up again, holding them over her head. The blue light continued to swirl around her.

  The darkness was pushed back.

  Gavin had never seen anything quite like it.

  The El’aras warriors were fighting all around him, battling the vanguard of the Toral, managing as well as he could hope. They were pressing the attackers back and deflecting them, but there were more and more soldiers coming.

  Then there was Anna. She radiated her own power outward. There was something about it that overwhelmed him, and the dark energy she was fighting began to build around her, as if it were overwhelming her too.

  He had to help.

  He stepped forward, and she jerked her head to him. “Not yet,” she commanded.

  Gavin froze. Not yet? What more did she need to do?

  He swept his gaze around for signs of the Toral power, but he couldn’t find anything. He reached for his sword.

  There was a flicker of dark movement near him. As he held on to his core reserves, that movement slowed. He tried not to think about what that meant or how he was able to see it.

  He swiped at the movement, and his sword met another weapon, metal against metal. The opposing weapon looked like a long, slender blade, or a staff, or perhaps just a metal rod. He couldn’t tell as it moved in a blur. He tried to call more of his core reserves through him and force that energy into himself. That was what Anna had said to do.

  If he could let that power flow through him, he might be able to use it.

  It surged up from some place deep inside him. Whereas in the past, he’d tried to force that power outward to burst through something, this time he wanted to bypass his visual limitations. He focused on his eyesight and on what he might be able to see.

  Things started to shift and work in a strange way.

  Everything started to slow. He couldn’t see what he was fighting, only that it was a blur, but each time he felt power flow into him, something slowed down just enough that he could make out some detail of it.

  Gavin swung his sword. He found himself pushing power out through the blade while also pushing power through himself. He could feel that connection as he tried to call upon mo
re of that energy.

  Everything slowed again.

  Then he caught sight of what he faced.

  The man was human, as far as Gavin could tell, but moving faster than any human he’d fought before.

  Gavin swept his blade toward his opponent, who flicked a slender blade toward him. Gavin parried and then turned his blade so that he could bring it back down and around.

  He darted through a series of movements, blocking the attacks coming at him. Strangely, there was energy that was building up as he did so, coming from his core reserves. It was flowing up from some buried part of him, out through his arms and his legs, empowering him in a way he didn’t fully understand.

  And it stored in the blade, which blazed.

  That power continued to build.

  The man was skilled. He was tall and thin, with a long jaw, flowing hair, and slightly pointed ears. With his skillful movement and deadly grace, he reminded Gavin of Thomas, but there was something different about him. Perhaps a brutality.

  Gavin turned, twisting the blade, and he caught the weapon with his.

  This time, as he called power through him, he could feel the energy shifting and starting to slow everything for him one more time.

  He jerked around and swept his sword through the man’s arm. Then he reversed motion quickly, carving back around and stabbing the blade through the man’s chest.

  Gavin looked at the fallen man. There were others scattered around the clearing lying motionless, surrounding Anna’s warriors. Nearly a dozen were down as she still battled the dark energy.

  He started forward, holding on to the power within him, worried she would tell him no again. But at this point, he didn’t know if he could refuse. She needed help.

  “Go,” Theren said, looking over to him. “She needs you now.”

  In the past, Anna had mentioned that he had to make the energy of his core reserves a part of him, but he had struggled to do so, failing when he had intended to draw that power up and through himself. The ring would be similar, though on a grander scale, but he had to try.

  Gavin strained as he reached for that power and failed once again. He could feel power building, see the darkness starting to swirl around him.

  Reaching for his core reserves was easy enough, but calling upon more than that, calling upon the ring itself, was another order of magnitude more complicated. He had spent years trying to understand his core reserves and how to tap into them. It had taken him almost his entire lifetime to realize that it involved magic.

  How was he supposed to reach for the power of the ring now?

  Gavin scrambled off to the side, trying to feel that power. It was faint, and faded, and he could not call on it the way he wanted.

  He tried again, focusing on Anna’s lessons and taking them into account.

  Let the power be a part of yourself.

  This time, he felt a stir.

  And power exploded out from the ring.

  The dark energy Anna was fighting turned toward him. It started to circle, swirling up quickly from someplace along the ground and heading toward his feet.

  Gavin held on to the power as much as he could, but he had no control. As that darkness began to loop around him, he felt it starting to constrict. Why did everything magical try to wrap him in power like that?

  He strained against it, feeling that power as it circled and tried to trap him. Anna stood across from him, hands stretched out to either side of her, pulling on power. As that dark energy started to swirl around him, he heard a soft voice.

  “Now,” Anna whispered through the enchantment she had made for him. How much of that enchantment did she control? “Be the Chain Breaker,” she said.

  Gavin started to pull on his core reserves, and he pushed outward.

  The energy was considerable, and he could feel it building against him, trying to fight him. This felt different than when Cyran and others had used their power around him. Did he have any way of breaking free?

  He pressed, and the darkness continued to build—some sort of shadow, but not quite. Gavin knew it was a dark energy, and he could feel how it pushed against him. He had to keep fighting.

  His power exploded.

  The magic forced itself against that darkness, and the shadowy energy bulged. For a moment, the darkness held, but as Gavin pressed with as much power as he could, he managed to push beyond it.

  And then the darkness faded. There was still some power and energy that swirled around him, but not quite like there had been before.

  “You can relax,” Anna said. “You have done what was needed.” Anna jerkily laced up the weapons bag Thomas had dropped.

  “What was that?” Gavin said to her.

  “As I said, the families have divided.” She looked at the others gathered around her. “And worse, it seems as if they have made an alliance they should not have.”

  “What happened to the Toral?”

  “I don’t know,” Anna said. Her voice was low, but she couldn’t hide the concern within it. “The El’aras have never cooperated with Toral before. Their power is too similar to sorcery.”

  Gavin thought about what Jayna had said to him about Toral magic. “But it’s not the same, is it?”

  Anna glanced in his direction. “No. But close enough.”

  She was still holding on to power, and that magic filled her. Gavin couldn’t even imagine how she had control over such considerable energy. He had so little control over his own, and he wondered if he could ever draw upon the kind of power she possessed.

  “It seems that the circumstances have changed,” she said.

  “And what circumstances are those?” Gavin asked.

  “The ones surrounding you.” She looked to the center of the clearing where the darkened figures had been. Either they had departed, or whatever power he had used had actually harmed them. Gavin wasn’t sure which it was at this point.

  “None of this should have happened,” Anna said.

  He held her gaze. “I know you don’t want to protect the city, but I think it’s necessary. Until we know what’s going on and why it’s here, the city needs to be defended.”

  “I need to send word to my people. If the El’aras have truly begun working with a Toral, then I might be able to arrange protection. But I cannot guarantee that, Gavin Lorren.”

  “The city needs help, and I need to go with Imogen to stop the hyadan.”

  The alternative was letting Imogen and Gaspar leave without him, but he didn’t like that idea at all. They had gone with him when he had needed help.

  It was strange for him to feel compelled to help someone, but they were his friends.

  They were his team.

  “They need me,” he said. “And I’m asking for a favor.”

  Anna breathed out slowly. “I can give you a little time. I can’t guarantee how long. But I do agree.”

  Gavin frowned. “You do?”

  She nodded. “The city must be defended.”

  “Were they after the ring?”

  “The ring. The Shard. Getting both in the same place would be dangerous…” She trailed off without explaining more, then tapped something at her waist and nodded to her warriors. They drifted away, becoming little more than shadows among the trees again.

  “Here,” Anna said, striding over to Gavin and touching his enchantment. She pressed power through it and it filled him with a sense of warmth. As she spoke, her voice came loud and clear to him. “If I need to reach you, I will only have to speak into the enchantment.”

  “I have a way of speaking to Wrenlow too, so having something similar with you wouldn’t be the worst thing,” he said, chuckling.

  “Not the worst thing? Exactly what a woman wants to hear. I will see you back to the city.”

  “You don’t need to do that,” he said.

  “Very well. Then you can see me back to the city.”

  “Do you need protection?”

  A dark frown crossed her brow. “Perhaps I do.�
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  “Then you have it.”

  They headed through the trees, neither of them speaking. Anna looked everywhere around her, and Gavin had the distinct sense that she was on edge, which he understood. With everything they had now encountered, all of this was incredibly dangerous. He worried that leaving Yoran, and leaving Anna alone, was a mistake.

  When they reached the outskirts of the city, he took a deep breath, feeling the cool sensation of power that washed over him and limited his magic—power he knew he could do nothing about. He glanced over to Anna, but she didn’t seem to have any difficulty.

  “Make your preparations, Gavin Lorren. You must be cautious.” She peered back toward the forest. “First the hyadan and now this, with the El’aras family and Toral working together.” Her words were more clipped than usual. “I fear we have not yet begun to feel everything that has taken place, and that we are nowhere near seeing the end of what is happening here. And until we do…” She looked over to Gavin. “Perhaps you and I will be joined together even more than I realized.”

  Chapter Nine

  Gavin hadn’t gone far into the city when he started to feel somebody following him. His nerves were on edge. After the attack in the forest, and after having seen what he had with the El’aras facing El’aras, he couldn’t help but be tense. Worse, now it felt as if the sensation was pursuing him. Gavin had long ago learned to trust that strange inkling that tickled at the back of his mind, one that trailed along his spine, leaving the hairs on his neck standing up. It was one that suggested somebody was there, honed by years of training.

  And given what he’d seen, it wasn’t just training. It was his own concern.

  This part of the city consisted mostly of rows of homes. Some had their windows open, others had doors that had been barred and closed. All of them were tidy and compact, almost as if the people here used each other for protection. In a city like Yoran, there was a need for that, and he understood that having neighbors nearby would offer a measure of additional defense that living in isolated homes would not. How many of these people were enchanters?

  Gavin hadn’t given that much thought, but there had been a time when enchanters had lived all throughout the city and hadn’t felt the need to be hidden the way they now did. Then again, there had been a time when sorcerers roamed the city as well. Could they have occupied places like this? In Gavin’s experience, sorcerers tended to have an arrogance about them, and their homes were grander.