A City in Ruin (The Dark Sorcerer Book 2) Read online

This was pure sorcery, not at all touching upon her talent as Toral, and she let that energy flow between her hands, and then from the woman’s head to her toes, sweeping between the two markings she had made to trap that power. It rolled through the woman.

  Sorcery like this involved her touching upon some natural conduit within the person. In this case, as she needed to stanch the bleeding, Jayna latched on to her circulation, pushing power out and using the blood flowing through the woman’s veins to find her injury, letting the energy of her magic flow through the woman. She found the bleeder.

  It was a massive artery from a broken bone, and as Jayna probed, she used the markings at the woman’s head and toes to trap that power inside, which allowed her to use her magic to redirect the loss of blood.

  Jayna continued pouring out more power.

  She used it to seal off the injury.

  This was little more than brute force magic. There was no subtlety to it, but in this case, Jayna didn’t think that mattered. Her priority was to find the key to slowing the bleeding.

  There.

  She felt the pulsation of blood as it poured out of her, through the wound, and onto the slick cobblestones.

  She would have to fix the bone.

  Jayna had never healed a broken bone before. She had always taken advantage of the lessons she’d learned at the Academy to use different medicinals for healing, but had rarely used the magic she had learned there to supplement them.

  In this case, there would be no medicinal that would make a difference. If she didn’t heal this wound, not only would the bleeding persist, but . . .

  The magic was a simple series of geometric shapes, circles and triangles, primarily, all linked, symbolizing the strength of the body. She tied it to her sorcery, then pushed power away from her, through the bone.

  The bone started to change.

  First it slid back into alignment. The woman cried out, but then fell silent, lying motionless.

  If she dies, then all of this was wasted energy.

  Jayna pushed those thoughts away. If she was attempting to help this woman, none of it was wasted energy.

  Gradually, she could feel the bone coming back together. She didn’t know how long to hold on to it, but she could feel the bone grinding, some bit of power coming through it, then she shifted her focus to the blood loss. The magic swept from the woman’s head to her toes, from marking to marking upon the stones, and there didn’t seem to be anything else seeping out of her.

  She was stable.

  Not completely healed—at least, not yet—but in time, Jayna believed she would recover.

  She leaned back, opening her eyes to see Topher standing across from her, watching.

  “How is she?” he asked as Jayna opened her eyes.

  “I think she’s going to pull through.”

  “She’s a kind woman. She has such unique enchantments.” He leaned out, taking the woman’s hand. “Did you know she can create small figurines that grow and change, twisting into something practically alive?” He smiled as he said it. “They look like exquisite artwork when they’re small, but over time and when activated, they become something much more.”

  Jayna took a deep, shaky inhalation. “She’s going to survive.” She looked around. “How many others are hurt?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. I got knocked down by one of the other blasts.”

  “I think enchantments all around here were getting triggered.”

  “We have to stop it,” he said.

  “I don’t know if there’s anything we can do,” Jayna replied.

  There came another pop, and she looked up to see a swirling of color coming from the cobblestones, a mixture of rainbow hues with a darker tint. It emanated from a circular object lying on the ground.

  The memory stealer.

  “Stay away from that one,” Jayna warned, pointing to the enchantment.

  “What does it do?” Topher asked.

  “Well, if the woman who made it was telling the truth, it’ll take away your memories.”

  “Why would you want an enchantment that does that?”

  “I don’t even know.” She took a deep breath and got to her feet. She did have an idea why someone might want one, though. She had bought one thinking Eva might want to strip away some of her memories, and that doing so might allow her a measure of peace, something that would permit her to finally move on, to accept her current situation. “What happened to Eva?” Jayna asked.

  “She’s been walking through here trying to put out the fires. I told her she didn’t need to do that, but she said she would be the only one who could. Can you believe that? She thinks she can do more than you?”

  Jayna frowned. If Eva thought that, then the fires had to be fisen fire, much like what had targeted them the night before.

  “What happened to Rosal?”

  “He’s fine. He’s over there,” Topher said, pointing to the edge of the marketplace where she saw Rosal, along with a dozen others, crouching near the wall. A whimpering came from the area, and Jayna suspected some of them would be hurt. She needed to help them.

  There was another option, one she didn't necessarily love, but if she called to the Society, they could help here.

  They would probably learn about this anyway.

  She had her linking spell to Char, and maybe he would even know where she was.

  She headed through the market, weaving around, looking for evidence of injury and damage, and focused on the blazing fires. Jayna attempted to blast at some of the fires, using her connection to the magic within her ring, and each time she targeted the power through the ring, she struck flames. Cold power raced up her arm, and she tried to use one of the different spells Ceran had been teaching her, but it didn't work. Nothing worked.

  There was one cart that burned brightly, the flames vivid as they crept along its surface, and Jayna wrapped power around it, using the energy within the cart to pull power back. She tried to suffocate the flames, clamping down on them, but even as she did, she could feel something shifting beneath the ring. The fire was strange and slippery, and it seemed to work against her every attempt to overpower it. As she used everything within her, she could feel its power surging, and though she struggled against it, she recognized that the flame wasn’t going to abate.

  It reminded her of what she had dealt with while trying to put out the flames consuming her home. Those flames had been impressive, incredible as they burned along the stone, crackling through, and she couldn’t do anything to put them out. The stone had almost melted under the heat of the flames.

  It had to be dark magic. What else could it be?

  Jayna tried a different approach, adding a hint of sorcery now to her Toral connection, and she placed a marking on either side of the flames. When she had fought the flames the night before, she hadn’t enough time to try different tactics, but now that she was here with this flame and had a bit more time, she thought she had a chance to at least experiment. She made a series of symbols designed to help her focus and concentrate her power. When she was done, Jayna poured power into the symbols, activating them. They acted like an enchantment, and were designed to create a layer of power over the fire. Once that was in place, she would begin to suck out all of the energy from the fire, collapsing the layer of power downward until it crushed the flames completely.

  She attempted to draw it down, but the flames overwhelmed her.

  Jayna had to try again.

  She focused on the energy, pulling upon that power, letting it flow downward, ever deeper into the spell, and called upon the power within her to suffocate the flames. When that wasn’t enough, she added a stronger hint of power through the ring, then started to compress the power.

  “Not like that,” Eva said, striding over.

  Eva squeezed her hands into tight fists, and blood trailed downward, dripping onto the stone, where it began to smoke. That smoke creeped outward, touching upon Jayna’s spell, and from there it exploded, sha
ttering her spell, releasing the flame which then burst upward.

  Jayna took a step back.

  Eva’s smoke swirled, then the flames flowed upon the smoke and up into Eva.

  Then they were gone.

  Jayna looked over to her. “What did you do?”

  “I did what I needed to do,” she said.

  “Does it hurt you?”

  Eva rarely talked about her magic, and Jayna doubted she would do so now, but this time, she felt as if she needed to hear more about it.

  “It only hurts when it starts,” she said softly.

  Eva turned away, continuing to drip blood along the stones, smoke streaming out from her, power filtering away until she put out more and more of the fires.

  Jayna watched her for a while before tearing her gaze away and heading over to take a seat next to Rosal just as another person cried out.

  Jayna looked at him, pointing her finger at him. “You’re going to stay here until I get back. If you take off . . .”

  Rosal watched her, his eyes wide, and nodded slowly.

  Topher leaned against the low wall that surrounded the marketplace. “What are you going to do?”

  She shook her head. “There are other people who need my help.”

  This wasn’t how she intended for the evening to go, but she was glad she was here. If she hadn’t been, and if Eva hadn’t been here as well, she didn’t know what would’ve happened. How many others would’ve been hurt? How much worse could this have been?

  It might be better if the Society came. They could help. They could heal.

  She heard another scream.

  She had to get back to work.

  9

  Eva stood next to the burning remains of one of the strange, dangerous fires. Her smoke drifted around, creating a slithering sort of pattern that Jayna almost recognized as the snake spell, but Eva didn't use patterns the same way Jayna did, so it wasn’t that.

  “There’s someone here who needs your help,” Eva said. “I’ll keep moving.”

  Jayna held her hand out, reaching for Eva, but Eva shook her head. “You could help me,” Jayna said.

  “I don’t have that talent,” Eva said.

  “You have more of a talent than you let yourself acknowledge,” Jayna said.

  Eva cocked her head to the side, frowning as she shook her head. “No. I don’t.” She strode off, her white dress almost dragging along the stones, smoke swirling around her as she left a trail of blood dripping, which turned to steam the moment it struck the cobblestones.

  There was an injured boy. He must have been covered by some debris, but Eva had moved it away. He had burns along his arms, which had left his clothing a bit tattered, but his skin was in even worse shape. He moaned softly, trembling.

  She wanted to help Eva, but she needed to help here. Eva could do things that Jayna could not.

  Matthew’s words came back to her in that moment; it surprised her that they would be the ones that lingered in her mind. There are other powers in the world.

  Jayna had seen that in her time and during her travels. There certainly were quite a few other powers in the world, and often those powers were difficult for her to comprehend, almost beyond anything she could know. There was more than sorcery, more than the Toral, and more than the Sul’toral. There were also the El’aras. And then there were people like Eva—people she didn’t have any real understanding of, other than having witnessed her kind of magic.

  How many others would be like her?

  She made markings along the ground, placing a flow of power between the head and toes of the boy, before finally placing her hands on either side of him and sending power coursing through him.

  She let power flow up through her and trail out and through him, her energy attempting to seal off the burns.

  This was so different from when she had used her magic to mend the woman’s bone and stop the bleeding. She needed a conduit, much like she had needed with the woman. In the woman’s case, the conduit for magic had been the blood flowing through her, as that had been the most injured part of her. In the case of this boy, her conduit needed to be something else. She needed to focus on trailing power out through her skin, and letting that flow upward and out and around him, using everything she could to weave that power out and arc it in a pattern that would hold on to him.

  She could feel the injury as she glided along the surface of his skin, but she was met with resistance. The boy moaned.

  “Easy,” Jayna whispered.

  The more she pushed power out from her, the more she could feel the energy washing over him, and the more she recognized she could find the necessary approach to heal him. It involved placing her magic over the top of his skin to glide along, then letting it flow outward until it worked through the burn. There was resistance, but when it came to healing with magic, there was always resistance.

  She used the markings that she had placed on either end of him to hold her power inside, then began to tamp more power down and let it flow outward.

  Finally, she had met the end of the resistance.

  The boy took a deep, gasping breath and opened his eyes.

  Jayna smiled at him. He was small, probably no more than seven or eight years old, with short, shaggy-looking hair, and a long nose and chin. His face was dirty, though it might have just been the ash from the smoke and fires that had consumed the night.

  “Easy,” she whispered.

  The boy scrambled away and started screaming.

  She frowned. Why would he be screaming?

  “Let me help you,” she said.

  She reached for the boy, but he got to his feet and staggered, nearly falling, before catching himself and running away, disappearing into the night.

  Jayna sat up, watching.

  Was that what it was like for sorcerers?

  Not when she had seen Char using his power. Of course, she was using her magic in a way that was considered unregulated—the kind of magic she should not be using openly. She didn't feel any sense of Char moving toward her, even though the Society would had to have detected her use of magic, or even the explosion of power within the market.

  She got to her feet. Eva stood near the edge of the market, smoke swirling around her. Jayna joined her, looking out into the darkness.

  “It seems like you recognize this fire. More than just from the enchantment.”

  Eva looked over to her, nodding slowly. “I didn't at first.”

  “That’s how you know how to remove the flames?”

  “I think so.” She turned away. “I have a connection to fire. I don't know what it is, but . . .”

  She fell silent, and Jayna decided not to push her too far along that line of thinking.

  “Do you think somebody like you created this magic?” Jayna asked.

  She had to be careful here.

  “I don't know. I would've said no, but there are too many holes in my mind.”

  Jayna swept her gaze around the inside of the market. It was a jumble of smoldering fires, destroyed wagons, huddled gatherings of people whimpering in the darkness.

  “What if I wasn't the target?” Jayna said.

  Eva breathed out, smoke drifting from her nostrils; she understood the implication in Jayna’s question. “As far as anyone knows, I am dead.”

  “But I know you’re not. Others have learned you’re not. I think even Telluminder knows more about you than I do.”

  “Only because he does not belong here either.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Eva took a deep breath and turned to her. “You keep asking about me, but I don’t remember, Jayna Aguelon.” She closed her eyes. “I cannot remember anything more. There are holes in my mind where memories should be.”

  When Jayna felt herself growing impatient, wanting answers from Eva, she had to remind herself that Eva didn’t even know. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about what was going on; Jayna had seen that wasn’t the case. Eva had gone throu
gh the plaza, putting out fires, and making sure that anybody who needed her help had gotten it. If nothing else, it proved to her that Eva did care, deeply.

  “You need to share with me what you remember. We can work together,” she said.

  “What I remembered hasn’t mattered.” Eva closed her eyes, holding her hands at her sides. A bit of smoke swirled around her, but not nearly as much as there had been before. In the darkness, her pale white dress seemed to glow, as did her skin beneath it. “I have supported your work because it’s necessary. When you found me, healed me, you gave me another chance. Perhaps I must use that chance.” Eva turned away.

  “I know something changed for you. You’ve been drinking more, and drinking to intoxication. I know you don’t want to talk about it, and I know you don’t want to admit that it’s a problem, but it is. If it’s impacting us, then it’s a problem.”

  Eva sighed. “I’ve been trying to forget,” she said softly.

  “Trying to forget what?”

  “What happened to me.”

  Jayna thought about the bowl she had bought from the dular, and wondered whether Eva would even want it. Maybe she wouldn’t accept something like that, though if she really wanted to lose those memories, she suspected she would accept it.

  “What is it that troubles you so much?” Jayna asked.

  “Much troubles me,” Eva whispered. “Even more these days, especially in this city. When I think of what we encountered, I begin to worry there aren't nearly as many who are capable of confronting the darkness as are needed.”

  The words seemed to hover in the air. “So you do care,” Jayna said.

  Eva held Jayna’s gaze for a long moment. “I have never said I don’t care. It’s just that I don’t always know the answer. There are so many things that I lost.”

  “We’ve all lost things. My own parents were lost. I don’t know what happened to them”—but it was something Jayna was determined to find, especially if she continued serving Ceran as his Toral—“but I keep looking.”

  “This is different. I feel like I’ve lost things, but I don’t remember. I know how to do aspects of magic—there are parts of my power that remained—but I know I should have more memories instead of all these gaps.”