Summoner's Bond (The Endless War Book 4) Read online

  “When she was in Atenas, Katya was well-known to the guild. She had a thirst for knowledge, rivaling that of the scholars in some ways. A crafty woman; I understood why Cheneth called her to study in his place.”

  Alena thought about Issa. What she’d known of the woman hadn’t been a thirst for knowledge. She had been a strong shaper and had a knack for picking up shaping techniques that others took weeks or longer to learn, almost as if she had…

  She bit her lip as she considered the possibility. Jasn had left thinking that she had been turned by Tenebeth and that she somehow served him, but what if that wasn’t the case? Just because Bayan had been turned, and Thenas before her, didn’t mean that others would have. And the way that she had learned, her ability with shaping, that could mean that she wasn’t a shaper of Atenas at all, couldn’t it?

  What if Issa had always been from Hyaln?

  But Cheneth hadn’t known. Did he know now?

  Alena didn’t think so, or he would have prepared Volth for that possibility before sending him to Hyaln.

  That meant that Issa had been in the barracks for another reason.

  Could she have thought to control the darkness? There had been no real sense of it from her when she’d been there, not like there had been with Thenas, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t suppress it or that Alena would have recognized it.

  “What is it? You look like you lost a pint of blood.”

  Alena laughed softly. “Not a pint of blood, but there are pieces to a puzzle that are starting to come together around me, only I’m not sure what they mean. What do you know of a place called Hyaln?”

  Oliver’s eyes twitched, but he shook his head. “I know only that your Cheneth studied there.”

  “And you know that Cheneth shapes spirit.”

  He nodded. “He wouldn’t have given me the spirit stick were he not able to do so. He has asked that we watch for those who might have been shaped by spirit. I think he would have me free them with this.”

  “He intends for you to heal the council,” Alena said.

  Oliver’s eyes widened. “I won’t attack another of the council. It’s bad enough I had to fight with Margo.”

  “From what you told me, you had little choice in the matter. I think Cheneth would have understood.”

  “I don’t care what Cheneth understands. This is about what I’ve done. I’m a healer, Alena, a member of an order older than even the Order of Warriors, one with a history as rich as anything that the Order claims. And now I have ended a life by my own hand. You cannot understand what that means for me.”

  She might not know what that meant for him, or what it meant that he had been forced to kill, but she understood what it was like to do something that went against everything that you believed in. It was the same sense she had the first time that she’d gone on a hunt for one of the draasin. She had heard their voices even then, and when Wyath had led her away from the barracks, thinking that she could understand what they were to learn there, she had felt a nauseated sense, almost as if she had betrayed the person that she was—and the person she was meant to be.

  “Everything continues to come back to Hyaln,” Alena said. “Cheneth fears there is another group, one that worships the darkness, but if that’s the case, why do I continue to feel like this is all tied into Hyaln?”

  “That’s not why he sent you here.”

  “No. He wants me to sort out the council, and I agree I need to do what I can to help with that. If the council is not comprised of actual members of the Order, if they have really been infiltrated, then we need to know. Just as we need to know why the Commander has accelerated the learning of the newest shapers, placing not only them in danger, but endangering the future of Atenas.”

  “How do you intend to do that?”

  Alena wasn’t sure. Cheneth had sent her here and claimed she had everything that she needed to succeed, but for the first time, she suspected that Cheneth didn’t have the answers for everything.

  But maybe he’d given them something that they could use. A way for her to understand.

  “Oliver, I’m going to need for you to show me how to use the spirit stick.”

  29

  Ciara

  When I set my pieces, I knew I would need to utilize one who did not wish to return to the city, but Alena has long been nearly as strong a shaper as me. Had I known about her connection to the draasin before, I would have many other ways to use such a skill. I hope it is not too late to use her the way she will be needed.

  —Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

  Ciara stood and hurried through the tower, moving quickly past each of the doors, counting them as she did. Shade had asked her to reach him on the third floor, but she would have to take a different stair. A cool breeze blew through the tower as if someone had left too many windows open, and a chill rolled through her, making her wish she still had the cloak she’d been given when she came to this tower.

  Shade still hadn’t fully explained why her father had brought her here, other than to say that she would learn from the remnants of Rens, those last men and women who held onto the old ways.

  Given what she’d seen of Shade, she wondered what his village had been like. For him to wear such thick wool, he would have to have come from some part of Rens much colder than where she had been, so near to the waste. But the style of clothing was the same, even if he never placed his shaiza over his face.

  When she reached the stair, she hurried down, taking them two at a time, flying along as if her legs were made of feathers. The third floor. This was the first time Shade had asked her to come this way rather than having her follow him. Maybe it was a measure of his new trust. She had come to realize that he needed to trust her, that there was something that he’d been waiting for, but she didn’t know what she’d done that allowed him to now trust her.

  She stopped at a door on the third floor and considered the carvings worked into the wood. There was something familiar about them, like a pattern that she should recognize, but she blinked away the thought. That wasn’t why she was here. She was here to understand what Shade could teach her. From what she’d seen, he had a different way of shaping, one that might be able to help her village against the threat of attacks, and wasn’t that the very reason that she’d come?

  When she knocked, the door opened. Shade stood on the other side, two others already waiting. One was a younger man with a sun-darkened face and hair bleached nearly white. He glanced over at her and nodded once, almost as if he recognized her. Had she met him here already? The time that she’d been in Shade’s tower—at least, that was what she’d come to call it—she had a hard time remembering much of anything, probably because there had been so much to see. The other was another girl, probably no older than sixteen, with short brown hair cut close to her scalp. She wore a long robe hung over her shoulders that she pulled together as Ciara entered.

  “Good that you are here, ala’shin,” he said.

  She flushed as she often did when he called her that. It was a title that she didn’t deserve, one her father held, but she doubted that she would ever amount to enough for her to reach the same level. Without any ability with water shaping, she would never be ala’shin. The Stormbringer knew she was barely nya’shin.

  She opened her mouth to tell him to stop calling her that, to ask him to call her by her given name, but a muted voice in the back of her head warned against it. Her brow knitted in confusion. Why shouldn’t she share with Shade?

  But then, he hadn’t given her his name, had he? Shade was no sort of name, and certainly not the kind of name a man from Rens would claim. Maybe it was some sort of game to him—or a test—to see who could hold out the longest, avoid sharing the other name. If that were the case, then she wouldn’t do so first.

  “Where else would I be, Shade?” she asked, taking her place alongside the others.

  The girl slid over, making room for her. The other man glanced at her, and
Ciara couldn’t shake the sense of familiarity in his eyes.

  “You have waited for this lesson for quite some time.” Shade carried his j’na with him, and he stabbed the end of it into the ground so that the wood made a loud cracking sound.

  Ciara resisted the urge to cover her ears as she eyed his j’na. She still waited to be allowed her own j’na, waiting for her father to allow her the opportunity to claim the spear, but she would need to find osidan for the tip. That was often the hardest part, the quest each nya’shin must accomplish before they could serve fully. And without the ability to shape water, she might never be able to really reach the osidan that she needed.

  “Today we begin our summoning,” Shade continued. “In order for you to use this, you need to understand what summoning is and what it is not. Each of you is here because you have the ability to call to the elementals.” When Ciara frowned again, Shade smiled at her, a mixture of warmth and a hint of darkness that didn’t really look as if it belonged on his face. “Yes, even you, ala’shin. You each can reach the elementals. But to do so, you need to understand that they are powerful. To use their power, you must be powerful, and stronger than them. Training will move slowly so that you gain mastery over yourself and over the elementals. First, you must control yourself before you can control the elementals.”

  The others with her nodded, so Ciara nodded as well, but a part of her hesitated even though she didn’t know why she should. Hadn’t her father sent her here? She had thought it a punishment for her inability to reach water, to shape it as he had instructed, but this was not punishment, not what Shade intended for her to learn. The promise of the ability to reach the power of the elementals… power that he believed that she could access… that was something more than any mere shaping.

  She still didn’t know why she had been chosen, but she would honor her father and his choice of sending her here by learning all that she could. She would honor her village, and her people, by training, studying, and seeing if there was anything that she could bring back to them.

  A nagging worry came to her, one that seemed intent to make her question herself. Ciara had questioned herself often enough over the years that she would not do it here. If her father believed that she deserved to be here, then she did.

  More than even her father believing in her, having Shade believe she belonged here made it easier for her to remain. She had seen great power from him. Even the confident way he held his j’na made it clear that he was a powerful nya’shin, one she should listen to. Maybe that was the real reason that her father had sent her away. He intended for her to learn from Shade, to uncover some secret that would help the village.

  “The summoning can be something as big as this,” Shade went on. He tapped his j’na in a series of cracks upon the stone, each one louder than the last, leading the ground to begin shaking steadily until he set his j’na back against the stone and leaned on it. “Or something as small as this.” Shade brushed his hands along his sides, his fingers drumming in a particular way Ciara suspected was important. Wind began gusting, blowing through the room though there were no windows.

  Shaped wind. Unless it really was as he suggested. Could he call to the elementals?

  She wouldn’t have believed that there was anything like elementals before she had come here, but Shade had demonstrated them to her, and proven his ability to call them time and again. His claim that she could and would learn how to do the same was the reason she felt the growing knot of excitement deep within her belly. If she could learn what he managed to do, she would be able to help her village. More than that, she might actually be able to be a real nya’shin, possibly even learn enough to deserve the title that he placed on her.

  “Now. The beginning of this is intent. You must hold your intent within your mind. That is the first step of gaining control over the elementals. And once you have that control, you can use it.” Shade made another small motion with his hand and suddenly spun toward the top of the room, floating on air.

  “Are you shaping?” she found herself asking. That had been the question that had plagued her since she first came. If he shaped, what made it any different than the attackers of Ter? Not that she would refuse to learn, but she understood how shaping required an innate ability that she simply did not possess. This… if there was really anything to this summoning, this seemed like something that she could learn.

  Shade dropped to the ground. “Not shaping, ala’shin. They are similar, but not the same. I have minimal shaping talent, but I can use the elementals, and the power I can control is greater than any shaper. I do not grow fatigued the same way that they do. If an elemental perishes, then another can be summoned. This is the way to true power.”

  He jabbed his j’na into the stone again and turned to the others with a smile. “Some of you know shaping. That is good. You can use what you know, augment it with summoning, but I will share with you that some of the greatest summoners are those who have never learned to shape the elements.

  “Now, it is time for you to practice. We will begin with something small. Wind is often safest, but not always, so we will begin with that.”

  He demonstrated the summoning that he’d used, slowing the movement so that they could follow. There was a drumming to his fingers, a steadiness and a pattern that Ciara recognized as important. But he said intent was also important. She had to want to control the wind, to want to call it, and force it to do what she needed.

  Ciara practiced the movement. There was something familiar about it, almost as if she had done it before, but she wondered if that came from knowing the touch of the wind, the familiarity of a hot breeze blowing against her skin, ruffling the thin fabric of her elouf.

  Shade stopped next to her. “The pattern is correct, ala’shin, but you have not summoned.”

  “I…” She hesitated. Was it the fact that he called for her to demand control? Maybe that wasn’t it at all. Maybe it was the fact that she didn’t know whether she could summon the elementals. She was no shaper; what made her think that she could do this?

  “Intent, ala’shin. That is the other component. You must call, and you must demand an answer.” There was intensity behind his words, almost as if he summoned her.

  She flushed, frustration surging through her. She would fail at this the same way that she failed at being nya’shin, the same way that she failed reaching water, and the same way that she failed to reach the top of the finger rock. As much as she might want to reach the elementals and do exactly what Shade asked, she could not.

  “Why do you call me that?” she asked, keeping her gaze on the floor.

  “Because that is what you are destined for. You must gain the knowledge, but I know that you can.”

  “I can’t reach the elementals. I can’t even copy this pattern the correct way.”

  A sudden gust of wind made her look up. The other girl had managed to summon the wind using the same pattern that Shade had used. He smiled at her, and Ciara hated that she wished the smile would be—that it could be—for her.

  “The pattern is not the problem, ala’shin. It is the intent behind it. You must control the elementals and demand they serve. It cannot be the other way.”

  “Why must I demand,” she asked. “Can I request them to answer? Does that work?” Somehow, sending a request to the elementals seemed easier, possibly even better. The draasin were creatures of keen intelligence, and forcing them to serve seemed—

  A sudden crack from Shade’s j’na caught her attention and pulled her eyes up to his.

  “No. You will not request. Do you ask the shepa if you may use their fur? Do you ask the dholla if you may eat of his flesh? These are creatures of the world, ala’shin. They are meant for our use.”

  Ciara flushed at the admonishment, but she should not have needed it. He was right. How much did her village use the life around them? The shepa, not only for their wool, but also for their meat. And the dholla was eaten, but its hide was used for many things: sanda
ls and clothing and even blankets for warmth on the cooler nights in Rens.

  “I’m sorry, Shade,” she said. “I will do better.”

  He nodded. “You must, or you will never learn how to control the elementals, ala’shin. Wind might be dangerous if called incorrectly, but there are others that can be deadly if you call and lose control.”

  “Like fire?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Fire can be dangerous, but there are others.” The tone in his voice told her that he wouldn’t explain it any more than that. “Try again, ala’shin, but this time you must carry the intent. You control the elementals, not the other way around.”

  Ciara held the intent within her mind. She would control the elementals. Doing this would help her and the village, would give her the ability to use power that even Fas and Eshan could not use, and would allow her to be the nya’shin that she wanted to be. More than that, doing this would help her be the person her father wanted of her, and might even convince him to let her have a j’na of her own.

  As she held the desire in mind, wanting to control the wind, to have it blow against her face, to pull at her cloak, she formed the pattern that Shade had demonstrated. There was nothing complex about the pattern, only in her ability to hold the intent.

  This time, she would command the wind.

  As she formed the pattern, she felt what she did. It was almost as if the pattern that she created solidified the intent, forcing the elemental to follow her direction.

  Wind burst around her, whipping at her hair, at her clothes, and sent her flying across the room so hard, she slammed into the stone on the other side.