Seal of Light (The Endless War Book 5) Read online

  She carries bitterness within her heart.

  Ciara looked over to see Reghal sprawled out next to her, letting the weak sunlight warm his side. In that way, he looked like nothing other than a simple lizard, not a creature of enormous power that had helped her stave off the threat of summoners trying to corrupt her mind. Without his protection, she would have remained with Shade, trapped by the seduction that he offered her, the premise of a past she would never have.

  You carry some of the same bitterness. I think that is why she chose you.

  I don’t have bitterness, Ciara told Reghal.

  You have not forgiven what happened to you.

  Should I forgive?

  There is nothing to gain by holding the bitterness within you. When you see that, you will be more powerful.

  Ciara let out a long sigh. Even were she to want to forgive Shade for the way that he’d used her—fogging her mind so that she forgot the person that she was, attempting to turn her into a tool of sorts for him—she did not think that she had such compassion. Were Shade to have his way, she would have served Tenebeth!

  Reghal licked her hand. Where the lizard’s tongue touched her skin, it tingled.

  “Fine,” she said, using her j’na to stand.

  Ciara stood next to Talyn, feeling the wind blowing through her dark hair, whispering around her cheeks, against her neck, carrying the salt of the ocean and a hint of power that she had grown to understand while under Shade’s guidance. As much as it pained her, she couldn’t deny the fact that she had learned much while working with him, had gained an understanding of the elementals and managed to find control that she had never mastered before. Would she have accomplished the same were she to have remained within the barracks? She didn’t think that she would have.

  You have done well, Little Light.

  Talyn spoke in her mind as she stared out at the sea. Did the draasin detect something that she could not? Was the threat of Tenebeth closing in on them even now? When she allowed herself to think about it, her throat began to close, and her heart sped, fear about Tenebeth overwhelming her at times.

  I have done nothing.

  The draasin fly freely again. The riders have returned. That is something.

  The riders. Now that Ciara understood them, she knew that Olina had once been a draasin rider. All of the Wise had been riders, but then Tenebeth began twisting rider and draasin alike, sending both into hiding. At least that way, they were not hunted as they would have been.

  Why did Tenebeth target the draasin first?

  We were not the first. Talyn twisted so that she could look over at Reghal resting on the rock behind her. You think that the draasin retreat, but nobelas came before us. Few remain when there should be many.

  Reghal came for me when Tenebeth attacked.

  I think he recognized that you had potential.

  What kind of potential?

  The kind that can pierce the darkness.

  Ciara sighed. She’d had these kinds of conversations with both Reghal and Tayln before, and had never managed to come up with a satisfying reason that she should have been spared. Were it not for Reghal saving her in the waste, she would have died from her injuries. And failing that, if not for Reghal, she would have been turned by Tenebeth. But the lizard had come for her and had rescued her, providing water and protection from the night. And for what? Because she could learn to summon the elementals? There had to be another reason than that. Shade had proven that others possessed the same ability to summon the elementals.

  Then why her?

  When she landed in Hyaln, she had hoped to find answers, but instead, there were only more questions. Jasn Volth was here, but then she had brought him here. His lost beloved was here as well, a beautiful dark-skinned woman she now knew to be Enlightened. While in the barracks, she had begun to think that she might be able to care for a man from Ter and that he might care for her as well. That faded the moment that she saw Katya.

  He is out there, Talyn said to her.

  Tenebeth?

  The draasin snorted, sending steam and smoke into the air. Not only him, but the other.

  An image formed in her mind that she recognized as Shade, with his bald head and pale skin, a man that Ciara hated, causing the bitterness that Reghal noted, but then, how could she be anything but bitter?

  Where is he?

  I do not see him, but I smell him.

  Ciara glanced back toward Reghal, but he had vanished. She wished that she knew how nobelas managed to do that, but he remained a presence in her mind. Wherever he had gone was distant from her now, though she sensed his approval as she contemplated hunting for Shade.

  Ciara climbed onto the draasin’s back, able to ignore the heat billowing off her scaled hide the more that she attempted it, settling herself in between a pair of thick spikes. Ciara had run from Shade the last time that she encountered him. This time, she would be the one to hunt and attack.

  She ignored the doubt that she felt as she signaled for Talyn to take to the sky. The draasin leaped into the air, her thin, leathery wings beating at the salty breeze, diving toward the water so that spray and mist rising off the heat of the draasin’s hide mixed together. Ciara clung to her j’na and focused on the intent of the summoning that she wanted to call, using water and wind and earth, splitting her focus as she reached out.

  Shade had once mistaken what she did as shaping, but that wasn’t what she did at all. She had a different connection to the elements—one that she possessed through the elementals. Without their aid, she had no ability on her own.

  As she summoned, she mixed with it the awareness that she gleaned from Talyn. The draasin had detected something and Ciara could use that, could borrow from it as she soared out over the water.

  At first, Ciara thought the draasin traveled in the wrong direction, but the longer that they soared across the sea, flying low over the water so that Ciara could see the blue-scaled reflection of Tayln as they flew, she realized that the draasin had detected something that she had not.

  Where is it?

  Close.

  Ciara considered returning to Hyaln. They didn’t fly toward Rens or Ter, but farther to the north, to lands that she didn’t know. For Talyn, such a flight was easy, but Ciara worried that they would get so far away that her ability to summon would change and that she would lose that connection to the elementals.

  You do not need to fear such things, Little Light. The connections are within you.

  Now the draasin seemed to know her thoughts? How deep would the connection between them go? Did it go both ways? Would she be able to reach for Talyn’s mind, connect to what the draasin feared and cared about, or would the draasin view that as a violation? The bond that had formed between them was too new for her to really understand, and the bond that she shared with Reghal had been weakened over time, held back by Shade’s influence.

  Land loomed in the distance, a swath of green and hard rock and even a snow-capped peak rising far from them. Ciara pulled on her connection to the elementals, holding onto an intent and using that as she summoned.

  The connection felt different than it had while working with Shade, different than it had when she was in Hyaln, but there remained a connection.

  Talyn turned, banking slightly and flying along the shore, though still far away from land.

  What is it?

  I do not know, Little Light. There is power there.

  Tenebeth?

  Perhaps it is Voidan, but I cannot say.

  Ciara tried using the connection that she had with the elementals to help her understand, but these were different elementals, and while she had some connection to them, it was not the same as what she possessed on Hyaln. Were they to land, she feared that she would be weakened and unable to use even a simple summoning.

  We should return, Ciara said.

  The draasin snorted in agreement.

  As they turned, heading back toward Hyaln, a power built behind them, emanatin
g from the land. There was a familiarity to it, a sense that she had detected before, one that reminded her of the lessons Shade had taught her.

  He’s there, she told Talyn.

  He is there.

  We aren’t strong enough to face him now, are we? Ciara asked.

  That one is not alone, Little Light. If you faced him yourself, even you would be overwhelmed. If you choose to confront him, you must have help.

  Help. Would the others help her confront Shade, or would they see him as nothing of a threat now that she had managed to get free of him?

  So far she had not shared with the others—including Jasn Volth—what she had been through. Only Olina knew that something had changed for her, and only because Olina knew how little she had managed to summon before she had been captured.

  They needed to know what had happened. They needed to act, to search for Shade and the others with him, before he came searching for her again. It was time to leave Hyaln. It was time for her to find help.

  3

  Jasn

  I have not discovered why power has been trapped. Who has kept it from the world?

  —Ghalen, First of the Khal

  Jasn sat atop the draasin as it swirled in the sky. He was perched between two spikes that burned his back, but he studied the ground. He felt an enormous, almost overwhelming pressure from the elements: mixed with the sheer force of heat pushing against him, that of the draasin and the fire shaping that came from all around, was the steady rhythm of blood flowing through the draasin’s veins. It was a powerful sensation, one full of life and vigor that called to him, as water often did.

  “You don’t have to hold on so tight,” Ciara said.

  Jasn eased his grip on her. She sat so easily and comfortably upon the draasin, almost as if she had been born to ride. Given the way that she guided it, he suspected that she was. “You make it seem so easy.”

  Ciara looked over her shoulder at him, the wind catching her waves of dark hair and sending them flapping, and smiled. How had he ever thought her young appearing? Youthful, but not young. And her eyes… much like the blood in the draasin’s veins, there was a bright light in her eyes that spoke of life and passion and vibrancy.

  “There is nothing difficult in riding the draasin, Jasn Volth.”

  “That is not my talent.”

  “It could be. The draasin tells me that you have much strength in the elements.”

  He studied the dark blue-scaled hide of the draasin, thinking how much his perspective of the beasts had changed in the last year. There had been a time when he wanted nothing more than to hunt them, to destroy them for what he believed they had done to Katya, but that was before he knew what he did about the draasin, before he understood they were intelligent creatures of elemental fire, before he knew that Katya still lived.

  She rode a draasin near them, the sun catching off her olive skin and her hair flying behind her. She gripped a pair of spikes and leaned into the draasin, eyes focused in front of her, but with her connection to spirit, he knew that she didn’t need to watch all around her to know. Spirit guided her, as it began to guide him.

  Jasn sighed as he looked at Katya, eliciting a raised eyebrow from Ciara. “You were offered the opportunity to ride with her.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I want.”

  Hope alighted in her eyes, but Jasn still hesitated, as he had in the week since Ciara came to Hyaln with the draasin. Desire burned in him for there to be more between them, and he suspected she shared it, but so far, both had resisted trying to create something more. With what they faced, it didn’t make sense for him to try to create something more, something that he might lose much as he had once lost Katya. Losing her had changed him, had turned him into a man searching for death. That man had died in Rens, but would the man he was now be able to withstand another such loss?

  She seemed to understand the emotion flickering through his mind and offered a smile, but said nothing.

  When Ciara turned forward once more, he kept his hands on her sides, holding her with a relaxed grip, simply enjoying the warmth and the presence of her body against his.

  When they reached the barracks, all of that would change. It would have to change.

  Cheneth had sent him to Hyaln to learn what he could, to see if there might be anything that Jasn could do that would help understand a way to defeat Tenebeth. Had Cheneth known that Jasn would learn to reach spirit? The old man was crafty, and also Enlightened, so it was possible that he had sensed something within Jasn that was like him, much like it was possible that he wanted Jasn to visit Hyaln in the hope of helping him learn to connect to the elementals. Only, for Katya, it had not worked, not the same way that it had for Thenas, Ifrit, and even Wyath. Hell, he thought that his healing had connected Ciara to the elementals until he learned that she had spoken to them long before he had ever healed her.

  “Why aren’t we having them come to us?” Ciara asked.

  “We have no way of summoning them.”

  She glanced back at him, an amused smile on her face, likely at his choice of words. “There are ways of reaching them, don’t you think? You could shape yourself there.”

  “The shaping takes too much strength to reach that distance,” he told her. At least it had. He hadn’t tested it since learning of his ability with spirit. That changed things for him in ways that he didn’t fully understand. Katya hadn’t shared with him, but he knew that she knew more than she let on. “And there are others there who have to know they can no longer hunt the draasin. We have to convince Calan that what he does must stop.”

  A troubled expression flittered across her face. “He left the barracks, Jasn Volth. I do not know where he went, but he is gone.”

  That troubled him. Calan might be the most skilled hunter of them, certainly more than Jasn, but it was possible that he was even more capable than Alena. Only Wyath might have been his equal, though Jasn didn’t know what state Wyath was in these days. He was nearly as old as Cheneth and had old injuries that slowed him.

  If Calan hunted the draasin—and did so alone—they would need to find him.

  “Where do you think he went?” he asked.

  “Alena hunted with him the longest,” Ciara said. “I suspect that she will know where he went.”

  Would Alena still be in the barracks? She had responsibilities of her own now when it came to Tenebeth. Would Cheneth have assigned her a task much like he’d assigned him to come to Hyaln, or would she remain in the barracks, pretending to hunt the draasin?

  “I think Alena will be surprised to see us return,” Jasn said, glancing at Katya.

  She looked his way, almost as if she could feel him looking at her. He nodded. There had been a time when she had trained him in Hyaln where he thought that they might rekindle the romance between them. He suspected Katya thought the same. But it was awkward between them, no longer the same trust and passion, and—were he honest with himself—not even the same attraction. How had he changed so much in the time that they’d been apart?

  “I think many will be surprised when we return,” Ciara said.

  Turning so that he could look behind him, he knew that she was right. Two dozen draasin flew with them, most with riders atop their backs. The Wise of Hyaln, returned. And now the Wise would come with him to the barracks, and from there, they would face Tenebeth if they needed to, but they would find a way to prove to the Khalan that Tenebeth could not be used safely, and failing that, would find some way to defeat them.

  They banked, now flying over rolling dunes of sand. Ciara tensed as they did. After the waste, they would reach Rens, and from there, they would get into Ter. But this had been her home and her people. She might have left Rens, but he could tell that she still missed it, and still missed her people.

  “We could stop,” he suggested.

  “Another time, Jasn Volth. We must first defeat Tenebeth, and then I can return home.”

  The way she said it told him that she was
n’t entirely sure that she would be able to. Would he be able to return to Atenas when all was done? Would he even want to? He didn’t know what would come for him after they finished this, but in some ways, he was no different than Ciara, and just as homeless.

  Most of the draasin turned, flying back toward Rens, where they would wait until Ciara summoned. Three flew on, carrying Jasn with Ciara, Katya, and the Wise of Hyaln, Olina.

  They soared over Rens, skirting the southern edge, sand turning to rock and then to scrub that eventually became the dense forest that grew around the Gholund Mountains. They circled around a point deep in the forest near enough to the barracks before landing.

  Olina turned her nose up, sniffing at the pine in the air. She held a finger in front of her and tapped two others together. “This is the place that Cheneth thought to train his followers?”

  “He sought those who could reach the elementals here,” Katya said.

  “And the summoners?” Olina asked, nodding to Ciara as she climbed from the draasin’s back, holding onto her spear as she did.

  “He trained the nya’shin in Rens,” Ciara said.

  “Hmm.”

  Ciara tapped the draasin on the head, and they made their way from the clearing where the third draasin pen once had been, and into the forest. Ciara guided them part of the way until stepping aside and tugging on his arm. “The last time I was here…”

  He frowned. She hadn’t shared much of what had happened to her in the time after they last saw each other, other than to tell him that she’d been captured and managed to escape. More than that, she hadn’t wanted to speak of it. Jasn didn’t blame her. He hadn’t wanted to share with her his experience in Hyaln either, and his wasn’t nearly as dangerous.

  “What happened?”

  “I thought,” she started and looked over her shoulder, her eyes wide as she surveyed the forest, “I thought that I could hold them off. That I could summon enough… whatever it was that I summoned at the time.”

  Jasn noted how she said at the time. Whatever had happened to her had taught her more about her ability, making her incredibly skilled with summoning. Could she have been abducted by the Khalan? But if so, why would they have taken her? What would they have wanted to achieve by that?