A Blade and a Ring (The Chain Breaker Book 7) Page 3

  “Why?”

  “Arashil is an ancient place to the El’aras. For a long time, it had been abandoned.” She paused with her hand on the door, and she looked back, not at Gavin but behind her to the rest of the settlement. “As we retreated from the lands that humans claimed, we withdrew to the forest, to the mountains, and to other uninhabited spaces. We did so in order to preserve our heritage.”

  Gavin turned to look at the rest of the settlement with her. He had never really considered that before. This place wouldn’t have been on the fringes of the El’aras homelands back then, but rather deep within the heart of them.

  At one point, Yoran had been an El’aras city, and there was evidence of it all throughout. Now, there was only the scattered remnants of anything more.

  “What was here?” he asked.

  “You’re seeing what was here,” Anna said. “Not much has changed. At least, not so much that you would be surprised by it.” She turned to him and smiled. “This land has attempted to swallow Arashil, but it has not done so completely. I don’t think it could.”

  “What was it?” Gavin could tell that she was trying to keep something from him, like she was attempting to prevent him from learning about this place or about what secrets it contained.

  He had been here for several months, working on trying to understand his magic and what it meant for him, so he felt as though he deserved to know what she was trying to keep from him. He believed there was something more going on, that this place had more meaning than Anna had revealed so far. It had to, as the El’aras didn’t do anything without purpose. Gavin had seen that in every experience he’d had with them. He had not yet uncovered more, though.

  But then, he was El’aras. Not the kind she was, as many among them had made clear. He suspected that was Master Jaremal’s intention all along—he wanted Gavin to know he wasn’t true El’aras, at least not the kind that he and the others were.

  “Arashil was a place where the priests would gather,” Anna explained.

  “Like Yoran?”

  She frowned, and though the blue lines continued to swirl in the surface of the stone, she had not opened the doorway. “Not quite like it. Within Yoran, there was an ancient hall, an archive of sorts. This was different, a place where those who had the ability to see beyond our limitations would come celebrate, commune, and plan.”

  “It was an important place to your priests, then.”

  “To my people,” she said. “Our people.”

  He smiled at the hesitation in her correction, but he didn’t acknowledge it any further. Gavin looked at the edge of the forest. He suspected that it would be a relatively easy task for the people to protect this area. It wouldn’t even take all that much for them to defend it.

  “Then why would they have abandoned it?” he asked.

  “The people wanted to retreat as far away as possible. They thought it was necessary to do so. In fact, they thought they had no other choice.”

  “Why would they have abandoned someplace that was this important, though?”

  “Ultimately, it was just a place,” she said, smiling tightly. “Or, at least, that is what they told everyone. That all of our homes were just a place and did not represent the people.”

  “I see. They didn’t want you to refuse to move.”

  She nodded. “Right. They feared that the fighting would persist if we remained close to the lands the humans claimed.”

  “Sorcerers, you mean,” Gavin said.

  “Fine.” She smirked. “Sorcerers, but sorcerers who led the humans.”

  Finally, she pushed outward, and he could practically feel the magic coming from her, and a burst of power exploded from her hand. He tried to pay attention, wanting to see if there was anything to what she did that he might be able to identify. He strained to find anything that would help him know how she activated the door and the pattern that was used within it, but he couldn’t see anything. Was she trying to distract him so that he wouldn’t be able to pay attention?

  He smiled to himself. “What’s in here?”

  “As I said, this was a place where our people came to gather. From all over.”

  Gavin had a feeling that she was being careful to say “our people” again, and he was starting to understand what she was trying to get at. There had been a time when the El’aras families were not fragmented. Not like they were now, where the families were so divided that it made it difficult for them to work together. Some wanted to reclaim lands long lost to them, whereas others wanted nothing more than to maintain the tentative peace they already had. He had always known that Anna supported peace and wanted nothing more than to make sure that their people—her people, much more than his—maintained that peace, if only because she knew what would happen if they did not. Therefore, she had done everything she could to ensure that peace.

  “Is there another prophecy here?” Gavin asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  She walked forward into the temple, and Gavin followed. As soon as he stepped inside, the door sealed behind him. He didn’t think Anna had done anything to cause it to close, but he couldn’t be certain. She claimed it was similar to the kind of power he had access to, though he didn’t know if that was true or not. And perhaps it didn’t even matter.

  He followed her forward. Stone rose on either side of him, coming to a point high over his head. The inside of the temple was dimly lit, but it didn’t take long before the faint light began to glow softly, then brighter and brighter with every passing moment. The walls themselves seemed to take on a glowing, absorbing energy, and finally everything illuminated in a blazing light.

  Anna stood in the middle of the space, which was smaller than Gavin had expected. Still, there was a sense of energy that existed within it that he could feel, though he wasn’t entirely sure why that was. He didn’t know if it was something within himself, something within the temple, or something Anna had done that made him feel that.

  “They gathered here,” she said, her voice low, as if she was afraid to speak too loudly in this place. “There was once a massive table made out of the bralinath trees, which had given themselves to our people.”

  Gavin frowned. “The trees gave themselves?”

  “One does not simply cut down a bralinath tree, Gavin Lorren.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  She smiled, nodding to him. “I know you did not. And I know that you mean nothing by it. The idea that a bralinath tree would be chopped down at the hands of one of the people is dangerous, though.”

  “Why?”

  “Because to do so would be a huge sacrifice, and it would do a great injustice not only to the tree but to the people.”

  “I’m guessing there is something about the trees that I don’t really understand. I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around why this would be some sort of injustice to the people.”

  “Because the trees would never let us forget,” she said.

  Gavin waited for her to say more, but she did not. He frowned at her. “They wouldn’t let you forget?”

  “Not an offense like that. And we would not expect them to.” She motioned around her. “But that is not why I had you come here. We can talk about the bralinath trees and their significance to the people another time. As you are now with us, you must understand why they are important, especially so that you do not make a mistake with them.”

  Gavin thought that she might be making a joke, but she didn’t seem like it. “I suppose I would like that.”

  She nodded, as if that answered everything. “As I said, this is a place that once was powerful. Perhaps it still is. We are not entirely sure.”

  “What changed?”

  “The power came from the place, but it also came from the people who were here, Gavin Lorren. The greatest and most powerful among the people would come, and they would meet here so that they could help lead the people.”

  She headed to one of the walls that sloped upward and angled into a point
overhead. When she touched it, the wall itself started to glow softly. He had seen something similar in Yoran when they had been in the hall, learning about the El’aras and the prophecy there.

  “You will see some of the oldest writings around the base here,” Anna said. “They are some of the earliest from when Arashil was first founded and when the temple was built. As you make your way along the base, you can feel the power and the knowledge of those who preceded us.”

  Gavin joined her at the edge of the temple, looking at the stone working up from the ground. The blue light that glowed all around him seemed to emanate from the stone floor, working its way up the walls, though it didn’t illuminate any of the letters. It wasn’t until Anna started to trace a pattern onto the wall that the letters took shape. He suspected that she was doing something to cause that, though he didn’t know if it came from some power she had or if it was a specific pattern she used.

  “This is what you wanted me to see,” Gavin said.

  “This is what I have feared showing you, but it’s what you need to see.” She turned to him. The light cast a strange shadow across her face, and a darkness glittered in her eyes. Gavin took an involuntary step back. He had never seen that from her before, and witnessing it from her now unsettled him.

  “When your mentor mentioned another prophecy, I knew where we needed to go,” she explained. “I did not want to bring you here, but I also knew I had little choice if we wanted to get answers. You need to understand that which is a part of you, no different than your heart or your lungs.”

  Gavin smiled at the comment. “I’m working on it.”

  “But there is something more here.” She turned and traced her hand along the bottom row, where the letters were glittering, but she seemed afraid as she touched them. “This speaks of something more. A great shadow.” Her tone suggested that the words were more than just words. As if they were a title. “It speaks of the people. And our destruction.”

  “How long ago was this written?” Gavin asked.

  He still didn’t understand why she was scared to share that with him, or what she worried about him finding, but if Anna felt the need to be careful with him, he would respect it.

  “As I said, they are some of the earliest within Arashil. This settlement was founded thousands of years ago, when my people first began to spread beyond the forest, extending their reach.”

  He didn’t make any comment about her saying “my people” rather than “our people” this time. He didn’t want to correct her, especially since he wasn’t exactly sure that he felt as though they were his people.

  “There are other places within our lands where it speaks of the great shadow. Other places where there are warnings for us that talk about the dangers we might face.” She looked down. “But none like this. None with such specific instructions on what we must do, and none with such specific signs that tell us why we must fear it.”

  “I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  “You faced one of the Sul’toral.”

  “That’s not such a great shadow,” Gavin said. He didn’t want to fight somebody like that again, especially since he didn’t know if he would come out on the right end of things, though he suspected that he could. “Certainly evil and dangerous, and I know that they serve some other being.”

  “They do,” she said. “And even that is not the great shadow.”

  “It’s not?” Gavin had half expected that Anna had been leading him to that conclusion, but if what she feared most wasn’t this Sarenoth—which he had learned that the Sul’toral served—then what could be worse than that? They hadn’t even faced Sarenoth.

  “He is but one. A herald of something worse.”

  “And what is that?”

  “I don’t know. Only that the temple speaks of the herald returning, and what will come after.”

  “The great shadow,” Gavin said.

  She looked up, then nodded. “That is my fear.”

  “Well, considering that Sarenoth is still not freed and that we simply have to defeat the Sul’toral, then it should be a simple matter.”

  “Sarenoth is only one part of it, only one of the heralds. And that is what I fear your mentor meant.” She turned her attention back to the walls of the temple, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “And that is why you must understand your power.”

  “Because I’m the Champion?”

  “Because we must all be a part of this. Perhaps you most of all, Gavin Lorren.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Gavin stood on the edge of a small valley, overlooking a stream that cut through the forest. The water burbled below him. He was tempted to jump down, splash in the water and take a drink, but he was moving carefully, tracking any signs of movement through the forest. He needed the escape.

  Anna’s words weighed on him.

  This wasn’t what he had trained to do. At least, not what he thought he had trained to do. He had no idea what Tristan had wanted from him, only that his mentor certainly must have had some goal in mind. He guessed that, in Tristan’s mind, Gavin would become the Champion and then defeat the Shard.

  But now that he’d learned that this wasn’t all that he was meant to do, Gavin didn’t know what more he could—or should—be involved in.

  Stopping some great shadow? That wasn’t for him. That was for the El’aras to do. Especially if Anna feared that this great shadow would destroy her people.

  No matter how she tried to correct herself and call them both her and Gavin’s people, they were her people, not his. They might be his by blood, but not by how he had been raised. Gavin didn’t have a people. He was without a home. A nomad. And that did not bother him. He had come to terms with his role in the world and was content with that. At least, as content as one could be given those circumstances.

  The trees nearby shook slightly, trembling from a soft breeze.

  Or something else.

  He frowned and crept forward, following the wind and the shaking of the trees. One of the branches on a small oak quivered. Many of the bralinath trees were surrounded by others, like the oaks and pine with occasional elm trees. Did the trees have to surround the bralinath trees to support them? Either that or they were offering up some celebration to the trees.

  The branch was swaying unnaturally, though. Something had moved through here.

  Gavin’s training kicked in. He followed the swaying of the branch, treading carefully. As he meandered through the forest, he watched for anything that was out of place: shaking tree limbs, footsteps, the crack of a branch on the ground. Anything that would suggest that something had come through here.

  He had gone only another dozen paces when he came across a small shrub that trembled slightly. Gavin reached for his sword and caught sight of a flash of green fabric.

  El’aras.

  He removed his hand from the hilt of his weapon. He wasn’t going to attack one of the El’aras with him. At the same time, he didn’t know if this was a scout or somebody coming to test him. He wouldn’t be surprised if Master Jaremal had sent someone into the trees after him to test his abilities.

  Gavin started to call on his core reserves, feeling for that power deep within him. As he did, he moved ever so carefully forward. He didn’t feel anything, though he started to think that perhaps he had imagined what he had seen. The El’aras fabrics blended into the forest almost perfectly, far better than his own cloaks did. He kept waiting for Anna to offer him an El’aras cloak, but perhaps he just needed to ask.

  He followed the occasional swaying of branches—the promise that there was somebody here—and still didn’t come across anything more. Once he reached the stream, he crouched down, running his hand through the cool water.

  A cough from behind him disrupted the silence.

  Gavin jumped, spinning, already starting to move through one of his fighting patterns.

  “Brandon,” he said, withdrawing. He landed in a crouch and twisted back.

  Brandon w
as unique among the El’aras. Not only was he shorter than most, but he also had dark hair rather than the golden hair more commonly found. His eyes were not quite as blue either, taking on a bit of the green of the forest. Were Gavin to see Brandon outside of this context, he would never know that he was El’aras.

  “It took you long enough,” Brandon said, shaking his head. “I swear, they keep talking about you as if you’re some godlike figure, but you let me sneak up on you that way?”

  “No one calls me that,” Gavin said.

  “Fine. Maybe not godlike, but certainly special.” Brandon snorted, and he glanced at Gavin’s hand, which remained near the hilt of his sword. “Were you thinking to spar? Or was it because you were scared?” A hint of a smile curled his lips.

  Gavin shrugged. “I’m always open to spar.”

  And it wouldn’t be the first time he had done so with Brandon. The man was skilled like all of the El’aras were, though he was less fluid than many of the others, and more brutal. Gavin found that he enjoyed their sessions more than any of the other ones. He could use his core reserves to enchant himself and gain the agility that the El’aras possessed, but the brutality was something else. It was harder to compensate for, which made Brandon a far more entertaining person to practice with.

  “That’s not why you grabbed for your sword, though,” Brandon said, chuckling again. “I caught you. I told you I would.”

  Gavin nodded. “You caught me. Now, what are you doing out here?”

  “Oh, you know. They only entrust the most important people to be out on patrol.” He winked at Gavin, and he chuckled. “I was lucky enough to be sent out here. Thomas likes to believe we’ll find some of your people, the ones who have come after us and will maybe even attack, and he wanted us to be prepared for that.”

  “Some of my people?”

  “They aren’t your people? Well, you could’ve fooled me. You sure dress like them.” Brandon leaned forward, wrinkling his nose. “And you smell like them too.”