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

  “Perhaps not them,” Cheneth said.

  Ciara shook her head, resting her hand on Talyn’s side. She didn’t need the connection to the draasin to know that she feared what would happen were the Khalan to gain control of her again. She could only resist the summons for so long. There was something compelling in the summons, and the way the Khalan used it forced the elementals into acting in ways they otherwise would not.

  Does the bond protect you?

  Surprisingly, Reghal answered. The bond provides some protection. He appeared on a flash of light, a long, wide-bodied lizard with a thick, dry hide. He waddled toward her.

  Jasn gasped and took a step back.

  Cheneth stared at him for a moment and then bowed his head.

  Ciara smiled. He must think you’re royalty.

  Reghal stuck out his tongue and licked her leg.

  Since first meeting him, Reghal had saved her. Not only from the way that his saliva seemed to protect her, and heal her, but the fact that he had gathered water gourds for her to drink when she had been dying of thirst out on the waste. He had been there when Tenebeth came for her, and he had been there when Shade attempted to draw her into the darkness. For so much, she owed him.

  He licked her again, nudging his body up against her.

  Does the bond protect you?

  I need no protection from the shadows.

  Why?

  Reghal licked her again.

  She smiled and looked up to see Cheneth watching her closely. Jasn eyed the nobelas lizard as if he didn’t know what to make of him. Would you stop?

  You would prefer I hide?

  I would prefer you not to lick me.

  You will need protection as well, Little Light. There are many ways to offer that protection.

  Reghal waddled to Talyn and started licking her legs. She opened her wings, and the lizard crawled up on her back and ran his tongue along the thick scales, working out onto her wings. Ciara had seen him do something similar, but that had been when the draasin had been injured. As far as she knew, Talyn wasn’t injured.

  Cheneth shook himself. “I did not ever think that I would see one of the nobelas,” he said. “He is—”

  “Interesting, I know,” Ciara said. She tapped her j’na to the stone of the tower, sending light pulsing from the draasin glass end. With that, she pointed it at Reghal, and he looked up as the light bathed him, making it so that he practically glowed.

  “I would have said majestic,” Cheneth answered.

  “He’s a lizard,” Jasn said. He started toward Talyn before seeming to catch himself. “What’s the importance of the lizard?”

  Cheneth stared at Reghal as he perched on Talyn’s back. “Nobelas is one of the oldest of the elementals. Some within Hyaln think that they might be the oldest.”

  “What element does it represent?” Jasn asked.

  Ciara watched Reghal. From what she had seen, he didn’t represent any of the elements, but at the same time, he seemed to represent them all.

  “Not any particular element,” Cheneth said.

  Ciara turned to Reghal, a sense of understanding finally reaching her. Whenever she had managed to summon Reghal or the power of nobelas, she had done so as a bright white light. She had seen nothing else like it, but it countered what Tenebeth controlled. “They represent light and—”

  “Creation.”

  She turned back to Cheneth, and he nodded.

  “That is why many think nobelas is among the oldest of the elementals, creatures that existed before anything else, a time before there was time, before there was earth or water or wind or fire. When there was only light and dark.”

  “You’re saying that nobelas is the direct counter to Tenebeth?” Jasn asked.

  Reghal watched her, and Ciara frowned. She didn’t think that was right. Reghal might be a part of something greater, and might represent the light, but he wasn’t the light.

  “There are no elementals of Tenebeth, are there?” She directed the question to Reghal, but Cheneth answered.

  “We know of none for Tenebeth, but then, the darkness represents destruction and death.”

  Not destruction. Nothingness, Reghal told her.

  Nothing?

  Where there is no life, there is nothing. That is what Voidan seeks.

  I don’t understand how we can succeed.

  You must control it as it had been before.

  How was that achieved?

  I do not know.

  “He says that Tenebeth is not destruction, but nothingness,” Ciara said.

  Cheneth watched Reghal, tapping his cane softly upon the ground. “When the Khalan summon the darkness, they draw upon the power of what?” he asked Reghal.

  There is power in the void, in the nothing.

  Cheneth’s eyes widened. He had heard.

  “How can there be power in nothing?” Jasn asked.

  How can there be power in light?

  This time, Jasn seemed to hear.

  For us to stop Voidan, we must use the light? Ciara asked.

  You will not stop Voidan. Light can overpower the dark. You must help keep the light burning brightly, and contain it, but you cannot destroy the dark, much as you could never destroy the light.

  Cheneth stared at Reghal and then turned his attention to Ciara. He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Perhaps we cannot destroy Tenebeth, but we can keep those who follow him from summoning his power.”

  He tapped his cane on the top of the tower twice in quick succession. A soft orange glow burst from the end, and he started toward the stairs leading down from the tower.

  14

  Ciara

  The elements are key, though so are the elementals. The more that we study, the more it seems the elementals are in service to the light. Creation is light, but is not darkness a part of it? Perhaps the Khalan have discovered some greater truth. We must know more before a course of action is decided.

  —Lren Atunal, Cardinal of the College of Scholars

  The tower remained much as she remembered. There was a dampness to the air, one that seemed to come from humidity blowing in from the sea and the low-lying clouds rather than from anything shaped, or from another source. The walls felt less oppressive than they had when she had been here before. She recognized that as a reflection of her uncertainty from that time. Ciara should have known that something wasn’t right, and should not have needed Reghal to give her dreams for her to know that she shouldn’t have been here.

  “Where did they hold you?” Jasn asked. He stared down the long, now-darkened halls, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword and his jaw clenched. Power emanated from him, and she suspected he held onto a tight shaping as they made their way through the tower.

  “They didn’t hold me.”

  “I thought you were a prisoner here?”

  Ciara stared at the walls, thinking back to when she had been here, held by Shade, but not held. How could she explain to Jasn that she had been a prisoner, only not the way that he would imagine? She hadn’t been able to escape, not without Reghal intervening.

  The lizard followed her, every so often bumping against her leg. She resisted the urge to pat him on the head, if only for reassurance, but had the sense of his presence in her mind. That offered more reassurance than anything else.

  “A prisoner, but they didn’t hold me the same way that you think.”

  Cheneth paused at the next stair leading down. Ciara nodded as he waited. He wanted to know where to find Shade. Finding him there had been her worst memory of the tower, and she had barely survived with her life.

  Jasn placed a hand on her arm. It was warm and comforting, and she didn’t want to move. “What did they do to you?” he asked.

  She took a deep breath. What had they done to her? Something with the shadows, and with darkness. Something that had almost overwhelmed her connection to Reghal, that had nearly destroyed that ability, but she didn’t know what it was, or how they had managed.
/>   But she did. If she closed her eyes—especially here—she could feel the way that Shade had used the darkness on her, the way that it had wrapped around her, almost something alive. She shivered at the memory of the steady tapping that Shade had used, and the realization that his tapping had been what had nearly changed her.

  They had reached the stairs, and Ciara paused before heading down. “They unlocked my ability.”

  Reghal licked her leg and then started down the stairs.

  She watched, wondering why he didn’t simply disappear and then reappear, as she knew he had the ability, but she appreciated the fact that he remained here with her. Ciara wasn’t sure how she would have handled it if he hadn’t.

  They descended a few levels until they reached the hall where she would find Shade’s room. She wasn’t surprised to learn that there was no one else here. Even while she had been here, there hadn’t been very many people. There had been Sinsa and Doln, and there had been Shade. Ciara had been aware of others as well but had not ever really gotten to see them. Her lessons had been with Shade alone, and he had been the one who possessed her control.

  Cheneth stopped in front of the door to Shade’s room. He pressed on it but couldn’t get it to open. “Are you certain this is it?” he asked. “How did you get inside?”

  Ciara stood in front of the door and, without thinking too much about what she did, placed a summons to each of the elementals, using the technique that Shade had taught her. Ironic that his downfall came from the very skills that he had demonstrated.

  As she did, the seals protecting the door clicked open, one at a time. When completed, Cheneth watched her, his eyes widened.

  “How many elementals did you summon there?” he asked.

  “All of them,” she answered.

  Cheneth traced a hand over the door. “I hadn’t seen these before,” he noted, touching the runes. “But it makes sense. For what happened to you, there would have to have been a shaper of much power.”

  “I’m no shaper,” she said.

  Cheneth smiled. “No. You are something else.”

  He started into the room, but she caught him by the shoulder. “Why? What is it?” she asked.

  Cheneth tapped the door. “These marks indicate the elements. They are meant to be shaped, and likely are keyed to the particular shaper. I doubt that either Jasn or I would have been able to enter.”

  “How is it that I could?”

  “You summon the elementals, and in ways that the Khalan would not think possible.”

  “Why is that?” Jasn stood next to her at the door, and she was thankful for his presence.

  “You learned to summon the elementals while you were in Hyaln?” Cheneth asked.

  Jasn nodded. “I learned how to summon.”

  “What about summoning could you share?”

  Jasn glanced at Ciara before answering. “That it’s difficult. I can only hold the intent of one summons in mind at a time.” His eyes widened as he seemed to understand. “You summoned more than one elemental here, didn’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “Even among the Khalan, that would be considered difficult. Most of the Khalan can summon two elementals at once, and the greatest summoners can split their intent and their summons into thirds, calling to three at once. I have not heard of anyone ever with the ability to summon four at once. In that way, it is different than shaping. Warriors can mix each of the elements as they shape, but even that is difficult, though not as difficult as what you just did. And without any movement.”

  “There is movement,” Ciara explained, “but it’s in my mind.”

  Cheneth shook his head. “Such a summons tells me that you are very powerful, Ciara S’shala. More powerful than any of the Khalan.” He glanced down at Reghal, who rested against Ciara’s leg. “I understand why you chose her, great one.”

  The lizard licked her leg in answer.

  Cheneth watched her a moment more and then pushed open the door.

  He tapped his cane and light bloomed from the end, spilling forth with a bright orange beam that flooded the room, giving it a different appearance than the last time she’d been here. Shadows had filled Shade’s room then and had only been pushed back through luck and her ability to reach her j’na.

  “You fought him here, didn’t you,” Cheneth asked.

  “I did.” Ciara noted the cot where she had found Doln, and saw a shelf with what appeared to be journals.

  She grabbed the top stack and started flipping through the pages, realizing that Shade had documented what he had done in his attempt to turn her. She found his tight scrawl nauseating, much as she found the way that he described her succumbing to the summons nauseating. A part of her wished that she had killed him when she had the chance. What purpose was there in letting him live? He would only repeat what he’d done before, and would only attempt to turn others. She couldn’t—she wouldn’t—let that happen to anyone else.

  “These scorch marks tell me that you summoned more than the elementals.”

  Ciara looked up from the journals and noted that Cheneth had crawled onto the cot and stood with his head nearly brushing the ceiling. His fingers traced across the wall, and he leaned forward as if seeing something that she could not.

  “I used my j’na,” she said.

  Jasn stood off to the side of the room, his gaze sweeping across it. Power still radiated from him, a massive amount that left her skin practically sizzling.

  Cheneth moved around the room, slowly sweeping his hands across the wall until he found something that she couldn’t see. He pressed, and with a soft click, a section of the wall slid away.

  Darkness started rolling out as he did.

  Reghal scurried forward, running faster than a creature of his size should move, and reached the doorway before any darkness could reach the rest of the room. He ran his tongue across the floor, creating a barrier out of his saliva. The darkness that moved toward them, rolling like a thing alive, struck the barrier and bounced back.

  “What is this place, Cheneth?” Jasn asked.

  He had stopped at the barrier made by Reghal and held his sword now unsheathed in his hand. Surprisingly, the blade glowed softly with a white light, but he didn’t seem to be aware of the fact that he did anything. The power coming off him had increased. Ciara wondered why she should be aware of it, but there was no doubting that was what she sensed.

  “He is here,” Ciara said. “Voidan.”

  Cheneth glanced over at her and nodded. “Tenebeth is here. A part of him, at least.”

  “Did you know before you opened the door and nearly unleashed him?” Jasn asked.

  Cheneth shook his head. “I didn’t know. I should have expected something like this, especially given where we are, but didn’t expect that they would have summoned him to remain.”

  “That was how they managed to turn us,” Ciara said. It made sense now that she saw Tenebeth—at least the remnants of Tenebeth—here, that Shade would have a source to draw upon. Power that he could easily reach, and that he wouldn’t need to strain to access or complete a different summons. She hadn’t felt it when she had been here before and hadn’t known when they had returned.

  Did you know?

  This place is consumed by shadows, Little Light.

  Can we banish it?

  Reghal turned his head so that he could look up at her. Do you wish to banish the darkness from this place? Think of where it will go, and what else it can affect. At least here it is contained.

  Is it? What happens if others come here? What happens to them then?

  “Can you use your spear to blast the darkness away again?” Jasn asked.

  Ciara glanced at Reghal, but he was busy running his tongue along the floor, moving back and then forth, almost in a steady rhythm. In some ways, it appeared as if he were summoning the barrier.

  “We won’t destroy it,” she said, “only release it. We need to find a way to contain it.”

  Cheneth laug
hed softly. “It seems our nobelas friend has already found a way to contain it.”

  “Only here,” Jasn said. “There’s more within this tower, isn’t there?”

  Ciara tapped her j’na, getting the draasin glass to glow with a bright white light, and added even more intent as she visualized what she wanted from the j’na. As she did, she felt the way that the entire tower pulsed with dark energy, and thought that she understood.

  This is why you wanted me to come here.

  You needed to come here, Little Light.

  What can I do, Reghal? Why did you want me here?

  She tapped her j’na again and felt the power surging through the tower, the way that it practically called to the darkness.

  And she understood.

  That was the purpose of this tower. Somehow, it helped the Khalan summon Tenebeth, whether they knew that was what they did or not. The tower itself acted something like her j’na, focusing the dark power and enhancing it. That was why Shade had brought her here, and why he hadn’t wanted her to leave once he had. It must also be the reason the Khalan had summoned the draasin here, holding them. For some reason, the darkness and Tenebeth feared the draasin.

  Draasin are Fire. Fire is Light.

  Talyn’s voice roared through her mind, as did the anger that she felt from her confinement here before.

  Water is life, she said, repeating the words that had been said to her when she still lived in Rens, when scarce water had been crucial for survival.

  Wind is life. Earth is life. This came from Reghal. Each are life. Each a part of light. The draasin burn brightly, which is why Voidan seeks to claim them, but there are other elementals that share the same vibrancy, that are as much life as the draasin.

  How can we contain Tenebeth here? Do we destroy the tower?

  Destruction will only free Voidan. Now you must contain.