Darkness Rising (The Endless War Book 2)

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opyright © 2016 by D.K
. Holmberg

Cover art by Rodrigo Toledo

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A
lena Lagaro crouched
outside the circle of trees, the nearby draasin pen pressing against her sensing as she listened to the call of fire. The sound came to her distantly but pulled with increasing strength and urgency. No longer could she ignore it as she once had, but no longer did she hide it, either. At least she wasn’t alone with that ability, not as she had long believed.

The draasin lapped at the water from the stream, tipping her large, barbed head toward the water and taking thirsty drinks. Being penned constantly was stressful for the elemental, but was necessary to convince others in the order that the creatures were still hunted.

When finished, the draasin unfurled her wings and stretched long claws, raking them against the dirt. Alena would have to remember to remove the evidence of the draasin before she left, but the earth shaping—manipulating the element to erase any proof that the creature of fire had been removed from the pen—should be easy enough.

The others think you take too long.

The draasin’s voice came through her mind, pushing at her with an insistence that she couldn’t ignore. In the time since first hearing the creatures and learning she could speak to the elementals, she had managed to push back the overbearing volume of the draasin’s connection, but it still boomed through her mind, making it difficult to do anything else.

Alena met the draasin’s eyes, a deep yellow glowing with the heat of the sun. Steam billowed from her nostrils, slowly easing from the creature and disappearing on the cool wind. The draasin was a captive here, but why did Alena feel as if
she
were the one imprisoned?

I do what I can,
she answered.
Keeping the draasin safe is difficult work.

The draasin snorted then, the heat and steam placing a strain on the shaping Alena used to shield her presence from others who might be nearby. Eldridge would notify her if she needed to worry, but she couldn’t risk someone like Calan stumbling near the pen and surprising her, especially not after what happened with his student. Calan was one of the few truly competent hunters, one who took almost a little too much pride in the hunt.

Safe? Is that what this is? The draasin are meant to fly and to hunt. You would have us do neither.

The draasin agreed to the protection
, Alena said.
After what happened in Rens…

She watched this one, wishing she could know her name. The draasin knew hers, for all the good that did. They still called her by a different name, referring to her as
Lren
. She hadn’t learned what that meant, though wouldn’t be surprised if it was some sort of slight. The draasin might be more intelligent than most realized, and dangerous, but they could be cruel at times as well. None had given their name to her, as if naming themselves would grant her some sort of power over them.

The draasin snorted again, this time sending a small streamer of flame from her nostrils. Alena marveled at the way the fire billowed out and around the draasin’s mouth, racing down the scaled side before fading to nothing, leaving only a faint fog hovering above the creature’s hide.

We agreed for your protection, Lren, not ours. This will not be tolerated for much longer.

You keep calling me that, but you’ve not given me a name by which to call you.

Silence.

After a moment, the draasin replied,
You may call me Sashi. It is not my name, no more than Lren is yours. You know what it means?

Alena sniffed. It was a word from Rens, but not one that she recognized.
No.

Then you should learn.
Sashi. stood and stretched her wings, unrolling them as if she were about to take flight. If she did, how would Alena explain her escape?

Alena held her hands out and shaped earth and water together, weaving them in such a way as to layer the shaping atop the draasin. For some reason, that soothed them. She still didn’t understand why, but when it came to the draasin, she didn’t understand nearly as much as she needed to. Cheneth knew more than most about the elementals, but then, the scholar probably had forgotten more than most of the other scholars even knew. His expertise was the reason he’d come to the camp, if not the reason he’d managed to assume control of it. He didn’t admit to it, but Alena suspected he sat high in the College of Scholars, possibly even as a cardinal. Maybe Eldridge would tell her if she asked.

Sashi rumbled at her, and the long, curling tail flicked toward Alena. Any of the spikes could kill, each longer than her arm, but the draasin slammed them into the ground, a mark of her frustration. In many ways, Alena shared it.

We need more time,
Alena said, feeling a surge of temper. The last time she’d spoken to Sashi had been after Thenas attempted to kill her. Now there was something different about her.
If it’s discovered that we’re not hunting the draasin here, others will come, and they will be like Calan.
She sent an image of the wide, muscular hunter through the strange connection. Sashi recognized him—most of the draasin did, now that he’d killed nearly a dozen of them—and she flicked her tail again.
Most believe the draasin attack Ter.

Not by choice, Lren.

None of the draasin had explain
how
they could be controlled, only that they were. It was one of the things Cheneth wanted her to learn, though Alena wasn’t entirely certain the draasin knew the answer.

We protect each other,
Alena suggested. It was mostly true, but she doubted the draasin saw it quite so clearly.

There is not the time we once had,
Sashi told her.
Others come, and they will not bother to speak in the same way.

Alena tensed. This was what she needed to learn about. Cheneth had asked her to find out all she could about what they referred to as
others
, and how it tied into the ability to control the draasin. The elementals had another term for them, but none that Alena managed to understand.

What do they want?
she asked.

The draasin do not know. Neither does the Mother, but you must be ready.

How can we be ready when you’ve not given me enough to know how?

Sashi snorted and leaned toward the water to take another long drink. A distant rumbling drifted through the shielding Alena had placed around the pen, telling her that someone neared.

Alena stood and tipped her head toward the draasin, wondering when she’d ignore her and simply fly away. She could hide herself more easily than most thought and could disappear before anyone was aware she was gone.

Sashi stretched again and, as if knowing her thoughts, drew out long claws that she raked across the ground, leaving deep gashes in the earth. Then she turned toward the draasin pen in the center of the nearby clearing and made her way back to it.

Alena could only stare after the draasin. For one of the powerful elementals to fear anything caused terror to surge through her. The draasin didn’t even fear the warrior hunters of Ter, though Alena knew they had good reason not to. It wasn’t that the warriors couldn’t harm the draasin—seeing how competent Calan had become over the years was proof of that—but warriors first had to
find
the draasin, and doing so had become harder over time, especially since Rens had been essentially destroyed.

Even with Rens destroyed, the stupid war still raged.

No longer was the war the reason Alena was here. That had changed when she began to understand that the draasin feared the reason they were involved. Because of that,
she
feared as well.

Reaching the pen, she found Sashi inside, backed against the wall, waiting. She watched Alena with narrowed eyes, the gold in them practically glowing and her quiet intelligence burning through. Alena placed the stone chains back around the draasin’s wings, slowly sealing the elemental into the pen and suppressing the heat coming from her. Stone countered the fire of the draasin in ways that Alena and the scholars still didn’t understand. Had it not been for the draasin, they wouldn’t have learned, and they never would have known how to use stone chains to capture them. In that way, the draasin had given Atenas the key to containing them.

The draasin had given so much more, though. They had taught of fire, giving shapers like Alena tricks and techniques she wouldn’t have learned otherwise. How many shapers had studied for years and not discovered a way to create the heat veil the draasin demonstrated? Even something as simple as the wrappings of flame she’d learned, or the way to control heat, suppressing it so that she could approach fire much more closely than she otherwise could, had been learned from the draasin.

What did the draasin get from the connection? Alena thought they received a sort of protection, at least an understanding that they were more than the violent creatures most thought them to be, but she wasn’t completely convinced that there wasn’t more. There had to be for the connection to make sense.

Return soon,
Sashi demanded.

She sensed the concern through the connection to the elemental. As powerful as they might be, once the stone chains controlled them, no escape was possible. Now the draasin was truly at her mercy, a different sort of control than what those of Rens used on them. It was a position Alena didn’t enjoy.

As soon as it is safe to do so. You will warn me if there is another attack?

Did I not the last time?

The draasin had, and it was the only way Calan had been prevented from actually killing the last elemental. She’d used a shaping to subdue it and had managed to convince it that she wouldn’t let Calan kill it. Masking her shaping, she’d deflected the angle of his blade enough that he hadn’t managed to sever anything vital, but Alena didn’t know how many more times she’d be able to do the same. Eventually a shaper as skilled as Calan would learn what she did, and how would she answer? She would stop the riders, but killing the draasin—the elementals—felt
wrong
.

I will be ready,
Alena promised.

Sashi snorted softly and backed against the wall, lying down and wrapping her long barbed tail around her.

Alena watched the draasin for a moment more before turning away. She passed quickly through the shielded barrier that prevented most within the barracks from learning about this pen. Only a few knew this place existed. She’d been surprised when Jasn had discovered it, but he was turning out to be more than she had expected. Not only was he a skilled shaper—and a quicker study than her last student—but he had other talents that she wanted to better understand. Cheneth suspected Jasn could speak to the elementals, and time would tell whether that was true or not.

She hurried through the forest, not finding any evidence of the shaping that had disturbed her enough to return the draasin to the pen, and reached the small rise overlooking the valley the barracks spread across or the valley the barracks occupied. As she often did, she paused, listening to the sounds, using a combination of earth and water shaping to detect who might be in the camp. Most were students, only a few of whom would ever learn enough to pass on to the next step in their training, but there were a few other masters, and also the scholars.

Alena started down the hill, sending a shaping of water pulsing toward Cheneth to give warning that she came his way. There were other ways to notify him, but this close, water was the easiest and most effective. Besides, she enjoyed the irritation she expected he’d have when she came, annoyed that she’d interrupted him again. Maybe he’d show her the way the page smeared, the letters worked on the sheet less clear because of her shaping. The first time he’d done that, she’d had to suppress her laughter. The man was stubbornly determined to make her into a scholar regardless of how much she abhorred the idea. Not that it mattered to Cheneth. As far as he was concerned, all she needed was more convincing.

He met her at his door. Ink stained one cheek and his spectacles hung low on his nose, hovering on the brink of falling off. She nodded to him and glanced past, looking for evidence of anyone else, but saw only emptiness behind him.

“You knocked?” he drawled. He shoved his glasses up onto his nose and stepped to the side, motioning her into his room. Like most in the barracks, it was sparsely decorated. A long, low cot was shoved against one wall. A wide table filled much of the space along the opposite side, and books were stacked neatly on top of it. One lay open on the table, a pen resting on its side with a dribble of ink spilled on the page. Alena suppressed a smile.

When he shut the door behind her, she sealed it with air and earth, making certain that no one could hear their conversation. Using the trick of the draasin, she masked the shaping, twisting it in such a way that other shapers wouldn’t know what she did. There was risk in shaping that way, but less than one of the other hunters learning what she intended to share with Cheneth.

“The draasin grow restless,” Alena said. Even now, she felt the presence of the draasin in the barracks. There was the smaller one used for training, and in the other pen, the larger one used to demonstrate their ferocity. Not many were given the chance to work with the draasin deeper in the forest. All flittered through her mind through the strange connection she shared with them, almost as if on a breeze. She only had to focus for that breeze to become a gusting wind, and then the draasin would push, driving through her ability to block them out. She wasn’t entirely certain she could, not completely.

“Did you ever doubt they would?” Cheneth took a seat behind the table and motioned for Alena to follow suit. He picked his pen up and pressed his lips together as he considered the ink smeared across the page, looking up at Alena with a knowing frown. “We cage creatures of fire and ask for forgiveness. How long do you think we can expect that to last?”