“Char?”
She didn’t like calling out his name, but she also didn’t like being here alone, not knowing what was taking place, feeling the energy that was around her, and questioning whether she was in any sort of danger.
She turned, looking toward the back of the outpost.
Her breath caught.
Smoke.
It shimmered across the ground, looking like layers of fog hovering there.
Another of the Ashara enchantments.
There were protections all around the outpost, but somehow someone had overpowered them.
If she could figure out who was responsible, she might be able to figure out why they were using enchantments designed to look like the Ashara. Like Eva’s magic.
It was the kind of magic she was going to need to understand, if only so she could learn how to defeat it—that was, if she couldn’t get them to work with her.
Jayna traced a quick pattern using sorcery. In the outpost, there was no need to restrict her access to sorcery. It wouldn’t be traced back to her. A hint of wind picked up, carrying the smoke away.
A body lay motionless in the center of the hallway.
Char.
Jayna darted forward, quickly wrapping Toral power around her, creating a barrier. She didn’t care whether any of the sorcerers were aware of her, didn’t care if the person who had to be some sort of Ashara dular recognized her presence; all she cared about was getting to Char.
“Char?” She shook him, but he didn’t come around. “I need you to get up.”
He still didn’t rouse, though she continued shaking him. She looked for breathing, terrified he was gone.
“Come on,” she said. “I need you to get up. I don’t know what’s going on here, but I’m going to need your help.”
Char moaned.
Whatever the Ashara dular had done to him had incapacitated him.
Jayna had seen the Ashara dular kill sorcerers before; it was a wonder Char wasn’t killed by that power.
She scooped him up, struggling under his weight, and used a bit of the dragon stone power to fortify herself. She staggered down the hall until she reached the healing wing, then headed into the first room. She lowered him onto the cot and touched his cheek, trying to get him to come around.
“Char. I need your help.”
He moaned again.
The color had drained out of his face, leaving him pale. She pulled back his Sorcerers’ Society robes, revealing his jacket and pants beneath. No wonder he was sweating so much in the library.
“Come on,” she said. “I need you to come around.”
He wasn’t moving, and he wasn’t making any sound.
Jayna had to try something else.
She traced a symbol along his chest then pushed. There was something stirring within him. It was unusual, and it seemed to float.
Gods. Could it be smoke from the enchantment?
What if it was more than that?
Enchantments shouldn’t be this powerful.
Dular enchantments, especially, shouldn’t be powerful enough to overwhelm a sorcerer.
What if this wasn’t just an enchantment and there truly was another Ashara?
She quickly traced out a star at his feet, then added a circle with a triangle inside at his head. The two patterns would help her focus her power. It was basic healing magic, but it was the only thing she had. If Char had been awake, he would’ve used a much more complicated pattern, and probably wouldn’t even have needed to create the anchoring in the same way she did. But she didn’t have the same affinity for healing as Char did; she only had minimal knowledge of how to heal.
Jayna summoned the energy up from deep within her, then she focused on the pattern she had traced on his chest.
She pushed outward.
It was a struggle to draw her power out, mostly because there was something within Char that she could feel fighting her. It was an energy that seemed to slither away from her as if it was trying to escape, but Jayna continue to push, letting her energy flow into Char, trying to force more and more into him.
The patterns on either end of him helped concentrate her power, and what she had placed on his chest helped her create enough of a focus to augment her power, but it wasn’t nearly enough to help Char.
She had to use the Toral ring.
She had only a little bit of experience using that to help her heal. Most of the time, she had used the energy of the Toral ring for fighting, destruction, and battling dark sorcerers, though she could link its power to her sorcery.
For Char, she needed to.
It shouldn’t change anything. Magic didn’t have any lasting effects on anyone when used for healing. It took strength from both the healer and from those healed, and it left both weakened over time, but it didn’t change anything in the long run.
She focused on power and drew it through the dragon stone ring, letting it flow into her, back out into the ring, then into the pattern she had placed upon Char. It was that pattern that created a surge of energy to send through Char.
She pushed downward.
There was nothing healing about what she did. It was merely a blast of energy she sent out, siphoning off the strange energy within Char.
That’s what I feel. Smoke.
It was trying to choke off his life, the same way the Ashara dular had spun smoke around her barrier, squeezing it.
Jayna had thought that before. She knew how to overwhelm it, but it was going to take even more than what she was pushing into Char.
“I’m going to need you to push,” she said.
Char moaned again, but he didn’t open his eyes.
That seemed a bad sign to her. The longer she waited, the more this magic would take hold. Jayna pushed again, trying to squeeze power down through Char, trying to force her way beyond that smoke, and she could feel it fighting against her.
The more she pushed, the more energy squeezed up against her. Jayna pushed again, and again she squeezed, bearing down, pushing power against Char and letting it pour into him.
She could feel the smoke writhe, like something alive. Jayna knew that if she let up, the smoke would constrict again.
She felt the smoke starting to unravel.
It worked slowly, gradually. The more she poured into him, drawing from the power of the dragon stone, the more she could feel the smoke starting to ease.
It seemed that the bloodstone energy was most effective in dissipating it.
Could she pull it into the ring?
She pressed her ring up to his chest, then focused through it.
Rather than trying to press power out, she attempted to pull it back.
It was a different use, a different focus, yet it worked.
Gradually, the smoke started to fade even more, drawing off of him and into the ring. The energy started to flow up into her hand, wrapping around the ring, then was gone. She released her hand with the dragon stone from his chest and switched to the other hand, pressing down and washing sorcery through him.
There was no resistance, no power in him.
Char took a deep, gasping breath, and opened his eyes for a moment. “Jayna?” he whispered weakly.
“I’m here.”
“What . . .”
He collapsed back onto the cot before he could finish.
She panicked. Jayna sent another surge of power through him, borrowing from sorcery, then used the patterns she had placed at his head and feet to test whether there was anything within him that had been altered or injured, but she didn’t find anything.