Agnew wrapped a shell of power around it, somehow absorbing the enchantment.
That’s impressive.
She’d seen sorcerers using considerable power before, but having that kind of control, being able to wrap that energy so quickly around the enchantment, especially one like that, impressed her.
Here she thought Agnew had only been a healer. This kind of magic was far more potent than what she had expected from him.
She had to be careful. She figured she could get past him, but doing so would involve her using the kind of power she wasn’t interested in using. She didn’t want to blast him and risk harming him. All she wanted was to keep him from further attacking her.
And now that Asaran was gone, Jayna really had no reason to even stay here.
Another blast streamed out from him.
It was followed by another, then another.
Agnew used a quick series of powerful blasts, and each one began to swirl around her feet. Jayna forced them down, holding on to the dragon stone, using the power of the bloodstone through it, and tried to penetrate the restriction that he used around her, but the energy within it was far too much. As it constricted around her, Jayna tried to force her way back, attempting to push him down, but she could not.
He came toward her. “You will see what we do to the dular,” he sneered at her.
Jayna looked back. She needed to get out of here.
The doorway wasn’t very far from her, and was close enough that she thought all she had to do was back away from Agnew. She tried reaching into her pouch, but suddenly couldn’t move. She cried out.
There had to be something she could do.
The power that filled her wasn’t going to be enough. She struggled with it, trying to call upon the energy of the dragon stone ring, using her Toral magic, but Agnew was right there. He pressed up toward her, then he began to make a pattern around her.
He worked quickly, especially for a man of his age, but then, this was a powerful sorcerer.
Jayna strained against his attack. Nothing she could use was enough, not even her connection to the dragon stone.
Agnew was there, right in front of her, and he continued to circle around her. As he did, he poured power out from him, letting it slip toward Jayna, sliding up and around her, somehow cutting her off from sorcery.
She had no idea how he managed to do it, but he seemed to separate her from her connection to that type of magic. Activating the dragon stone ring required a connection to sorcery, and despite having the ring encircling her finger, despite the control she thought she had over it, she found she couldn’t access that magic as easily as she wanted.
He stepped forward. “You will tell me what the dular intend.”
“I don’t know anything. I’m not with the dular.”
How could he not remember her helping before?
He glared at her, a dark expression on his bearded face. “You will tell me, and then I will ensure they do not attempt this again.”
18
Jayna looked around the room. The hearth crackled with less heat than before. The desk Agnew had used to separate himself from Asaran looked askew. While she felt her power flowing, she was still cut off from her connection to sorcery, as if he had sliced through it, peeling it away from her.
Agnew glanced over to the fire. The darkness she had seen in his eyes had faded a little bit, and continued to fade the longer she stood there, unable to escape. She suspected he was trying to peel off any bit of power from any of the enchantments that may have been around. Was that why the Toral ring no longer worked?
Jayna never would’ve considered it quite that way before—she thought the Toral ring had a very different source of power—but maybe it was nothing more than an enchantment.
She focused on the ring, squeezing whatever power she could muster through it, trying to force a connection to Ceran. He needed to help.
Of course, she had tried reaching out to Ceran before, and he had done nothing to help her then. Why would he bother connecting to her now?
Jayna cried out.
Agnew glanced over in her direction. He moved toward her, much slower now than he had before. He must’ve been drawing upon magic to move as quickly as he had. She should have considered that. Of course, drawing upon magic to make magic . . .
The power was all about the patterns, and there might be some benefit to using power in that way. When she had created her patterns to summon and fortify additional power, she had never tried using magic to do it more quickly.
“I have seen you before,” Agnew said.
Jayna licked her lips. She didn’t want to implicate Char, and she needed to get away from Agnew. She had hoped that when he let his guard down, she would find some way of slipping past whatever power he wrapped around her. “You might have. I’ve been around Nelar for a little while.”
He glowered at her. “What do you think you were doing coming here to attack me?” He glanced over to the fire again. “And where did your accomplice go?”
“My accomplice . . . I’m not working with anyone.” She frowned. “You have to remember me from when I helped stop the Order—”
“I remember you with them. And now I think”—Agnew tipped his head to the side, a deep frown etched on his face—“we will use you as bait.”
“Wait. You don’t know what you’re—”
He flicked his wrist, creating a tight spiral with his fingers, then pointed.
When he did, Jayna was forced to slide along the stone, out of the room. Her hands were bound at her sides by an invisible constriction of magic, keeping her from doing anything or reacting. As she was forced out of the room, Agnew came up behind her and stopped when they reached the hallway.
“Davrum,” he said in a whisper.
She’d almost forgotten about the sorcerer lying out in the hall.
The smoke had lifted, though the air had a strange, almost dark quality to it. It was as if all the light that had been in the room, all of the energy that should be here, had faded, flickering out of existence, leaving nothing behind.
“The dular will suffer for this,” Agnew said.
Jayna doubted that anything she said would be believed. Even if she told him who she was, he was unlikely to believe her. Maybe especially then.
After all, she had left the Academy, and that made her someone who should not be trusted.
What she needed, instead, was to find a way to get a hold of Char.
They had reached a staircase near the back of the outpost. Jayna hadn’t even known such a staircase was here, and he forced her down it. She couldn’t walk. Agnew’s magic bent her knees for her. For a moment, she thought she would tumble down the stairs, but he used a powerful spell to keep her lifted, gliding her down. She tilted slightly ahead, which gave her the unpleasant feeling she might fall forward, but she never did.
Each moment that passed, she tried reaching through the dragon stone, attempting to call upon power, but while there came a faint flickering of energy, it wasn’t enough to help her escape. She couldn’t find that power, even though it had to be buried within her.
Jayna wondered if she might manage to create sorcery if she had her hands free. At least she didn’t have to fear her sorcery getting discovered here. There was one benefit of her captivity, though that didn’t leave her feeling that pleased.