“I don’t have time, Topher.” She tried to make sure she maintained the connection, but now that she had formed the linking to the enchantment, she still had power. “Your enchantment works. It’s incredible. I need your help. Actually, I need Eva’s help.”
“Why? Why didn’t you just come back—”
“Topher. I need you to send Eva to the outpost. I’m trapped in a cell beneath the outpost. She can find it, but she’s going to have to get Char to help.”
Jayna had no idea if Char would even help, but if he refused . . .
She had no doubt that Eva would fight her way through.
“I’m asking her now. She’s not sure she wants to.”
“Tell her that it was not just an enchantment. There is another Ashara.”
There was silence for a moment, then another vibration came. “What’s an Ashara?”
“Is that your question or hers?”
“That’s mine. Eva got up and disappeared. I don’t know where she went.”
“Did she leave?”
“I can’t tell. She’s been drinking. I tried to tell her not to, especially when you didn’t come back after leaving, but . . .”
Jayna squeezed on the coin. If Eva had been drinking, there might not be much she could do, though at the same time, she had seen Eva survive drinking incredible amounts and still come around much better than Jayna would’ve been able to do if she had been the one drinking. “If she’s still there, tell her that she needs to go to the lower level. That’s where I’m trapped. My magic doesn’t work here.”
“Your magic? But you’re a powerful sorcerer. And whatever else you are.”
The vibration within the coin was starting to fade.
“Something’s happening,” Topher said.
Jayna squeezed on the coin. She needed it, needed the communication, but she also needed the connection she had within the coin to access her magic.
“We don’t have much time left, Topher. Enchantments have a limited lifespan before they’re spent. I’m going to need you to go silent. I’m going to need to borrow the power that remains in this.”
“Be safe,” he said.
With that, he faded, though she could still feel a vibration within the coin.
The connection was still there, the power she needed, and she tapped into it. As she called that energy across from him, she could feel something, though the longer she held on to it, the more she began to wonder if she’d be able to keep hold of it. It might fade completely.
Jayna tried drawing on more energy, but the linking spell—and the enchantment—began to fade. She had one last thing she could attempt.
She focused on Char.
She could feel the energy from the linking spell she shared with him deep within her mind, and with the residual power that remained with the connection she shared with Topher, she plucked on it. She did it differently than she had before, and instead plucked it in the same way she had when she created a vibration within the coin. She tried to use the spell in a way that incorporated a clearer sense of communication.
“I need your help, Char,” she sent.
The linking spell with Char was the most solid piece of magic she had, and she didn’t even know if it was possible for her to have that severed. She also didn’t know if it was possible to communicate through it. If it were, then she would have done it before. Of course, she had never had the need before. But now there was desperation within her.
“I need your help, Char,” she repeated.
Each time she said it, she tried to slide more power toward him along that connection, but there was no response. In fact, it felt as if his connection to her grew fainter.
Her connection to power was getting weaker.
The energy she drew through the spell Topher had left for her was fading.
She needed to use everything she could one more time, blast it through, and maybe . . .
Maybe she could get Char’s attention.
Jayna harnessed the last of the energy within the coin. The vibration eased before falling completely still.
She held that power within her, then she sent one last cry.
“I need your help, Char.”
After that, the power was gone.
Now that it had faded, she no longer knew if she would find a way out. She no longer knew if it was even possible. She sat in the cell, looking around.
Topher and Eva would know she was trapped, but could they reach her? She had no idea if Char knew anything about what happened, and didn’t know if her attempt to call to him had even worked, but even if it did, would he come to her?
Could he?
Trapped as she was in this place designed to hold sorcerers, she couldn’t help but feel as if something else was happening, beyond what she had ever understood. She couldn’t help but feel as if the answers to the questions she’d had since working with Ceran were right there at the edge of her understanding. All she had to do was find that knowledge. But she didn’t know how. It was there, but she had no answers.
She sat back, staring at the door, twisting the dragon stone ring, trying to tap into power, trying to summon Ceran, trying everything she knew how to do and failing.
It was the first time in a long time that she’d been powerless.
Completely powerless.
Worse, she was powerless in a place that she shouldn’t be powerless—a place where she should be connected to her sorcery, a place that should be safe for her.
The longer she was here, the more likely it was that the dular and the Sorcerers’ Society would face each other, and the more likely a battle would wage that she could do nothing about. If that happened, she had a feeling the darkness would win.
20
Jayna drifted again, and she jolted awake to hear a strange thumping. Her heart hammered, and she wondered if maybe that was the thumping she had heard, but as her heart slowed, the hammering did not.
It was distant—a steady pounding sound.
She got to her feet. The air was even colder than it had been before, cold enough that she started to wonder if something about these enchantments was designed to suck her lifeforce, take her energy away, and keep her from responding in some way. But would that even be possible?
There had still been no response from Char.
The longer she was down here, the less likely she thought Char would find her. He might have heard her plea for help, or maybe he hadn’t. She didn’t know if he could reach her across the distance that way, but even if he could hear her, would he know what it meant? Would he know to come looking for her?
The thumping persisted.
Jayna attempted to reach for power through the Toral ring again, knowing that if she could find a way to tap into that energy, then she might be able to call upon something more, something that had been separated from her. But each time she tried, she found it faded, faint.
She turned in place.
How long had she been trapped here?
It may have only been a few hours, but she’d drifted off, sleeping from time to time, which made her wonder if perhaps it had been longer than that. What if she’d been here for days?
The outpost and the sorcerers within, primarily Master Agnew, believed the dular had attacked. She suspected the Society would continue to press the dular, and would likely attack them because they felt threatened.