The thumping built up deep within her, a pressure that felt like it was coming from outside her cell. It was a buildup of energy, a staunch power that continued to beat against her, a steadiness and a constant rhythm. It wasn’t coming from her heartbeat, but it did seem to tap into some distant and deep part of her.
For a moment, Jayna thought maybe it came from the Toral ring, but she couldn’t feel any reverberation within it, even as she focused on it. Maybe that wasn’t it at all. She didn’t know what it was, nor how she would respond.
But she had to respond in some way.
Escape.
She closed her eyes, thinking about that drumbeat thump. The pounding came from within her mind.
It took her a moment to realize what it was: the linking spell. The thumping came steadily upon it.
Char.
He is trying to reach me.
Getting to that connection, that source of power, meant she might be able to tap into something else. She had seen how the linking had worked before, and how it had gifted her the ability to tap into magic through Topher’s enchantment. If she could use it like that, maybe she could access the magic she needed.
Jayna focused on the tapping and latched on to it.
There was nothing else she could even try to do. She pulled the linking toward her.
Gradually, a sense of power came to her—it flowed slowly, as if through mud, a resistance that worked against her, but she pulled on it still.
She could feel energy building within her, and she could use it. It was more than what Topher had been able to give her, but then again, Topher had tapped into an enchantment, and she was linked to Char through more of a spell, the power of a sorcerer.
The power of two sorcerers.
As the power continued to build within her, and as she recognized that energy, she focused and attempted to push it out.
She needed to wrap it around the cell.
She created a focusing pattern, as simple as a circle.
She concentrated power through the circle, then harnessed the energy that came through the strange linking spell that bound her and Char and tried something different.
She tried tapping into the Toral ring.
There was a different sort of power there—faint, but much like the tapping, that faint energy that came across the linking spell, all she needed was to trigger it. No different than she would need to trigger an enchantment.
There.
The Toral ring began to bloom with power, the energy of the bloodstone within it. That energy started to expand and smoke started to drift outward.
That’s new.
It was the stored smoke within the Toral ring, within the bloodstone, and the combination caused it to push outward, expanding against her. She tried to fight against it, but couldn’t.
Jayna was tempted to call that energy back to her, to pull the smoke back, but there was no point. Why should she need to summon the smoke back to her when she could release it? It was a niggling thought in the back of her mind, but it triggered something deeper within her.
The smoke continued to flow out of the bloodstone, a cloud of it, and it drifted away from her, out of the circle she held, and started to float into the walls.
Strangely, the temperature in the room began to rise.
The heat began to build within her. It was as if releasing that energy from the bloodstone released something within the room—and it released something within her.
Jayna pushed.
Standing in that circle of power, she found that pushing that out was far easier than anything she had tried before. She could feel that energy sliding away from her, could feel the way it worked.
The smoke drifted into the walls, then it stuck.
The walls began to take on more of the smoke. It continued to siphon out of the bloodstone, far more smoke than she would’ve expected, filling the entirety of the cell. The cell itself was not that large, certainly not large enough to contain this much smoke, and if the walls hadn’t absorbed it, it would have overpowered her.
But the area around her started to clear.
Strangely, the more that smoke poured out of her, the more that the room started to fill with it, the layer of smoke taking over the walls, the more she began to feel power filling her.
She was tamping down the enchantments in the walls.
Not destroying them, but neutralizing them.
Was it her controlling that—or the smoke?
She squeezed power out, pushing against the walls around her. The smoke continued drifting out of the ring, flowing in a cloud, and as it billowed outward, now it seemed as if she truly was directing it. She forced more of it into the walls.
Suddenly, the wave of cold dissipated and a warmth flooded through her.
Power filled her.
She could use the energy of the dragon stone. She could feel her connection to sorcery returning.
Jayna stormed forward, reaching the door, and she pressed her dragon stone ring against it, pushing out with a blast of uncontrolled power and forcing it open. She stepped out, then felt the wave of cold attempt to wash over her again.
She dragged the smoke forward.
It was a strange thing to have some control over, but that control came from the bloodstone that surrounded the dragon stone, almost as if the combination of the two were meant to control some of that smoke. She would have to think about what that meant later, why that power would allow her to control the Ashara power, but for now she pushed the smoke out and around in a barrier that sealed off this wall as well. It neutralized the enchantments here, preventing them from pressing upon her.
Her power had returned.
She reached the door that led to the stairs.
Much like the last one, she could feel something within the door, some energy designed to prevent her from getting out, but she needed to escape. The smoke surrounding her, left her knowing she could get free of this.
Jayna created a small spiraling pattern around the doorway.
It was a tight circle, one she could concentrate her sorcery through, but rather than tapping into sorcery, she tapped into the Toral ring. There was no sense in holding back at this point. She was angry, and the more power she drew through the dragon stone ring, the angrier she got.
Agnew thought to hold her here?
She hadn’t attacked him. She had only attempted to save him. To help him. Had she not intervened . . . the Ashara would have harmed him. Killed him.
The same way he had attempted to kill the other sorcerers.
Had she not intervened with them, with Char, they would’ve died, no differently than the dark sorcerer had died out in the city.
Jayna started up the stairs.
Rage filled her.
She was tired of everything that had happened, tired of the way she had been used, and abused, and she was frustrated that Ceran hadn’t even bothered to help her. She was angry she couldn’t get through this on her own, but then . . .
She had succeeded. She had freed herself. It was through her actions that she had escaped from the cell. Now she wanted nothing more than to get up to the outpost, reach Agnew, and . . .
Jayna paused on the stairs.
Smoke drifted down the stairs toward her.
Could it be another Ashara?
She doubted that Asaran would come back, but maybe he had. Maybe since he hadn’t succeeded the last time, since Jayna had intervened and prevented him from completing his attack, he might have decided to return. She had no idea how long she’d been trapped in the cell, no idea of anything other than her anger and the frustration that continued to fill her. Nothing other than a desire to get out.