Jayna had to tamp that down. She used the bloodstone surrounding the dragon stone and pulled the smoke from the stairs into it.
If she could learn how to replicate it again, she wouldn’t be held once more. At least now she knew there was some trick to escaping if they attempted to hold her. She had not known there was any remaining smoke contained within the ring that could be used.
And knowing that gave her more confidence.
The smoke trailed into the ring, siphoning into her bloodstone, but the smoke felt different from when she’d done it before.
Maybe that difference was just an enchantment, much like the one that had been used in the attack on Raollet, though she didn’t know—she didn’t even care. She continued to pull the smoke into the ring and started up the stairs again. When she’d reached the door at the top, she pressed her hand against it, preparing a pattern to blast into it, when she decided to test whether it would open.
And it did.
She stood in the doorway, looking out at the outpost, and focused. She had to press down the frustration rising within her. It seemed to come each time she borrowed from the energy of the Toral ring, as if it were somehow influencing her more and more. Jayna had to be careful, knowing that the more she allowed it to influence her, the more likely she was to tap into dark energy.
Jayna stepped forward, noticing the smoke still trailing around the inside of the outpost, and looked along the hallway to see if anyone was there.
There was no one, nothing.
She didn’t feel any signs of sorcery, though Jayna didn’t know if she even would here. This place was filled with the sense of sorcery, but it also masked that energy. There was something in the walls themselves that kept anyone outside of the Society from knowing the actions of those inside.
Jayna started down the hall.
She reached the wide double door leading into Agnew’s room and glanced toward it, but she decided there was no point in going after him.
She had expected he would have detected something. She thought he would’ve realized she was free.
Could he not know?
Jayna continue to call on the power within the Toral ring, ready for an attack that didn’t come. She reached the main hall. The walls were bare, simple stone, but there was something about the area that struck her as strange. The Toral ring constricted, squeezing around her finger, and she wondered why. Then she remembered what she had gone through in this place before, what had been through here before.
Dark magic.
That was what she detected. There were dark magic users, which meant there might still be dark magic around here.
Jayna turned in place, still focusing on that power, still thinking about the energy there, and she began to look for any signs that the Order of Norej might have left within the Academy, but she didn’t see anything.
Could she feel it?
Jayna stopped in the hallway.
Where are the sorcerers?
There was no sign of them, no sign of anything here—nothing other than the energy she felt around her.
Jayna reached the library where she had researched with Char, but it was closed. She pushed open the door and found it unoccupied. She still had the book she’d taken off the shelf, and remained surprised that Agnew hadn’t bothered to search her, other than activating all of the enchantments she had.
Not only that, but he had known how to activate all of them. That suggested a level of skill and power that she hadn’t even contemplated before.
Could he do that with any of the dular?
She headed down the hall where the healing rooms were located but found them empty, then she stopped at the door at the end.
Smoke drifted out.
She had seen some smoke in this building. Little traces of smoke drifted from underneath the door. Something was here.
She tested the door, but it wouldn’t open.
There had been a particular spell Char used on the door to open it, but Jayna didn’t have any way of knowing how to do that. She pressed the Toral ring up against it and pushed a pulse of power through the ring, then it opened with a loud crack.
Smoke billowed out at her.
She reacted, stepping back, pulling the smoke into the bloodstone.
Something streaked toward her.
Jayna ducked, dropping down and kicking upward, then rolled off to the side. She held the ring out, trying to react, but didn’t know what was there.
Some energy had attacked her—and there was something familiar about it.
As the smoke began to clear, a figure stood in the middle of it.
“Eva?”
Eva blinked, squeezing her hands into fists. Blood streamed down from them, dripping onto the stones and turning into the smoke that trailed off and into Jayna’s ring.
“What are you doing here?” Jayna asked.
“Topher said you sent word.”
“How did you end up . . . The Society. They trapped you here.”
“I was too brazen when I came,” Eva said, leaving Jayna surprised at the admission. “I stormed in, trying to use my power, and hadn’t expected them to be able to hold me.”
“Who?”
“The old one.”
“That would be Master Agnew,” Jayna said.
“I wouldn’t have expected a sorcerer to be able to hold me so easily.”
“He’s gifted. Char has said that.”
Eva’s expression darkened for a moment and she nodded behind her.
“I thought they had you in this room. This was where the dark power was held the last time.”
“It was, but there’s a cell somewhere deep beneath the ground. I thought Topher had told you.”
“The information you shared was garbled,” Eva said.
Jayna looked along the hall. “Where is everybody?”
“I don’t know. They captured me and didn’t return.”
“How long have you been captured?” She needed to have a sense of how long she had been captured.
“Not long.”
That was the smoke she had detected. That was what she had felt coming down the stairs. That wasn’t the thudding though.
She closed her eyes, focusing on the linking spell between her and Char. She could still feel that energy beneath the surface of her mind; it was distant and faded, but she could reach for it.
Char wasn’t here.
“Thank you for coming,” Jayna said.
“How did you learn to do that?” Eva asked.
“Do what?”
“Take in the smoke.”
“I don’t really know. I started doing it when I faced the other Ashara. Topher told you about that, I hope. It wasn’t just somebody using Ashara-like enchantments. This was an actual Ashara, and it was different from the enchantments that we faced—or I faced—in Raollet’s shop. They had power like . . .” She looked up at Eva, not sure how to go on, but she needed to say it. “Like you.”
Eva nodded slowly, remaining silent.
“I don’t really know what to make of him, other than the fact that he has considerable power, and I struggled to stop him.”
“He came here?”
“He did. He attacked Char. I tried to help him by drawing off the smoke.” She shook her head. “And he attacked other sorcerers too.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I don’t really know.”
It didn’t fit with the stories Raollet had shared with her about the Ashara. They were supposedly natural enemies to the El’aras, but not to the Society—unless the Society had done something to them, or to this one particular Ashara.