Jayna didn’t know, and that still didn’t explain the reason behind the enchantments either.
There had to be something more to it.
“Let’s get moving. I don’t want to be here when the sorcerers return,” Jayna said.
“You should know that something has changed in the time you’ve been gone.”
“How long have I been gone?”
“The better part of two days,” Eva said.
Could it really have been that long?
From the rumbling of her stomach, she realized it might’ve been. She had been trapped, fading in and out, then waking, frustration filling her. Two days without any food or drink. Two days that the sorcerers had abandoned her.
Two days that they had waited for her to die.
Agnew wasn’t going to come back for me.
He thought she was dular, but even then, could he really have been willing to let her just languish there? Could he have been willing to let her die?
She needed to talk to Char.
“What’s been going on?”
They started along the hallway, and Jayna paused, looking into each of the rooms, but they were empty. The sense of Char was still distant and faded, but near enough now that she wondered if he might still be here.
“The sorcerers have begun their attack.”
Jayna spun, looking at her. “They’ve done what?”
Eva nodded slowly. “They have begun their attack on the dular.”
21
It was later than she’d expected, darkness having fallen by the time they stepped out of the outpost. The street outside was quiet, though it was almost an eerie sort of quiet, a calm that she didn’t know whether or not to believe. There was a strange sort of energy to it, suggesting that what she detected was not real. Distantly, she could feel the same sort of heaviness she had felt before, the thudding deep within her, and she realized why.
Char was trying to get her attention.
He wasn’t too far from her.
“Char is trying to call me,” she said. “He knows this is wrong. He’s trying to intervene, but he’s not able to.”
“He’s a part of this. I’ve seen him with them.”
Jayna closed her eyes, squeezing them tightly, and she wondered if that was really the case. From what she could tell and feel, Char did not want to attack the dular.
“We need to find him.”
“No, we need to get moving.”
Eva grabbed her arm and smoke trailed around her hand, drifting up and along Jayna’s arm, pressing down into her as if to constrict her. It wasn’t something Eva did intentionally, at least not that Jayna could tell, but there was something distinct about the power she used, something strange and unpleasant in the way she constricted her energy upon Jayna.
“You need to stop,” Jayna said.
“Stop what?”
“Whatever you’re doing to me. Stop. It hurts.”
Eva released her and the smoke trailed away. “I’m sorry. Ever since . . .” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter.”
It was dark—there was no moonlight and no lights in the street at all, though there was an energy in the air.
Every so often, she heard a different sound, distinct from what she felt within her, and she realized with a start that it came from explosions thundering around the street.
There was power building all around them, the kind of power that could be unleashed upon the city—the kind of power that meant something dangerous.
“We need to know more about this Ashara,” Jayna said.
“We do not.”
Jayna turned to Eva. “I understand you’re concerned about this, and you don’t want to get caught up in it, but I know something’s going on. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I feel like it involves this Ashara and whatever power they possess.”
“You know what kind of power they possess,” Eva said softly.
“Those are just stories. We don’t know what kind of power they really have. We know what you can do—”
“You think you know,” Eva said softly.
Jayna watched her friend. Eva needed reassurance, but Jayna wasn’t sure what she could say to give her that. “You don’t have to worry about me reacting in some way.”
“I don’t.”
Jayna paused. “Is it what you might do?”
Eva nodded slowly. “I don’t know what will happen.”
“You don’t know because you won’t look for those answers.”
Now wasn’t the time to have this conversation, but she had a feeling that Eva needed to. Perhaps they both did. They needed to work through what was going on and deal with the Ashara so they could be ready for whatever else might happen.
And something more was going to happen.
“You can’t keep running from who you are—from what you are,” Jayna continued.
“What if what I am is not what I want to be?”
“You get to choose what you get to be.”
As she said it, Jayna realized something. She’d been fearing the same thing as Eva all this time. She was worried about the Toral ring and the darkness within it, fearing the energy there and what it might do to her or how it might change her, but maybe that was a mistake.
How could it change her if she refused its influence? She might be able to embrace that dark energy, but that didn’t mean she would become it.
She could use the darkness but not become like those she’d chased.
More than that, even as she’d had to call upon it, she’d known it was dark, and she hadn’t allowed it to seduce her.
She got to choose.
“Come on,” she urged, dragging Eva through the streets. “We need to go see Raollet again.”
Eva wasn’t fighting, but if she had, Jayna wondered if she’d have to force her to come.
Now that she knew how to pull smoke into the dragon stone and bloodstone ring, she might be able to force Eva.
No. She wasn’t going to think like that. She had no reason to force Eva to do anything. Eva was her friend, and though she might not know exactly who or what she was, and though her kind might be willing to attack in the city for whatever reason, trying to regain control of it, Jayna wasn’t about to hold that against her.
“We need to know more about the Ashara and why they might have come here. And we need to know why this is all tied to the Society and the dular now battling. But first, I need food. Water,” Jayna continued.
Eva looked over and nodded.
They found a street vendor and purchased meat and ale, downing it quietly before they both ran through the streets. She was surprised there were any vendors out, but given that they were on the outskirts of the city, closer to the outpost, perhaps they were not quite influenced by the growing war in the city. Or maybe they didn’t care.
Jayna was hungry, thirsty, and didn’t want to linger for too long, feeling like there was an urgency to her actions. She raced forward, and they rounded farther along the outskirts of the city. They were close to Robert’s tavern, the Wicked Pint.
She ran, Eva staying with her. Every so often, Jayna was aware of some energy building up around her, a burst of power that exploded, always near the center of the city. It was faint, subtle, but when it came, she started to wonder how careful she needed to be, if there was some aspect of it that would put them in danger.