“It’s not just enchantments,” Eva said.
“If you’ve seen a single Ashara, then the challenge is trying to understand why they have come to the city, and what they intend.”
She frowned, thinking about what had happened since the Ashara had been seen here. They had come, and the dular had been targeted by the Sorcerers’ Society, then the Society had started to attack.
She shook her head slowly.
“It seems like the Ashara, whoever that may be, is trying to instigate a war,” Jayna said.
“If that’s the case, there may be very little we can do to stop it,” Raollet replied.
22
Eva stood off to the side, saying nothing. Jayna was tempted to reach out to her, to say something, wanting to figure out a way to let her know she didn’t blame her for what was happening, but she could see the uncertainty in her eyes.
What would happen to Eva if they came across this Ashara again?
Eva had encountered them one time, and he had been close enough that Jayna had been concerned about what he might do and if she could prevent his actions. But she wondered if perhaps Eva had little choice in this matter.
She was going to need to get involved.
“We need to figure out where he’s gone,” she said softly to Eva, who just nodded. “And we have to figure out why he’s decided to do this.” Eva nodded again. “I know you’re afraid.”
Eva looked up at her and frowned. “Shouldn’t I be?”
“You should be,” Jayna said. “And I understand it. Gods, I’m afraid, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to stop this.” She looked over to Raollet. He held the book clutched up against his chest and he watched Jayna, seemingly ignoring Eva altogether. Maybe that was for the best. Jayna didn’t want Eva to draw any attention from him, especially as it would only raise questions from him about who she was and why she was here—and what sort of power she had. “Do you have some place you can go?” she asked him.
“I thought I would stay here,” he said.
Jayna flipped her gaze to the door. “I’m sorry I destroyed your doors.”
He frowned, watching her. “You should not have been able to do so.”
“Maybe they weren’t as protective as you thought.”
“Maybe,” he said.
“Either way, are you going to be safe here?”
“There is another place I can go.” He smiled tightly. “I am not the only scholar in the city.”
Telluminder might be one too, though she wondered if his shop had been targeted as well. She wouldn’t put it past the Sorcerers’ Society to have already reached Telluminder since his shop also had enchantments, and she doubted he had an underground space the way Raollet did.
“Find safety,” she said. “Until this is over, you might need it.”
“What do you intend to do, Jayna Aguelon?”
“I intend to stop the attack taking place in the city.”
“If the Sorcerers’ Society has decided to finally take action on the dular, there may be very little you can do,” Raollet said.
“Finally take action?”
He shrugged. “The dular in the city have been acting without influence for nearly a century. They have grown powerful, and if I know anything about the Sorcerers’ Society, it’s that they do not care for others growing powerful while they dwindle.”
Jayna frowned. “I wouldn’t say that the Sorcerers’ Society has grown weaker at all.”
“According to them, perhaps they have. You have managed to keep yourself safe, but how many of the others in the Society could say the same thing?”
Jayna looked around the room. This place was designed to hold sorcerers.
So was the one at the outpost.
Why would they have something similar in both locations? Would it work the same way on the dular?
She didn’t see why not. Dular magic was very similar to that of the Society’s, and sorcerers and dular had overlapping skills, even if they managed to create enchantments in a different way.
“You should get to safety,” Jayna said.
“There is no safety, not if the Society has decided to attack the dular,” he said.
“Not with that attitude,” she said. She nodded to Eva, and they got up. She climbed the stairs, reaching the shattered remains of his shop, and looked around.
Occasional thunderous booms echoed, and Jayna realized that war had truly started. The battle was going on. The explosions came with a regularity, a steadiness, though not so fast and furious that she expected she would be able to track them to a single location.
“What do you think?” she asked Eva.
“Is it your intention to find this Ashara, or to stop the Sorcerers’ Society and their attack?”
“Can we do both?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
Jayna started along the street, following the power she felt building and exploding all around her, but she couldn’t do anything about it yet.
She still needed to move though.
“We need to see how bad this is.”
Eva let out a breath traced with smoke. “I’ll go with you.”
They crept through the streets, and as they made their way around the outskirts of the city, Jayna paused for a moment, listening to the occasional explosion of energy. She realized something. There were no lanterns lit out here in the periphery of the city. Nothing enchanted, not like there usually would be. As she looked along the street, the only thing she saw was the phosphorescent glow of the moss.
How could they trigger—or simply block—so many enchantments so quickly?
More than that, how was it that the dular were not better equipped?
She would’ve expected that the dular would be able to create more enchantments fairly rapidly, but they had limitations to their power.
“Everything feels off,” Eva said.
Jayna nodded. “It is off.” She hurried forward, and it didn’t take long before she reached the market. She focused as she stopped, looking for any signs of activity, but it was empty. There were no vendors, nobody standing and trying to sell enchantments—nothing. Everything here had been destroyed.
Jayna sighed. “This might be beyond us.”
And it might be something she didn’t need to get involved in, anyway.
This was between the dular in the city and the Sorcerers’ Society, not any sort of dark magic. This wasn’t the kind of thing Ceran had asked her to do.
But she didn’t feel as if she could simply abandon the city—not with so much strangeness taking place, not without knowing what was going on. She felt she needed to do something, to intervene in some way, but . . .
Jayna wondered if she even could.
She heard the occasional explosion as she wandered through the streets, distant enough that she still couldn’t feel the source of it, though she recognized the power that was there.
She wanted to stop, wanted to examine the source of that power, wanted to better understand whether this was an explosion of dular enchantments or whether this came from sorcerers, but she wasn’t even sure if it mattered.
She headed toward the seven great houses of the city.
Eva stayed quiet, though occasional smoke drifted around her.