Jayna and Eva had to intervene.
Jayna stopped for a moment among the scattered remains of the booths and partitions, then she grabbed for Eva, and the two of them went running. Eva called upon the smoke, the power within her, and it circled around her.
“I don’t know what we’re going to need to do,” Jayna said.
“Fight,” Eva replied.
“I don’t know what that’s going to require.”
“Pain.”
She found three people lying in the street, moaning.
Jayna slowed, and her eyes narrowed.
“Dular,” she whispered.
Yet another explosion of energy thundered near her, and she reacted, tracing power out from the dragon stone and creating a protective ring around her. When the attack bounced off, she was pushed to the side a bit, but she managed to hold herself steady.
“We have to stop all of this,” Jayna repeated.
“The fighting, or the destruction of the great enchantment?” Eva asked.
“Both, I suspect.”
And Jayna knew where they needed to go.
Even though she could feel the explosions thundering around the city, they needed to prioritize stopping the destruction of the great enchantment—which meant they had to go to the courtyard. Toward the seven dular homes.
She raced forward. The streets of Nelar in this part of the city were now familiar to her, as were the great houses. Jayna had visited there often enough.
Once she reached the courtyard, magic surrounded her. She could see it flashing with color—some ripples of blue and white, an occasional explosion of what looked like fire—and she felt the overwhelming sense of pressure building around her, tightening her skin. The magic used here was considerable.
“We have to find the sorcerers.” She had a dangerous idea about how to do so and glanced over to Eva. “So we’ll need to summon them.”
“Your connection to Char?” Eva asked.
“Not that. I’m not so sure it’s going to work.” Even if she were to reach Char, she had no idea whether there was anything within that connection that would make a difference. There was something that might, though. “You’re not going to like it.”
She gathered the bloodstone enchantments and dumped them on the ground. Once they were circled around her, Jayna created a spiral of power around them, then burst energy into them.
They exploded in a cloud of smoke that expanded rapidly.
Eva started to call that smoke off, but Jayna stopped her. “We need to use this. We might be able to draw them out this way.”
“Toward me?” Eva asked.
“Not toward you. Well, maybe toward you. But toward this.” She closed her eyes, focusing on the linking spell she shared with Char, and pulled on it.
When she had been trapped beneath the outpost, she had used that connection to draw magic. Maybe there would be some way for her to call to him now. It was worth trying, at least. And maybe if she could do that, she might be able to summon enough of a connection to Char and alert him that she needed to draw the other sorcerers to them.
“I don’t think it made a difference,” Eva said.
“Maybe not. We’ll have to try something—”
Power began to build.
Jayna detected it as a throbbing in the dragon stone ring.
It constricted around her finger, a steady, rhythmic pulsing of power that attempted to squeeze, with more and more energy pulling on it, making it almost unpleasant.
She looked around, and though she could feel that energy, she couldn’t tell where it was. “They’re here,” Jayna said.
“Who?”
“I’m guessing Dorian and others.”
Jayna sent the wind gusting outward, clearing the smoke.
Master Agnew was there. Dressed in his flowing maroon robes, he looked every bit the powerful sorcerer she had known him to be.
Could he really be a dark sorcerer?
There were a dozen other sorcerers with him. Some of them were sorcerers Jayna had healed.
Agnew looked at her, frowning.
“You are the one. You attacked us—”
“Dorian,” Jayna said. She wasn’t sure if it was even right, but she watched Agnew, gauging any sort of response.
He stared at her.
She needed to know.
Rayna had told a compelling story, and the idea fit—that there was some great enchantment here that they were trying to damage—as much as she wanted to deny it. She had been struggling with trying to understand why Nelar had been the target, why there had been so much power present here, but it made sense after talking to Rayna.
Three of the sorcerers were stopped near the fountain and took up positions around it. It occurred to Jayna that explosions continued to thunder out in the city, the power of them ricocheting all around her, an overwhelming sort of energy.
“Stay away from there,” she said to them, letting her voice carry on a spell.
“Jayna?” Char asked.
So he had come.
“Don’t.” She flicked her gaze to Eva. “Keep them away from the fountain.”
“Are you sure about this?”
“Not really,” Jayna muttered.
Smoke started to swirl from Eva, and it radiated in a band outward, toward the courtyard, blocking access to the fountain.
Agnew watched her. “You dare to attack the Sorcerers’ Society? You would dare come into our place with that kind of magic?”
“I would dare,” Jayna said. “Seeing as how I trained with the Academy, I think I have a right.”
She had avoided the Society all this time—avoided admitting what she had been, what she had done—but that time was past. She had to embrace it.
She had sorcery, and she had something more now.
And the steady constricting of the Toral ring told her there was dark power here.
“I’ve been trying to understand it. It’s taken me a while, but the Guild of the Insurn revealed the truth to me.” There it was. His eyes twitched just a little bit at the mention of the Guild of the Insurn. “And then they called you Dorian.” Agnew didn’t react. “The attacks on Nelar only began after you arrived here.”
“The city has been unstable for many years. They needed a firm hand.”
“The firm hand of someone who’s presumably a healer?” Jayna shook her head and took a step toward him. So far, Eva and her magic managed to keep anyone from getting too close to the fountain, though Jayna wondered how long it would last. “I don’t think so. And then there was the callous way you deposited me into the cell beneath the outpost.” She sensed a flicker of uncertainty on Char’s face. “That is not the action of a healer. I was there for the better part of two days. No food. No water. A captive. In a place designed to trap energy.” That was the part of all of this that Jayna still struggled with. As far as she had uncovered, there were three such places all throughout the city, but perhaps there were more. “A place that is designed to separate a sorcerer from their magic. A prison.”
Agnew frowned at her.
“And all this time, the attacks have persisted. First the Celebrants of Asymorn. Then the Order of Norej. Both times, sorcerers of some renown and power had been involved.”
She could feel movement nearby, and Jayna focused on the dragon stone, drawing energy up through the bloodstone, and realized that the smoke she had trapped within it was still active. She pressed it out, creating a band around the courtyard.