“You know her.”
“Not until I saw her here,” he said. “I didn’t recognize her form.”
“But you know her.”
“I know her,” Asaran said, his voice soft.
“She’s my friend. I want to help her.”
“I’m afraid nothing can be done. She extended too much.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
He marched Dorian away, across the courtyard, as Jayna turned her attention back to Eva, covered in smoke, motionless.
She pushed power down into her again using the dragon stone. The more power she pushed, the more she felt a resistance. There wasn’t going to be anything she could do.
The idea that she could lose Eva this way . . .
“Don’t,” Eva said.
“I’m not letting you go.”
“You can’t save me.”
“I can. I did it once before.”
“You can’t save me this time,” Eva said.
Smoke started to dissipate, as if drawn away by the wind.
Jayna cried out.
She wasn’t about to leave her. She wasn’t about to do nothing.
What had she learned about the Ashara?
Heat.
It was restorative.
There was one thing she did know how to do.
She got to her feet and hurriedly made a pattern. She placed points all around Eva, forming a star with her in the center.
She could feel the energy as she worked, but she knew she needed something more. If she wanted this to be successful, she was going to need a focus—she was going to need more power.
The bloodstone surrounding the dragon stone.
Jayna didn’t care if it would change how she could draw upon the dragon stone ring; she only cared about drawing enough heat to feed Eva. She had seen Asaran in the outpost, standing in front of the fire, feeding his own power.
She could do the same thing.
Only this time, she wondered if she could give enough to Eva to save her. She had to act quickly. The smoke continued to drift, and somehow, Eva’s body was dissipating with it, drifting away. She needed to move quickly.
Jayna stepped back.
Then she pulled energy off the dragon stone ring and set it on top of Eva.
As she did, she called upon sorcery.
She would save her friend.
She felt that energy building and poured it into the spell, which began to glow. It rapidly worked its way around and formed the star as it touched upon each of the points. From there, it struck the bloodstone and burst into bright light.
It created something akin to a fireball. Jayna was forced to back away, the heat of it too much for her.
She waited as the moments passed.
I couldn’t have been too late. Not to save Eva.
And then there was movement.
It came from deep within the flames and seemed as if the flames themselves shifted, forming something with massive wings, a long jaw, and an enormous tail, but then that image flickered, the smoke and flame coalesced, and then they disappeared.
Eva stood there, watching Jayna, light blazing in her eyes. “You saved me,” Eva said.
“You’re back,” Jayna said.
“It shouldn’t have been possible.”
“I used the bloodstone. The dragon stone.”
Eva held out her hand. The dragon stone ring rested in her palm, but the bloodstone was gone. “This is yours.”
There was something different about Eva.
“Thank you for your help. I could feel what you did when I faced those sorcerers,” Jayna said.
“I think I was always meant to help you.”
“If Asaran is right, then you were supposed to be the first one here.”
She frowned. “And yet, I was here when I needed to be.” She tipped her head to the side. “I remember . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know. The memories are there, but they’re faint.”
That was better than they had been before.
“We need to go get the bloodstone to seal off the cracked enchantment. I know we can use it for that, but I don’t know how to do it,” Jayna said.
Eva tipped her head to the side again, and there was something strange about the way she did it, almost birdlike. Flames seemed to flicker in the back of her eyes.
“Yes. I can see how that would work.”
She began to emit smoke, though Jayna saw no blood this time, then she suddenly disappeared.
Jayna frowned.
Where had she gone?
She looked around the clearing, but there was nothing. The sorcerers who had been destroyed were gone. There was nothing but darkness pressing in upon her. She took the Toral ring and slid it back onto her finger.
“You did well.”
Jayna spun to see a face appearing out of the darkness. “Ceran?”
“You did well. I wasn’t expecting you to face this, but . . . Unfortunately, there has been more challenges than I realized.”
“More challenges?” She tried taking a step forward, but she realized she could not.
Ceran held her.
It was strange, and different from the time he had transported her to show her the battleground; this time, it felt as if she couldn’t even move her limbs.
“Let me go,” Jayna said.
“In a moment,” Ceran said. “You have served well.”
“I could serve better if you would tell me what I’m doing,” she said.
“You know what you’re doing, Jayna Aguelon.”
“I’ve been battling with your dark magic. Isn’t that enough? What more do you expect from me?”
“A war is coming, Jayna.”
“A war to release Sarenoth?”
“Unfortunately.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that the twelve are already freed?” When he didn’t speak, she laughed softly. “You didn’t know.”
There was a moment of silence, and in the shadows, she could almost see Ceran’s face. “I didn’t know how many of them were. The constructs holding them should have held.”
“Dorian told me that they never held. That was the secret.”
He took a step forward. There was only a hint of shadow on his face, barely enough to hide his features. She had always wondered about Ceran, curious about what he looked like and whether she might even recognize him. Maybe she knew him as someone with a different name. Even now, as he stepped forward, a hint of light around him, she could not see enough to tell anything.
“That should not have been,” he said.
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“He must be questioned. This is for you to do.”
“Why me?”
“Because it must be done.” Ceran smiled tightly. “And because I am prevented from doing so.”
She started to laugh. “Prevented? What sort of Sul’toral is prevented from anything?”
“Unfortunately, I am. You must find answers, Jayna Aguelon.”
“Why do I get the feeling you’re not telling me what I need to know?”
Ceran didn’t move, though she could feel something coming off of him. Maybe it was power, maybe it was something else, or maybe it was simply her uncertainty. A troubled thought began to come to her.
All this time she had been serving Ceran, believing she had been serving the right side, attempting to combat the darkness. All this time, she had been using the Toral ring, one that granted her access to a greater power. And all this time, she had recognized that there was darkness right at the edge of that power.