A Blade's Rebirth, page 23
“That wasn’t what I did,” he said, voice raised. “The elders asked that of me. And if you can feel it, and if you know that, then you also know the truth.”
Anna didn’t answer immediately, but eventually she fixed him with a glare. “Did you do this to try to undermine my authority?”
“Do you think I need to do this to undermine your authority?” He stared at her. “It seems to me that you’ve done that well enough yourself.”
“If that’s how this will go, then it is time for us to depart.”
“Not quite yet,” Gavin said.
“You do not command me,” she said.
“I don’t intend to command you. I would never make that mistake. But I do want to talk to you. I want to talk to your people, and I want them to have an opportunity to know what you plan. More than that, I want you to have an opportunity to talk to me about what you’ve done and the damage you have caused.”
She stepped toward him. “Damage?”
“Yes,” Gavin said. “You don’t feel what you’re doing? You don’t feel the way you’re destroying everything around us?” He was quiet, giving her a chance to draw on the power here, wondering if she would do it. “You might believe that how you’ve been pulling on that power is the same as what you would do to the bralinath trees. You might believe that you can feel the energy that’s coming through, and you might think it’s a gift you deserve, but it’s causing damage. You are aware of it. Even if you have chosen to ignore everything, you’re still aware of it. You have to know it’s there, otherwise you wouldn’t have set the security that you have around your new city. You’re aware of it because you know that the creatures that have been attacking are tied to it.”
She glowered at him. It was weird to experience these reactions out of Anna because he thought he should be able to work with her, and he’d thought for a long time that the two of them would be allies. To be honest, he had thought that maybe they would be more than allies. Now that he saw the way she was reacting, and he saw the anger in her gaze, he found himself wondering if such a thing would even be possible.
And yet, maybe it wasn’t all her fault. What did he know about what Anna had been through, after all?
Gavin had brought her to the other realm, where they’d been under attack. What if she had been injured the way he had? Hadn’t he felt whispering when he’d been in that realm?
That power had practically demanded he use it. He had resisted, and he no longer heard it, but that was only because of what Alana had done for him. Had he not been healed, maybe he would’ve lost control as well.
He focused on what he could feel from her, which was not all that much. Ever since they had returned from the other realm, she had left and tried to recover. Gavin had known that she would want to do whatever it took to protect her people, but he had also started to question what that might look like. Increasingly, he found himself wondering exactly what it was that she could do. And what it was that she had done.
As he focused and used a combination of the Leier pattern, his bralinath power, and this new energy, he felt a strange puncture wound on her. It was discrete and distinct, but it was radiating from her. She was hurt.
He turned his attention to her, and he turned his awareness to the folding and the power within him as he concentrated on what was there within her.
“You’ve been influenced by it,” he said, though it was mostly to himself. He didn’t think that the others would understand. For that matter, Gavin wasn’t even sure that he understood how. “When we were there. When I was working with the ancient power. You must’ve been injured.”
“When you were destroying our elders, I may have been hurt,” she admitted, “but I have recovered. And I have found what you were trying to take away.”
He shook his head. “I wasn’t destroying them. I was connecting them to something else. Something they wanted. That they needed. If you’d been willing to listen to what I was trying to show you, you would’ve known.”
“I was fully aware of what you were doing, the way you were corrupting it and how you took from our elders.”
He focused on what she was saying, trying to figure out a way to help her, but he wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to do that. Not only did he have to get through to her, but he had to help her, and he might even need to help the other El’aras with her.
Brandon had said that some of the other El’aras had also changed. What if they had gone across to the other side, gotten influenced, and ended up like Anna? What if they all heard the whispers?
“I know what it’s like to be drawn into this,” Gavin said.
He took a step toward her. The El’aras all stiffened, and he had the distinct sense that they were preparing to fight. He pushed outward, downward, feeling the pull of the tree pattern. He used that to connect to Imogen—if anybody would be able to help him, it would be her. But it wasn’t just her who seemed to understand what was going on.
Gaspar appeared by his side, and the other Leier suddenly emerged, stepping forward. Trees grew and blossomed, all of them sharing power.
All of them drawing on the same sacred pattern.
All of them surrounding Anna.
Gavin looked at her. “I didn’t see it before, and I’m sorry. I see it now.”
“What do you see?” she said.
“I see how much you suffered.”
He started toward her, preparing to fight someone he had once considered a friend.
CHAPTER THIRTY
There was no fight. At least, not a traditional one.
He didn’t want to battle Anna. He didn’t want to hurt her.
Thankfully, it was not necessary.
As soon as the Leier moved forward, bracing themselves with their patterns, the El’aras did nothing to stop them. It was almost as if they understood what it was that Gavin was doing, recognizing that there was no danger to the way he and his allies were trying to help. He continued to stretch power around, and he used it to hold Anna.
He could feel the anger within her. How had he not seen it before?
He should have.
Then again, he had understood that she was upset, and he’d felt responsible for that, at least to a certain extent. And in some ways, he was responsible for it because he was the one who’d drawn on that power, and he was the one who had been willing to push and to shift power. And he was the reason so much had changed.
Anna looked at the others with her.
“They aren’t going to help,” Gavin said. “The Leier have them. If they don’t, then the enchantments have them. We’re going to help them as much as we can. I’m going to help you.”
“You don’t want to help my people.”
He felt her trembling, and he felt what she was attempting to do.
She was trying to fold.
Gavin moved faster than he knew was possible for him, almost as though he had simply blinked and moved from one place to the next. He grabbed Anna, gripping her hands behind her back. She was attempting to fight, to break free, but even as he held on to her, he recognized that something within him—that new part of him that had bonded to a different kind of power—was allowing him to keep her from folding away. Whatever had happened to him, and whatever way Gavin had bridged that power inside him, had changed things for him. He no longer had to fear the possibility that somebody would use that kind of power against him or force him to fold in a way he didn’t want.
Gavin tried to hold on to as much as he could, before looking at Gaspar and knowing what he needed to do.
“Stay here.”
Gaspar frowned at him. “Where are you—”
Gavin folded with Anna in tow.
He didn’t travel to the other realm. He had never tried using it to travel from one place to another, but somehow it seemed as if this technique, whatever was tied to this new part of him, allowed him to do so much more easily than he ever would’ve expected before. When he emerged, he found himself inside the enchanters’ fortress.
Folding within Yoran was risky, given that the protections around the city might have prevented him from pushing all the way through, but so far they didn’t seem to be stopping him from doing anything or going anywhere.
Three enchanters raced toward them.
“I need Alana,” he said.
One of them, a black-haired woman by the name of Amy, sprinted off. She was something of a fighter, as her enchantments allowed her to make concussive blasts of energy. With her gone, Gavin didn’t think that the others would attack or try to apprehend him, but they also seemed as if they were waiting, watching, and attempting to decide whether he was going to do anything dangerous.
When Alana came striding toward them, she was in her more mature form.
She looked at him, then Anna. “She has been touched,” Alana said.
“That’s what it seems like,” Gavin said.
“She’s trying to fight it, but it’s not something she can really fight.”
“Can you help her?”
Alana stepped toward Anna and rested a hand on her. Anna began to bark and thrash. Gavin needed to keep her from harming Alana, but he wasn’t sure he had enough strength to do so given how powerful Anna was.
He used every bit of his new power, squeezing it through him. It felt nothing like when he used his core reserves or the bralinath power. This was something else, as if he were folding some strange energy that flowed inside him. Then the pressure began to ease.
Alana folded power through Anna, shifting it in a way Anna wouldn’t be able to stop. She might kick and fight and thrash, but Alana simply healed her, such as it was.
Power shifted inside Anna, which had to be the same way that power had shifted inside him. It was odd to feel that from what was happening and to be aware of the energy as he now was. But he could feel it. He sensed how difficult this was for Anna.
She clenched her jaw, and something within her started to change.
She was unfolding. Gavin could feel it, even though he wasn’t exactly sure what she was doing or why she was unfolding the way she was. The method in which she was holding power unfurled her energy, and it was how she was going to unleash her true potential.
That power slipped through Anna, unfolding within her.
Then Anna sagged and fell to the ground.
Something within her felt different. She also looked taller than she normally was.
Her power had merged. It was the same thing that had happened to him.
“Why did you do it that way?” Gavin asked Alana.
“Because I didn’t think there was any other choice,” she said. “I tried, but it felt similar to you. Whatever was there had been there for a while. It was corrupting her in a way I couldn’t alter. I attempted to filter it, but I could feel how it still lingered inside her.”
“She was injured like I was,” he said. “And I don’t know if it’s because of the El’aras connection, or if it’s just this place, but it changed her.” He looked over toward Anna. “Did you use a spike?”
“I did something, but…” Alana shook her head. “To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I did. The knowledge is there, and I followed it.” Her brow furrowed, her expression darkening. “I wonder what it means that I know how to do that, though. What if I’m to blame?”
Gavin put his hand on her shoulder. “You are not to blame. Not for any of this.” He looked at Anna again. “Had I been paying attention, I might have been able to help her before now. Do you think we’re going to have to help the rest of her people?”
They were not his people. Maybe they could be in time, but not anytime soon.
“I will do whatever I can,” Alana said.
Gavin worried about what would’ve happened had that power lingered inside Anna, and whether or not it would be given a chance to continue to grow. Instead of arguing, he just nodded. “Is it something you could teach me?” he asked.
“I don’t know that I can. This may be something I need to do.” Alana hesitated, and then she wrinkled her nose. “How many do you think are affected in this way?”
“I don’t really know. She has an entire city of El’aras.”
“I imagine it’s built over one of these vents.”
Gavin thought about the way the stone had been pulled from the earth, and the odd energy he had felt when he’d first gone to the El’aras city. He had thought that it was tied to the stonemasons working their El’aras abilities, but what if that had not been the key at all? What if it had all been tied to Anna demonstrating her power?
She had opened the connection.
She was the reason for everything that had happened.
And he was going to have to stop it somehow to save his realm.
“What… What did you do to me?” Anna whispered. Her voice sounded a little deeper, richer than it had before. She started to sit up, and she rubbed her forehead.
“You had an influence in you,” he said. “I know what it was like because it was an influence that was there for me as well. It…” An idea came to him, and he frowned as he was reminded of something they had experienced before. “It was similar to the dark fragments that cause dark sorcery.”
“El’aras cannot be consumed by such fragments,” Anna said.
“Maybe not normally, but you were. It changed something for you the same way it changed something for me, though I didn’t have it affecting me for quite as long as you did.” Gavin unfolded himself, but held on to some of the power so that he didn’t expand as much as he could.
“Why did you do this to me?” she snapped.
“You had this power inside you, and there was nothing I was able to do otherwise. You needed to have it removed. I’m sorry, but this was necessary.”
Anna got to her feet, wobbling for a moment, as if the new addition to her and her connection was too much for her.
She glowered at Gavin.
He had naively thought that helping her would make a difference. They had sealed this power inside her and at least helped with some of that modification. But obviously, that wasn’t going to be the case.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I didn’t want to harm you. I wanted to help you.”
“You have already harmed our people,” she said. “Everything that you have done, everything that you have become, has been harming our people.”
There was no arguing with her about that. And in a way, she wasn’t wrong.
“I’m not going to hold you here,” he said.
“Just like that? You called me here, attacked me, and now you intend to let me go?”
“I helped you.”
She regarded him, and the look that had once carried affection for him was gone. Now only darkness lingered in her eyes. “It is disappointing.”
Gavin watched her, and something heavy weighed in his heart. “Yes,” he said. “It’s disappointing.”
She jerked free of him, and then he felt a surge and a channeling of power as she burst away.
When she was gone, Alana looked at him. “What do you intend to do?”
“This isn’t all her fault. She was attacked, and she wasn’t acting as she normally would. But we need to help the rest of the El’aras, and we need to stop whatever she started here.”
“I can help, but it will take time,” she said.
“Gavin?”
Gavin froze as Gaspar’s voice cut in through his enchantment. “What is it?” Gavin asked.
“I need you to get back out here.”
“Why?”
“Things are starting to… change.”
“Please don’t tell me you’re fighting with the El’aras,” Gavin said.
Gaspar grunted. “Do you want me to tell you what’s happening, or do you want me to tell you that?”
“Well, I’d like for you not to be fighting with the El’aras.”
“That woman just showed up, and she’s obviously been healed the same way you were, but something about her is different. So, you made her bigger, stronger, and more powerful, it seems. All of which was a pretty bad idea, considering that we can no longer hold on to the other El’aras. Imogen and her people are trying, but they can’t hold all of them. The El’aras have already beaten through the golems, and now they’re heading away. They look to be moving east. I don’t know what you intend, but she is plenty pissed off.”
Gavin let out a sigh of annoyance. What was he going to do?
He had thought that he could help Anna. He had thought that he might be able to make a difference.
Now her power might be too potent for him to stop. All because he had wanted to help rather than simply neutralize the threat. How had he abandoned all of Tristan’s teachings so quickly?
“Time to regroup,” Gavin said.
“Already on it, boy,” Gaspar said.
“Well, that’s good. Because we’re going to have to go to the El’aras city.”
“Great. So what did you do to her?”
“It seems like we healed Anna, but in the process, I might’ve started a new El’aras war.”
Gaspar barked out a laugh.
“I fail to see what’s so funny about that,” Gavin grumbled.
“It’s you,” Gaspar said. “Every time you try to do something good, it gets messy, doesn’t it?”
“It’s not my fault.”
“Oh, it never is. I’ll meet you back in the city.”
Gavin scrubbed a hand over his face, then looked over at Alana. “I might need your help.”
“You have it, of course,” she said.
“I don’t know that you really have another El’aras war coming,” Gaspar said.
Gavin hadn’t considered that, but if the El’aras decided to attack, powered now with some new energy—the same energy that was threatening to push outward and into this world—he didn’t know if anyone would be strong enough to stop them. The last time there had been an El’aras war, sorcery had been able to contain it. Would there be enough sorcery to hold them back this time?
He huffed out a breath. “Something is coming regardless of whether we do anything. I don’t know that I can overpower all the El’aras like this, and I don’t want to fight them. I need for them to see the mistake they’re making.”
