Summoner's Bond

Power builds to the east. I feel it, though I don’t think others do. Protections have been removed that were meant to remain, and the few who understand cannot do anything to stop it.

—Lachen Rastan, Commander of the Order of Warriors

Jasn stood on the edge of the rocks overlooking the water crashing along the shore far below. There should be something soothing about the way the water struck the rock, and the way that the salt air drifted up to him, but he felt nothing but tension slamming into him with each wave, as if the ocean itself sought to torment him. 

“You haven’t said much since you appeared.” 

Jasn didn’t turn, but then, he didn’t need to. He would recognize that voice anywhere. It was one that he heard in his dreams, one that had tormented him for over a year, time where he had thought her dead. Now that he found her, and now that he knew that she hadn’t been dead, he no longer knew what he needed to do. Or say.

“What do you want from me?” 

“You came to us. We did not seek you out.” 

“Is that the way that you want to leave it, Katya? You would push the fact that I came here, rather than the fact that you let me believe that you were dead? Do you even know what I’ve done for the last year?” 

“More than you would ever imagine.” 

Jasn grunted. “I doubt that.”

She stood along the edge of the rock, close enough that he could smell the familiar fragrance that she wore, one that he once felt so exotic, and now he thought only of her betrayal. It could be nothing other than betrayal. Her hand reached for his, a hand that he once would have grasped eagerly, one that had once touched his face, his chest, all of him. It was her touch that he’d missed over the last few months. He had longed for it. Jasn stepped away from her. He swallowed and turned his back. “Don’t.”

Earth sensing told him that she hadn’t moved, but she didn’t attempt to come any closer. Thoughts raced through his head, the same ones that had when he’d first appeared. Had Cheneth known about Katya? Was that why the old man had sent him here? What kind of cruelty was that for him to know but say nothing? 

“Jasn.” She said his name as she always did, that lilt to her words that managed to melt his heart. 

He refused to respond this time. He would not let himself get caught up in emotion. That couldn’t be why Cheneth had sent him here. The old man wanted him to learn and had sent him to Hyaln not to reconnect with his lost love but to understand whether he could learn enough to be useful in the fight against Tenebeth. That was why he had come. 

“Did you ever think of how I would respond?” he asked. “Did you ever worry about what might happen to me?” 

This time, she did take his hand and force him to turn around so that he faced her. He met her dark, oval eyes. “Do you think I cared so little that I wouldn’t worry about what happened to you?” 

“I went to Rens. For a year.” 

“I know.” 

“I wanted to die, but I couldn’t.” At least now he understood why he had failed at the one thing that he’d wanted most of all. The elementals had kept him safe, healing him for some reason even when he should have died. 

“I know.” 

“Lachen pulled me from it. He brought me to the barracks, where I learned just how much more there was going on than I had ever understood.” 

“I know.” 

Jasn sighed. “How is it you know these things, but you can’t know how hard it has been on me with your absence? How is it that you still live?”

“That’s not what you want to ask, is it?” 

Jasn wanted to ask how she could have left him, how she could have abandoned the life that they were to lead, leaving him alone, broken. Had he not been called back to the barracks, he would have remained broken. In that way, Lachen—his old friend—had saved him. 

“That’s the question that I need to ask,” he said. “Anything else doesn’t matter, not anymore.” 

“I’m one of the Hyaln,” she started. “But you know that now.” 

“Are you Enlightened?” Cheneth was, but Jasn didn’t entirely know what that meant. 

“I am.” 

“Did Cheneth know?” 

Her eyes lowered slightly, the first real emotion that he’d seen on her face. Once, he had been able to read her emotion easily, but either the time away had removed that or he had never really known her. Jasn wasn’t sure which it was anymore. 

“Cheneth was my assignment. He had abandoned Hyaln. We had to know what he intended.” 

“And when you learned?” 

“Then I was no longer needed. Cheneth serves Hyaln, if not in the way that he was instructed.” 

“And Tenebeth? Do you know about him?” 

“We know.”

“But do nothing.”

“We do what is necessary to understand.” 

“Cheneth searches for who woke him. Did you know the answer to that?” 

“Answers to those questions are not easy.” 

Jasn laughed. “Not easy? That’s all you can say?”

She glanced over her shoulder, to the series of buildings rising up from the side of the mountain overlooking the sea. Hyaln. A place that he would have struggled to reach were it not for the draasin. “Hyaln has remained hidden, neutral, for a long time. We seek understanding and nothing more.”

“Nothing? You won’t act with Tenebeth loosed?”

“You don’t understand what you speak about.”

“No? I’ve faced the darkness, Katya. I’ve nearly died. Others have died because of the darkness. I think Hyaln doesn’t understand the darkness.”

“We have those who study—”

“Study? You think you can understand Tenebeth? Cheneth has searched for answers, and even he isn’t certain how that power was freed.”

“And this is why you’re here?”

Jasn stood on the edge of the rock, feeling the pull of water far below, uncertain what to say. He had come here thinking that he would learn. Thinking that he might be able to understand why he could speak to water and why his healing allowed others to reach the elementals. But would he be able to stay, knowing what he did? Would he be able to remain here with Katya and learn what Cheneth needed of him?

“Who was your instructor?” she asked, breaking the silence.

“Alena.”

Katya smiled. “She would have been good for you. A lovely woman.”

Jasn thought of a dozen different words for Alena, but lovely wasn’t the first to come to mind. “She thinks you died while she taught you. Did that not matter to you?” 

“Alena is strong enough that she would not struggle with my absence.” 

“Absence? You make it sound like you were gone for a few days.” When Katya said nothing, he shook his head in frustration. “I thought you were dead. The others thought that the training had killed you.” After that, Alena had refused to take on another student, only acquiring Bayan out of necessity. And now even Bayan had been lost, abducted by Thenas. At least he and Ciara had stopped him. He wouldn’t hurt anyone else. And he wouldn’t attack the elementals anymore. 

“There are things you can’t understand. You’re not ready for them.” 

“No? There are things that you can’t understand. Do you know that I can speak to the elementals? Do you know that’s the reason I didn’t die?” 

“Yes.” 

The simplicity of her statement took all the anger out of him. She had known. If she were of Hyaln, then, of course, she would have known. 

“Why did you come here, Jasn?” 

He looked at her. With her olive skin and raven hair hanging down below her shoulders, she looked like the Katya he knew, but this wasn’t the woman he had loved. That woman would never have hidden such secrets from him. 

He had thought that Tenebeth might have claimed Katya much like he had claimed Thenas. In some ways, this was worse. This was a betrayal and one that she had chosen. 

The simplest answer was the best. “I came because Cheneth sent me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Cheneth refuses to return, himself. He should not have sent you.” 

“He thought that Hyaln needed to understand something from me and that I could learn from Hyaln.” Now that he was here, he wasn’t certain that last part was true. 

“What would Cheneth think we could learn from you?” 

He considered keeping what he could do from her, but if he did, how was he any different than her? How would that be any different than what she had done to him? 

“I can speak to the water elementals,” he said. 

She nodded. “When I was in Atenas, I suspected that. You had more talent than most with water, something that would only be explained by another connection to water.” 

Had she told him, would it have changed anything? Probably not for him. He would still have gone to Rens, and still would have tried to do anything that he could to die. Maybe he would have understood how he became the Wrecker of Rens sooner. Or maybe he would have remained with Oliver, drawn to stay within the tower, learning the healing arts from his former mentor. 

“My connection to water has another effect,” he went on. “Those I heal when tied to the elementals gain the ability to speak to the elementals.” 

“That is not possible.” 

He shrugged. “It’s what it is. Wyath. Thenas. Ifrit.” 

“Wyath could speak to earth. He didn’t need any other connection.” 

“Wyath can hear other elementals now, not only earth. I don’t think it’s the same for him, but it’s opened him to more than what he could reach before.” 

Katya crossed her arms over her chest, the same disbelieving expression that she’d always had. “You can create a connection to the elementals?” When he nodded, Katya clasped her hands together and turned toward Hyaln. “Cheneth, you sneaky bastard,” she whispered. 

“What?” 

“Hyaln once claimed those with the ability to speak to the elementals, but it’s been many years since that has been true.”

“Who were they?”

“They were known as the wise.”

Wise. Olina had called herself one of the Wise. Jasn didn’t share that with Katya. He no longer knew what he could share with her.

“Few know why the Wise departed, and I suspect that’s why he sent you here. He thinks you can restore them to Hyaln.” 

Jasn didn’t think that was true. Cheneth had sent him to learn so they could defeat Tenebeth, but if Katya needed to think otherwise for him to learn, he would go along with it. 

Now that he was here, what choice did he have?