Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer #3) - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,111
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.
What if she’d been making a mistake?
“Who are you, really?”
Ceran shifted, coming toward her. “I have not lied to you, Jayna Aguelon.”
“You haven’t told me the truth, either. Who are you? You wanted me to fight the dark, and I’ve done it, but have I truly been fighting the dark on your behalf?”
He chuckled, sounding incredibly amused. “You have.”
“And what of Rayna Qal?” She remembered where she’d heard that name before.
“She still serves,” he said.
“A Toral.”
He chuckled. “Not quite. She was. She has moved on.”
“Why didn’t she stop the attack here? Why wasn’t she able to prevent Dorian from doing what he intended?”
“All of us have our limitations, and all of us have potential—including you, Jayna Aguelon. That is the reason I found you. That is the reason I came to you. You have always had potential, and I’m afraid we will need your potential in the days to come.”
“If you are secretly Sarenoth . . .” she muttered.
Jayna feared putting words to the concern that began to build within her, but she was not going to serve Sarenoth. She was not going to become one of his dark minions.
Ceran chuckled again. “No. You are not serving Sarenoth.”
“Then why won’t you come into the light?”
“Because I cannot,” he said.
“I don’t understand.”
“With the enchantment cracked, I’m even more shadowed than before.”
“You are?”
“I am. But you can change that, Jayna Aguelon.”
“We intend to use bloodstone to seal off the great enchantment.”
“It should work—for a while,” Ceran said.
“For a while? Then what?”
“Then you must find the key.”
“The key to stopping Sarenoth, you mean?”
“No. The key to freeing me.”
“Who are you, really?” Jayna asked again.
He took one more step toward her, and the darkness surged, then faded. She was once more standing in the courtyard, and Eva was there, energy swirling around her, bloodstone in hand. She was already starting to seal off the cracked fountain, and Jayna could feel something shifting, a changing of energy.
A voice drifted into her mind, one of power, that of Ceran, but not Ceran.
“I am the light. I am Arathon.”
Jayna’s story will continue. Subscribe to my newsletter to be the first to learn when the next book will come. In the meantime, check out The Chain Breaker series set in the same world. Jayna and Eva make multiple appearances!
Author’s Note
Dear Reader,
Thank you so much for reading Smoke and Memories. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, I would be very grateful.
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All my best,
D.K. Holmberg
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