Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer #3) - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,38

hands and blood poured out.

The man frowned, watching her.

As the blood pooled around Eva, it immediately turned to smoke, then she wrapped it around him. Somehow, he shifted it, drawing it away, sending it streaking off to either side.

Eva was thrown back.

And Jayna reacted.

Ignoring the overwhelming pain she knew would come, she called on more of the Toral ring’s energy, letting its power fill her. The darkness she sensed when she drew on this much power served as a taunt to her. It was a temptation, a periphery of energy that was just there for her taking.

She wrapped herself with the band of magic, then sent an explosion out from her. It struck the man.

Jayna didn’t wait to storm forward.

He had gone flying backward, stumbling over a section of fallen and collapsed stone, and she found him lying there, motionless.

She approached carefully, ready for another attack. She started creating a blade of light spell with sorcery that she’d augment with the Toral power, preparing to blast him, but she didn’t want to. This wasn’t some dark magician, somebody with power that shouldn’t be theirs. This was somebody like Eva—somebody who might have answers for her.

Jayna glanced over to Eva.

She remained behind her, yet said nothing.

Jayna sent a controlled blast to incapacitate the man.

When she did, he looked up, squeezed his hands into a fist, and a cloud of smoke enveloped him. When it cleared, he was gone.

Jayna focused on the linking spell, but found nothing.

She sank to the ground, trying to let go of the power within her, but could still feel that darkness lingering on the outskirts of her awareness. As she attempted to push it away, she could feel it trying to intrude, as if that dark energy wanted her to claim it.

“What was that?” she whispered.

She looked up to Eva, who approached slowly, holding her hands in a more relaxed manner, though smoke still swirled around her. It quested outward, as if tentatively reaching toward the space where the man had been, before retreating again.

Eva shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Was he like you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

If he was like Eva, maybe they could learn something. “Did he trigger any memories?”

“Only one.” Jayna looked up again, holding Eve’s gaze for a moment. “Fear.”

9

They stumbled out into the street together as weakness washed through Jayna—a result of the pain she experienced from drawing upon that much power from the Toral ring, especially now that it had the bloodstone augmentation. But it was more than that too. When she tapped into that dark energy—always there at the edge of her awareness—she felt even more pain. In this case, it was also a bit of guilt. She hated tapping into that power, hated the way it made her feel. It was almost oily, a slick sort of feeling that left her ashamed of drawing upon it. Ceran would definitely have felt that.

There was no other sign of smoke. There was only the persistent energy that filled her, giving her a distinct awareness of the power that still lingered. The man had gone, but his presence hadn’t faded altogether.

She looked over to Eva, and found her staring out into the street, an unreadable expression on her face. She was distraught, which Jayna understood.

“We’ll find him again,” she said. She twisted the Toral ring, spinning it on her finger, feeling the power flowing through it, still hating that she had felt forced to draw upon the dark energy.

“That’s my concern,” Eva said.

“What do you remember about him?”

Eva shook her head again. “Nothing. Just emotion.” She looked over to Jayna. “Does that make any sense? I feel like I should know more, but there are holes in my memory—ones that seem like I could fill but can’t.”

“I understand,” Jayna said.

“You don’t understand.” She couldn’t get over the distraught look on Eve’s face, but she felt as if there was something she could offer her, even if she didn’t know what it was quite yet.

“I’m not going to stop helping you.”

Eva looked like she was going to argue, but she bit back anything else she might say. Finally, she took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. A bit of smoke drifted out of her mouth, and Jayna realized just how nervous Eva had been. It wasn’t often that Eva used her power so directly like that, had left that power circling around her, but now she had done so continuously.

“I thought for a long time about what it might be like when I