Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer #3) - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,42

him.”

“Of course I know about him,” Raollet said. “I know about all who chased power like that.”

“What about Norej?”

His eyes widened. “What have you gotten yourself into?”

Jayna just frowned. There was more than Norej and Asymorn. There was the other thing that Char had mention: rothand.

Decay.

That was what it meant, but it was another sort of power, one that suggested a different kind of energy—something far more dangerous than she had first thought.

What if there had been another of the twelve here in the city?

Ceran would have known—wouldn’t he?

“I really don’t know what I’ve gotten myself into,” she said.

“You’re chasing this power, are you not?”

She shook her head. “I’m not chasing it. I’m trying to stop it.”

“If you were truly trying to stop it, you would not be interested in it.”

Jayna breathed slowly. “I need to understand what’s out there, and the threat it poses, in order to know how to defeat it.”

He regarded her for a moment. His gaze drifted down, lingering on the ring, before he looked up at her again. “Would you really stop it?”

“You know about the twelve.”

His gaze narrowed.

“Which means you know about Sarenoth.”

There was a risk in revealing what she was after, in exposing the questions she had, but if she didn’t take that risk, if she didn’t ask the questions, then she might not find the answers she needed. If he did know, then she needed to learn from him. She needed to dig, to find the answers, and without that opportunity . . .

“Come with me.”

“Where are you going to take me?” Jayna asked. When she’d gone with him before, he’d shown her the El’aras he had captured. She wasn’t interested in him doing the same again.

“To discuss what you are asking about.” He looked around before settling his gaze on her again. “It can’t be done safely here. So come with me.” He tottered off, heading to the back of his shop where he disappeared, leaving Jayna watching him.

She hesitated. Did she want to go after him?

Eva was still out there, and had stormed out, which left her concerned. Eva needed her help. But it was more than just that. There was something about the stories of the Ashara that Raollet had shared that had somehow unsettled Eva. Maybe they were only stories, but if they weren’t, she needed to learn all she could to help Eva understand herself.

But for now, Raollet might help in another way. She might have a way of finding answers during Ceran’s silence. Eva would understand that.

She followed Raollet back into the darkness of his shop.

10

The back of his shop was dark, and it stank of stale ale and mold. He’d moved to a different location after she’d destroyed the last shop, and she wondered what this had once been. She waited a moment as she looked around the inside of the shop here, searching for anything that might trigger a trap, but she didn’t come up with anything. He was simply guiding her.

Near the end of the long hallway, she came across a room like the one where he had attempted to sell her El’aras fingers. Did he have a similar cell in this shop?

It wasn’t a similar cell. It was the same hall. The shop connected to his old one.

Why would he have wanted to keep them connected?

“What are you waiting for?” Raollet asked.

Jayna nodded to the door. “That.”

Raollet frowned and tapped on the door, throwing it open. It was empty, which she appreciated seeing, though she hadn’t demanded he show her. “There are certain things that are dangerous. You must understand that, Jayna Aguelon.”

“There are, but they don’t justify holding a family and torturing them.”

Even if doing so would be in service of destroying the darkness, she didn’t know if she could do it and feel as if she were not succumbing to something worse.

It reminded her of something her brother’s friend Matthew had said to her. They had done bad things, but had done so against bad people. Was that the justification she would need for herself? Would she come to believe that doing bad things to bad people, if it meant that some greater good came of it, was worthwhile?

When she had been here with Eva, searching for the fingers, Eva had certainly felt that way, though Eva had a practicality to her that Jayna didn’t. When it came down to completing a task, Eva was willing to do whatever was necessary.

Jayna didn’t think she could take that kind of approach,