Smoke and Memories (The Dark Sorcerer #3) - D.K. Holmberg Page 0,100
noticed a hard intensity in Matthew’s gaze. He shrugged. “You can laugh if you want, but this person is part of some sort of resistance. I have a feeling they don’t like the dular or the sorcerers.”
“So you’ve been helping instigate the war?”
“I haven’t been helping anything,” he said. “I took a job.”
“Where, exactly, did you meet them?” When he stayed silent, she glared at him. “I need to know this, Matthew.”
“I had an enchantment that helped guide me to them.”
He pulled out a necklace he was wearing.
Jayna just shook her head.
“These aren’t the kind of people you need to get involved with, Jayna. You have no idea how dangerous they are. You have no idea how dangerous any of this is. I didn’t know this was going to instigate a war, but . . .” He shook his head. “They’re creating a battle between the Society and the dular. You, especially, shouldn’t be here.”
“I told you I’m not with the Society,” Jayna said softly.
She grabbed the necklace off his neck, jerking it free, and Matthew grabbed for her wrist. Jayna used a hint of power through the dragon stone and began to press it into him.
He took a step back.
“Jayna?”
“I really had hoped it would’ve been over when we did the last job, but unfortunately . . .”
“The last job?” Matthew asked, frowning. “What are you talking about?”
She had studied the memory bowl, trying to grasp the knowledge of its making, and thought she had a pretty good idea. More than that, she had access to spellbooks that she had studied. There were answers within them, a way for her to better understand more, and now . . .
Now she had to use the memory bowl herself.
This was some kind of dangerous magic. Jayna knew that—and she knew it had consequences.
She reached for power—sorcery—and traced a quick pattern.
It was a simple pattern, one that involved her making little more than a small circle with a pinch at the end, but that pinch that was the key. She twisted, and in doing so, solidified the power.
Matthew tried stepping away from her, but she had used enough magic within her to add the enchantment to him, sealing it upon his mind.
His eyes went blank for a moment.
“I wish it were different,” Jayna whispered.
She motioned for Eva to follow, and they headed down the street.
“Why?” Eva asked as they headed away from Matthew.
The spell would linger for a while, long enough that it would give her a chance to find this resistance using the enchantment he had.
“Why did I take his memories?”
“Yes.”
“He needs to be out of this,” she said. “And I gave him a little incentive to leave as I placed the spell.”
“That’s dangerous magic,” Eva said.
“I know,” Jayna said.
Not just dangerous, but it was the kind of magic she didn’t really enjoy placing, the kind of magic she feared using, worried it might imply she’d turned toward dark magic. When she’d used it, though, she didn’t have sinister intentions. She had done it simply to try to prevent Matthew from getting more deeply involved in something he shouldn’t. She had done it as a way of protecting him.
“I know what it’s like to lose memories,” Eva said.
“This is different,” Jayna said.
“Is it?”
“I did it to protect him.”
“What if somebody did it to me to protect me?”
Jayna didn’t have an answer for that, though she wondered if that were really the case. She looked down at the enchantment that Matthew had and squeezed her hand around it.
She recognized it. A linking spell.
She could follow that power.
She used the linking spell to guide her into the distance, and she felt energy flowing, a surge of it that continued to roll through her. It was near—and she wasn’t surprised that the spell led her to the tavern where she had first met Matthew.
Why had he brought them there in the first place?
Eva frowned, smoke drifting around her slightly. “Something’s off,” she repeated.
“You mean other than the ongoing explosions around us?”
Eva looked in her direction. “Other than that.”
“You’re right,” Jayna said. “It’s this city. Something is very much off here.”
Unfortunately, she still didn’t know what it was or what it would take for them to deal with it, but the power occurring all around her in the city was prominent.
She stared at the tavern, watching it for a moment, when she realized something else. There was another trail of smoke coming from it. The Ashara was here.