the patterns she had placed at his head and feet to test whether there was anything within him that had been altered or injured, but she didn’t find anything.
He was simply weakened by the battle.
She released her hand and stepped back.
He needed time.
And she needed to face the Ashara dular.
If she could pull off the smoke from around her, it might give her an opportunity to attack the Ashara in a different way than she had before. She stopped at the door leading out into the hallway, listening before pulling it open. Smoke covered the entirety of the floor.
She traced her quick pattern for the wind spell, then blasted it out.
It took a moment, but gradually, the smoke began to clear.
It drifted down the hall, toward the library.
Jayna tried to direct it.
She had proven that she could direct the smoke, that she could call it toward her, and as she pulled on it, she could feel it moving again.
What if I called the smoke into the ring here, too, like I did with the smoke inside of Char?
She didn’t know if it would even work, but she wanted to try. She summoned energy up through her, and sent it streaking out and down the hallway.
She pulled.
It was a strange sensation, a strange way of using power, but the smoke came drifting back toward her as she pulled upon it. She sucked it toward the ring and power began to flow into it, filling it.
Jayna called more and more into it.
It seemed as if it went into the bloodstone itself, its crystalline appearance now cloudy.
She was holding that power, sucking it in . . . then what?
She didn’t know if she could hold on to it indefinitely, or if it would affect her own magic.
Maybe she could use it though?
She reached the end of the hall near the library and turned.
The Ashara dular stood there.
This one was different from the one she’d faced in the street. He had dark, almost black hair and an angular face, and there was something else about him that struck her as powerful, though she wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was only her imagination, but she needed to be careful with this one.
“You need to leave,” she said.
He spun to her.
She looked for signs of an enchantment, but didn’t see any of the oblong ones like those in Raollet’s shop.
He sent a streamer of smoke out, and it started to snake around her, but she held her dragon stone ring and pulled. She could feel the energy sweeping up into the ring, and it began to bulge.
How much power can the ring hold? There had to be a limit, and she feared if she pulled too much, she would overwhelm the ring’s ability to hold that power, which might cause the ring to explode.
Jayna didn’t want to do that. She needed the ring and its power. And when she was facing the dular, she was going to need the energy of the bloodstone.
She might have to pull the smoke and shift it somewhere else if it started to seem as if it was overwhelming the ring, though she had no idea where she would send it, or how.
Power built in the hallway.
Jayna spun, and she realized that they were no longer alone here. It wasn't Char. He was still back in the room where she’d left him. It was another sorcerer.
She turned briefly and saw one of the sorcerers coming toward her, his maroon cloak flowing across the ground, power continuing to build.
Across from her, the Ashara dular stood, power rising within him too.
She was going to get pinched between the two.
She braced for the impact of their power.
The only thing she could do was call upon the dragon stone ring. She let its power flow into her, filling her, and as it did, she pushed it out and swept it away from her in a spiraling ring. More and more power began to spill away from her; she tried to control it, but couldn’t find any way to do so.
She created a barrier.
Something fell off, and it took her a moment to realize what it was.
As she called power through the dragon stone ring, the smoke that she had filled the bloodstone with altered something. She could feel the way it was shifting the power within the ring, and she recognized that if she weren’t able to hold on to the smoke carefully, she would lose control over it.
It continued to tremble beneath her, a