Endless Night by D.K. Holmberg

Already he had searched throughout Ter, and now he’d come to the claimed cities in Rens, all without success. With what was coming, he needed to find him, if only to learn where his allegiance lay.
    Taking a sharp breath, he pushed on the doors, giving a soft shove with a shaping at the same time, letting them swing silently on their hinges. The murmuring sound of voices came louder through the open door but died out as he stood in the doorway.
    Two types of men and women sat around the table. There were the armored members of the order, shapers all, wearing their shaped chain mail and shaping-enhanced swords, and then there were the dark-robed men and women sitting at the far end of the table. They were the reason he’d come.
    Alistair, forehead creasing as he frowned, waited until Eldridge motioned to him. Dressed in the leathers that were more common in the barracks, the thick jacket buttoned tight over his chest, Eldridge looked nothing like one of the scholars. Nothing like those of the order, either.
    Eldridge bowed slightly, keeping his eyes up so he could watch those at the table. In Jornas, he expected more difficulty than he found in other places. Such was the nature of their position at the edge of old Rens. The draasin still attacked the city, but less frequently than they had before. Most blamed Rens. What would they have thought were they to learn that Rens had no more to do with those attacks than the northern isles of Vethansa?
    “Master Alistair,” Eldridge said softly, letting his voice carry on a subtle shaping of wind. “I would have a word if you please.”
    “Just come in, Eldridge,” Alistair said impatiently. “None of this nattering matters all that much anyway.”
    At the mention of his name, the other scholars all looked at him with a different light in their eyes. Damn Alistair for using his name before he had a chance to watch longer. That was one advantage of his dress: none really expected it of a scholar, which gave him the chance to observe as closely as he wanted.
    “What is this, Alistair?” one of the women at the end of the table asked sharply. She had short black hair and eyes that were the color of a stormy sky. She had placed her hands on the table in front of her and started to stand when one of the other women whispered softly to her.
    She is the one.
    Eldridge kept his face serene, not wanting to show any sign that he’d just heard the wind speaking to him, but none of the people in the room would have believed it were he to make such a claim. Once, the people of Rens knew and understood the elementals, but that had been before the war. Now Rens had nothing more than superstition. In that they were no different than Ter.
    The woman the wind suggested couldn’t have been any older than sixteen. Perhaps eighteen if he was generous. But she sat at the table, a full member of the order. There were others her age who had managed to reach each of the elements, but it was uncommon.
    Are you certain? This woman—girl, really—had wavy brown hair and eyes so brown, they were like night. He sensed shaping from all around him, though he wasn’t sensitive enough to know where it came from, only that wind was shaped.
    Watch her, small one.
    The comment nearly made him smile. Small one. He had the growing suspicion that the elementals had names of their own, but none that they shared. At least not with him. Alena hadn’t claimed to know draasin names, and Jasn was too new to hearing the elementals to ask. And Cheneth… the old man had a different connection to the elementals if what he suspected was true.
    As the elemental requested, Eldridge watched her, hoping for some sign of her abilities. It was the reason he had come. At least the scholars here still followed his request to notify them of any strangeness from the order. How else were they to discover others with potential Cheneth sought?
    The dark-haired woman’s face flashed with irritation again, and again the girl made a