An ancient return the ch.., p.1
An Ancient Return (The Chain Breaker Book 10), page 1
AN ANCIENT RETURN
THE CHAIN BREAKER BOOK 10
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2022 by D.K. Holmberg
Cover by Damonza.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Want a free book and to be notified when D.K. Holmberg’s next novel is released, along with other news and freebies? Sign up for his mailing list by going here. Your email address will never be shared and you can unsubscribe at any time.
www.dkholmberg.com
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Author’s Note
Series by D.K. Holmberg
CHAPTER ONE
The wind whispered through the bralinath trees.
Gavin stood at the edge of the forest, eyes closed as he focused on what he could detect of these ancient trees. They were remnants of the past, back when the El’aras had a different sort of power, and they were connected to the El’aras people in ways that he still didn’t fully understand.
And he was connected to them.
He was their Champion, and he could summon power through the bralinath trees to add to his own natural magic—power that came from the part of him that was El’aras as well. He stood, rocking in place, focusing on the energy he could sense from the trees. It was something he had come to do often lately, feeling more and more as if he needed to spend time here so he could understand who he was, and what he was descended from.
When he finally opened his eyes, he looked over to the stone wolf enchantment that remained crouched and waiting for him. He had connected himself to the wolf, which had changed something for it—one more aspect of his El’aras abilities that Gavin still tried to understand. He rested his hand on the back of the wolf, and though he could feel the stone it was made of, it was gradually starting to shift. In enough time, it might become something else.
“He’s not going to talk to you.”
Gavin spun toward the voice with sword unsheathed, but it didn’t glow.
“Have you been following me?” he asked Gaspar, who stood near a bralinath tree, though he didn’t lean against it. His friend recognized the power of the tree and how he needed to treat it with respect.
Gaspar grunted, taking a step toward him. His hands went beneath his olive-colored cloak, his fingers likely running along his hidden knives, before he swept his gaze around the forest. The wrinkles around the corners of his eyes didn’t seem quite as deep as they had when Gavin first met him, though Gaspar generally looked more youthful lately.
Or I’m getting older.
“You’ve been coming out here the last couple of days. I thought I should make sure you weren’t hiding something.” Gaspar arched a brow at him. “Are you hiding something from us?”
“There isn’t anything to hide out here,” Gavin said. “But if I were, you wouldn’t know.”
Gaspar reached out and rested his palm on the wolf’s head, then ran his hand down its back. “Are you sure about that? I snuck up on you.”
If anyone else had been able to do it, Gavin might’ve been disappointed in their ability to hide, but it was Gaspar. Not only was he an incredibly skilled thief, he probably had enchantments on him that permitted him to hide more effectively. Gavin had not fully given up trying to determine whether Gaspar had some underlying magical connection, though if he did, it wasn’t a significant one. Just enough that he could conceal his movements, possibly.
“I come out here because I feel like there’s something here that will help me understand myself.”
“Something like the stone wolf, or something like the trees?” Gaspar looked up, and Gavin followed the direction of his gaze.
The bralinath trees were enormous. The one nearest him was almost twenty paces around, and it stretched toward the sky. Branches towered high overhead, and massive leaves unfurled, each of them almost as big as Gavin’s head. They seemed to catch the sunlight in strange ways, reflecting swirls of color, though he wondered if that color was tied to the tree and the power within it, or if it was something more natural, like a connection to the sunlight that streamed down.
“A little bit of all of it,” Gavin admitted. There weren’t many people he could talk to about all of this, but Gaspar was one. It was difficult for him to acknowledge that he felt uncertain about the part of him that was El’aras, and the changes he continued to find with that connection.
He was more than just El’aras, though. He was connected to an ancient part of them, a power that granted him the capability to use aspects of their abilities—the part that made him their Champion. But he still wasn’t entirely sure why.
“Anytime I try to have a conversation with Anna about the trees, I find that she has her own objectives with it.”
“She’s led her people for a long time,” Gaspar said. “Do you even know how long it has been?”
Gavin smiled, and he started deeper into the forest, with the stone wolf following him. He hadn’t named the wolf, but given that they had traveled together as often as they had lately, he started to think he would need to give it one. Something regal, he figured. Maybe he should ask Wrenlow, as he knew quite a bit of local lore and would likely have some suggestions.
“If that’s your way of finding out how old she is, I can tell you that she’s probably older than you,” Gavin said.
Gaspar scowled at him. “And I’m not nearly as old as you like to think I am.”
“I don’t know. When I first met you, I would’ve pegged you to be in your sixties.”
“My hair isn’t that gray.”
“Not that gray, but you have plenty of salt in your hair.”
Gaspar quickly flipped out a pair of knives, almost as if trying to demonstrate his dexterity, and then sheathed them again.
Gavin chuckled. “But I suppose you’ve proven that you probably are no more than in your mid-fifties.”
“Damn you, boy,” Gaspar growled. “I’m barely into my forties.”
“And look barely ten years older.”
“Age only matters if you let it.”
“With her, I wonder if it has to matter,” Gavin said.
There was an attraction between him and Anna. He couldn’t deny it. It had been there from the moment he had been sent to steal from her, and had only deepened the longer he had come to know her. But there always seemed to be a barrier between the two of them spending more time together. He supposed that shouldn’t bother him, but there was some part of him that wanted a normalcy. It was the same thing that had kept Wrenlow in Yoran when Gavin had gone away.
Gavin stopped in another section of the forest. An old El’aras building stood before him, little more than a crumbling stone structure that had been swallowed by the forest. The stone was covered by moss and grasses, which concealed the building’s presence. He had come here before, having been guided by the bralinath trees. It was strange for him to think that the trees might guide him anywhere, but that was the sense he had. They wanted him to come here.
“What’s the real issue?” Gaspar asked.
“The real issue is that I feel like we’ve only started to see the dangers.”
“I didn’t take you for one who was afraid of any danger.”
“When I was younger,” Gavin said, and Gaspar arched a brow at him, “I trained to handle different fighting styles.”
“We’ve gone through this.”
“I know. This helps me think.”
“Which is dangerous. We can’t have the world knowing that you like to think.”
Gavin ignored the comment and kept going. “I realize now that Tristan had his own intention behind trying to train me, but I still wonder if he anticipated all of this or not.”
He crouched down in front of a section of stone and tapped it. He didn’t have complete control over his magic, but if he did, he’d use it to burn away the moss and grass to reveal the stone beneath. There were likely symbols on it that he needed to uncover so he could understand what this place once was.
“What do you know about Tristan?” Gaspar asked.
Gavin glanced back at him. “We’ve talked about him.”
“Well, you said you want to talk through this because it helps you think, and I’m willing to help you with that. What do you know about him? Let’s pretend this is a job we’re planning for. We can work through the puzzle, and maybe we can come up with something that will help us understand what you already know and what you need to know about him and his intentions.”
Gavin stared at the moss-covered stone. “I know that he wanted me to learn to fight .”
“Why?”
“He wanted me to be his assassin.”
“Is that all there was to it?”
Gavin closed his eyes. His mind worked through all of the things he had once done while training. It had been a difficult childhood, learning how to fight, constantly battling, and becoming more than he once would’ve believed possible. He could work through all those different fighting styles without any difficulty. And yet, as he had continued to develop with his own magical connection, he had started to abandon many of those fighting styles. He simply did not need them as often as he once had.
That didn’t mean they weren’t useful. Many of the sword patterns had been beneficial lately, especially as he had learned that he could pour power out of his blade and use that to help in a fight. But the fighting styles that involved hand-to-hand combat had not been nearly as helpful.
That didn’t mean they hadn’t had a purpose, though.
As Gavin thought about it, he realized what Gaspar was trying to get him to see, in his own way. It wasn’t about the fighting, though that was part of it. Tristan had trained him to recognize the patterns found within a fighting style and be able to apply them quickly. That pattern recognition had allowed him to progress more rapidly when it came to exposure to magic. And that was what had been necessary.
“No, being his assassin wasn’t all there was to it,” Gavin finally said, and he opened his eyes. “He wanted me to be able to detect magical patterns.”
“So you think he knew that you would eventually become the Chain Breaker.”
“I don’t know if he did or not.” Gavin shrugged. “If he did, I wonder why he wouldn’t have taken different measures with me.”
For him to be able to do the things he had done, he had been required to fight, but Tristan had also hidden magic from Gavin that might have helped him in other circumstances. Had he known about his magical connection, Gavin may not have needed to fight in the same way.
But then, he wouldn’t have progressed in the same way either.
It was an interesting puzzle to work through, but little more than a brain exercise. None of it mattered. He could debate whether he had learned what he had because he had come to understand the different fighting styles, or despite it. And he didn’t know which it was.
“Assume that he had an agenda,” Gaspar said. “Didn’t you say he has some way of anticipating what’s happening in the world?”
“Well, I think that’s what he wants us to believe. I don’t know if it’s true or not.”
Gaspar laughed. “Well, misdirection is actually a pretty useful technique. Make you believe that he’s teaching you one thing, while he’s teaching you something else entirely. And given what you have now been involved in, it’s been effective.”
Gavin straightened. “That’s the real problem, though. What have I been involved in? We’ve been dealing with the Sul’toral, and we think they’ve now been defeated, but there’s always going to be somebody chasing power.”
“There will, and there will always need to be those who are willing to stand against them.”
“I don’t want to rule.”
“No one said you had to. Gods, I can’t imagine you leading anyone, anyway.” Gaspar started to laugh again and looked over to Gavin, waiting for his reaction, but when he received nothing in return, his laughter faded. “Sometimes it takes a good man to know when to fight and when not to fight. And sometimes it takes a good man to know when to step up and lead.”
“Or a good woman,” Gavin said.
Gaspar’s brow darkened for a moment. “I’m still not sure what to make of her.”
Gavin didn’t need him to expand on what or who he was talking about. Imogen had gone away to help her brother, and ended up learning that Timo was responsible for so much of what they had dealt with in the interim. In the process, Imogen had come to lead her people. When Gavin had known her in Yoran, he would never have expected that to be her fate. He never would’ve anticipated that Imogen would want to lead. But there were times when people had to take action that they wouldn’t do otherwise, and he understood that. Maybe that was Gaspar’s point. More than that, though, maybe that was what Tristan had been trying to force Gavin to see.
The stone wolf suddenly darted into the forest, leaving him and Gaspar behind.
“Did you tell it to do that?” Gaspar asked.
“Did you hear me tell it?” Gavin replied.
“I don’t know. The two of you seem to have some sort of weird connection. Kind of like that paper dragon that isn’t really paper anymore.”
“No, I didn’t tell the wolf to do anything.” Gavin closed his eyes and focused, thinking about what he could detect through the forest using the bralinath trees. Snippets of images formed, which was the way the bralinath trees functioned. They seemed to hold on to memories, though even that wasn’t quite the same. Using the bralinath trees, Gavin caught glimpses of the stone wolf racing away from him, heading deeper into the forest.
“How do you feel about a run?” Gavin asked.
Gaspar grunted. “Good thing I brought my enchantments.” He slipped his hand into his pocket and put on a bracelet that looked to be woven with different strands of metal, then locked eyes with him and nodded.
There was a time when Gavin would’ve needed a similar enchantment for him to draw on the kind of magical energy that Gaspar used. He no longer did. Now that he was connected to his El’aras side, he could summon power similar to that of an enchantment. He didn’t even need any, but that didn’t mean he didn’t use them from time to time.
He focused on pulling power from his core reserves, the part of him that he had learned to use when he was younger, not knowing that it was tied to hidden magical energy. As he did, he pushed it through him and strengthened muscles in his body. Then he launched forward.
Gavin raced into the forest, weaving through the bralinath trees and ducking underneath branches to chase after the stone wolf. He didn’t have to go far. He could feel the wolf out there, and he also recognized that there was something that had led it away from him.
Gaspar ran alongside him. He was moving far faster than Gavin would’ve expected him to be able to, but then again, Gaspar probably had more enchantments on him than he knew.
The stone wolf had stopped running. At least, the bralinath trees made it look that way. Gavin paused near the enchantment. They were in a section of the forest where the trees seemed to thin, but he only knew that because the bralinath trees showed him. The trees created a ring around the space, though other small shrubs and even a few spindly trees also grew here.
Sunlight came through the clearing, drifting off the branches high overhead, and caused shadows to dance along the forest floor in ways that left Gavin trying to make sense of what he saw.
Gaspar joined him a moment later, rubbing his wrists as he did. “Need to remember to strengthen my skin when I do that,” he muttered. “Too many stupid branches slapping my face.”
“I figured you were more agile than that. Especially since you aren’t sixty. A forty-year-old man like yourself should be able to control himself.”
“What did your wolf find?”
Gavin wasn’t entirely sure what it had discovered. The wolf stood almost as if at attention, nose and body completely rigid, tail sticking out.
“What did you find?” he murmured to it.
The wolf didn’t say anything, but Gavin didn’t expect it to. The fact that it had darted out here on its own was enough to let him know that something had spooked the creature. Is it a creature? No, it’s an enchantment, that’s all.
“Boy?” Gaspar said.
Gavin spun, looking over to him. The only times Gaspar called him that were when he thought Gavin was being foolish, or when he wanted to taunt him. When it was just the two of them, it wasn’t quite as common anymore.
