The Stone Wolf (The Chain Breaker Book 4) by D.K. Holmberg (digital book reader TXT) 📕

back to strike but loops of power snaked around him. He focused, trying to summon all the strength within him, and struggled.

He couldn’t let Cyran beat him. Gavin had already defeated him once, somebody who had been his friend. Facing him now, feeling the power that Cyran used on him, filled Gavin with anger.

Strangely, the ring on his finger began to vibrate, as if reacting to his rage. He had to push that down. He needed control.

If there was one lesson that Tristan had taught him, that Gavin had taken to heart, it was that he needed control. That was the key in all things. Even with a ring he did not fully understand and a strange power that filled it, Gavin knew he needed to manage his emotions.

He tamped them down, and then he looked over to Cyran. He had gone to his knees, and he moved both hands in a pattern that Gavin couldn’t fully comprehend. His hands were moving steadily, slithering around him, as if the pattern was what caused the constriction around Gavin’s legs and his torso.

Gavin focused on his core reserves, and he burst outward with them. But the power circled around him once again.

Cyran smiled, but for the first time, he had a look of hesitation in his eyes. Gavin understood the uncertainty. He had no idea how he managed to use this power. All he knew was that it filled him.

He staggered forward, raising the sword.

“You might have gotten more training than I expected,” Cyran said.

“Nothing other than what Tristan offered to me.”

Gavin spun, barely avoiding Cyran’s next use of power, darting around so that Cyran couldn’t overwhelm him. In the distance, he could hear the fighting. At the edge of his vision, he saw the enchanters, the constables, and even Wrenlow and Gaspar taking down their opponents. Most from Vuthyl, which left questions in Gavin’s mind about why they’d help Cyran. There were others among them, though Gavin couldn’t tell where they were from without taking time away from Cyran. His friends fighting, all to protect Yoran.

This was up to Gavin now.

He stopped moving and faced Cyran.

“Are you done dancing?” Cyran asked.

Power circled around Gavin. He could feel the energy from within that ring. He had no idea what it was, only that it was there. He drew through the ring, and energy filled him.

Power exploded outward and struck the barrier that Cyran had formed. It threw Cyran back once again. He started to get to his feet, but Gavin raced forward, still holding on to the power within the ring. He raised the sword. Cyran tried to hold his hands up, and he twisted them in a pattern.

“What were you saying?” Gavin asked.

Cyran glared at him, and Gavin thrust the sword into his chest. Cyran wrapped his hands around the blade, eyes wide, and Gavin stretched one hand out toward Cyran.

“It seems you were wrong all this time,” Gavin said.

Cyran coughed, blood gurgling from his lips. “How?”

“Because I’m the Chain Breaker.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gavin stripped the Toral ring from Cyran’s hand and held it in his palm. This one wasn’t nearly as warm as the one he still had on his own finger, but it glowed. Was there some sort of power within it that he might be able to use again?

Gavin feared using something far more dangerous than he intended. There was no point in him trying to keep channeling that kind of power. He pulled on the Toral ring on his hand, but it would not budge. He tried prying the ring off his finger, but still it didn’t come free.

The ring had come off Cyran’s finger much easier.

He made his way toward Jayna, who remained motionless in the center of the clearing. In the distance, Gavin was aware of the constables and the enchanters securing the forest. They were working quickly and ensuring that others did not get too close. He breathed out a sigh of relief at that. This was over.

As he crouched down next to Jayna, he tapped on the enchantment. “Wrenlow? Gaspar?” He didn’t have any way of calling out to the constables or enchanters, though wanted to.

“We’re here,” Wrenlow said. “Guess what, Gavin? I killed a man.”

“I wouldn’t brag about that, kid,” Gaspar muttered.

Gavin looked down at Jayna, and he ran his hands along her arms and legs, looking for any signs of injury. There was nothing there. He took the Toral ring that he had retrieved from Cyran and slipped it into her hand. She stared blankly, unmoving.

Smoke streamed toward him, and Gavin scrambled away from Jayna. Eva strode over to him. Blood trickled from her mouth, and where it dripped to the ground, it turned to smoke that circled all around her.

“I didn’t do this to her,” he said. “I brought the ring back to her.”

“I saw what you did.” The smoke swirled from her into Jayna, then began to flow all the way down her body.

Jayna coughed. She carefully sat up and looked over to Eva, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. “What happened? I was attacked. It happened so quickly and so suddenly, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”

“That was Cyran,” Gavin said.

She held out her palm, glancing down at the ring. “How?”

“How did I get it back from him, or how did he take it from you?”

“Both, I suppose,” Jayna said.

Gavin shrugged. “Well, he’s an incredibly powerful sorcerer, and he used that power to strip that off of you.”

“He should not have been able to do that. I suppose that he was using dark magic.” She got to her feet and looked over at Eva. “I had not detected it.”

She’d mentioned dark magic before, though he had no idea what that meant. Gavin knew about several types of magic. There was sorcery, there was the power of the enchanters—which was like sorcery, though generally weaker—and there was El’aras magic. Maybe there was yet another kind.

Jayna closed her eyes. More of that smoke continued to swirl