Changed By Fire (Book 3) (4 page)

“I said Theondar wouldn’t want the draasin free. Too much unknown. Most fear fire when they should embrace it. Fire is as much a part of the world as water and wind and dirt.” Smoke trailed from her hands where they gripped the reins. “Tell me. What’s it like?”

Tan thought of the first time he spoke to the draasin, the way his mind had practically exploded. Only through a force of will had he managed to push Asboel back in his mind. “Like your mind is being consumed.”

Tan regretted the answer as soon as he said it. Like the other shapers, the archivist had shaped Cianna.

Instead of anger, she nodded. “Or course. That’s how it is with fire. You have to know your limits or it will consume you. Might be why so few fire sensers attempt a shaping, even when they have the potential.” She practically touched him now. “So. Where did they go?”

The sense of Asboel was distant within his mind. Wherever he was, Asboel wanted to be left alone. Tan would honor that for now, but soon—when Tan had a better sense of shaping and after the king had been healed—he would need the draasin to hunt lisincend.

“Not going to say?” Cianna said. “That’s fine. Probably best anyway. Safer that way.”

“For who?” Tan asked. He couldn’t decide if he liked Cianna or not.

She brought one leg up so now she leaned way out of the saddle. Her eyes drifted toward the front of the line of horses. “For them.”

She glanced again at Amia with a grin and then dropped back into her saddle.

As she started forward, Tan said, “Wait.”

Cianna turned and looked at him. Near her, Seanan glanced back. Tan realized he had been listening the entire time.

“Why did you go?” Tan asked. If Cianna was blunt with him, he would ask the question that troubled him. “Why were you willing to attack the draasin?”

Seanan blinked and turned away, trying again to look like he hadn’t listened.

Cianna let her horse drift back to him. She bit her top lip before answering. “Nara is a hard place. Not like your Galen.”

Tan frowned. “What kind of answer is that?”

Cianna spurred her horse forward. “The only one you need.”

R
oine had elected
to rest outside the city another night, wanting to reach Ethea during the daylight. The master shapers all seemed to understand, though Tan did not until they actually reached the outskirts of the capital. As they reached Ethea in the early morning, the stink hanging over it became nearly cloying from the lingering scent of burning bodies and buildings destroyed in the attack.

A shimmering fog draped over the city. Strange, considering the cool breeze blowing through. It took Tan a while to realize that it wasn’t fog but the smoke from still-smoldering fires in spite of the weeks since the attack.

“How is it they still burn?” he asked as they crossed through the city’s outer wall.

All around him were signs of the destruction worked by the Incendin shapers. Places where fires had burned, leaving charred wooden buildings or crumbling stone. Ash and soot stained everything. A few people milled about in the street, but not nearly as many as Tan would have expected. Most moved hurriedly, carrying damaged clothes or other stacks of goods through the street, still attempting to recover from what had happened.

Cianna and Amia rode on either side of him, leaving Tan feeling uncomfortably flanked by the two smaller women, both such skilled shapers. It was almost as if they formed a sort of protection around him.

The other shapers left as soon as they reached the city. Only Cianna stayed with them. Tan hadn’t figured out why, but the small fire shaper seemed to have taken an interest in him. Or maybe her interest was more in the draasin.

“Incendin shapings,” Cianna said. She pulled on the black leather overcoat she wore, shifting it to drape over her legs. “Or maybe draasin. Difficult to extinguish either way.”

“I thought the shapers took care of the fires before they left.”

Tan hadn’t stuck around the city to observe what happened. His focus had been on doing what he needed to help Elle. Hopefully the udilm had returned her to her people. Hopefully she was still safe.

“Controlled them. Kept them from spreading. That is all that
can
be done. You know fire,” she admonished him. “Sense what they did.”

Tan focused on the smoke drifting from just inside the wall. As he did, he became aware of the warmth. It pulled on him, drawing him, almost as if asking him to shape the fire larger again. He had to fight the urge as he pushed through the shaping, reaching for the embers he sensed still smoldered. Then he understood: The shaping was powerful. Too much energy would be needed to put the fire out completely, but in time it would disappear, burning itself out.

Earth and water shapings surrounded the fire. Even the air around the fire had been shaped still, keeping it from feeding the coals. Contained but not extinguished.

Tan focused on the fire. With an effort, he asked earth to soften, pull the remaining coals deep underground before closing atop them. At the same time, he pulled on his connection to the draasin to draw away the remaining energy from the fire, pulling it through him.

Weakness washed over him and he sagged in the saddle.

Cianna laughed. “See? Powerful shapings. You probably weren’t even able to modify the shaping.”

He didn’t bother to correct her. He hadn’t actually shaped anything. What he did involved the elementals, not any shaping of his own. Even when he thought he’d managed shaping when attacking Incendin, it had been the elementals helping. Learning to shape on his own was part of the reason he had returned to Ethea.

She continued to laugh as they worked through the streets. Patches of the city were unharmed, as if the shapings had missed them. Other parts of the city were entirely destroyed.

Tan hadn’t realized the damage was so widespread. Could all of this have been from Enya—the youngest of the draasin—or had the Incendin fire shapers been a part? If this had been only one of the draasin—and the youngest and smallest of them—what would happen if all the draasin attacked?

For the first time, he had to wonder if maybe Roine was right. How dangerous had the world become now that the draasin had returned?

“Think of what it would be like without them,” Amia said, leaning toward him.

She spoke softly, pitching her words for his ears only, but Cianna smiled tightly and turned to study him. She pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.

“They needed to be free,” Tan agreed. They were elementals trapped against their will at the bottom of the lake. Even had they gone willingly, one thousand years frozen within the lake had been long enough. “But what if they come again? What if this happens somewhere else, someplace where there aren’t any shapers to protect them?”

“Do you think they would?” Amia asked.

Tan thought of Asboel, of the pride he took in hunting, but the creature Tan knew wouldn’t do this, not without reason. And when the youngest had attacked, the archivists had used Amia’s shaping, twisting it to coerce the youngest draasin into attacking the city.

“Some think the draasin were always deadly,” Cianna said. She had released her reins and once again guided the horse with her knees. “But only the ancients know what it was like when draasin filled the skies. Even then, cities grew and flourished. The other elementals are different but not necessarily harmless. Udilm has claimed ships traveling the seas. Golud has sucked entire buildings underground. And ara…” She snorted. “Who is to know with ara? They say she is too fickle to care.”

He hadn’t thought the wind elemental fickle, but certainly difficult to connect to. There was a playfulness to ara that wasn’t there with the other elementals.

“To them, we are nothing particularly special,” Roine said. His gaze settled on Cianna.

“Theondar,” she said, tipping her head. “You claim to know the mind of the elementals?”

He glanced at Tan. “Few enough speak to the elementals, let alone claim to know how they think. But how can we grasp the mind of the elemental? It would be like an ant trying to understand us.”

Cianna barked out a laugh. Roine stared at her. “Is that really what you think, Theondar?” she asked. “That we’re ants?”

Roine shrugged.

“Have you ever gone out of your way to help an ant?” Amia asked.

Roine turned to her. “You think the elementals help if it doesn’t serve them?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

Roine sat taller in his saddle. “I wish I believed that to be true.”

Cianna frowned at him. “I liked you better when you played as Roine.”

He shook his head. “We’ll reach the palace soon.” Roine made a point of not looking at Cianna. “And I’ll need you to begin freeing the king’s mind.”

“And if he hasn’t been shaped?” she asked.

“Why would the archivists shape us but not the king?” Roine asked.

Amia met his eyes. “How can you be so certain he didn’t know what they did?”

“Then you will learn that as well.” Roine directed his attention to Tan. “You should stay away from the palace until this is done.”

Sunlight sliced through the smoke and played across Amia’s golden hair. One hand touched her neck, running around the silver band there.

“You will keep her safe?” Tan asked.

Amia fixed Roine with a hard expression. “He will not have to.”

Roine stared at her. “Careful…”

“No, Roine. I will help, but if there is any sign of danger, I will not hesitate to do what I need.”

Roine inhaled deeply. Then he glanced at Cianna. “See that he stays safe?”

Cianna looked at Tan. “You think someone able to ride the draasin is in danger within Ethea?”

“How many shapers remained in Ethea? How many may have been influenced by the archivists? We know nothing about what they planned, nothing about how many shapers they had. You are one of the king’s shapers. Be vigilant.”

“Is that the Athan or the warrior?” Cianna asked.

“Yes.”

Roine started away, turning off onto a different street leading toward the palace, which was visible in the distance. Amia touched Tan’s arm, sending a reassuring shaping toward him, and then followed.

Tan stared up at the palace. Smoke swirled around, giving lingering images of the walls but obscuring much of the upper levels. Fires still simmered around the palace. How much longer before they burned themselves out?

“What was he like before?” Tan asked.

“Theondar? Don’t know. I’m not old enough to know what he was like.”

With her small face and long, wavy red hair, she could have been twenty or forty. Tan would have believed either. “How long have you been in Ethea?”

She laughed. “You want to know how long it took to master fire?”

He shrugged. “Yes.”

“I’ve known I was a fire senser since I was nearly ten. Nara is different. The land is hot and dry. But I learned to find places that were cooler, almost as if drawn to them. That was my first sign.” She looked over to the palace. “Fire sensers in Nara have a choice. Ignore it or attempt to chase it and learn to shape.”

“Why would you want to ignore it?”

Cianna frowned at him. “You don’t know your geography very well, do you?”

“Galen borders Incendin the same way Nara does.”

“Not the same way,” Cianna said. “Galen is separated from Incendin by the Gholund Mountains. Not so easy to pass through, even without the barrier. You’re protected. Not the same with Nara.”

“Because Nara was part of Incendin?”

“Not Incendin,” she said quickly. “Rens. And what we call Nara was a part of it.”

Tan remembered Roine mentioning Rens when telling him about King Weston. “And Rens took part of Nara from the kingdoms.”

Cianna nodded. “Not as stupid as you pretend,” she said with a smile. “Rens always had two different peoples. There were those who eventually came to Nara and joined the kingdoms, and those who eventually became Incendin. Irashers and Selanders. Back before Incendin existed, back when that land was still known as Rens, it was sometimes hard to tell people apart. There were similarities, but differences, too.” She smiled and touched the braid in her hair. “I’m lucky. There’s no confusing me for a Selander.”

“And Seanan?” Tan asked. The other fire shaper didn’t look anything like Cianna.

She nodded. “Seanan has some Selander blood. Many people in Nara do. There are still some people who believe all of Nara should rejoin with Incendin. That is why Nara is so different than Galen, even though we both share the border.”

Tan couldn’t imagine anyone in Galen thinking they should join Incendin. “You haven’t told me when you came here.”

Cianna snorted. “I came when I was fifteen. It was either come here and learn so I didn’t destroy myself, or risk the crossing into Incendin.”

“People do that?”

Her face turned serious. “Plenty of fire sensers from Nara make the journey across the border. They think that if they are to learn fire, they should learn it from those who truly serve it.”

“Lacertin said he learned much from Incendin fire shapers,” Tan said.

Cianna nodded. “And he’s said to be one of the most accomplished fire shapers in generations.”

Tan studied her. “You were never curious? Never thought to cross the border to learn?”

“I am committed to the king.”

“That’s no answer.”

“No? You were raised in Galen, where there are trees and grass and plentiful water. Nara is different. Hot. Sandy. Harsh. Even that is nothing compared to Incendin.”

Tan nodded. “I’ve seen Incendin.”

Cianna laughed. “Seen Incendin? From your side of Galen? That is nothing like the Incendin I watched growing up. There, Incendin has stunted growth, but there are still trees and water.”

“Now who’s stupid?” Tan asked.

Cianna glared at him.

“I have ridden the draasin. What makes you think I haven’t visited Incendin?”

She considered him a moment and then laughed. “Well, maybe I am
being stupid now. Probably my turn anyway. Couldn’t let you be the only one.”

They rode onward, Cianna continuing to follow Tan. He wondered if she had somewhere to be. He did: Amia might be able to help the king, but there was something he could do that might bring him answers.

“So. You were in Incendin?” she asked after awhile.

Tan smiled. As blunt as Cianna seemed, he decided he was beginning to like her. “Not intentionally.”

She laughed again. She undid the top clasp of her leather overcoat to reveal a burnt orange shirt beneath. Maroon embroidery worked around the neck. “How do you end up in Incendin accidentally?”

He shrugged. “It’s a long story.”

“See? Now you’re stupid again. How else to explain you ‘accidentally’ end up in Incendin?”

“That’s a different story,” he said. “But Incendin was bleak. The sun burned down. Nothing but rocks and stunted plants, some which tried to kill me, all around. And then the sound of the hounds calling all around.” Tan couldn’t imagine being there for long periods of time.

How had Lacertin managed to survive
years
there?

Cianna nodded slowly. “That is Incendin. Nara is not quite so… barren. Still harsh. You wonder why I don’t go to Incendin to learn? I would have to go there, survive the worst of Incendin to reach the Fire Fortress. And then?” She shook her head. “Lacertin might have been willing to risk it—the Great Mother only knows why—but I am unwilling.”

“That’s why you want to speak to the draasin?”

She turned her head toward him and smiled. “Sometimes you’re almost smart.”

“I don’t know that the draasin teach,” Tan said. “I’m not certain any of the elementals ever teach.”

“No? Then how do you think the first shapers learned?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.”

She frowned as he pulled the horse to a stop and jumped from the saddle. A cluster of fallen rubble lay across the road in front of them. Behind the rocks, men wearing the king’s colors—deep brown and a forest green like the one Roine wore when Tan first met him—worked, trying to clear the road. They nodded at Cianna and then at him but said nothing.

He tied the reins around a loose boulder to keep the horse from bolting. He’d have to find a stable to house it, but Cianna likely knew of one.