Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire (9 page)

Cora laughed bitterly. “There were times I wish I would have died.” She met his eyes. “This is not one of them, Tan, and you are not to blame for the loss of my bond. That is entirely Par-shon.” She rested her hands in her lap, playing with her fingers. “Saldam. You asked about my bond. It was to saldam.”

“Can you tell me about saldam?” he asked. Saldam was an elemental of fire, and one that he had not reached. Like so many of the elementals, they remained mysterious to him.

She chuckled. “You are bound to the draasin and you would ask about saldam?”

“I have learned that each elemental has different power. I’ve seen saa draw incredible strength. I’ve asked ashi to overpower ara. So I know that there is something to saldam.”

She paused, lips pursed in thought. “Saldam is different than saa,” she said at length. “It is not drawn to fire in the same way. It must be called.”

“What does it look like?”

“Look? There is no way to describe it, really. They are a part of the world, but different from it. They are fire.” She stared out at the sea and fell silent again.

“What happened to you? How did you come to be captured by Par-shon?”

Cora’s answer came slowly, and she spoke softly at first. “I am much like your warriors, so I was chosen. It was an honor I could not refuse. Answers, scouting. That was all it was to be. When I traveled across the sea, Par-shon waited for me. They captured me and brought me to a room where they claimed I would die. When I did not, I was brought somewhere else. After that…” She trailed off, a distant look coming to her eyes. “I remember little after that. Pain. Awful and all-consuming pain. And then nothing until I awoke to see you passed out on the ground. And you were not of Par-shon.”

“No. I am not of Par-shon.”

“You haven’t told me how it is that you escaped.”

Tan thought back to what it was like when he was trapped in the place of separation. There had been a moment when he thought that he might die, when he thought that shaping would be stolen from him forever. Had he not learned how to reach for spirit, he might still be trapped there. And Asboel would be lost, Honl would be lost. Possibly even Amia.

“Spirit,” he said. “The Utu Tonah did not plan for spirit. I was able to shape it, to press through the runes he placed on the walls all around the obsidian tower blocking my shaping, and destroy them. I think that it’s because there’s no elemental for spirit that he failed.”

Cora arched a brow at him. “Are you so certain?”

“I’ve summoned spirit, but it’s different than the elementals.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Yet there are those who shape spirit more strongly than others. Shapers like your woman. It seems to me the Great Mother created elementals of spirit in her own image.”

Tan smiled but Cora didn’t mirror it. He figured she hadn’t meant her words as a joke. He could only imagine Amia’s reaction if he suggested to her that she was an elemental who was bound to him. What would she say then?

The sun was well above the horizon now, and bright in his eyes. He stood and turned to the east, toward where he thought he remembered seeing Falsheim on the maps he’d studied. “It is time,” he said.

“You will shape us the same as last night?”

He nodded.

“Then perhaps I should have remained behind. You have saved me only to bring me to my death.”

Tan laughed and prepared the shaping, drawing on fire and wind, pulling strength from the earth, and then lifting them on wind. They streaked across the sky, moving quickly. It was different in the daylight than it had been last night. There was the same sense of movement, the same loud whistling in his ears, the thundering through his bones, but he could see where they were traveling, and moved quickly to the east. Then he saw it rising out of the distance: the walled city of Falsheim.

As Elle had said, the city burned.

T
an lowered
himself and Cora to the ground outside of Falsheim, hiding them in a clump of burned trees. The city sat at the edge of the sea, a wide mouth of water seeming to rush toward the city itself, waves visible from overhead as little more than white capped swells. A massive wall rose up and around the city. From where he stood, it appeared as if the wall went all the way around, even across the sea. Buildings rose over the top of the wall, but none quite so high as the palace in Ethea, or the Fire Fortress in Incendin. A flat expanse of land stretched from a nearby river, the ground around it scorched and burned.

The wall itself had been blackened. Patches looked unharmed, but most of the wall had a layer of dark crust. Stone crumbled in places, supported by the surrounding wall to keep the entire thing from collapsing. A line of fire raced along the top of the wall, held there as if by a shaping. Something about the shaping pushed against Tan, as if to hold him out.

“This is not Incendin,” Cora said. “The lisincend would not do this.”

Tan didn’t know. It reminded him more of the attack on Ethea than the attack on his home village of Nor, but both had been done by the lisincend. Why would this be different?

“There are new lisincend. They have wings and their power is twisted differently.”

Cora sucked in a breath and her back stiffened.

“You expected something like that,” Tan realized.

Cora clasped her hands together as she turned to him. “Shapers have attempted to grow closer to fire for as long as the Sunlands have been in danger.” She studied the walls, her gaze skimming along the flames. Tan sensed saa within the flames, but something else as well, an elemental he didn’t recognize. “It was from this desire that the lisincend were born. A small faction of the fiercest fire shapers wanted something different. They didn’t want to simply embrace fire. They felt Fur and the others did not go far enough. They wished to become fire.”

“They attempted a shaping using spirit, sacrificing the shaper to combine their shaping with spirit. It created this new lisincend,” Tan said.

Cora let out her breath slowly. “Were they powerful?” She didn’t hide the naked eagerness in her voice.

“Very.”

“Do you know who was the first?”

Tan could still see the transformation of the fire shaper Alisz if he closed his eyes. He remembered all too well the power of her shaping as she drew it through the artifact, stealing the archivist’s blood, his spirit, as she performed the shaping. “Her name was Alisz. There were others, but she was the first.”

Cora’s eyes tightened and her breathing quickened.

“You knew her, didn’t you?”

“I knew her,” Cora said softly. “What happened to her?”

Tan watched her reaction as he said the next words. “She attacked the kingdoms. And she made the mistake of making it seem as if she killed the draasin hatchlings. The draasin did not feel remorse when he destroyed her.”

“She went too close to fire,” Cora said, mostly to herself.

“She was a fool to taunt the elementals,” Tan said. “Who was she to you?”

It didn’t seem like Cora would answer at first. Then she sighed. “She was my sister.”

Sister? And here he had told her about the way the draasin had destroyed her, describing it in more detail than someone who’d lost their sister deserved. What would it have been like for him to hear about how his father died?

“I’m sorry, Cora.”

She rubbed her hand over her arm and sniffed. “You have lost those you care about to the Sunlands. Do not pretend you were not pleased to see her go.”

Tan stared at the flames burning atop the wall surrounding Falsheim and his memories turned to what had happened in Ethea and Nor. “I won’t deny that I shared in the draasin’s pleasure of her death. She was dangerous,” he said. “Fire burned too brightly within her. But that doesn’t mean I can’t mourn for you.”

“You are a strange man, Tan.”

He grunted. That was better than what some considered him. “Why did you say this wasn’t Incendin?”

“This is not a shaping of the Sunlands. And we would not attack Falsheim. We’ve taken shapers from these lands, but that was to aid in our protection. There are few enough shapers born to the Sunlands, and most of fire. To hold Par-shon at bay, we needed other shapers of power. Were Falsheim destroyed, we would lose even that.”

“How many warriors were there?”

“I was the last in a generation,” Cora said.

Much like with the kingdoms. Even Incendin had experienced a change in their shapers. “Have you learned why?”

She shook her head. “There was one among us who sought that answer.” She paused, turning to him. “He was once of the kingdoms as well. I learned much from him.”

Tan felt as if his heart stopped for a moment. “Lacertin,” he said, his voice catching as he remembered Lacertin’s sacrifice, everything that he’d done to protect the kingdoms. All in service of the king who had died long before. He had forgotten to ask whether she knew him, but of course she would have known him.

“You know?”

“He returned to the kingdoms. That was always his plan.”

Cora laughed bitterly, a low and harsh sound. “His plan?” she repeated. When Tan nodded, she laughed again. “All that time spent in the Sunlands, all that time he spent isolated in the Fire Fortress, and he worked against us the entire time?” Her voice carried with it an edge of respect.

Tan hadn’t had the chance to ask Lacertin much about the time he’d spent in Incendin. He had died too soon. But he believed that Lacertin had loved his king, and he believed that Lacertin had worked on behalf of the kingdoms the entire time. “That’s what he said.”

“You believe him, even after everything he did?”

“I don’t know all that he did, but I believed him,” Tan said.

“Believed. That means he… he is gone?”

“Althem was a spirit shaper. Lacertin had served King Ilton as closely as anyone could. When he learned that Althem used his spirit shaping, that he might have been responsible for his father’s death, there was nothing that would have stopped him from trying to repair what was done.”

“How did he die?”

She spoke in a whisper, and Tan realized that Cora had cared about Lacertin. Knowing that he’d had that effect on someone else, even someone from Incendin, helped him understand Lacertin a little better. He had sacrificed so much on behalf of the kingdoms, more than any.

When Tan took too long to answer, she went on. “It was Alisz, wasn’t it?”

He nodded numbly.

“You cared about him?” she asked.

“I didn’t know him well,” Tan said. “But I know what he went through, the sacrifices he made for the cause he believed so strongly in. He spent twenty years living in…” He trailed off, catching himself before saying something he might regret. Besides, he didn’t know what experience Lacertin had living in Incendin. He had known Cora, had trained her, so it was possible that much of it was happy. “Anyway, he was incredibly brave.”

“I didn’t know him when he first came to the Sunlands, but there are stories of what he had to endure. The Fire Fortress can be a dark place and he was tested—some would say punished—forced to prove that he’d given up his allegiance to your kingdoms.” Cora’s eyes closed and she shook her head as she spoke. “He never spoke much of that with me. He was patient and particular about how things should be done, and the most skilled shaper I have ever met.”

There was something to the way she spoke told Tan that they had been more than close, maybe as close as he and Amia were. “I wish many things could have been different.”

Cora opened her eyes. Tears swelled within them. “I worried what he would think of my disappearance, but now I learn that he disappeared from the Sunlands as well.” She forced a smile. “It’s possible I didn’t know him as well as I think I did.”

Tan placed a hand on Cora’s shoulder and squeezed as reassuringly as he could. “I would like to hear more about him when we’re through with this.”

She blinked away the tears, took a breath, and drew her back up straight. “I doubt there is much I could teach you, Tan. He did not speak to the elementals as you do.”

“Not about that. I would like to know Lacertin. I didn’t have the chance when he was alive.” He hoped he could convince Roine to sit with him as well. It had taken until Lacertin’s death for him to realize that he had the wrong enemy all along.

“Then you will hear of it.”

Tan squeezed her shoulder again and then turned to the wall surrounding the city. The fire was important, he suspected, but why? What purpose would it have?

“You said saldam was not drawn to fire like saa?” he asked her.

She had to shake her head at the sudden change in topic. “Not like saa. I know little about saa, only that it comes to fire. It is a weak elemental. Saldam might not be as powerful as the draasin, but it sits above saa and inferin.”

“I think you might be surprised. Did you see saa in Par-shon?”

“I had barely any awareness of my time in Par-shon,” she said.

“Had you been able, you would have seen that saa is a powerful elemental of fire in those lands. So much so that it helped me escape.” There, the power of saa had filled him, lending him strength, much like the elementals had when he had shaped through the sword while trying to find Elle.

“You think they try to call saa?”

“I’m not certain. If it’s Par-shon, they have bound most of the elementals. I wonder if they think to summon the draasin using fire.”

Cora’s mouth tightened as she glanced to the wall and then to the sky. “Or maybe they attempt something different. Maybe they have used fire as a way to draw the draasin’s bond to Doma. If they have you, they can separate the bond.”

That could be possible, but he sensed nothing like the separation that he’d known while in Par-shon. Whatever they intended in Doma was different.

Honl
, he said, calling to the wind.

The wind elemental flittered through the air and coalesced in front of him in the shape of a slender, translucent figure.
Tan. There is fire here. Not draasin fire.

Can you tell me if there are those who would steal my bonds?

Honl hesitated. Tan waited for him to tell him how dangerous it would be, but Honl did not. He simply made a gesture something like a nod and drifted off, blowing toward the city.

“Do you think the wind will be able to tell us whether it is safe to enter?” Cora asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t sense anything around us to fear.”

“That doesn’t mean there’s nothing there. There are ways of masking yourself from earth sensing,” Cora said.

Tan had done that once before when attempting to hide the draasin from the kingdoms’ shapers, using golud for assistance. Obscuring someone from him would require an earth elemental, but then Par-shon bonded earth elementals. If there were shapers here that he missed, they were in more danger than he realized.

Without waiting another moment, Tan shaped a travel shaping, slamming spirit into it. He grabbed Cora and pulled her toward him as he drew it down upon him. The blinding flash of light from his shaping struck with a thunderous explosion, fast enough and strong enough to disturb the earth shaping hiding three shapers along the wall around Falsheim.

As the shaping lifted them, Tan unsheathed his sword and pressed out through a new shaping of fire and spirit through the sword, sending a lancing of white light that split and struck the three shapers atop the wall.

Then Tan and Cora were carried away.

The shaping lowered them to the ground near the village they had buried.

“What was that?” Cora asked.

Tan jerked his head around. He still clutched his sword and held a fire shaping ready to unleash through it if needed. “That was a traveling shaping. Sorry we couldn’t do it that way before.”

“That was smoother,” Cora agreed, “but that’s not what I’m asking. Your sword. What did you do to those shapers on the wall?”

“You saw them?”

“Only after you unleashed your lightning. It unsettled whatever obscured them. What did you do to them?”

“I released the bound elementals.”

She looked at him strangely. “I would not have expected that from you.”

“Why? I’ve made my feelings about the way the elementals should be treated quite clear.”

“Not that. But you killed those shapers.”

Tan grunted. It would have been easy to kill them, but he had not. It wouldn’t have taken anything more than spirit with enough force and he could simply convince their hearts to stop beating. The shaping would be easy and similar to one that the First Mother had been demonstrating.

“We need to return to Ethea,” he said.

“You’re not going to rescue your friend?”

“I will rescue her, but I can’t do it alone. I came to find out if it was Incendin or Par-shon attacking in Doma. It is clear now that it’s Par-shon.”

“And you’ve killed their shapers.”

Tan shook his head, waving the sword as he spoke. “I didn’t kill them. I released the bond to fire they held.”

“You can do that?”

“They aren’t shapers, Cora. What they use is stolen power. It was not freely given.”

Tan studied the water, listening to the way the waves came rolling in.
Udilm. You will tell Tan if Elle remains safe. Tell her that I will return.

He sent the request on the waves, not expecting an answer. The udilm were difficult for him to reach and the only time he’d spoken to them had been when he had nearly drowned. But he could hope they would listen. That the udilm would get word to him if Elle was not safe. And since he couldn’t reach her with spirit, he hoped they would let her know that he was coming back for her.

After taking another look around Doma, Tan pulled Cora to him and shaped a return to the kingdoms.