Serpent of Fire (4 page)

You’re safe now
, Tan said.

Because of you, Maelen. The Mother blessed us with you.

Tan reached for the draasin and touched his warm scales, thankful that he’d managed to save him.
Rest, Asgar. I will visit again. Sashari will keep you safe.

The draasin made a soft rumbling deep in his throat.
Soon I will be larger than her. Then I will hunt with Father. We will find vengeance.

Asgar let his eyes drift closed and didn’t open them again. Tan turned away and faced Sashari briefly. She curled herself around Asgar, protecting him.

Did you get what you needed, Maelen?

He is well. I will do all that I can to find his sister.

Hunt well, Maelen,
Sashari said.

Tan shaped the door open, leading Amia to the other side. A cool elemental breeze gusted into the den through the open door, and Tan paused. With a whisper to ara and golud, he asked the other elementals to keep the draasin safe. But he was no longer certain whether it would make a difference. The draasin should have been safe in the den. They should have been safe in Ethea. But still, Par-shon reached them.

Tan was left wondering how far into Ethea Par-shon had reached.

O
nce back in the tunnels outside the draasin den, Tan stopped and leaned on the door. Asgar might not have told him much, but there was something to be used in what he’d learned. If two shapers had fallen while facing the young draasin, Tan needed to find them. He might be able to learn something that would lead him to the other hatchling.

Unless it was already too late. Finding Asgar had been a surprise. Likely the Par-shon shapers had left the hatchling because they thought him dead.

“What did he tell you?” Amia asked.

“The connection didn’t let you hear?”

“Not with him. That connection is different. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it is not the same as what you share with Asboel.”

“With Asboel, the connection is shaped. In some ways, it’s like with you.” It hadn’t always been that way. “When Par-shon separated our bond, I used spirit to reform it before I even knew what I was doing. Had I not, he would have been stolen from me. The Utu Tonah doesn’t know spirit, or at least he doesn’t know what it can do.” The abduction of the archivists proved that was changing, but for now, they had a bit of an advantage, and they needed every advantage they could get. “It’s different with the other draasin. I can’t reach through the shaped connection.”

“I wonder if the bond is some sort of shaping,” Amia asked.

Tan thought of the bonds he’d formed. They required no shaping on his part, but that didn’t mean shaping wasn’t involved. And when Cora had bonded, he’d seen the flash of white, a sign of spirit shaping.

Tan made his way through the tunnel toward the archives. He’d been away from Ethea for a week, long enough that Roine would have questions for his Athan. Long enough that the other shapers would wonder about Roine’s choice of Athan, maybe enough to begin questioning their leader.

“You’re troubled. What is it?” Amia asked.

“I need to help Asboel, but I also need to do whatever I can to keep Par-shon from the kingdoms. And now that we’re back here, it feels as if another weight is on my shoulders because I committed to serving as Athan.” He twisted his fingers together and sighed. “It feels like I’m being pulled in too many different directions.”

“When hasn’t that been the case?”

“And you?” he asked. “The Aeta—”

“Don’t worry about the People,” Amia said. “Those who selected me understand that my connection to you requires some of my time. Those who did not… well, they are being dealt with.”

“Have you found other archivists?”

When she didn’t answer, he stopped and turned her to face him.

“Amia?”

“Those abducted by the Utu Tonah are cared for. Any others are dealt with.” She touched his cheek. “You don’t need to worry about the archivists along with everything else on your plate. Know that we’re dealing with them as we discover them.”

That meant that the Aeta were finding more of them. How many archivists could there be? What would happen if they attacked Amia?

Tan had to trust that she could protect herself. She was the First Mother, trained by her predecessor, making her the most skilled spirit shaper alive. If there was anyone able to deal with the remaining archivists, it would be Amia.

“There are others?” he asked.

Amia sighed. “A few families haven’t returned. In time, they will.”

He reached the bottom of the stairs and paused at the door. On the other side were the palace dungeons. The last time he’d been there, he hadn’t the control of his shaping that he had now. The stairs alone had nearly killed him. Then, he’d come searching for Amia and had learned about Althem’s betrayal.

Tan pressed a shaping of pure spirit into the rune on the door, unlocking it. “I need to find the shapers who attacked Asgar.”

Amia pulled on his arm, keeping him from crossing the threshold. “When do you intend to go?”

He forced a smile. She read him too well. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep things from her, but there were times when he didn’t want her to worry about what he needed to do. This was one of them. “It’s more than Asgar, Amia.”

She reached a hand and brushed his cheek. “Why do you think I ask?”

“We need Incendin. Cora has offered to help, but I’ll need to go to the Fire Fortress.”

“You still intend to go there, knowing as you do what they did?”

Tan sighed. “I think I
have
to go there, knowing what they were able to do. Amia, they’re the reason we’re only now learning of Par-shon. Had Incendin not managed to hold them back, we would have learned long ago what happens when bonded shapers attack the kingdoms. And we might not have been prepared to face them.”

Then again, had Par-shon attacked even two decades ago, there would have been more shapers, more warriors. Wouldn’t the kingdoms have been better off?

“At least meet someplace where you won’t put yourself in unnecessary danger,” she suggested.

“I’m a shaper of elemental powers. I can speak to all of the elementals. Didn’t you say that I can summon the elementals to help?”

She ran a finger along the gold band at her neck. Concern furrowed her brow. “That’s part of the reason why I worry.”

“I’ll be safe,” he promised.

She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something before clamping it shut again. Then she nodded.

With Amia, he hadn’t the need to explain to her further, just as she didn’t have any need to share her concern for him. The bond conveyed everything. It had formed in a time when both had lost so much, but neither of them would change it now.

He pulled Amia through the door on a shaping of wind, and closed it behind them, leaving them in darkness. Tan shaped a ball of light into being and let it float in front of him, again relinquishing control of the shaping to saa. The fire elemental claimed the flame and held it.

This time, Tan could
see
what the elemental did, the faint streamers of flame leaving saa as it held onto the fire. It seemed to know what Tan wanted of it without being asked.

Tan paused at the next stair and reached inward, stretching for the connection to fire. As he found it, he pressed through the bond, letting it stretch out as he strained to touch saa, to understand the fire elemental. There was a familiarity, and the hint of something more, like a whisper or maybe the crackling of flames, but then it was gone. Saa flashed away from him, releasing the fire and disappearing with a soft
pop
.

At the top of the stair, Amia pulled him back around. “Who else is going with you?”

“It will be only me.”

Amia squeezed her eyes shut a moment. “Take Cianna. She’s bound to fire like you are. And she lived in Nara, so she knows what Incendin is capable of doing. She might be helpful.”

Tan knew how hard that was for Amia to admit. Since meeting the fire shaper, Amia always felt a touch of irritation with her. It was something that Tan never really understood, but the bond between them laid him bare to her. She knew his feelings toward her, and knew that he harbored nothing but friendship with Cianna.

“I’ll see if she’s willing to come.”

“I doubt you’ll have to ask more than once.”

He let the comment drop as they emerged from the dungeons and stepped into the lower level of the palace. The halls were wide here and covered by tapestries. Lit shaper lanterns were staggered along the wall, casting their pure white light along the stone. Roine had once told him that the lower level of the palace had once served as the quarters for the warriors. It was where he had been housed when he first was raised to warrior level. Since learning that fact, Tan had wondered where Lacertin’s quarters had been. Roine had not offered, and Tan wondered if maybe Althem had expunged every sign of Lacertin from the palace.

A wide stair at the end of the hall led up and out of the lower level. They started toward it, but Tan paused at an open door. The sharp voice inside was familiar.

“Mother?” he asked from the doorway, looking into the room. The opening let into an antechamber, a long desk and a mirror the only things found on this side. A simple painting of trees and water, as if looking through a thick lens and made to appear as if both were swirling, hung along one of the walls. There was a shaper lantern inside here as well. Another door opened to the inner room. It was from there that he’d heard his mother’s voice.

Zephra stepped into the doorway. Her gray eyes flickered from Tan to Amia. “Tannen. You’ve finally returned.”

The tone was familiar and one that she’d taken with him often over the years. Since learning of his abilities, and of the fact that he could speak to all the elementals, he had finally managed not to stiffen at the sound of the edge to her voice. Well, mostly.

“I’m Athan, Mother. Shouldn’t that grant me a little freedom to choose what I do?”

Her eyes dropped to the dark ring he wore on his finger. In the time since Roine had named him Athan, he hadn’t grown any more comfortable wearing it, but at least he believed that he had a right to it. As Athan, he commanded the kingdoms’ shapers, though he would likely have similar authority as a warrior shaper, even if he never really trained in the university. More than the shapers, the position of Athan allowed him to speak with the king regent’s voice.

“Yes. Athan. I’m afraid that Theondar found someone a little too much like him.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s
supposed
to mean nothing. You are much like Theondar, Tannen. Perhaps not quite so rash, but you feel that you must be responsible for everything. You have grown… capable,” she said that with a deliberate pause, as if the words were hard for her to admit, “but that is not the same as having the necessary wisdom to wield your abilities.”

Tan bit back his amusement at the comment and how much it reminded him of how Sashari treated Asgar. Once, he might have grown annoyed or irritated, but it was easier knowing that it was his mother’s way of trying to keep him safe. She didn’t know any other way.

“I’ll make certain to check with you next time before I go and do something rash,” he said.

Amia covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her laughter.

Tan gave her a sideways glance. If she said something to Zephra about his plan to meet with Incendin, he wouldn’t put it past his mother to devise a way to keep him contained in the kingdoms, even if that meant forcing him to serve in a way that he did not intend.

“Theondar would see you now that you’ve returned,” Zephra said. “He’s had me working with the blasted barrier rather than scouting, as he knows I prefer. I’ve forced Vel to help, but he wants to return to Doma. So far, he’s remained, recognizing the need for the barrier, and how it might help, even in Doma.”

How much longer until the barrier was complete? What would happen then? And if Vel brought knowledge of the barrier to Doma, would Elle help? Tan still didn’t know what effect the barrier had on the elementals, but creating isolation would not help them face Par-shon. “I intend to go to Roine. Is he…?”

“Tannen.”

Theondar—Roine, as he had been when Tan had first met him and still considered him—appeared behind Zephra. He wore a dark green jacket with heavy embroidery working along the sleeves. His once-peppered black hair had nearly grayed completely in the time since Tan had known him. His eyes looked weary and drawn, but there was a sharpness to them still. At least Tan knew who he’d heard his mother talking to.

“Roine. I didn’t expect to find you here.”

Theondar stepped past Zephra, touching her arm briefly as he did, and tilted his head at Tan. “You have news of the draasin?”

“There is some news,” Tan said, glancing from his mother to Roine. Through the bond with Amia, he sensed amusement. Around Zephra, she was rarely amused. What did she know that he didn’t? “We found one of the hatchlings. Injured and nearly dead, but we managed to heal him.”

Roine’s eyes narrowed. “We?”

The way he asked told Tan that Roine already knew more than he let on. Tan needed to start using his spirit sensing much like Amia, but he hadn’t grown up a spirit senser as she had. It still took conscious thought to probe spirit. But he recognized the tone to Roine’s question.

“You spoke to Cianna.”

“I know nothing more than what my fire shaper has shared. She claims a master shaper saved an elemental using power that she can’t even explain.”

Tan met his eyes. “I did what I needed to do, Roine. The draasin will be essential in the coming days.”

“I don’t doubt that in the slightest,” Roine said. “I think you were right that we needed to bond them. I wish Cora hadn’t been chosen to bond the little one—” Roine raised his hand when Tan started to object. “I know there was no choice. But it would be better that the bonds be to shapers of the kingdoms. Whatever else you might think, Tan, my loyalty remains to the kingdoms. As should yours.”

Tan took a soft breath and considered his response before saying anything. How could he explain to Roine where his loyalties were? Tan wanted the kingdoms to be safe, he wanted to protect those he cared about, but he recognized that he had been given his gifts with a different purpose. He could speak to the elementals. More than that, he could protect them. And the elementals didn’t care about borders or ancient grudges. They might be stronger in certain regions than others, but they respected the land itself, not man’s artificial borders. Tan didn’t understand why there were regional differences in the elementals—not yet—but that was part of what he needed to learn.

“My loyalty is where it should be,” Tan answered.

Roine nodded, as if convinced there was nothing else to worry about. “Good. Then I would hear about this master shaper. Who was he? I hear he has a healing ability not seen in the kingdoms in centuries.” Roine laughed quickly at his joke, cutting off at a sharp look from Zephra. “What did you have to do to save the draasin?”

“Nothing more than call him back from the dead,” Tan said. It had been the most complicated shaping he had ever done. Without Amia’s help holding the spirit component, Tan didn’t think that he would have managed. As it was, he still wasn’t convinced that he’d done anything more special than choose a name for Asgar.