Tan pushed them together in anger fueled by earth shaping, balling them up. Had he known how, he would have simply destroyed them, but he didn’t know the secret to doing it without harming himself.
He carried it into the air on a shaping and faced Cora. Raged burned through him, growing hotter the more he thought about what the elemental had done. He thrust the balled-up elemental trap in front of him, showing it to her.
“This is what called me here,” Tan spat. “An elemental trap, but one meant to summon. Not for Par-shon to trap the elementals, but for this kaas to feed on them.”
Cora gasped. “They use the elementals; they would not destroy them!”
“This is not the first. They attempted an earth trap around Ethea, but we managed to stop them.” With a dawning horror, he thought he understood now what had been planned along the border with Incendin. “And fire. They were attempting to trap fire when we interrupted them.”
“Where were you?” Cora asked.
“Near Nara.” Tan breathed out, remembering where they had been. “Near the den. They were trying to trap draasin.”
And water. Had he stopped the water trap, removing the stones before they could do anything dangerous?
How many other places had they targeted? The elementals would never be safe until he did what he promised Honl: He would have to destroy kaas.
Only, he had no idea how to do so. Both times he’d encountered the elemental, he’d nearly lost.
“But why? What purpose would it serve for this kaas to feed on other elementals? And why so many?”
Tan shook his head. “I don’t know. If the First Mother still lived, or even if Lacertin still lived, we might have someone we could ask, but there is no one. There might be records, but the archives are too extensive and we don’t have the time to spend searching.”
Enya focused on Tan, her deep yellow eyes unblinking. You must stop this, Maelen.
I’m not sure that I know how.
The Eldest may know.
Asboel. But Asboel hadn’t shared with Tan anything that he might know about kaas, other than for Tan to feel fear. There must be a way, but he does not share how kaas was banished the last time.
I was a hatchling then. I had not yet claimed a name. The Eldest must remember.
Tan suspected that Asboel did remember, but that the price paid was too high. If the elementals suffered, would Asboel have any choice but to share with him what had happened?
“She knows something?” Cora asked.
Tan shifted his focus away from Enya and met Cora’s eyes. He saw disappointment there. She wanted to know what the draasin knew. She wanted to have a connection with Enya, but the bond had been formed in haste and driven by necessity rather than desire. “She says she was a hatchling when kaas attacked the last time. The Eldest would know, but I am bonded to him and he has not shared.”
Cora nodded thoughtfully. “There might be another way for me to learn what we need,” she said. “I will summon when I learn.”
“Cora,” Tan started. The warrior turned from her seat between Enya’s spikes. “I fear we don’t have much time.”
“I know. Know that what I must do will be difficult for me.” She glanced down, staring at Enya. “But for her, it will be done.”
22
A History Lesson
Tan wanted to return to Ethea, but a part of him hesitated. Cora returned to Incendin to see what she could learn about kaas, but what if the records she could access didn’t provide the answers he needed? While Tan had nearly lost Honl, the elemental had consumed ara. They needed to understand why.
Asboel might not want to share whatever had had happened in the past with kaas, but if he didn’t, there might not be a way to stop it.
Asboel, Tan sent.
Reaching through the bond, he sensed the draasin and was not surprised to find him surrounded by warmth. A warrior shaping mixed with spirit carried him far to the south on a bolt of lightning, where Tan emerged to heat radiating around him.
Asboel perched on his hind legs, staring to the east and toward the tall Gholund Mountains. His long, barbed tail curled around him. The broad spikes on his back practically shook with irritation.
Maelen. Asboel did not turn toward him.
I nearly lost Honl.
Ashi is stronger than you credit. He was fine.
No. He is not fine.
Asboel turned his massive head to look at him, staring at Tan with a gaze heavy with the centuries he had lived. Asboel was an ancient creature, but there was something about the way that he looked at Tan now that gave a certain weight to it. Tan had focused almost entirely on what he had to do, on learning to understand the elementals, to learn shaping, but had not taken the time to really understand what Asboel had gone through. Not only the time he was lost, frozen in the lake, but before that, in the time when draasin flew freely across the land.
You saved him, did you not? Asboel asked.
Tan nodded, meeting and holding Asboel’s gaze. I saved him. He is changed by it. I don’t understand, but now Honl is visible. I don’t know what it will mean for him.
The connection to wind remains?
It does.
Asboel snorted, letting heat and steam billow out from him as he turned to stare at the mountains again.
What is it, Asboel? What is this kaas?
To understand, you need to understand fire, Maelen. You are growing strong with your connection to fire—few men have ever reached the fire bond—but you still do not understand it the way that elementals do.
You’ve always told me that draasin are fire.
Asboel’s tail twitched, catching on a massive rock with a loud, echoing crack. The draasin are fire, but fire is not only draasin. As I said, it is complicated.
Tan made his way around Asboel, standing in front of him. You need to explain it to me. For me to help, I must understand what I’m doing, how I can best help. I’ve seen what kaas can do. I’ve seen it nearly devour my bonded elemental. Ara was lost to it. I know all this, but I don’t know why.
Because you know little about the time before.
Before what?
Before, Asboel simply said again.
Before you were trapped in the ice?
Yes.
Then tell me, Tan said, reaching out. I’ve tried learning all that I can, but I’m forced to read from records, from texts written over a thousand years ago. Our language has changed in that time.
Not for me. A hint of the repressed anger about what he’d experienced came through.
Tan still didn’t know what it must have been like for the draasin to be trapped for a thousand years. Had they suffered, or had the shaping made it so they were less aware? That would have been more humane, but he didn’t know what the ancient shapers had managed. They were powerful and skilled, but had harnessed elementals to guide their shaping and would not have cared about the draasin’s needs.
If I could change that, I would, Tan said gently.
Asboel snorted again. You accept too much blame, Maelen. I do not blame the men of this era. As you have said, much time has passed.
Tell me about kaas, Tan urged.
For you to understand requires a greater understanding of fire than you possess.
Greater than the fire bond? Tan asked.
The fire bond is but a start, but fire is deeper than only the fire bond. The connection is greater.
Is it like that for the other elements?
I do not know earth or water the same way that I know fire, Asboel answered.
But you know wind.
Wind is a part of the draasin. Different, not bound like fire, but together.
Tan had thought the connection to wind was about how the elemental was drawn to the draasin. Ashi certainly seemed compelled. And you said that kaas is fire, but also of earth.
Kaas is fire different than draasin are fire. Draasin control fire.
Tan frowned, trying to understand. Kaas doesn’t control
fire?
You have felt fire attempt to consume, Asboel said. Not all elementals work with fire the same way. Some are drawn. Some control. Kaas is consumed. Each an aspect of fire.
The way that Asboel described it actually made sense. Tan had seen the way that saa was drawn to fire. From his experience, Asboel really did have a certain level of control over fire. When Tan had nearly transformed, when he had drawn fire into himself, he had felt the way fire threatened to consume him. It had twisted him as it twisted the lisincend.
But wasn’t even that a part of fire? Was that what Asboel was saying?
You stopped kaas once before.
Not stopped. Banished.
What’s the difference? Tan asked.
Too many were lost. The Mother demanded that kaas be contained.
Where was it banished?
Asboel was silent for a moment. A place far from here, far from the others.
Tan didn’t have to ask how the elemental would have managed to return. Somehow, Par-shon had learned about kaas and had learned a way to capture it. Possibly someone had even bonded, though Tan wondered how anyone could bond to something like Asboel described. What must the bond be like? How must it control the shaper?
Unless that was the secret the Rune Master had hidden. Could she have been the one to have bonded kaas? Had she released the elemental with her death?
That meant that Par-shon had brought kaas here to destroy the elemental power in these lands. Doing so risked the elementals bonded to the Par-shon shapers as well, unless the Utu Tonah thought the bond able to control the elemental, even freed.
Were you a part of making certain that kaas was sent from here? Tan asked.
The Mother asked. The draasin did what was needed.
What did it take?
Asboel continued focusing on the mountains. A sacrifice.
A chill went up Tan’s spine at the comment. What kind of sacrifice?
The only kind that kaas would accept.
From his limited experience with the elemental, he couldn’t think of what that would have been, but seeing Asboel’s response, the quiet way he studied the mountains, made Tan wonder if maybe what had happened a thousand years ago was somehow tied to what happened today.
Was the artifact used? he asked. If there was any valid reason for the ancient shapers to use a power like the artifact, facing a creature like kaas would be it.
Asboel swung his head back around and met Tan’s eyes. Even you must not use that device, Maelen. It is powerful, almost more powerful than the Mother. Such power is not intended for elementals, let alone man.
They stood side by side, shaper and bonded elemental. Tan rested his hand on Asboel’s side, feeling the steady breathing coming from him, the way his chest rose and fell, and the fire that raged within him.
The artifact is damaged, Tan told him. Possibly destroyed.
Relief came through the bond.
Cora and Enya search for answers in Incendin. They would understand kaas.
There will be no answers found there.
Why?
Had they answers, they would never have harmed the draasin.
Asboel settled his head to the ground, signaling that he was done with the conversation.
23
Drums of Chenir
Tan returned to Ethea after leaving Asboel. The draasin resumed his search for the hatchling, but with every day they failed to find her, Tan had a growing concern that they would not reach her. He still didn’t know what could have happened, especially if what Asboel said about her need for connection to the land was true, but he would not give up hope. The growing possibility that kaas had devoured the hatchling made maintaining that hope difficult.
When Tan reached the city, there was a certain pall hanging over it. Tan wondered whether it was him, or had something really changed in the time that he’d been gone. He had changed. Honl had changed. The understanding that something needed to be done about kaas was there, driving him with an urgency that he might not have had before.
A soft, steady music played in the center of the city. The sound brought a smile to his face. It had been months since the minstrels dared play, since they had any reason to play. Ever since the attack, the evenings had been calm and quiet, with people preferring to return to their homes rather than remain out in the city and celebrate. When Tan and Amia had first come to Ethea, the nights were the most boisterous part of the city. There were traders and taverns and minstrels and the general chaos that lived within the city, a thriving sense all around. Since the draasin attack, and then the lisincend, that had all changed. It had taken time to rebuild, but the city was coming back, finally reaching the place where others felt comfortable walking the streets at night.
As Tan stepped away from the shaper circle in the center of the university plaza, a steady and rhythmic drum beat built. It started as a faint sound, but he was drawn to it, pulled along the street toward the source of the music, reminding him of the sense he’d been feeling in the city the last few days. He should not have been surprised that it led him toward the palace.
Ara pulled with less intensity now. Perhaps that was nothing more than his imagination, but to Tan it seemed that ara faded, receding from the city, replaced by a slightly warmer wind, that of the steadily blowing ashi.
Maybe it was nothing. But Tan didn’t dare take the chance that the attack hadn’t changed something about ara. He might want to watch the musicians, especially as so few bothered to play anymore, but he needed to find his mother, the only person who might know what had happened with ara.
He reached the wide patch of green in front of the palace. Once, massive walls had circled the palace, preventing anyone else from accessing it. Roine had seen the walls removed, or at least not rebuilt. Now a tiered garden rose away from the street, planted with flowers and trees from all over the kingdoms. It was near this that he found the source of the drumming.
On one of the stepped tiers leading toward the palace, a series of massive drums was set out. Standing alongside were drummers dressed in animal hides and with streaks of paint worked along their arms and faces. Tan had never seen anyone dressed quite like that, and realized that they must be the Chenir visitors.
A crowd had gathered along the street to watch. Tan inched closer, slowly pushing his way toward the front so that he could see better. Were Roine or his mother among the people watching the performance, or had they remained behind in the palace?
The drumming rolled though him. There was something very primal about it, and it practically set his bones to vibrating, almost with a voice.
“It is much like golud, isn’t it?”
Tan turned and saw Ferran watching the drummers. His eyes were wide and his body moved with the sounds, almost as if unintentionally. Now that Ferran put words to it, Tan realized that was exactly what the drumming reminded him of and that it had been this drumming that he’d been sensing, at least something like it. Could he have been hearing the drumming since Chenir’s arrival?
“Can you understand it?” Tan asked.
“Understand? Not the drumming, but there is something about it that is much like the way golud sings to me.”
Tan would never have considered the rumbling way that he had to speak to golud a song, but maybe Ferran was right. There certainly was a rhythm to it, and if he focused, he could almost understand it. Speaking to golud had always been easier for Tan than listening to them.
“Chenir must have shapers, then,” Tan said.
Ferran glanced over at Tan. “All lands have the potential for shaping, Athan. Some never develop anything beyond sensing, but it is not for lack of potential.”
Tan hadn’t thought of it that way, but he understood that Doma had shaping, though it was typically water based. There were other shapers from Doma, many who had come to the university over the years to learn. Others had been lost to Incendin. Even Incendin had shapers other than fire. Cora was evidence of that. Why shouldn’t Chenir have shape
rs?
“We still don’t know why they’ve come,” he said to Ferran.
“Likely to greet the new king.”
“Have you been a part of their visit?” Tan asked.
“My duties have kept me elsewhere.”
“The children?” Ferran nodded in answer. “How do they progress?”
“Some will never be able to do anything more than sense. Some will learn to do more. Even fewer will ever go on to master their elemental power. It was the same at the university when I came.”
“What about the students here when I came?” Tan asked.
Ferran shrugged. “Perhaps a dozen or so remain. Many were killed during the attack on the city. Others chose not to return, or maybe they wait until the university is rebuilt. Perhaps they saw what they would face as shapers and were afraid. Better for them to understand now than when they make their commitment to the king.”
The drumming picked up urgency, coming with a wild intensity.
“Why does there have to be a commitment?” Tan asked.
Ferran’s brow furrowed as he studied the drummers. One foot tapped at the ground in time with the rhythmic playing, and he said nothing for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was distant and pitched low, as if mimicking the sound of the drums or speaking to the earth elemental. “The commitment ties the kingdoms together, Athan. Service to serve. Each land bound together, Ter and Vatten and Galen and Nara. We are all servants to the throne.”
Ferran said nothing more, maintaining his focus on the drummers.
Tan moved past him, working his way up and around the tiered gardens, letting the sounds around him push him as he made his way toward the palace. Once there, he saw windows and the grand central door thrown open, as if welcoming the celebration. Tan paused at the palace door and debated whether he should simply go to Amia and explain what had happened. But first he needed to find his mother to understand what else had happened to ara.
The main hall was filled with white-clad servants, more than Tan had ever seen before. Most carried trays or bustled from one end to another, but a few stood near the windows and listened to the sounds of the drumming, a different kind of crowd than was found out in the street.
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