Fortress Of Fire (Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “It might come to that,” Tan admitted. Better to be honest than to lie about what might be to come.

  “Whatever you think you will accomplish will fail. You think Alisz was the only one of power from the Sunlands?”

  Tan hesitated. He’d not heard Incendin referred to that way before. “Fur is gone. I defeated him.”

  The lisincend laughed. “You? You think highly of yourself, little warrior.”

  Tan jerked back at the comment, so similar to what Asboel had once called him.

  The lisincend worked its long, thick tongue over its lips again, thin eyes flicking around before stopping on Tan. “You will fail. These kingdoms will fall. Fire will burn once more, as it must.”

  Tan leaned toward the lisincend. “Fire tried to consume me once. It failed,” he whispered. “And I can free you as I was freed, only I can’t promise it won’t hurt.”

  “By freeing me, you only place yourself in greater danger.”

  Tan twisted to see the other shapers watching him. All of them doubted he would be able to do anything, that he would even manage to save the lisincend, but how could Tan not try? “Freeing you puts the kingdoms in less danger.”

  The lisincend wheezed out a dry laugh. “You are a fool if you believe that, little warrior. When the lisincend are gone and the fires fail, you will see how little you know.”

  Roine watched him impatiently. Tan closed his eyes. Heat radiated off the lisincend in a way that left his skin feeling tight. Tan ignored the sensation, focusing on what he needed to do. With a whispered summons, he called nymid, golud, ara, and draasin, binding the elementals together as he had learned to do. It was possible that he shaped them without needing the elementals, though Tan no longer knew the difference. The power of spirit formed within him, different than the other elements. Taking this power, Tan shaped it atop the draasin.

  Spirit held in place.

  Tan reached to the nymid. Nymid!

  The great water elemental infused the bones of Ethea, worked deep beneath the city in greater strength than Tan would have thought possible. He didn’t have the same connection to the nymid as he had with Asboel, but he was better connected than with any of the other elementals. As far as Tan knew, there were individual nymid, but he didn’t only speak to the same one each time, not like he did with Asboel.

  He Who is Tan.

  Tan let out a tense breath. Everything he intended depended on him reaching the nymid. Standing in the palace courtyard, he hadn’t been certain that the nymid would respond.

  He gathered his thoughts. With the nymid, it was best to be direct. Twisted Fire. Can it be healed?

  Why would you heal Twisted Fire?

  I would restore him if it’s possible.

  Twisted Fire consumes the shaper.

  It once consumed me.

  You were not so far gone that you could not still feel.

  Is that the key? Tan asked.

  The nymid didn’t answer.

  Tan took a deep breath. Will you help?

  There was more of a sense of great thought. Then, We can try.

  Something about what the nymid said tripped an idea for Tan. They were right: when he’d been consumed by fire, he still had felt something. The bond with Amia had been there, but weakened. She had held onto him; her affection for him had preserved him. And because of that, he had risked failing in order to return.

  Pulling on the focus with spirit, Tan surged through the lisincend. There had to be something—anything—that he could reach that might allow him to save the person he had once been. Spirit was difficult for Tan. He found nothing within the lisincend other than the draw of fire and a vague sense of fear. Nothing that would allow him to reach who he had been.

  Nymid?

  The nymid pressed up through the ground, drawn up by Tan’s command. They moved hesitantly, sliding over the lisincend. Power rushed through Tan, power to shape and control the water, power to heal.

  He pushed this through the lisincend.

  The creature howled. Pain surged through the spirit connection Tan now shared with him. Fire beat at the connection, straining for freedom. Tan and the nymid fought back, resisting. All he needed was an opening, something to reach through. But he found none.

  Nymid pressed, sensing Tan’s need. The sense of the elemental roared through him, filling him with an awareness of their power. Combined with spirit, Tan knew he could save the lisincend, that he could shape the creature back into the man he had been.

  The lisincend howled again.

  Stone groaned as the lisincend strained at the chains binding it. Fire consumed the lisincend, as it had once consumed Tan, coursing through the creature with an intensity he couldn’t match.

  The spirit barrier failed.

  In a moment, the lisincend would be free to attack. Those watching might be injured, all because he had been arrogant enough to believe he could save this creature. Amia was in danger.

  Fire surged, roaring from the lisincend.

  Someone screamed behind him. Tan felt Amia’s alarm. He would not risk her.

  Asboel!

  The sense of the draasin roared through him. Asboel was always nearby in his mind but could slither quickly to the forefront.

  Twisted Fire!

  You are a fool, Maelen.

  As Asboel spoke, the surge of power roared through him, the great fire elemental pushing on the fire consuming the lisincend. Asboel had not the strength to draw it away, but he could augment it.

  In that moment, Tan knew what he had to do.

  Pulling on water and air, he created a barrier around the lisincend as flames consumed the creature. A surge of joy raced through the lisincend as fire consumed him, drawing the flames out of the barrier, pulling more fire than he would have shaped on his own. Dark laughter worked through Tan’s mind from the spirit connection.

  Then it immolated. Flames burned to nothing, overwhelmed by fire.

  Tan stared, unable to look away until it was nothing more than ash.

  Amia came from behind him and touched his arm. He shook her off as he turned away and staggered from the courtyard, ignoring the stares he knew followed him.

  4

  THE BOND AND THE HUNT

  A great flapping of wings whipped the air around him. Tan shouldn’t have been surprised that Asboel would search for him after what happened but still felt relief that he had. The shadow of the draasin loomed large, heat steaming from its massive sides. Long spikes protruded from his neck, one broken off and not restored when Tan had healed it following the battle with the king. Sharp talons gripped the earth as it landed, and Tan felt the weight of the draasin gaze, though he no longer knew how much of that came from its presence within his mind.

  Tan looked over at Asboel. I’m sorry.

  The draasin snorted. A gust of flames came from his nostrils. You apologize for our bond now, Maelen? You have never abused it.

  I presumed to use your power.

  You thought to heal Twisted Fire. I am not certain such a thing can be done.

  Tan couldn’t shake the image of the lisincend burning itself to death, or the joy it had felt as it happened. There has to be a reason. No shaper would embrace that willingly.

  There are always reasons, Maelen. You simply must ask the right question.

  Tan sat cross-legged on the ground, a rocky outcropping nearly a league from the city. He hadn’t mastered his connection to the wind like his mother, but he’d learned enough to basically toss himself into the air, careening in a deadly fall toward the ground. At least he could escape the accusation he’d seen in the eyes of the shapers.

  Sitting here, with the sun descending over the copse of trees, some unnamed stream bubbling behind him, he could almost feel like he was back home in Galen rather than lost in a city that would never—could never—be his home.

  Only, Nor was gone. The rest of Galen was changed. Everything he knew had been destroyed. The only home he had remaining was with Amia, and she was diff
erent since learning that the First Mother betrayed the Aeta.

  Asboel settled to the ground, lowering his massive head down so he could meet Tan’s eyes. Do you feel them?

  Tan frowned at the suddenness of the change. Feel what?

  Asboel grunted. Feel the power you have restored.

  Tan shook his head. I have restored nothing.

  No? Then why does Enya fly so easily? Why does Sashari soar through the skies?

  Tan had known Enya’s name. Standing in the pool of spirit, he’d learned her name as he freed her from the twisted shaping the archivists had used on her. But he hadn’t known the name of the other draasin, Asboel’s mate.

  You shared her name, he said.

  Names were important to the draasin. They gave a certain level of power over them. Not like sharing the bond that Tan and Asboel shared, but enough that he recognized the hesitance to use their names. Even the first time Asboel had shared his name, he had done so cautiously.

  If you are to share the bond fully, Maelen, then you are to know our rightful names.

  Why do the draasin have names but the other elementals do not?

  Asboel snorted. Are you so certain they do not?

  He hadn’t really considered. The nymid had seemed to be much the same, but when he’d first met them, one had been more connected to him than the others. And with ara, weren’t there faces hidden with the wind? Tan never really saw golud, only felt the powerful earth elemental.

  No. But something is different about the draasin.

  We are more powerful.

  Asboel didn’t say it to boast. He said it matter of fact, as if there would be no arguing. From what Tan had seen, the draasin might be more powerful than other elementals. More powerful than ara? More powerful than golud?

  In these lands and in this time, we are.

  Tan thought the comment strange. Why is that?

  Asboel cocked his head and blinked, yellowish gold eyes seeming to glow. All are born from fire.

  Even golud?

  The ground rumbled as if the golud heard Tan’s question.

  Asboel pawed at the ground, tearing at the earth with massive claws. His tail switched around him, slamming into the small trees nearby as if they were nothing. Golud may think earth came first, but always there is fire. It is life. It is everything. Without heat, there can be no rock.

  And golud, do they have names like the draasin?

  Asboel snorted. Ask golud.

  Tan had never really gotten much answer out of the earth elemental, but then again he’d never tried, not as he had with Asboel. There was a bond between him and Asboel, different even than there was with the other draasin. Could he even bond with another elemental? It felt strange to even consider it. With Asboel, he knew his mind, sensed his thoughts.

  Tan might be able to touch on the thoughts of Enya or Sashari, but it wasn’t the same. Whatever he reached of them likely came through his connection to Asboel anyway.

  Did his mother have the same sort of connection to ara as he had with the draasin? He hadn’t thought to ask and it seemed to him that ara was abundant, but what did he really know about the wind elemental? Could ara be like the draasin, with each having a name, a sense of self? Could the nymid? Or were they simply parts of the greater elemental power?

  Tan wished he understood. Maybe then he could understand why he’d been given the ability to speak to the elementals. What did the Great Mother intend for him? Surely it was not simply to stop Incendin. There must be more for him.

  Did you have a bond before?

  He almost asked about before Asboel had been trapped in the ice, frozen at the bottom of the lake, but caught himself. Nearly a thousand years had passed while Asboel had been trapped, long enough that the world had changed, that the threats of Asboel’s time had become something different. Then, there had been no twisted fire. Incendin had been nothing more than another land, one filled with fire shapers but not dangerous and deadly.

  Asboel sat on his haunches and twisted his head around, practically resting it on his forelegs. There has been no bond.

  None?

  He snorted and a spray of steam burst from his nose. Tan had long ago learned that the steam spouting from Asboel’s nostrils did no more harm to Tan than the heat of his spikes. He wondered if the flames from his mouth could harm him. Part of him doubted that they would.

  The bond between draasin and your kind is rare. It is not easy for my kind to form these bonds. There were those who would try, but the draasin are fierce. None succeeded.

  It is easier for the other elementals?

  Asboel clawed at the ground as if trying to pull golud from the earth. The others are less choosy and they forget easily, so it is rare for the draasin to bond.

  How rare?

  I have lived many cycles, but I have only heard of it once before. If the bond fails, I will be weakened.

  Weakened?

  Asboel’s tail switched from side to side. I cannot explain it any better, Maelen.

  Does it limit you? Tan asked.

  Not any longer.

  Tan laughed. Now that Amia’s shaping forcing the draasin to avoid hunting man had been lifted, he’d wondered what would happen, but so far nothing had changed. Maybe that was the point. The draasin could hunt man, but they had no interest in it. They hunted to eat, not for sport.

  That’s not really what I meant.

  Your question doesn’t deserve an answer.

  Tan sighed, thinking of the lisincend. He’d been convinced he could save him, that his ability to draw upon spirit would give him some insight about how to return the fire shaper who had sacrificed himself to become the lisincend, but maybe Amia was right. Unlike when Tan had nearly changed by fire, the lisincend had gone voluntarily—willingly—chasing fire for greater power. Tan had only done what was needed to save Amia.

  He pulled his legs in and sat, staring at the rock scattered around him. I thought I could save him. Fire consumed him too brightly.

  It is difficult to return from fire.

  You survive. I survived.

  You barely survived, Maelen, and the draasin are fire.

  Tan ignored the comment about him. The same as saa? The same as inferin?

  They are fire as well.

  Tan couldn’t get the image of the burning lisincend out of his mind. He’d been so certain that he could restore him. Maybe his mother was right that he needed additional training, but why did it feel the other shapers knew less about some things than him? Why can’t they be saved?

  They chose their fate. I have been away from this world too long to understand, but they embraced fire too closely.

  Asboel turned his head away, staring through the trees, focused toward the south, toward Nara. It was where the draasin had settled after Tan had saved them, where Asboel and Sashari had gone to raise the hatchlings. But the world had lost two more of the draasin, stolen by the lisincend and destroyed.

  How did they take the hatchlings? Since the attack in Ethea, since defeating Althem, Tan hadn’t asked. The subject was too sore for Asboel, too fresh and raw.

  Asboel breathed out slowly, steam spilling from wide nostrils. The draasin are weakest when young, before they learn to control the flames, before they learn to climb the wind. Twisted Fire found where Sashari hunted. They took that safety from the hatchlings.

  Will there be others?

  There will always be draasin.

  Tan felt that wasn’t much of an answer. The world had missed the presence of the draasin. Maybe that was the reason shaping had become so rare, though if that were the case, then why was it that all the elements were affected? The other elementals of fire that Tan knew about, saa and inferin and saldam, were not nearly as powerful as the draasin. They hadn’t replaced the fire elemental in the draasin’s absence.

  But then, there were other elementals where two shared strength. The nymid and the udilm were both powerful water elementals. Tan once believed only the udilm to be the great wat
er elemental, but experience had taught him otherwise. Could the same happen with the other elements? Were there other strong elementals of wind and earth? And if not, why with water?

  So many questions and never enough time for answers. Between Incendin remaining a threat, Doma shapers still trapped, and the barrier needing to be rebuilt, there simply wasn’t time to learn what he needed.

  Tell me, Maelen, why have you come to this place? Asboel asked, pulling him from his thoughts. What do you hope to learn here?

  There is much I need to learn. There’s so little I understand of the other elementals, but I didn’t come here for that. I needed to get away. I… I thought I could do something I could not.

  Asboel seemed to smile. With the draasin, it looked like a turn of his long jaw and the flash of sharp teeth. It was not the first time for you, nor will it be the last. You are fearless. You are Maelen. That is why I chose to accept the bond.

  Maybe Tan had tried controlling power he was never meant to control. Using the elementals to form spirit was one thing, but controlling the Mother meant a different type of power altogether, power that he had turned away from when he decided the artifact was not meant for him. But then, had he used the artifact, he could have saved the lisincend. With the artifact, he could have done many things. He’d seen what he could have done, almost as if he were sitting among the heavens, gifted with knowledge of the earth and stars.

  I wonder if I should have restored the hatchlings when I had the chance.

  Asboel turned to him and fixed him with eyes that seemed to swallow him. Concern formed a thick line down the center of his long snout. You cannot change what you cannot control, Maelen. Even the draasin know there are limits to power. Danger comes when you reach for more power than you are meant to possess. Even small changes have consequences.

  Tan looked at his hands. Roine and the others had been right. He shouldn’t have tried saving the lisincend. After what they had done to the world, they didn’t really deserve saving.

  Come, Maelen, let us hunt together tonight. You will forget.

  Tan shook the dark thoughts out of his mind and stood. Let us hunt.