Serpent of Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  That was the reason he’d come to the archives and had been reading through the texts stored here since his return. Tan was determined to understand what role the draasin might have played and what this strange and terrifying elemental kaas might have done.

  So far, he’d come up empty. There had been nothing that he could find that explained anything. He found information on hunting the draasin, but if the draasin had been helping, why had they been hunted?

  Tan put the book down with a frustrated sigh. He wasn’t getting anywhere searching through it this way. And maybe he wasn’t meant to find any answers. As far as he could tell, the ancient scholars had intentionally made it difficult to find anything that they had done. Their records were incomplete and everything that might have been helpful was written in the confusing style of that time. If only Asboel would simply explain what had happened.

  Then there was his need to understand what Par-shon intended. It wasn’t just about the elementals anymore, at least not about the need to protect them from Par-shon, but from kaas as well. If there was a wild elemental roaming the kingdoms, Tan needed to do what he could to stop it.

  On top of that, he needed to understand Incendin. He would have to go to them and find answers, possibly allies, but Cora had not answered any of his summons. Perhaps she was busy reacquainting herself with Incendin. She’d been gone so long that Tan didn’t doubt that she would need time to understand her role with her people, but that was time he didn’t have.

  And then Chenir.

  Since their arrival, a steady rolling thunder seemed to echo through the city. He hadn’t managed to discover its source, and golud didn’t seem unsettled. Rather, there was almost an edge to the elemental, but one that Tan couldn’t completely explain.

  So much for him to do, and not enough time.

  He stood and faced the shelving aligned along the wall of the lower level of the archives. The light from the lanterns didn’t fully reach here, so he shaped a ball of light. Fire blazed above his hand, drawing saa to it. Tan released the shaping to the elemental, letting it take control.

  His eyes were drawn to the intricately carved trunk set atop a shelf. Inside the velvet-lined trunk was the ancient artifact, a device that had been created for some unknown reason, but one powerful enough to draw upon each of the elementals, to pull more strength than Tan could fathom shaping on his own, even augmented by the elementals and the warrior sword.

  Before he knew what he was doing, he tipped the lid of the trunk back. Firelight held in place by saa lit the artifact, casting a soft glow over the silver cylinder. Runes, much like those used throughout the lower level of the archives, and so similar to those used by Par-shon, marked along its edges.

  Tan lifted the artifact, holding it in his hand. There was power here that he had so far managed to ignore. Had he attempted to use the artifact when Par-shon attacked Doma, or when they had abducted the archivists, how much differently would things have turned out? Would he have managed to stop the Utu Tonah? Would he have been able to avoid kaas ever coming to these lands?

  Or would he have been tempted like Althem?

  The ground rumbled softly, pulsing as if with his heartbeat. The steady sound seemed to call to him, as if it wanted to draw him out. Tan didn’t know what it was, but there was something so compelling about it.

  He twisted the artifact. The runes were familiar now. Always before, they had been something mysterious, leaving him with questions. He thought of what it had taken to find the artifact, how hard he had searched, racing from the lisincend and struggling to remain only a step or two ahead, if not more.

  Now, he didn’t fear the lisincend as he once did. They were still terrifying and there was darkness that twisted within them, but he thought he understood some of what they went through. Understanding granted him a sort of immunity to the fear that had coursed through him when thinking of them before. Somehow, he would have to find a way to bridge the kingdoms and the lisincend.

  Couldn’t the artifact do that as well?

  There were other answers that he needed. Would the artifact be able to tell him what had happened to the hatchling? Tan had no doubt that it could, and even debated reaching out to Asboel to suggest it, but the draasin remained distant. Whatever the mystery of kaas, it had turned his friend silent.

  Holding the artifact could lead Tan to the other hatchling. And then? Then he might even understand why Chenir had come. There had to be a reason, something more than simply meeting the new king regent.

  The temptation was great. If he had that power, he wouldn’t feel pulled in so many different directions. He might be able to focus on one problem at a time. With the artifact, he might be able to solve all of his problems. Then he would be able to be with Amia, and at peace. Wasn’t that the dream?

  You can’t control it.

  The thought came through the connection with Amia. She had been distant, but surged to the forefront of his mind. Tan needed for her to understand why he even considered it.

  I don’t have to control it. I think that’s where Althem failed.

  He sensed Amia’s disappointment and hated it. Althem failed because he tried to use it, not because he thought to control it. You know better than any what could happen were you to use the artifact.

  Tan envisioned a future for he and Amia, one where they didn’t have to worry about Incendin, or about Par-shon. In that future, they lived a simple life, one where they could climb through the mountains of Galen, where Amia could walk the mountain trails with them, where they might raise a family…

  I want all those things as well, but that is not the way to reach them.

  A shaping had built within him while envisioning that future. Without intending to, he’d pulled shapings of each of the elements and added spirit to it, drawing from Amia through him. She didn’t fight. He sensed that were he to attempt to use the artifact, she would not oppose him.

  Reluctantly, he released the shaping. It went away from him in a torrent, the pent-up energy more than he’d realized he’d drawn.

  The glow in the silvery metal of the artifact faded.

  Tan would have all the things that he wanted, but he would not do so this way. There was danger in it. The artifact was too much power, dangerous in a way that even the ancient shapers—at least some of them—recognized. He would not make that same mistake.

  He sensed Amia’s relief and she faded to the background of his mind once more, leaving him standing in the archives.

  What would he do, if not use the artifact? Where would he start?

  He sighed in frustration. There would be no easy answer, nothing that would help him know what must be done first. Asboel might help, but he was nearly as distracted as Tan, wanting only to find the hatchling.

  There was a part of him that considered using the artifact only to find the hatchling, but he pushed the thought away. If he were to start a shaping, he doubted that he would stop. He might think he had the necessary control, but the simple act of lifting the artifact—and the shaping he’d very nearly unleashed—told him how little control he actually possessed.

  No, he needed to understand this on his own.

  He considered returning to the city. There would be a festival and celebrations for the Chenir delegation that he could attend. Roine likely wanted him to attend. But Tan was in no mood to put on a show for ambassadors, not with so much at stake.

  With Asboel out and Chenir in the city, it left only one thing for him to do.

  But so far, Cora had ignored his attempts to reach her. Why would now be any different?

  He turned the artifact over in his hands a moment more before setting it back into the velvet-lined box. Saa still created a soft ball of light that illuminated the interior of the box. Tan started to replace the lid, but something caught his attention.

  His hand froze, holding it open slightly, letting only a little light into it.

  A long, jagged line ran through the artifact.

  Tan ran a fi
nger along the line, horror beginning to run through him.

  He’d done this. He’d damaged the artifact.

  It had come when he released his shaping. That much energy had to go somewhere, and it had gone back into the artifact, splitting it. Tan could attempt to repair it and could attempt to still use it, but doing so would be more dangerous than using it had been when it was whole.

  Even if he wanted to attempt to use the artifact to find answers, he no longer could.

  19

  Incendin Summons

  The border of Incendin looked different than it had earlier. Tan stood along the border, staying along the Galen side. The summoning rune he held in his hand glowed softly with each of the elements, though fire burned the brightest. It was the only way he had to reach Cora.

  He still wasn’t sure that she would answer. Since she’d bonded Enya, he hadn’t seen her. Enya hadn’t offered to help in the search for the hatchlings, though Tan didn’t think that was out of anger but out of need for Cora and herself to understand the bond. From what Tan knew of bonding, Enya might almost be too young to share the bond. She had forged it out of necessity, but it would take time for her and Cora to understand each other.

  Maybe coming here wasn’t his best idea, but he had nothing else that he could think of to do. Asboel wouldn’t answer, and Tan was not interested in reaching out to Chenir as Roine asked—not yet, at least—but there was one place he could help.

  Tan tried not to think what it meant that the artifact was damaged. Nothing had changed, really, only the fact that he’d always had it in the back of his mind that he’d be able to use it if needed, but now that wasn’t an option.

  And he needed answers but didn’t know where else to get them. It wasn’t only the kingdoms in danger, but the elementals as well.

  And not only the kingdoms. Other places risked suffering if this elemental kaas was as bad as Asboel indicated. That was why he needed to reach Cora. He needed her to understand, but more than that, he needed her help to discover what Incendin might know about kaas.

  As Tan waited, Honl blew around him, slowly recovering from the attack. The nymid still clung to him, wrapped around him more for their protection than for his. Once, Tan had worn the nymid like armor. Of his bonded elementals, only Asboel remained unharmed, but how long would that last with this new threat?

  As he began to give up hope Cora would come and was thinking that again, she would ignore his attempt to summons, a dark shadow circled over his head. Wind whipped around him and Cora leapt to the ground on a bolt of lightning. Her bonded draasin remained in the air, circling overhead.

  She wore dark leathers that reminded Tan of a mix of the Par-shon shapers and the lisincend, though the cut was distinct, close to her skin and high up around her neck. A slender sword hung from her waist. Tan didn’t need to see it to know that she had a warrior sword much like his.

  She frowned at him as she landed. “A summons? You think a kingdoms shaper can summon me?” Her tone was light, but there remained a hard edge to it.

  Tan studied the sky for a moment. “She chooses not to land?”

  Cora frowned and thankfully chose not to comment on Tan letting her first comment go unanswered. “She remains skeptical of the bond. It is nothing like when I bonded saldam.”

  The fading daylight caught Cora’s brown hair. Her eyes were a matching brown and more youthful than when Tan had first found her, mute and captured in Par-shon. It wasn’t until she had nearly died and returned that she showed her true age. Even then, Tan wasn’t certain how old she really was. She could be ten years older or younger than what he suspected.

  “You haven’t secured the bond with her?” he asked.

  “It is different than what you experience, I think. She fears the Sunlands, though she knows that’s my home.”

  “You know what happened to her?”

  Cora glanced up and then returned her attention to Tan. “I know what you have told me. She shares… some… but even that is restrained. The bond is not open as it was with saldam.”

  “You know her name.”

  Cora tilted her head. “I do not think I could have bonded had she not shared that much,” she said. “But I do not know about the others, what they are called. She keeps that from me. There is much that she keeps from me.”

  Tan sighed. It would be easier if Enya were able to share with Cora. They would need each other, though of the draasin, Enya had been the most tormented since freed from the ice. “Do you know that one of the hatchlings has been found?”

  “I suspected, but didn’t know with certainty. A few days ago, she was pleased but did not want to share with me the reason. I think she fears I might go to him and steal him away. There are times when I think she still even fears me. Other than the draasin, the only person she does not fear is this Maelen. I do not know who—or what—that is.”

  Tan studied Enya. Would they have time to help ease her transition, or would they have to force the connection? He didn’t like the idea of forcing anything with the draasin, not after what they had been through. Cianna might have quickly bonded to Sashari, but Tan and Asboel’s connection had taken time to form. The bond had been quick, but the rest? That had taken trust.

  “To the draasin, I am known as Maelen,” he said softly. “It was a name I was given. Perhaps in jest, perhaps not.”

  Cora glanced up at Enya. “Of course it would be you,” she said. She drew herself straight and looked away from Enya. “What did you call me here for? I nearly came myself, but then she agreed to come with me. Normally, she remains on her own, only the distant connection to her telling me where she might be.”

  “Do you regret the bond?” Tan asked.

  Cora took a moment to answer. “Regret? No, there is no regret. I have been gifted the chance to ride the ancient draasin, to know some of their mind, even if it is less than I would like. But it is a different bond than I had before. That was a shared connection, freely sharing knowledge between saldam and myself. We worked together.”

  “It will get there,” Tan said.

  “I know, but it is… frustrating that it takes so much time. Now that I have returned to the Sunlands, there are many who seek to challenge my position, including Fur. Others see that I have gone to Par-shon and returned. They support me.”

  It was the first confirmation that Fur lived. What would he do with her bonded draasin? “How many know of Enya?”

  Cora shook her head. “Not many. There aren’t many I trust with such information, not until I know the mind of the Sunlands. I have seen how they would use the draasin, wishing to see them serve the Fire Fortress, but I don’t think that is what the draasin would choose.”

  Tan remembered what he had seen of Asgar, the way that he had not feared what Incendin had asked of him. That had surprised Tan somewhat, knowing that the draasin was not afraid of the Incendin, but they had given him the chance to use fire. To the draasin, that was everything.

  “There was an attack today,” Tan said.

  Cora frowned. “From the way you say it, I presume it was not Par-shon.”

  “The attack came on the border of Nara and the Sunlands. Two kingdoms’ shapers were attacked by hounds and under a veil of heat.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You think this the lisincend.”

  “No.”

  “But you said there were hounds. That there was the veil. There are no shapers with the strength to summon the veil, and only a few with the strength to control the hounds.”

  “This was elemental power, Cora. One that I have never seen before.”

  “Then it was Par-shon.”

  “That is what I thought as well, but I have learned how to sever the forced bonds between shaper and elemental. It didn’t work when I attempted this today.”

  “You think this was a true bond?”

  “I don’t know.” That was the only way he wouldn’t have been able to sever such a bond, but that wasn’t Par-shon’s way of reaching the elementals. Roin
e had suggested a wild elemental, but the other possibility was even more dire for the kingdoms. If kaas had bonded a Par-shon shaper by choice, Tan would not be able to stop them.

  Cora crossed her arms over her chest. “What was the elemental?”

  “That’s the reason I summoned,” Tan admitted. There were archives in the Fire Fortress that Cora had studied, and Tan remembered how Lacertin had referenced studying those texts, hoping to learn more about the lost artifact, but why should he have been able to find anything in those texts if the artifact was a work of the kingdoms?

  Unless it was something more than that.

  “It was called kaas. Does that mean anything to you?”

  Cora furrowed her brow, and her eyes narrowed in thought. “It does not. I know only the basics of the elementals, Tan. We are taught fire. Saldam. Inferin. Saa.”

  She said the last with an annoyed tone, making Tan wonder what torment Incendin had experienced from saa over the years. It was bad enough that those in the kingdoms viewed saa as a weak elemental, but what reason did someone from Incendin have to be annoyed with it?

  “The draasin are mentioned, but only as what once had been.” Cora smiled. “Perhaps now that the draasin have returned, they will ask me to teach.”

  “You would teach?”

  She shrugged. “The Sunlands have something like your scholars, but they are different. Few have any talent. When Lacertin was there, he thought to change that. He claimed that those who connected to the elemental powers could best understand the accumulated knowledge. He was the first shaper able to access some of the oldest works. Others came after him. I had some limited access, but only because of my connection to Lacertin.”

  Not for the first time, Tan wished Lacertin still lived. What would they be able to do if they had his experience and knowledge? How much had been lost when he’d been killed fighting for the kingdoms?