Servant of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 7)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Unsheathing his sword, he started toward her, streaking toward the ground with Honl racing along next to him. As he did, he felt the shaping building before he could see anything. Tan changed the angle of his approach, shooting off to his left. The ground exploded beneath where he’d been.

  “Can you check on Zephra?” Tan asked.

  Honl shifted into nothing more than dark smoke and raced toward her. He stopped right before he reached Zephra and through their bond, Tan could feel pain. There was a barrier around his mother, and even though Honl tried again, he could not penetrate it.

  Tan reached the ground barely a dozen paces from his mother. The ground around him swelled as he took his first step. Tan pushed out with a shaping, but he didn’t have the strength needed to completely undo the shaping. He reached for elemental strength, but there was only Honl, and if he borrowed from his bonded wind elemental, Honl might be trapped.

  Asboel, Tan said. Can you help?

  The draasin pushed through the bond, lending what strength he could spare. Tan breathed deeply with the borrowed strength from the draasin, letting it fill him, and shaped each of the elements together through the sword, binding them with spirit. When he released them, it came as a violent explosion away from him.

  The shaping revealed five Par-shon shapers, but only briefly. Tan didn’t have the chance to see how many stolen bonds they carried, but the fact that they were this deep into Chenir meant they would have many, including a powerful bond to earth that obscured them.

  Anger surged through Tan. They had attacked Zephra. They had attacked his mother.

  Tan unleashed another attack, using the combination of the elements through the sword in a surge of power. The first two shapers disappeared with the flash of light. Their bonded elementals were freed and quickly disappeared.

  Assist me, Tan urged, before they had gone too far. He had done the same when fighting Par-shon while in Doma, using the freed elementals to increase his strength.

  The call for help didn’t work this time. They were drawn away, toward the steady summons of Chenir, leaving Tan facing three more bonded shapers.

  Zephra lifted from the ground, shaped by one of their shapers. She started floating away from Tan. If he failed, she might be taken from him. Tan would not lose his mother to Par-shon.

  With another combined shaping through the sword, he struck down the nearest remaining shaper. As he turned his attention to the next, fire and wind attacked. Tan caught the shapings with his sword and turned them away, deflecting them into the ground. A series of attacks came quickly, more quickly than a single shaper could manage.

  He’d missed others.

  “Honl!” Tan cried aloud.

  The wind elemental swirled around in a torrent of wind, sending dust and debris flying. Through it, Tan saw nearly a dozen other shapers coming at him from different angles. The shapings were too fast, and he wasn’t strong enough to deflect them and still rescue his mother.

  Tan managed to stop three more shapers, but still the attacks came, unrelenting. Two more fell to his shapings. Each time, Tan attempted to call the elementals to his aid, but each time they failed, drawn by Chenir, dragged away from where they could help him.

  As Zephra was pulled away, she rolled her head toward him and her eyes flickered open. With a knowing glance, she sent a whisper that carried on the wind. “Go,” she said.

  “No!”

  Tan pulled on elemental strength, fighting for power from the bonded elementals. Power flowed into him again, filling him with the elemental strength, and he shaped again and again, loosing the blinding white shapings that struck down one Par-shon after another.

  For a moment, Tan thought he might succeed.

  But then he felt the shapers take control of their elementals. A shaping started to swirl around him, one that he’d felt before, one meant to separate him from his bonds and his ability to shape.

  His mother mouthed another word, sending it across the distance between them. “Go, Tannen. Know that I love you.”

  Tan spun in place, releasing his deadly shaping at as many as he could, but there were too many. More appeared as he continued to fight, and Tan was only one shaper, and in a place where his advantage had been neutralized. This was not a fight he could win.

  Screaming, he used the last of his strength and pulled a traveling shaping. As he did so, he released the last of his energy on the shapers surrounding him, striking at bonds that he couldn’t see, determined to free as many elementals as he could before he disappeared.

  He felt the surge of the released elementals as his shaping carried him away.

  14

  A Call for Water

  Tan landed back in the university yard in a heap. Honl had helped as much as he could, and now swirled around Tan in a protective cloud. Tan sensed him more distantly than he should have, as if something had changed about the bond. He felt a moment of terror, worried that he’d lost his connections, that the Par-shon shapers had somehow managed to sever those connections before he could escape, and strained for Asboel. The sense of the draasin was there, but weakened as well.

  There came a series of shouts, and for a while Tan knew nothing more than a jostling series of movements. Each time he opened his eyes, he saw that he was somewhere new. First along the streets, with tall buildings rising up on either side. Then again within a darkened hall. And then with a bright fire blazing in front of him.

  Then a hand touched his neck and he smelled Amia’s familiar floral scent. “Tan,” she whispered to him, leaning into his ear. Her voice was edged with concern that he felt weakly through their bond.

  He managed to open his eyes and keep them open so he could look around. He didn’t quite know how he’d managed to get into the palace, but he recognized the room. The walls held pictures depicting ancient shapers. Carvings of the elementals were etched into columns. A warm hearth roared with fire, and Tan sensed saa working within the flames.

  With each passing moment, he felt his strength returning. The elementals within Ethea restored him, but too slowly, far too slow for him to help his mother.

  “What happened?” Amia asked.

  Tan licked his lips. “Get Roine,” he said, struggling to sit up.

  She cupped his face and held him down, not letting him move. “Don’t move, Tan. Not yet.”

  He shook his head and struggled against her. “Amia, I need to reach Roine. He needs to know—”

  “Ferran already summoned him, as well as Wallyn.”

  “Wallyn?” Tan asked. “Why would they summon a water shaper?”

  Amia touched him again, running her hands along his cheeks. As she did, he began to understand why everything seemed so distant and faded. Amia shaped him, soothing him.

  “How injured am I?” he asked.

  Amia held his eyes. “Wallyn will be here soon.”

  Tan reached for a shaping of spirit, but he was exhausted and it nearly failed. When he managed to hold onto it, he used the shaping to help him understand what had happened to him, questing within himself. He could see what Amia did to him, how she shaped him, easing spirit over him. Without the bond they shared, he wondered if she would have been able to shape him. His spirit shaping normally protected him.

  As he did, Tan recognized the injuries. Shapings must have gotten past him. Both legs were hurt, one shattered. His arm was badly damaged. Suppressed pain shrieked in his back. The tiredness he felt might be more from blood loss than from his elemental shaping.

  His mother would have seen his injuries. That was why she’d told him to go.

  “I need to be healed,” he whispered.

  Amia ran her fingers though his hair. She fought to suppress the pained look he could see all too clearly. “You need rest, Tan.”

  A hidden door thundered open and Roine hurried into the room. His gaze seemed to quickly take in the injuries, and he stopped in front of Tan. Ferran followed Roine, the earth shaping he held ready filling him.

  “What h
appened, Tannen?” Roine asked.

  The way he said his name reminded Tan of his mother. “They have her, Roine,” he said.

  Roine’s demeanor changed in an instant. His back stiffened and he clenched his hands into tight fists. “Chenir?”

  “Par-shon. I found her in Chenir. They’re withdrawing the elementals from Chenir, but it places them in even more danger.”

  “I don’t understand. She went to Chenir to secure our agreement. There should have been nothing more.”

  “Chenir was camped,” Tan started. Talking was making him tired and he blinked, letting his eyes drift closed. “I needed to see the effects of what they did when they withdrew their elementals. I told her to return, but she wouldn’t. She came with me, and we were attacked.”

  Tan sagged into the bed and his eyes fell closed. He heard whispered voices around him as he drifted into a dark slumber. When he opened his eyes again, Wallyn had his thick hands on either side of his head. The top of Wallyn’s bald head had beaded with sweat.

  “Shh, boy,” Wallyn soothed.

  “That boy is your Athan,” Tan heard Roine snap.

  Wallyn kept his focus on Tan as he answered. “And he is still a boy, though one with much experience and strength. Even you should see that, Theondar. Like most boys, he forgets that his body has limits. Had he been any other, he might not have survived. I think his youth sustained him when his body would have failed.”

  “Not my youth. The elementals,” Tan said.

  His entire body ached, throbbing with a painful intensity that hadn’t been there the last time he’d been awake, telling him that Amia’s shaping was gone, likely lifted from him so that he could undergo whatever healing that Wallyn felt he needed.

  Tan tried to push himself upright, but he found that his arms and legs wouldn’t move. He strained again, recognizing bindings of earth wrapped around him, and pulled on the shapings, freeing himself from them.

  “Easy,” Wallyn warned. “You convulsed during your healing. They were for your safety.”

  At the mention of convulsions, Tan reached for the bonded elementals, fearing that something had happened to them. Awareness of them came slamming back into him, filling him with the sense of Asboel, Honl, the nymid, and lastly, Amia.

  He let out a shaky breath as relief washed over him. “Are you finished?” Tan asked Wallyn.

  “This is a complex healing, Athan. You must have patience if you expect to be fully restored.”

  “I don’t have time for patience. Par-shon has Zephra, and I need you to heal me so that I can save her.”

  “Healing takes time, Athan. You have never suffered anything like this before, so you won’t understand. You have much strength with your shaping, but you must trust my experience.”

  Tan focused on his breathing. Every moment that he delayed, every moment that he simply lay injured, was another moment that Par-shon would have to separate Zephra from her bond. Once separated, he didn’t think that she would survive. The last time she’d nearly lost the bond, she had nearly died. Had Tan not been there, she would have died. He was not about to lose his mother after she had managed to survive everything else. He was not about to let Roine lose his mother.

  “Roine,” he said. “Send shapers to Chenir.”

  Roine stepped into his line of sight. Heavy lines twisted his face, leaving his eyes drawn. “Tannen, we have so few shapers remaining. We can’t risk the last of us to save even Zephra.”

  The pained way that he spoke told Tan how hard those words were to say.

  “So she’s lost?”

  “That was always a possibility. She knew that, Tannen. She understood what she risked by continuing to scout, but she was one of the few who could.”

  “Cianna can. Ferran too.”

  “Cianna does,” Roine answered. “And Ferran has another task that is more important.”

  Tan grunted. “The university? If Par-shon reaches the kingdoms, it won’t matter that he’s rebuilt the university.”

  “Having trained students will.”

  “Then let me go,” Tan said. “I will do what I can to save her.”

  Hope flickered through Roine’s eyes for a moment, but then faded again. Even Roine thought that Zephra was lost. “Tan, you’re too weakened. Trust that Wallyn knows what he’s doing. Your injuries will require time to recover and heal.”

  “Not Wallyn,” Tan said.

  Roine frowned.

  The healer’s hands pressed on the sides of Tan’s face as he continued his healing.

  “I mean no disrespect,” Tan said to him. “But Theondar knows that I can be healed by other means.”

  “You don’t know that the nymid will help.”

  “I’m bonded to the nymid. They will help.”

  * * *

  Tan could barely move with his arms bound to his sides and his legs wrapped in shapings of air. Wallyn claimed it was for his safety as they made their way down from the palace into the tunnels beneath the city, but Tan wondered if he was getting even for Tan’s request to have the nymid help him.

  The air warmed immediately as they descended. Roine led the way and Wallyn followed, letting the king regent hold the shaping that carried Tan down the steps and past the dungeons, finally into the tunnels. Roine had been down here before, but Wallyn had not. With each step, the wide shaper made a worried cough until they reached the solid stone of the path beneath the palace.

  “Toward the archives,” Tan instructed.

  “I remember,” Roine said.

  He hurried toward the pool that lay halfway between the archives and the door that led up into the palace. Warm water, tinted with the bright green of the nymid, swirled there. Tan could sense the connection to the nymid growing stronger as they came closer. Though it shouldn’t, a nagging doubt set in that the nymid wouldn’t heal him. They had healed him so many times before that he wondered if the elemental would eventually decide not to.

  Roine stopped, lowering Tan to the ground and releasing the bindings of air wrapped around his legs and arms.

  “This? You intend to climb into this filthy water?” Wallyn said.

  Tan crawled forward, not waiting any longer. The sense of urgency racing through him compelled him forward. Pain jolted through his legs and arms, and his back felt like it was on fire. He wished that Amia had come with him and soothed him with a shaping of spirit, but Roine refused to have her watch the healing.

  “This filthy water is nymid,” Tan said, reaching the edge of the pool. He stretched his hand into the water, feeling the warmth surge up his arm, and then he tumbled forward.

  Wallyn gasped as he disappeared beneath the surface.

  Warmth flowed over him, almost as if the nymid mingled with the draasin. Tan was again aware of how all his bonded elementals seemed pulled by fire, as if fire ruled over them all. Yet he knew that was not true. Each of the elements was needed for different reasons, and all were needed for spirit.

  Nymid.

  He Who is Tan.

  Can you heal me?

  You would save Zephra.

  How could he explain to the nymid that he had to save her? If he didn’t, Par-shon won. He’d lost so much; he wasn’t willing to lose her, too. She is my mother.

  Water swirled around him for a moment, sending him into a spiral. A green-tinted face appeared out of the water, coming into focus in front of Tan. You serve the Mother.

  I’ve done much on behalf of the Mother and will serve still, but I can’t serve well until I know that she’s safe.

  You will find saving her dangerous, He Who is Tan, even for one such as you.

  And Roine wouldn’t allow him help. Tan understood. Roine couldn’t allow Tan any help. Doing so risked the safety of the kingdoms. He would have to find a way to do it on his own.

  The Mother has seen that you are never alone, He Who is Tan.

  There are places where the elementals withdraw. That is how I was injured.

  Even in those places, there is life. On
e such as you can see it returned.

  The elementals leave by choice.

  Is that what you think, He Who is Tan? The Mother would not see her work undone. She would not see the elementals destroyed. You could return them.

  And I can’t do anything unless I am healed.

  Water swirled around him again, leaving Tan spinning. The face reappeared and seemed to smile. You were healed when you entered water, He Who is Tan.

  Tan realized that he no longer felt the pain racing up his arm and his back, and that his legs felt restored to what they had been. Through his connection to Amia, he sensed her relief. Can you help? The nymid once provided armor.

  When you serve the Mother, you will have our armor. Go, save Zephra, and serve the Mother.

  The water calmed, and Tan remained floating for another moment before surging from the pool on a shaping of water.

  Wallyn stared at him, his eyes widening as Tan emerged from the pool. The wide man took a step back and nearly stumbled.

  Roine stood fixed in place with his arms crossed over his chest. When Tan came free from the water, he hurried toward him. “Are you . . . ” Roine began. “Did it work?”

  Tan rested his hands on his legs, taking slow and steady breaths. Water dripped off him and ran back into the pool with the nymid, leaving a sheen of shimmering green coating him. “It worked,” he said.

  Roine traced a finger over Tan’s shirt and pulled it away. He pursed his lips as he studied his finger, his brow furrowing into a tight line. “Not only healed, though.” Roine looked up and watched Tan. “What else did you ask of them?”

  “Only what had been given to me in the past. The nymid will keep me safe.”

  Tan started to make his way down the tunnel. While here, there was something else he needed to see. He would rather Roine and Wallyn not be with him when he went to the draasin, but if they were, he would seal them out.

  Roine caught him by the arm and spun him around so they faced each other. “Tannen,” he began. The hesitancy in his voice made it clear that he wasn’t sure how to say what he needed. “I know that you want to help your mother, but we can’t risk losing you. You’re the only connection we have to the elementals.”