Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10)

by D. K. Holmberg

  He didn’t yet know enough about Par to know whether they had a similar past. But they had created the binding—and had suppressed Nightfall. That told him that Par knew enough about long-lost power to need to learn more from them.

  “There are some,” he finally agreed. “Will you continue to study the bonds? See if you can find what connection between Par and Vathansa there might have been.” He still needed to learn about the third binding, the one that Honl had found and claimed remained intact. If Honl said that it was, Tan believed him, but with the way that darkness continued to escape, he needed to better understand the bindings.

  “I am the Mistress of Bonds,” Elanne answered, bending at the waist. “And I serve the Maelen as he requests.”

  Tan laughed. “I will be gone for a few days.”

  “The temple?”

  He nodded. “Theondar summons, and I suspect that he’s learned something that could help.”

  “You said that the temple possessed Records much like we have in Par. Perhaps I should go with you to see what other commonalities there might be.”

  He opened his mouth to tell her that wasn’t necessary, but that wasn’t true, was it? He needed her help, and if Logan had discovered something, then maybe Elanne could learn what else might be shared.

  “You could help,” he agreed.

  “I will collect my references if you would give me enough time.”

  The summons had no real urgency to it, at least not yet. Tan shaped a response through the rune, alerting Roine that he had received the summons. “Collect what you need and find me at the estate.”

  Elanne nodded and then leaped from the top of the tower on a shaping of wind.

  Tan followed, but made his way to the estate, landing in the yard behind it and entering through a back door. Through the shared connection with Amia, he knew that she was in the library with Light and Alanna. There was another there as well, and Tan smiled.

  You have been gone many days, Kota said to him as he pulled on the connection.

  And you have finally decided to complete the hunt?

  The hunt is never complete, Maelen.

  Tan reached the library and started laughing at what he saw.

  Alanna pulled on both of Kota’s ears, keeping the hound’s face close to the ground. Light sat on top of Kota as if she had been riding the hound. Every so often, Light would stretch out her long tongue and run it across Kota’s fur. As she did, Alanna pulled harder on Kota’s ears and giggled.

  Amia looked up as he entered, shaking her head as she nodded to Alanna. “I would say that our daughter has your familiarity with the elementals.”

  Tan grinned. The elementals more than tolerated Alanna. Tan couldn’t prove it yet, but he suspected that she spoke to them, if only in her own way. The way that Kota twitched her ears, even as they were gripped in Alanna’s hands, along with the way that Light looked at her, made it seem that there was more of a connection. That, and the fact that Light hadn’t objected when Tan had suggested she remain behind to watch over Alanna.

  “She has her own familiarity, I think. I would never dream of pulling on Kota’s ears like that. She’d probably bite my hand off.”

  Your hand would be too bony, Kota said.

  Alanna giggled again, furthering Tan’s belief that she heard the elemental. Not only heard but understood.

  But why would she not understand? Speaking to an elemental was not something done with words. It was more a connection of thoughts, one that was shared between man and elemental.

  “You found something,” Amia said as he settled onto the floor next to them.

  “I found something.”

  “You were connected, and then the connection faded for a while. And then it reappeared.”

  Tan told her what had happened on the island and what they had discovered, careful when describing the bodies that he and Elanne had uncovered. When he got to the part about the sculptures and how they had come alive in response to his shaping, he noticed that the elementals were watching him closely. Even Alanna seemed to be paying more attention to him.

  “The binding holds, but I don’t know what would happen if someone else discovered it.” Would it be like the binding here in Par? Would someone with Marin’s talents be able to overwhelm the binding and release that darkness? And if they could, what would happen then? “And I wasn’t able to destroy it. I wanted to, but even connected to spirit—”

  The Mother is not meant to destroy, Maelen. Light had curled around his legs and twisted her tail so that she gripped him. She ran her tongue along his legs and then jumped, climbing so that she could reach his neck and position herself on his shoulders.

  Not even when it comes to the darkness? Not even when it comes to this?

  The Mother is life. Creation. You are mistaken if you think that you can use the gifts that she gave you in such a way.

  Tan hadn’t considered that. If the Mother would not allow the darkness to be destroyed, maybe that was why he hadn’t been able to use the power of spirit against it. And it would make sense that the ancient shapers hadn’t been able to use the bindings to destroy the darkness, rather needing to only subdue and suppress it.

  I have used the power of the elements to destroy, Tan told Light. Others have as well. When I stopped the Utu Tonah—

  You served the Mother, Kota said. She still rested with her head on the floor, with Alanna gripping her ears, but her eyes looked at him with a bright intensity. The Bonded One sought to damage the work of the Mother. What you did still served, separating him from the forced connections.

  Tan didn’t know if that really mattered, or whether the connection he shared with the elementals would have restricted him from harming someone else. But hadn’t he always attempted to help, to heal? First with Incendin, and then even with the wild elementals? Everything that Tan had ever attempted had tied him to the elementals, and in that way, to the Mother.

  “You can’t use your ability to destroy,” Amia whispered. She stepped toward him and rested her hands on his shoulders, smiling at him. “But you know that. And your elemental connections know that. You will have to find another way to suppress the darkness again.”

  “And if I can’t?”

  He thought about how difficult that it had been for him to suppress even the small amount that he’d discovered on the island. Doing more than that, finding a way to stop the power that had assaulted Amia, seemed impossible for him to even consider. But that was what he needed to do if he wanted to ensure peace and stability.

  Looking over at Alanna, that was the only thing that he wanted.

  The summoning coin in his pocket flared again, and Tan pulled it out, glancing at it.

  Amia pulled him into a tight embrace and kissed him on the cheek. “Go. We’re safe here.”

  You will watch? he sent to both of his elemental connections.

  I will watch, Kota answered. The other prefers to go with you.

  Tan patted Light, who licked his hand, eliciting a tight smile. Before leaving, he lifted Alanna and gave her a quick hug, then set her next to Kota. The hound sat patiently as Alanna once again grabbed her ears and started pulling on them, looking up at him with an expression that seemed more amused than anything.

  They would be safe. With Kota and the other shapers around, they would be safe.

  13

  The Third Binding

  The return to Vatten took longer traveling with Elanne. She traveled on a shaping of wind, refusing his offer to carry her with him on his warrior shaping, forcing him to use a similar shaping of wind, one that he touched with spirit to give him a little more control as they soared across the ocean.

  Traveling this way gave him a different perspective of Incendin than he’d had in a while. From above, it almost seemed as if life returned to lands that had been parched and barren, only poisonous plants able to survive. Flashes of greenery and occasionally other colors appeared below. Tan reached with earth sensing and detected more than what he
could see. Not only had aspects of life returned to Incendin, but they also flourished.

  What did that mean for Incendin to have changed? Did it have something to do with him healing the lisincend, or was it restoring the hounds to fire, helping heal the elementals? Maybe it was neither, and it was simply the change in the fire shaping that the Servants atop the Fire Fortress now used. That shaping had always pushed away from Incendin, a shaping of strength designed to keep Par-shon away, but if they had changed that, if the shaping had shifted its focus as Tan knew that it had, it was possible that now the shaping directed toward Incendin allowed recovery for lands that had not seen it in many years.

  “What is it, Maelen?” Elanne asked.

  Tan realized that he had slowed his shaping and lowered himself toward the ground. As he did, he detected a great presence through the fire bond and sent a connection to kaas as it burrowed beneath the earth. The elemental heaved through the ground and then dove back down.

  Elanne gasped. “Did you see that?”

  Tan nodded. “Kaas. An elemental of fire and earth.”

  “The Utu Tonah had something like that,” Elanne said. “He kept it on a coastal island, with only his most trusted bonded to oversee.”

  Tan wondered if Elanne might know what island. It might be worth visiting to see if there were others. He’d healed all the twisted elementals but still hadn’t discovered all of them. “The Utu Tonah had this one. I healed it, but not before he brutally attacked my bonded draasin.”

  “You still healed it after it attacked?”

  Tan nodded. After what had been done to Asboel, a part of him wondered if he should have healed kaas, but then, much like with the darkness, Tan didn’t think that he would have even been able to destroy the elemental. That wasn’t his power. His came from healing the elementals, in bringing them back to the Mother. That was how he had managed to help the hounds as well.

  “You are a strange man, Maelen.”

  “You’ve said that before.”

  They continued on, shaping on wind that carried them past Galen and Ethea and onward to Vatten, where Tan could feel the pull of the temple. Why should that be?

  Lowering himself with the shaping, he dropped into the pit formed around the temple. In the time that they had been gone, Roine had removed the earth covering the spiraling arms of the binding, leaving the entire pattern free and visible.

  Elanne remained in the air, shaping in a wide circle before coming to land next to him. “When you said that this was another place of binding, I had not expected it to be so much like ours in Par.”

  “There are differences,” Tan noted. Not only the shape of the central portion of the binding but subtle differences to the shape of the spiraling arms. Inside, though, with the Marks and the runes that called power, that was much the same, especially now that Tan had repaired them. Had they been so similar before? He didn’t know what shapes the ancients had used with their runes; he was limited to what he knew.

  Light shifted on his shoulders and then jumped down. When they had been here last, she had jumped down only when they were in the temple. Now, she sniffed around the outer edge of the temple, running her tongue along the stone with her tail flicking as she did, dragging through the loose soil.

  Tan followed her, curious what she might be doing. Light never did anything without purpose, though he didn’t often know her purpose. The elemental and her connection to spirit and fire gave her a unique perspective, one that Tan did not completely understand.

  What do you see? he asked her.

  Not see, Maelen. This is not about seeing anything. I would understand those who came before. There is much that even the stone seems to recall.

  You’re using the stone to listen?

  I am using the stone to try and understand this binding. I do not know what else I might learn, but you have shown that it’s important for you to know and understand them.

  They finished the circuit around the temple and found Roine standing in the doorway leading into the temple. His gaze flicked from Tan to Elanne before he sighed.

  “You took long enough,” Roine said. “The summons—”

  “Came when I couldn’t respond immediately,” Tan said. “For that, I am sorry. What did you find?”

  Roine frowned. “I’ve been gone as well. Too many things need to be done in Ethea now that I’m regent.”

  Tan chuckled. “I think you’re king, Roine. As does most everyone that I’ve spoken to.”

  “King. That’s a title I never really wanted, you know.”

  “I know. But there is no real way of understanding succession, not with what Althem…”

  Tan didn’t finish. They all knew what Althem had done, and Tan even had an understanding about why, even if he didn’t agree with it. Althem had produced more shapers as he had intended, wanting to use them to defend against Incendin. And he had. But at what cost?

  “The Great Mother knows that I understand, but I don’t like it,” Roine said. Then a playful smile came to him. “Of course, if I do claim the throne in full, that puts you next in line.”

  Tan paled. Light licked his face, and he heard a distant chuckle in his mind from Amia.

  He hadn’t considered how he might be tied to Ethea and the kingdoms. Not only was he Athan, but he was the son of the queen.

  Roine laughed. “Don’t worry, Tan. It seems you have a different rule that you must decide before you could ever take the throne of the kingdoms. Can’t imagine you can serve as both the Utu Tonah of Par-shon and the king in the kingdoms.”

  “He is Maelen of Par,” Elanne said.

  Roine frowned and looked over at her.

  She nodded. “The Utu Tonah died on your shores. Now the Maelen rules in Par.”

  Roine looked as if he didn’t know how to take the comment but nodded slowly, a smile coming to his face. “Maelen?” He cocked his head to the side, studying Tan. “So he does. So he does. I thought you might bring Amia with you. There’s something here that Logan hasn’t been able to understand and thought that she might be able to help.”

  “Not with Alanna,” Tan said. “I don’t want to risk her any more than necessary.”

  “Zephra would be more than happy to watch—”

  “I don’t think Amia would be interested in leaving quite yet, as much as I know how capable my mother can be.”

  “Ah, well, you still share your bond. That should help.”

  “Elanne can help, too. She’s the Mistress of Bonds in Par. There is much that she would know.”

  “This isn’t Par and these aren’t bonds, Tan.”

  “You might be surprised at how similar this is to what I’ve found in Par.” Tan ducked under the partially open door leading into the temple. “Now, show me what you’ve found.”

  Light followed him in, keeping close as they made their way inside the temple. Tan paused and glanced up, noting the spirit bond again and pushing a shaping of spirit into it, ensuring that he still could shape here. With the shaping, spirit surged through the temple, casting a soft white light over everything. Had it done that the last time that he’d been here?

  “This is much like in the tower,” Elanne said with a whisper. “The bond… it is not quite the same, but there are similarities, are there not?”

  Tan had thought that the bonds were the same, that the shape of spirit had been the same, but now that she mentioned it, he detected the slight differences from the one that was found in Par. Not only the central shape but the way that it pulled on the power of spirit, binding it here. This pattern drew upon spirit, but it also drew through spirit and directed it… much like the one in Par directed spirit.

  The realization surprised him. Tan focused on the way that the binding held, tracing the connection to spirit, and recognized that it pulled upon spirit, but also pushed away. At first, Tan wondered if it pushed toward Par, but that wasn’t the case. This one pushed toward somewhere else, but not Par.

  Holding onto the image of the spirit
bond, Tan wondered which direction that one had focused on. Recreating it like that, piecing it in his mind, he could practically see the way that spirit surged through Par and then away from Par as well. There was a direction to it.

  And he didn’t even need to hold that image within his mind to know the direction. He could feel it here in Vatten and could feel the way that spirit pressed upon him.

  Par channeled spirit to Vatten. Where did Vatten channel spirit? Another binding, and if the remaining binding held, then it should also have a connection to spirit, but why didn’t he detect spirit coming from that binding? There was nothing like this in Par.

  Which meant that the third binding might not be as secure as Honl claimed.

  “What is it?” Elanne asked.

  “I hadn’t realized the differences before,” Tan said. “I could tell the way that spirit held the other Marks in place, but now that we’re here, there is a direction to this bond,” he said, motioning to the ceiling of the temple, where the bond had been formed. “This receives the drawn energy from Par. I repaired the bond there after I left here, which was why I didn’t see it before.”

  “This connects to Par-shon?” Roine asked.

  “Not to Par,” Tan said. “More like Par connects here. I don’t know how, but the shaping, the bonding that we see above us, is tied to this temple. And this temple is tied to another shaping.”

  “The other binding,” Elanne said.

  Tan nodded. “But there is no such draw in Par,” he told her. “When I repaired the spirit connection, I didn’t find any connection like this.”

  Elanne seemed to grasp the issue immediately. “Then we have to find that binding!”

  “That’s the problem. I don’t know where it is.” And he had been warned to stay away by Honl. What did his elemental bond know that he didn’t—or couldn’t—share? There must be something he feared, but then, it was possible that Honl didn’t understand how the bindings were connected, and without that connection, they would fail when trying to hold out the darkness.