Light of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 10)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Wasina nudged him with her long snout. The Elder chose well, Maelen, when he bonded.

  I don’t think he had much choice.

  No. The Mother decided for him.

  Tan would have said it differently, thinking that perhaps Asboel had only bonded because he needed Tan’s assistance getting free of the ice, but then, that might not have been entirely true. The Mother had chosen Tan for a purpose, one that he had willingly accepted, one that brought him closer to all elementals, not only to fire, though his connection to Asboel had been the strongest in many ways.

  And there still seemed an absence without him.

  Tan hadn’t minded not having the connection to fire, but there was a missing piece without Asboel. Light had bonded to him, but she was no more of fire than the hounds. Kota was more of earth, though she had a component of fire. Honl remained an elemental of wind, though spirit had changed him. Light, though, she was more of spirit than she was of fire. She might have begun in the world as a draasin, but she had been changed by the healing that had been required to keep her here. That healing had made her more of spirit than anything else, tying her in a way that none of the other elementals were able to replicate with spirit.

  But as he looked to Wasina and sensed a desire from her, recognizing that the draasin seemed to want the bond with him, he knew that she was not to be his. Perhaps no draasin was meant to bond him again. How could they when all would evoke memories of Asboel? Asgar would also likely be willing to bond to him—Tan sensed that from the draasin—but even that didn’t feel quite right. Asgar was powerful, but he was more a friend. And perhaps that was why he should bond to Asgar, but it still didn’t feel right.

  When would he find a connection to fire again? And would he?

  Tan patted Wasina’s head. I would ask a favor of you, he said to her.

  Wasina lowered her head so that she could meet Tan’s eyes.

  There is a place I need to travel. He sent an image of what he remembered from his flight with Asgar. Wasina spent so much of her time soaring above the water that she might even know where he referred to without needing him to tell her.

  Few elementals can reach those lands, Maelen.

  Few? He hadn’t expected that any could. Except, Honl had somehow reached Norilan, but that might be as much his connection to spirit as anything else.

  Some still find a way to pass, but they are difficult lands to reach. I can show you what I know. I will help as much as I can. When would you attempt this?

  Tan patted her again and looked up as Enya with Cora circled overhead. How about now?

  17

  Reaching the Barrier

  Flying with Wasina was unlike any of the other draasin that Tan had ridden. Asboel had been power and connection to fire. Asgar had a certain playfulness to him—or had, before the attack from Nightfall. Wasina practically floated on the air.

  She moved quickly, soaring high above the water, but occasionally, she would streak down, stretching toward blue swells beneath them before catching a current of wind and reaching high into the sky once more. In that way, she was more of the wind than either of the other draasin that he’d traveled with had been.

  Enya flew straight, with none of the undulating dives that Wasina took. Cora sat tall atop her back between the spines, a stiffness there that didn’t match the easy and carefree way that Wasina soared. Tan found himself smiling at the way that she flew. It was nothing like he’d experienced with the draasin before.

  Light remained on her back, positioned between a pair of spikes with her tail wrapping tightly around them. Occasionally she would lick at the spikes. Tan held on loosely, not needing a firm grip. There was something about the smooth way that she flew that didn’t require him to hang on.

  As they reached the same height as Enya, Cora looked over at him again. “How much farther do you think Volan will be?”

  “When I traveled the last time, it was across the water, but I don’t know how far.” Their journey now had speed, but none of Asgar’s urgency.

  Not far, Maelen, Wasina told him.

  The air blowing around him had grown colder. Tan focused on the wind bond, wondering which elementals he might find flowing through it, and recognizing ara, but also ilaz, the strange buzzing elemental that had always seemed to have an angry urgency to him. There were others, some more potent here than even ara. With the cold, he wondered how well Honl even did. As one of the ashi elementals, he was drawn to warmth and heat, in that way much like Tan. But these lands were cold. Could that be the reason something had happened with Honl?

  Tan wasn’t even sure that something had happened to him. Honl might not be present strongly in his mind, but he was still there if only suppressed. But if something had happened to him, Tan would help him, and Honl would then be able to help Tan. They needed to understand the bindings, and he needed to find a way to restore them so that the darkness was no longer free.

  A wall of white rose in the distance, and he pointed to Cora.

  Connecting through the fire bond to Wasina, he looked through her eyes and saw the way that ice rose as if straight up from the ocean itself. Wasina banked, turning to the east, taking him along the edge of the ice shelf, and Enya followed. They flew, Wasina flying up and then down, as she caught differing currents of wind that helped her, trailing all along the edge of the ice.

  What was behind the ice? Tan suspected land, but he could see—and sense—nothing.

  Can you hold us steady? he asked Wasina.

  In answer, the draasin snorted but started to circle. As she flew up and then down, Tan noted that she followed two different currents of air, a colder one that dropped them closer to the ice and then a warmer current that soared high above in the clouds. Somehow, she managed to shift between the two, catching the winds in such a way that she barely had to move her wings. Tan couldn’t help but think that Asboel would have been impressed by the natural way she flew as if she were such a part of wind that she barely had to use any energy.

  Tan reached toward the earth bond. If he would find land behind the ice, he would need to use the connection to earth to do it. Out here over the water, the connection to earth gave him a sense of the sand deep beneath the water, the distant land from where they had come, even a few scattered islands that Tan couldn’t see. He pulled on those connections, wanting to reach for more, knowing that there must be something behind all the ice.

  Slowly, he felt a soft connection, but it was faint, and difficult for him to reach through.

  Adding spirit, he tried to augment his connection to the earth bond. It was much the same as what he did when trying to reach Honl. There was something there, but even adding earth made it difficult.

  Tan let out a frustrated sigh. If he couldn’t reach past the barrier, there would be no way that they could reach Norilan and no way that he would be able to find Honl. But there had to be a way past.

  Can we go over? he asked Wasina.

  In answer, the draasin caught a warm current and soared up into the sky, reaching much higher than they had flown before. She flapped her wings twice, pulling them even higher. Enya flew next to her, working more vigorously to keep pace. Up here, the pressure on them from the barrier faded. They started toward the ice, trying to reach a space above it, but then Wasina pulled away.

  It extends even here, Maelen.

  How would they have managed to create a barrier that climbed this high? What were they trying to keep out? Not all the elementals, or else Honl wouldn’t have managed to get through. But then, Honl was unlike most of the other elementals, bonded to spirit now.

  Was that the key? Would it take an elemental more like Honl than like the draasin?

  He looked down at Light and noted that she had sat up, her tail still wrapped around the spike that she leaned on. Her tongue slipped out, and she seemed to almost taste the air before she turned to him, looking all too human as she did.

  There is a weakness, Maelen.

  You?

&n
bsp; Not this form, but there is something about spirit. They do not block the connection to spirit completely, but it is blocked.

  Could using Light be the key? Would the changed elemental somehow be able to get him past the barrier? But that meant that he wouldn’t be able to go with Wasina.

  I need to leave you for a bit, he told the draasin. Will you wait for me?

  The draasin turned to him and snorted, sending a streamer of steam at him that parted around him. Of course, Maelen. There is much to hunt here.

  With a shaping of wind and fire, Tan leaped from Wasina’s back, pulling Light with him. They reached the barrier, and he heard Cora shouting something at him, but Tan ignored it. She hadn’t been able to help him get past the barrier. There might not be a way past it, not that he would be able to accomplish, but with Light, he would try.

  What now? Tan asked the lizard.

  They reached a pressure against him. At first, it was something like a wind, or a strong arm pushing against him, but it began to firm up, becoming harder and harder for him to shape his way any further.

  Tan pulled on shapings of each of the elements, reaching through the bonds, and to the elementals around him, but that wasn’t enough to pierce the barrier. Adding spirit, he felt it cave slightly as if softening but still wasn’t able to get beyond it. Tan focused on the spirit bond, reaching through it. Wrapped as he was with the other elements, reaching into the spirit bond came more easily, but he still wasn’t able to pierce the barrier.

  Light writhed in his grip, and he tightened it so that he didn’t lose her. She continued to move, her stubby tail flipping from side to side, and Tan looked at her, worried that something about the barrier had harmed her.

  But she appeared uninjured, yet still writhed against him.

  His hands slipped, even wrapped as he was in the different element bonds.

  The lizard leaped from him.

  When she first hatched, Light had wings like all draasin. They had folded around her, forming the outer portion of her shell, but as she had developed and grown closer to spirit, those wings had faded, receding into her, until they were little more than nubbins of flesh where wings once had been. When she had soared from the top of the tower in Par when the darkness had attacked, she hadn’t flown but had glided back to the ground. Now, without wings, she could not even do that.

  But she could.

  Her forelegs stretched out, pulling the skin of her body away from her in a thin sheet of flesh. Much like Wasina had soared on the currents of wind, Light soared as well, floating in a tight spiral that brought her close to the barrier. As she did, her body began to glow, slowly at first, but with increasing brightness, much as she had when they first went into the temple.

  What are you doing? Tan asked Light.

  Only what must be done, Maelen.

  She turned, angling her body so that she would head straight toward the barrier.

  Tan started toward her, shaping himself on the wind so that he could reach her before she struck the barrier. How would it affect her if she struck it? But she made it there before him, colliding with it.

  He expected her to bounce back, or be forced back, the same as he had been. But she was not.

  Instead, she pressed through the barrier. The soft glow around her skin began to fade as she did. Tan felt a change through the bond as if the crossing stole spirit from her.

  No!

  Losing spirit would change her in a way that she wouldn’t survive. Tan could tell that much through the bond they shared. Tan poured his connection to spirit and the spirit bond. Too many elementals had sacrificed on his behalf already. Light would not be another casualty.

  The spirit bond filled him. Brightness exploded from him and into the lizard.

  Awareness burst through him again, returning from the faded connection.

  Maelen. Dangerous to connect so directly.

  I will not lose you.

  You would not have.

  Even as she said it, Tan sensed the uncertainty from the lizard. She hadn’t known what would happen, only what she needed to do. In that way, she was much like him when he did what was necessary to help the elementals.

  Tan reached her and realized that together, they had pierced the barrier. He felt its presence all around, a strange sense of each element that tried pressing upon him as if trying to squeeze him out, but Tan clung to his connection to spirit, and they forced their way through.

  As they passed, Tan thought that he understood the barrier. Not only was it shaped, but there was elemental power buried within it, trapped much like the elemental power within Ethea and the archives had been trapped. As he passed it, he felt elementals released, as if his connection to spirit unleashed them, and they bolstered his connection, allowing him access.

  The barrier seemed impossibly thick as if time itself tried to stop as they made their way through it. Tied to spirit, Tan saw surges of light that splashed around him, but everything else appeared opaque as if the barrier obscured his crossing. There was no cold, not as he had sensed on the other side, and nothing like the thick ice that surrounded Norilan.

  In those moments, Tan wondered how Honl would have managed to get through. Had he sacrificed his connection to spirit to cross? If he had, then he wouldn’t have been able to learn what he needed when he made it across. And maybe that was the reason that he hadn’t been able to return.

  Light curled around his neck, glowing brightly through their connection to spirit.

  And then they were through and into Norilan.

  18

  The Other Side

  Once on the other side of the barrier, Tan plummeted toward the ground, the shaping that had been necessary to pierce through the barrier driving him quickly downward. Light remained wrapped around him, clinging to his neck. Now that they were through the barrier, she licked at his face.

  Tan wasn’t sure what he had expected, but it wasn’t what he saw spread out beneath him.

  From the outside, he thought Norilan would be an icy and cold place, but this was nothing like it. A vast expanse of green spread below him in a wide field that reached toward a distant forest. The barrier was not visible from here, though Tan could feel it pressing on him, a heavy weight that irritated his senses from the combination of each of the elements involved in the creation.

  He dropped to the ground, landing in the midst of the wide field of tall grasses that crunched beneath his boots. Landing here, he could tell that the leaves had been shaped into existence, and they reminded him of the shaping they had found within the place of convergence after he had first made the connection to Asboel.

  This is all shaped into existence, Tan told Light.

  I can tell that, Maelen.

  How is this possible?

  Much is possible when connected to the Mother.

  And these people? Are they connected to the Mother?

  Well enough that they understand how to use the elements in such a way.

  Tan walked, curiosity having him make his way carefully through the field, letting the sense of the shaped grasses flood through him. As he did, he reached toward the fire bond, straining to see if he could still detect Wasina. She was there, but the connection was muted. The barrier blocked their ability to communicate.

  But it didn’t obscure his ability with fire. That remained, in spite of the barrier, but restricted him to fire within Norilan. Using the fire bond, he could sense the different elementals within these lands, but there was a familiarity here that caused him to stop.

  “Draasin?”

  That had to be what he sensed. Within the fire bond, there was a sense of draasin that he had not possessed before crossing the barrier as if they were new. But if that were the case, that meant that Norilan had draasin here. Could he speak to them the same way that he could speak to the draasin on the other side of the bond?

  As he attempted it, he thought better of it.

  If there were draasin, it was possible that there were bonded draas
in. And if that were the case, he wasn’t sure that he wanted to alert Norilan of his presence or the fact that he had managed to cross the barrier, before he understood what he needed to do here. Find Honl. That should be the first thing that he did, and once he found Honl, he could discover what else he needed, like the binding.

  Can you detect draasin? he asked Light.

  There are creatures of fire in these lands, Maelen, but they have been separated from the rest for many years. Long enough that they no longer remember the outside world. You will need to be careful here.

  Are they still draasin?

  Time separated could have several effects, not the least being that they had separated from the fire bond in some way, or even that they had become twisted, changed so that they no longer were truly elementals, much like the hounds had been twisted. And if that were the case, Tan could help them, but when he had healed the hounds, and kaas, he had done so while connected to the other elementals, drawing on their strength. Here in lands where the elementals had been separated, he wasn’t certain that he would be able to safely draw from the elemental strength.

  But he could use the element bonds.

  The energy of those bonds hadn’t changed, in spite of the barrier. They remained strong, though as he attempted to reach through the bonds, such as when he had tried to reach Wasina through the fire bond, there was something that pushed back. Going through the earth bond and trying to reach for Kota left him much the same.

  The bonds existed, but much like the elementals, they were cut off from the others.

  They are still draasin, but they will be different than what you know, Maelen. Much about this place will be different. I worry this might have been a mistake.

  We need to reach the bindings, and we need to be able to ensure that they remain in place, Light. There can be no mistake when it comes to suppressing the darkness.

  Light licked his face gently with her rough tongue.