Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I need to save the binding,” he said. “That’s the purpose of the attack, possibly the reason that I am here.”

  “Do you think that you can?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Turning to the hound, he patted her head. You should remain here.

  I will not leave you, Maelen. Not if that darkness attacks. You will need help.

  Kota, I need you to watch the Daughter. Protect my child.

  Kota pawed at the ground and it trembled differently, briefly counteracting what happened above him. With every part of me.

  The earth bond. Did you know it existed?

  Earth is everything, Maelen. Earth is life. You should not have needed a bond to tell you that.

  Tan found himself smiling. Perhaps I shouldn’t. Go. I will share with you anything I might need.

  Kota bounded off.

  Tan looked at the ceiling, where the opening should be. Recognizing the barrier that the Utu Tonah had placed was easier this time, much as it was easier to unravel it now that he realized that he could reach for each of the different element bonds.

  A doorway opened, lifting above him and revealing a faintly lit space. Using wind, they flew into the tower, where Tan stopped. And frowned.

  “This is the main floor of the tower,” he said. No students ran through here, not as he would expect. Hopefully the shaking of the stone had scared them away and not that there was some other—possibly more sinister—explanation about where they would have gone.

  With a shaping, the elevated section of the floor lowered back down, sealing into place. The tiles across the floor covered the seams, making it appear no different.

  He considered going up and through the tower, but earth and spirit sensing didn’t reveal anyone to him. Outside was another matter.

  “You could stay here,” he suggested to Elanne.

  “I don’t claim to have your strength, Maelen, but it seems to me that you will need the help of all that you can.”

  He sighed. There was no doubting that, but could he do anything to protect her? With a shaping of spirit, he layered it carefully around her mind, speaking to wind—and to her bonded—a plea to protect her.

  Elanne sighed and then shivered. “What… what was that?”

  “I don’t know if it will make a difference, but I hope that it can keep you safe.”

  You are more resourceful than you realize, Maelen, the draasin said.

  Will it work?

  It should shield her. She will not be nearly as easy to attack.

  And if that were the case, at least she should have some protection. It would have to work.

  Tan led Elanne out of the tower. Elemental energy quickly assaulted them.

  Elanne pushed with shapings of wind, using her elemental to push back.

  Tan strode forward, reaching and connecting to each of the different element bonds, and began tying the connection together. With the first elemental he encountered—wyln, of course—he pressed spirit through, stripping the darkness that shrouded the elemental. With a faint peal of laughter, the darkness disappeared. Another elemental, this one of earth, reached for his feet, and Tan used another shaping, pressing through the earth bond. Onward and onward he went, stripping darkness from each elemental that he faced. There were dozens. Dozens upon dozens.

  And each time he succeeded, he felt the attack surge. Whatever this dark entity was, it gained strength. He would not be able to stop it unless he repaired the binding, and even then it might already be too late. It was almost as if the darkness seeped out of the binding, gradually getting free as the binding failed.

  Helping each of the elementals now would not be enough. They needed healing, and he wanted to help them, but this would not be enough. He had to focus on the binding.

  Taking to the air, he was attacked, this time from more than elementals.

  Shapers came at him, but not only shapers, some of the students as well.

  “Elanne!” he shouted, sending it on a shaping of wind.

  She reached him quickly as he held the other shapers away.

  “I need you to keep them off me while I focus on the binding. Don’t harm them.”

  “I will do what I can, Maelen.”

  As she spoke, the attack intensified, surging with shaping mixed with elementals. Not bonded—at least, he did not think that they were, but the attack came at him simultaneously, striking in such a way that Tan couldn’t stop his resistance. If he did, if he let up even a little, then he was forced back.

  They worked to prevent him from reaching the runes on the tower.

  “I can’t reach it,” he said.

  “And I can’t hold it alone,” Elanne told him.

  Tan didn’t even have an opportunity to focus on one individual shaper. The attacks came at him from each side, and he had no interest in harming anyone, not knowing how many were influenced.

  He needed help, but shapers would be in danger. Even elementals would be in danger.

  Asgar, he sent through the fire bond. Asgar was the only one that he thought might be able to help. The darkness had tainted him already, and Tan had healed him. Asgar should know enough to prevent it happening again, and maybe Tan’s shaping had been enough to protect him.

  Maelen.

  He sent an image of what he faced, and then added an image of what had happened with Kota and saldam.

  The darkness, Asgar said.

  I can’t do this without you, friend.

  I have failed once.

  You didn’t fail. And I think my healing should protect you. It has protected Elanne. All I need is for you to—

  He didn’t get the chance to finish.

  A particularly strong fire shaping struck him. Tan twisted, feeling the heat more strongly than usual, and realized that the flesh on his arm burned. He forced a shaping of water at it, not certain whether he could heal himself and hating that he had to divert any focus. What kind of fire attack had that been?

  Through the fire bond, he understood. Molly attacked.

  Not her. She should not be a part of this. She was young, and with so much potential, but she was not ready.

  But there she was, on the ground staring at him with flat, dark eyes, as if shooting hatred at him. He wanted to help her first, but he couldn’t. Another attack struck, sending him scrambling to the side.

  Let me help her, Maelen.

  With the comment, the draasin jumped from his shoulders.

  Tan wasn’t sure what to expect, but she stretched out her shrinking wings and slowly floated toward the ground. When she landed, Molly started to attack, but seeing the draasin, she hesitated.

  Tan didn’t get to see what she did next. He had to move around the tower, placing it in between him and Molly so as not to be struck by the next attack. Elanne came with him, pushing back.

  “We may have to harm them if we are to succeed,” Elanne said. “I see that you are withholding, and as one of Par, I appreciate your restraint, but if this will only get worse if we do nothing, you must fight back.”

  “Many of these are children,” he said. There was Molly, and how many others of the students, those with the ability to shape, even those who had not yet manifested it on their own but showed the potential?

  “If we don’t, we will lose Par.”

  “If we fail these children, there will not be a Par worth saving.”

  Elanne clenched her jaw and nodded. “So be it. Let us shape.”

  Tan didn’t think that last was for him. The wind fluttered around her, growing increasingly strong. He pulled on the element bonds and could hold back the attack, but anything more risked harming the others.

  And maybe his hesitation was what the dark entity wanted.

  Through the earth bond, he felt the rumbling return, a sign that the binding failed. Wind whipped violently in the bond as well. So far, water and fire remained, but for how much longer?

  A sudden shadow appeared overhead and dove, streaking toward the ground.
r />   Asgar appeared.

  Thank you, friend.

  Promise that you will come for me if you are wrong. Do not let me harm the fire bond.

  I promise.

  Asgar’s sudden appearance gave him a window, and Tan took it. He leapt on the wind, reaching the earth rune first. Whoever had been attacking it was gone, maybe shaken away by Asgar. Tan suspected he didn’t have much time, but all he needed to do was stabilize the bond. Reaching for it, he placed his hand on it and felt the damaged power of earth within. Using his memory of the rune, he sent a surge through it, adding spirit as he often did, and the bond reformed with a flash of white light and a cessation of the shaking.

  One repaired. That left wind.

  What he found near that rune nearly made him fall.

  Zephra shaped at the wind bond, striking at it with one hammering shaping after another, striking with an intensity that he would not have believed possible from another.

  “Mother!” he shouted over the whistling wind.

  She glanced over, and he saw nothing but darkness behind her eyes.

  Maelen. This will not hold much longer, Asgar sent.

  Asgar, they have attacked Zephra. Give me time.

  I will do what I can.

  His mother struck at him with wind.

  Tan had often seen his mother attack, but had never been subjected to it before. She had a fury and a strength that he struggled to resist, forcing him to pull on the wind bond. Doing that would not give him the chance to repair the bond, or save his mother.

  Maelen!

  Asgar didn’t have much time.

  “I’m sorry, Mother.”

  Tan wrapped her in a shaping of spirit so tight that it sealed her from shaping. She struggled, but he used the connection to spirit to force her into a sleep. Hopefully that would give him enough time to repair the rune.

  He reached into her and found the darkness. Like it had within Kota, it swirled, attacking her mind, in some ways no different than a spirit shaping.

  Using spirit and reaching with wind, he tore the darkness from her, and then used spirit to protect and hopefully heal her mind. He would have to worry about whether it worked later.

  She started to fall, and he lowered her to the ground on a shaping of wind.

  Then he turned back to the rune. Like the one with earth, it was damaged, but not quite as badly. Using wind and the connection to the wind bond, he added spirit, repairing it. The torrent of wind gusting around him eased.

  Tan checked the other runes, but they were intact.

  Now to see if he could help those who attacked.

  Elanne held back an earth shaper, and it took Tan a moment to realize that it was Tolman. Reaching through him with spirit and earth, he tore the darkness free and then sealed Tolman’s mind with spirit.

  Tolman started to drift, his shaping failing, and Elanne caught him.

  Tan reached the students and realized that the majority of the attack came from them. And he had thought bringing them to the tower to teach, so that they could learn in an environment where they had nothing but the chance to learn and instructors who could work with them, would be helpful, but maybe it had done nothing more than paint a target on them.

  Now that he knew how to remove the darkness, he stripped it from each person, flashing through them, ignoring the attacks as he went.

  Then he turned his attention to the elementals.

  Too many had been attacked, and he wasn’t sure that he would even be able to find each that had been injured, twisted as they had become. But he didn’t dare leave them wandering free, not if they might attack again.

  With his understanding of the element bonds, he had a way to reach them, but could he do it in such a way that protected them from something like this happening again? He used spirit on the shapers, but what would happen if he did that to the elementals? Maybe nothing. Kota and Asgar had been healed by his connection to the bond and with spirit, but Tan feared such a widespread change. Would he force something upon them that was not meant to occur?

  Maelen!

  This came from Sashari.

  He reached for her through the fire bond and realized that she was under attack.

  There was no more time to wait to consider. Now he had to act.

  Fire would be first. He would prevent Sashari from attack.

  He pressed through the fire bond, pushing as much of himself into the bond as he could. Within it, he sensed the trail of darkness, and the effect that this other had on the bond. It already had begun to be tainted. Tan traced the taint and found a focus. His heart raced. The eggs.

  Pressing fire through the bond, a cleansing surge of heat and flame and true Fire, he mixed spirit, pulling on his connection, on the thready remnants of the bond that he shared with Amia, and added spirit.

  It was not enough.

  Tan twisted his shapings, pulling on the elementals, reaching for spirit. But it only slowed the darkness.

  The bonds. He would need to join the bonds.

  Twisting his connection to the bonds together, he felt a sudden surge, a flood of spirit that reminded him of each time that he had stepped in the pool of the Mother. This flowed through him, and from him, as he added it first to the fire bond, sending that torrent raging along with his connection.

  The darkness burned away.

  Tan didn’t rest. He couldn’t rest.

  He shifted to wind, pulling himself into the wind bond much as he had done with fire. There he added the same connection to spirit, the same flood, as he pressed true Wind through the bond, letting it rage in a torrent, sweeping away all remnants of the darkness.

  Next he did the same with earth, and then water.

  It had worked. It had to have worked.

  Tan knew fatigue unlike anything that he’d ever experienced.

  His eyes drifted closed, and he fell.

  26

  THE LAST BINDING

  When Tan awoke, he was lying on the pillows in the library. Garza pressed something to his forehead that smelled of bitter soap and mint. His throat felt dry and his head throbbed painfully.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  “Awake, but beaten up.”

  “Better than some.”

  “The students?” he asked, sitting up quickly. His head swam and he lost the ability to focus.

  “They will be well. I have been to the tower and seen to them already.”

  Likely she saw to them first, Tan suspected. Which was just as well. He would prefer her to worry about the students. The elementals would watch over him.

  He looked around but didn’t see the draasin. Had she survived the attack? Had Molly, for that matter? “What of Elanne?”

  “The Mistress of Bonds was unharmed. She fought bravely, and with more compassion than most would have expected of her.” Garza pinched her lips together and fixed Tan with a frown. “That was you, I presume?”

  “I couldn’t have her harm the students. They are the future of Par.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Where are the others?”

  Garza patted his head and tried to send a surge of water shaping through him, but he resisted. “You should rest.”

  “Garza?”

  She still refused to answer.

  Elanne stopped in the door and looked at Tan with worried eyes. Garza nodded to her and then stepped away from him, as if eager to leave his side. “Do you know what happened?” Elanne asked.

  Tan sank back and stared up at the ceiling of the library. “The only thing that I can think is that the binding began to fail and whatever it restrained began to seep through. Not all of it, but enough that it managed to attack.”

  Elanne sighed. “The Records were unharmed.”

  “I don’t think the Records were the target. Marin realized the last time that it wouldn’t be enough.”

  “You were able to restore the bonds,” Elanne noted.

  Tan nodded. The runes on the side of the tower had been more difficult i
n some ways than those hidden with the Records. With the Great Seals, the challenge was in knowing which shape they should take, and adding enough shaped energy to it so that they were able to be restored. With the runes on the tower, it had required a connection to the element bond to repair them. Had he not found that connection… Tan didn’t want to think of what might have happened.

  “What was it?” Elanne asked.

  “I don’t know. Darkness. Power. When it first attacked Amia, I thought it an elemental bond. Then I pulled that connection onto myself and felt the power that surged through. What other than an elemental has strength like that?”

  The only similar thing that he had seen was the power within the element bond itself. And in some ways, what he had experienced was stronger than that. Keeping that power restrained had taken him pulling on each of the element bonds, tying them together, and reaching for the Mother.

  Could it be that whatever he had discovered rivaled the Mother in strength?

  Tan rested on the pillows. A physical fatigue still weighed on him, different than the weakness he once had known while shaping. All he wanted was to close his eyes and rest, but he couldn’t. He needed to find out what had happened to the rest of Par.

  And his mother.

  How had he forgotten about Zephra? Would she have any lasting problems from the attack, or had he managed to separate the darkness from her completely? Tan had worked quickly—he had needed to work quickly—but that didn’t mean that his spirit shaping had no effect on her.

  “Maelen, you should rest.”

  “I have to check on—”

  He didn’t need to finish. Through his improved connection to wind, he recognized both Zephra sweeping into the room and the effect of ara coming with her.

  “Tannen,” she said, dropping next to him. Tan wasn’t surprised to see that Roine came with her but remained back, taking in all of the estate. “You’re awake.”

  “How are you?”

  She took a deep breath. “Because of your shaping, I am fine. Spirit?”