Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2

by D. K. Holmberg

  “You could even take up your old quarters,” Alice suggested. “Theondar might not appreciate having you so close by, but I think he’ll get over it. Maybe you can help show him how to serve his king when Althem assumes the throne.”

  “Althem has essentially assumed the throne already,” Lacertin said. “And I’m not certain there’s anything that I could do to help Theondar, or that he would listen if there were.”

  Lacertin wondered if he would even be able to stay within Ethea once Althem began his reign. Theondar would lead the warriors, and what would he do? What would Lacertin be relegated to once Theondar led them?

  He pushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter. He served the throne, not the man sitting atop it, and not the First Warrior. It had been easy when that had been him, but what happened when it was not? After all these years, would he really be able to follow another’s lead, especially Theondar’s?

  As he took another sip of ale, forcing the hot liquid down his throat, he tried to convince himself that he would.

  CHAPTER 5

  The streets around the palace were quieter than he remembered. Was that because of Ilton’s illness, or was there another reason for it? Lacertin made his way along the streets, the plates heavy in his pocket, debating whether to return to the palace.

  If he did, he could search for Anna. She might know something more about what he’d been asked to find. Ilton trusted her more than anyone else, so Lacertin should go to her, only how could he reach her? The princess wouldn’t be willing to see him, would she? Especially not as she mourned her father.

  But he knew of nowhere else to go. He could take the plates to the archives, but there was no guarantee that anyone there would know what to do with them either, and he would find it easier to reach Ilton’s quarters again than to find his chief archivist advisor.

  That left Ilianna.

  He’d made a point of keeping his distance from her since Theondar started courting her. What would she say to him when he went to her, asking for help? Would she offer it willingly, or would she look at him with the same expression she wore the last time he’d seen her, the one that told him that she knew what might have been?

  Did it matter? Lacertin had made his choice. It was the same choice that he’d made over and again, serving Ilton with the same devotion. There could be no doubting his loyalties, not like so many from Nara.

  He’d changed clothes and trimmed his beard, choosing not to shave completely. The months with it had given him a certain affection for the beard, and there was a part of him that preferred that others might not recognize him.

  He reached the doors to the palace and stopped inside. The servants moved in something like a dance, stepping quickly from one place to the next in complete coordination. Lacertin watched for a moment before turning away and looking for Bren. The old master of servants had helped him with Ilton; perhaps he would help him find Ilianna as well.

  There was no sign of Bren, only the pair of shapers standing watch at the bottom of the stairs who eyed him with suspicion. Lacertin waited, considering descending to the lower level and the rooms he still had there, but for what purpose? Would he wait until he had some sign of Ilianna? Would he wait until Bren came to him? How would any of that help Ilton?

  Lacertin touched his pocket, feeling the plates within. He couldn’t keep them to himself. That hadn’t been why Ilton wanted him to obtain them. But without Ilianna, that meant he would need to find Ilton’s archivist advisor. With as frail as Ilton already had become, it was time that he did. That was the reason he’d returned, wasn’t it?

  “You’ve returned.”

  Lacertin turned and saw Theondar watching him from the end of the hall. He wore an elegant green jacket and his warrior sword hung from his waist as if he always had been meant to carry it. Theondar was as skilled a shaper as Lacertin, so it was quite possible that the Great Mother had intended him to carry it.

  Theondar started toward him. “One visit wasn’t enough? Nast noted you shaping while you were with Ilton. Do you think to attempt another?”

  He should have known that someone would be paying attention to him while he was with Ilton. There were said to be ways to mask shaping, but he hadn’t learned them. “The king,” he said, emphasizing the title, “does not need me to disturb him any longer.”

  Not until he discovered why he’d been asked to obtain the plates. Then he would go to Ilton and see if there might be anything that he could do to help him. Theondar would likely not share where to find the princess, not to Lacertin.

  “No? Then why have you returned?”

  He squeezed his eyes shut and controlled his breathing. “Tell me what you know of the attack on the border,” he said.

  Theondar tipped his head to the side. “That’s what you care about? Roln and Pherah are gone. We have lost others to Incendin—”

  “At the same time?” Lacertin asked.

  “Why does it matter? The barrier is nearing completion and then we will have peace from Incendin.”

  The barrier. Once, it had seemed like the answer, but if warriors died because they relied on it, could they ever truly depend on it? “Tell me what you know of the attack.”

  Theondar waved a hand and made as if to walk past him. “Find out from another. Althem expects me—”

  Lacertin grabbed his sleeve. “Tell me, Theondar, does Ilton still live?”

  Theondar jerked his arm away. “You know that he does.”

  “Who serves as First Warrior?”

  Theondar’s eyes narrowed. “Is that the way you want this to go?” Theondar asked.

  Lacertin wished that there was another way. The moment that Ilton passed, Althem would fully assume the throne, and then Theondar would be named First Warrior. Lacertin would have to make a choice of whether he would serve, and how. Antagonizing Theondar now would not help him.

  Lacertin sighed. “I only want to know what happened to our warriors,” he said.

  “Ours? You remain away from Ethea for months, unaware of how two of our warriors are injured along the border with Incendin, injured where the barrier should have been secure, and you claim to sit among us?” He laughed bitterly. “You have set yourself apart from us for so long, almost as if you believe the stories of the great Lacertin.”

  “You don’t understand. I haven’t set myself apart—”

  “No? Then stand with us. Fight Incendin with us.” Theondar glanced along the hall, but the servants who had been there had mostly disappeared, unwilling to get between the two warriors. “Listen, Lacertin, we might not have always gotten along, but your talent alone could mean the difference in this war. Haven’t you ever considered that?”

  He swallowed. That had been the hardest part of leaving on Ilton’s missions. They meant that he left others to the fighting. He didn’t long for battle, but he recognized that the more warriors who fought on behalf of the kingdoms meant that they were that much closer to the end of the war. Had he not been off searching for the plates, he might have been able to help Roln and Pherah.

  Or maybe nothing would have changed. Perhaps he was thinking himself more powerful than he was.

  “I’ve gone where Ilton has asked, much like you will go where Althem asks when you serve as First.”

  Theondar sniffed. “And you’ve never stopped to counsel Ilton on whether you should go? Isn’t that the role of the First Warrior as well? Not blindly following orders.”

  “I’ve not gone blindly.”

  Theondar smiled. “No? Then you agree that you needed to be gone the last few months? Time when Incendin has increased their attacks? Time when we’ve lost two warriors and over a dozen shapers.” He paused and considered Lacertin. “You didn’t know that, did you? It’s not only our warriors that fall, but how many more shapers must die?”

  Lacertin didn’t know what to say. There was no argument to make. He had been gone when the kingdoms needed him, but he’d been gone at Ilton’s command.

  And for what? Plates
created by shapers from centuries ago that may or may not have the power to restore the king?

  Then what?

  Theondar shook his head. “You may think me harsh, and you might not care for me, but I do care for the kingdoms. I have fought—and bled—for these lands. That’s what it means to be a warrior.”

  With that, Theondar turned and left Lacertin standing alone in the entrance to the palace.

  CHAPTER 6

  The shapers circle in the center of the university was made from thick black stone. A rim of gray block surrounded the black. Both had proven impervious to shaping over the years. Not even earth shaping had managed to damage them. Like most, Lacertin suspected that the ancient shapers who had designed and built the university had somehow coaxed the elementals into the rock, but none alive had the ability to speak to the elementals, at least none that he knew.

  Lacertin stood in the center of the circle, his boots planted firmly in the middle of it. Veran stood next to him, his long, blond hair catching the shaped wind fluttering around him. He glanced over to Lacertin and nodded.

  “Are you ready?” he asked, speaking more loudly than needed, as if trying to yell over the wind instead of simply shaping his voice through it.

  Lacertin glanced around the university. Partly, he felt as if he’d only just returned to Ethea and that he should remain within the city longer, to see if there was anything that he could do to help Ilton, but warriors were needed along the border and he needed to understand what had happened with Pherah and Roln. The barrier had been his idea, and maintaining it was important, so he would go, regardless of the fact that it was Theondar who had asked.

  “I’m ready.”

  He readied his shaping, mixing earth, wind, air, and fire, pulling on each in the needed shaping to carry him across the kingdoms. This shaping, the hardest skill that most warriors had to master, required focus and strength but gave the warriors the ability to travel great distances on storms of lightning and thunder.

  As he finished his shaping and pulled it toward him, he glimpsed a slender girl with dark hair watching him from the corner of the university. He hadn’t searched for Jayna since meeting her in the library, but from what he had managed to determine, she was likely nothing more than a student. Why did she intrigue him so much?

  Then the shaping pulled him away from the city.

  Traveling on this shaping was like fighting a storm. He controlled great power, using each of the elements that he’d mastered to guide him, mixing them together with as much control as he could manage, but doing so still required incredible concentration. With a single misstep, he could float too far to the east or west, or possibly slam himself into the ground.

  Wind whipped around him, threatening to distort his shaping, and he added a surge of fire to strengthen it. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled as if a storm cloud moved through.

  Far below, he could barely make out definition along the ground. Streaks of green from the fields around Ethea made it through the shaped cloud and changed to the trees and steadily rising mountains of Galen. Lacertin turned toward the south, moving past Galen, his shaping carrying him into Nara and the lands of his youth.

  The wind changed as they moved from the cool mountain air of Galen to the heat of Nara. His shaping faltered as it always did, requiring him to shift his effort, drawing less on fire and more on wind to compensate. The crackle of lightning nearby told him that Veran did the same.

  They descended, letting the shaping draw them down to the ground. Lacertin didn’t need Veran to guide him, but having the man with him was helpful and he could follow the direction of his shaping. With all the time that Lacertin had spent searching for the box, he had been too long away from the borders.

  The barrier pulled on him. It wasn’t a physical presence; rather, it was shaped to push energy away from the kingdoms. The combination of each element was required to form the barrier, and even then, it was not something visible. He could feel it as they neared, like something tingling against his cheek, almost a vibrating sense of power.

  Lacertin was surprised to note that the barrier had receded from where he expected it. Had the kingdoms given land back to Incendin or was it simply the way the barrier was constructed that made it seem like that?

  Veran landed next to him with a spray of dirt and a streak of lightning. Strands of his long hair stood on end, still charged by the energy of his shaping. He glanced around him, his nose already wrinkling.

  “You could at least look like you don’t mind being here,” Lacertin said.

  Veran grunted. “I understand these lands are important to the kingdoms, but I don’t understand why Incendin would be so interested in taking them.”

  Lacertin reached toward his sense of the barrier and ran his hand across the energy that he detected. The shaping still amazed him.

  “It is impressive work, Lacertin,” Veran said. He managed to sound sincere as he said it.

  “I can’t take the credit.”

  “No? Then you would give it to Ilton?”

  Lacertin shook his head. “The idea might have been mine, but without the archivists and the help of Pherah, I’m not sure this would have worked.”

  Veran’s face clouded at the mention of Pherah. “She was nearly as passionate about the barrier as you,” he said softly. “It’s a shame she didn’t live to see it at full strength.”

  Lacertin pulled his hand back. The barrier didn’t filter everything—or everyone—out of the kingdoms, but it managed to keep shapers from crossing. “How much longer?” he asked.

  “You don’t know?”

  “I stopped paying attention to the barrier when Ilton sent me…” He shook his head, cutting himself short. He trusted Veran, but not enough to share what Ilton had asked of him. He didn’t trust anyone enough for that, not until he understood why. “It doesn’t matter now, so long as it keeps their shapers from passing. The Great Mother knows we’ve lost too many shapers to Incendin as it is.”

  “Their shapers no longer can pass. The lisincend still manage to make it across—losing Pherah and Roln is testament to that—but even that has become more difficult. Soon, we will be secure. The war will be over.”

  Lacertin could hardly believe it possible. The kingdoms had been at war with Incendin for so long that he barely remembered a time when there hadn’t been war. “All because of these lands,” he said softly, scraping a boot through the dust.

  Veran snorted. “Has it been worth it?” he asked. “Would it not have been better to let Incendin have Nara?”

  Lacertin didn’t look over as he answered. He thought of how many he knew lost to Incendin over the years, and how many more had crossed the waste, thinking that it was better than dying in the war. So many bought the promise of the Fire Fortress, the claim that Incendin could draw fire from sensers when the university failed to do that. Knowing what he did of shaping, he wondered how many regretted their decision.

  “Would you have had me leave the kingdoms?” Lacertin asked.

  “You know I would not.”

  “Then what kind of question is that?” He turned to Veran and frowned. “These are my people, and we are not of Incendin.”

  None would ever claim to be of Incendin, but how many would argue that they should be of Rens? The ancient nation had long ago been divided, split into the halves that were Incendin and Nara, but there were many who thought they should be reunited, even knowing what they did of Incendin and the lengths the shapers would go to find power.

  Veran looked at him as if uncertain what to say.

  Lacertin shook his head and started off across the hard rock, ignoring him. Continuing to press would do nothing more than anger a man who had been something of a friend. Lacertin knew there were other reasons for the war, but none that made any more sense. Ilton had once attempted to explain the political and trade reasons behind the initial attack, but Lacertin had never been able to move past Incendin’s claim that they were entitled to a unified Rens.


  “My brother made the crossing,” Lacertin said as he stared out over Incendin. “Left my mother and me and started into the waste.” He remembered calling after Chasn, but his brother hadn’t even looked back.

  “I didn’t know,” Veran said.

  Lacertin shrugged. “It is not something one speaks about, is it?” he said.

  “What happened to him?”

  “I don’t know. He might have made it all the way across. He had some talent with fire, so he would have been welcomed.” Or he could have died along the waste.

  “Have you…” Veran didn’t finish.

  Lacertin didn’t need him to. “I’ve not seen him.” He still wasn’t sure what he would do if he encountered Chasn. Lacertin had changed since the boy growing up in Nara, but Chasn would have changed as well.

  He made his way along the barrier. Veran trailed behind him, letting the silence grow. Even if he closed his eyes, he’d be able to track it, to feel the way that it pressed against him. “How hard is it for our shapers to cross?” he asked as they approached a towering stack of rock.

  To the west, a small village with buildings made of stone and mud nestled beneath the shadow of the rock. Lacertin knew a small pool of water burbled from the ground there, enough to keep the village alive. It was a hard life living this far out in Nara, but the people of the village were a hard people. Earth sensing told him that the village was empty.

  How many years had the village survived along the border with Incendin only now to fall? The barrier hadn’t protected these people, and the shapers hadn’t managed to help, either.

  “Our shapers can cross, but returning is difficult,” Veran said. “Pherah thought that soon, only the strongest would be able to return.”

  Lacertin had wondered if that would happen, but had been sent on another task before learning the answer. The barrier would not be—maybe it could not be—selective about what shapers it excluded. If shapers of the kingdoms crossed, they would be effectively banished from the kingdoms, trapped in Incendin.