Lacertin didn’t have the answers. Other than when he had first learned to shape, he hadn’t spent enough time in the university to understand the intricacies of the philosophy behind teaching sensing and shaping.
But some would take years before it was clear that they couldn’t shape, that they’d never be more than sensers. It was time the master shapers spent working with the student, coaxing them, time that often was wasted.
Hadn’t Lacertin himself wished for a faster method of learning?
“This is how you teach?” he asked.
The priest finally pulled his eyes away from the sky. “Tell me, Lacertin Alaseth, can you replicate the shaping used on you?”
Lacertin shivered at the thought. “You wouldn’t want to experience—”
The priest raised his hand. “Do not presume to know what I want to experience.”
Lacertin stared at the man before shaking his head and focusing on fire. The shaping that built from him was one that he’d never attempted—one that he never would have thought of attempting—but he’d experienced it well enough that he thought he understood its crafting. He pulled on fire, drawing on it with more precision than he had managed before his capture, and directed the shaping at the priest.
He simply stared at Lacertin, a growing smile on his face.
Lacertin felt heat radiating off the man, and then smelled the way his flesh started to burn, noting a hint of char curling the ends of his shorn hair.
The man took a deep breath in and then exhaled, releasing the energy of Lacertin’s shaping, pressing it back on him with a powerful gust.
Lacertin staggered back.
“Issa claimed you had potential. I did not know that you would have so much.”
Lacertin licked his lips. They had gone dry again, partly from his shaping and partly from the raw power that the priest had demonstrated. For him to simply extinguish the effect of Lacertin’s shaping… That was power and control unlike anything that he had ever witnessed.
In the war with Incendin, the lisincend were the fiercest fire shapers the kingdoms encountered. A single lisincend had been known to stare down several of the kingdoms’ shapers and could even give a warrior shaper challenges. But they had nothing like what Lacertin saw from this priest.
“How did you do that?”
The man smiled. “You think Issa cannot control fire?”
Lacertin shook his head. “That isn’t Issa. That’s a shaping, and one that I’ve never seen before.”
The priest pushed his glasses up on his nose and clasped his hands together over the Book of Issa. “And have you seen every mystery in this world, Lacertin Alaseth? Do you think that you have all the answers that you need?”
The question reminded him of why he had come. Speaking with the priest made it easy to forget, but he had a reason for coming to Incendin.
“Why would you test me if you knew who I was?” Lacertin asked.
With the question, the priest smiled. “What makes you think we knew?”
Lacertin glanced down, touching his waist where his sword once would have been. “You would have seen my sword.”
“Do you think that our shapers can recognize one sword from another?”
Lacertin thought that they might, but didn’t know. And truly, it didn’t matter.
“There would have been another way,” Lacertin said. He didn’t need to hide the fact that his brother had made the crossing. That, more than anything, would give Incendin reason enough for him to come.
The priest waited, his head tipped to the side, sunlight catching off the glass.
“Does Chasn know that I’m here?”
“Brothers of Rens and separated by fire,” the priest said. “Such a thing displeases Issa.”
“Now you claim to speak for Issa?”
The priest turned his head and focused on Lacertin. “I speak to Issa. That is enough.”
Lacertin sighed, wondering if that were true. He could claim to speak to the Great Mother, but that didn’t bring him any closer to understanding what he needed. It had not given him any more insight as to what happened to Ilton, or why. The only thing Lacertin had was a beloved king, now dead, and a life without any focus other than to find what happened.
“Why do you continue to preach to me?” Lacertin asked.
The priest started walking, leading him away from the Fire Fortress. The massive structure towered over everything, somehow avoiding casting a shadow over the city itself. From the street, the streamers of flame leaping from the tallest turrets were only barely visible. None within the kingdoms had ever learned the reason for the shaping. Most thought it simply vanity on the part of Incendin, a desire to show their ongoing prowess with fire. Lacertin had long suspected there had to be another reason.
With the sun high overhead, it was midday or later. Throngs of people filled the street, all dressed in the similar thin fabrics of Incendin. Lacertin had spent some time within Incendin, but usually in the border cities, places nearer the kingdoms and Doma, places richer with water. The people in those cities were faithful to Incendin, but they shared a certain sympathy with the kingdoms, and there were whispers of unrest, a desire for peace. Ilton had long thought to play to that desire, thinking that he might find some way to unite the people, but the lisincend intervened, forcing the formation of the barrier.
Here, near the Fire Fortress, the people were isolated enough that he had no idea how they viewed the kingdoms. As he looked at the faces of men and women and children that he passed, they appeared no different than those near the borders. Other than their clothes, they were often no different than those within Nara.
“I do not think of myself preaching to you, Lacertin Alaseth. Think of it as a discussion.”
He snorted. “A discussion that would be best had with Scholars of the Great Mother.”
The priest pointed to the sky. “You think the scholars cannot have faith? Have they seen the Great Mother?”
“Shapers can feel the effect of the Great Mother.”
“As I can feel the hand of Issa.”
Lacertin shook his head. “It’s not the same.”
“Perhaps not to you, at least not yet. Tell me, Lacertin Alaseth, does your Great Mother grant you her protection?”
“Does Issa?”
The priest turned and motioned to the Fire Fortress behind them. “Look at the way our shapers call to Issa. Tell me that you cannot feel the touch on your skin. Tell me that you did not feel Issa’s cleansing while you were within our walls.”
“I thought you said it was a test.”
The priest smiled. “Can they not be the same?”
Lacertin shook his head. “And you released me why? Because I passed?”
“As I have told you, you were never imprisoned.”
“You may not think so, but what would have happened had I tried to leave?”
“That would have been the will of Issa.”
“And now? Why are you with me?”
“Because Issa chose you, Lacertin Alaseth.”
They stopped near a long building with a roof overhanging the building. A sign above the building was written with words Lacertin didn’t recognize. A picture depicting the sun rising over rocks served those unable to read.
A soft bell tinkled as the priest pushed the door open and stepped inside. Lacertin followed, not certain what to expect, but surprised to find a clothing store. A small shopkeeper glanced up as they entered. Seeing the priest, the man bobbed his head and reached for the priest’s hand, taking it and drawing it to his lips in a soft kiss.
“Ishan, I would have your help with our guest,” the priest said.
Ishan looked at Lacertin and nodded. “Of course, my San. Whatever you would ask of me, it will be given.”
San. Lacertin had heard the word before, but had trouble placing it. There was old Rens in the term, but some that he wasn’t as familiar with.
“He is an honored guest, Ishan, and must be dressed accordingly.
Is this something you can accomplish?”
Ishan pulled a length of cloth from his pocket and quickly made measurements of Lacertin’s arms, neck, and legs. He pressed his lips together and nodded once. “I think I have something that will work for now, my San, until I can tailor specifically for him.”
The priest nodded.
Ishan hurried to the back of his store, disappearing behind the rows of clothing.
Lacertin stood dumbfounded. All these months he had been tortured. He had expected the torment, had known risking himself coming to Incendin that he would likely suffer, and he had.
And now kindness.
Lacertin had experienced enough negotiations over the years to know there were many ways to convince someone to do what you wanted, but in all his time serving Ilton, he had never known Incendin capable of kindness. Brutality, yes. These were hard lands, and he’d always viewed the people as equally hard, but never friendly. Never kind.
“What is this about?” Lacertin asked.
The priest only smiled. “You cannot serve Issa dressed in this,” he said, fingering the tattered remains of Lacertin’s clothing.
Lacertin dropped his voice. “I can’t serve Issa at all.”
“You are mistaken, Lacertin Alaseth. Is that not why you came to the Sunlands?”
Lacertin tensed. Maybe this was all part of a test, a way for the priest to discover information that he hadn’t shared during his torture. “I came to learn fire,” he said carefully, “not convert to your Incendin religion.”
The priest’s smile widened. “You cannot serve fire without Issa, Lacertin Alaseth. You will see that they are the same.”
Ishan returned with bundle of clothing in his arms and looked from the priest to Lacertin. “I did not know the style, my San.”
“He is a Servant of Issa,” the priest answered.
Ishan nodded and sorted through the bundle of clothing until he found what he was looking for. Satisfied, he brought the bundle to Lacertin and held it out.
Lacertin said nothing. There seemed nothing for him to say as Ishan held out the clothes to him before finally settling on what would work.
Through it all, the priest only stared at Lacertin with his warm expression and eyes that reminded him far too much of Ilton.
CHAPTER 4
Lacertin sat in a small room in the Fire Fortress, staring at the wall. A painting of what he suspected was a depiction of Issa hung along the wall, with a face too bright to see and everything beneath shaded.
For some reason, the painting made him think of Ilton.
He shifted the fabric of the clothes the priest arranged for him, his fingers running along the cool, thin fabric. The style was different than what he usually saw with Incendin, and Lacertin had been surprised at how comfortable it was.
Now even his last connection to Ethea was gone.
A part of him wished that he had his sword. Not the one that he’d borrowed from the king in his escape, but the one that had been taken from him when he returned from the border with Veran. Even Ilton’s sword would be a welcome familiarity.
Lacertin still didn’t know what to make of the fact that the torment had not continued. After taking him for clothes, the priest had returned with him to the Fire Fortress and set him up with a room somewhere in the middle. Lacertin tried paying attention to where the priest had brought him, but quickly lost track.
And now he sat here alone.
A pitcher of water rested on a table near him. Since freeing himself from the cell, water had been freely given. Maybe there had been a reason they avoided it while he suffered. With the water, and refreshed now by food and drink, he felt the pull of all the elements on him again. Not only water—which was much easier for him to detect now that he wasn’t as thirsty as he had been—but also with earth, the presence of earth pushing all around him, much more than he would have expected within a palace devoted to fire. Even wind, though the wind that gusted through this part of Incendin was hot and dry, so different than the cool breeze of the kingdoms.
Then there was the sense of fire.
Lacertin noted it all around him. Fire practically burned within the stone, but that shouldn’t be possible. In his time in the university, the earliest lessons taught how each element had a complement and an opposite. Fire and earth countered each other, which was why so few warriors were strong in both. Water was neutral with respect to fire, and wind often augmented it. Lacertin didn’t understand the intricacies of why that would be—such study was best left to the archivists—but had never known fire and stone to be so strongly tied.
Not just the stone had the sense of fire burning throughout it. The air pressed on him with more heat than he expected, so that each breath dried his lungs. In spite of the heat, every hearth danced with flames, almost a demonstration of the power possible from fire shaping.
Lacertin stood, a restless energy burning through him. He had been confined long enough, tormented for months, and now that he was finally free, he didn’t want to stay confined any longer. The priest had made it seem as if he were not a prisoner, though Lacertin didn’t see how that would be possible. He might not be a prisoner in a traditional sense, but he couldn’t leave the Fire Fortress without Incendin permission, and the only person that he’d actually spoken to—truly spoken to—had been the priest, and he didn’t even know his name.
But if he were free to wander the Fire Fortress, would he be able to find out what had happened to Ilton? There might be some evidence that he could discover, at least a clue about where to begin looking for who Incendin might have been working with.
Lacertin pulled the door open.
The hall outside was empty. He hadn’t expected to find anyone there. Truthfully, part of him hadn’t expected to be able to even open the door, thinking that the priest would have locked him in the room. But he had not.
Pulling the thin shirt around him, he stepped into the hall, the slippers on his feet barely making any sound as they tracked across the stone. Through the thin fabric, Lacertin felt heat radiating from the stone, as if it were some sort of oven, almost as if the entire fortress were shaped with fire. Such a shaping would be impossible, wouldn’t it? How could their fire shapers manage something with that intensity, and manage to maintain it? And why would they bother?
He pushed away the questions. He had not come to Incendin to learn more about its people. He had come to find what happened to his king, and to help his people.
A narrow hall stretched outside the room, running the length of the fortress. Lanterns created a soft glow, granting the black stone something of a sheen. Lacertin touched his fingers to the stone, thinking to find it wet here, but it was not.
At the end of the hall, he turned left. To the right were more rooms lining a wider corridor, but the other direction was less clear. If he were to find answers, he would find them within the palace.
With each step, he feared discovery. Not from the priest. Were the old man to find him, he would likely escort Lacertin back to the room, and perhaps lock him in this time. But what if one of the fire shapers discovered him? They had already demonstrated their willingness to torment him, regardless of what intent the priest claimed.
Another turn, and he smelled food simmering in the distance. His mouth watered, surprising given the foreign flavors he’d found so far while in Incendin, but there was something about them that reminded him of a simpler time, when he and his brother still lived with their mother long after their father had died. Her cooking was more traditional for their part of Nara, but different than what he’d found in the rest of the kingdoms.
Lacertin turned away from the kitchen. That way would be populated by cooks and servants and others that he wanted to avoid, at least until he had a better idea of what he might find in the palace.
Lacertin skirted the kitchen, ducking into corners whenever he heard someone moving in the halls. That was less frequent than he would have expected, and certainly less frequent than what he would
have found in the palace in Ethea. When he had been there, servants were never all that far away, close enough that were he to have any needs, they would make certain they were satisfied. When Lacertin had stayed in the palace, when he had lived within its walls, the white-clad servants had been almost a sort of background noise, a constant presence that he learned to ignore. So far in the Fire Fortress, he had barely seen anyone other than the priest and his tormentors.
The next hall changed. Lanterns were brighter and set closer together. Walls were decorated with artwork, both woven tapestries made with such skill that he found it hard to believe they weren’t painted, as well as traditional painting, though in a style that was unique to Incendin.
A door opened and he pressed himself against a wall. The person coming out wore a long cloak hanging off one shoulder, leaving the other exposed. Long, dark hair hung down to the middle of her back. She had a sharp jawline and her mouth clenched in a frown.
When she passed Lacertin, she nodded and kept moving.
Lacertin waited, still expecting that a shaping would strike him at any time, fearful that she was a fire shaper like his tormentors had been. The dress was certainly the same, and the set to her jaw was much like the last woman who had come to him, but she ignored him as she made her way by.
He sighed and leaned back against the wall.
He should return to the room, but now that he was out, and now that he wandered the Fire Fortress, curiosity got the better of him. What else might he find? What secrets could he learn, secrets that shapers and warriors would once nearly trade their lives to reach?
And didn’t he trade his life for access to these secrets?
Lacertin wanted information, but he didn’t think that he would truly be allowed to escape from Incendin with his life. The priest might speak of Issa, a god of fire, and claim that Lacertin would serve Issa, but the gods had never been particularly interested in helping. The only god he had faith in was the Great Mother, and that only because he believed that he had felt her touch, that his ability to reach each of the elements stemmed from his connection to her, rather than any other force. And fire might be stronger for him, but that didn’t mean the other elements were weaker. That was the reason the other nations celebrated different deities, each as difficult to believe as Issa.
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