The priest smiled, but it was a sad expression. “I cannot.” As Lacertin shifted in his chair and started to stand, the priest reached for his arm and held him in place. “It is not because I would not share with you, Lacertin Alaseth, but because there was no attempt by the Sunlands.”
Lacertin shrugged off his hand. “It was hound venom.”
“That may be, or it may be any number of other poisons that would kill equally well,” the priest said. “Either way, the Sunlands had no interest in harming your king.”
The comment surprised him. “We were at war. Why wouldn’t you have any interest in Ilton?”
The priest nodded slightly. “War, perhaps, but a war your king did not want. He called for peace, and a truce.”
“Any truce we had failed. Incendin never really wanted peace.”
“Did it? What have you seen since coming to the Sunlands? What has shown you that we want anything but peace and a chance to serve Issa?”
Lacertin thought that truces had failed, but could the priest be telling the truth?
It was possible, and even likely, that he did. But if he did, that meant that someone inside the palace wanted Ilton gone for reasons of their own.
But that made no sense. Other than Althem, no one had anything to gain, and the prince had gone out of his way to see that Ilton obtained the healing he needed. And if the king had not been poisoned by Incendin, then Lacertin’s entire reason for coming here was gone.
With it was gone any hope that he could ever return to the kingdoms.
CHAPTER 13
Lacertin walked through the streets of the city, left alone outside the fortress for the first time since he had arrived. It was as if the priest, now that he had learned the reason that Lacertin had come to Incendin, no longer thought of him as a threat. And Lacertin wasn’t a threat, not to Incendin.
No, the only threat would be attempting to return to the kingdoms. Without finding who had poisoned the king, there would be no reason for Theondar and Althem to allow him back. Even were he to attempt a return, he would be thrown into the dungeon, held there until his dying day, without the possibility of finding what really happened to Ilton.
Had he remained, had he not run, he might have had a better chance to learn. Instead, he had come to Incendin, and worse, was known to have come to Incendin. That made him a traitor and the enemy.
He stopped in the middle of the street and stared up at the Fire Fortress. The name was a misnomer, as it was more a temple to Issa, but he had only ever known it as the Fire Fortress. The massive black tower stood over the city almost protectively. What once had been a terrifying place, he now thought of in a different way.
Much like he would be thought of in the kingdoms.
At least Ilton and Ilianna weren’t around to see it. Ilton would never have believed that he would betray the kingdoms, but Ilianna… would Theondar have twisted her perception of him? Maybe she would have kept Theondar in check. The time that he’d overheard them together, Theondar had displayed compassion that he did not often demonstrate. Maybe the warrior had been different with the princess. Lacertin would have been the same, he suspected, had he ever had the chance with Ilianna.
He pulled his eyes away from the Fire Fortress. Shops lined both sides of the street, and he wasn’t surprised to see that he had stopped near Ishan’s shop. Scent from a bakery down the street drifted to him and mixed with the hard stink of oil from the lanternmaker. A blacksmith, his hammering quiet at this time of the evening, swept in front of his shop. None bothered to so much as look over at him.
All this time, he had thought that Incendin was his enemy, but maybe Incendin was not the threat. The people of Incendin were men and women of great faith, and, he had to admit, peace. To live in a place as hot and hard as Incendin, he suspected that such faith was necessary. And if Incendin had not attacked his king, then it was someone else, buried deeper within the palace. If true, then no longer was it his threat to find. He could not find it, not from outside Ethea and banished from the kingdoms.
What of him, then?
The priest had once claimed that Issa would help him find a new purpose, but Lacertin wasn’t sure that was true. What if he didn’t deserve another chance for everything that he had done? Teaching Cora would not make up for his role in creating the barrier and increasing the separation between the kingdoms and Incendin.
He started down the street, leaving the shopping district and making his way toward the rocks overlooking the ocean. Considering how weak he had always been with water, he thought it strange that he was so often drawn here, almost as if the sea called to him.
When he reached the rock, he stared down. The late afternoon sunlight glinted off the water, sending streamers of red and orange water to mix with the froth at the base of the cliff. The steadily crashing waves pulled on him and he felt the energy of the water through the waves, had known it when struggling to save Cora.
Lacertin didn’t know how long he had been standing there when he sensed her approach. She was alone, wrapped in a shaping of fire and wind as she was most of the time when he saw her. She worked with water as well, pulling on the sea and calling it to her, but it didn’t respond with any regularity.
“You have been here a long time, Lacertin Alaseth,” she said.
He pulled his eyes off the water and realized that the sun had sunk below the horizon. Twinkling stars could be seen in the sky, their faint light reflecting off the undulating swells as well. Within the white froth at the base of the cliff, a soft shimmer of green tinted the water and then was gone.
“I needed to clear my head.”
“Water can cleanse as well as heal?”
He smiled. “Perhaps for you. I’m not nearly as strong with water as you have shown to be.”
Cora stepped next to him and, surprisingly, slipped her arm into his as she gazed down at the ocean. “I felt your strength in water when you saved me,” she said softly.
This close to him, he felt the heat radiating from her. It was a solid warmth, and mostly from her body, but partly shaped as well, almost as if she did it without realizing.
“You have much strength, Lacertin Alaseth,” Cora went on, “or you wouldn’t have survived the testing. The San is right when he speaks of that, regardless of what the others think.”
“Like your sister?”
He took a chance, not sure whether Cora would admit that Alisz was her sister. Family connections seemed to be as strange as the sharing of names.
But Cora nodded. “She does not often disagree with the San, but she fears your presence here. There are several who do.”
“And you?”
Cora shifted so that she stood closer to him. The fire shaping in her burned a little brighter. “I thought much like Alisz. I no longer do. You will teach, the San says. For that, I am grateful.”
Lacertin stepped away, untangling his arm from Cora’s. He wouldn’t deny the attraction he felt toward her, but knew that their shared connection to fire created much of that. “Cora… I will teach, but that is all that I can do.”
Cora nodded. They were silent for a time, letting the waves wash over them. It was a more comfortable silence than the last time Lacertin had stood with her on the edge of the cliff. “What is it you hope to see here?” she asked.
“I don’t think that I’ll see anything here,” he said. But he was drawn here. Why here? Why to the water?
“You are troubled by your decision.”
“I am troubled by what happened, by the fact that I can’t do anything to control it, by the fact that even as I stand here talking to you, a traitor walks the halls of the palace in Ethea.”
“Is that your responsibility, to find them?”
He closed his eyes, the image of Ilton holding onto him before he passed, the command issued to him to find the one responsible for what was done to him. “I thought it was.”
“And now?”
Lacertin opened his eyes and stared over the sea. “Even
were I to return, I would not be able to find what happened.”
The priest found him as he walked along the edge of the city. Cora walked with him, giving him space and the opportunity to remain silent. The full moon overhead gave plenty of light, but Lacertin didn’t want to see. He wanted the darkness, as that was all that he felt within.
“Please come,” the priest said.
Lacertin followed the priest back to the Fire Fortress, and Cora trailed along. They made their way to the top, bypassing floors that Lacertin had never seen. As he climbed, he felt the steady draw of the shaping used to generate the flames. With each step, the pull came more strongly.
None spoke.
Lacertin didn’t know where the priest led him, and a part of him didn’t care. He should be scared. Here he was, within the temple of the enemy, and brought toward a shaping so powerful that he could see its effects from the edge of his home country, but he had a hard time feeling anything, as if a hollowness burrowed within him.
The priest stopped at a massive door. A carving along it was unlike anything that Lacertin had ever seen, a mixture of shapes and a figure of what he could only imagine was their depiction of Issa. With a shaping, the priest opened the door.
Heat spilled out.
Powerful shaping occurred on the other side of the door, cycling with increasing waves of energy, all of it from fire. Lacertin had never experienced anything like it.
The priest raised a hand as they stepped inside and Lacertin paused, waiting for the priest to give him permission to come any closer.
Three shapers stood on the other side of the room, all with their backs to him. The massive fire shaping he detected swelled from them. They didn’t bother to look back as he entered.
Near the middle of the room, a low bed jutted away from the wall. On it rested a thin man with a face much like the priest’s. The priest went to him and brushed the hair back from his head.
Lacertin stopped next to him. “Is this—”
“This is my king,” he said softly. “My brother.” The priest looked at Lacertin and something that he could only call hope filled his eyes. “When you told of what happened to your king, I realized why Issa had brought you to us. Not only to teach, but to help him, to save him.”
With a soft tendril of water sensing, Lacertin reached for the Incendin king. The man was frail, though not as weakened as Ilton had been. Fire burned in his veins in a way that reminded him of Veran.
“He was poisoned?” Lacertin asked. How likely would it be that both the Incendin king and the kingdoms’ king were poisoned in the same way?
The priest smiled at his king. “Nothing quite so dramatic, I’m afraid. The creatures you call hounds, we must train them. Not all are receptive, and the training does not always take. They often only listen to those who have embraced fire. He thought he could compel them, but even his strength had limits.”
Lacertin studied the king. He was sick because of an accident? “What do you think I can do?”
“Not what I think you can do, Lacertin Alaseth. You are the one who told me what you were capable of doing. Such a healing is not known in the Sunlands, and I had not realized that your kingdoms had discovered a secret. That is why Issa must have brought you to us.”
Lacertin considered the Incendin king. Attempting to heal him would be a full betrayal of who had he been, and of what he had wished he could return to. Though, were he honest with himself, that hope of return had been destroyed the moment he learned that Incendin had not been responsible for what happened to Ilton. He didn’t even have the strength to question whether it was true, believing that the priest would not lie to him.
Now, nothing would allow him to return, so what did it matter if he attempted this?
With trembling hands, he reached for the king. The shaping required to heal from hound venom remained clear in his mind. After using it to help Veran, and attempting it with Ilton, he knew that he could reproduce it.
“What happens if I fail?” Lacertin asked.
The priest met his eyes and for a moment, the compassion that the San had shown him faded, surging with a darkness, but that was fleeting, making Lacertin wonder if he really had seen it. “You will not fail.”
Lacertin licked his lips. They were dry and cracked, and all the moisture in his mouth was gone. “If I cannot do this. What happens to me then?”
“Nothing happens to you, Lacertin Alaseth. It only means that Issa did not intend for you to succeed.”
“He has been poisoned a long time,” Lacertin said.
“He has,” the priest agreed.
What did that mean for the politics of Incendin? He knew so little about their king—few within the kingdoms really knew anything about the rule of Incendin—and his connection to their people, but what if healing the king renewed the interest in the war?
And perhaps it didn’t matter. Lacertin wasn’t sure that he would be able to heal him, anyway. The poisoning reminded him more of Ilton than of Veran, and Ilton had been too far along to save.
Lacertin placed his hands on the king’s arm. His skin was warm, the same fever burning through him as he had sensed in Ilton and in Veran. Lacertin pulled on a shaping of water, letting it wash over the king. With water, he could detect the way fire raged in his veins, but it was a twisted sense.
Lacertin added fire to the shaping.
Behind him, Cora gasped softly. “You cannot use fire like that.”
Lacertin focused on the shaping, tying fire to water. “This is the only way I know to heal hound poisoning.”
“Fire doesn’t heal.”
“It does with this,” he said.
Lacertin sent the shaping of fire and water through the king.
The shaping surged through the monarch, pressing against the fever in his veins. Lacertin pushed, but even with as strong as he was in fire, he didn’t have enough strength to fight what burned within the king. He added more water, but even that was not enough.
Lacertin started to take a step back, but Cora stepped next to him and placed her hands on either side of him, resting hers on top of his.
Her shaping built. She had raw power, but no finesse. “Lead this, Lacertin Alaseth,” she said softly. “Let me help.”
With the connection to her, her shaping added to his and together, they had much more strength than he would be able to manage on his own. Fire was the most prominent, and it surged through the king, filling his body with heat, giving greater strength than Lacertin would have managed. Then he tied in water. Water was the key to healing. Even though he had no real skill with water shaping, he knew enough to help the king. With Cora, he had the strength that he needed.
Fire burned brightly within the king, making his skin practically glow.
Lacertin could feel the way the infection burned and pushed against it, sending the power of his shaping through the king. With one more surge, the poisoning burned from him.
Then Lacertin shifted the shaping, adding more water, using strength from Cora to send waves of water over the king. Without her strength, he doubted that he would be able to use enough water. It surged in time with the pounding of blood in his veins. Lacertin held onto the shaping, pushing it through the king.
Water washed with increasing strength and then faded.
Lacertin stepped back. There was nothing more that he could do.
Cora remained next to the king, standing at his bed. “Did it work?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
The priest stood behind the king and placed his hands on his face. A soft fire shaping built from him, settling over the king, and raced from his head down to his feet. The priest sighed and released his shaping. Then he looked over to Lacertin. “Issa was wise to send you to us.”
CHAPTER 14
Lacertin relaxed outside the Fire Fortress, looking out into the barren land around the fortress. The sun was only now beginning to ascend, but the day was already hot. Cora stood opposite him while he used a shaping of e
arth, trying to demonstrate earth.
“I do not feel it,” Cora said.
Lacertin pushed even more effort into his shaping of earth, directing it toward her. “How about now?”
Cora shook her head. “Something bothers you, Lacertin Alaseth.”
He smiled slightly, staring into the expanse of the waste. Heat shimmered from the rock already, leaving a shimmery veil hanging over the land. In that way, it reminded him of what the lisincend managed with their heat shaping. Since healing the king, he had wondered what would change now that the king was restored. Lacertin had grown to trust the priest, but did not have the same faith with how the king would respond.
“Nothing more than usual.”
Cora took a step toward him. The longer that he worked with her, the more easily he was able to sense her. It was a physical presence, a combination of heat and her raw energy, and it rubbed on his awareness in a way that he found appealing. He struggled to push that away from his mind, though with each day it became more difficult.
“You should be pleased. You demonstrated the strength of Issa as you healed our king.”
“I am not sure that it was Issa so much as it was you. Without your help, I don’t think that I could have done it. I’m not strong enough.”
She touched his arm. Heat simmered under her touch, making his arm tingle. She looked at him with an intensity that bordered on desire and a surge of shaping drifted from her and traced around him, trailing from her fingers and circling his arm. Without meaning to, Lacertin pulled on the shaping, wrapping his around what she did.
“What do you fear?”
“Our people have been at war for decades,” Lacertin said. “And I am—or was—a warrior of the kingdoms. Anything I do that helps our enemy makes me…” He couldn’t say that he was a traitor, but that was what he was.
“Are we enemies, Lacertin Alaseth?” she asked softly.
Lacertin turned to her. “Us? I… I don’t know what we are, Cora, only that even teaching you would be considered treason.” He paused and nearly pulled away from her, but he enjoyed her closeness and the warmth coming from her skin. A floral fragrance mixed with a crisp, clean scent. Where would she find flowers in Incendin to create the floral perfume?
Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Page 25