“I am a warrior shaper. There are not many places that I need to worry.”
“Then that is because you do not have creatures of power.”
“Elementals? Is that what you fear?” Lacertin had never seen any elemental. They were all around him, such as ara, said to exist in the wind, or udilm in the sea, but they weren’t creatures that he could see. Those elementals that once had been visible had been hunted, creatures like the draasin or grosan, presumably to make places safer. “Or do you fear the hounds?”
Cora breathed out softly. “The creatures you call the hounds… They are powerful creatures of fire and do not even recognize Servants of Issa. We have learned to avoid them.”
“You can’t sense as they approach?”
“Near fire, yes. Too far from fire, and they can approach without warning. Remain near the fire, and the Servants will detect when they approach.”
“What of the lisincend?”
Cora hesitated before answering. “Those who have embraced fire command the hounds.”
That was basically what the kingdoms had surmised as well. The lisincend were twisted creatures, and it took their unique power to control the hounds and force them to follow. The kingdoms had never seen hounds controlled by other fire shapers. Often, when the hounds were seen, there was nothing that controlled them, only the rage and anger of fire.
A howl erupted in the night, as if a reminder.
Lacertin turned back toward the fire. Two of the fire shapers approached it. Their shaping built, surging the flames into the night with a powerful shaping that spiraled up and away from them. The flames danced, flickering higher and higher.
“How is it that the flames don’t draw the hounds?”
“That is part of the shaping,” Cora said.
He focused on the shaping that the Servants of Issa used as they built the flames higher. What he thought was only fire was something more. He detected the way the Servants’ shaping pressed out, pushing into the night, creating something of a bubble of pressure that surged far away.
“That holds them back?” he asked.
Lacertin thought that he could reproduce the shaping. By itself, it was not all that complex. It only required significant strength with fire. He had that strength, possibly enough that he could do something similar. Knowing that might be useful, especially if he was in Incendin for much longer.
“It deters them,” Cora said.
Lacertin wondered why they would be able to deter the hounds. What was it about the shaping that worked against them? Like the lisincend, the hounds had some strange ability with fire, some connection that the kingdoms had never discovered.
Another howl echoed, this time farther away. The shaping had worked.
Cora touched his arm. “Come back to the fire, Lacertin Alaseth. You will need to rest.”
Lacertin stared into the darkness a few moments before following Cora to sit near the fire. As he settled down, he noted how Alisz watched him, and the darkness in her eyes.
Once more, he wondered what she intended for him to do. Whatever it was must have the priest’s approval or he would have stopped Lacertin from going with her, but he would rather know what she intended of him before venturing with her.
The only reassurance he had was that he could shape himself away, travel on the warrior shaping if needed, and they would not be able to follow.
Only, where would he go?
CHAPTER 16
As they walked, the Servants of Issa brought them nearer the kingdoms. Lacertin noted that they walked more quickly than he would have expected and realized that the Servants had been using a subtle shaping of fire as they walked. Without knowing, it, he had copied the shaping, sending a faint tendril of fire behind him, as if he used fire to push himself along.
It shouldn’t work. Lacertin worked with fire often enough and well enough to know that such a shaping shouldn’t work, but there was no doubting the fact that they were much closer to the kingdoms than they should be. They had been gone for three days, and in that time, they had nearly crossed the entire waste.
To the south and west, he would reach Nara, but they didn’t guide him that way. Lacertin found his attention dragged to the west, toward his homeland, and thinking of the last time that he’d been there. It was when he had learned of the hound venom, and he had killed several hounds. Lacertin had learned that his barrier had a weakness, one that could only be exploited from the other side.
The pressure of the barrier built the farther he walked. It pushed against his senses, almost a heavy, physical presence, and much stronger than the last time that he had been this close to the border. Althem and Theondar had done as they promised and built the barrier up, making it into something more robust, a true barrier and one that would repel shapers of Incendin.
Cora scratched at her arms and stared ahead.
“What did your people do?” she whispered.
Had it not been his idea, he would have argued about them being his people, but then the barrier had been his idea, stolen from Norilan. “There is a shaped barrier between our countries now,” he said.
“Shaped?”
He nodded. Like Cora, he felt the effects of the barrier as an uncomfortable tightening along his skin. “All the elements are used, and it prevents those with the ability to shape any of the elements from passing.”
“From passing which way?”
“Both.”
Cora stared toward the distant barrier as if she could see it. “Why would they do such a thing? Who would imagine it?”
He swallowed. “Me.”
She turned to him. “This is your creation?”
He breathed out and shook his head sadly. “The barrier was my idea, borrowed from another that I saw. Our archivists discovered a way to implement it, and now our shapers maintain it. It takes much strength to build, but very little to hold.”
“And there is no way to cross.”
“Not that I know.”
She nodded. “I don’t know if this is the reason Alisz has brought you here,” she said. “Perhaps there is another,” she suggested.
Lacertin couldn’t think of any other reason that Alisz would bring him to the barrier. Even if he knew a way past it, there was nothing that he would do to help Incendin cross. That was a greater betrayal of Ilton than anything that he’d done so far, great enough that he simply refused to be a part of it.
He considered shaping himself back to the Fire Fortress but decided to wait. He would see why Alisz claimed she brought him here.
The Servants of Issa continued to lead the way, guiding him as they made their way toward the border with the kingdoms. Lacertin noted that they approached Galen, reminding him of where he had crossed the barrier when making his way to Incendin.
Lacertin stopped. Cora pulled on his arm, but he resisted. “No. I will not help you cross the barrier,” he said.
The other Servants all continued on, but Alisz turned to face him. “You have not been asked to do anything, Lacertin Alaseth.”
“There’s only one reason you would bring me to this place.”
“And you presume to know that reason?”
Lacertin stared at the distant green trees of Galen. The winds would be cooler there, gusting from the north and competing with the hot winds of Incendin. “Why else would you bring me here?”
“Why do you think the answer is about you?” Alisz asked. Her gaze flicked to Cora before returning to Lacertin.
Lacertin frowned and looked over to Cora. “What is this? Why did you have them bring me here?”
“This was not me,” Cora said.
“Do not blame Corasha, but Issa has called her to become a warrior, only one of the Sunlands rather than your kingdoms. To do so, she must reach earth. Did you not tell her that you found earth where it was strongest?”
As Lacertin realized what Alisz intended, he shook his head. “I can’t bring her across the barrier,” he started. “I’m not even certain that I can mak
e it across the barrier.”
Alisz studied her sister. “You will try, Lacertin Alaseth.”
“It will not—”
“The San said you will teach. And Cora claims you came to these lands to reach earth. If that is what it takes for Cora to serve as Issa requires, then you will do this for her.”
She left him standing with Cora. “You do not have to do this,” Cora said softly.
Lacertin took her hands and pulled on a shaping of wind, guiding them past the Servants and setting them down near the barrier. “What do you sense?” he asked as they settled to the ground.
Cora reached her hand toward the barrier and Lacertin pulled it back.
“Not like that. With the elements. What do you sense here?”
She closed her eyes, but he didn’t think that was necessary. Even with his eyes open, he could feel the way the barrier pushed against his senses, a pulsing, powerful sense that worked to repel him. In that way, it was much like the shaping of fire that the Servants used to push back the hounds, only the scale of what was used here by the kingdoms was enormous.
“I feel the way fire is pushed away. Wind does not want to work with it. And water… water is different.”
Lacertin took her by the hand and stepped up to the barrier. “Feel it,” he said.
She reached out carefully and tried to push through the barrier but it resisted, blocking them no differently than a wall.
“Now watch,” he said.
He used a shaping of each of the elements, holding it without much power, not willing to attack the wall too strongly. He released the shaping and it bounced off, racing toward him. Lacertin jumped to the air on a shaping of wind to avoid it bouncing back on him.
“This is the barrier,” he told her. “There is no way for us to cross.”
Cora stood for a moment, studying it. Lacertin felt the presence of the other shapers behind him, arranged in something like a circle. They gave them space but held a shaping that joined together, much like the shaping that they used near the celebration fire.
“How did you cross?” she asked.
“The barrier was weaker then,” he said. “It has been strengthened now. They will not make the same mistake as they made before…”
“What mistake is that?”
Lacertin frowned, thinking of what Veran had done for him before he crossed. Hadn’t he made a weakness in the barrier specifically so that Lacertin could cross? Would it still be there, or had someone detected it and strengthened it?
“Come with me,” he said to Cora.
He took to the air on a shaping of wind and fire, sensing his way along the barrier. Everywhere he went, it pressed almost painfully against him until he found the place where he thought that he had crossed.
Using wind, Cora trailed behind him. She took to it naturally, her strength in wind not far behind her strength in water, and both nearly at the same level as her ability with fire. When she learned earth, she would be a formidable warrior, stronger than many within the kingdoms, and rivaling even he and Theondar in some ways.
Lacertin lowered himself to the ground near the spot he crossed through. He stretched his awareness toward the barrier, using each of the elements. Had he not known that it had been weakened, he wasn’t sure that he would know that it was even there, but the weakness remained, like a stain or blemish.
He grabbed Cora’s hand and pulled on a warrior shaping, wrapping each of the elements together. “I don’t know if this will work,” he warned.
Then the shaping pulled on him.
Lacertin surged toward the barrier, pulling Cora with him. He didn’t have to go far, and wasn’t sure that he would be able to pierce the barrier. When they struck, he felt it pushing against him.
At first, the sense was hard and painful, but Lacertin persisted, holding onto his shaping.
Cora screamed something, but Lacertin could not hear it.
He pushed even harder and felt the barrier begin to weaken.
Drawing on even more strength, the barrier bent, and then they slid through.
Lacertin tumbled toward the ground, his shaping failing.
They had been high above as they went through. Falling from this high was dangerous. He struggled to reach for wind or even earth to soften the fall, but nothing came. It had taken all of his strength simply to cross.
He had made a mistake.
Wind gusted beneath them, scooping them before they crashed into the earth and whisking them away from the barrier.
Lacertin looked around, searching for the wind shaper who had helped, and found no one.
Then he realized it was Cora.
She lowered them to the ground, bringing them down with less control than he would manage, but the fact that she’d managed to hold both of them with her shaping impressed him. It was challenge enough shaping wind to carry one, but carrying another… that was a different level of ability.
Cora’s face contorted as she looked around. “This place. It is so… green.”
“This is Galen,” Lacertin said, standing and dusting his hands on his legs. The Incendin garb that kept him comfortable in the heat did not help the same with the cool gusting Galen winds. The air smelled different on this side of the barrier, earthy and with the heavy scent of rain and moisture.
In the distance, the Gholund Mountains rose up to white-capped peaks, and on the other side he could almost feel the pull of Ethea, as if the university or his faded sense of duty called to him. Massive oak and elm trees rose along the lower edge of the mountains, with pine trees beginning to mix in, the higher up the mountain he looked. A hawk circled high overhead, and a lone wolf howled—the sound more natural than the horrible call from the hounds that pierced the fading daylight.
“You know these lands?” she asked.
“I know these lands,” he agreed.
Cora started toward the distant tree line, sliding on a shaping of wind as she went. Lacertin followed, his strength not yet returned, and he struggled to catch her. When she reached the trees, she paused and waited for him.
“You found earth here?”
Lacertin looked up the slope of the rock. “Not here,” he started. “This is the Incendin side of the mountains. When I was brought to these lands, I was on the other side, coming from Ethea.”
He reached out with his sense of earth, letting the heavy sense fill him. Galen might be a land of wind, but these lands were also powerful in earth. His earth instructor Ignan had claimed that the elementals still filled these lands. Given the speed with which he had discovered earth here, Lacertin couldn’t argue that was true.
“Listen for earth,” Lacertin said to Cora. “Earth can fill you here. It is everywhere.”
Cora let her eyes fall closed and breathed in and out. “The wind is powerful here,” she said.
“You have to ignore the wind. Galen is a place of much wind, and the archivists claim that ara blows through here, but you don’t have to listen hard to hear earth, either. It is everywhere.”
Lacertin felt as if it practically filled him, the power of earth surging, flowing through him, and he could pull on it, draw it forth, but released it.
Cora strained for earth. The effort pulled at the corners of her eyes and pinched her mouth, drawing it tight. Rather than earth, wind swirled violently around her, lifting her hair and pulling on her clothes. Water added to the wind, plentiful in these lands, and needles of water slammed against him. She added fire, and steam hissed from the midst of her shaping.
Then she relaxed. “It doesn’t work for me.”
Lacertin led her deeper into the Gholund Mountains. This was an ancient place, even for the kingdoms, and the power of the mountains and the trees and even the air pressed upon him. He felt the elemental power, even if he couldn’t reach the elementals.
“Just let your focus relax,” he said. “Set your feet and try to reach through yourself, through the ground beneath you, and feel the way everything connects.”
Eart
h sensing brought him awareness of not only the dirt and rock, but of the trees and animals within the mountains of Galen. More than any of the elements, earth sensing let him feel that he was a part of something. Fire burned and was essential for life. Without fire and heat, nothing could live. Wind was the breath of life, the current that moved men and women, important for different reasons. Water was the blood within him, the cleansing power of the sea, the quenching of his thirst. But earth brought a connectedness that was different than the other elements.
He breathed it in, letting the sense of earth fill him, surging through him.
Through earth, he sensed others nearby, and moving quickly.
“We need to leave Galen,” he said softly, his heart quickening.
Cora scanned the area around them. “What is it?”
Lacertin had made a mistake bringing her here. And now she would be endangered because of him. “Shapers.”
CHAPTER 17
Lacertin shaped them toward the barrier, and Cora followed on wind. When they reached the barrier, it pressed against them, a buzzing sort of sense that rubbed against his shaping. He probed against the barrier, reaching for the spot high overhead that they had used to come through, but found no traces of it, almost as if coming through the barrier had destroyed the weakness.
“It’s gone,” he told Cora.
“How do you propose for us to escape?”
Lacertin sensed along the barrier, but couldn’t find any weakness. They wouldn’t be able to cross, not without the assistance of the kingdoms’ shapers, and Lacertin doubted that they’d help him a second time. Veran had allowed him to pass once, but he didn’t think that he would be given another opportunity.
The shapers approached and were nearly upon them.
Pulling on earth, Lacertin wrapped them in a shaping, obscuring them.
Against an earth shaper, it wouldn’t work. Whoever came must have some earth sense for them to detect their presence, unless they’d only picked up on the crossing of the barrier.
He raised a finger to his lips to silence Cora.
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