“The barrier remains intact,” a voice said. Lacertin could see who spoke, and the voice didn’t remind him of anyone, though he knew so few people within Ethea and the university that it was possible he hadn’t met them.
“There was a disturbance here,” said another.
Lacertin recognized the speaker and pulled on a subtle shaping of wind that drew in front of his eyes to see. Jayna stood near the edge of the trees, dressed in the heavy wool of this region of Galen, a troubled expression pinching her mouth. The last time he had seen her, she had attempted to heal the princess. Had she kept the secret?
He suspected that she had. Otherwise Incendin would have heard something, wouldn’t they? But had the priest heard anything, would he have said something to him?
Lacertin doubted that he would.
“We need to return. You know what Theondar said about moving too far out of position.”
“Theondar doesn’t come to the border, does he?” Jayna said. She barely hid the irritation in her voice.
The fact that she was out here meant that she had been elevated to master shaper. At least her helping him hadn’t destroyed her opportunities with the university. When he left, Lacertin had worried that she would have been punished for her role in helping him.
“Besides, there is something here…”
She started toward him and Lacertin tensed, wondering if she would be able to detect him, even masked as he was. It was possible that she could. Jayna had proved that she was a potent water shaper, and there might be a way for her to detect him with water.
“Can you use water to shield us?” he whispered to Cora. With the earth shaping he held, he wasn’t sure that he would be able to add another shaping, especially with everything that he’d done to get them across the barrier in the first place. And with water, Cora might not have as much skill as he possessed—though he suspected she would in time—she had more strength than he possessed.
Her eyes narrowed as she considered the question, but then she nodded. Her shaping of water began to build, slowly growing and swirling around them. As it touched him, a cold gripped his chest, a sensation unlike any shaping he had ever experienced.
Jayna stopped only a few paces from them. From here, he could see the intense expression on her face, and could smell the clean scent of her. He silently willed her away, wanting to push her from them, not wanting to need to do anything more than that. How hurt would she be if he revealed himself, only to show that he truly had abandoned the kingdoms?
“What is it?” The other shaper was a younger man, with deep brown hair. Lacertin had never seen him before, but he looked at Jayna with a fondness that sent pangs through Lacertin.
But it shouldn’t. She deserved happiness. And he was pleased that she hadn’t suffered for assisting him. The only person who should suffer for his decision should be him.
“I thought I sensed… Nothing. I guess nothing.”
Lacertin detected the buildup of her water shaping and it swept around them, but whatever Cora had done protected them, keeping Jayna from realizing where he hid.
“We should continue north. You heard the reports.”
“I heard them. I don’t believe them,” she said.
“You don’t think the lisincend are in the north?”
Jayna shifted her attention toward the barrier. A soft shaping swept over it, barely enough to disturb it, before withdrawing. “I don’t think they could cross the barrier. They may be in the north, but still on the Incendin side.”
“That’s not what the report—”
“I know what the report said.” Jayna shook her head and then turned away, heading back toward the trees. “Let’s move north. If there is anything to the report, then we have a day or more before we reach them.”
The shapers moved off and Lacertin couldn’t hear what the other shaper said.
He sighed and released his earth shaping. When he nodded to Cora, she did the same with water.
He looked north. “Did the lisincend cross the barrier?” He asked the question mostly to himself, not really expecting that Cora would answer.
“Those who embrace fire have much strength,” she said.
“Enough to cross?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t experienced your barrier before today.”
His barrier. She called it his and he couldn’t even argue. The barrier was because of him, wasn’t it? Without his contribution, the barrier would never have been constructed, only now… Now Lacertin wasn’t sure that the barrier had been well designed. It was effective, but separating Incendin, especially the more he learned, might have been a mistake. How much did both of the peoples lose by not have some sort of connection, an interaction?
Without crossing the waste, he would never have learned the way that Incendin worshipped Issa, bordering on fervor. He would never have understood the purpose of the Fire Fortress, even if he didn’t fully know everything about it. He would never have learned that a fire shaper of Incendin could become skilled enough to become a warrior. Did that not make their people more alike?
“I need to find out,” he said.
“Lacertin Alaseth, we came to determine whether I could connect with earth.” Cora sounded hurt and disappointed, as if he would leave her here or force her back without him. But Lacertin didn’t even know how to cross the barrier again. He doubted that he would be able to force her back.
“I don’t know that detecting earth here is right,” he admitted. He should have seen the mistake before now. “You are a warrior of Incendin. You discovered fire, wind, and water all within Incendin. That is where you will find earth as well.” If only he knew where earth flowed most strongly in Incendin, he could help her find it, but he didn’t.
The familiar sense of duty pressed on him. The responsibility that Ilton had instilled in him, tying him to the kingdoms, almost as if he were afraid that Lacertin would depart and make the crossing to Incendin. He wanted to know whether the lisincend could cross. More than that, he needed to know whether they could cross.
“We need to see if they crossed,” Lacertin said.
“We?”
“You don’t have to come,” he told her. He studied Cora and the way the heat radiating from her body felt against him, the comfortable way that he’d become around her. She looked at him with concern, real concern in her eyes. Lacertin had so few who had ever cared about him. Ilton had cared in his way, but Lacertin had been a tool to the king as much as a friend. Ilianna might have cared, but not enough to reveal her secret sooner. Not when he might have been able to do something for her. And other friends had come too late for him in the kingdoms. Veran and Jayna and… no others.
Could he have found something unexpected in Incendin? Lacertin almost didn’t dare hope that he could have.
He touched Cora’s arm, letting a gentle shaping of fire mingle with her shaping. “I need to know. You don’t have to come with me,” he repeated, “but I would like it if you would.”
Cora glanced south, where they had left the Servants of Issa arrayed on the other side of the barrier. “They will wonder what you’ve done with me.”
Lacertin smiled. A part of him wished answers were simpler and wished that his life had been simpler, but maybe the priest was right. Maybe Issa had called him. Given the fact that Lacertin had nothing else, could he ignore the call?
But he would do this last thing for his kingdom. If the lisincend had crossed, he needed to know.
He grabbed Cora’s hand and built a shaping and carried them north.
The land changed here, spreading out with fewer trees and hills as they grew closer to the Gholund Mountains. This far to the north, they were closer to Doma than the kingdoms, though near enough the border with the kingdoms that the barrier still pressed against him. Lacertin brought them to the ground, guiding them on his shaping to a wide, flat clearing.
“Why here?” Cora asked.
Lacertin wasn’t entirely certain, but he hadn’t seen anything a
long the borders that indicated the lisincend had crossed the barrier. It was possible that they hadn’t, at least not yet. “I don’t see anything.”
“You might not,” Cora reminded him.
The lisincend were capable of hiding themselves, masking with a heat veil much like what radiated up from the rock within Incendin after the sun began burning along the ground. Lacertin thought such an ability would be useful, but there were drawbacks as well. They could use the veil, but could not mask the heat. Within Incendin, that wasn’t usually a problem, but within the kingdoms, especially a cool section of the kingdoms like Galen, that heat disturbance would be detectable.
“Here I would,” Lacertin said. During his time serving as First Warrior, he’d had the opportunity to detect the lisincend. His ability with fire granted him enough sensitivity to do so easily, much more than most within the kingdoms. “I don’t detect any of their heat.”
Cora frowned, and her brow furrowed as she did. “Why would they attack here?”
Lacertin hadn’t worked that out. There would be nothing for them to gain from attacking along here, other than risking drawing more of the kingdoms’ attention. As they traveled here, he had tested the barrier, working along it and searching for weaknesses, but detected nothing. The barrier was as stout here as it had been further south. If nothing else, Theondar and Althem had taken the construction and maintenance of the barrier to heart.
Cora reached out with fire, sending a much more controlled shaping than he would have managed. Lacertin still marveled at her skill. There was much the Servants could teach the kingdoms, much as he suspected there was much the kingdoms could teach Incendin. Cora was not likely the only shaper capable of learning other elements. With her strength, she would learn to shape regardless of whether she chose it or not, but others, those with potential but not the same strength, would need it drawn from them. Without a more formal instruction, there would be no way to pull those shapings from them.
“Do you detect anything?” Lacertin asked.
“There is… fire somewhere here,” she said. “It is faint, and unlike anything I have ever felt.” She turned her head to the side, frowning. “I can almost hear it.” Her eyes opened and she shook her head. “Perhaps there is nothing,” she said. “Imagination.”
Lacertin felt fire strongly but had never heard it, but maybe his connection to it was different than what she managed. With her control, it was possible that she experienced the draw of fire in a unique way. Or maybe she truly heard Issa.
He strained with his connection to fire, adding each of the other elements as he listened for anything that didn’t belong. She had strength with fire—strength with the other elements as well—but strength was not the same as experience, and Lacertin knew these lands and knew what might not belong.
At the edge of his awareness, but closer than he would have expected, he detected something different.
He started forward.
Cora grabbed his arm. “Lacertin—”
“I don’t know what I sense, but there is something.”
She studied him a moment and then nodded. “Where?” she asked.
Cora used a shaping that combined fire, water, and wind. She took his hand and Lacertin realized that he could guide, and directed her shaping in the direction that he detected, much like with the shared shaping used around the celebration fire. It was another thing that the kingdoms could learn from Incendin. No shapings were ever shared in this way. And maybe he could use it to help trigger something with earth?
But first he would help her understand.
The combined shaping was more powerful than what he managed alone. Without her contribution to earth, it was imbalanced, and he withdrew the shapings he used, reducing them so that the combined shaping remained constant. Taking the lead, he stretched toward the faint difference.
Her eyes widened. “I sense it,” she whispered.
Lacertin continued forward, holding onto the connection with Cora, but releasing control of the shaping. Near a stack of rock—and closer to the barrier than he had realized—the strangeness that he detected came more strongly.
He started forward, holding onto a combined shaping of fire and earth, mixing the two for protection, when he felt a sudden surge of heat and energy all around him.
Rock exploded toward him.
And one of the lisincend stepped forth.
CHAPTER 18
The heat radiating from the lisincend was enormous. The creature had thick skin, a hairless head, and from the waist down was covered in maroon leathers. The upper body was lithe and muscular. Almost black eyes regarded Lacertin and Cora with disdain, and the lisincend snaked a thick tongue over its lips.
Lacertin hesitated. Always before, he would have attacked. The lisincend were horrible creatures of fire, dangerous and destructive, and much more powerful than any fire shaper, but his time in Incendin had given him a different perspective on the creatures. The Servants of Issa claimed the lisincend had embraced fire, and he might not know what that meant, but the fact that they valued the lisincend, even knowing what they were, gave him pause.
Fire shot toward them.
Lacertin shifted his shaping of earth, catching the fire shaping and directing it toward the ground. Cora moved to his side and prepared a shaping to match, but defaulted to fire.
“It won’t work on the lisincend,” Lacertin said. He might not know them the same way that the Servants did, but he had fought against them and knew what worked, and more importantly, what did not. Using fire against them would not work. They were creatures that had almost become fire, like elementals in their own twisted way. But earth and water… those could work.
“I am not trying to stop him,” Cora said calmly. The shaping stretched toward the lisincend, reaching him with something like a caress. Cora ran her shaping along his skin, snaking down his thick flesh, before withdrawing.
“A Servant,” he hissed. His voice was horrible and cracked in way that reminded Lacertin of the splitting of logs. “You should not be here, Servant.”
“And you should return to the Sunlands,” she said softly.
He hissed again. “Return. That is all that I have tried to do.” His eyes considered Lacertin. “This one is dressed as a Servant but he used earth.”
“Shape him,” Cora urged.
“I don’t know—”
He didn’t get the chance to finish.
A shaping of fire exploded behind him. Lacertin spun and saw two shapers emerge from the trees. He recognized one—a younger fire shaper that he’d seen while still in the kingdoms—but not the other, a man wearing thick wool leggings and shaping earth in front of him.
“Great Mother,” the earth shaper swore. His shaping of earth cascaded toward Lacertin, but there wasn’t enough focus in it to do much good. The man had some strength and talent, but not enough skill, nothing like other earth shapers Lacertin knew.
It took little focus to shift the shaping and send it delving deep into the ground, where it fizzled to nothing. The shaper’s eyes widened.
“Earth shaper!” he called.
Cora started shaping, and the lisincend attacked.
Lacertin stood as if frozen. If he helped Cora, he would attack the kingdoms. If he helped the kingdoms, he would have to attack Cora.
Neither option felt right.
The fire shaper sent a lancing of flame toward him, but it was nothing compared to some of the shapings that had been used on him in Incendin. Lacertin caught the shaping and twisted it, where it dissipated.
Then he constructed a wall of earth, raising it to block the two shapers from Cora and him, putting him on the side with the lisincend. The earth shaper battered at him but was too new, and Lacertin had enough skill to maintain the shaping.
The lisincend stalked toward him and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him to the air.
Cora tried a soothing shaping as she had used before, but the lisincend simply glanced at her and pressed back with a s
urge of heat.
“You need to shape him,” she whispered again.
Spots in Lacertin’s vision began to fade and the shaping of earth collapsed behind him. The lisincend pressed heat past Lacertin, attacking the two shapers.
Lacertin couldn’t pull himself free. He couldn’t even keep himself in place.
“Shape him,” Cora urged again.
Her voice echoed in his mind, like a hollow memory.
This was how he would die. Trapped between what he was and what he could have been, he would fail. And then Cora would die, trapped by the barrier. She and the lisincend might be able to fight for a while, but the kingdoms had enough numbers to send shaper after shaper at them. Eventually they would fall, all because of the barrier that he had constructed.
How could he shape the lisincend? What did she expect from him?
He breathed out and couldn’t take another one in. The lisincend squeezed on his throat, crushing him. He would die because of fire.
Had Issa planned this?
Lacertin nearly laughed, but nothing came out. Issa had done nothing for him, only bringing him to Incendin so that he would die. First he suffered, the shaping used on him tormenting him, and then he suffered more, drawn into the circle of the other shapers, the Servants of Issa, with the pulsing pounding shaping that was so much like what…
With a start, he knew what he had to do but didn’t know if he was strong enough.
Lacertin reached for fire, but it failed him.
Heat surged and met with resistance from a water shaping.
Lacertin’s heart sunk. Had Jayna come, too?
The lisincend would be too much for her, much as it was too much for him. The fire shaper would fall first. Fire could not withstand both a Servant and one of the lisincend. Then Jayna. Water would be easier to stop than earth.
He strained, struggling for the sense of fire, but it was a distant sense.
Had Lacertin not known fire the best, had it not been the element that he served the longest, it would not have responded. But he knew fire, and fire knew him.
And, strangely, the heat flowing from the lisincend was familiar.
Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Page 28