Changed by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  But others of the great elementals might answer.

  “What if she’s there?” Amia asked.

  If the fire shaper twisted into the winged creature was among the Incendin shapers, Tan didn’t think he would have much of a chance of stopping them. If only Asboel would answer, but calling him might be more than dangerous. It might be exactly what Incendin wanted.

  “I’m coming with you. If one of the…”

  She trailed off, but Tan knew what she had started to say. If Incendin had an archivist with them—and how could they not, if they found the Gathering?—then she might be needed.

  He took a deep breath and they started forward, running through the trees.

  The forest blurred past. Tan held onto his sense around him, stretching out as his father had long ago taught him to do, listening to the sounds and sensing everything.

  He pushed harder, a shaping building as he ran.

  Golud.

  He spoke the name in a rolling rumble, using the cadence the elemental could understand. Tan couldn’t be certain golud would be found here—the elementals were not found everywhere—but if they were, he could use the earth to quench the flames.

  No answer came.

  Tan ran harder. Amia kept pace.

  Wind whistled around them, a wind shaper working upon it, driving the fire and feeding the flames. Tan considered attempting a shaping to tamp down the wind but decided against it. Any shaping risked the attackers knowing he was here.

  They came up a small rise. The soil was rockier and the trees thinner, giving a better vantage for seeing the fire as it stretched forward. Fire pressed in a ring around the wagons, as if attempting to swallow the Gathering.

  “Great Mother!” Amia swore softly.

  Through the crackling of the flames, he heard someone scream. The wind swallowed the sound.

  Golud!

  Tan sent this as a demand, rumbling through earth. This time, he felt the ground shake in reply.

  The fire. Please.

  Speaking to golud was difficult, different than the other elementals. He wasn’t certain golud would even understand what he tried to say.

  The ground rumbled again. Agreement.

  Flames died down, tampered by the presence of the great earth elemental.

  Incendin shapers pressed harder, a powerful shaping building again. Golud resisted, pulling much of the energy out of the flames. Golud would not be able to stop the fire shaping entirely, but it could resist Incendin enough for Tan to help.

  Now Incendin shapers would know something was different.

  “Please,” he began. “Wait here. I can’t stomach the thought of something happening to you again.”

  “I will go with you. We will help them together,” Amia said.

  Tan inhaled deeply and ran toward the flames.

  As he ran, he formed a wind shaping and worked against the Incendin shaping, forcing the wind against the fires. Did he reach for ara with the shaping? He didn’t really know—he had no idea what he did when he shaped, but he must if the wind shaping were to work.

  Please help the son of Zephra.

  This came out differently than trying to reach golud. Speaking to ara required a light touch, almost delicate. A translucent flicker came to the wind, enough to make him think ara might answer, but then it disappeared.

  Wind pressed against him. The shapers knew where he and Amia were.

  The wind whipped around him in a spiraling torrent, threatening to lift him into the air. Tan focused on forging a connection to ara and begged for the wind to die down.

  The wind started to falter, calming enough for him to regain his footing. He grabbed Amia’s hand and kept her close to him. “They know we’re here!”

  She nodded.

  “I can’t stop the shaping.”

  She nodded toward the fires. The Incendin fire shaper pushed against golud. With enough time, even the elemental would be overwhelmed, driven back by the force of the shaping. Tan might manage to slow it, but not enough to save the Aeta, especially not as the wind continued to wail around him.

  Tan tried pushing through the trees. The wind fought them as they went, trying to stand them up, holding them back from the Aeta wagons.

  The sounds of screaming worked through the howling of the wind around them.

  Tan pressed harder, wishing he had spent more time in Ethea trying to understand his shaping, learning to master even one of the elementals, but his connection to each was different. He could sense earth easily, but shaping it continued to challenge him. Wind answered at times, but not always. Water only seemed to respond when he neared the elementals. Only fire had been easy for him.

  Ever since connecting to the draasin, he had felt an affinity for fire. He could reach for the draasin more easily than the other elementals, but it was more than that. Like when he had been at the Gathering, with the flames dancing around him. It might have been partly the Brother’s shaped influence, but Tan would have little difficulty shaping the fire, twisting it. He might not have the experience of the Incendin fire shapers, but he felt the same draw, and had even used that to defeat one of their fire shapers.

  Could he do the same again?

  What had he done when trying to rescue Amia? He’d pulled fire through him, feeding it into the draasin. Draasin were creatures of fire, born of elemental power. Fire would not harm it.

  He hesitated, focusing on the flames. Doing this would be difficult, but if it worked, he might be able to quench the fire enough to reach the Aeta. At least he could slow the attack, give some of the Aeta a chance to escape.

  “Tan?” Amia said, pulling on his arm.

  He let go of her hand and focused on his connection to the draasin. For this to work, he would need to connect with Asboel. At least to warn him.

  Prepare.

  He sent it with as much strength as he could. Connecting to Asboel across the distance taxed him, leaching strength quickly. Using limited conversation might preserve his strength.

  Maelen.

  It came like a whisper at the back of his mind.

  Tan nodded, pushing through an image of the fire. He felt the flames where he stood. They beat on him, not hot enough to burn. Energy hummed within the fire, something he could almost touch. Within it was the shaping made by the Incendin shaper.

  Tan focused on this.

  And then, with a shaping, he summoned the energy of the fire and pulled it into himself.

  It tore through him, searing and hot. Had it not been for his connection to Asboel, the fire might have consumed him. As it was, it threatened to twist him, writhing toward his mind, so different than the last time he had done this.

  Tan pushed it back, forcing the fire through his connection and into Asboel. He had seen the draasin absorb a fire shaping from the lisincend. Absorbing this fire should not be too difficult. The difference was the distance and how Tan acted as an intermediary.

  Dangerous.

  The warning came from Asboel. With it, he asserted himself on Tan’s mind, drawing through him, connecting to the shaping and pulling upon it.

  And then the fire was gone.

  So, too, was the hot pain in his mind.

  Thank you.

  You seek to become Twisted Fire?

  I seek to stop them.

  Dangerous, Asboel repeated.

  He withdrew from Tan’s mind without saying anything more. Tan let him go.

  The wind died suddenly. Tan stumbled, catching himself on the narrow trunk of an ash tree. His head throbbed, as if his mind itself was raw. His throat was dry and he coughed.

  Amia grabbed him, holding him up. “What did you do?”

  He shifted and turned away. “What I could.”

  She touched his face, running her fingers along it. “Your face…”

  Tan brought his hand up and touched the skin on his cheeks. They felt as raw as his mind felt, as if the fire had burned him. What had he risked by pulling the fire into himself?

  �
�I used Asboel,” he told her. His voice sounded ragged to his ears, rough in a way it hadn’t before. “He absorbed the fire.”

  “That shouldn’t be possible.”

  Tan took her hand and hurried forward. They needed to reach the Gathering. If anyone survived, the shapers might strike them again. This time, he might not be strong enough to stop them.

  “It wasn’t the first time I did it. When you were chained in the wagons, the fire shaper attacked me. I pulled fire through me and sent it into the draasin.”

  “That was different. You said you had nymid armor. They assisted.”

  Tan hadn’t considered that, but Amia was right.

  “When we get through this, I will have to see what you did,” Amia said.

  Tan nodded, suddenly worried. If Asboel, with all his experience, considered it dangerous, then it really was.

  They reached the edge of the fire. A soft glow remained, little more than smoldering embers, but enough to see what had happened. The fire had worked in a circle through the forest, burning through trees and leaving them as nothing more than charred remains.

  Amia approached slowly, covering her mouth as she did. Her skin was reddened.

  Tan stepped across the ground. “I thought it would be hotter than this.” He felt none of the heat that had come when he pulled on the shaping.

  Amia looked at him. “It is.”

  Tan frowned, but continued forward, making his way through the circle of ash. He thought they might find nothing more than char, but as they went further, the trees began to have less and less damage until it stopped altogether. The ground was once again green, as if nothing had happened past a certain point. It took Tan a moment to understand why.

  The ground rippled, pulled apart as if blasted by fire. Golud. The earth elementals had stood their ground, pushing back against the flames.

  Thanks, he sent as a low rumble.

  The ground rumbled in reply.

  They moved past the border and into still-green trees and undergrowth, stepping past the rippled ground golud had influenced.

  “Do you think they might have survived?” Amia asked.

  “I don’t know. We haven’t seen any of the shapers. They might still be here.”

  Amia closed her eyes. Her shaping built slowly and washed out and around her. When she opened her eyes again, the surge of fear through their shaped connection matched her words. “They are gone.”

  “What is it?”

  They reached the edge of the wagons. Soot covered them, as if flames had tried and failed to lick their way along them. Splashes of color still showed through, but it seemed muted, as if smoke layered overtop and obscured the normal Aeta painting.

  Tan thought everyone had gone, that the shapers had killed all the Aeta, but then he heard voices. Soft whimpers and hushed conversation carried to them. Coughs and sobbing mixed in as well.

  “The shapers are gone,” Amia said.

  Tan pushed out with an earth sensing but after speaking to the draasin and pulling their shaping into himself, something had changed and he couldn’t sense well enough to know much more than that people stood nearby.

  Amia led him through the wagons, pausing to look around.

  The massive fire pit no longer raged. Spits with roasting meat were unattended. Bread that had been savory was now burned and acrid. A few wagons on the far side of the wide circle had been tipped over. One had knocked a tree down, tilting it so it leaned over the rest of the clearing, leaving people to duck under the bare branches.

  Few people bothered to look back at them. Those who did had faces covered in thick soot. Many had tears staining their faces, reminding Tan of how Amia had looked as they’d left the Aeta only a short while ago.

  Shapings came regularly. Tan recognized the signature of the shaping as the First Mother. He didn’t sense anything from the Brother. Had he been hurt in the attack?

  “Where is she?” he asked aloud.

  People stared at him blankly. One woman, a wide woman with what had once been a bright orange dress, blinked slowly and pointed toward the far side of what had been the fire pit.

  Tan and Amia made their way around it. The First Mother worked through the Aeta, shaping them. He recognized the shaping.

  When she saw them, she froze. “You returned.”

  Tan let Amia answer. He felt the anger that still worked in her.

  “Tan refused to let Incendin attack you without doing anything.”

  The First Mother frowned. “This… this was you?”

  “Not the attack,” Tan said.

  “I’m not such a fool as to believe you capable of attacking like this. I sensed the Incendin shapers when they came.”

  Tan sighed. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  “More?” the First Mother asked. “You stopped the attack. That was enough to give the People a chance.”

  Had he been prepared, had he known how to craft shapings effectively instead of relying on his connection to the elementals, he might have been able to do something to help the Aeta. Instead, he had felt nearly helpless. And worse, from what he’d learned from Asboel, what he’d done was dangerous.

  “Where are the others?” he asked. “Where did the shapers go?”

  The First Mother met his eyes. “They are gone.”

  “Who?”

  “All of them.”

  15

  The Effect of a Shaping

  Tan sat on the cooled rocks that had once formed the ring of the fire pit, chewing on a piece of still-warm hare he’d pulled from the nearby spit. After shaping and speaking to the draasin, he felt not only exhausted but famished as well. Amia stood across from him. Every so often, she would glance at him with worried eyes and then look away. She couldn’t hide the concern that flowed through their shaped connection; Tan felt that acutely.

  The First Mother looked around at the rest of the Aeta. Her eyes had a weariness to them that hadn’t been there before. Like so many of the others, soot and ash stained her clothes. Somewhere during the attack, she’d struck her head. Dried blood crusted on her forehead and she winced occasionally as if experiencing the pain anew.

  All around him, the Aeta seemed in a daze, but something felt strange. Tan scanned the Gathering, looking for what bothered him until he realized what it was. It looked as if the wagons were readied to move, but that meant uprooting the Gathering. How long had it been since the Aeta had moved from this place?

  “Where are the others?” Tan asked the First Mother. “What happened to the Brother?”

  There were other spirit shapers when they had been here last. Now, Tan didn’t sense anything from them. Perhaps they were as exhausted as he felt, drained after the battle with Incendin.

  “They are gone.”

  A pained expression worked across Amia’s face. “I’m sorry we couldn’t be faster.”

  The First Mother coughed and touched her head. She blinked slowly, swallowing. A soft pressure built as she made a shaping, then she released it slowly, sweeping it out and across the rest of the Aeta. “They are not dead. Not yet.”

  “If they’re not dead, then where…” Tan sucked in a breath. “The Incendin shapers took them?”

  The First Mother nodded. “Five fire shapers came. Five of the People were taken.”

  Could they be after spirit shapers again? Was that why Amia was abducted from Ethea?

  “Were they all shapers?” he asked.

  The First Mother hesitated, as if uncertain whether she should answer. “All. They had differing strengths, though none were as gifted as the Brother.”

  Tan’s heart sunk. Incendin would try to create more of the twisted lisincend using them. One was frightening enough, what would it be like with more? “We need to save them,” Tan said.

  The First Mother stared toward the trees. “They are gone. There is nothing you could do.”

  Tan considered the wreckage of the Aeta Gathering. “I could have done more. Had I been stronger… better prepare
d…”

  “You did more than you should have been able to do,” the First Mother said. She considered Tan for a moment. “How did you contain them? The fire shapings. What did you do?”

  As she watched him, intensity returned to her eyes. Tan had the distinct sensation that he needed to be careful with what he told her. The problem was, with as tired as he was, he no longer cared about caution with the First Mother.

  “I pulled their shaping through me and into the draasin,” he answered. He took a bite off the meat he held and chewed it deliberately.

  Her eyes widened slightly. “You absorbed the shaping of five fire shapers into yourself?”

  “I did what I needed,” he answered. “I could think of no other way.”

  The First Mother shifted her attention to Amia. “Did you know he did this?” Accusation hung in the question.

  Irritation flared within him. Tan stood and faced the First Mother. “Rather than thanking, you still berate Amia? It wasn’t her fault Incendin found your Gathering. It wasn’t her fault this place nearly burned. She deserves more kindness than what you’re showing her!”

  An angry shaping built quicker than Tan could process. It burst from the First Mother, rolling over him. He made a quick attempt at water and air shapings to protect his mind, but failed.

  “You’re a fool, son of Zephra. You who have faced the lisincend more times than most men claim—even when your kingdoms warred with Incendin—you still don’t understand the gravity of your actions.”

  He couldn’t tell the intent of her shaping, but the irritation that had been building seemed to ease. Perhaps she simply sought to calm him. “I don’t understand.”

  The First Mother grunted. “That much is clear. You didn’t tell him, did you?” she asked Amia. “He must know. What if he does it again?”

  “It wasn’t the first time,” Amia said.

  The First Mother’s eyes widened again. “He’s done it before? Perhaps you are the fool, especially as you know what could happen.”

  “What could happen?” Tan asked. He tried to keep the frustration he felt from his voice, but it spilled over anyway.