Changed by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “We can’t let them succeed,” he said. “I don’t know what they’re after, but we can’t let them have it.”

  Another shaping built from Amia, pulling quickly and suddenly from deep within her. She released it so it washed out and away from her, sweeping toward the city. As she listened, a troubled expression returned to her face.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not certain. I sensed something from the city that I shouldn’t have, but it seems to be gone now. I must have been mistaken.”

  Tan wished she would explain what she had sensed, but a sudden gust of wind caught his attention.

  A shaping formed in the wind. It was powerful… and familiar.

  “Mother.”

  The wind settled. When it did, Zephra stepped forward. She lowered the hood on he black cloak and revealed her face. Her dark hair was pulled back severely behind her head, bound with a strip of fabric. Shadows played around the corners of her eyes.

  “Tannen.”

  “You speak to ara,” he said. He didn’t bother to hide the hurt he felt.

  “It was how I first learned to shape. I should have told you before, but I didn’t want to confuse you as you learned of your abilities.”

  “Confuse me? You haven’t explained anything to me. If I hadn’t thought you died, I wouldn’t have learned anything about Father.”

  Amia pressed against him. A calming shaping washed over him.

  Tan inhaled slowly, letting the irritation fade. The nymid healing had repaired much of the damage done by the fire transformation, enough to keep him from snapping as he had. The frustration he now felt was normal.

  “And if you hadn’t gone with Theondar, you would never have learned of your abilities. Do you really wish to go back to the way it was before you learned what you could do? Would you really return to a life where you didn’t know the nymid? Didn’t know the draasin?”

  More than the nymid or the draasin, he didn’t want to return to a time when Amia wasn’t a part of his life. Still, there had been so much change, almost more than he could survive.

  “No,” he began. “I don’t want to return to that time. I only wish I wasn’t in constant danger.”

  She smiled and touched his face, glancing at Amia. “I wish the same. No matter what else has happened, you’re still my son. I would do anything to protect you.”

  “There are some things you can’t protect me from.”

  She smiled sadly. “I have learned. Ara thought you lost for a while.” Wind played around the edges of her hair and she turned to him. “I see you were restored.”

  Tan studied her. She used the same term the nymid had used. Could his mother speak to more of the elementals than she let on? “I am fine.”

  She sniffed. “Fine. You have returned to Ethea, where the king remains controlled by the archivists. Yet you have not fully returned, standing outside the city as if waiting for permission to enter. For you to summon me means you learned something and you feared returning alone.” She looked at Amia and tipped her head, waiting for an answer.

  “The archivists. They have returned,” Amia said.

  “Are you certain?” his mother said.

  “There is a void within the city. I have only sensed it a few times. I should have sensed for it before…”

  “Yes. You should,” Zephra said.

  Tan shot his mother a hard glare before turning and considering the city. Could he sense the same void Amia mentioned? He focused on the lights radiating from below, stretching out with his earth sense. He noticed no void. Then he shifted, straining with wind. That worked no better.

  What would happen if he mixed all the senses together? He frowned, adding wind and water, mixing earth and fire into it.

  A strange sensation rippled out from him, like a shaping, but different.

  It rolled toward the city and then failed, disappearing into nothing.

  The void.

  His mother paced back and forward across the hillside, her cloak fluttering in the breeze. She held her hands clasped in front of her, and she fidgeted with her thumbs as she had always admonished Tan not to do.

  She stopped. “Lacertin and Theondar should return soon. We will wait. Better to have numbers. I can obscure us only so much.”

  “What happened in Incendin?” Tan asked.

  His mother’s face wrinkled in an annoyed expression. Tan recognized it well. “Nothing happened. We spent the last weeks combing across Incendin, searching for lisincend. We found a pack of hounds as we did.”

  “A pack?”

  She nodded curtly. “Hounds can only do so much. And with Lacertin…”

  “What about Lacertin?”

  “They… respect him. Fear him, I think. He has lived in Incendin for many years. Fire has a way of changing a person.” She said the last knowingly. “And the hounds recognized him. We reached the Fire Fortress but did not dare get too close. They have shapers stationed all around it.”

  “Fire shapers?” Tan asked. He suspected the answer.

  “Not fire. No, they use their stolen shapers from Doma.”

  “Do you know any of them?”

  She closed her eyes. “I know many of them. Some have been captive a long time. I suspect they now view Incendin as home. Others—” she shook her head “—others are relatively new. I still don’t understand why they remain.”

  “Unless they’re shaped,” Tan suggested.

  Wind gusted around his mother. “Incendin has no spirit shapers.”

  “They worked with the archivists before. What if this isn’t the first time?” he asked.

  “We should have heard something if archivists had been crossing the border. The barrier has been in place a long time. Our shapers know when someone crosses over it.”

  Amia stiffened.

  “The barrier,” Tan breathed, suddenly remembering. It was how he had convinced his mother to return. “You understood the message?”

  “I understood, but don’t know how it could have fallen. The barrier has stood for the last twenty years. Shapers stationed all along the border fuel the barrier. It would take an attack all along the border for it to fall.”

  “At least near the place of convergence, it had fallen,” Tan said.

  She frowned. “You think Incendin will return to that place?”

  “No. Not anymore.”

  She tipped her head. Wind swirled around her, flicking at the ends of her hair. A shimmer of a translucent face appeared briefly near her before fading. “You destroyed it? You destroyed the only place of convergence known?”

  Tan took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “I had no choice. If Incendin were to reach it again—if they brought shapers with them, someone able to speak to the elementals—could they have drawn the liquid spirit forth again?” He met his mother’s eyes, holding them so that she would understand. “I have stood in the pool of spirit. I have known the power that exists in it. Incendin will not have it.”

  “I would not have done the same,” she whispered. “But you made the choice you needed to make at the time. You are experienced enough to make that decision.” She studied him. “Are you ready to return to the city when Lacertin and Theondar arrive? We will need all the shapers we have if we are attacked.”

  Through their shaped connection with Amia, he knew something was not right. She shook her head. Later.

  The air crackled suddenly. Heat built around them. Tan looked up, expecting Roine or Lacertin, but heat continued to build. Not lightning, but a different shaping, and terrifyingly familiar.

  The lisincend.

  23

  Betrayal

  Tan faced his mother, pushing Amia behind him. As he did, he tried reaching for the elementals, wishing Asboel had not left him, but nothing responded. “Lisincend! We need to—”

  His mother’s eyes went distant. She spoke quickly to ara, though Tan couldn’t hear what she said. With a gust of wind, she took to the air.

  “Tan?” Amia said.


  He held onto her, stretching out with his senses as he searched for the lisincend. Dark laughter echoed around him.

  Tan turned in a circle, trying to pinpoint where it came from. The sound was dark and harsh. He could practically feel the heat the flowed through it. A cold shiver worked down his back.

  “You need to run. I’ll stay and do what I can—” he started. But there was no place for her to go. Had Asboel remained, he might have managed to help them escape, but had Asboel remained, the lisincend would not have come.

  Amia stared at him and then over him.

  Tan spun.

  There, hovering in the air on wings of fire, was the twisted lisincend. He couldn’t tell if it was Alisz, the fire shaper he had watched transform using the artifact and the spirit of Jishun, or another. The twisted lisincend descended slowly. Then another landed alongside.

  Incendin had used the artifact again. How many of the stolen Aeta had been sacrificed?

  Both lisincend looked much the same. Fire had twisted their mouths and faces, giving their skin a leathery appearance. Their heads were smooth and leathery like the rest of them. Both were unclothed. One stood with breasts burned, leaving nothing more than thickened folds of skin. The other was more muscular and male. Wings burst from their backs and folded back around them as they settled to the ground.

  The nearest laughed.

  “You led us to him, Zephra. It is fortunate we managed to find this,” she said, holding out a small stone with a rune on its surface.

  Had Lacertin not summoned Roine and his mother? Had the lisincend drawn them into Incendin? But for what purpose?

  A shaping burst out from the lisincend, sizzling through the air. Fire bloomed, exploding in the night. His mother screamed.

  Tan felt as Zephra’s shaping faltered. Ara flittered away, unable to sustain before the power of the lisincend fire. His mother fell from the sky, cartwheeling as she went. Shapings failed as she tried slowing herself.

  Another moment and she would strike the ground.

  He sent out an urgent rolling request, rumbling it toward golud. Ground softened just as his mother landed, absorbing most of the impact. She rolled and fell still.

  The lisincend’s dark smile twisted her mouth.

  Tan recognized Alisz. He sent a request to golud, asking that the ground open and swallow the lisincend. More than any of the elementals, earth could contain fire.

  The sending slammed against something before disappearing.

  Alisz laughed. “That won’t help you here. None of the elementals will help you again.”

  Heat started building, pressing against him. Tan had felt this shaping before, recognizing it from what the lisincend had done when they destroyed Amia’s Aeta family.

  “You nearly joined us once,” she said. “You would have been a powerful addition.”

  “I would never join the lisincend.”

  She slithered toward him. Flames licked up and around her body. The other lisincend eyed her hungrily, staring at her naked form.

  Tan remembered the urgency that burned through him with fire. The mixture of rage and desire, emotions burning within him that he couldn’t control. The transformation made him more sensitive to the demands of fire, stealing control from him.

  “You remember how it felt.” She smiled, the expression pulling on her lips in a strange way. “I did not think it would work, but he did. And it nearly did. Now you would take it back within you. All you have to do is accept—”

  Amia built a shaping. It came on suddenly and painfully, bursting in his ears. She pressed the shaping at the lisincend.

  Dark laughter echoed from Alisz. “Your weak shaping will no longer work, little Aeta. My transformation has strengthened me even more than my brothers.” She sent a streamer of fire shooting from her fingers toward Amia.

  Tan jumped in front of it. He closed his eyes and pushed against the shaping.

  It deflected at the last moment. Had it not, Tan wondered if he would have absorbed it again. Would he have begun the transformation, once more turning into lisincend?

  Amia felt backward.

  Tan couldn’t catch her in time. Her head struck the ground, bouncing slightly. She blinked at him and then her eyes fell closed.

  The lisincend laughed once more. “Now it is only us. A pity they choose to suffer. It doesn’t have to be that way. They can serve as the others do. And she can serve as her people have always served.”

  “How have her people served?”

  “You think the Accords would grant the Aeta free travels throughout Incendin?” Her wings unfurled for a moment and then curled back against her. “There was a price to their safety. A price their First Mother was all too happy to pay.”

  Tan swallowed. “And what price was that?”

  Alisz’s twisted and deformed lips pulling grotesquely across her face in a lisincend smile. “They provided a service. And we allowed them to live. A fair price. At least, we had allowed them to live. Now that they were no longer needed, we decided to get rid of them so they didn’t think to use our shapers against us.”

  Tan already knew what she implied. “The Aeta would not do that.”

  “Perhaps you should ask her.”

  “Ask her what?”

  Alisz motioned to the male lisincend. He turned his back to Tan and unfurled his wings, revealing his back.

  Tan gasped. Strapped to the other lisincend was the First Mother. She didn’t move and didn’t look at Tan.

  “You did little but stop those who would challenge me,” Alisz said, drawing Tan’s attention away from the First Mother and back to her. “I should thank you for that.” She stepped toward him, reaching a flaming hand toward his face as if to caress him. He jerked back. “She was to have encouraged the transformation. I thought she failed, but then you only had to find the right motivation. Once you have transformed again, you will understand. And then you will serve fire. You will serve me. As the others we took served.” She laughed again, motioning to the other lisincend.

  The Aeta. Tan knew how they’d been used. But that meant it wasn’t the Brother they felt in Ethea. What was it, then?

  Tan didn’t notice the shaping building until it was too late.

  It settled over him, washing through him.

  The First Mother stared at him defiantly.

  * * *

  Fire wrapped around him. Tan knew better than to resist. Doing so put the others—his mother and Amia—in danger. He wouldn’t risk them, not without knowing why the lisincend kept him alive.

  Alisz crouched next to him. Heat rose from her body like a shimmery veil. She pressed it toward Tan, pushing heat and flame at him.

  He resisted with as much strength as he could draw.

  His mind pulsed. Whatever shaping the First Mother settled on him ached. What had she done to him?

  Tan strained to sense what had happened, but felt cut off from much of his sensing ability. Much like when fire had consumed him, he felt nothing. No sense of earth, no fire, no water or wind. Nothing.

  Still, he recognized something had been done to him. Somehow, he still managed to push away fire.

  “You cannot resist for long. When you accept fire, all of this stops.”

  His head hurt hurt, pounding in a way he had only felt once before when struggling with his connection to the draasin. Would Asboel recognize that something had happened to him? Would the draasin come for him?

  Alisz smiled. “You think the draasin will save you?”

  He blinked. Had she recognized what he was thinking? Was that what the First Mother’s shaping did—had it allowed his thoughts to be read by others?

  Or was it something else?

  When she transformed, Alisz had drawn the blood of Jishun—an archivist spirit shaper—through the artifact. Could that have changed her in other ways?

  She smiled, again as if reading his thoughts.

  “We thought the archivists the key to our plan,” Alisz said. “Not until we reached t
hat place of convergence did we realize how right we were. Now… now we have less need of those like her.” She motioned toward the First Mother. “Especially if she’s not even strong enough to force your mind. Perhaps the elementals protect you better than we realized,” Alisz said, glancing at the First Mother.

  The First Mother hovered over Amia and Zephra, touching their cheeks. A shaping built, but soft and subtle. Even had he the ability to do more than sense the shaping, he wouldn’t have any idea what she did.

  “Once she teaches me how to control this, we will have little use for her,” Alisz said.

  Tan watched the First Mother. “She knows.”

  Steam hissed from Alisz’s nostrils. In that moment, she reminded him of the draasin. “She knows. But I gain skill regardless. Perhaps we will keep her around for entertainment. Or perhaps I will put her in charge of my soldiers.” Alisz met Tan’s eyes. “If you serve well, perhaps you can be placed in charge of my soldiers. Soon, all of this will belong to Incendin. Soon all will serve fire.”

  Tan fought against the finger of fire she sent toward him. This one nearly touched his flesh, burning through the outer layer of his cloak. How many more would he be able to push back? “You will never do more than serve fire.”

  Alisz glared at him. Another sharp finger of flames shot toward him.

  He had gotten through to her. If he could get her to lose control, maybe he could somehow manage to shape again. He had to try something. “You will never be stronger than the draasin. They do not simply serve. They control fire.”

  “The draasin? You think I wish to be like the draasin?”

  Tan pointed toward her wings and thickened skin. “What else would you be?”

  She smiled. Fire skimmed across her lips, making her look fearsome. “I don’t want to be like the draasin. I would be greater than them.” She sent a handful of fire toward him that he barely pushed back. “And with this,” she said, taking a long, slender object made of dark silver out of a hidden fold, “I will be able to.”