Cycle of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 11)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Maelen…

  The connection faded.

  Tan unsheathed and struck at the barrier with his sword, but it did no better than had he attacked with a shaping.

  “Tan, we can’t let her stay like this.”

  The other shapers had completed their binding, and he could feel it constricting. Soon it would overtake the pool, closing it off and trapping Alanna inside. There seemed to be nothing he could do that would stop it, nothing that would bring his daughter back.

  And he was empty, powerless now, all his shaped energy exhausted.

  The dark laughter echoed in his mind.

  He had failed.

  All his power, and he had failed the one person he wanted most to save.

  You have not failed, Asboel said. Voidan will be confined. A balance will be restored. That is not failure.

  It is to me.

  The darkness laughed again.

  Take me instead, Tan said.

  He didn’t know whether Voidan could answer, or whether it would matter. Would the darkness even want him rather than the Voice of the Mother?

  If it were to be confined regardless, maybe it didn’t matter.

  I am the one to trap you this time. I led them here, gave them the power of the bonds to hold you. Take me, and not her.

  The darkness seemed to laugh again. You would be a fool to even make that offer.

  The voice boomed within him, devastating and powerful

  Was that what Alanna experienced?

  Take me. Torture me. We will be trapped together.

  You would know endless torment, Maelen.

  Take me.

  The darkness laughed again, and there was a surge of power, like a burst that pressed on him, one that reminded him of what he’d felt when Marin controlled Voidan. It struck him, filling him, and he felt drawn into the pool.

  “Tan!”

  He glanced at Amia, wanting to hold her one last time. For Alanna.

  Shifting his focus to the shapers that had come with him, he sent an image of the binding they would need to secure Voidan. If what he planned worked, if he was successful, then he would seal it off. And if he failed, they would need to do it. Either way, the darkness could not return.

  Maelen.

  Hundreds of voices, thousands, murmured the name.

  Tan wished he had time to respond, but what would he say? What was there to say?

  Only sadness.

  If he succeeded, he would bring hope.

  Him for Alanna. That was a reasonable trade. Even his mother would have to understand.

  Tannen. Her voice whispered into his mind like a memory. With it, he felt his father as well, and then it faded, so brief it might not have been

  Then he started through the barrier.

  As he passed through, Light appeared and jumped at him.

  For a moment, he thought she would try to stop him, but when she reached him, she disappeared, as if passing through him.

  Once through the barrier, he thought that maybe Light passed beyond, but she had not. There was nothing but the pool of darkness.

  Release her.

  The darkness laughed. I would rather have you both, Maelen. You can suffer along with her, only yours will be worse.

  Tan was pulled, and tumbled into the pool of darkness.

  It was like sinking into the night, a black so perfect, so filling, that there was nothing else for him, nothing that he could do. Pain and cold struck him, overwhelming him. Everything seemed sucked from him, an emptiness so absolute that he was left a hollowed shell.

  He remained like that for an unknowable amount of time.

  There was pain, and darkness, and there was nothing else.

  Moment passed that could have been hours or days or even years.

  Tan knew nothingness and suffering.

  During that time, he felt only the satisfied laughter of Voidan.

  There was nothing Tan could do to resist, nothing that he could do to escape. He was trapped, and would remain trapped, for as long as Voidan held him.

  Distantly, his mind called on him to attempt to shape, but there was no power left within him. All that he was had been sucked away, drained by this empty power. No shaping, no sense of the element bonds, and no elementals. Nothing.

  Attempts to shape came and went until he decided he never possessed them.

  He lost the sense of himself, knowing only that he had come here by choice, though he no longer remembered why.

  There was pain. After a while, even that became normal.

  There was laughter, a steady dark sound, though he couldn’t remember why there should be laughter. Why should there be anything?

  There was nothing. He was nothing.

  Time stretched.

  All he had was pain. Cold and empty pain.

  In the darkness, he felt a stirring, but how much time had passed since he noted the stirring?

  He couldn’t tell. Maybe moments. Hours.

  Then again, what was time?

  It came again, this time with certainty.

  It came from deep within him, a different sensation, one of warmth where there had only been cold before. Was there color at the edge of his vision? There couldn’t be… could there?

  Maelen.

  The voice came from deep and far away, but inside of him.

  Was that him? Was he Maelen?

  Maelen.

  It was closer, more urgent.

  Now he was certain the darkness faded, replaced by a tenuous light.

  The laughter that he’d heard had disappeared.

  Had it ever been there?

  Maelen no longer knew.

  Warmth surged within him, within his chest.

  Light came with it, building steadily.

  The two combined, warmth and light, and as they did, he knew.

  He was not alone. When he’d come past the barrier, another had joined him, the last bond, but in some ways, the most important. She had not attempted to go past him, but into him.

  Light? How is this possible?

  You are not alone, Maelen. We are here. Your bonds are here.

  Tan felt them then. That was the warmth and the light he could see. It came not only from Light, but from Kota and Honl and Nymid and even Asboel. They were with him, brought by some connection to Light.

  Then, of course they would be.

  Tan had shifted the element bonds. He remembered that now, drawing spirit into them. Light had called to the elementals for him, bringing them with him.

  How can I escape this?

  There is no escape from the darkness, Maelen.

  There had to be something he could do.

  Attempting to shape left him weakened and unable to complete the action. Tan tried reaching the bonds, but they eluded him. Even the connection to the elementals was not one of power, but one of comfort and communication.

  You’re trapped with me.

  We chose this, Maelen, much as you chose to sacrifice for the Mother.

  I sacrificed for Alanna.

  Is that not the same? Light asked.

  Tan didn’t know how it could be, but that didn’t matter.

  There had to be some way to get free. Just because the elementals didn’t know of it didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

  How to defeat the darkness?

  It had attempted to overwhelm him, to show him the nothingness, but he had survived it because of his connections. Did that mean anything?

  What of his other connections?

  He focused on them, and slowly, so slowly, they resolved within his mind.

  Tan? It was the one person he wanted most to reach.

  I am here, he told Amia.

  What of Alanna?

  Voidan seeks to hold her. He focused on Alanna and felt her nearby, the connection to her stronger than what Voidan could overcome. I will find a way to reach you, he told her.

  He could sense her attempting to reach him, but the connection failed. As much as she might want
to reach him, and might want to speak to him, she couldn’t get past the barrier that still blocked her.

  Without the ability to shape, and without the ability to place the binding, what could he do?

  There was only one thing that could be done.

  Seal us, he sent to Amia.

  Tan—

  This has to be confined. If it takes me getting trapped, at least she will not be alone.

  There has to be something.

  There isn’t. I can’t shape, and there’s no way to destroy the darkness.

  Even as he said it, he realized the comment felt wrong.

  Destroying the darkness wasn’t the answer. The Mother didn’t want him destroying it. Even if he could, he wasn’t certain that was what he should do.

  How, then? There had to be something, some way to stop Voidan and find a way to prevent it from attacking again.

  If he couldn’t come up with it, he had time.

  Eventually he would come up with a way to stop Voidan. If not now, in time.

  If he didn’t, then the seal would fail in time. That was the way of the world. It cycled, the seals fading over time, only to allow someone else to be able to release Voidan and bring the darkness out into the world.

  What if there was a way to stop the cycle? Wasn’t that what he had to find?

  I will stop you, he sent to Voidan.

  There was no laughter this time, not as there had been before. You will not destroy me. Others have tried and they have failed.

  I don’t intend to destroy you. Only stop you.

  There is no stopping.

  Tan felt a surge of darkness and it mixed with the warmth from Light.

  Maybe Voidan was right… but so was the Mother.

  Which meant there was only one thing that had not been tried.

  All the other attempts had involved sealing in the darkness. Tan had seen them, had memories of those attempts gifted to him by the Mother. None had succeeded.

  What if it wasn’t about destroying, and it wasn’t even about sealing it off?

  There was risk, and if he was wrong, everyone he cared about would suffer.

  But if he was right… this might be able to end. The cycles might stop. He might finally find a way to bring peace and order to things. That was worth something.

  Tan pulled on what he sensed of the darkness.

  He wasn’t able to shape, not here, not where there was nothingness. And he didn’t want to use the darkness for his own purposes. That might be where others who might have thought the same had failed. Tan didn’t want the power, but he’d been given it over the years. All he wanted was peace.

  Balance.

  Light and dark.

  There was a surge within him.

  From that, he realized the Mother wanted the same.

  The darkness flowed, going through Tan.

  He was connected to the bonds, to the Mother, to everything.

  Having darkness pooled like this was dangerous and meant that everyone would suffer were it released in a concentrated form like this, but what if it were diluted?

  Tan pulled on the darkness, drawing it into himself.

  As he did, he felt the power of the Mother flow into him as well.

  In his mind, the pool of the Mother in Norilan drained, drawn away by this.

  Light and Dark.

  They mixed, but they mixed within him.

  Tan pulled on them, accepting them, and then pushed the two back out and along the bonds.

  It was not a shaping.

  He didn’t know what it was, though it felt more akin to what he had done when drawing spirit into the other element bonds.

  This was the part he feared.

  If the darkness overwhelmed the bonds, they would fall.

  Only… as he pulled with both spirit and night, they were in balance.

  The Mother countered the darkness.

  Night and day.

  The balance, as it was meant to be.

  In a flash, he knew that there had once been the same balance, but it had been disrupted. In that moment, he sensed how someone had tampered with the power, someone who might have even more power than Tan, and had shifted the darkness, drawing it away.

  Tan pushed, letting the flows of power come together, joining. He pushed again, harder, and those flows washed over the world, diluted. There would be no source of darkness for someone to draw upon again. It would be a part of everything, much like the Mother was a part of everything. She was light. Darkness was death. Balance.

  They were together again, joined as they were meant to be.

  Colors surged around him.

  Weight pressed into his waiting arms. Alanna.

  He looked down, relief flooding him. He had done it. He had saved her.

  Something had changed within him, but right now, it didn’t matter.

  “Father,” she said.

  And Tan smiled.

  Epilogue

  Mountains spread out beneath him, and in the distance he could see the edge of the forest, where the line of trees joined the sea, ending in a clear blue line. Tan leaned back, enjoying the sensation of the sun on his skin almost as much as he enjoyed the feeling of Amia in front of him, Alanna tucked between, as they soared over the ground atop Asboel.

  There was something very much right about riding atop Asboel once more. Several other draasin flew nearby—Sashari, Asgar, Wasina, and even a few of the now dozen or so draasin hatchlings in existence—leaving a trail of shadows across the ground. They traveled in something like a flock, with Asboel at the head, something Tan thought fitting.

  Alanna giggled as they banked, turning out toward the sea. She was a natural atop the draasin, her blond hair streaming around her shoulders, the smile plastered on her face. Fearless, in many ways, and changed since the attack. She still had a connection to spirit, only it was not quite as potent.

  She could fly with me once more, Wasina said.

  It is up to her.

  Alanna giggled her reply, and Tan used a shaping of wind to send his daughter to the draasin, settling her on the draasin’s back. The shaping strained him but it was a good strain, one that felt right.

  Amia glanced back at him and her gaze flicked toward Wasina and Alanna. “She flies well.”

  “Alanna? She’s been flying since before she was born.”

  Amia laughed and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ears. “Not Alanna. Wasina. She is such a natural.”

  “She’s a better flyer than her parents,” Tan said.

  Asboel twisted his neck to look at him with eyes that glowed a deep red. Not quite so flaming as they had been when he had manifested from the bond, but still burning in ways they had not before. Careful, Maelen, or you will see how I dump unwelcome guests.

  You wouldn’t dump me, would you?

  Asboel seemed to grunt. Perhaps once I would not. Now…

  As Tan laughed, they passed a series of nearly formed figures, that of the wind elementals. Ara was no longer quite a translucent, now with a hint of color, barely anything but enough that they couldn’t hide as they once had, more like Honl in that, though Honl was something much more than an elemental, and very nearly human now. Since he’d been in the pool of Voidan, and since he’d dispersed it, joining it with spirit and each of the other elements, no elementals could really hide.

  Tan sensed fear from the elementals, and they worried about what would happen to them now that anyone could see them. It was not only wind, but nymid and golud and saa and… all of the elementals had taken on a more physical presence. Mixed with that fear was something that had taken him quite a while to understand: there was a mixture of hope.

  He still didn’t fully comprehend the reason, but there was time. There would be time.

  The elementals hadn’t been the only thing to change.

  There had been another, and unexpected, change. Shaping began cropping up in others where it had not been before. Tan still didn’t understand how, or what that might
mean moving forward, but there was something equally right about dispersing the power.

  “Do you miss it?” Amia asked.

  Tan reached for his shaping strength, for the bonds to the elements, the memory of the power that he’d once possessed still strong, but he no longer possessed the same connection. He could shape, but he was never a particularly strong shaper. Tan could speak to the elementals, but he couldn’t borrow strength from them as he once had. And the bonds were closed to him. Tan had power, but no more than anyone else.

  “I think I should miss it,” he started, “but I don’t think I need it anymore. Does that make sense?”

  Amia smiled at him, and he felt her shaping of spirit building. She sent it washing over him. With it, he felt peace, though he didn’t need her shaping for him to feel that. His family was still together. The lands had been united. Shaping was no longer rare, and would only increase. And the elementals were freed.

  There was balance.

  “Should we return to Ethea? Your mother wanted you to visit again.”

  Tan smiled as he reached around Amia, holding her close against him. “We were needed in Par first. They had questions about the restoration of the Records. Besides, she didn’t want me to visit,” Tan said, looking back at his daughter. “She thinks to continue her education.”

  “Can you blame her?”

  Tan shook his head. “She will make a fine queen in time.”

  “You know, ruling suits you as well.”

  “Par?”

  Amia nodded. “There would be others as well, I think. Doma would welcome you, as would Chenir. The Great Mother knows that even Incendin would welcome your rule.”

  “That is not for me. In Par, I only rule until another is ready,” he said. His hand slipped toward her stomach, already able to detect the first tugging of spirit from the boy growing within her belly. Like his sister, this child would be connected tightly to spirit, and in ways that Tan didn’t yet understand.

  The world was changing—had changed. Soon it would be his children’s to rule.

  He felt a relaxing surge of spirit, a warmth that settled over him, and he smiled. Tan didn’t know whether it came from Amia or Alanna.

  Maybe neither. Maybe it was the Mother telling him that he could finally relax.

  Tan leaned into Asboel, resting his hands on either side of his scaled body, noting the sense of the elementals all around him, and smiled.