Or would the king feel the same fear Roine did?
Roine answered, preventing Tan from needing to. “The creatures were enormous. And terrifying.”
“Where are they now?”
Roine shook his head. “I don’t know.”
The king breathed out slowly. “They must be observed. There are reasons the ancient shapers hunted the draasin. How many did we lose to those beasts?”
Roine snorted. “You know as well as I do that I’m no scholar, Althem.”
“Creatures from a time when we had hundreds of warriors, some whose sole purpose was hunting draasin.” He took a shuddering breath. “I remember learning how they would tear through the shapers, killing more than any lisincend ever did.” He fixed Tan with a hard expression. “And you’ve loosed them upon the kingdoms.”
“There are but three—”
“For now.”
“For now,” Roine agreed.
“If they show signs of a threat…”
Roine nodded. “I have been monitoring them.”
Jishun’s eyes narrowed. “You said they were shaped?”
Roine nodded. “The archivists were right about the Aeta.”
Jishun’s lips pulled into a thin line. “They are shapers.”
Roine nodded.
“I fail to see how that helped with the draasin,” Jishun said.
Tan interrupted, annoyed with how they spoke around him. He couldn’t believe Roine would share Amia’s ability to shape so openly. That was her secret to share. And he knew the draasin would not harm man. He had felt the shaping take hold and settle around them.
“You fail to see it because you can’t speak to them,” Tan said. “If you could, you would know the draasin will not hunt man.”
Jishun snorted softly. “You think one Aeta managed to do what countless warriors have tried.”
Tan shrugged. “I don’t know what countless warriors tried. Maybe they never tried a spirit shaping on the elementals—”
“Because it would not work.”
Tan shook his head. “It did work.”
“How—”
The king cut Jishun off. “And if they attack in spite of what he claims? What will you do?”
Jishun looked from Roine to the king. His eyes narrowed as if he heard something no one else could hear. “I must see what I can discover about the draasin. If you will excuse me?”
The king waved a hand and Jishun disappeared through a hidden door.
“Will you do what is needed, then?”
A pained look spread across Roine’s face. “I have always served the kingdoms.”
The king snorted. “You have always served as you see fit, Theondar. As far as most know, you are Roine, merely one of my Athan.”
Tan wondered how Roine would react to mention of his past. The one time they’d spoken about it, Roine had made it clear he was no longer Theondar. Theondar had been a warrior for the kingdoms, a man of arrogance matched only by his skill. Roine… Roine meant tainted in the ancient language, but Tan had never learned why Roine considered himself tainted.
Roine glanced at Tan. “There are benefits to remaining hidden.”
“Lacertin knows you still live.”
“Lacertin never believed I was gone.”
The king shook his head. “If it comes to it… if I need a warrior…”
Roine took a long breath and nodded.
“All those years we sought the artifact, and now look what you’ve found. Not just the artifact, but also a long lost great elemental. And him.” He motioned to Tan. “An earth senser who speaks to fire and water.”
Roine looked over. “You understand my interest.”
Tan did not, but remained silent.
“Has he shown any signs of shaping?”
Roine glanced at him. His mouth tightened. “There have been signs.”
The king rubbed his chin, eyes distant as if lost in thought. “Earth? It would make sense, given his father.”
Roine shook his head.
“Water? Did the nymid teach him their shaping?”
Roine shook his head again.
“Not fire. The draasin do not teach. That is not the way of their kind. They command and destroy.”
Roine held Tan’s gaze. “Not fire,” Roine agreed. “It was wind he shaped.”
CHAPTER 6
Possibilities
Tan shook his head. “I can’t…” He looked from Roine to the king. How could Roine say something like that? “I haven’t shaped the wind. My mother was the wind shaper.”
The king nodded. “Zephra served well. She willingly went to Galen, Grethan with her, and served. Such power… without them, the barrier would have fallen long ago.” The king looked at Roine. “What type of shaping did you witness?”
“None I saw.”
Tan’s heart loosened in his chest. If Roine had seen him shaping—even unintentionally—wouldn’t he have said something?
“But there was a time while climbing where Amia—the Aeta girl with us—” the king nodded “—slipped from the rocks. A shaping lifted her. It was not one I crafted.”
He turned and looked at Tan.
Tan remembered what happened. He had nearly lost Amia that day. She’d slipped, almost falling back to the brutal shore below. A gust of wind caught her and lifted her. Tan couldn’t deny the wind had been shaped; he felt the pressure building as it happened: pressure he now recognized as shapings.
But he hadn’t done it.
Though if what Roine said were true, if he had managed a wind shaping, what would it mean?
“So he is an earth senser, speaks to the water and fire elementals, and you think he shaped wind.” The king came around the throne and stood in front of Tan. He looked up at him, tapping his finger on his chin. “How long has it been?”
Roine sighed. “Too long.”
“Yet he’s almost too old to learn. Did Zephra know?”
“I think she suspected. I believe she tried sending him to Ethea for several years, but he did not wish to come.”
The king turned and looked at him. “You understand what we’re talking about?”
Tan blinked. They finally noticed him again! “Roine thinks I could be a warrior.”
The king nodded. “There has not been a warrior since before you were born. None of our shapers show any talent.” He nodded toward Roine. “I sent him for the artifact, but he might have returned with something nearly as important, especially since the artifact does not seem to be effective.”
Tan shook his head. “I’m not even a shaper. Even if Roine is right and I shaped wind—” the idea seemed nearly impossible, but Tan couldn’t escape the logic to it “—I can’t even shape earth, and I’m an earth senser. What makes you think I can learn to shape well enough to be a warrior?” He couldn’t believe he was even having this argument, and with the king!
The king motioned him to walk and they moved away from the throne. He led them to the nearest pillar. There, on the surface of the marble, was a depiction of a man sitting on the shore of the ocean, waves crashing against rocks. A face appeared in the water.
“You know what this is?” the king asked.
“Probably udilm,” Tan answered.
The king nodded. “And this represents one of our earliest shapers speaking to udilm. The great elemental is responding, answering the call.” The king touched the surface of the pillar, tracing the outline of the face in the water. “But if you look carefully, you will see something more. You will see the man is listening.”
Tan frowned but studied the sculpting. As he did, he saw what the king meant, how the shaper leaned toward the face in the waves, his head tipped to the side. This was not a shaper commanding the elemental, this was a shaper listening—learning from—the elemental.
“Years ago, when the kingdoms had many warriors, scholars debated whether shapers who could speak to the elementals were more skilled than those who couldn’t.” He laughed softly. “Now we don’t ev
en have the opportunity to have such a debate. We have no warriors and few speak to the elementals. I cannot help but think they are related.”
Tan looked at the pillar again and circled around it. He noted how the face of udilm reminded him of the face he’d seen of the nymid. Perhaps udilm and nymid were more closely related than the scholars thought, or perhaps they simply took on a similar form for shapers.
The king led him to the next pillar. Wind whipped through, carrying the shaper. Ara was depicted as lithe and light, barely more corporeal than the wind itself. They moved on to the next pillar, one where golud stood like a massive boulder, unmoving. A broad shaper stood alongside, huge arms flexing as the shaper worked to lift golud.
“You see how they once worked together?” he asked, motioning to the pillars.
Tan nodded, but as he did, he looked away from the king, eyes settling on the stone pillar where the draasin were sculpted in the marble. In the relief, even from where he stood, he saw the almost arrogant way the draasin stared at the shaper standing on the ground, as if the shaper knelt before the draasin. Tan took a step toward the carving. As he did, the image seemed to shift, casting the shaper in a different light, leaving the draasin looking like it flew away from the shaper, as if chased.
He shook his head and sighed, rubbing his neck. They were hunters, powerful and swift, but they were intelligent as well. Whatever relationship the shaper would have could not be one of subservience or dominance. Either would fail. The draasin, more than even the nymid, needed a partnership, one of mutual respect.
“What can I do?” Tan asked. “Would you have me speak to the nymid and find out if they know what happened?”
The king pursed his lips. “I cannot ask of you what the best scholars have failed to learn.” He grunted. “You are still untrained. Uneducated. But if Incendin continues to push, we will need strength.” He turned to Tan. “Warriors thought forgotten will return. Already Lacertin has shown himself.” He glanced at Roine. “And though he fights it, Theondar must return.”
Roine’s mouth tightened, but he said nothing.
The king shook his head. “A war is coming, one we may no longer have the resources to fight. Without the shapers we once had, Incendin may find the kingdoms easier to attack.” He paused, as if seeing the question on Tan’s face. “Oh, we still have shapers, but even this generation of shapers has changed, weaker than the one before it. So for you to appear—someone with the potential to become not just a shaper, but a warrior—” He shook his head. “I need you to learn what you can. Discover your strength as you learn to shape. And then…” He shook his head again. “Then you might be of use.”
The king started away and Tan frowned. Was that it? The entire reason Roine brought him to see the king was to be told to study more?
“Wait—”
The king paused and turned to face Tan. He watched him with a hard expression.
“Is that the only reason you brought me here?”
The king frowned. “You question your king?”
Tan swallowed. He needed to be careful. “I only question why Roine brought me to you.”
The king smiled, though it looked more like a sneer. “It was your reward.”
“Reward?”
The king nodded. “You helped my Athan. Without your help, he would not have succeeded in securing the artifact. For that, you were granted the opportunity to meet your king. That is your reward.”
With that, the king continued back out of the throne room, disappearing behind a hidden door.
Tan stood for a moment, rubbing the back of his neck, before turning to Roine.
Roine watched him, an unreadable expression on his face. “You don’t care for your reward?”
Tan considered his answer for a moment before replying. “I don’t care for my king.”
Roine surprised him by laughing. “It doesn’t matter if you care for him. Only that you obey.”
Tan blinked; the answer surprised him. From what he’d seen of Roine—and the stories he’d heard of Theondar—it was unlikely that he always followed his orders. “So you will obey? Will Theondar really return?”
Pain lined Roine’s eyes. Tan knew little about what Roine had lost, about what prompted him to abandon who he once was and take up the name Roine, but he knew what Roine had said. Theondar was gone.
“I don’t know if he can,” Roine said softly.
Tan opened his mouth to say something, to remind Roine of how he’d battled Lacertin and survived, but closed it when he saw the expression on his face. “What now? Do you really think I could become a warrior?”
Roine nodded toward the wide double doors they’d come in through and led Tan out of the throne room. They made their way silently, only the steady echoes of their boots across the stone disturbing the quiet. Tan glanced one more time at the pillar depicting the draasin. From this angle, the shapers on the relief appeared to be glaring at the draasin.
Even the ancients had an uncomfortable alliance with the draasin, and they had shapers of spirit. What made Tan think he could do anything differently than them? What made him believe he could control the draasin any better?
Except it wasn’t about control.
They reached the doors and Roine shaped them open. He paused back in the hall and turned to Tan, his eyes drifting past the portraits of kings. “When I first met you, I learned you were a skilled earth senser,” Roine said. He moved down the hall, occasionally looking up as he did. “Zephra said you were much like your father.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “It is unfortunate she didn’t escape the Incendin attack. Much has been kept from you.”
Tan looked back at Roine, his mind racing with what he was hearing. His mother kept the fact that she was a wind shaper from him for reasons Tan had never learned. If she’d kept that from him—something important about her past—it made sense that she’d keep other things from him as well.
Could there be more he didn’t know about his father?
The king hinted at more, Tan suddenly realized.
He swallowed, a dizzying sense coming over him. “He was a shaper, wasn’t he?”
Roine took a deep breath and nodded. “Zephra was powerful and proud. Strong-headed. Only another, equally strong, could be her match.”
His father being an earth shaper made a twisted sort of sense. He always seemed so at ease in the woods, never afraid, even when tracking the massive mountain wolves.
Tan shook his head. “Why? Why didn’t they tell me?”
“I don’t know. I suspect they wanted to protect you somehow.”
“But we lived in Nor… we lived so near the border!”
“And they served their part. They powered the barrier. That was the price of leaving Ethea.”
Was that why his mother wanted him to come to the university? Had she wanted him to learn to shape to relieve her of her duty? “What happens now that they’re gone?”
“Others have replaced them. When Grethan—” Roine tried offering a comforting smile. “When your father was called to the border, another took his place protecting the barrier. It might be why Incendin targeted Nor and Velminth.”
Tan looked away. The long hall stretched in front of him. Marble and silver gilding and rows of portraits, all seeming so unnecessary. He hadn’t noticed before, but lanterns hung on walls like those he’d seen in the cavern. Soft light glowed from them.
“And because both my parents were shapers…”
Tan didn’t finish. He couldn’t finish.
Roine touched his shoulder. “Your parents were skilled, and that makes it more likely you could be a shaper, but it doesn’t guarantee anything.”
They stepped back out of the palace. Bright sunlight shone overhead. Roine nodded toward the grove of trees. “You know you’re an earth senser. That has never been hidden from you, though you seem to have some doubts as to your strength. Strong sensers often learn to shape. Not always, but usually.”
Tan nodded. “But I�
��ve never shown enough strength to be a shaper,” he argued.
Roine laughed softly. “Perhaps compared to your father. Grethan… well, Grethan was an incredible earth shaper. A Master. Were it not for your mother, I suspect he would have remained at the university.” Roine nodded toward the section of the palace courtyard where tall grasses grew. “And if not Ethea, he would have returned to Ter, to work the land as his parents did. But your mother—” a wistful tone came to his voice “—she was something more than a Master. Her control of the wind was exquisite, almost as if she were one of the elementals herself.” Roine smiled. “She steered your father toward Galen. She wanted to leave the university but saw a need to still serve.”
“You knew them.”
Roine swallowed. “I knew them.”
During the time they spent searching for the artifact, Tan had learned Roine knew his mother, but he hadn’t known how well. Roine spoke of her with remembered fondness. They were friends.
“And I know your mother cared for you. Had she known you could speak to the nymid, she would have seen what you could become. Had that been it, had you only spoken to the nymid, I could have believed you were merely meant to be an earth shaper. I recognized your sensing strength early in our journey. But then you spoke to the draasin.” Roine sighed. “Earth. Water. Fire. Too many elements to be only a shaper. I thought your strength was in earth, but when Amia nearly fell and the wind caught her, I realized I was wrong.” He looked Tan in the eyes. “There must have been other times where you accidentally summoned the wind?”
Tan started shaking his head, but stopped. There had been another time. When the hounds chased him. He’d been stuck in the trees, trapped, saved only by the sudden return of the steady winds of Galen.
Could that have been him?
“I see there might be.” He chuckled softly. “For me, it started with a single element. I was a reasonable wind senser, but when I learned to shape…” He shook his head. “I realized I could sense other elements. Water. Earth. Fire last.” He shrugged. “Probably why that’s always been weakest for me. Not spirit. No warriors were spirit shapers.”
Bound by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 2) Page 6