Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire

by Holmberg, D. K.

  You think that is what the Mother asks of you?

  Tan met Asboel’s eyes. There was a deeper question to what he asked. I’m still trying to understand what the Great Mother asks of me.

  Asboel nudged the hatchlings to the side, giving him room to study Tan. You might find wisdom yet, Maelen. But you cannot keep everyone safe. That is not your task.

  What is my task? Tan asked.

  You will know when the Mother seeks to reveal her intention. But that is not why you’re here, is it, Maelen?

  Tan sighed. I will have to face Par-shon again, and probably soon. For that, I will need your help.

  You know I will hunt with you, Maelen.

  Everyone should have a choice. Even the elementals.

  Asboel snuffed, and steam hissed out from his nostrils. As I said, you might find wisdom yet.

  5

  An Enemy Returns

  When his summoning rune called to him, Tan answered, meeting Roine in the courtyard of the university. At this time of day, the walls of the university—walls shaped higher with each passing day—rose around him, creating gentle shadows across the courtyard. The air held dust from broken stone and a hint of must. A soft breeze blew through and sent fallen leaves spinning in wide circles.

  The king regent wore a thick green jacket with slashes of color sewn into the sleeves, and tight breeches that matched. A heavy ring on his first finger was new. Tan studied it before realizing that it had once been the king’s. It was good that Roine was finally settling into his role.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  Roine craned his head, trying to see behind Tan. “Only you? I expected Amia to be with you.”

  Tan shook his head. Since Tan had left Asboel last night, Amia had been intermittently sleeping and shaping. He didn’t need to be with her to sense how hard she worked.

  It troubled him that such a powerful shaping was necessary to try and heal Cora. Amia claimed that his spirit shaping was not to blame, but how much damage had he caused and how much of it was from Par-shon?

  “She’s working with the First Mother,” he said.

  When Roine reached absently to the warrior’s sword sheathed at his side, Tan realized how much he missed the matching sword he’d lost in Par-shon. Once, he had been an archer, but it had been months since he carried a bow, months since he had thought one necessary. The sword fit him better now, especially with the runes along the blade that would augment his shaping.

  “Then it will be the two of us.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Roine’s mouth pulled in a tight line. “Business of the throne, I suppose.”

  “Are you sure I should be going?”

  Roine eyed Tan. A flat expression crossed his face, pulling at the corners of his eyes. The soft nod said that he’d come to a decision. “When we met, you knew me as Roine, Athan to King Althem. I had been Athan for over a decade before Althem died. All of this,” he said, sweeping his hand around him, “is new to me. I might sit the throne, but it’s temporary. Even so, it’s time that I have an Athan as well.” He watched Tan as he spoke.

  “Roine, I—”

  “You’re the most qualified. There will be others who can speak with my voice, but for now, it will be only you.” Roine arched his brow. “Do you accept?”

  Tan considered how to answer. He was already tied to the kingdoms by the sense of duty that drove him, but he’d never had any formal responsibility, not like the university shapers who owed the king a term of service. Tan had missed acquiring such service when the university was destroyed, but even then, he had served regardless, knowing that it was the only thing he could do. Now Roine was asking him to take on a mantle of responsibility in a more formal way. Would it restrict him if he felt the need to do something different than what Roine wanted?

  Had it ever restricted Roine?

  “You’re keeping me waiting?” Roine asked with a laugh.

  “I… I don’t know that I’m the right person. I don’t know if others will listen to me—”

  “I wish I would have said the same when Althem asked me. Maybe things would have been different. But you’re one of the few whose judgment I can trust completely. We might not always agree on how to do what needs done, but I’ve never doubted your motivation, Tannen. I need you for this.” He grunted. “And the others will come around. They do not know you as I do. You have come to your abilities in a… non-traditional route.”

  “In some ways, I’d say it’s more traditional.”

  Tan met Roine’s eyes, saw the request burning within them. Could he accept? If he did, what would it mean for him? How tied to the kingdoms would he become?

  Roine waited, his face unreadable. Finally, Tan nodded.

  “Good,” Roine said with a relieved sigh. He handed Tan a thick band of dark gray, different than the silver band that he’d worn to mark himself as Athan. “Thought I would make my own. There’s nothing really special about it, only the rune of office.”

  Tan studied the ring, noting that the rune comprised parts of each element. “That’s it?”

  Roine shrugged. “I’m not so formal as Althem. I had a ceremony and a celebration, but I didn’t think you’d want anything like that.” Roine smiled. “Besides, I don’t have the title before my name to make the rest necessary. If I ever manage to find his heir, I can get back to what I prefer anyway. We’ve found a few who are promising, but it will take time,” Roine said.

  “And what is it that you prefer?” Tan asked.

  “The same as you,” Roine said with a laugh, then he glanced to the sky. “Shall we?”

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the Aeta. They requested an audience with the king. Since I’m all there is, I guess I have to go.”

  Tan hesitated and sent word to Amia through the bond. He sensed her resting, not shaping. She stirred and came awake.

  “Wait,” he said.

  Roine’s shaping had been building and it released with a soft pop. “What is it?”

  “With the Aeta, Amia should be with us.”

  “You said she was working with the First Mother.”

  Tan nodded. “She has been. She was sleeping.”

  “You could tell that?”

  How much of his bond to Amia had he shared with Roine? To him, they were connected, a couple, but Roine didn’t know that Tan could speak to her in a way that he’d never spoken to another person before. Well, other than Elle, but that had taken incredible focus and required her to be near him.

  “We’re bonded, Roine.”

  Tan watched his reaction. Roine didn’t say anything, but nodded slowly. “Bonded. Well, that makes more sense than what I’d been thinking. Spirit to spirit?”

  “How do you—”

  Roine laughed. “You’re not the only one who’s spent time in the archives, Tan. Before I was Athan, I spent enough time that the archivists threatened to forcibly remove me. Only the fact that I’m a warrior permitted me increased access. Now I wonder if Althem had some role in it, too.”

  Roine frowned and scrubbed a hand across his face. His eyes were drawn and clouded, with his mouth pinched in a pained expression. “So much of what happened with Althem is hard to describe. How much of what I did was because of me, and how much was I shaped? I have memories of my interest in searching the archives for knowledge from the ancients, but was that interest always mine, or had it been added?” He shook his head. “I now know that he wanted the artifact all along. Maybe I was used, maybe that interest was placed so that I could begin the search on my own.” His smile was tight and did not reach his eyes. “Or maybe it has always been me. You cannot begin to understand how it is when you question everything you’ve ever done. Now that he’s gone, I feel freed, but sometimes I get this strange sense of anxiety, as if everything I’ve ever chosen was not mine.”

  “The fact that you worry about it tells me that you’re fine.”

  “And the fact that I can have you as Athan provides me
with peace of mind,” Roine said. “With everything you’ve seen, you are the only person who can tell me if I’m not thinking straight.” He met Tan’s eyes and held them. “I trust you, Tannen. More than I can explain.”

  They both turned as Amia entered the courtyard. Her long golden hair was pulled into a braid. The band around her neck matched her hair. She studied both Tan and Roine and her hands gripped the fabric of her dress. “You’re going to them.”

  “We are. The Aeta requested to meet with the king,” Roine said.

  “I’m no longer one of the Aeta.”

  Roine sighed softly. “I understand. And you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. My Athan seemed to think you would, though.”

  “Athan?” There was another question as Amia met Tan’s eyes, but she held it back from him. “What does that mean for him?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid. A marker of office. He can speak with my voice, for whatever that’s worth.”

  “You know what that is worth. And you know where that will lead him,” she said to Roine. “You want this?” she asked Tan.

  Tan didn’t yet know what he wanted. A chance for peace so that he could simply be with Amia. The opportunity to understand his gifts. But serving in this role made a certain sort of sense. He was a warrior now, more skilled than he’d been even a month ago. With his connection to the elementals, he understood the land better than most. And with what he’d seen in Par-shon, he understood the risk better than anyone other than Roine and his mother.

  “It’s a responsibility I think I need to accept.”

  He felt her uncertainty, but she said nothing as she took his hand. “Do you know what this will mean for you?” she asked softly. Next to them, Roine started his shaping, pulling it toward him and disappearing in a flash of white lightning.

  “For me? Nothing has changed. I’m the same person. I feel the same way I did before. Par-shon needs to be stopped. We need to understand the elementals. The kingdoms need to be kept safe.”

  Amia nodded. “All of that is true.” She kissed his cheek as he began the shaping that would carry them toward the Aeta. She seemed to bite back whatever else she was thinking, holding it away from the bond. Then she laughed softly. “There’s something else you probably didn’t consider.”

  Tan frowned at her. “What’s that?”

  “Your mother. Now you outrank her.”

  Tan laughed as he pulled the shaping toward them, lifting them into the air on a streak of lightning. With this shaping, he had to have a sense of direction, to know where he was going. He guided them to the place where he’d last seen the Aeta, coming down to the ground in a rumbling bolt of power.

  They were alone. There was no sign of Roine.

  Tan should have known that the Aeta wouldn’t have been in the same place. Days had passed since then and the wagons would have rolled onward. How had Roine known where to go, then? Probably another trick of shaping that Tan still didn’t know.

  The summoning coin in his pocket vibrated and Tan focused on it and followed it with another shaping.

  When they landed, Roine was watching him, a smile on his face. He stood on a small rise, a cluster of elm trees to his left and the sun high overhead. In Ethea, it had been overcast, the clouds covering the sun, but here in what Tan presumed to be Ter, the sun was high and not quite warm.

  The Aeta caravan camped at the bottom of a gentle hill, stopped in a tight circle as if to trade, though none of the windows were open like they were when they traded. The paint of these wagons was faded, different than most of the Aeta he’d seen before, almost as if scrubbed free. A line of people stood in front of the wagons, looking up the hill. If there was a spirit shaper with them, they might have known they were coming.

  “I overshot,” Tan said.

  “You’ll need to learn to travel less directly.”

  “Less direct?”

  “Because you can shape spirit, your shaping is a little different than mine. Whatever you do takes you directly where you intend. My shaping is a little less precise and it takes a moment or two longer, but has its uses. Like this,” Roine said, indicating the wagons in front of them.

  “How did you know they were here?” Amia asked.

  Roine nodded toward the Aeta. “They sent word.”

  She turned, looking to the north and Ethea. “The Aeta sent word? To Ethea?”

  “They shaped it,” he said.

  Her eyes tightened.

  Tan studied the Aeta, wondering which one would be the shaper. “We once thought shaping rare among the Aeta,” Tan said.

  “It is,” Amia said. “At least, I thought it was.”

  “Then how is it that we’ve come across it as often as we have?”

  “I… I don’t know. Maybe the First Mother hid the frequency from others. Maybe there is only weak shaping strength in some. When she taught me to shape, she made it seem like my ability is rare.”

  “Your ability is rare. I’ve seen you working with the First Mother. The way that you shape is about more than strength. You’ve got a delicacy to it that I cannot even fathom. I’ve watched you and don’t think that I could even come close to what I see you doing so easily.”

  “It’s for Cora,” Amia said softly. “And for you. You’ve said that what she knows might be important. I still need to learn where she’s from.”

  Roine’s eyes widened as she spoke.

  “That’s hidden from us despite everything that we’ve done. But I can tell she had strength once. She has known shaping, and she knew the elementals. I only wish I could figure out which one. That’s why I keep pushing.”

  Tan suspected it was about more than just helping Cora. Amia was learning how to use her ability from the only person alive who might be able to teach her. And if telling herself that she did it for Cora was the only way that she would do it, then Tan thought it worthwhile.

  “Well, I don’t know who summoned, only that there was a request to meet with the Aeta,” Roine said.

  “How did you know it was from the Aeta?” Tan asked.

  Roine hesitated, his eyes straining toward the Aeta waiting below. They stood watching, not moving. “Trust that I know. Come. We should not keep them waiting,” Roine said.

  He started down the slope on a shaping of air. Tan thought it odd that he didn’t answer the question, but then again, Roine was now essentially the king. He didn’t have to answer.

  Tan leaned into Amia. “Are you ready for this?”

  She brushed away a stray strand of hair. “I came for you, not for them.”

  Tan bit back a comment. She likely knew what he was going to say anyway.

  He readied a shaping of wind and drew upon Honl, lifting himself and Amia onto a cloud of wind, and used that to follow Roine. They caught him and made their way down the slope next to him, side by side.

  Roine slowed as they approached the Aeta and Tan followed, lowering himself and Amia to the ground. Roine stepped forward and bowed slightly at the neck as he approached the gathered Aeta.

  They stood in a line. There were two women among them, so either could be the Mother. A large man with a bulging belly stood to one end. He had tattoos along each arm, twisting and winding until they faded behind his shirt. A large hoop hung from his ear.

  Two other men stood on the far end of the line. One was slender and slight, with dull gray eyes. The other was of average build and seemed to focus anywhere but on them.

  Tan stayed back a few steps as they approached, holding a shaping ready in case it was needed. Fire. He always defaulted to fire.

  “I am Theondar Roardan,” Roine said as he approached. “I serve as king regent. There was a summons.”

  Tan tensed as he waited for the response. The Aeta had been offered safety in the kingdoms, but summoning the king was something different. This was asking for help, unless Roine had read it wrong.

  One of the Aeta stepped forward. She was small and older, though not old, with wide hips and a dress that hung lim
p around her frame. Her brown hair looked dull and had no gray streaking through it.

  She leaned forward, pressing her hand across her stomach. “I am Meltha, the Mother of this caravan,” she started. Her voice was thready and barely carried across the distance. “Thank you for coming, but there was no summons. We are simply here for trade.”

  She cannot shape. Amia’s voice surged through their connection.

  Tan studied Meltha, wondering how Roine would have been summoned if Meltha couldn’t shape. How would any of the Aeta send a summons and manage to reach Roine in Ethea?

  He could think of only one way. There was an archivist among them.

  Tan shaped spirit, letting it wash out from him, no longer caring who might recognize that he was shaping spirit. If there was an archivist among the Aeta, he would know.

  None of the people standing in a line in front of them could shape. He stretched out with a combination of earth sensing and spirit, reaching toward the wagons. With earth sensing, he could sense all of the people within the caravan; with spirit, he could tell where there might be an absence.

  He sensed it in the middle wagon at the back of the caravan. There were two people in the wagon, though spirit sensing only picked up one.

  He’s in the wagon, Tan told Amia.

  “The kingdoms has offered protection to the Aeta. You no longer have to wander. We have seen the suffering of the People and would like it ended,” Roine said.

  The Mother bowed her head. “Your offer is appreciated, but the People have wandered for centuries. There is no need for our travels to end.”

  A shaping built from within the wagon. It targeted Roine but split and reached toward both Tan and Amia as well. Tan suspected that Roine had protected his mind from shaping but worried what would happen were the archivist as powerful as the First Mother.

  Roine nodded. “Then we welcome your trade. As you no doubt know, the barrier has fallen. The ancient protection between the kingdoms and Incendin is no more. But we offer safety while you are in our lands.”