Fortress of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Tan looked at his hands. Roine and the others had been right. He shouldn’t have tried saving the lisincend. After what they had done to the world, they didn’t really deserve saving.

  Come, Maelen, let us hunt together tonight. You will forget.

  Tan shook the dark thoughts out of his mind and stood. Let us hunt.

  * * *

  They soared high overhead, the city of Ethea growing ever more distant, nothing but a darkness far behind him. Villages streamed past, but Asboel never flew close enough to be a threat. Knowing what he did of the draasin, how had shapers ever felt the need to hunt the great elementals? They wanted nothing more than to hunt, though Tan didn’t understand why they should need to hunt and feed when he’d never gotten that sense from ara or the nymid. Perhaps the draasin really were different from the other elementals. Tan wondered why that should be.

  Clouds drifted past and it would have been cool if not for the heat radiating from Asboel. Tan held tightly to one of the spikes on his back, settled comfortably atop him. He felt a moment of peace. How many people could ever say they had ridden one of the draasin?

  Awareness of Amia surged through their bond, worry gnawing at her. He sent her the image of him soaring with Asboel, using it to reassure her. She seemed appeased by it and Tan released the immediacy of the connection.

  Where would you hunt? Asboel asked.

  Nara, Tan sent. He formed the image of the map he’d seen in the lower archives, and Asboel understood. How much of the map had been accurate when Asboel still hunted, before the time he’d been frozen in the lake? They banked, turning hard as his massive wings beat at the wind, sending them higher and higher until at last Asboel lowered his head and dove.

  Wind swirled around them. Mist shimmered from the heated spikes, sending moisture spraying onto Tan’s face. Translucent shapes like faces appeared and then disappeared rapidly; Tan had always seen the wind elemental when he rode the draasin.

  The air changed as they flew, growing warmer. The greens and browns of Ter, the flowing expanse of fields and small farms, shifted, slowly sliding into burned orange of the sandy desert that covered much of Nara. Like Incendin, Nara was a hot land, one tormented by the sun and lack of moisture, a place where fire thrived.

  Asboel swooped, circling a shadow moving along the ground. The image of a deer-like creature darting across the ground filled Tan’s mind. Asboel dove for it, reaching the animal before it could even register that it had been hunted, and grabbed it in massive claws, pulling it apart and eating as they climbed.

  Asboel seemed content. Another shadow appeared, the dark shape sliding through the sky. Tan looked over and saw the other draasin, Sashari, as she flew alongside Asboel. Tan focused on her and felt the distant sense of her within his mind, though it seemed to come more from Asboel than from any connection to her.

  And the youngest?

  She hunts, Asboel said.

  There was a hesitancy Tan only felt through the connection. She does not need to hide from me.

  Enya had no control. That is unusual for the draasin. It frightened her. That is another thing that is unusual.

  Tan hadn’t seen her since the archivists used the shaping Amia placed on the draasin to keep them from hunting man and twisted it, turning it so that she was under their control. To save Asboel, she had released that shaping, at least for Asboel. Tan had never given much thought about if the shaping remained upon the other draasin.

  Are the others still constrained?

  You ask if the Daughter’s shaping remains?

  Yes.

  It remains.

  But not for you? Tan asked.

  No.

  Would you like it removed from them?

  Asboel snorted. The shaping is not as limiting as you would believe, Maelen. We still hunt. We fly. That is all the draasin require.

  They flew for a while longer. Why did they hunt you? The ancient warriors, I mean. Why did they hunt the draasin?

  Not so ancient, Maelen. The draasin experience the world in a way you will never fully understand. We serve fire. We protect fire. We are fire. Can you stop fire from burning through the dry grass? Can you stop the brightness of lightning? Can you turn off the sun? Such are the draasin. We are. We hunt. That is enough.

  Tan hugged the spike. There is more to it. Why did they hunt the draasin?

  You ask the draasin why your kind would hunt mine?

  Firelight danced in the distance and Asboel turned toward it. Tan heard the vague sense of alarm and realized it came from Sashari.

  What does she fear?

  Asboel sent an image to Tan.

  Tan sat rigid atop the draasin. The vision Asboel provided him more than enough information to know what happened: Incendin burned.

  Tan didn’t know exactly what he saw, but flames anchored against the night, shining against the coming darkness in such a way that he felt them. There was a draw to the flames, the same way as when he’d been changed by fire, nearly twisted into one of the lisincend. Asboel felt it too. The draasin did not have to fight the pull of fire in the same way Tan did, but the draw was there just the same. Power erupted from the flames, more than Tan could imagine.

  What is it? Tan asked.

  Fire.

  I can see that.

  No. Asboel pushed through the image of the fire in the distance again. This time, Tan truly saw it, could see through the flames, and recognized the dark lines worked within it. The Fire Fortress.

  He’d heard of it. Lacertin had lived within the Fire Fortress for years, secluded to prove to Incendin that he could be a loyal fire shaper. Had he not, how much would have been lost? So many years were spent with Lacertin viewed as a traitor to the kingdoms when he was actually a hero.

  Does it always burn like that?

  Asboel turned, arching his body again away, twisting so they departed Incendin lands. We have watched Fire in these lands many times since our release. Always it burns atop the towers, but this is the brightest it has ever been.

  What does it mean?

  A warning.

  What kind of warning? Tan wondered.

  Asboel either couldn’t—or wouldn’t—answer.

  * * *

  The return flight was much faster. As they flew, Tan felt a sense of agitation from the draasin. Asboel might not admit to it, but something about the fires in Incendin upset him. Tan suspected the draasin still hadn’t gotten over the pain of losing the hatchlings. He didn’t understand—couldn’t understand—what it was like to suffer such a loss, but he had known loss in his life. His father. His home. His past life. Except Tan suspected the loss Asboel had suffered throughout his life made Tan’s pale in comparison.

  The draasin landed atop the rocks where he’d first found Tan. Sashari circled overhead, not landing. Tan felt a distant sense from her as well. Hunt well.

  Asboel twitched his tail. Maelen.

  Tan recognized the hesitation. If he didn’t ask, he would regret losing the opportunity. What is it? What did you see?

  Asboel sighed with a gust of steam from his nostrils. Fire burned brightly in that place before the hatchlings were destroyed. Now it threatens again.

  With Incendin, I suspect fire always threatens.

  This is different.

  Tan turned and faced the south, toward Incendin. Were he still atop Asboel, he might be able to use the draasin’s sight and see the Fire Fortress, but here, on the ground, he could see nothing more than trees. The darkness stifled him, making him feel limited. Times like these, he wished for the sight he’d known when fire had twisted him.

  Can you explain?

  Fire consumes. You know this, Maelen. You nearly lost yourself.

  You keep telling me that the draasin are fire.

  Asboel lowered his head and shook it. The draasin are fire. But fire is the draasin. I cannot put it in terms you would understand.

  Try.

  Asboel stood on his back legs, towering over him. Heat radiated from his body
, pressing out between spikes and scales. In the cool air of the evening, steam misted from him, leaving a soft layering around the clearing, almost like a cloud settling from the sky.

  I must learn what this is. If Twisted Fire thinks to attack again, I will know. You must not interfere, Maelen. I cannot guarantee your safety.

  Asboel. Let me help.

  The draasin took to the wind with a powerful beating of wings. This is not yours to fight. I do not fear Twisted Fire. Fire cannot harm the draasin. You need to remain here. Protect your kingdoms from Twisted Fire. Grow stronger. Then we can hunt.

  Asboel didn’t even give Tan the chance to respond. He turned and headed south once again, leaving Tan standing and staring after his bonded draasin and Sashari. Questions rolled through him. Why would the Fire Fortress burn brightly? What did it mean that it had when the hatchlings were killed?

  Were Lacertin still alive, he might have answers he needed, but Alisz had killed him during the assault on Ethea. Now they had to figure it out on their own. And because of him, the one creature that might have answers had been destroyed.

  5

  Lessons in Shaping

  Amia met him at the door as he returned. They’d taken over the small home where Elle had hidden the night he first met Sarah. The upper levels were sparsely furnished, little more than a few chairs and an old table, but the home was solid and secure, far removed from the destruction that had affected the rest of the city. Roine had suggested they stay in the palace with him, but Tan didn’t feel comfortable doing that. The reminder of what he’d been through—what his family had been through—because of Althem would be too much for him. Had it not been for Althem, Tan might still have a father.

  She barely waited for him to come in the door before she rounded on him. “What is it? What did you see?” She took his hands and pulled him into the room. “You saw something that troubles you.”

  Likely she felt it through the bond they shared, the same way he knew the annoyance she felt and the mild unease with his absence. “I went with Asboel. I needed…” he started and then shrugged, “time away. Silence. Something.”

  Amia squeezed his hands. “You blame yourself for what happened? Roine was going to have the lisincend destroyed! You’re the one who convinced him to give you a chance to try and save it.”

  Tan closed the door behind him, leaning against it as he looked around the small room. Amia had a lantern glowing with a soft, warm light near one of the chairs. A book was folded open and he realized she’d taken it from the archives. The hearth crackled with a warm fire. Curtains that normally covered the window were open, letting in the smells of the city. A hazy smoke still drifted over the city from the youngest draasin’s first attack. An occasional shout rang out and drifted up to them.

  Tan walked across the warm hardwood floor to the window and let the heavy curtain fall, drawing away the sounds and the smells of the city.

  “It turns out my mother—and the First Mother—were right. I thought I could save him,” he said. “And maybe I could, but I don’t know enough.” He lowered himself into one of the chairs next to the hearth and grabbed the book resting on the arm, flopping it onto his lap. The ancient map stared up at him as if expecting him to understand its secrets. Amia must have brought it here to study, maybe to help find answers together.

  Amia rested a hand on his shoulder. “There’s nothing you could have done. He didn’t want to be saved.”

  Tan flipped the pages in the book and tried to push out the image of the lisincend burning himself to death. The stench as the flames tore through the creature had been nearly more than he could stand. He closed the book and looked up at Amia. “I know that. Asboel knows that. It doesn’t make it any easier.”

  She squeezed. “I’m glad.” When he frowned, she explained, “You’ve said your mother worries about the fact that you were changed by fire, that you nearly transformed. I know you were restored. The Great Mother knows I can feel it. But they remain unconvinced that you’re entirely the same.”

  “I’m not entirely convinced I’m the same,” he said. “I can reach fire more easily than before. It’s not like that with the other elements.”

  Amia’s mouth tightened. “It will be in time. Your mother is right in that much at least. You need practice. And maybe it was good for them to see how hard you tried.”

  “And failed?”

  “But you tried. That’s more than anyone else can say. It shows them that you’re still you. You’re still Tan, not some early stage lisincend.”

  Tan laughed and pulled her down next to him. “Not that they could do much if I was. I’d end up bursting into flames like the lisincend.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “No, it’s not. And I’m not certain it would do anything to me anyway. Fire doesn’t effect me the same. At least, Asboel’s fire doesn’t burn me. Saa doesn’t burn when I shape with it.”

  Tan pulled on fire and it flickered into a tight spiral above his hand. As he held it, he felt the slight draw of the fire elemental to the shaping. Saa was there. He might not have the same connection to it as he did with the draasin—and Asboel in particular—but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a connection.

  He stared at the fire in the hearth, watching the flames leap and twist. He reached for the fire, shaping it, practiced sending it dancing one way or the other. When shaping, he had the distinct sense of power drawn out of him, pulled from some deep reservoir within him. His shapings would be limited by the power he could command. It was different with the elementals. By speaking to them, he could ask them elementals for assistance to increase his own power.

  He sent a request to saa. The lesser elemental floated about the flames, either made of fire or drawn to it. There was a vague sense of the elementals swirling about. With Tan’s request, saa sent the flames billowing up.

  “I didn’t know you spoke to saa,” Amia said, slipping her arm around him.

  “They’re always there. At least, in Ethea they are.”

  “Because we’re in a place of convergence.”

  Since battling with Althem, Tan had come to realize that elementals were drawn to Ethea, which was a place of convergence like the place in the mountains where he’d first met Asboel. What Tan didn’t understand was why these places of convergence existed.

  “That’s why Mother worries so much about my shaping. Outside of Ethea, when I’m away from such places, will the elementals even answer? Asboel will, but the others may not come when I summon them. Without the elementals, there’s not much I can do to help.”

  She gave him a tight squeeze and kissed him on the cheek. “You’ve always underestimated yourself, Tan. And you’ve always been stronger than you know.”

  “Asboel doesn’t want me to come with him. I think he fears I’m not strong enough for where he’s going.”

  “And where is that?”

  “He showed me the Fire Fortress.”

  She tensed and twisted to fix him with a hard, blue-eyed stare. “You went into Incendin?”

  “Barely to the border. We were in Nara, moving to the east, when Asboel saw flames burning more brightly in the Fire Fortress.”

  Amia pushed off his lap, moving to the chair across from him. “Burned? As in the fortress itself was on fire?”

  “There were flames, but it wasn’t like they consumed it. This was different. Asboel said they had burned brightly before the hatchlings were killed. I didn’t tell him, but that was about the time the twisted lisincend appeared. What if Incendin is making new lisincend?”

  Amia’s face went blank. Tan wanted to pull her back to him, to comfort her, but there was nothing he could say that would provide the needed comfort. It required the sacrifice of spirit shapers to make the twisted lisincend.

  “And you saw it?” she asked. “You saw the fortress burning?”

  “What I could. When I communicate with Asboel, some of it comes in images rather than words. He showed me what he saw through his eyes, but
he didn’t explain what it meant.”

  “We never traveled all the way to the fortress. Mother kept us along the borders for the most part. Until she decided to drag us into the heart of Incendin. That’s when the hounds got our scent and followed us. I remember seeing bright flames in the distance but not knowing what they were. What if that was the Fire Fortress?”

  “I don’t think anyone has ever really seen the Fire Fortress. Lacertin said he was trapped there for years, but other than him, no one really knows anything about what it’s like in Incendin.” Tan glanced over to the window, the curtains now closed and blocking most of the sound from the street below. Some wind whistled through the window and left the lower part of the thick curtain swirling on the ground. “Had I not made a mistake with the lisincend, we’d have him to ask.”

  Amia reached across the distance between them and touched his leg. “Do you really think he would’ve answered?”

  Tan sighed. Was that what the lisincend had warned about before burning himself up? Had he known what Incendin planned? “I don’t know. With enough spirit shaping, it’s possible.”

  “Those twisted lisincend used spirit in their creation. It resisted any attempt I made at learning what it knew. There was no shaping we could have done that would have helped us.”

  “That’s not the reason you wouldn’t try,” Tan said.

  Amia wouldn’t look at him. “I won’t shape like she did.” She took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. “There’s something more that you’re not sharing. What is it?”

  “Incendin should be defeated. Fur was stopped. Alisz after him. They no longer have the First Mother to turn the Doma shapers. In spite of all that, the Fire Fortress burns brightly. If they’re not creating new lisincend, what else could Incendin be doing? And now Asboel goes for vengeance, unwilling to bring me on the hunt with him.”

  “Good,” Amia said. When Tan gave her a look, she shook her head, golden hair spilling down her shoulders as she did. “Let others worry about Incendin for once. Haven’t you done enough?”