Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 (29 page)
Read Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 Online
Authors: D. K. Holmberg
Tags: #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Coming of Age, #Epic, #Sword & Sorcery, #Teen & Young Adult
L
acertin stood
at the edge of the rock overlooking the sea, waves crashing far below him. In the distance, a seagull cawed, but otherwise, there was nothing but the sea. The power of the waves sent a thrill through him each time it collided with the rocks. For the first time, Lacertin realized that water seemed stronger for him in Incendin.
Not only water, but the way the hot wind fluttered around him, pulling on the thin shirt he wore, swirling around his hair, was different as well. Stronger in some ways. He had yet to determine if earth was the same.
“You knew,” he said without turning. He hadn’t needed to turn to recognize the priest coming up to him. The man approached softly, but he had a distinct signature that pulled on Lacertin’s awareness, a mixture of fire and, strangely, something that reminded him of earth.
“I knew what, Lacertin Alaseth?”
A particularly large wave hit the shore, sending a mist of salty spray up the face of the cliff. Lacertin wiped it off his lips, but didn’t move. The rising sunlight demanded his attention, and he savored its warmth. Reflected colors from the sunset streaked across the water, orange and pink and reds, all mixing, shifting with the waves.
“You knew about Chasn.”
He still couldn’t believe that his brother was one of the lisincend, that he had embraced fire. Since returning to Incendin, he hadn’t seen Chasn again. He’d disappeared, gone wherever the lisincend went, but Lacertin had a feeling that he would see him again. If his time here had proven anything, it was that there was a purpose to everything.
“Issa called you for a reason, Lacertin Alaseth.”
He sighed. “Issa? Is that what you tell yourself?”
“You think there’s another answer?”
Lacertin faced him, pulling strength from the waves and the sunlight and pushing away the irritation that he’d felt. “You used me.”
“Issa called to you, and you answered.”
“How is it that I wasn’t freed before? You claim I wasn’t a prisoner.”
“You were not.”
“I find it interesting that you released me near the time my brother was trapped in the kingdoms.”
The priest smiled at him. “As I said—”
“Do not say Issa,” Lacertin warned.
The priest crossed his hands in front of him, gripping the Book of Issa. “How long do you think you have been in the Sunlands, Lacertin Alaseth?” he asked.
He shook his head. He’d lost track of the time during his initial imprisonment. It could have been weeks or even months. “I don’t know.”
“When you came to us, you cried out for answers. You were angry, and raged with each of the elements. It was all we could do to subdue you so that you could be tested.”
Lacertin swallowed. He hadn’t known how he reacted, only that he had come for answers. He had thought that he was subtler than that.
“Many thought you would fail, that we should return you to your kingdoms, but I saw promise in you.”
“Promise, or someone you could use?” He tried to hide the bitterness in his voice but knew that he failed.
“Not use,” the priest said. “Have I done anything to use you? Search within yourself, Lacertin Alaseth, and you will see that you already know the answer.”
The priest had done nothing but welcome him, and more warmly than he deserved. Had the reverse happened, had a shaper from Incendin come to the kingdoms, the welcome would have been much different. Did it matter if he’d been used?
And could he really claim that the priest had used him? Everything that he’d done had been his choice. Even saving the lisincend had been his choice.
No, the priest didn’t deserve the way Lacertin spoke to him. “I’m sorry. You don’t deserve my anger.”
“Your anger is understandable. You are not of the Sunlands. The testing would have been foreign to you. But if you understood the testing, you would understand that
I
could not have used you. The choice was Issa.”
“How long was I tested?” he asked.
The priest sighed. “You spent nearly two years.”
Lacertin’s breath caught. Two years. No wonder Jayna had appeared different when he saw her, and no wonder he knew none of the other shapers. He had been gone too long.
“What will happen with Chasn?” he asked the priest.
“Your brother embraced fire long ago. Those who do, they are changed.” The priest rested his hand on his arm. “The brother you knew is gone, Lacertin Alaseth.”
He turned and stared out over the ocean. “The brother he knew is gone, too,” he said softly. Lacertin didn’t even know who he was anymore, but it wasn’t a shaper of the kingdoms. He stood in silence for long moments, nothing but the water slamming into the rock. “What now?”
“The choice is yours, as it always has been.”
He couldn’t return to the kingdoms, not now, and not if he wanted to, which he no longer knew if he did. Strangely, he felt welcomed here in a way that he had never felt before. These were hard lands and a hard people, but their faith softened them. He had not expected that.
Then there was Cora. She was another surprise, and a pleasant one.
He looked up, sensing her approach. She smiled at him and slid toward him on a shaping of each of the elements. She’d grown stronger in the time that they’d returned.
Cora nodded to the priest as she took his hand.
“If I stay, does it matter that I don’t know whether I believe Issa chose me?” he asked the priest.
He smiled. “It is not for you to know. That is for you to discover over time.”
“Over time?”
“As I said, it is your choice whether you will serve. It is Issa’s choice to name you as a Servant.”
With that, the priest left him standing with Cora on the rocks overlooking the ocean.
She kissed him, and then they stood hand in hand, both of them listening to the waves, with the rising sunlight growing warmer on his skin.
Lacertin could almost believe that he had been chosen. Even if he weren’t, he’d found something unexpected, much like the priest had claimed he would. Nothing that he wanted, but everything that he needed.
He had found peace.
* * *
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f you enjoyed
the Cloud Warrior Saga, check out the first novel set in a new series:
The Dark Ability
.
Exiled by his family. Claimed by thieves. Could his dark ability be the key to his salvation?
Rsiran is a disappointment to his family, gifted with the ability to Slide. It is a dark magic, one where he can transport himself wherever he wants, but using it will only turn him into the thief his father fears.
Forbidden from Sliding, he’s apprenticed under his father as a blacksmith where lorcith, a rare, precious metal with arcane properties, calls to him, seducing him into forming forbidden blades. When discovered, he’s banished, sentenced indefinitely to the mines of Ilphaesn Mountain.
Though Rsiran tries to serve obediently, to learn to control the call of lorcith as his father demands, when his life is threatened in the darkness of the mines, he finds himself Sliding back to Elaeavn where he finds a black market for his blades - and a new family of thieves.
There someone far more powerful than him discovers what he can do and intends to use him. He doesn’t want to be a pawn in anyone’s ambitions; all he ever wanted was a family. But the darkness inside him cannot be ignored - and he’s already embroiled in an ancient struggle that only he may be able to end.
D
K Holmberg
currently lives in rural Minnesota where the winter cold and the summer mosquitoes keep him inside and writing.
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T
he Cloud Warrior Saga
O
thers
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T
he Dark Ability
A
lso in the
world of The Dark Ability
A Game of Tsatsun
: The Binders Game, Part 1
The Watcher’s Eyes
: The Binders Game, Part 2
Playing the Stone
: The Binders Game, Part 3
The Durven
: The Forgotten, Part 1
A Poisoned Deceit
: The Forgotten, Part 2
A Forgotten Return
: The Forgotten, Part 3
T
he Lost Garden
T
he Painter Mage
