Fortress Of Fire (Book 4)

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. Holmberg

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T
annen Minden sat
with his legs crossed in front of him, the cold stone floor of the cell beneath him and the stink of damp air filling the air around him. The shaping he performed came more easily than it once did, though still was not as effortless as what he knew was possible. For him to do what he knew necessary, for him to understand
why
he’d been given the gifts the Great Mother had given him, he would need to master not only speaking to the elementals but also shaping.

The First Mother stared at him, exasperation plain on her face. “You lose focus so easily. If you think to save this creature, then you will need focus.”

“I think my focus is fine,” Tan snapped. After spending the last two hours sitting across from this woman—the one who had nearly handed the kingdoms to a man determined to simply shape it to his whims—he was tired. His mind ached from the constant repetition of binding the air, water, earth, and fire together. Worse, there was the distant amusement he felt from Asboel. The draasin thought all of this quite a game. From Amia, he sensed only annoyance.

“Fine? If you’re to understand your gifts, you will need to be able to hold your focus regardless of what comes. You might never know you’re being shaped otherwise. And you know how they transformed. They stole from the People. This is not some simple shaper you plan to face.”

He shot her a look and then shook his head. She deserved his anger, but her punishment was severe enough as it was. No longer able to serve the Aeta, she was instead confined to this windowless room, held with chains wrapped to her ankles that kept her from going more than a dozen steps, and stuck teaching him what she knew of the ancient runes and of spirit shaping. She was one of the wandering people, now trapped for her crimes. What warmth could be found in the weak lanterns flickering in the room gave only enough light to see the bare, rock walls. Somehow, she still managed to carry herself as if she led.

Tan pulled on a shaping of fire and mixed it with elemental power. He no longer knew if it came from Asboel or one of the lesser elementals. He doubted that it mattered. Fire now came easily to him, flowing from him more freely than any of the other elements. He thought it from the fact that he’d bonded to Asboel, but he wasn’t certain. A nagging part deep within him worried that there was some residual effect from the way fire changed him. The nymid had restored him, but it was possible that fire still influenced him.

“I think I will do fine if needed.”

Her shaping built faster than he could react. As it did, Tan’s connection to the elementals was cut from him, sliced like a knife across his mind. A panic raged through him and he wrapped each of the elements together, binding spirit, and slammed it against her shaping. Her shaping snapped away from him.

“What was that?”

She fixed him with a dark stare. Flint gray eyes met his and didn’t look away, still carrying the intensity and vibrancy he’d noticed the first time he met her. Her one concession to her captivity, letting her silver hair hang loose and wild around her shoulders, magnified the effect. “You rely on the elementals when you need to learn to rely on yourself. A time may come when the elemental power is unavailable.” Her eyes softened, but only a little. “You have the power within you. I sense it, as does Amia. You lean on the elementals as a crutch.”

“I don’t ‘lean’ on them. That’s how my power works.”

She tipped her head toward the pulsing orange fire glowing in his hand. “You think your power is confined to the elementals? You shape fire easily enough, unless there’s still a part of you that’s lisincend?” She cocked her head at him, waiting to see if her comment riled him up, before pulling her chains to get more comfortable. “The elementals may augment your power, but you provide the spark.”

Tan sighed deeply. If that were true, that meant he didn’t need to bind the elementals together to reach spirit, but he knew no other way to do it. With the elementals, he could draw on their power, use it to help his shapings. That power could be bound together, woven to form the shaping of spirit he’d used to release himself from her when he’d been trapped in the archives, but it was a form of spirit that was nothing like what she shaped. The effect was often the same, but not always. After all the practice, he suspected he wasn’t meant to shape spirit in the same way.

“Your way of shaping spirit doesn’t work for me.”

“Because you haven’t taken the time to learn. Spirit is universal. All shapers have the capacity to reach it in
some
way, however vague.”

Tan stared at the fire burning in his hand. The flames danced over his skin, leaving him unharmed. There was the sense of elemental power in the flames, the weak draw of saa in even that much fire. It wasn’t only Asboel guiding fire for him. Someday, he hoped to reach the other elementals as easily. “Why do you say that?”

“It’s the reason for our power. We are connected to the power that drives this world in ways others are not. Spirit is the binding force for that. Those of us who shape spirit may be able to use it more directly, but all shapers can touch it.” She shrugged. “Most never bother to try.”

“What of the warriors who’ve never managed to reach spirit? Theondar can’t shape spirit. Lacertin couldn’t either.” Unless they simply had never learned the trick of binding them together. Could it be that
all
warrior shapers could shape spirit if they understood how?

A troubled look crossed over her face and she twisted on the floor to stare at one of the walls.

“Do you know why they can’t shape spirit?” Tan asked.

“Not why they can’t, but it has long troubled me that shaping—that the use of the elemental power of our world—has diminished. Spirit has long been rare, but the others? When your kingdoms were no more than separate lands, shapers were plentiful. The elementals bonded willingly, teaching those shapers their power. Now? Elementals ignore us.” She fixed Tan with an appraising stare. “Or they had. I am uncertain why that would change.”

Tan had learned to listen when the First Mother lectured. In trying to protect her people, she might have done terrible things, but she had an archivist’s knowledge. “Some think power simply fades from us. Others think the elementals have abandoned us,” Tan said, repeating something Roine had once told him.

The First Mother looked down at her hands. “The elementals have not abandoned all. And this power is fundamental to our world. It would not simply fade.”

“Did the archivists search for that reason?”

She pulled on her chains again, dragging them across the floor. An annoyed look briefly crossed her face before disappearing. “When they first came to Ethea, it was to learn and study. Few managed to shape spirit, even then.” She met his eyes. “What you do, the way you bind the elements together, is a different form of shaping. Perhaps weaker.” She shrugged. “They came to study and understand. Only later did they begin to recognize the shift.”

“A shift? Even in the last generation, shapers have been more and more infrequent.”

“As has the connection to the elementals. They are not as unrelated as you might think.”

Tan struggled to find a more comfortable seat. “I’m not saying they aren’t related. Only that I have no idea why. The draasin doesn’t seem to know.” And if he did, would Asboel tell Tan? The draasin had once been hunted by shapers. Why wouldn’t he want to keep them from the world?

“Then you need to find the reason. This place,” she motioned around her, indicating the university far above ground, “once searched for knowledge and understanding.” The chains rattled as she waved her hands. “Now it’s nothing more than a way to power. There is a difference.”

Tan couldn’t argue with that. When he first came to the university, the Master shapers were barely willing to teach. Only when Tan’s connection to the elementals was known had other shapers offered to teach.

She pulled on her chains again. “Enough of this talk. You are wasting your time with me.” She gave Tan a pointed look. “Don’t think I don’t know how Zephra will react if she knew you were down here studying with me.”

“Zephra would prefer I stayed out of all harm. She still thinks me the child from Nor.”

The First Mother snorted. “Even in the time I’ve known you, you’ve done a poor job of staying clear of harm. But you are capable, Tannen Minden. That is the only reason I proceed with this. Now. You should focus on spirit alone. Your shapings grow more skilled, but they remain blunt. Until you manage to reach spirit without binding the elements, the shapings will always be that way.”

“Most of my shapings are blunt,” he said.

“You have exquisite control of fire,” the First Mother commented. “There is no reason your other shapings could not be the same.”

“I speak to the draasin. Some of what I’ve learned possible is from what I’ve seen from the elemental.”

“You speak to all of the elementals, Tannen. Do not exclude them simply because you’ve bonded to the draasin. Perhaps that is why you fail to progress with the other elements.”

Tan shifted. The stone beneath him made his legs ache, especially after sitting as he was for so long. “I don’t speak to the others as I do to the draasin.”

He wondered if he should share so openly with the First Mother, but she had knowledge about shaping that others didn’t. As much pain as she’d caused, she remained willing to teach, if only in her own way. She had no remorse for what she’d done, but Tan didn’t really expect such emotion of her. Her reasons had been pretty clear: she had done everything she thought necessary to protect the Aeta, even if it meant working with Incendin.

“Only because you do not listen.”

“What does that mean? I listen to the elementals. How else would I have learned to speak to them?”

She tried reaching and pushing her hair out of the way, but the chains holding her prevented her from doing it easily. Instead, she blew on the loose strands of gray hair. “You think that speaking only to the great elementals makes you powerful? It makes you
weaker
to be so reliant on them. Think of how many draasin remain in the world. And not only fire, but think of water. Will you be able to reach udilm in the middle of Ter?” She tossed her head. “What you’ve managed with the elementals is impressive. Now try it with the others.”

“I don’t know that I can speak to the lesser elementals.”

She flipped her hand at him. “Why should it be any different with the others?”

Tan bit back the argument that came to mind as he thought about what she was saying. He hadn’t really tried reaching for elementals other than the great elementals. Here in Ethea and in the mountains near the place of convergence, they were easy to find. That was the reason King Althem had wanted the artifact that Tan now stored in the lower archives. But would he find the elementals as easy to reach outside of those places? It had been Asboel who led him to udilm for Elle, not anything Tan had done.

Then there was the issue with the lesser elementals. With fire, he thought he drew partly on the power of saa as he shaped fire, but what if it was all from Asboel? Would he be able to use the other lesser elementals the same way?

There was so much for him still to learn and it felt like not enough time for him to understand what he needed. For the safety of the kingdoms, he needed to master this. Now that the barrier was down, Incendin could attack at any time. Alisz, the twisted lisincend, might have been destroyed, but they didn’t know how many of the lisincend remained.

“I can see from your face you finally see wisdom,” the First Mother said.

“There’s so much to learn,” Tan admitted. “And I don’t know if I can do it.”

She shuffled closer to him, pulling the chains taut. “You need to embrace your abilities. There will always be things you don’t know. That’s the nature of using the elemental power. Accept that. Recognize that
someone
will always know something you do not. Even working with an element for fifty years will not protect you from that uncertainty.”

Tan found a hint of unexpected kindness in her eyes and swallowed back the lump forming in his throat. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

The First Mother took a shaky breath. “Not as sorry as I am,” she whispered. She ran one hand over the chains, pressing down as if trying to break the connection. “It keeps me awake, you know.”

“What does?”

“Who will lead the Aeta? Who will guide them now that I am gone? Always before, we had a succession in place. The First Mother would step aside as another Mother was raised to replace her.” She looked down at her hands, real uncertainty coming to her voice. “When I first met Amia, when I felt the strength she would one day possess, I thought I’d finally found that person. Now there is no one.”

“The Aeta have survived for centuries,” Tan said, repeating the words Amia told him when they spoke about the Aeta. If the First Mother was fishing for him to commit Amia to again serving the Aeta, she really didn’t know Amia. “You might have held them together during your time leading them, but another will come forward.”

“I wish I believed that.”

Tan leaned back, studying the First Mother. Defiance had once come through in her tone and the strength in her back when she spoke of the Aeta, but now she looked a broken woman. Her thin body no longer seemed to have vigor and instead simply looked frail. Her gray hair had lost its luster. Even the occasional steel in her voice was more and more rare.

“What can I do?” he asked.

She looked up and shook her head. “You needn’t lie to me to convince me to continue working with you. I have said that I will. It helps pass the time. But don’t try giving me false hope, Tannen. That is beneath even you.”

“You know how I feel about Amia. I would do anything to help her.”

“She has abandoned her place with the People.”

“Only because she lost faith in your leadership. She loved her family. Losing them devastated her. For her to learn that the First Mother—the person who should have been responsible for guiding the Aeta and keeping the People safe—had betrayed her family to the lisincend, well that alone would have changed her. But to learn that the archivists had been Aeta, that they had known about her and chosen to bring harm to her, that took away all that remained in her of the Aeta. She may have been one of the Wandering People, but it wasn’t until they abandoned her that she became homeless.” The sense of Amia surged through his connection to her, strengthened as it often was when he thought of her. “I see how it pains her when we speak of the Aeta that still wander. I see how she wishes there was something for her to do. The Aeta don’t have to hide. They can come to the kingdoms and we will help them find safety.”