Fortress Of Fire (Book 4) (5 page)

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.

T
he 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.

A
mia 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?”

“Now you’re sounding like my mother.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like an accusation, but it came out that way regardless. “And they’re not defeated. Incendin still has its fire shapers. Lisincend remain. And the barrier no longer protects us from the hounds.” With everything they’d been through, it felt as if they were in greater danger than ever. “We don’t know anything about what Incendin will do next. Without the barrier, we’re exposed. You’ve seen how hard it is to stop even one of the lisincend. If they continue to create more—”

Amia leaned toward him, heat flashing in her eyes. “We
will
stop them. And there are only so many fire shapers able to make the transformation.”

Tan understood the draw of the power the shapers sought, but there was risk involved. From what Lacertin had shared, only about half the shapers survived the transformation. “Power can’t be enough, not for that.”

“Sometimes there is no why, Tan. Sometimes darkness and hate comes without reason. Can there be a reason why my people were destroyed? Why my mother was burned in front of me? Why the Aeta tortured me?” She shook her head. “If there’s a reason, I don’t want to hear it. After everything we’ve been through, we deserve a chance to find peace.
Both
of us deserve that. You’ve lost the same! Your home was destroyed. Your father was killed fighting Incendin. Even your king—”

Tan cut her off. “Althem was never my king.”

Amia took a calming breath and swallowed, closing her eyes as she rested her head on her hands. “I wish we could stop running and fighting. I wish I didn’t have to feel afraid anymore.”

Tan pulled her toward him and wrapped his arms around her. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “I’m tired of being scared, too. The thought of losing you terrifies me.”

She hugged him back and rested her head on his chest. “And now you want to find out what Incendin plans.”

“The alternative is worse. If we wait—if there’s something to the fires burning atop the Fire Fortress—we need to know. And Roine can help.”

“He’s too busy with the minutia of running the kingdoms.”

“Then the other shapers. But I’m the only one who speaks to the elementals. There’s a reason the Great Mother gave me this gift. I can’t simply choose not to use it, not if I can keep others safe from what happened to me.”

That had to be the reason he’d been given the ability to speak so easily to the elementals. From Asboel, Tan had the sense that there was a reason he’d bonded to the great fire elemental. From the nymid, he had the sense that there was a reason he and Amia had been brought together.

“What of my gift? I used to think the Great Mother blessed me to help the People, but now I have no people,” Amia said.

They fell into silence, neither of them with answers.

T
he knock
on the door startled him. Tan jumped to his feet and hurried to the door, pulling it open. His mother stood on the other side, her dark hair streaked with highlights of gray was pulled in a tight bun. Her gaze slipped past Tan to stare into the room, coming to rest on Amia. She sniffed silently.

“Mother? What time is it?”

“Time to begin your lessons,” she said. “Come.”

She started away without waiting for Tan or saying anything to Amia. He glanced back to see Amia nod but felt the sadness through their connection. Then he hurried out after his mother, taking only the time to grab a light cloak to protect from the evening chill.

His mother made her way down the street. The buildings here had not seen the same destruction as elsewhere in the city. Most were made of aged and faded brick and stone, though some were painted wood. A chill hung on the air and a few gusts of wind swirled around his mother’s feet, almost as if ara worked playfully with her. Light burned in a few of the open windows, enough to see occasional shadows. Tan noted that saa flickered around the flames, as if drawn to them. He could almost
see
the lesser elemental, not only feel its presence.

When they reached an open area, Zephra grabbed his arm and, without a word, leapt to the wind with a quick shaping.

Tan had traveled with his mother’s shaping before, but this time it was different. A face of ara flittered in and out, as if spying on Tan. As he watched, it seemed the face took on the same shape each time. Could she have bonded a single elemental much like he had with Asboel? He thought she spoke to
all
the wind elementals, but maybe that wasn’t the case.

“Where are we going?” he asked as they traveled. Wind buffeted him, leaving him cold, nothing like when he traveled with Asboel. Then, he had the heat of the draasin’s spikes, the warmth of his back, the solid connection. He had none of that now.

“After what happened earlier today, I’m taking you someplace where you can’t harm yourself while you learn.”

“I think I have enough control to keep from hurting myself.”

“Fine. Prove it.” She released his arm.

Tan tumbled from her, the protection of her shaping leaving him spiraling toward the ground. Wind streamed past his face. Tears streamed down his cheeks. He screamed, fumbling through the terror and chill as he reached for ara and failing. The wind elemental ignored him.

A patch of green came toward him frighteningly fast. He covered his face, praying to the Great Mother. Tan reached for golud, thinking to soften the ground, and tried for a shaping. This failed, too. Before crashing, he tried one more shaping, one of fire, attempting to press a burst of flame and steam away from him, but nothing seemed to work.