Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 (28 page)

Lacertin continued forward, holding onto the connection with Cora, but releasing control of the shaping. Near a stack of rock—and closer to the barrier than he had realized—the strangeness that he detected came more strongly.

He started forward, holding onto a combined shaping of fire and earth, mixing the two for protection, when he felt a sudden surge of heat and energy all around him.

Rock exploded toward him.

And one of the lisincend stepped forth.

T
he heat radiating
from the lisincend was enormous. The creature had thick skin, a hairless head, and from the waist down was covered in maroon leathers. The upper body was lithe and muscular. Almost black eyes regarded Lacertin and Cora with disdain, and the lisincend snaked a thick tongue over its lips.

Lacertin hesitated. Always before, he would have attacked. The lisincend were horrible creatures of fire, dangerous and destructive, and much more powerful than any fire shaper, but his time in Incendin had given him a different perspective on the creatures. The Servants of Issa claimed the lisincend had embraced fire, and he might not know what that meant, but the fact that they valued the lisincend, even knowing what they were, gave him pause.

Fire shot toward them.

Lacertin shifted his shaping of earth, catching the fire shaping and directing it toward the ground. Cora moved to his side and prepared a shaping to match, but defaulted to fire.

“It won’t work on the lisincend,” Lacertin said. He might not know them the same way that the Servants did, but he had fought against them and knew what worked, and more importantly, what did not. Using fire against them would
not
work. They were creatures that had almost become fire, like elementals in their own twisted way. But earth and water… those could work.

“I am not trying to stop him,” Cora said calmly. The shaping stretched toward the lisincend, reaching him with something like a caress. Cora ran her shaping along his skin, snaking down his thick flesh, before withdrawing.

“A Servant,” he hissed. His voice was horrible and cracked in way that reminded Lacertin of the splitting of logs. “You should not be here, Servant.”

“And you should return to the Sunlands,” she said softly.

He hissed again. “Return. That is all that I have tried to do.” His eyes considered Lacertin. “This one is dressed as a Servant but he used earth.”

“Shape him,” Cora urged.

“I don’t know—”

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

A shaping of fire exploded behind him. Lacertin spun and saw two shapers emerge from the trees. He recognized one—a younger fire shaper that he’d seen while still in the kingdoms—but not the other, a man wearing thick wool leggings and shaping earth in front of him.

“Great Mother,” the earth shaper swore. His shaping of earth cascaded toward Lacertin, but there wasn’t enough focus in it to do much good. The man had some strength and talent, but not enough skill, nothing like other earth shapers Lacertin knew.

It took little focus to shift the shaping and send it delving deep into the ground, where it fizzled to nothing. The shaper’s eyes widened.

“Earth shaper!” he called.

Cora started shaping, and the lisincend attacked.

Lacertin stood as if frozen. If he helped Cora, he would attack the kingdoms. If he helped the kingdoms, he would have to attack Cora.

Neither option felt right.

The fire shaper sent a lancing of flame toward him, but it was nothing compared to some of the shapings that had been used on him in Incendin. Lacertin caught the shaping and twisted it, where it dissipated.

Then he constructed a wall of earth, raising it to block the two shapers from Cora and him, putting him on the side with the lisincend. The earth shaper battered at him but was too new, and Lacertin had enough skill to maintain the shaping.

The lisincend stalked toward him and grabbed him by the throat, lifting him to the air.

Cora tried a soothing shaping as she had used before, but the lisincend simply glanced at her and pressed back with a surge of heat.

“You need to shape him,” she whispered again.

Spots in Lacertin’s vision began to fade and the shaping of earth collapsed behind him. The lisincend pressed heat past Lacertin, attacking the two shapers.

Lacertin couldn’t pull himself free. He couldn’t even keep himself in place.

“Shape him,” Cora urged again.

Her voice echoed in his mind, like a hollow memory.

This was how he would die. Trapped between what he was and what he could have been, he would fail. And then Cora would die, trapped by the barrier. She and the lisincend might be able to fight for a while, but the kingdoms had enough numbers to send shaper after shaper at them. Eventually they would fall, all because of the barrier that he had constructed.

How could he shape the lisincend? What did she expect from him?

He breathed out and couldn’t take another one in. The lisincend squeezed on his throat, crushing him. He would die because of fire.

Had Issa planned this?

Lacertin nearly laughed, but nothing came out. Issa had done nothing for him, only bringing him to Incendin so that he would die. First he suffered, the shaping used on him tormenting him, and then he suffered more, drawn into the circle of the other shapers, the Servants of Issa, with the pulsing pounding shaping that was so much like what…

With a start, he knew what he had to do but didn’t know if he was strong enough.

Lacertin reached for fire, but it failed him.

Heat surged and met with resistance from a water shaping.

Lacertin’s heart sunk. Had Jayna come, too?

The lisincend would be too much for her, much as it was too much for him. The fire shaper would fall first. Fire could not withstand both a Servant and one of the lisincend. Then Jayna. Water would be easier to stop than earth.

He strained, struggling for the sense of fire, but it was a distant sense.

Had Lacertin not known fire the best, had it not been the element that he served the longest, it would not have responded. But he knew fire, and fire knew him.

And, strangely, the heat flowing from the lisincend was familiar.

Lacertin managed to reach fire and formed the shapings that had been used on him, those that he now understood had been demonstrations, ways to control the lisincend, and sent as powerful a shaping as he could manage at the lisincend. Not to attack, but to soothe, using fire to calm.

The hand squeezing his neck relaxed. Lacertin took a gasping breath of air as he dropped to his knees, holding onto the shaping.

There was something familiar to the lisincend.

At first, he had thought it the heat, that he had grown accustomed to the shaping because of what he’d experienced while in Incendin, but this was a different sort of familiarity. This wasn’t about the shaping, but the shaper.

Somehow, Lacertin recognized the lisincend.

“Servant,” the lisincend hissed.

Lacertin opened his eyes. With the lisincend holding onto him, he hadn’t seen anything happening around him, but now he became aware of the chaos of surging elements. He would have to work out later why the lisincend seemed familiar.

Cora had the most restraint, not trying to kill, only to defend. The fire shaper threw shaping after shaping at her, but she deflected each one. The water shapings—presumably from Jayna—were powerful, but so was Cora, and she managed to deflect those as well. Earth was focused on him, and Lacertin found himself buried and shook it off with a rumble that echoed through the land around them.

The lisincend waited, standing silent next to him.

“We need to get across the barrier,” Lacertin said to Cora. He pulled on earth, drawing it back into a wall that separated them from the Incendin shapers.

“There is no way,” the lisincend said.

Lacertin frowned. “That’s why you were here?”

“This shaping prevents crossing,” he answered.

Lacertin swore under his breath. If not for the barrier, the lisincend would have been able to return to Incendin and the kingdoms would not have needed to attack.

Earth, water, and fire assaulted the wall he had constructed. If they managed to get past, he would have to make a choice. Lacertin did not
want
to make a choice.

There had to be a way. He had crossed over because of the defect created by Veran when he first left, but that had disappeared as he crossed. Would there be a way to weaken it again?

Not from this side.

But from the other side… if he could somehow reach the Servants, he
might
be able to find a shaping that would let them pass, especially if they could attack together.

But what to do here?

He would have to stay and hold the shaping.

“You need to go to the Servants,” he told Cora. “Have them work together on the barrier. They need to hit it at the same spot. After they do, you should be able to cross.”

“Only me, Lacertin Alaseth?”

The lisincend seethed suddenly.

“I have to hold this or they will see and follow.”

“We can all go,” she said, taking his hand.

The attack on his shaping strengthened. Lacertin pushed back, but earth resisted. This time, the shaping used against him had more skill. Whoever used earth knew what they were doing.

Wind surged, gusting against them as a wind shaper appeared. How much longer could he hold? When would a warrior appear?

Lacertin glanced over to the lisincend. With the shaping they’d used, the lisincend appeared calm, but heat still seethed from him. The creature watched him, as if waiting for him to direct what they did.

He couldn’t leave the lisincend here. Not because he wanted to help the creature, but because it meant that some of the kingdoms’ shapers would be in danger.

“Damn,” he breathed out. Even when he didn’t want to make a choice, he had to make one. “You’ll have to help,” he told Cora.

And they could only use wind. Anything else, and he would lose control of the shaping. He couldn’t use a warrior shaping to travel toward the Servants, not with both Cora
and
the lisincend.

“I will help you,” she said softly.

She took his hand.

Lacertin looked to the lisincend. “Are you ready to return to the Sunlands?”

The creature tipped its head. “Servant,” it hissed.

Lacertin shaped wind, augmented by Cora’s help. With a powerful gust, they were swept into the air and whisked toward the south.

Cold wind seemed to pull on them, slowing him.

Lacertin swore, shifting his focus, trying to shape the wind, but found that he couldn’t, not with the same ability that he was accustomed to having, almost as if the wind itself fought him.

“I’m not strong enough,” he said.

“You must add fire,” Cora said, shifting the focus of the shaping as she assumed control of it. Heat swirled, sifting through the barrier, and gave the shaping renewed strength.

The cool wind fought, but wasn’t able to stop their shaping.

With brutal force, they slammed to the ground across the barrier from the Servants. Trees rose up behind him and a shaping came on the wind, pulling with more force than he thought possible. A powerful wind shaper neared.

Lacertin shivered. If it was who he feared, he did not want to risk remaining.

“Shape fire at the barrier!” he called to Alisz.

When she hesitated, Cora begged, “Please, sister!”

They didn’t hesitate any longer. The Servants shaped fire, twisting it with more control than he would ever have imagined, sending a focus of flame at the barrier. Lacertin tensed as it struck, partly afraid that it would pierce the barrier and hit them. He didn’t have enough strength to withstand it if it did, but the shaping hit the barrier and faded as if it were nothing.

The Servants released their shaping.

Lacertin probed the barrier where they had struck, and found it weakened.

“Go,” he urged Cora.

“Let him go first,” she said, motioning to the lisincend.

The creature studied Lacertin. “You are a Servant, but not as well.”

Lacertin swallowed. “Issa chose me,” he said.

The lisincend hissed out a breath. A shaping built from him and layered over Lacertin, and for a moment, he knew the brutality of the torment the Servants had used on him when he first came to Incendin, but then it faded, changing over to something else.

There was familiarity to the shaping, a deep resonance that he hadn’t known for years, but one that he recognized.

“Chasn?” he whispered.

The lisincend hissed.

Wind slammed into them.

Cora did all that she could to push against it, straining, but she could only fight so long. “Hurry, Lacertin Alaseth.”

Lacertin swallowed. Could his brother be the lisincend standing across from him? Could that have been possible?

Wind gusted with increased force, trying to pull him away from the barrier. “Go,” he urged.

The lisincend—his brother—stared at him a moment and then turned to the barrier and surged through, emerging on the other side.

“Now us,” he told Cora.

He turned to the barrier and probed his way along. The weakness that had been there had disappeared as the lisincend passed through. “Shape the barrier again,” he said to the Servants.

On the other side, Alisz stared at him. For long moments, he wasn’t sure that she would do what he needed, that she might leave the barrier intact, stranding he and Cora on this side.

Then the Servants shaped once more.

A shaping of fire and wind built behind him, sharp and powerful.

“Lacertin!”

He turned in time to see Cora as she jumped in front of him as a shaping of fire streaked toward him with strength that he wouldn’t be able to withstand.

“No… Cora!”

Somehow, she pulled on earth. A wall of rock surged, drawn forth by her shaping, but coming from
beneath
the barrier, from Incendin.

The rock blocked the attack and she fell.

Lacertin reached her on a shaping of wind and grabbed her. She felt so light in his arms, and the heat radiating off her mingled with his fire shaping, almost as if without thought. Even knowing that he shouldn’t, he leaned in and kissed her.

He held her for long moments, ignoring the shaping building behind him, savoring the closeness. Then he sighed.

When he released her, she smiled up at him. “Come, Lacertin Alaseth. Let us go home.”