Serpent of Fire (2 page)

T
an knelt on the hard rock, the sun fading behind clouds that greyed the sky, and ran his hands over the hatchling. He’d been close to the hatchlings before—Asboel had allowed him entry to their den—but had never touched them. The scales covering him were softer than those on Asboel, the sharp spikes more pointed. The last time he’d been near the hatchlings, they had radiated heat much like Asboel, but now his body was cool.

Over the months that the draasin had been free, they had grown quickly, and were now much larger than the creatures that crawled from the enormous eggs he’d seen Sashari carrying. Now the hatchlings were nearly the size of a large horse, though still small compared to what they would become. This one would never grow any larger.

I’m sorry, Asboel.

The draasin settled his head onto the ground next to the fallen hatchling. He blinked slowly and let out a hot breath of air.
Fire will welcome him back. The Mother will greet him when he joins at her side. And he will be avenged.

He should be moved from here. Is there a place you would bring him?

Asboel considered a moment before answering.
He should return to the den.

You would return him beneath Ethea?

That was never his den,
Asboel said.

That meant Nara, where the draasin had first settled. The lands of Nara were much like Incendin: hot and baked by the sun. They would be an appropriate resting ground.
I will help,
he offered
.

Tan readied a shaping of fire and earth, preparing to lift the draasin. To this, he added spirit, as he did with many of his shapings, and reached toward the hatchling. As it settled over him, he sensed the faint echoes of life. It was weak, but definitely there.

Tan held his breath and released his shaping. “Great Mother,” he swore under his breath.

If the hatchling lived, was there anything he could do to help?

He focused on the hatchling. He needed strength. Power. And a focus.

He unsheathed his warrior sword and jabbed it into the rocky ground with a shaping of earth.

Cianna touched his shoulder hesitantly. “Tan?”

“He’s not completely gone,” he said, not taking his eyes off the draasin.

“There’s nothing—”

“No. There is a chance.”

Maelen. The fire bond is gone. You may not sense this, but I do. You cannot do anything. He is with the Mother.

I sense the thread of life within him. The Mother would want
me to try. It is the reason for my gifts.

Asboel watched him, his golden eyes reflecting the fading light of the sun, and then stepped back. Tan wondered briefly if Asboel shared with Sashari, for she turned and lowered her head so that her eyes met his. He nodded to her, hoping that she understood what he would attempt, and then turned his attention back to the hatchling.

Tan had healed before, but that had always been guided by the elementals. Water existed in Chenir, but not with the same strength as it was found in the kingdoms. To do this, he would need strength and wisdom, and possibly borrow from the connection to the elementals.

The shaping told him how tenuously the draasin clung to life. Anything he did might extinguish that connection, but doing nothing would accomplish the same. Tan might not be able to save him, but how could he not try?

He readied his shaping, starting with fire because the draasin
were
fire. To this, he added wind, drawing on Honl, pulling strength from the elementals around him. Earth here was solid. Elemental power surged through the earth, pressing through its bones. He might not know what elemental of earth existed here, but he could reach it. And then water. Tan strained, reaching for the nymid, knowing they would be the key to whatever he did. The recent bond to the nymid gave him a way to reach water that he wouldn’t otherwise possess.

Last, he added spirit. If nothing else, spirit would guide him. With the shapings readied, he pulled through the sword piercing the rock. Brilliant white light spilled out. Power surged through him, fed by his elemental bonds, augmented by the strength of the sword.

Carefully, Tan layered the shaping onto the hatchling. It settled slowly, gently, onto the fallen draasin. As it did, the thread of life grew even more distant.

He grasped for it and wrapped it in a shaping of spirit. It was the shaping performed by the First Mother as she had worked with Amia to heal Cora. Tan had never attempted it himself and felt as uncertain as he had when first learning to shape, but to save the hatchling, he had no choice but to try. To this, he added water and fire, an odd combination of shaping, but one that his connection to spirit told him was needed. He pushed more and more elemental power into the draasin, straining to fill an emptiness that reminded him of what had been required to heal Cora.

He didn’t have enough strength.

Tan pushed spirit into the void along with water and fire. Earth was not needed, but his connection to it strengthened him. Wind fluttered through the draasin, moving in and out of his lungs, as if breathing for him.

Still nothing happened.

The flicker of life faded even more, held in place by the shaping of spirit. Tan clutched it in his shaping, a sudden surge aided by Amia coming to him. He sensed her with him, mingling in his mind, guiding the spirit shaping. Trained as she was by the First Mother before her death, she had more skill than he could ever hope to accomplish. Tan might have observed, but they had quickly moved beyond anything that he had the capacity to understand.

Amia helped him hold the thread of life in place, but she wouldn’t be able to grant him any additional strength to aid the rest of his shaping.

Drawing through the sword wasn’t enough.

How would he keep the hatchling alive? How would he call him back to life?

Tan stared at the hatchling, an idea coming to him. Asboel would be angry, but to save the hatchling, there didn’t seem to be any other choice. For that, Asboel would have to understand.

He needed more strength, something that the draasin, would respond to.

A name.

It would have to be fitting, but how could Tan assign a fitting name to an elemental? They had always come to him with names. And Asboel claimed that it was too early for the hatchlings, that they would claim them in time, but there wouldn’t be time, not if this failed.

He thought of what he remembered of the hatchling, the playful way that he nipped at Asboel, or the way that he’d approached Tan, so unafraid, and what Asboel had shared. None of that was enough to name the draasin.

Holding onto his shaping, he pressed through the spirit bond he shared with Asboel. The draasin was aware of his presence and Tan couldn’t shield his intent from him. He scavenged for memories of the hatchling, searching for anything that might be able to help.

Maelen—

Tan ignored him. He found snatches of memories, of the deeply blue-scaled hatchling pouncing on his sister, of him crawling over Asboel, of the bold way he attempted to sneak from the tunnels and away from the den. This mixed with memories of him nestling against Asboel, or of Asboel watching Sashari feeding him.

Still, none of it was enough to provide a name.

I need Sashari’s memories
, he told Asboel.

Maelen, this will not work. What you seek—

Tan caught Asboel’s eyes.
I will not let him fail without trying, Asboel. Now. Sashari. How can I reach her?

It was sharper than he’d ever talked to Asboel, but now was not the time for apologies. Now was the time for him to save the draasin, and he couldn’t do that without their help. He
would
save the hatchling if he could.

The fire bond, Maelen.

I do not share it.

Asboel breathed out slowly.
You have always shared it.

Tan had always had a connection to the draasin, but it had been to Asboel primarily. There had been a vague sense of awareness of the other great elementals, but it was different with them than what it was with Asboel. With Asboel, he merely needed to reach through their shared connection.

But could he reach through more than only the bond, but to fire as well? Was that what Asboel was telling him?

He had to try.

Amia… hold the spirit shaping if you can.

She didn’t respond, but she assumed control of the shaping. Questions raced through his mind without the time for answer. What must it cost her to help him from the distance? How difficult must it be for her? Had her time with the First Mother strengthened her skills so much that this shaping was not beyond her capabilities?

Tan shifted his focus over to fire. Normally, he drew fire from a combination of elemental power as well as what he managed to shape from within, but he suspected that he would need his own shaping ability to reach through the fire bond. Borrowing from the draasin would not grant him that connection.

Focusing inward, he listened for a sense of fire. When it came, he noted a quiet simmering that flared as soon as he reached for it. It recognized him, and as he touched upon it, questing through it as he’d learned to do with spirit that pooled within him, he felt a recognition. With a sudden understanding, he knew this was what had changed when he’d drawn fire inside of him. He had twisted this part of himself. Had it not been for the nymid, he would have remained twisted, forever turned into something like the lisincend.

He pushed the thought away. He would try to focus on that later and understand what it might mean for him. For now, he would try to understand how to reach through that connection.

Tan used that simmering fire and listened. There was something to it so very much like the earth sensing that his father had long ago taught him. Heat was all around, and he found himself drawn to it.

He could sense it from the draasin most strongly, surges of orange and red that reminded him in some ways of how he had perceived the world when twisted by fire. Cianna burned brightly as well. Connected to fire in this way, he could practically smell it burning off her. Unlike when he’d been twisted by fire, this connection felt natural. Controlled.

Beyond the elementals and the fire shapers, there was fire in the earth around him. At first it was a vague sense, but the more that he focused, the more that he recognized the touches of elemental power. Had he more time and less urgency, Tan suspected that he could reach for each of the elementals, perhaps finally speak to them as he did to the draasin.

And he understood. All of fire was connected. He saw how Cianna’s fire stretched toward Sashari, but it also reached toward Tan. Asboel and Sashari were connected, but thin streamers stretched toward the other tendrils of flame around them. And Tan connected to Asboel, but there was connection to Sashari as well, weaker, but no less real.

Tan pressed through this.

Fire seared within him. He touched it upon Sashari and awareness of her burned. He sensed her surprise but didn’t risk the time to explain, hoping only that Asboel would already have told her the need for what he attempted. The fire bond was different than what he shared with Asboel.

I need your memories of him
.

Sashari hesitated, and then she opened herself even more.
For him, Maelen.

The sound of her voice in his mind was lighter and higher than Asboel’s, but there was strength to it as well. Simmering beneath the surface was the urgency she felt—and unfamiliar terror.

Tan borrowed from her memories, taking what she offered of the hatchling. So many of them were memories of both of the hatchlings. Their birth, the way they crawled from their eggs, the deep blue hatchling coming first, always bolder than his sister. Their first feeding. Even from birth, the draasin knew fire, spewing it onto the food offered to them before tearing at it with the abandon of youth. The pride she felt as the draasin crawled around her. The way Sashari introduced them to Enya. The interest the other draasin had in the hatchlings, curiosity mixed with another unreadable expression. Anguish when she thought them dead, different but similar to what he found within Asboel. Relief in learning that the hatchlings still lived. And then the move beneath the city, hiding and protected by the elementals drawn to the place of convergence. The first hunt, the fallen hatchling again showing his boldness, the way that he’d taken down a small deer, and the pride that Sashari had shown when he had.

Other than a sense of boldness, Tan didn’t know enough to name him. It would not be enough.

He sank back on his heels, holding to the connection with the elementals, feeling defeated. Amia pulled the hatchling toward him with her shaping of spirit, binding them together. Tan sensed the flickering of life and knew the hatchling would not be long for this world.

Connect to him,
Amia urged.

I’ve tried. Asboel shared all that he can.

Not Asboel. The hatchling.

But he’s too weak.

He sensed her shaping him, but didn’t know what she was doing. It was subtle and gentle and washed over him with a great strength. Relaxation flowed with it, as well as an idea.

Tan assumed control of the spirit shaping that Amia worked. He added fire, drawing carefully through the fire bond, and pressed this through the hatchling. Awareness came slowly, weakly, and matched the fading life of the draasin.

Slowly, steadily, Tan poured out all that he could, drawing on the fire bond, on the spirit bond with Amia, pulling strength from the surrounding elementals as he pressed through the sword buried in the stone, augmenting the shaping.

The connection solidified. Not enough to know whether it would work, but enough that Tan could reach into the draasin.

The hatchling was too weak to resist. Tan slipped among his mind, spirit and fire mingling and allowing him to access the draasin’s memories. He needed something—anything—that would help him find the right name, but feared taking too long, that he’d already missed the opportunity to help.

Faded memories were there. The first feeding. Crawling on Asboel. Heat and fire all around him that Tan suspected came when they’d been abducted by Incendin, but, perhaps surprisingly, no harm. The stark walls around him without light, and then sitting atop a tower, massive stone chains holding him in place. The request to add to the fire atop the tower, and the joy the draasin found in doing it. That nearly shocked Tan out of the connection. Then the reunion with Asboel and Sashari. The move beneath Ethea. The first hunt again, this time from the draasin. There was joy, but also a desire to help his sister. The emptiness of the tunnels when Asboel and Sashari had gone, and the overwhelming curiosity to crawl out and explore, to see if the hunt could be done without Sashari. A call, like a summons he could not resist. The flight and then the capture, fire taken from them. And the attempt to escape, doing what he could to save his sister.