Serpent of Fire (6 page)

Tan was silent for a few long moments. He sensed Amia standing behind him, her concern coming clearly through their bond. He could sense his mother watching him, his spirit ability telling him that she watched him with concern that mirrored what Amia felt. And then Roine. As much as he might say the words, buried beneath them was a sense of hope, a part of him that refused to believe even what he said.

That was what Tan would have to appeal to. If not now, then when everything was done. It was hope that would see them through, that would give them the chance of success even when everything else seemed lost. If Roine couldn’t find it, then what chance did anyone else?

T
an sat in the home that he and Amia had shared since coming to Ethea. He needed time to gather his thoughts, and he didn’t know where else to go. Normally, he would go to the lower level of the archives, but it felt empty without Amia with him. At least in the home that he shared with her—
had
shared with her—he could still feel the effect of her presence.

Flames danced in the hearth, saa drawn to them as it so often was. The window opened to the outside, letting the cool wind blow into the room. An occasional warmer gust fed by Honl and the ashi elemental competed, but for the most part, these lands belonged to ara. When he had more time, he would have to understand the reason the elementals were more powerful in some lands than in others. A nagging sense told him the answer was important.

Tan sat in the chair facing the hearth, the aged and cracked book he’d brought up from the lower level of the archives lying untouched on his lap. He was unable to focus on anything other than what Roine had told him.

Could it really not matter if they stopped Par-shon? Maybe he was right. The kingdoms had dealt with Incendin, and now the threat was Par-shon. What would be next?

He
might be destined for more bloodshed, forced to confront the Utu Tonah—everything that he’d seen told him that he would need to do that—but the kingdoms could know peace. He thought of the children, those born out of Althem’s betrayal, and prayed that they would not know the same hardship he had. Already they had the wrong start, born of a father who had used spirit in a way that went against everything the Great Mother intended.

He sighed, staring at the fire. His fear for peace ran deeper than only the shapers who would be impacted. It extended to the elementals, to the draasin, barely returned to this world and already threatened again. Shapers and an ancient fear had nearly destroyed them, but those ancient shapers had been mistaken in how they treated the draasin. The elementals were harnessed, forced to obey the shapers, and treated like little more than livestock. Had the ancients bothered connecting to them, to truly learn from them, there might have been more that the elementals could have done. Perhaps they might even have learned of the fire bond.

Tan studied the way saa danced among the flames, swirling through them, making them move and shimmer. It had a familiarity to it, something he could almost recognize. He inhaled deeply and reached inward, straining for focus, to listen to fire and connect to it. As he did, he felt the connections to fire around him. Saa pulled on him most strongly, but there were other connections, weaker but no less real. Distantly, he was even aware of the draasin and sensed it as Asgar perked up, recognizing when Tan joined the fire bond.

It was almost a physical connection, and so different than the bond that he shared with Asboel. Yet even that wasn’t completely true. Tan could sense Asboel through the fire bond, though differently. His connection to Asboel was born of spirit
and
fire, binding them more tightly than either alone. Through it, he sensed the great draasin still flying, circling. Hunting. He had not stopped since recovering Asgar. Tan doubted that he would stop until they found the other hatchling.
If
they found her.

I should be with you.

The sending went unintentionally, but traveled away from him easily, the connection to Asboel strong, making distances nearly insignificant. He sensed it as Asboel shifted his attention toward Tan. This time, it came differently than it had before. More fully connected somehow.

Maelen. You exist in the bond now.

I don’t know what you mean.

You have discovered the fire bond for yourself.

Had I not, I don’t think I could have saved Asgar.

Asboel snorted. Tan had a glimpse of the land beneath him. He saw streaks of red and orange, the land blooming heat so clearly Incendin. Nothing moved below him, though a city stretched into the distance, a city that Asboel made a point to avoid. Tan doubted the hatchling would be in Incendin, but he would not tell Asboel how to hunt. He wouldn’t listen anyway.

Amusement drifted through the bond.
You have convinced me before, Maelen. I hunt for food. Then I will return to the search.

I should be with you.

You are needed elsewhere. I will call when I find her.

Tan worried that to find the other hatchling would require them to travel across the sea to Par-shon. Doing so risked everyone, not only Asboel, but Tan and the elementals he was bound to. Even Amia would be in danger. If Par-shon separated him from his bonds, they could assume control of even the connection to Amia. It was the only reason he hesitated; otherwise he would have shaped himself to Par-shon after facing the Utu-Tonah the last time.

Asboel pulled away from the bond. He didn’t sever the connection but simply receded within Tan’s mind, fading to nothing more than another connection. Holding fire as he did, reaching for the connections formed all around him, he felt another blazing presence approaching his door.

Tan stood before the knock came and pulled open the door, expecting Cianna. He hadn’t spoken to her since saving Asgar, and he suspected that she had questions. And he had a request of her. Reaching Incendin alone might be as dangerous as Roine suspected. Having another shaper with him, especially one bound to fire like he was, would provide another layer of safety. Not that Tan really expected to need it. If he managed to reach Cora, he could ask for her help. She understood what he intended, perhaps even more than Roine. Besides, he still wanted to learn more about Lacertin, and she had known him better than anyone.

Seanan stood at the door. He was average height, nearly a hand shorter than Tan, and wiry thin. Unlike Cianna, he had plain brown hair cut short. His gaze darted around the room before settling his gray eyes on Tan. Seanan tipped his head slightly. “Warrior,” he said, infusing the word with respect.

Tan hadn’t seen Seanan much since the lisincend attack on the city. Like Cianna, he was from Nara, but as a fire shaper, he kept himself apart from the other shapers of the university. Fire had always been looked on with skepticism—at least, it had until Tan developed much strength in it. Probably still did, he decided.

“Seanan. What can I do for you?”

Seanan glanced past Tan again and seemed to hesitate. Then he took a deep breath. “I would learn what you know.”

Tan blinked. He wasn’t certain what Seanan would want when he came to the door, but learning wasn’t part of what Tan had anticipated. “You think I can teach you? But you’re a Master!”

Seanan huffed. “And you speak to the draasin. There is much to learn in that, I should think.”

Tan motioned Seanan into the house. The fire shaper hesitated and then entered, pausing and turning in place before taking a chair facing the fire. He stared at the flames, his gray eyes reflecting the light moving in the hearth, making them seem to dance.

Tan settled carefully into his chair. He wanted to help Seanan, but there wasn’t time for him to teach. There were more important things that needed to get done first. Finding the hatchling. Learning a way to forge connections to the elementals. Searching for allies, including Incendin. Tan had not even considered teaching, but he wondered if that was an oversight. Not only had Cianna bonded, but Ferran had managed to reach the elementals. Who else could he guide to them?

“You taught Ferran. I would like to know what he has learned from you,” Seanan said.

Golud bonding to Ferran had surprised Tan, but the earth master had taken an interest in listening for earth, in trying to reach for the elemental. He had maintained an open mind and a willingness to accept that he might never reach the elementals.

Tan studied the fire, wondering what he could say to Seanan. “It’s not just Ferran. You would like a bond like Cianna.”

Seanan’s eyes narrowed slightly. “She rides the draasin. It should not have been her chosen. I have been a master far longer than—”

“The draasin choose the bond, as it is with each of the elementals, Seanan.” That wasn’t completely true, but Seanan didn’t need to know how Tan had suggested Cianna to Sashari.

“You speak to them. You could tell them who they must bond. I know there is another—”

“I can suggest, but I can’t
tell
them who to bond, Seanan,” Tan said, cutting him off again, feeling a rising irritation. If the shapers within the kingdoms couldn’t understand why the elementals couldn’t be forced to bond, how would he expect to convince Par-shon? Stopping Par-shon would require more than simply defeating the Utu-Tonah. It would involve changing elements of their culture. Would they be willing to change so much?

Seanan looked over, a confused frown on his face. “But you speak to them. Isn’t that how it is done? You did not tell golud to bond to Ferran? You did not tell the draasin to bond to Cianna?”

Had
he forced the bond? He didn’t think that he had, but what if it really seemed that way? He certainly had asked that golud be willing to listen, but that wasn’t the same as forcing a bond, and certainly nothing like what Par-shon did. And with Cianna, Tan had suggested the bond, recognizing the need, but he had known Cianna well enough that he understood that she would respect the connection. It had been Sashari who had ultimately chosen.

Rather than allowing himself frustration, Tan tried a different tact. “Tell me, Seanan. What do you sense of fire?”

Seanan waved his hand in the air. A trail of smoke drifted from it. The shaping was subtle and skilled and likely more than Tan would even have been able to recognize only a few months ago. Now, fire was nearly as natural to him as wind was to his mother. He could touch it, breathe it, and recognized the way that it intertwined within everything.

Fire
was
life, but no more so than any of the other elements. Without wind, there would be no breath. Without water, there would be no blood. Without earth, there would be no sustenance. And spirit—spirit fused everything together, weaving throughout everything that could be done. Spirit might be the most essential of the elements, the most pure, but also the most elusive.

Tan drew Seanan’s shaping away, pulling it toward saa. The elemental accepted it readily. Once, Tan might have tried drawing the shaping into himself, but he’d learned what happened when he did that, the way that fire would consume, would change the shaper, twisting the connection he had to the fire bond. There was no control when fire burned like that.

Seanan turned to him sharply. “What did you do?”

Tan sniffed. “I ask you what you can sense of fire and you show me a shaping. You might be a skilled shaper, Seanan, but do you
know
fire?”

Seanan waved his hand again. This time, the air sizzled with a whip-thin streamer of fire. Saa was drawn to it, compelled toward the fire. Seanan held the shaping, forming shapes in the air. His hand glowed with the strength of his actions.

Once, Tan might have been impressed by such a display of control. There was no doubting Seanan’s skill. Perhaps he would have been able to teach Tan about fire when he first learned, rather than asking Cianna. That might have avoided some of Amia’s irritation. But now, Tan understood fire in a way that was different from Seanan, an understanding that came not only from working with the draasin, but also from studying the other elementals, struggling to know how to reach them, to learn how they were all connected. More than anything, that was what Tan had learned.

Fire remained easiest for him. He understood it, could see the way Seanan pulled on his shaping, the simple and almost casual way that he dragged the shaping from within him. But it had consequences. Not only was saa drawn to it, but it connected to the rest of fire, joining with it. Had Tan reached through the fire bond, he suspected that he could see it.

With a flash of shaping, Tan extinguished Seanan’s, sending it again to saa. The elemental accepted the fire easily and danced within the hearth, enjoying the gift. The swirling shapes from saa seemed to form shapes, and they combined with something like murmuring in the back of Tan’s mind. Had he focused, he thought he might finally be able to understand saa.

Another time. For now, he had to focus on Seanan.

The fire shaper stared at him, his eyes flashing with irritation that bordered on anger. Tan shaped him with spirit, layering the gentlest touch that he could upon the shaper’s mind. He didn’t want to alienate Seanan, only help him to see how much more there was to know about fire than what he understood. It had taken bonding to the draasin, to nearly losing Asgar, for Tan to begin to understand. He might not have the same knowledge that Asboel managed, but he remained open to learning.

“Seanan,” Tan said, letting the words coming out as soothingly as possible. “You came to me. I can see that you’re skilled. You have much talent with shaping, but fire is about more than simply shaping. There is power to be had, yes, but it requires understanding and submission and control. You have the control, but can you strive for understanding?”

Tan didn’t push for the submission part. Few understood how you had to trust that fire would not burn through you when shaped. Tan still wasn’t sure that he fully understood, only that he no longer feared Asboel’s flames or those of another shaper. They would not harm him, because
fire
would not harm him.

The fire shaper pursed his lips and turned back toward the hearth. He breathed silently for a while, his shaping simmering beneath the surface, so similar to what Cianna did. At least with her, Tan recognized that her shaping was done because she enjoyed the touch of fire; she wanted to mingle with it. Seanan had an angry sense about him. He would not have done well with a bond to the draasin.

“It has been a long time since someone addressed me with such indifference,” Seanan said.

“You think that is indifference?”

Seanan looked over to him. “You simply extinguished my strongest shaping.”

Tan fixed him with a hard expression. “Then you don’t understand what I did.”