Changed By Fire (Book 3) Read online

  “They are not unguarded. Some remain, especially along the barrier, enough to hold back an attack and send warning.” He pulled several small circular stones from his pocket and held one up. A single rune was carved into the surface. “Any can send warning. Each of us will carry one. If you receive the warning, you will return to help Ethea.”

  “I don’t think Ethea is what Incendin is after,” Zephra said.

  “Perhaps not.” Roine attention fell on Cianna. “Their end game may be to claim Nara, as it always has been. Either way, we will be prepared.”

  “That’s not all Incendin is after,” Tan said. He thought about Doma, about the information Elle and Sarah—his mother—had shared with him. “Why else would they take shapers from Doma?”

  Roine holds his hands up to stop him. “One thing at a time.”

  “You think to simply go into Incendin and attack?” Tan asked. “All these years we’ve avoided Incendin, and now you think to shape your way in and attack?”

  “I think to reclaim the artifact. If it is the key to what Incendin plans, then I will do what is needed to protect us.”

  “You can’t do that alone, Roine. The only thing that could come of that would be for you to die.”

  “I won’t be alone.” He looked at Cianna. “My weakest element is fire. Cianna will help.”

  “And I’m going too, Tannen,” Zephra said. “I know how to find Lacertin.”

  “Four of you?” he asked. “Against all of Incendin? Why now? What changed for you?”

  His mother held out her hand. A small, smooth stone with a tiny rune glowed on one surface. “It’s Lacertin. He would only call if he needed help.”

  Lacertin needed help. That meant something had gone wrong. Lacertin had asked him to come but he had refused. What had he risked by ignoring Lacertin’s request? “Let me summon the draasin, let us have an elemental on our side—”

  “This is not your battle with Incendin this time. You have something else you must do. You must learn to control your shapings. If you can’t, there is little you can do while in Incendin.” He smiled, but it appeared forced. “Besides, it is more than four of us. I’ve convinced a few others to come as well.”

  He tipped his head and Tan noticed Ferran, Nels, Alan, and Seanan—all shapers twisted by the archivists—standing to the side. Even they would not be enough, not against Incendin and not if they had Doma shapers working with them.

  “If I bring the draasin—” Tan started.

  “Don’t be stupid, Tan,” Cianna snorted. “You’re smarter than that. As much as I would like to fight alongside the draasin, if you bring them into Incendin, you risk the lisincend getting the one thing they want. Right now, the draasin are safe. Do as Theondar says. Learn your shaping. Learn control. Then you can help.”

  Tan turned to Roine. “It won’t be as simple as what you think, Roine. You saw her…”

  “She is a creature of fire, the same as the lisincend. I have fought the lisincend more times than you, Tannen. Do not think me incapable.” He touched a hand to his sword.

  Tan thought of the runes in the lower level of the archives and sighed. Nothing he would say would sway Roine. Besides, what he and Amia needed to do was equally important. He didn’t know exactly where they were going, but if there was anything they could do to help save the king, they needed to do it, and before whatever shaping the archivists had placed damaged him further. Maybe then they could summon the other shapers to help.

  “You will bring us to the Aeta?” Tan asked Roine.

  “I’ll have help,” he answered, nodding toward Zephra.

  They stood in the midst of the damaged shaper’s circle, the stones now uneven. Roine stood on one side of Tan and Amia while Zephra stood on the other.

  “Be safe, Tannen,” his mother said. She gave him a quick hug and stepped away, eyes flickering to Amia. “Keep him safe.”

  Then the shaping engulfed them, lifting them into the air on a blur of wind.

  * * *

  Wind whistled around them, cold and biting. Even with the cloak he had brought, Tan hadn’t prepared for the weather. While riding with Asboel, it hadn’t mattered. The heat from the draasin had kept him warm. Now, walking alongside Amia, he felt every gust as it blew through the trees.

  “How much farther?” he asked.

  Amia pulled her cloak tight around her. “I can’t say with certainty. Finding this place was something Mother never taught me, though even those not blessed are able to do it. I am trying to sense my way to them.”

  They had been walking the better part of two days, winding their way through the mountains. Roine and his mother had shaped them part of the way, carrying them on a gust of wind mixed with fire—the lancing lightning he had always seen when Lacertin arrived.

  Tan worried about Amia. She had been through so much that he wasn’t sure she should take him to this gathering of Aeta, especially after what happened to her the last time she traveled with them. At least this time she went with eyes open. And after she left him with the Aeta, what would she encounter as she returned with help to Ethea to save the king?

  “Are you certain about your plan?” he asked.

  “You don’t need to save me, Tan.” She touched his face softly. “Maybe this will be good. You can see I am capable.”

  “I’ve seen what you can do, how you shaped the draasin. Without you, none of this would have been possible.”

  A shadow of troubled thought crossed her face. “I’ve been thinking about the draasin,” she started. “I think Roine is right. I should not have been able to shape one of the elementals.”

  “You did it in a place of power where the Great Mother brings all the elements together. I don’t think it’s surprising at all that you shaped the draasin in that place.”

  “They are creatures of power. The more I think of what I did, the less comfortable with it I am.”

  Tan considered of what he knew of the draasin from his connection to Asboel. The shaping placed upon them by Amia was restrictive, but not so much so that they were unable to hunt. She had simply limited what they could hunt.

  And would the shaping hold once the eggs he saw clutched in Asboel’s talons the last time he’d seen him eventually hatched? Would the hatchlings have the same restrictions as the draasin they freed from the ice?

  “Will she teach me?” he asked.

  Amia focused straight ahead. “I don’t know. I hope so.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then I will teach you as we planned.”

  Tan nodded. “How long do you think it will take?”

  Amia shook her head again. “It’s different with each person, I think. When I came, I was very young. When the Gathering took place, Mother knew it would take longer than previous years. At that time, there were two others able to shape spirit, both older than me. One was quite a bit older, a Mother during her time, who now served all the people. The Gathering is the only time we are a People. Otherwise, we travel as families.”

  “How long did it take?”

  “I learned the basics. Enough to control the shaping and keep from damaging others. Spirit shaping is riskier than others in that way. You often can’t see the effect of your shaping. If a shaping is made accidentally, there can be… unplanned consequences.” She glanced over at him, wearing a guilty expression.

  “I don’t blame you for what happened that night,” Tan said. “I just wish I could have done more.”

  Amia looked away. A mixture of emotions came through the shaped connection. “You did more than you needed, Tan. Had you not arrived, I would have suffered the same fate as the Mother. I am only sorry we brought the lisincend to your village.”

  Once, he had wanted nothing more than a quiet life in Nor, a life spent climbing the mountains of Galen. The arrival of the Aeta had changed that. Now he had no idea what he wanted for himself, only that he wanted Amia to be a part of it.

  She smiled at him. “I want that, too.”

&n
bsp; Tan laughed softly. She shouldn’t have known what he was thinking, but the connection between them seemed deeper since he had carried her into the pool of spirit. And had he not, the archivists twisting her shaping would have poisoned her mind enough that she might not have survived. Or worse, Amia might have been used to create the new lisincend.

  They walked a while longer in silence. Darkness began to set; the sun faded behind the trees, leaving a heavy gloaming that sent shadows skittering across the forest floor. Tan felt no fear moving through the darkness of unfamiliar woods. Years spent learning earth sensing from his father gave him a certain confidence. All around, he sensed life. That by itself was reassuring. But something felt wrong.

  “Do you sense anything?” he asked.

  Amia cocked her head as she listened, then frowned. “Do you?”

  He couldn’t tell what triggered the sense. Other than the familiar awareness of forest, that of trees and the animals living here, he sensed nothing out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing that made him think the Aeta might be near.

  “What if we don’t find them?” How many nights would they wander before giving up on finding the Aeta? And if they didn’t find them, what then? The king remained trapped by the archivist’s shaping. What would happen if he couldn’t be freed?

  “That’s my fear as well,” she said, again knowing his thoughts. “If we can’t find them, I’ll do what I can to help the king, but I think Roine will have to recognize he might be forever lost—”

  The soft tinkle of bells drifted through the forest, interrupting her. Tan frowned. It didn’t come on the wind. Had it been shaped?

  Amia’s face twisted and Tan paused, struck by her fear instead of comfort she was finding her people. How would she react when they reached the place of the Gathering?

  After another dozen steps, flickering lights emerged from the growing darkness: lanterns hanging from wagons arranged in a familiar wide circle. Dozens of colorful wagons, painted no differently than any other Aeta caravan he had ever seen circled in the midst of the trees. Tan would almost have thought the wagons were simply parked for the night, left idle while the Aeta rested before moving onto their next destination, but none of the wagons had any wheels.

  He squeezed Amia’s hand. They had reached the Gathering, but how?

  12

  THE GATHERING

  Amia led them through a gap in the wagons, moving with a determined step. The muscles in her hand were tense as she gripped Tan’s, squeezing harder than necessary. Soft music drifted through the trees and disappeared into the night. There was a mournful quality to it, so different than the usual happy and festive sounds he associated with the Aeta.

  A large fire crackled in the center of a clearing. The wagons weaved around trees, but near the center, the trees had long ago been felled, leaving a wide expanse of open ground. A ring of rocks piled in a circle created the open pit. A dozen spits rotated over the fire, making it seem like a massive celebration. People dressed in bright clothes and cuts of many different styles stood, sat, or danced around the fire.

  But as Tan and Amia stepped into the clearing, unease settled over everything; the Aeta had sensed their arrival.

  “If this doesn’t work, we may need to leave quickly.”

  He frowned. “Why do you say that?”

  She lowered her voice. “We have protected our secret for hundreds of years. No outsider has ever been allowed into the Gathering. Doing so is forbidden. And now I’ve brought you here.”

  “Not even my mother?”

  Amia’s eyes widened slightly. “Especially not your mother.”

  A tall man stepped away from the fire and made his way toward them. He had closely shorn hair that set off his large silver hoop earrings. A long, hooked nose pointed toward them as he studied Amia first, then Tan. He tipped his head slightly. “Daughter,” he said in a whisper.

  Amia took a deep breath and straightened her back. “Once I would have claimed that title.”

  The man tilted his head. He smoothed one hand down the front of his maroon jacket and kept his eyes fixed on Amia. “You no longer serve as Daughter?”

  She gathered herself up and thrust her chin forward. “I no longer have a family to serve.”

  His eyes widened. “No family?”

  Amia didn’t move.

  The man tipped his head. Tan felt a shaping build. Did Amia perform the shaping… or did the man? After learning that some of the spirit shaping archivists were once Aeta, he no longer felt certain.

  He considered readying a shaping, but earth did not respond well to him and air was fickle. He had little control of water—he’d not really tried much water shaping—which left only fire. With the blazing flames dancing nearby, he could try a fire shaping—especially since he seemed attuned to fire through his connection to the draasin—but fire was destructive and dangerous. The Aeta had already seen too much destruction from fire.

  Tan forced himself to relax.

  “You are welcomed here, of course, Daughter. May the fire grant the warmth of the Great Mother. But you should not have—” he looked over at Tan “—brought another to the Gathering. Such a thing is forbidden. You should already have learned that custom.”

  Amia took a deep breath and nodded. “I know the rules, Brother, but he is my family.”

  The man’s eyes narrowed slightly as he considered Tan. “It is unusual for a Daughter to choose from outside the People.”

  “It is.”

  “Did you have approval?”

  Amia glanced at Tan. A warning of silence flowed through their bond. “The Mother consented.”

  The man studied Tan for another moment and then nodded, a smile splitting his face. “Then come and find peace and warmth by the fire. Others have already arrived, and more should come shortly. The Gathering will commence soon.”

  He led them to the fire and motioned to an open bench made of two sawn logs with a thick, rough-hewn board thrown over top. Amia took a seat and waited for Tan to follow. He hesitated. A few Aeta watched him, and he felt self-conscious. A wide man with a tattooed neck worked at the nearby spit. The roasting meat made Tan’s mouth water. A woman stood next to him fanning a long-handled blade overtop a metal grate. A nearby scent of bread mixed with a sweet smell.

  As he sat, Tan leaned in to Amia. “This is it?”

  “This is the Gathering.”

  “Is it always so serious?”

  “No, but the People are sensitive. Our ability with spirit grants us a different connection. I suspect word of the lisincend attack has reached all the families.”

  “And the attack near the place of convergence? Would they have learned of that?”

  Amia’s brow furrowed as she considered. “It is possible.”

  The man who had greeted them made his way around the fire. He paused to speak to various people as he walked, leaning toward them as he did. Each time, Tan felt the soft pressure of a shaping.

  A shaper. He was certain of it.

  At times, the man glanced over. When he caught Tan watching, he smiled. It did not reach his eyes.

  “What did he mean when he said you chose someone?” Tan asked.

  She sat stiffly on the bench. A sense of anxiety washed through their shaped connection, but then she sighed and took his hand. “It’s a shame you know so little of the Aeta. I should have explained my people to you before now. Certainly before coming to the Gathering.” She nodded at the man, who had reached the far side of the fire circle. The flames had begun concealing him. “Mothers lead each family. It has been that way since the beginning of the People. And Daughters must be chosen to follow, though we are not always daughter to the Mother. By now, I should have returned to the People, but I didn’t—I couldn’t—because of you.”

  Tan pulled her close, not caring about the looks they got from others around them. Amia didn’t need him to share how he felt about her. The connection they shared was deeper than words could convey. “I choose you, too,” he said s
oftly. Amia smiled. “What would happen when the Mother could no longer serve?”

  “She could have remained with the family. It happens sometimes. A Mother will become frail and unable to lead. The others will see to her comfort, a way of thanking her for years of serving the family.”

  Tan felt as if there was something she held back from him. “But that’s not all.”

  When she met his eyes, her deep blues reflected the firelight. “There are other ways for a Mother to step down. One is here, at the Gathering. A transition will take place, observed by all the People.”

  Tan thought of the other Aeta caravan, the one Amia had left with to find healing. She must have known about the Gathering then. “Is that where they were bringing you?”

  “It is where the caravan should have been coming. I do not know if the Mother feared the fact that I am blessed or if it was simply that the archivist was her family.”

  “What happened was no fault of yours,” Tan reminded her.

  “But it might have been partly my fault. Had I not shared how I was blessed, perhaps the Mother would not have feared I would replace her.”

  Tan squeezed Amia’s hand. She trembled, a different shaking than when the sickness afflicting her mind had threatened to overwhelm her. “She committed to her path when she chose her brother over her people.”

  Amia nodded. “And do I do something so different by choosing you over my people?”

  “That’s what he meant by you choosing me?”

  “Custom demands that I find another family. It was why the Mother of the other caravan was willing to take me on, even though a Daughter served.”

  “What was she like? The Daughter.”

  “Are you asking if she was angry I was allowed to join the family?” Amia asked. “That is not the way of the People. Choosing oneself over the family does not happen.”

  “But it did.”

  Amia took a soft breath and let it out slowly. “It did.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, nothing but the snapping of the flames and the soft music behind them as distraction. The man working the spit smiled at Amia and nodded toward the meat. She tipped her head in assent and he tore off a hunk of meat and brought it to her.