Bound by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 2) Read online

  Roine climbed onto the shelving and touched the ceiling. “Stone doesn’t move like this, not when shaped. It will move, but slowly. More likely it would crumble away when shaped. This… this was heated.” He looked down at Tan. “If I needed any more proof you could be a warrior, this is it. The strength you have… we haven’t seen such shaping strength in many years. I think it’s why you were able to speak to the draasin. It’s why you were able to survive.”

  Tan swallowed. If only he could control it, but he had no idea what he’d done to make the shaping work. He’d focused on trying to push through the stone, but what else? What had he done then that he hadn’t tried before?

  He had tried pushing the same way he spoke to the draasin.

  Was that what it took?

  “This still doesn’t explain where the archivists have gone. They wouldn’t abandon the archives. This has been curated for over a thousand years, many before the rest of the university existed. Some of these works are so old, they crumble at the slightest touch. There should be at least one archivist.” Roine jumped down, landing softly on a fluttering of air.

  He made his way back out of the room and continued down the stairs, lighting the shapers lanterns as he went. After a few more flights, they reached a large circular level. A dozen doors ringed the room.

  Roine whistled softly. “Never thought I’d see this.”

  “What is it?”

  Roine made his way to the first door. Made of wide wooden slats with bands of iron holding them together, it had an ancient feel that fit the depths of the archive. The faint shapers lanterns reflected a dull light off the surface of the wood. Tan picked up a sense of age from the wood.

  “A place the archivists claim lost, though few believe them.” He turned, looking at the next door and running his hand over it as well. Roine looked back at Tan. “This building is the location of the very first archive. When the university was first founded, the archives were created as a way to store knowledge. The archivists claim to share their knowledge with any who seek it, but much is restricted, kept from even the Masters. Once, that was not the case.”

  Tan looked at the doors, wondering how they could be as old as the university. The wood should have deteriorated long before, but he couldn’t deny what he sensed from it.

  “What do they keep here?”

  Roine shook his head. “None but the archivists know. Likely the earliest records, the first archives. Documents from when the artifact itself was created. Or maybe nothing. It’s possible this is only their sleeping quarters.” He looked over at Tan and smiled, then turned back toward the door. Roine ran his hand over the lock. Pressure from his shaping built and then faded. Roine shook his head, a frown deepening on his face. Another shaping formed, this time with more pressure, and then released. Nothing happened.

  “Doesn’t it work?”

  Roine stared at the door. “The last shaping should have done something, but it is as if the door itself resists the shaping.”

  “We need a key.”

  Roine nodded. “The archivists must have them. And if none are here…”

  Tan made his way around the ring of doors. Even the stone of this level felt different, as if heavier. Each of the doors looked to be made of the same dark wood banded together with metal. As he looked closely, he realized it wasn’t iron, at least not any type of iron he’d ever seen before. The metal gleamed as dully as the wood and had a cool, smooth texture. His hand tingled where he touched it.

  A shadow along the wall caught his attention. No shaper’s lanterns lit the way here. The only light available drifted down the stairs but didn’t quite reach this far back. Tan moved cautiously, sensing as well as he could, but felt nothing.

  As he approached, he realized what he saw.

  A body.

  The back twisted grotesquely, as if thrown. The person’s face looked upward, open eyes staring blankly. The hair looked singed. A stench came from it that he should have recognized sooner: the stink of a body rotting, but mixed with the scent of char and ash. In the forest around Nor, he’d come across carcasses, dead for days, that smelled much the same.

  “Roine!”

  Roine grunted.

  Tan looked away, his stomach threatening to betray him. “I think I found an archivist.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Another Voice

  Tan stood outside the archives, thankful to be back in the cool air. His lungs burned from a run to the university to find one of the Masters, which Roine had requested he do. The first one he came across had been Master Ferran. At first, Tan hadn’t been certain he’d come with him, but when he mentioned Roine the Athan, his expression changed and he followed Tan to the archives.

  Now Roine and Ferran searched the archives together, looking for signs of the other archivists while Tan stood outside, waiting.

  The body they found was an archivist, but the younger one, the man who had been friendly to Tan. And now he was gone.

  “Why are you standing here?”

  Tan turned and saw Elle leaning against the building. Her arms were crossed over her chest, a stack of books clutched in them. Pale eyes gleamed as she looked at him. “Elle? What are you doing here?”

  She frowned and stepped away from the wall. “Well, I came to find another book and the archivist wasn’t there.” She shrugged. “So I went back and found what I wanted.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  “You mean, other than the rows of books I’ll never get a chance to finish?” She shook her head. “I don’t know why the archivist didn’t stop me. That’s never happened before. They always watch when I come into the archives.”

  Tan swallowed and looked away.

  What would the archives have that would motivate an Incendin shaper to kill one of the guardians of the ancient books?

  But leave the other archivist alive. Why would one of the archivists work with an Incendin shaper?

  He sighed and shook his head. Roine wouldn’t answer him. If Tan could face the lisincend and survive—and help recover the ancient artifact—why shouldn’t he be included in whatever Roine planned?

  Elle watched him, her frown deepening. “What happened in there? What happened to the archivist?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “You know something.”

  Tan shook his head slightly.

  “Well?”

  “What do you want me to say? That one of the archivists is dead? That we can’t find any of the others? That Roine and Master Ferran are searching the archives but keep me out, afraid of what else they might find?”

  Elle whistled softly. One hand rubbed behind her ear.

  Before she had a chance to say anything more, Tan felt a massive buildup of pressure.

  He looked around, wondering who might be shaping. Pain pulsed with the shaping in his head, pounding in his ears. He grabbed his head, biting down to push back against what he felt. Colors swam across his vision, leaving spots shimmering as if he’d stared at the sun for too long.

  The pressure left, bursting away from him.

  Tan sighed.

  Thunder rumbled loudly, shaking the buildings around them. Faint trails of dust seeped from the archives’ stones. The ground shook and for a moment, Tan thought it might split open beneath him. Elle gasped next to him.

  And then it stopped.

  Tan looked around, wondering what had just happened. The power behind the shaping was unlike anything he’d felt before, even more powerful than what he’d felt when they were running from the lisincend.

  “What was that?” Elle whispered.

  “I don’t know. A shaping.”

  “I know it was a shaping,” she said. She stood next to him, the top of her head coming only to his shoulder. The pale gray dress she wore looked huge on her. “But it was outside the city. For us to feel it…”

  Tan looked down at Elle and blinked. She was right. The shaping had come from outside the city. He pressed out, trying to s
ense what might have come. At first, he thought he might not be able to discover anything, but then he felt something off. Near the outskirts of the city, where Tan knew were small farms and clusters of homes, the ground had been charred. Not destroyed, not like Nor. It came through the sensing as massive heat steaming from the ground.

  The lisincend?

  If it were the lisincend, it was a different kind of shaping than any he’d ever seen from them. But what else could make a shaping like that?

  “You sense it, don’t you?”

  Tan turned to see Roine watching him. His dark eyes had an edge of anger in them. “I don’t know what I sense.”

  Roine snorted and stepped away from the archives. Master Ferran came after. He had a few books in his arms, their titles obscured.

  “I’ve warned you they were unsafe. That there was a reason the ancient warriors hunted them. And we’ve loosed them back on a world unprepared to face them,” Roine said.

  “That wasn’t—”

  Roine raised his hand to silence Tan. “You don’t know what it was. But we both know what you sensed. And we both know the power required to work a shaping like we just felt.”

  “Roine—”

  Roine shook his head. “No. The king was clear. If Ethea or the kingdoms were threatened, we would have to take action. I know you think the shaping holds, but that hasn’t kept them from attacking. First near the borders and now near the city. How many died just now because of them? How many more will die before we can find them?”

  Tan didn’t know what to say. Roine was convinced the draasin had done this, that they had attacked Ethea, but Tan felt nothing of them. Wouldn’t he have felt it if they attacked? Wouldn’t he have felt it if they were so close?

  Roine looked back at Master Ferran. “Summon as many as you can. What we must do has not been attempted in a thousand years.”

  Master Ferran frowned. “You demand the Masters appear? You may be Athan, Roine, and a skilled wind shaper, but you—”

  Roine took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He looked over at Tan as he did. “Summon the Masters,” he repeated, this time unsheathing his sword, the marker of a warrior. “Tell them Theondar calls.”

  A gust of wind lifted Roine, whisking him toward the palace. Master Ferran hurried off toward the university. He barely even glanced at Tan before leaving, though his deep frown told Tan everything about how he felt.

  “What was he talking about? What does he think attacked?”

  Tan sighed. Could the draasin really be responsible for the attack outside the city? Amia’s shaping held, didn’t it?

  “I told you the lisincend destroyed my home.”

  Elle nodded.

  “And Roine—Theondar—searched for something for the king. I helped him find it.”

  She looked over at him, her eyes wide. “What did he look for? What kind of power did he find?”

  “We found something along the way, creatures long thought lost to the world, elementals of great power…” Tan swallowed. “When we searched for the king, we came across a massive frozen lake. Trapped beneath the ice were three of the draasin.”

  Elle gasped.

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  She nodded. “Only rumors. They are great fire elementals.”

  “Roine tells me the ancient warriors hunted them. They were considered too dangerous to live.”

  “And you?”

  Tan shook his head. “They are elementals. They are a part of the world. Fearsome and powerful, but necessary. And…” He swallowed. “And they saved us from the lisincend. Had they not come when I summoned—”

  “You summoned one of the great elementals?”

  Tan nodded. “When they were frozen beneath the ice, one of them spoke to me.”

  If only it would speak to him now. If it did, he could ask what happened here, why it seemed the draasin attacked.

  Tan closed his eyes and relaxed, breathing out slowly. Draasin!

  He sent out the call with as much strength as he could. It left him feeling weakened.

  “What was that?”

  Tan blinked. “What was what?”

  Elle had a troubled look. “I felt something. Almost like I could hear it if I tried.”

  Tan looked at her. How would Elle have felt him trying to communicate with the draasin?

  No response came. Draasin!

  This time, he pushed through the memory of the connection. He felt nothing there now, but it still had to be there. The connection couldn’t have been severed, could it?

  Or did the draasin choose to ignore him? Would they ignore him if they attacked the city?

  After all the time spent wishing for the connection to change, now he wanted to speak to them and couldn’t.

  “You did it again.”

  The draasin hadn’t answered, but Elle heard what he did. How was that possible?

  “I’m trying to speak to the draasin.”

  Elle leaned toward him and shook her head slowly. “Why can I sense it?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think you should. When I did it before, the others with me couldn’t tell when I did.”

  “Try it again.”

  “It doesn’t matter. They don’t answer. And if I can’t get them to answer, then Roine is going to hunt them.”

  “You don’t think they should be hunted?”

  Tan thought of the way the draasin swooped through the sky, the way their powerful wings beat at the air. They were deadly hunters, but they did not deserve what Roine planned. Once the draasin were gone, the last of the great elementals would be gone.

  “No.”

  Elle studied him for a moment. “Try it again,” she said. “But this time, try doing whatever you do with me.”

  “It won’t work with you,” Tan said.

  “Try it,” Elle said.

  Tan shook his head, but what would it hurt to try communicating with Elle? If it didn’t work, he could tell her he tried. And he couldn’t deny feeling curious whether it would work.

  What had he done with the nymid and the draasin? How did he communicate with them?

  Nothing particularly special. With the draasin, they maintained the connection, only releasing him when they chose. Speaking to the nymid had been different. But what about the connection could he reproduce?

  He focused on Elle, trying to think about forcing a connection. And then he sent out a thought.

  Elle!

  He pushed it with as much energy as he had. Tan staggered forward under the effort.

  Elle grabbed her head. “You shaped me!”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t shape anything.”

  “I felt what you did. It was a shaping.”

  Tan frowned. Could she be right? Had he shaped her? Was that how he spoke to the elementals? “Did you hear what I said?”

  She frowned. “I think… yes. You said my name, didn’t you?”

  Tan laughed softly. How had Elle heard him? Even with the shaped connection between him and Amia, he hadn’t been able to communicate with her the same way, but he hadn’t really tried. Could he use their bond to speak? If so, he wouldn’t have to feel quite so alone now that she’d left the city.

  How can you hear this?

  Elle laughed. “You asked how can I hear this.”

  Try speaking back to me.

  Tan waited. Would Elle be able to talk to him the way he spoke to the elementals? The way he somehow managed to speak to her?

  At first, he heard nothing.

  Tan?

  It came more like a whisper, but it was Elle’s voice. She sounded nothing like she did when she spoke aloud and nothing like the draasin or even the nymid. It sounded wispy, barely there.

  I hear you, but you’re quiet.

  It’s hard to speak this way.

  Tan nodded. The first time he tried speaking to the nymid out of the water, it had taken so much energy, he had barely managed to stay awake.

  Have you ever been able to do this
before?

  Elle shook her head. I can tell when there are shapings around me.

  I can as well. Did that make a difference?

  Do you think I might be able to speak to the elementals?

  If she could speak to him this way, there seemed no reason she couldn’t speak to the elementals.

  Tan started to tell her when sudden pain shot through him. He grabbed his head.

  And then fire exploded in the night.

  CHAPTER 16

  The Draasin Answer

  Tan ran toward the fire. The shaping was familiar to him and nothing like the Incendin shapers. That meant draasin.

  But why?

  The draasin wouldn’t hunt near Ethea. There were too many shapers for that.

  Flames leaped into the sky on the other side of the city, shooting in massive spurts like some sort of display. The air felt still and quiet and the heat of the flames already pushed away the chill. All around him, people ran.

  Elle ran alongside him, struggling to keep up. At first, he heard her voice in his head, a distant whisper. Then she gave up trying to speak to him that way and shouted. “Tan!”

  He started to slow. If the draasin attacked Ethea, he needed to know. He didn’t know what he might be able to do. Speak to them, argue with them to leave the city. More than that?

  Do you attack, draasin?

  He sent the thought as loudly as he could.

  It had been days since he spoke to the draasin, days since the connection had changed.

  So it came as a surprise when they answered.

  Little Warrior. You disturb the pairing.

  Tan nearly stumbled.

  He stopped at an intersection. People streamed around them, most running from the fire. One man stopped and glanced at Tan. Something about his face looked familiar. But then he disappeared, running through the street.

  Tan stopped pushing against the flow of people and leaned against a stone building. A faded sign hanging out front showed a needle and thread. The lettering had long since disappeared.

  Draasin?

  A deep, annoyed rumble came through the connection. You called the draasin, Little Warrior. Why do you bother?