Fortress of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 4) Read online

  “I’m a fool,” he said, understanding coming to him through the shaping. “I shouldn’t have brought you.”

  “You would have left me behind in Ethea? Now you think to treat me as your mother treats you.”

  “That’s not it. It’s Incendin. I understand, Amia, and you don’t have to come with me,” he said gently. “I know how you fear facing Incendin again. After what you’ve been through, I can’t blame you, but I need to do this. He’s not just an elemental. The draasin are different than the others. At least, Asboel is different for me.”

  Amia stared at him for a long time. “You’re not going without me. I’m bonded to you as much as you’ve bonded Asboel.”

  He brushed his hand across her cheek. “I know you’ve struggled with your place since learning of the First Mother. But he’s our family.”

  She laughed softly. “Not quite the family I envisioned, but you’re right.” She rested her head on his hand, taking slow breaths. “We don’t know enough about Incendin. After all this time, they are still such a mystery. Had we only the chance to ask Lacertin.”

  It no longer felt strange to think the same thing. Lacertin had sacrificed everything on behalf of the kingdoms and now they were without his wisdom. “He’s the only one who’s been in the Fire Fortress and returned to talk about it.”

  Fire is dark in that place.

  Tan jerked his attention to Honl, who flickered around him. You know the Fire Fortress?

  I have blown through there. Wind blows everywhere, Tan, even through Fire. Without wind, Fire does not burn.

  Can you guide me once we’re there?

  Honl took a moment to consider. You will help Fire?

  Tan had a fleeting image of the lisincend. Of Fur. He shook his head emphatically. No. I will help True Fire.

  Honl flittered with a little more agitation before settling next to Tan. Then I must try.

  13

  Green in Incendin

  Amia stared into the distance. Across the barren rock, there was heat and fire and death. They had both been through Incendin, though Amia’s trek through those lands had been different than Tan’s. The last time she’d really been to Incendin, she had nearly died. The hounds had chased her and her people, and the lisincend had followed.

  “I’m not certain that I can go,” she said.

  Tan took her hands, pulling her around to face him. “I’m not sure I could shape you back to Ethea, but maybe Honl can carry you most of the way. There’s much you could do in the kingdoms. You could gather the Aeta. They will need leadership. I’ll return when I can. Asboel needs me.” Tan let his awareness of Asboel’s pain rise closer to the surface of his mind. With it came the searing sense of agony. Whatever had happened to Asboel left Tan unable to reach the fire elemental.

  Amia closed her eyes and nodded. “I need you. I don’t know if I can do anything for the People. Not by myself, and not without you.”

  “I wouldn’t ask this for any other reason but Asboel—”

  She kissed him on the lips, silencing him. “I understand. It’s the same as what you were willing to do for me.” She rested against him for a moment. Tan savored the sense of her, the way her body pressed into him. “How will you find him?”

  Could Honl help? Honl, can you help me find Fire?

  The wind elemental swirled toward them. Tan realized that he could see him better the longer they shared a connection. Would he soon be able to see him clearly?

  I cannot, Honl answered.

  Tan waited for him to explain more, but he didn’t. If the wind elemental couldn’t help, could Tan reach for him with earth sensing?

  He stretched out with his senses, using the skills his father had long ago taught him, attempting a shaping like he’d seen Ferran use. Tan had to focus, using his connection to the earth through sensing, but managed to add to it, to twist it into the shaping he intended. Even with the shaping augmenting him, he couldn’t sense Asboel.

  He let out a frustrated sigh.

  “Let me try,” Amia whispered. “You’ll have to help. For this to work, I think we’ll both need to shape spirit,” she said.

  Tan took a deep breath and focused on the elements. He shaped each together, weaving them as he did when shaping spirit. Amia shaped at the same time, but frowned at him.

  “I don’t think it will work like that. Whatever you do when you shape spirit is different when you do that. This shaping must come from you.”

  “I can’t—”

  “You’ve always shaped spirit,” she said. “Like the other elementals, it’s within you. Had it not been, you wouldn’t have survived the pool.”

  Could he shape spirit without binding the elements? What had it taken for him to shape wind and earth? He needed focus. With wind, he’d learned to focus on his breathing, to use that to connect him to what he intended. With earth, it was different, tied to his ability to sense. What did spirit require?

  He could think of only one way to reach spirit within him. He focused on his connection to Amia and sensed it clearly. As he did, he felt something deeper, similar to what he’d felt when seeking Honl.

  Tan stretched for it. Something akin to what he’d sensed when standing in the pool of spirit burbled deep within him. Much like with the pool of spirit, he could draw upon it.

  He only managed to skim across the surface of what he sensed. It felt different than when he drew on spirit by binding the four elements together. Purer.

  Had it always been there? Was this what the First Mother sought him to harness?

  Amia reached through their bond. There was no other way to think of it: she pressed through him, into his mind. As she did, their thoughts mingled. He felt her fear at being this close to Incendin. It was a different fear than what he’d expected. Tan thought she was scared for herself, that the hounds chasing her and her people across Incendin had made her frightened of this place, but while there was some of that, what truly terrified her was something different: him.

  He felt her try to hide it from him, but as she pressed through him, everything was laid out, no differently than when he’d stood in the pool of spirit.

  Amia feared what would happen to him in Incendin. Through her eyes, he saw the lisincend attack her family’s caravan. He saw her people taken by the lisincend, turned into playthings for the hounds. He saw her mother destroyed, burned by fire. The pain and horror was dull, muted by time and the mourning she had already done.

  Beyond that, he saw the lisincend destroy him, blasting him into the lake. There was surprise when he’d emerged from the water coated by the nymid armor. The renewed terror when the hound attacked. There was the fear she felt as he’d attacked Alisz, risking himself to save Amia but nearly losing himself as he did. She saw fire changing him and, through their connection, Tan finally saw what he must have looked like. Fire had twisted his face, drawing his lips tight, narrowing his eyes, and layering his face with thick, scaly skin. Had he seen himself, he would have thought him one of the lisincend. Then his rebirth, saved again by the nymid, only to suffer and nearly die once more as he faced Althem.

  All this came to her mind, the fear raw and real and immediate.

  He was her family. After what she’d been through, after losing everything, including the Aeta she thought could be her family when the rest had died, she had nothing else. She had no one else. Only Tan.

  Tan understood. She didn’t fear going to Incendin. She feared Tan going to Incendin.

  He touched her arm, running his hand across her skin. It would not make her feel any better, but he would reassure her as well as he could. I must do this.

  She twisted her face up to him. The sunlight played off her golden hair and reflected in her bright blue eyes. I know.

  Think of what we’ll lose if I don’t.

  Tan showed her the connections he’d made throughout Ethea. He showed her Elle, terrified and dying as she rode Asboel along with him to find the udilm. He showed her how Asboel had done all that he could to
save the youngest. He showed her the friendships they had formed: Roine, Ferran, his mother, Cianna, and Asboel. They were his family now.

  I know.

  And he sensed that she did. That came through their connection as well.

  Steel ran through Amia, a strength she rarely chose to show, but that Tan knew hid within her. Had she not had that strength, everything she’d been through would have crushed her. She would have fallen the first time the lisincend attacked. Or the next. Possibly any of the times they had nearly died. Instead, Amia remained strong, pushing on regardless.

  It was this strength that drove her now. She pressed through the connection with Tan, forcing deeper into his mind and thoughts. With any other, he might fear the immediacy of the connection, he might fear that she would shape him. But he trusted Amia. He was laid bare for her.

  Somewhere in his mind, she found the connection to Asboel and plunged into it. As she did, the pain returned, rising hot and fresh to the surface. Somehow, Amia kept it suppressed.

  She gasped softly. Tan didn’t know what she sensed, only that his sense of her faded as she reached through the connection and toward Asboel. She was there, but she was also not there.

  Then she withdrew, rising back out of his mind, sliding away from him, back through their connection, and out. Amia sagged toward the ground. Tan slipped an arm around her waist and held her up, keeping her from dropping. Fatigue etched into lines around her eyes, and he felt it through their shaped connection.

  He felt none of the same exhaustion, which told him that she had done all the work with the shaping. “Did you find him?” he asked. Speaking to her felt wrong considering their connection, but communicating through the bond communicating through the bond required shaping and strength, both of which were energy draining.

  She nodded weakly. “He’s out there. Possibly injured, though I can’t tell with any certainty.”

  Out there. Tan suspected she meant Incendin, but had to know. “Where?”

  “Near the border.”

  “Not the Fire Fortress?” That had been his fear. Had Asboel gone there, would Tan have been able to reach him? Not without more help than he had.

  “Not there. The border.” In spite of the heat, she shivered.

  Tan held her and lowered her to the ground so she could sit. “You’ve been there,” he said with a new understanding.

  “I’ve been there,” she agreed. “We never really traded in Incendin. Not often. The lands are too hard on the horses and the wagons, and none really wanted to head any farther into Incendin than was necessary.” Her strength began to return as she sat next to him, but still she clutched his arm, as if afraid he might try to leave without her. Or maybe she wanted to keep him from racing after Asboel. “But the borders were generally safe. We were allowed to trade, and Incendin goods always fetched a premium. Few other traders ever came there, giving us an advantage.”

  “There was a time you went farther into Incendin,” Tan reminded her.

  Her eyes narrowed. “And we paid dearly for it.”

  “I think your mother knew what the First Mother had done to the Doma shapers.”

  Amia’s eyes stared distantly toward Incendin. “I’d been thinking about that too. There wouldn’t be too many reasons for us to go so deep into Incendin otherwise. We were practically to the Fire Fortress before we were chased.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “The fortress itself is impressive,” she admitted. “It rises from the surrounding waste like a finger of darkness. Flames leap around the top. Probably shapers, though with Incendin, you can’t put it past them having some other dark power.”

  Like the bowl with runes carved along the outside. The fire shapers had used that bowl to somehow augment their shapings, to twist and taint what they were able to accomplish and force a dark twisting of the archivist’s power. That had been how Alisz managed to become one of the twisted lisincend.

  “And the people?” Tan asked.

  Amia shrugged. “I’ve never met anyone who lives near the Fire Fortress. Only those living along the edge of Incendin. And they’re like anyone else. Their culture is different, as is their dress, but it’s not their fault where they were born.”

  Tan hadn’t really thought of it that way. He always focused on Incendin being a land overrun by horrible fire shapers. The hounds and the lisincend as well as all the shapers they had. But that wouldn’t necessarily mean the people of Incendin were like that. They were likely no different than anyone living in Nor or Velminth, or even Ethea.

  Amia took a deep breath and stood. “I’m ready. Let’s go help Asboel.”

  Tan took her hand and together, they looked toward Incendin. “You’ll have to guide the shaping,” he said. “You know where we have to go; Asboel wouldn’t tell me.”

  “I think I’m strong enough for that,” she said.

  Honl?

  Tan called the wind elemental, not certain how quickly he’d respond. As soon as Tan spoke his name, the wind elemental swirled around him, kicking up a hint of dust.

  We need to find Fire.

  Dangerous, Honl said.

  I know. But he is my bond, my responsibility. It is what the Mother would want.

  The wind elemental swirled around him with agitation.

  Amia will guide you through me.

  Honl seemed to shift his attention to her, sliding from Tan toward Amia.

  Amia pressed through Tan again. He opened his end of their connection so she could. Tan directed Honl to lift them on a gust of air and they rose with increasing strength. Again, Tan marveled at how easy the connection to Honl felt, almost as easy as it was for him and Asboel. They climbed to the air, riding on a cloud, as Honl pushed them forward.

  When they crossed over into Incendin, Tan felt a tingle across his skin from the remnants of the barrier. With it fallen, why hadn’t Incendin attacked yet? They had shapers stolen from Doma, so they should have the advantage. Too many kingdoms’ shapers had been lost in the recent attacks. The kingdoms were weakened, in danger of falling if another concerted attack came, but none had. Was it because they feared the draasin, or was there some other reason?

  They raced across the sky. Beneath them, the barren expanse of Incendin stretched as far as he could see. There were patches of darker brown, practically black in some places, but Tan didn’t have enough time to see what they might be. He saw nothing else, no sign of life, nothing that indicated an imminent attack.

  They flew east. Slightly to the north was a hint of red flames rising from the Fire Fortress. Tan had only seen it through Asboel’s eyes, never his own, and he felt a thrill of fear at how close they had to be for him to see it at all. Then it was gone. They moved quickly, their speed increasing the farther they moved toward the east. Toward Doma, he realized. The last time he’d been there, he’d nearly died.

  Amia’s concern filled the bond and he squeezed her against him.

  Tan reached out with earth sensing. Doing it while airborne was difficult. The connection was weaker this way, but he pressed out anyway. He didn’t sense Asboel, and that worried him. Wherever the draasin had ended up, it was probably someplace from which Tan wouldn’t have easy access to help. Roine had claimed there were kingdoms’ shapers in Incendin. Would they answer the summons on a rune coin?

  He pulled it from his pocket. With a pulse of earth and water and wind and fire into the rune, a glow crept into it. They might not need any help, but if they did, he wouldn’t be unprepared. Not when there might be other shapers out here, shapers stolen from Doma.

  They began to slow as they neared a wide swath of green below. Strange trees rose up from the ground, wide leaves appearing waxy from a distance as they caught the light. Sharp thorns rose from their sides. Nothing but barren waste stretched on either side of the patch of green. Tan sent instruction to Honl to avoid the trees and the green and they landed softly on the hot ground.

  Honl’s presence caused dust to swirl around them and Tan studied t
he land beyond the dust cloud. It was different than the other parts of Incendin he’d been through. There, it had been rocky and almost mountainous. This was flat. Wide fissures split the ground in places, and Tan had the sense that if the earth shifted, the fissures would open and swallow him.

  All of Incendin was hot and barren, but strange plants still managed to grow. Most had thorns and were twisted. A single stunted tree attempted to grow nearby. Thick, waxy leaves grew in clumps from the ends of branches, and the bark was a deep gray, almost black. Tan reached out with earth sensing and could tell which of the plants were dangerous and likely to attack. From what he could tell, that included most of them.

  He looked beyond the waste and stared toward the green. Honl had given them some distance from it. It was abrupt rather than gradual, as if a line had been drawn across the Incendin waste and renewed life suddenly sprang up along lines of demarcation. Trees grew there, sharing some traits with the stunted one, but the leaves were wider and the tree itself another ten feet taller. Strange greenish-yellow grasses grew. A few flowering plants emerged in the spaces between the grasses and the trees.

  “What is that?” Tan asked. “I thought it was Doma.”

  Amia shook her head. “Not Doma. You’ve been to Doma. It’s mountains and sea. There is little else to Doma.”

  “Then what is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, but that’s where Asboel is.”

  14

  The Draasin Trapped

  Tan pushed with earth sensing toward the patch of green life, so out of place in Incendin. His sensing brought him past lines of poisonous plants and into the suddenness of vibrant plants and flowers. He expected something similar to the danger he sensed all around him in Incendin, that of poisonous plants and insects that wanted nothing more than to attack, but he sensed none of that. The plants did not seem violent and angry. There was nothing but a benign sense. The pointy spines on the plants might catch their clothes, but the plants wouldn’t harm them otherwise.