Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) Read online

  “Is she still here?”

  Maclin nodded, seemingly unperturbed by the fact that Tan didn’t answer the question. “She is. And she is not alone.”

  Tan frowned and reached through earth and spirit to understand. As he did, he recognized the source of Amia’s agitation, though he still didn’t understand it completely. “I presume the other draasin—”

  “Remains with the large one. They roost atop the tower.”

  Tan suppressed a smile. How would Sashari and Asgar react to the comment that they roosted, as if they were nothing more than birds? Already, Asgar teased him when Tan asked the draasin to allow the students to ride. Traveling with the draasin gave them a respect for the creatures that they couldn’t otherwise gain. Most wanted nothing to do with the draasin, but at least they had no interest in hunting them. But Asgar made a point of reminding Tan each time that he asked that he was no horse. Still, Tan suspected that the draasin enjoyed the opportunity to show off.

  “They are in the library, Utu Tonah,” Maclin said.

  Tan stopped and turned to Maclin. “I think it is time that title disappears, don’t you, Maclin?”

  “What would you be called? The people need a leader, and you, surprisingly, have proven as capable as we could have hoped.”

  Tan sniffed at the comment. “If you won’t call me Tan, you may call me the same as the elementals. To them, I am Maelen.”

  Maclin’s brow furrowed as he frowned. “Maelen is no sort of title.”

  “It would be for me.”

  With that, he left Maclin and reached the library, pausing with his hand on the door. What sort of conversation would he find within? Amia had never cared for Cianna. She understood that she served the elementals, and she recognized that Cianna had no real appeal to Tan, but fire burned seductively within her.

  But he heard nothing that indicated an argument. Through earth and spirit sensing, he sensed nothing that would tell him there was an argument. In fact, there was nothing.

  Only the simmering sense of agitation that came through the bond with Amia.

  Tan pushed the door open and found Amia and Cianna sitting across from each other in front of the wide hearth. Books and journals filled the stacks of shelves on either side of the hearth. When they had first taken over the estate, Tan had hoped to find something that would help him understand the Utu Tonah, but had only found texts that reminded him of what was in the archives in Ethea. It wasn’t until he discovered the Utu Tonah’s private work room that he found what he sought. Still, he suspected that there was more that he hadn’t discovered.

  Amia wore a slim striped dress with yellow and green cascading down each side. To Tan, the growing bump in her belly was visible through the dress, but he wondered how many others would even notice. Cianna was dressed as she often was, in a shimmering shirt that clung to her skin, this of a burnt orange that matched her hair. A faint haze of heat radiated from her; likely she wasn’t even aware that she shaped as strongly as she did.

  Cianna stood when he entered, but Amia did not. Her eyes went to his cloak and he shook his head slightly.

  “Athan,” she said.

  Tan grunted. “Not Athan, I think,” he told her. “Not since I came to Par.”

  Cianna frowned. “You’ve abandoned the kingdoms after everything that you did to save them?”

  How long had it been since he’d been back? A month? Possibly two? Tan had begun to lose track. Long enough that he knew Roine would have growing frustration that his Athan had essentially abandoned his assignment. But then, Tan had never served as Athan in a traditional way. Tan was more like Roine in that, doing what he knew needed done, regardless of what the king—or in the case of Roine, the King Regent—thought he needed.

  “I have not abandoned the kingdoms, Cianna. Is that why you’ve come? You fear why I’ve been gone?”

  She shook her head. “Roine hasn’t said how long you’ll be gone. Zephra… well, Zephra seems unconcerned as well. It’s almost as if everything changed for them.”

  Tan sniffed and stopped behind Amia, resting his hand on her shoulders. The draasin squirmed briefly beneath his cloak and then settled. Did Cianna’s gaze drift to his cloak or was that his imagination?

  “Everything has changed for them,” Tan said. No longer did they fear Incendin attacking. No longer did Par-shon threaten the shores. They had found peace, something Tan wanted, and thought that he had found, but coming to Par-shon had changed his desires. He had a title that required a different type of responsibility than he had before, one that made him sympathize with Roine. What would his friend say about that when they saw each other next?

  “But not for you? You trade one battle for another, it seems,” Cianna said.

  “I continue to serve as I always have. The elementals need my assistance.” And there was much that he didn’t understand yet about what had happened here. A bond had been nearly forced upon Amia by an ancient entity, but one that Tan did not understand. What he needed to learn about that strange entity was beyond him at the moment, so he focused on what he could accomplish, with the draasin and trying to rebuild Par.

  Cianna crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you going to show me?” she asked.

  Tan smiled. “You know?”

  “Know? Sashari practically forced me here!”

  “That’s why you came?” Tan asked. When he’d heard her voice growing louder, he thought that his connection to her had strengthened, but that hadn’t been it at all. She had been on her way to Par.

  “The draasin don’t often get excited, but something happened where Sashari got excited. I still don’t know what it is, only that you’re a part of it.”

  You didn’t share? he asked Sashari.

  The draasin snorted, a harsh buzzing sound in his mind. The hatching of a draasin is to be shared by the brood. It was not mine to share.

  But it is mine?

  Maelen, you are responsible for these draasin. I hope that you recognize what that means.

  Tan sighed. All too well.

  It meant that he had another thing to fear. As hatchlings, the draasin were small and, in many ways, helpless. They needed him and they needed protection. Asgar remained in Par and served some of that role, but Tan was the reason these draasin had returned, and Tan had an obligation to see that they survived.

  “There’s a good reason that Sashari brought you here,” Tan said. He pulled his cloak open, and the draasin clinging to him looked up and spat smoke and that something else that reminded him of spirit, but different.

  Cianna gasped. “That… that is a draasin!”

  Tan nodded. “This is the third hatchling.”

  “Third?”

  Tan nodded. “There are nearly two dozen eggs. Three have hatched.”

  Her eyes widened again. “Three?”

  “She didn’t know?” Amia asked him.

  Cianna approached and reached hesitantly toward the draasin. “May I… May I hold her?”

  Tan pulled the draasin from him and looked down at her. Do you mind?

  She is draasin bonded.

  She is.

  There was a pause. Sashari, the hatchling said.

  That the hatchling knew Sashari’s name meant that she was more solidly in the fire bond than before, unless there was another reason related to spirit that he didn’t know. That is her bond, he acknowledged.

  Cianna took the draasin and let her crawl onto her arm. The draasin dug claws into her flesh and wrapped her tail around Cianna for stability. The fire shaper peered at her and touched the spikes upon the draasin’s back, smiling as the hatchling unfurled her thin wings and beat uselessly at the air. She whispered something and a shaping built from her that washed over the draasin before dissipating.

  “She is not what I expected,” Cianna said.

  “What did you expect?”

  “I… I do not know. Only that there is something about her that strikes me as different than the other hatchlings when they were smaller.”<
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  What did it mean that Cianna was aware of the difference with the draasin as well? How would the connection to spirit change over time? Given what he’d seen with Honl, he expected that it would change, even if those changes were subtle at first. And what he witnessed with this draasin was not subtle.

  Tan glanced at Amia. She sat, watching him, but the bond didn’t share what was going on behind her eyes. Since the pregnancy, the bond had been different, if only subtly so. He could still speak to Amia, but not with the same easy connection that they once shared. Then again, he wondered how much of that had to do with what had nearly happened to her. The attack had taken much out of her, leaving her shaken. It was a wonder that the pregnancy had survived.

  “She is different,” Tan said, pulling his attention off the draasin. “When she hatched, she nearly died.” Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw Amia sit upright. Had she not detected that? Maybe that was the source of her agitation rather than at Cianna. “I had to heal her.”

  “You are connected to the fire bond, Maelen,” Cianna said. She traced her finger along the tiny draasin’s spikes, running along the scaled surface, before smiling again and looking up. “I think the Great Mother intended for you to find these eggs.”

  Tan couldn’t argue with that. Either he had been meant to find them, or the time simply had come. If he believed that his connection to the elementals meant anything, then he had to believe that he had been meant to find the eggs. More than the eggs, though, he had found the Records of Par. Within those records were the Great Seals, Marks of the Mother. Tan had yet to understand what they were, only that Marin had been willing to destroy much of Par to get to them. And she still had managed to evade him.

  “It was more than the fire bond,” he explained. “When the draasin hatch, they must feed on the fire bond. It strengthens their connection and brings them closer to fire. With the first two hatchlings, I barely had to do anything for them to join the bond and begin feeding.” With the first hatchling, he hadn’t known anything about what was needed for the draasin, and sensing the strength that was required for the draasin to feed on the bond had surprised him. Tan almost hadn’t the necessary strength to help guide the draasin to feed on the bond. “Only, once they’ve finished feeding on the fire bond, they need to eat.”

  Cianna patted the draasin, smiling again as she growled softly and attempted to spit fire. This time, she found more success, and a small puff of smoke escaped her nostrils. Within the fire bond, Tan detected a contented satisfaction.

  You will grow stronger.

  The draasin twisted her neck and met his eyes. You will guide me?

  As much as I can, little one. I am not draasin.

  But you are Maelen. You are within the bond.

  I am, he agreed.

  “You said something went wrong with this hatching?”

  Tan nodded. “I don’t know what happened, only that her connection to the fire bond was tenuous at first. Weaker than the other draasin when they hatched.”

  The hatchling looked over at him, and Tan sensed a curiosity at how he would describe the healing. He shouldn’t feel anything like that from the draasin, and certainly not with any strength. Only once the draasin claimed a name—and a bond—would he be able to recognize the draasin emotions. Even with Asgar and Sashari, and he had known them a long time, he didn’t always know what they felt.

  “For the draasin to live, I had to heal her.”

  Cianna nodded. “Like you did with the lisincend? Did you bring her to the fire bond in the same way?”

  “Not the same,” he said slowly. With the lisincend, there had been the need for spirit, but that mostly had to do with reaching them and understanding that they did not want to be twisted outside the bond. What had been required with them had taken him more understanding than anything, an attempt to reach them, to bring them back into the bond. And the lisincend had been easier than what the hounds had required. With the hounds, there had been the need to add earth. That was more like what he had done with this hatchling, but if that was the case, had he somehow created a different elemental? If he did, how was he any better than the ancient warriors who experimented on the elementals, forcing otherwise unnatural crossings?

  “You’ve gone silent, Athan,” Cianna said.

  Tan shook his head, trying to push away the ongoing concerns about what happened when he intervened on behalf of the elementals. Did he really help, or did he somehow twist what the Great Mother intended, using the gifts given to him as an excuse?

  “Healing the draasin required spirit,” he said. “And now… now she is within the fire bond sooner than she should be.” He looked over to Amia, who sat with hands folded in her lap, saying nothing. “And there is more awareness than I would expect. The healing… it changed her.”

  Amia didn’t need him to compare it to Honl. And he sensed her concern through the bond, and shared it. The elementals were part of the oldest power of the land. When they changed—when he changed them—he impacted that power, using what the Great Mother had intended to be used in ways that he was not convinced were intended.

  Cianna didn’t see the problem with what he’d said. She only nodded, her eyes still focused on the draasin. “Well, you managed to heal her. That is enough, don’t you think? Another draasin! Not only one, but three!” She shook her head and looked up. “When will you return and share with Theondar?”

  Tan hadn’t considered when he would return to Ethea. Roine—the warrior once known as Theondar—understood that the draasin had helped, especially with everything that had happened with Incendin, but that didn’t mean that he trusted the draasin’s return. More than anything, Roine still held onto some of the ancient beliefs about the draasin, as if they might terrorize cities, attacking as if for sport. From Tan’s connection to them, he knew there was nothing about hunting man that the draasin would find enjoyable. The risks from attacking shapers simply weren’t worth it.

  “As I’ve said,” he started, but the hatchling squawked until he reached for her and took her back. He cradled her and caught Amia suppressing a smile. “There is much that I must do here before I can return.”

  Cianna crossed her arms and faced him. “Are the rumors true, then?”

  Tan blinked. “What rumors?”

  She looked around the library and swept her hand around the room in a wide gesture. “You. Par-shon. This place. There are rumors about you, and Theondar has done nothing to tamp them down.”

  “Cianna, I still don’t know what you mean.”

  “No? Then you haven’t decided to abandon the kingdoms? You haven’t ignored the peace that you have created? You haven’t decided that you are the Utu Tonah?”

  Tan opened his mouth to answer, but he didn’t need to. Maclin spoke from the back of the room, his voice a deep, accented tone.

  “Not the Utu Tonah. The Maelen rules in Par now. And he is needed to help us find the same peace you describe.”

  Cianna stared at Maclin a moment before turning her attention to Tan. Through Sashari, she knew the title the elementals had given Tan. “Be that as it may, the Athan has been summoned back to the kingdoms.”

  He looked at his hand, where the ring of the Athan remained. He still wore it, though no longer felt the same sense of responsibility, not when he had so much more that he was responsible for.

  “Why?”

  “Must you ask?”

  Tan glanced at Maclin. The old servant set down a pitcher of water and then bowed before departing.

  “Given everything that I’ve been through, I think I need to ask.”

  Cianna laughed. “Theondar thought that you’d want to be present for the ceremony.”

  “Ceremony? What ceremony?” As he asked, he remembered what Roine had told him when he’d seen him last, and suddenly understood. He glanced down at the draasin, wishing the timing were better, but how could he not return to the kingdoms to attend his mother’s—and his friend’s—wedding?

  3

/>   THE RETURN TO ETHEA

  “What do you mean asking if we need to do this?” Amia asked, looking back over her shoulder at Tan. One hand gripped her long blond hair and the other pulled her cloak around her waist, protecting her stomach from the wind. “This was your idea!”

  Tan fought the grin threatening to spread across his face. Warm wind whipped past him, filled with the heated mist that spread around Asgar’s spikes as they flew, soaring over Par. Tan could simply have shaped them, but there was a different kind of peace found riding on the draasin. And with Amia’s pregnancy, he didn’t know how the shaping would affect her.

  She patted his hand. “You worry too much. Anything that I can tolerate, the baby can as well.”

  Tan wrapped his arms more tightly around her waist, cradling her against him. “I know what happened. Or nearly happened. Can’t I be a little protective?”

  “Not when it makes no sense,” Amia said. “And we don’t have to return. It seems the Utu Tonah is busy enough.” She offered a playful smile.

  “Even were there not the ceremony, we have to return, if only for a little while. Roine deserves to know what happened to us. And I need to determine if there’s anything to Honl’s claim that the convergence in Ethea needs protecting.” Even if those were the only reasons, he would still need to return.

  “That’s the only reason?”

  Tan smiled and shrugged. “I suppose we could tell my mother as well.”

  Amia elbowed him and he smiled. “She’ll be happy for you, you know, as you should be for her.”

  “I am happy for her. Plus, she’ll be happy for both of us.”

  Amia’s smile faltered.

  “Your mother would be pleased as well,” Tan said softly.

  “I… I know that she would. I would give anything for her to know what we’ve survived, what you’ve accomplished. I think she saw something in you when we first met.”