Changed by Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 3) Read online

  “How do I know which of them are the doors of spirit?”

  She moved her hands. The chains dragged across the ground as she did. One long finger traced through the dust, creating a star with a circle around it. A rune.

  Tan had seen it before.

  He left her and hurried toward the doors, looking at each one. The first few had several runes worked into the surface of the wood. Did that mean they required shapings from each of the elements to open? If that were the case, Roine should have been able to open those doors. Then Tan reached the door with a single rune.

  For the first time, he realized how it looked different from the other doors. The stain was different. It caught the light in such a way that Tan was left with a sensation that it flowed into the rune.

  Tan touched the door. It vibrated slightly beneath his fingers.

  Did he try opening it? Through his connection to her, he knew Amia remained alive. He couldn’t help her if he was recaptured. And his mother?

  He whispered to ara. Does Zephra live?

  The still air of the archives stirred slightly, barely more than a whisper of breath. He waited, listening for the wind elemental.

  Son of Zephra. She lives.

  Where is she?

  Twisted Fire. They prevent access to Zephra.

  Can you help her?

  He sensed amusement.

  She is Zephra.

  She needs help, he sent.

  Ara coalesced slightly. Enough for him to make out eyes but nothing else. We will help.

  He looked back at the First Mother. She watched him, lips pulled into a thin line.

  Tan focused on the door. Now that he knew the elementals would help his mother, he could focus on this. Spirit. Could he shape spirit well enough to activate the rune?

  “What are these runes?” he asked the First Mother.

  She didn’t answer.

  “What are these? I’ve seen them other places. A warrior’s sword. The fire shaper’s bowl.” Her eyes narrowed at that. She had seen the bowl before. “You had a stone with similar runes. And now on these doors. What are they?”

  At first, Tan didn’t think she would answer. Then she took a deep breath. “They store power. They are marks made by the earliest scholars. None have managed to recreate them with the same power.”

  Tan thought of the markers his mother used as he pointed to the door with the rune for spirit on it. “That is newer than the others. Someone managed to recreate it.”

  “Newer. And not the same as the others. Why do you think we have failed to open the others after hundreds of years trying?”

  Hundreds of years. “What do you think hides behind them?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  “These doors have been here longer than much of Ethea. Longer than the rest of the archives overhead. Whatever lies behind them is likely important. Works of power, possibly engraved with runes like those. Ancient texts, even older than what is stored in the upper levels of the archives. Or nothing. As I said, none have managed to open any of the doors.”

  Tan traced on finger over the spirit rune on the door in front of him. The marking tried to draw him toward it, as if pulling on him. As it did, Tan knew what he needed to do.

  The spirit shaping came together more quickly this time.

  Tan pushed it at the door, focusing it on the rune. The marking began to glow. Softly at first, but then with increasing brightness. A soft click echoed, and the door opened.

  Tan pulled it open far enough to look inside. Barely enough light leaked in for him to see the contents. It was a small room, but rows of shelves lined each wall. Books stacked high on the shelves. A few dark sculptures mingled with the books. A thick rug spread across the stone of the floor. A few plush chairs rested against the walls.

  It was nothing more than an extension of the archives, a place where they could store select texts to keep away from the upper levels of the archives.

  He closed the door again, letting it seal with a soft hiss. Tan made his way around the outer edge of the lowest level of the archives, looking at the runes on each door, searching for markings that were different than the others. The First Mother watched him silently. Finally he found the other door worked with the single rune of spirit. Like the other, it appeared newer.

  With the same shaping as before, he activated the rune and unlocked the door.

  He pulled it open. Light barely penetrated, leaving nothing but darkness to greet him. With it came a soft breath of stale air, much like the old iron mines around Nor. Wherever this door led, it was more than a single room.

  With a sudden certainty, he knew this was what the archivists protected.

  25

  Beneath Ethea

  The First Mother whispered to him. “You can’t leave me here. When they find you’ve escaped…”

  Tan glanced back at her. The shapers lantern cast shadows over her face, making it look drawn and more wrinkled than before. Her eyes had taken on a wild expression.

  “I can’t help the People if I’m left here for Incendin.”

  Tan was unable to muster any sympathy. “You have done little that truly helped the People. You only placed them in more danger.”

  Grabbing the nearest shapers lantern, he paused long enough to look back at the First Mother. The stones of this place were infused with golud. With a rolling, rumbling request, he asked the earth elemental to hold the First Mother in place.

  The ground rumbled softly in answer.

  Tan passed through the door. The First Mother shouted after him. “Son of Zephra! Maelen?”

  Tan pulled the door closed behind him, shutting her out.

  It muted her voice. Almost, he could imagine her whimpering, lying on the ground, begging for help. After what she had done, he didn’t believe she deserved help.

  A long hall stretched in front of him. The stone was damp and slick but otherwise solid. Golud infused the wall, but he sensed something strange and surprising. Mixed within golud were hints of nymid in the moisture along the walls. Two elementals existed here, and he’d already spoken to ara, though he began to suspect ara would be found everywhere.

  Tan started down the hall, holding the lantern in front of him to guide the way. With a gentle shaping of fire, the lantern glowed with even more warmth.

  The hall twisted at one end and turned sharply.

  He reached out with earth sensing, listening to the stone. There was a sense of age and weight heavy in the stone. Nothing else moved but he paused every dozen steps and listened. He would not be caught by the archivists unprepared.

  Nothing came.

  The tunnel narrowed. Walls pressed in, as if squeezing against him. When the hall turned, Tan considered turning back, returning to the lower level of the archives and finding a way out. Doing so would require him to get past the lisincend, but could he not manage that now that he had reconnected to the elements and discovered the secret of his abilities?

  Yet he needed to see where this tunnel went.

  He hurried forward, pausing at times to reach out with a mixture of earth and water sensing. Each time, he encountered nothing new.

  Surprisingly, the farther he went, the stronger his sense of Amia. Along with her, his connection to Asboel crawled more prominently toward the front of his mind. The draasin made his way toward him.

  Tan wanted to hurry. Whatever else, he feared the draasin reaching Ethea before he escaped from the lisincend.

  As he made his way along the tunnel, he encountered a few side branches. These were even narrower than the main hall. Water dripped from the ceiling of the nearest one. A glimmer of green flowed through the droplets. He continued down the main corridor.

  It seemed to go on forever.

  Without the lantern, Tan wouldn’t have dared come this way. Thankfully, the shapers lantern glowed with a cool light and no heat burned his hand from it. Fire shaping might have protected him regardless, but he was pleas
ed he didn’t have to risk it.

  After a while, the corridor turned and split into two. Water covered the ground, obscuring one of the tunnels. He followed the other and recognized a change in the stone. It seemed newer. Still ancient, but old like the doors leading from the lowest level of the archives. Like the door he had shaped, the archivists must have made these tunnels.

  Farther on, the tunnel continued. Tan stopped at a stair leading down, ending in a dark door. Another rune for spirit marked the door. With a shaping, the rune glowed like the others and opened with a soft hiss.

  Before pushing into the room, Tan extinguished the lantern. Lighting it again would be easy enough, but he had no idea what was on the other side of this door, which swung open silently. It was heavy but offered no resistance.

  A soft light glowed on the other side.

  Tan crossed the threshold and closed the door, waiting for his eyes to adjust. As they did, he became aware of sounds around him. There came a steady tapping, regular and harsh. The air carried less of a musty odor. The distant light drew him forward, past a row of doors lining the hall. None were like those in the lower levels of the archives. All were old, but not nearly as old as those. Standard locks kept them closed.

  The tapping came from behind one of the doors. Tan stopped in front of it and listened to the regular rhythm of the tapping.

  Tan twisted the handle, but the door was locked. He focused on the lock and sent a shaping of fire into it as he pulled. Soft metal bent silently with the shaping. Behind the door was a cell.

  Tan blinked. What was this place?

  He held the lantern in front of him, shining it around until he saw the person tapping. He almost dropped the lantern.

  “Mother?”

  She watched him with a patient expression. She had been expecting him.

  “Tannen.”

  “You knew I was coming?”

  “Ara suggested it likely. I didn’t see how you would escape from the First Mother, especially after the shaping they placed on you.”

  “I broke through it.”

  She smiled. “Good. Then you can free me from mine.”

  Tan took a step back. “I don’t know how—I’m not a spirit shaper like that.”

  “If you managed to get past the shaping of the First Mother, you are shaper enough. Now try. Then we will need to free Theondar.”

  “Roine is here?”

  She nodded. “When they arrived, the lisincend captured him. I thought they would kill us all, but they didn’t. They separated us from our ability to shape, using only enough spirit to keep us from shaping, and then threw us in here. I do not know what they plan.”

  Tan frowned. Why wouldn’t the lisincend do more than simply prevent his mother and Roine from shaping? It made no sense.

  Could they have expected him to get free? Would they have known he could open the spirit doors and make his way here?

  “Tannen?”

  He shook away the thoughts. Spirit—but he needed to be able to shape spirit well enough to recognize whether his mother was freed. Unless ara could help.

  He closed his eyes and focused on what he had done before. This time, as he combined the elementals and shaped spirit, he called to ara, asking for guidance from the wind elemental as he shaped his mother.

  Ara guided his shaping, pulling it toward his mother.

  A sudden burst of wind swirled around his mother’s head, and then down, as if forcing the shaping through her. Tan tried to help, but the shaping faltered when he did, so instead he relaxed, letting ara completely guide it.

  His mother gasped, sucking in a quick breath of air.

  As she did, Tan suddenly feared what he had done. Had the shaping been too much? Had it damaged her? Would she end up permanently changed, as he had with fire?

  Wind whistled. A shaping, and not one of his.

  It came from his mother.

  She stood. With another shaping, the chains around her arms cracked free, destroyed by a pinpoint of wind.

  For a moment, Tan feared what might happen. Her eyes were wide and her mouth drawn. The power flowing through her was enormous, more than he could imagine drawing. Ara mixed with the shaping, swirling around Zephra. Roine had called her a powerful shaper, but Tan had never fully understood before.

  Now he did.

  Then her face softened, relaxing into the motherly expression he knew as a child. She pulled him into a hug, squeezing him tightly.

  “You restored me.”

  He pushes out of her embrace. “Not me; I only created the shaping. The wind elementals used it to free you.”

  “Have you done that before?”

  “I’m not a shaper like you. That was my problem all along, I think. I tried to learn from Roine or the other masters, but nothing they taught me ever worked. And when I went with Amia to find the First Mother, she had a different way of shaping. Nothing she tried teaching made sense, either.”

  “How is it you shape, then?”

  He shrugged again. “I’m not sure it’s all me. Maybe some are, but most of my shapings are guided by the elementals. This time, it was ara. Others, I think I’ve used the nymid or golud.” He didn’t mention the draasin. He still wasn’t sure how that worked.

  She started forward, moving hesitantly at first. “Has Theondar told you about the ancient scholars?”

  “The warriors. They all could shape spirit, too.”

  She paused, grabbing his arm for support. “Not the warriors. They are more like our shapers today. The ancient scholars. They were different, even different than the archivists. We’ve never quite known how.”

  “You think they were able to speak to the elementals?”

  “It would explain certain things.”

  “But Roine said there have been shapers able to speak to the elementals.”

  “Perhaps that is true, but all of them? I think the fact that you have managed to speak to all the elementals means you are different.”

  Tan breathed out. “I don’t know what it means. All I know is that I need to find Amia before the lisincend harm her again.” And then he had to do whatever he could to protect the draasin.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “I don’t even know where I am.”

  “How can you not know you’re in the palace?”

  “The palace?” It made sense, but how had he managed to reach the palace? A shaping worked over it, a barrier much like the one that had once run along the border of the kingdoms. Without Roine or another with a ring…

  Except, he had a ring.

  He touched the pocket of his cloak. When Jishun died, he had taken the ring off the archivist and slipped it into his pocket. After everything that happened, he almost forgot about it. It was there.

  “They brought you to the palace?” Tan asked.

  She nodded.

  “And the king?”

  A troubled look flashed across her eyes. “Whatever has happened has removed all traces of Althem.” She met his eyes. “I knew Althem once, Tan. He was different then. Competitive. Strong. But not like this. A darkness has settled over him.”

  “That’s the shaping. The archivists could have been shaping him for years.”

  “And you think removing the shaping will bring him back?”

  “I don’t know. Amia couldn’t remove it; it was too complex for her. That was why she asked the First Mother for help. She will not help. Not if it means her People are in danger.”

  “The People have always been in danger. It’s the reason I traveled with the Aeta in the first place. Why should they have been given free access to cross safely through Incendin? It was more than trade. That was clear to me from the start, but none have ever managed to understand why the Aeta were given such freedoms.”

  “Did you know about the bargain the First Mother made with Incendin?”

  “No. But it makes sense. Why else would the Aeta be allowed to cross Incendin?”

  “She controlled the Doma shapers.�
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  Anger flashed across her eyes. “And they must be freed. Control like that is the reason the Accords were necessary. For the First Mothers to allow it to continue…” She let go of his arm, strength returning. “This is bigger than the kingdoms, Tannen. Bigger than even Incendin.”

  “It has always been about more than the kingdoms,” he said. “Especially when the lisincend became determined to become elementals.”

  She took a deep breath. “What will you do?”

  He paused and sensed Asboel. The fire elemental was close and getting closer. “I will stop Incendin. I will stop the lisincend. And I will help the draasin.”

  26

  Rescue

  Zephra, who was familiar with the route out of the palace dungeons, took the lead. The place stunk of rot and human waste. Several times, he gagged as they made their way along the rows of cells until his mother crafted a tiny shaping she fitted over his nostrils, blocking the stench but not stopping him from breathing. Again, he marveled at her control.

  They paused at a wooden stair at the end of the cells. Many of the stairs were cracked. Some were missing altogether.

  As his mother paused, flickers of translucent ara passed in front of her, quickly disappearing. She turned her head and waited.

  “Where’s Roine?” Tan asked.

  “Up. You should know that Theondar was injured. He managed to protect his mind more quickly than I did. In order for the First Mother’s shaping to take hold, his shaping had to be lowered.” She looked over at him. “I do not know how much he’ll be able to help.”

  “And Lacertin?”

  “I did not see Lacertin.”

  Outside the city, when the warriors came, he felt certain it was more than simply Roine. Lacertin would have come too, but what if he hadn’t? If his goal was to destroy the lisincend, would he not take the opportunity to attack them here?

  “Are you finished with your shaping? Can we go?” he asked.

  “You knew I shaped?”

  “You spoke to ara. I don’t know what you said, but…” He trailed off and shrugged.