Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) Read online

  “Utu Tonah?” the boy said.

  “Tan,” Amia whispered.

  He turned to her and saw her watching the boy.

  “I think he shaped.”

  “But the power that I sensed…”

  Tan made his way around the boy and reached toward him with a shaping of spirit. As he layered spirit onto the boy, he detected the residual shaping that matched what he sensed on the wall. This had been the boy who shaped, but he’d done so with so much power that Tan hardly could believe it.

  He’s young, he sent to Amia.

  Often the youngest are the most powerful shapers.

  I didn’t learn to shape until after we met.

  As I said, often.

  “What is your name?” Tan asked, softening his tone. He didn’t want to scare the boy. He’d done nothing other than lose control of a shaping. He would need to work with him, to teach him, but wouldn’t be able to do that if he terrified him.

  “Mathias, my Utu Tonah. My friends call me Mat.”

  Tan smiled, remembering what it had been like to be Mat’s age. Tan hadn’t known anything about shaping when he was that young and barely knew how to sense. His father had taught him many of his earliest lessons, but would Mat’s father do the same for him?

  “Where is your family?” he asked.

  Mat shook his head.

  “Your mother. Father.”

  “They are gone, my Utu Tonah.”

  Tan inhaled quickly. “How are they gone?” A part of him didn’t want to know the answer, but he needed to hear it.

  “They served the Utu Tonah before you, Utu Tonah. They went with him…”

  Tan nodded. Mat’s parents would have crossed the sea and been part of the attack. Many had returned, all without bonds, as Tan had made a point of separating those bonds, but not all had made it back. Many had fallen, not only because of Tan, but the hounds or other elementals that had attacked on Tan’s behalf. Even other shapers, or the lisincend, could have been responsible for the loss of Mat’s parents. But Tan felt responsible. He had led the attack.

  “I’m sorry, Mat.”

  Mat swallowed and tried to hide the redness in his eyes as he wiped his sleeve across his eyes. “My Utu Tonah?”

  “You shaped earth here, didn’t you?” Tan asked gently.

  “I… I didn’t mean to. There was something in front of me, like a buzzing in my head, and I tried swatting it. When it went away, that happened.” He pointed to the chunk out of the wall, his eyes still wide.

  “Have you ever shaped on your own before?” Tan asked.

  Mat bit his lip and glanced to Amia before answering. “Not on my own, Utu Tonah.”

  Tan nodded. “Bonded?”

  He looked at Tan, and then his gaze shifted to Amia. Tan felt her shaping and wondered what she did to the boy.

  “I had a bond,” Mat answered.

  Tan took a deep breath and studied the boy. “What do you remember about your bond?”

  He smiled, and his eyes took on a distant expression. “Noln,” he whispered.

  Tan repeated the elemental name in his head. The word triggered a memory, but not one of his.

  An ancient elemental of earth, Asgar sent.

  The draasin remained on the roof of the tower, sitting and waiting for Tan’s return. He had spent Tan’s absence observing but hadn’t seen anything that would help Tan understand why Par-shon might be a place of convergence. Asgar couldn’t even tell that the tower shielded anything, but he seemed to think that might be more about the fact that the elementals of this land had been bonded, forced away from the place of convergence. Too much had been lost, and there were questions.

  Would Honl have answers?

  Maybe if Tan could convince the wind elemental to join him. It was no longer about asking him to accompany him, it was more about waiting for Honl to be ready. Wherever his studies took him carried him far from the kingdoms, away from even Par-shon. Tan wished that Honl would share where he went, and he promised to do so eventually, but for now, he had to act without the assistance of his wind elemental.

  The warning is enough, Maelen.

  The thought came distantly from Honl, carried on a drifting of wind, barely more than a breath. Had Tan not been focused on the connection to Asgar and trying to connect to the elementals, he might not have heard him. As it was, it came through as little more than a whisper.

  What do you know of Noln? he asked Asgar.

  I know little of the ancients. The eldest would have known more.

  It was another reason for Tan to miss the connection to Asboel.

  “How long were you connected to Noln?” Tan asked, pulling his attention back to Mat.

  “Only a few years.”

  “Years?” The boy looked barely more than eight. For him to have bonded to the elemental for years meant that he would have been five or six when the bond was placed. “How were you bonded for years?”

  Footsteps down the hall caused him to look up. Tolman strode quickly, but when he saw Tan, his steps faltered, and he lowered his eyes. “Mathias, you do not need to be bothering the Utu Tonah. Run along and return to your session.”

  Mathias glanced to Tan and then Tolman before nodding and hurrying along the hall. Before disappearing around the corner, he paused and glanced back at Tan for a moment, and then hurried onward.

  “I am sorry, my Utu Tonah, that you should be bothered by that one. He can be impertinent.”

  “Not bothered, Tolman.” Tan touched a hand to the stone where Mat had shaped it, feeling the surge of power that had gone through it. “Did you know that he can shape?”

  Tolman sighed and turned his attention to the wall. Tan couldn’t remember which bonds Tolman had possessed prior to the defeat of the Utu Tonah, but the man still possessed some ability with earth. Maybe that was why Mat had demonstrated earth shaping so easily.

  “I know that he has potential, my Utu Tonah, as do all the students you asked me to bring to you.”

  “This is more than potential, don’t you think?”

  Tolman turned his attention to the wall. “There is potential here, but potential surges at times. He may become a skilled shaper, but he will need guidance.”

  “That is why the elementals were bonded to him while he was young? He tells me of an elemental, Noln.”

  Tolman bowed his head, his eyes still fixed on the floor. “Those with innate abilities are often the hardest to foster. We have learned that they can be guided by the bond.”

  “But a forced bond.”

  “It was not always—” Tolman cut himself off and lowered his eyes again. “Pardon me, Utu Tonah. I should not speak so freely with you.”

  Tan glanced over at Amia. There was something that he missed here, but he didn’t have the experience to understand what it was. This was about more than what the previous Utu Tonah had done.

  Honl, I could use your counsel.

  He waited, but there was no answer from the wind elemental.

  Tan sighed. Anything that he did would have to come from him. “Tell me how you trained shapers,” Tan began. He needed to try a different approach.

  “As I have said, my Utu Tonah, we have placed a bond to have the elementals guide the shaper. There is much strength in that relationship. And the Utu Tonah valued the strength of those shapers most of all.”

  Always it came back to the Utu Tonah and how he had used the bonds, but Amia had suggested that the Utu Tonah had not always ruled in Par-shon, which meant that things must have been different at some point.

  “What was it like before the Utu Tonah ruled?” Tan asked.

  Tolman risked peaking at him before quickly glancing back to the ground. “The Utu Tonah rules in Par-shon. There is no before.”

  Tan sighed. “Who ruled Par-shon before the Utu Tonah?”

  Tolman tensed. From the way he leaned forward, it seemed as if he wanted to say something but decided against it.

  I think there was no Par-shon before the Utu To
nah, Amia said.

  What was there, then?

  I don’t know.

  Tan looked around, his gaze catching on the now-destroyed tiles that had contained the runes that prevented his shaping. They were similar to runes used in the kingdoms and the runes used on the warrior swords, but they were not the same. There were subtle differences to them, changes that prevented a shaper from using their ability rather than augmenting it.

  He stopped at the nearest plate and ran his fingers over it. Like so many in the tower here, the plate had cracked, the effect of Tan’s shaping destroying it. Beneath it, though, there was something else.

  Tan pried the tile off the wall. Doing so required a combination of earth and fire, mixing the shaping to pull it free.

  Tan sucked in a surprised breath.

  Another mark was underneath the tile he’d removed, but this was different, more like those he’d seen in parts of the city. He traced his hand along the mark and felt a surge of earth power flood into him. He jerked his hand back.

  “What was this place before the Utu Tonah appeared?” he asked, not turning to Tolman. He traced his fingers over the shape, trying to understand and piece together what he knew. Par-shon was a place of convergence. The tower somehow shielded it. And the Utu Tonah had used the elementals to force them to bond.

  They had to be connected, didn’t they?

  “Tolman?” he asked, turning to face the man.

  Tolman stared at the ground as if trying to burn a hole through it with his eyes. “We are Par-shon, Utu Tonah. You have the right to rule.”

  “Please, Tolman,” he began, softening his tone. “What was it like before the Utu Tonah I have replaced?”

  Whatever it was had a different relationship with the elementals. It might explain the peoples’ anger from the way he’d forced the bonds to separate. Wouldn’t he feel the same if Par-shon had separated his bonds? Hadn’t he felt the same sort of anger when they had placed him in the room where they nearly had?

  “There was no Par-shon before the Utu Tonah,” Tolman said softly.

  “What was there? This place is older than him. I can see the effect of what he did, the way that he placed his touch on the tower, but it wasn’t always like that, was it?”

  Tolman swallowed and finally looked up and met Tan’s eyes. “No. Before the Utu Tonah arrived, there was only Par.”

  Tan looked at Amia, whose eyes went distant. He could sense the way she reached across the seas, trying to connect to the other Aeta Mothers, but couldn’t hear the conversation.

  “What do you mean there was only Par?” Tan asked.

  Tolman stared at Tan for a moment. “Before Par-shon, and before the Utu Tonah—the first Utu Tonah—came to us, there was only Par.”

  “Tell me about Par.”

  Tolman paled, becoming whiter than Tan had ever seen him. “My Utu Tonah,” he began, “I don’t think that it is my place—”

  “Your Utu Tonah asked you about what it was like before he ruled,” Amia said. “You would do well to answer him.”

  Tolman looked at her, his eyes wide and in some ways reminding Tan of the way that Mat had looked at him. “Utu Tonah?”

  “Tell me about Par,” Tan repeated.

  Tolman glanced down the hall, almost as if he thought that he could escape from Tan, as if he intended to run off, but there was nothing there, no support that he could gain by reaching for the children or perhaps the other shapers in the tower. Tolman was left to face Tan and Amia himself.

  “Par was different,” he began, his voice halting as he started. “A place where we used the elementals in a different way than the Utu Tonah would have us use them.”

  “Different even than I would ask of Par-shon?” Tan asked.

  Tolman nodded. “There was a time when few of us understood that the elementals of our land were able to bond. It was a time when the elementals were a part of our life, and our culture, but not the same way that the Utu Tonah had used them.”

  “And what of the way that I would have you use the elementals?” Tan asked.

  “My Utu Tonah,” Tolman began, his voice catching as he did. “There are many of us who don’t know what you intend from the elementals. We have seen the Utu Tonah, and how he forced us to use the elementals. We expected much of the same from you.”

  Tan looked over at Amia, but she studied Tolman without saying anything.

  “Where did the Utu Tonah come from?” he asked.

  Without the connection to Par, and this place, the Utu Tonah must have known about the place of convergences and what that meant for the elementals. Tan had always thought that the Utu Tonah had come from Par-shon and that his beliefs, and the desire to bind and essentially harness the elementals, had come from the same place, but what if he had been wrong? What if the Utu Tonah had not been from Par-shon, and what if he had come to Par, chasing after the power and strength of the elementals, using the place of convergence to bind to the elementals?

  What would that have made the Utu Tonah?

  For that matter, what did that now make Tan?

  Tolman sighed and looked from Tan to Amia. “You don’t know, do you Utu Tonah?”

  Tan shook his head.

  Tolman frowned. “The Utu Tonah came to Par with the ability to bind to the elementals. He claimed a right to rule, one that he said that we should share. At first, few understood what he intended. He claimed a desire to study, to understand the elementals as we knew them within Par, but it became clear that he didn’t want to know the elementals the same way that we knew them. He wished to subjugate them. That wasn’t the experience that we had with those ancient powers.”

  “What experience did you have with the ancient powers?” Tan asked.

  He had assumed that Par-shon had shared much of the same perspective regarding the elementals as the Utu Tonah, but what if that wasn’t the case? Then he would need to find who he could work with.

  “We are of Par,” Tolman said. “And Par has long recognized the power of the ancients.”

  “What of the fact that the Utu Tonah required you to bond?” Amia asked.

  “Not all wished for that bond. Most wished for nothing more than the ability to refuse what the Utu Tonah requested of us.”

  “And the children?” Amia asked.

  Tan wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but there was something about the children, and the fact that they could shape, that bothered her. That much he could sense from her. But what it was, he still didn’t know. It was more than about the way that the elementals were treated, and more than about the way that the children were asked to work against the kingdoms, forcing them to forge a bond that might not have been the right one for them.

  “There were those of us who tried to protect the children,” Tolman said.

  Amia nodded. “That’s why you wanted to keep them from Tan.”

  Tolman considered Tan, taking a deep breath before nodding. “The Utu Tonah is different than the one who came before him, but how different remains to be seen. There are some who think that he might wish to force the same bonds as his predecessor, though we haven’t seen any sign of that.”

  “What of those who have the ability to shape?” Amia asked.

  Tolman frowned. “There are several with a different ability than those who were bonded. The previous Utu Tonah recognized them and thought that they would be valuable, but didn’t tell us why.”

  “I don’t intent to treat them the way that the prior Utu Tonah treated them,” Tan said. “They will learn, but they will not be forced. As I have said, forcing the bond is anathema to what the Mother has asked of shapers.”

  Tolman’s eyes flicked to the portion of the wall destroyed by Mat’s shaping. “What of him?” he asked carefully.

  “You will work with him,” Tan said. “Teach him what you can. And when you cannot teach him any longer, then you will send him to me.” There might not be anything that Tan could teach, but he would do what he could. The kingdoms would pose too
much of a threat to the Par-shon shapers and would make those of this land feel as if they couldn’t do what needed to be done. Tan wouldn’t make that any worse than it needed to be.

  Tolman’s gaze drifted past Tan and made it to the panel on the wall where Tan had revealed the connection to the elemental. “And you, Utu Tonah? What will you do now that you know what we were before?”

  Tan sighed and wished that he had the answer, but unfortunately, he didn’t.

  8

  Reaching the Council

  The tower was much larger than Tan had expected. He had spent the past week searching through the tower for a place of learning that he would equate to what was in the kingdoms, but he found nothing. Each day, he searched, and each day, he ran into the same dilemma. There were servants willing to help, and others within the palace who were willing to assist him, but none knew of an archive much like the one that he could access in the kingdoms. After the last few days, he began to wonder if maybe there wasn’t anything that would be the same.

  Yet, his connection to Honl told him that there had to be something more than he knew. There had to be some sort of place of understanding, but it was one that he didn’t fully grasp. That was the reason that Tan still searched.

  Amia spent her days trying to understand the children. She had offered to teach and used the opportunity to demonstrate a different type of focus than the children would otherwise have been exposed to. The Aeta had another way of focusing on the connection to shaping, one that was different even than the kingdoms, and Tan appreciated the fact that Amia had been willing to demonstrate that with the children. There was much they could learn from her. She claimed that they were learning, though Tan had not taken the time to meet with them again.

  His time was focused on trying to understand what he might be missing.

  From what he could tell, he had to be overlooking something. The covered panels throughout the tower pointed to a connection to the elementals that was different than the one that the Utu Tonah had possessed, but each time he attempted to connect to the elementals so that he could understand what purpose they served here in the palace, he failed to reach anything more than the sense of power that surged through them.