Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) (22 page)

Her eyes widened. “Was that you?”

Tan pushed on the door, using a shaping to try to surge past, but found that he couldn’t.

Kota?
The hound had remained outside the room. There hadn’t been enough space for her to enter, and she hadn’t wanted to crowd Tan anyway.

She didn’t answer. It was almost as if she weren’t there.

And Tan understood. Whatever shaping the Utu Tonah had placed on this room would prevent him from reaching out and reaching beyond. There was a barrier, but then there was another barrier, one placed on the room by the Utu Tonah when he placed the runes.

“Maelen?”

He shook his head. “I can’t open the door with shaping. And I can’t reach the elemental on the other side to help.”

Elanne’s eyes widened slightly. “I can’t… I can’t reach the wind.”

Even managing to find what he’d searched for, they were trapped.

“
Y
ou are the Maelen
. Can’t you do something to open the door?”

Tan could shape, but it had no effect on the door.

The draasin crawled from his shoulders and traced her tongue around the door.
There is nothing from this side, Maelen.

Did you sense something before the door closed?

Tan hadn’t, but the draasin had proven to be more resourceful in some ways than him.

There was nothing.

As she said it, Tan became aware of a soft trembling.

It started in the ground, like a steady vibration, and then began working from there. It was a familiar sense, and one that he associated with Kota’s ability to control earth. Was she trying to get past the door to them?

He tried reaching her through their bond, but couldn’t. In some ways, it reminded him of his time in the room of separation, where the Utu Tonah had placed runes all around with the intention of separating him from his bond, but he was not completely separated. He could shape, and he could reach the draasin hatchling and communicate with her.

The trembling became more. A shaking that filled the earth, leaving it groaning.

This wasn’t Kota.

What, then?

The only thing that he could think was that they were under attack. But from who? Who would be able to get through the estate?

Someone that they knew was the only answer he could come up with. And if he had been wrong about Marin, it was equally possible that he was wrong about someone else. Tan didn’t use spirit to sense everyone and search through their intentions, but maybe he should. And Amia’s ability had changed with the pregnancy, so her normal intuition was different.

Was Amia in danger? If someone had reached them, it had to have been through the estate. She would have been there, alone, and if she had and someone had come for her, or come through attempting to reach him, then she might be in danger.

Tan felt his anger begin to rise, and tamped it down. Getting angry was no way to help her. She had been through enough that she would know how to protect herself. Besides, she was not helpless. Even pregnant, her ability to shape spirit remained, if even weakened somewhat.

He needed to find a way out from here.

The shaking continued. Now the stone overhead began to crack.

The binding. It fails.

Tan looked between Elanne and the draasin, who licked the wall.
How can it fail?

I do not know. I cannot detect anything behind here, only that it is failing. That is what we feel.

What would it take for the binding to fail?
he asked.
The Seals?

That had been what Marin had been after before, but that hadn’t worked for her.

There are other seals that would succeed, Maelen.

As she reminded him, he knew that there would be. The massive runes on the sides of the tower would probably do it as well. Now that he understood that the tower was part of the place of binding, he could see how the runes on the side of the tower itself would be a part of it. If they failed, if those runes that represented the elements, and the connection to the Great Seals, somehow were damaged, the entire pattern would fall. It was possible that those runes were more important than any of the others, even the Great Seal.

And Marin had gone after them before. With sudden understanding, he realized what Marin had been after. He had done nothing to bolster the defenses of the tower since then. He might have repaired the Great Seals, but that might not have been enough.

This is her, isn’t it?
Tan asked.

I cannot tell. Whoever does this seeks to break the binding.

Have you been able to determine what would happen if the binding fails?

You have sensed the power that is trapped here, Maelen. I detected that from you very soon after my birth.

That… entity? That’s what’s trapped here?

The bindings. They are meant to restrain a power that grew too dangerous.

And Marin?

I do not know. She may think to control it. From the woman you healed, I sense that she was around someone who believed herself strong enough to not serve it, but control it.

Tan looked over at the stack of journals.
Is that why the Utu Tonah came to Par? Did he think to control it as well?

He had begun to wonder if maybe the Utu Tonah had come to Par for a better reason, that it had at first been less about power that had gotten corrupted the longer he was here and the more bonds that he acquired, but what if he was wrong? Tan had seen firsthand how the Utu Tonah had used that power and the lengths that he had gone to maintain, and grow, his power. Why should he believe that he might have come here for any other reason?

He still held a journal, and he threw it against the wall in frustration.

“Maelen?”

“I have been a fool,” he muttered. And now they were trapped here.

The walls continued to shake, the trembling becoming violent. Much longer and the earth would split. Without a greater connection to earth, the most that Tan figured that he would be able to do would be to slow their death as the earth steadily crushed them.

Could he have another connection to earth?

He had reached the wind bond. Why could he not reach an earth bond?

Earth was the element that he should know the best. His father had guided him toward earth, teaching him how to stretch his connection away from him, to use that to reach beyond himself. More than anything, Tan felt that connection, and in some ways, it was his remaining connection to his father.

As with the other elements, he started by looking inside himself, reaching deep. First feeling for the way the stone felt beneath his feet, the steady rumbling that he felt, and then straining beyond that. Earth was life, much like wind, and fire, and water. And Tan connected to them all, first through shaping and then through his connection to the elementals.

Tan continued to focus on the earth, on the way it shook his feet, on the solid way the walls rose up around him, even the pressure of Elanne on the ground, as well as the draasin. All of this connected, reaching the earth, touching the same center. As he focused, he could see the elementals in the walls, their willingness to hold the bond, but a willingness that sagged.

Remain steady,
Tan urged.

He detected elementals in the ground beneath him, and from the traces of debris that fell from the ceiling, even the dust scattered across the Utu Tonah’s desk. All of this was earth, and each of these elementals was connected.

Understanding of earth surged within him, greater than before. This was more than about shaping, and more than about the elementals. They were tied together, to the same source of power. Earth and elemental were one. A bond. An earth bond.

He reached for the bond, and knowledge surged within him. He was meant to reach the earth bond, to know it, and to know the slow, steady movement of the earth and the power behind it.

Through that power, he sensed a change.

And he understood the reason why the walls and earth shook around him.

Not only had the runes on the tower been attacked, but particular runes had been chosen. Earth first, though Tan did not know why. Connected to the bond, through the earth itself, he could crawl across the stone and trace the way the rune failed on the tower, the attack that had been done, intentionally trying to destroy the binding.

Tan pressed more earth into place around the rune, holding it, but that would only sustain it, not prevent it from failing altogether. For that, he would need to get free from here, and he would need to find who attacked the runes.

With the earth bond, and reaching for wind and fire, he pressed outward on the door.

It resisted, but Tan drew from a different place of strength. Not only on the elementals, but on the connections shared between them, on the source of their strength, and added his own ability to shape. The Utu Tonah might have placed this door here, but he had never known the power of the bonds between the elementals.

The door exploded outward.

Kota leapt at him.

Had Tan not been wrapped in earth, he might have been overwhelmed. Still, the attack surprised him.

He pushed her back and probed quickly with spirit, knowing what he would find. There, trapped within her, was the same sort of darkness that had attacked Asgar. This time, Tan didn’t hesitate, pulling on the darkness, dragging it from Kota, using earth and fire and spirit. Kota thrashed and fought and tried to bite at him, but Tan kept her controlled, not wanting to harm her. Then the darkness was pulled away and he bound it in the air, preventing it from dissipating as it had before.

What are you?

If it was the same entity that Tan had connected to before, he knew that it would be able to answer, though not whether it would.

The darkness strained against the barriers that Tan erected, almost making it free. Elanne screamed.

Tan glanced over and saw her facing another creature, this one a long lizard like he had seen in the streets of Par. Fire surged from it, and Elanne did all that she could to keep back.

With an angry twist, Tan forced the darkness toward the lizard and split his focus, reaching through the fire bond and adding earth and spirit and, this time, water to free the darkness within this lizard.

Now two hazy shapes hung in the air.

Tan mashed them together and bound them within each of the elements, holding tightly to the three element bonds that he knew.

Water is here, Maelen.

This came distantly, through the nymid, and Tan quickly reached through himself, questing deep into the earth and beyond, knowing that there would be a water bond, not needing proof this time and not fearing that he would fail. Like the others, it was there, powerful and swift, but also touched by a sense of healing calm. Water had always been there, coursing through his blood, and he flowed with it.

Adding the water bond, he pushed with even more strength, sealing the dark cloud entirely.

The lizard that had been attacking Elanne scampered off.

There will be others, won’t there?
he asked the draasin.

For a moment, he feared that she might have been attacked as well. With her unique abilities, he feared what would happen were she to attack. She might be more than he could manage, especially with her capacity to influence spirit.

There will be others. You do not need to fear for me, Maelen.

I don’t?

That is one advantage of my growth. There are things I am immune to.

He pulled the dark cloud toward him and was nearly startled to see that something like a face had started to form in the darkness.
What are you?

I am the beginning and the end.

Tan shook his head.
That is no answer.

That is all that you will get.

I’ve stopped you once.
This was the same entity that had gotten into his mind. This was the same entity that had attacked Amia, and had attempted to attack him. This was the same darkness that had attacked Asgar.

Now I gain my freedom. You may contain this fragment, but there are others. Do you think that you can contain them all?

You were bound away once,
Tan said, finally understanding the reason for the place of binding.

Bound by those who know much more than you can ever imagine. You will fail. If not now, then soon, much as the other bindings will fail.

Tan pressed on his shaping out of frustration, but sensed only laughter from the darkness.
You can be so easily influenced. All of your kind are the same.

What do you mean?

There came another peal of laughter. This one surged against the shaping that Tan held it with. Tan had to refocus on the element bonds and had to grab tightly to keep this thing from gaining its freedom. If it could control elementals, he had little doubt that it could control him.

The laughter came again.
Now you see.

You haven’t been controlling me. I kept you from my mind.

Did you, or did I allow you to think that you did?

Tan had to push on the bond, squeezing with the shaping. As he did, the darkness began to compress, more and more, until suddenly, it disappeared with a pop.

His shaping rebounded and nearly hit Elanne, but the wind surged and moved her to safety.

“What was that?” she asked, settling back to the ground.

“That,” Tan began, looking to Kota to check on his bonded elemental, “is nothing I have ever experienced before. But that is the reason the binding exists.”

T
an checked
on Kota to ensure that she was truly freed from the dark creature. The earth elemental was unharmed. Weakened, but she drew strength from the earth much as Tan managed to pull strength from the elementals—and maybe now the bonds to the elements themselves—to restore herself.

What happened?
he asked.

The darkness came, Maelen. I could do nothing.

The finality of it made him shiver. Something about Kota still seemed off, as if she were tentative, with less of the confidence that he was accustomed to her possessing. She was an elemental of earth and was normally strong and solid. Looking at her now, Tan could see a hesitancy.

She will recover,
the draasin informed him.
Not all are as resilient. You saw saldam’s response.

Saldam. The lizard. Tan hadn’t realized that was what the fire elemental looked like. In Par, where saa was normally so strong, saldam was less common, unlike in Incendin, where it was the focal elemental of fire.

The draasin jumped from his shoulder and scurried to Kota. She began licking at the hound’s feet, then climbed to her back. There, she continued to lick, running her tongue along her back before reaching her head. The hound didn’t seem to mind, though Tan wondered if they could communicate.

“That is an unusual draasin,” Elanne said.

“I’m not certain she’s a draasin anymore.”

Elanne looked around. “What now?”

The ground still rumbled. He felt the attempted fracture on the tower and knew what needed to be done, but would he be strong enough? If there were other elementals that had been attacked as these two had been, would he manage to keep himself safe and free them at the same time? Did he dare not try?

“I need to save the binding,” he said. “That’s the purpose of the attack, possibly the reason that I am here.”

“Do you think that you can?”

“I don’t know.”

Turning to the hound, he patted her head.
You should remain here.

I will not leave you, Maelen. Not if that darkness attacks. You will need help.

Kota, I need you to watch the Daughter. Protect my child.

Kota pawed at the ground and it trembled differently, briefly counteracting what happened above him.
With every part of me.

The earth bond. Did you know it existed?

Earth is everything, Maelen. Earth is life. You should not have needed a bond to tell you that.

Tan found himself smiling.
Perhaps I shouldn’t. Go. I will share with you anything I might need.

Kota bounded off.

Tan looked at the ceiling, where the opening should be. Recognizing the barrier that the Utu Tonah had placed was easier this time, much as it was easier to unravel it now that he realized that he could reach for each of the different element bonds.

A doorway opened, lifting above him and revealing a faintly lit space. Using wind, they flew into the tower, where Tan stopped. And frowned.

“This is the main floor of the tower,” he said. No students ran through here, not as he would expect. Hopefully the shaking of the stone had scared them away and not that there was some other—possibly more sinister—explanation about where they would have gone.

With a shaping, the elevated section of the floor lowered back down, sealing into place. The tiles across the floor covered the seams, making it appear no different.

He considered going up and through the tower, but earth and spirit sensing didn’t reveal anyone to him. Outside was another matter.

“You could stay here,” he suggested to Elanne.

“I don’t claim to have your strength, Maelen, but it seems to me that you will need the help of all that you can.”

He sighed. There was no doubting that, but could he do anything to protect her? With a shaping of spirit, he layered it carefully around her mind, speaking to wind—and to her bonded—a plea to protect her.

Elanne sighed and then shivered. “What… what was that?”

“I don’t know if it will make a difference, but I hope that it can keep you safe.”

You are more resourceful than you realize, Maelen,
the draasin said.

Will it work?

It should shield her. She will not be nearly as easy to attack.

And if that were the case, at least she should have some protection. It would have to work.

Tan led Elanne out of the tower. Elemental energy quickly assaulted them.

Elanne pushed with shapings of wind, using her elemental to push back.

Tan strode forward, reaching and connecting to each of the different element bonds, and began tying the connection together. With the first elemental he encountered—wyln, of course—he pressed spirit through, stripping the darkness that shrouded the elemental. With a faint peal of laughter, the darkness disappeared. Another elemental, this one of earth, reached for his feet, and Tan used another shaping, pressing through the earth bond. Onward and onward he went, stripping darkness from each elemental that he faced. There were dozens. Dozens upon dozens.

And each time he succeeded, he felt the attack surge. Whatever this dark entity was, it gained strength. He would not be able to stop it unless he repaired the binding, and even then it might already be too late. It was almost as if the darkness seeped out of the binding, gradually getting free as the binding failed.

Helping each of the elementals now would not be enough. They needed healing, and he
wanted
to help them, but this would not be enough. He had to focus on the binding.

Taking to the air, he was attacked, this time from more than elementals.

Shapers came at him, but not only shapers, some of the students as well.

“Elanne!” he shouted, sending it on a shaping of wind.

She reached him quickly as he held the other shapers away.

“I need you to keep them off me while I focus on the binding.
Don’t
harm them.”

“I will do what I can, Maelen.”

As she spoke, the attack intensified, surging with shaping mixed with elementals. Not bonded—at least, he did not think that they were, but the attack came at him simultaneously, striking in such a way that Tan couldn’t stop his resistance. If he did, if he let up even a little, then he was forced back.

They worked to prevent him from reaching the runes on the tower.

“I can’t reach it,” he said.

“And I can’t hold it alone,” Elanne told him.

Tan didn’t even have an opportunity to focus on one individual shaper. The attacks came at him from each side, and he had no interest in harming anyone, not knowing how many were influenced.

He needed help, but shapers would be in danger. Even elementals would be in danger.

Asgar,
he sent through the fire bond. Asgar was the only one that he thought might be able to help. The darkness had tainted him already, and Tan had healed him. Asgar should know enough to prevent it happening again, and maybe Tan’s shaping had been enough to protect him.

Maelen.

He sent an image of what he faced, and then added an image of what had happened with Kota and saldam.

The darkness,
Asgar said.

I can’t do this without you, friend.

I have failed once.

You didn’t fail. And I think my healing should protect you. It has protected Elanne. All I need is for you to—

He didn’t get the chance to finish.

A particularly strong fire shaping struck him. Tan twisted, feeling the heat more strongly than usual, and realized that the flesh on his arm burned. He forced a shaping of water at it, not certain whether he could heal himself and hating that he had to divert any focus. What kind of fire attack had that been?

Through the fire bond, he understood. Molly attacked.

Not her. She should not be a part of this. She was young, and with so much potential, but she was not ready.

But there she was, on the ground staring at him with flat, dark eyes, as if shooting hatred at him. He wanted to help her first, but he couldn’t. Another attack struck, sending him scrambling to the side.

Let me help her, Maelen.

With the comment, the draasin jumped from his shoulders.

Tan wasn’t sure what to expect, but she stretched out her shrinking wings and slowly floated toward the ground. When she landed, Molly started to attack, but seeing the draasin, she hesitated.

Tan didn’t get to see what she did next. He had to move around the tower, placing it in between him and Molly so as not to be struck by the next attack. Elanne came with him, pushing back.

“We may have to harm them if we are to succeed,” Elanne said. “I see that you are withholding, and as one of Par, I appreciate your restraint, but if this will only get worse if we do nothing, you must fight back.”

“Many of these are children,” he said. There was Molly, and how many others of the students, those with the ability to shape, even those who had not yet manifested it on their own but showed the potential?

“If we don’t, we will lose Par.”

“If we fail these children, there will not be a Par worth saving.”

Elanne clenched her jaw and nodded. “So be it. Let us shape.”

Tan didn’t think that last was for him. The wind fluttered around her, growing increasingly strong. He pulled on the element bonds and could hold back the attack, but anything more risked harming the others.

And maybe his hesitation was what the dark entity wanted.

Through the earth bond, he felt the rumbling return, a sign that the binding failed. Wind whipped violently in the bond as well. So far, water and fire remained, but for how much longer?

A sudden shadow appeared overhead and dove, streaking toward the ground.

Asgar appeared.

Thank you, friend.

Promise that you will come for me if you are wrong. Do not let me harm the fire bond.

I promise.

Asgar’s sudden appearance gave him a window, and Tan took it. He leapt on the wind, reaching the earth rune first. Whoever had been attacking it was gone, maybe shaken away by Asgar. Tan suspected he didn’t have much time, but all he needed to do was stabilize the bond. Reaching for it, he placed his hand on it and felt the damaged power of earth within. Using his memory of the rune, he sent a surge through it, adding spirit as he often did, and the bond reformed with a flash of white light and a cessation of the shaking.

One repaired. That left wind.

What he found near that rune nearly made him fall.

Zephra shaped at the wind bond, striking at it with one hammering shaping after another, striking with an intensity that he would not have believed possible from another.

“Mother!” he shouted over the whistling wind.

She glanced over, and he saw nothing but darkness behind her eyes.

Maelen. This will not hold much longer,
Asgar sent.

Asgar, they have attacked Zephra. Give me time.

I will do what I can.

His mother struck at him with wind.

Tan had often seen his mother attack, but had never been subjected to it before. She had a fury and a strength that he struggled to resist, forcing him to pull on the wind bond. Doing that would not give him the chance to repair the bond, or save his mother.

Maelen!

Asgar didn’t have much time.

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

Tan wrapped her in a shaping of spirit so tight that it sealed her from shaping. She struggled, but he used the connection to spirit to force her into a sleep. Hopefully that would give him enough time to repair the rune.

He reached into her and found the darkness. Like it had within Kota, it swirled, attacking her mind, in some ways no different than a spirit shaping.

Using spirit and reaching with wind, he tore the darkness from her, and then used spirit to protect and hopefully heal her mind. He would have to worry about whether it worked later.

She started to fall, and he lowered her to the ground on a shaping of wind.

Then he turned back to the rune. Like the one with earth, it was damaged, but not quite as badly. Using wind and the connection to the wind bond, he added spirit, repairing it. The torrent of wind gusting around him eased.

Tan checked the other runes, but they were intact.

Now to see if he could help those who attacked.

Elanne held back an earth shaper, and it took Tan a moment to realize that it was Tolman. Reaching through him with spirit and earth, he tore the darkness free and then sealed Tolman’s mind with spirit.

Tolman started to drift, his shaping failing, and Elanne caught him.

Tan reached the students and realized that the majority of the attack came from them. And he had thought bringing them to the tower to teach, so that they could learn in an environment where they had nothing but the chance to learn and instructors who could work with them, would be helpful, but maybe it had done nothing more than paint a target on them.

Now that he knew how to remove the darkness, he stripped it from each person, flashing through them, ignoring the attacks as he went.

Then he turned his attention to the elementals.

Too many had been attacked, and he wasn’t sure that he would even be able to find each that had been injured, twisted as they had become. But he didn’t dare leave them wandering free, not if they might attack again.

With his understanding of the element bonds, he had a way to reach them, but could he do it in such a way that protected them from something like this happening again? He used spirit on the shapers, but what would happen if he did that to the elementals? Maybe nothing. Kota and Asgar had been healed by his connection to the bond and with spirit, but Tan feared such a widespread change. Would he force something upon them that was not meant to occur?

Maelen!

This came from Sashari.

He reached for her through the fire bond and realized that she was under attack.

There was no more time to wait to consider. Now he had to act.

Fire would be first. He would prevent Sashari from attack.