Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) (8 page)

“Do you see her?” he asked Molly.

She hadn’t taken her eyes off the draasin from the moment the hatchling crawled out from beneath Tan’s cloak. She reached a hand out. The draasin sniffed at it and then lunged forward as if to bite. When Molly didn’t draw her hand away, the hatchling twisted her long neck and glanced back at him, amusement glittering in her golden eyes.

“She’s beautiful,” Molly said, “but she’s different than the others.”

“Others?” Tolman asked.

Tan ignored him. “She’s different. I’m not sure how, just yet, but you’re right. When she hatched, she was sick. I had to heal her to allow her to survive.”

“You
healed
one of the elementals?” Tolman asked.

Tan looked back at him and nodded tightly before turning his attention back to Molly and the draasin. The hatchling looked from Tan to Molly before crawling back to Tan and settling onto his lap. She nipped at his hand, but did so with a half-hearted sort of effort.

You don’t scare me,
he told her.

And I can’t eat you if you really did save me.

You don’t think I did?

The hatchling snorted fire at him and then dropped her head onto his lap.
I think I would have been fine.

Tan touched her spines. They were softer than they had been, and bent back, almost like Kota’s stiff fur. He stroked them, petting the draasin. If only Asboel could see him now. What would his friend think of one of the draasin allowing him to pet them?

He would think you need to rub her chin.

Tan suppressed a laugh before realizing that the hatchling had known what he’d been thinking without him trying to speak to her through the fire bond. Only his bonds should be able to do that.

He scratched at the draasin’s chin as she asked.
You are too young to bond. And I am bonded to fire.

You reach the fire bond. You are not bonded to it. They are different.

Molly moved forward and watched him with the draasin. “The others wouldn’t let me do that,” she said.

“No. The big one would probably try to eat your fingers. And the other would probably crawl away if you tried.”

Molly smiled. “The big one doesn’t scare me nearly as much as he wants to.”

Tan grinned. “In time, he’ll get much larger, especially if the other draasin are right about him.” He paused. “Molly… I still need your help, if you’d be willing.”

She looked over his shoulder at Tolman. “What about them?”

“Don’t worry about them. Tolman knows how you help me now. But I’m not sure that staying here is the best place for you with your connection to the elementals. Tolman can teach you shaping, but he and the other instructors can’t guide you on the connection to the elementals.”

Molly tore her gaze off the draasin. “You’d… you’d send me away? Where will I go?”

Tan smiled and reached for her. “You’d stay with me, and I’d teach you.”

The draasin lifted her head and snorted a trail of steam before lowering her head again as if the answer was decided. And maybe, to her, it was.

T
he plains
of Par had changed in the time that Tan had come here. Tall, flowering grasses grew across the plains, spilling their perfumes into the air. Strange silver trees sprouted in clumps that followed a narrow stream running all the way toward the sea. Far below, he spied the rocky cliff where he would find the cavern housing the draasin eggs. The other two draasin were there and well fed, at least for now. He sensed no real stress from them, nor a need for him to bring them back out. With Molly now working with the newest hatchling, she was distracted anyway.

You are distracted as well, Maelen.

Tan pulled his attention away from the rocks and the distant sense through the fire bond of the draasin in the cavern, and looked at his bonded hound. Kota stood nearly to his shoulder, large enough for him to ride was there the need, and surveyed the land with a keen intelligence, much like Asboel had when he still lived.

Distracted?

You jump from task to task. That is unlike you.

He took a deep breath, letting the scent of the flowers around him fill his senses.
I don’t know what I need to be doing,
he admitted.

Finding Marin and learning what she had been after was on his list, but so too was understanding the draasin eggs hidden in the cavern. Now there was the question of the dormant elementals, and try as he might, he couldn’t leave that for the kingdoms to sort out. On top of that, he had given himself the challenge of trying to rule Par on top of everything else. Maybe he
should
have handed the rule of Par back to the council as he had suggested to Tolman, but he wasn’t convinced that Par was ready.

Kota loosed a low howl that sounded nothing like the Incendin hounds once did. This was a low, steady rumbling sound, like that of a mudslide, or the earth settling beneath a great weight, and one that he felt deep within his bones. Her ears swiveled as she looked around. Tan considered reaching through her sight—much like Asboel, Kota never seemed to mind—but what was there for him to learn looking through her eyes?

You can always learn by looking at another perspective,
Kota said.
But none of that is what bothers you, Maelen. This is about your woman.

Amia?

Kota’s ears twitched and the hair on her back stood a little taller.
Since you learned of your cub, you have been different.

The bond is different.

Are you so certain? What if the bond is the same, but the bonded are different? Your roles have changed, and now you will be a father. There is responsibility in that.

Tan grinned at the comment.
I don’t think I’ve ever run from responsibility.

You have embraced the role the Mother has called you to serve. Much as you must embrace this one. Do you not feel fit to be the cub’s father?

Child, Kota. Humans have children.

Kota flared her lip and offered him a flash of her sharp fangs.
You are the Maelen. You will have a cub. I smell greatness already growing within her.

You can’t smell that,
Tan said, settling his hand on Kota’s fur and stroking her. The hound’s fur was coarse but slick as well, letting his hand slide over her. Hard muscles rippled beneath her fur, almost as if she readied to leap at any moment. Perhaps she did.

No?

Tan laughed, but Kota didn’t join him. She couldn’t
really
smell anything about his child, could she? Imagining the hound able to smell inside Amia left him feeling… he wasn’t sure
how
he felt about it.

I already worry about so many,
Tan said after they stood in silence for a while longer.

You are Maelen.

Does that mean I’m meant to worry?

It means that you’re meant to care. You did not have to free the draasin, but you did. You did not have to save the elementals, but you did. You did not have to return the hounds to fire, but you did. Much of what you have done has been at risk to yourself. It will be the same with your cub.

What if… what if I’m not strong enough to protect them?

Kota pressed against him.
You are never alone, Maelen. And you will not be in this, either.

They continued to stand, Tan holding his hand on Kota’s fur and Kota staying otherwise still, for long moments.

After a while, he sighed and reached through the fire bond, listening for Asgar. That was the reason that he’d come here today. Amia was to have returned, riding with Asgar. The draasin had agreed to fly her back from Ethea, happy to return to Par. Using his bond to Amia, and his connection to the draasin through the fire bond, he’d been able to coordinate the connection, but wished that Amia had some way to reach the draasin directly. With their baby on the way, having the draasin as a protector of sorts would come in handy.

Kota’s ears twitched, as if she knew all of this in an instant. Likely, connected as they were, she did.

Distantly, he sensed Asgar.

And realized that something was wrong.

What is it, Maelen?

I don’t know.

Had it been Amia, wouldn’t she have reached through the bond to tell him? But he wasn’t sure that she could.

Go. I will watch from below.

Tan tapped Kota on the back and pulled a shaping twisted of each of the elements together, drawing him toward the sky on a bolt of lightning. He streaked toward the place he detected Asgar, appearing in an explosion of light and holding himself steady on the wind.

He found Asgar, twisting through the air. Amia clung to his back but barely held on.

Asgar!

The draasin
tried
to respond. He pulled his head back and his talons flexed, but that was all. Then he bent back over, twisting in the air once more.

What happened to Asgar?

He would have to understand later. For now, he had a different focus. He needed to rescue Amia from the draasin’s back. Whatever had gotten into Asgar, whether it was some sort of attack or something else, would have to be dealt with
after
he saved her.

With a shaping of fire and wind, he reached her just as Asgar started to roll again. As Tan wrapped himself around her, Amia’s eyes widened and then she started to shake, convulsing much as she had when he had rescued her from the tower and the strange bond there.

Tan quickly probed her, reaching with spirit and water, but found nothing wrong within her mind. Her body seemed healthy as well. Was this tied to whatever happened to Asgar? Had the draasin somehow been attacked?

Drawing on a shaping of each element, he streaked back to Par, and to Kota.

When he landed, the hound bounded over, sniffing at Amia.

Watch her. The draasin needs me.

Kota started to respond, but Tan didn’t take the time to wait.

With a shaping of lightning, he reached Asgar again.

This time, he could see how Asgar curled around, his long, spiked back bent over and his wings attempting to flap but succeeding only every few seconds. His upper lip peeled back and flames spurted from him but struck his belly, as if he were battling himself. The spiked end of his tail swung wildly, sending him spinning through the air.

The draasin began to sink toward the water below. If Tan did nothing, Asgar would hit the water. Rolling like this, he doubted that Asgar would be able to swim like he had when they had hunted off the Vatten coast.

Using a shaping of wind, Tan called to the ashi elemental. Ashi was strongest in Incendin, but he felt the warm presence of the elemental as it gusted through the air. Had Honl remained near him, he would have been able to ask him to help, but Tan would have to do this without him.

Asgar! What is this?

This time, Asgar managed to pull his head back. Through snarling teeth, he hissed steam at Tan and then spit flames. Tan ignored the heat billowing off Asgar and the strangeness of the attack.

You have to fight this. Whatever it is,
Tan urged.

Asgar continued to fall, dropping lower. Tan’s shaping propped him up, holding him aloft, but it would only manage to do so for a little while longer. Whatever Asgar fought affected the way wind supported him, as if twisting it.

Tan needed to help him, but how? The draasin wouldn’t respond, not as he should.

Reaching for the fire bond, and through that to Asgar, he called out the draasin’s name with all the force that he could summon. Using the name in this way tightened the connection between them. It was not a bond. Tan didn’t need a bond to Asgar to reach him. But the connection was there.

Asgar!

This time, Asgar’s eyes widened.

Maelen. You. Must. Go.

No. What is this?

Before Asgar could attempt to answer, flames streaked from his mouth, this time touching Tan’s skin. For the first time in ages, the heat burned. Tan used water and earth to ignore the pain and pushed back on fire, drawing from the fire bond for strength, careful not to borrow from Asgar. Whatever happened with him, he needed all of his strength to fight.

Faintly, and through the fire bond, Tan sensed a strange shadow.

As soon as he was aware of it, the sense disappeared.

Tan pressed with fire, pushing harder against Asgar, reaching through the fire bond, through spirit, so that he could reach him.

It was there again.

Suddenly, Tan understood. Asgar fought this, whatever it was. Something like a shadow, but darker, and malevolent, and similar to what Tan had faced when saving Amia.

What could Tan do to help? Would he be able to push back the darkness?

He did the only thing that he could think of: combined each of the elements and poured through the fire bond, using that connection to help Asgar, offering his strength and his shaping for his friend.

At first, nothing happened. Nothing changed.

Then Asgar roared. His back flexed. Sharp talons scraped at his body, as if trying to peel his flesh. Something like a black cloud ripped free and writhed in the air.

Asgar breathed angry fire at it.

Tan shifted his focus, shaping the same combined elements at this cloud as well.

Between the two of them, the cloud stopped writhing and burst apart, quickly fading into nothing, as if it had never been there.

Asgar lifted his head wearily and fixed him with a hollow gaze.
Maelen
…

Then he started to fall.

Tan reached him on a shaping of fire and pulled on wind to hold the draasin in the air. He mixed fire into it and ultimately added earth and water shaping as well, all the elements needed to keep Asgar from crashing to the ground.

Dragging him to Par on the warrior shaping was more difficult than Tan would have imagined. Asgar didn’t help, almost as if he
couldn’t
help, leaving Tan to carry him.

When he reached Par, he practically dropped Asgar to the ground next to Amia and Kota. Amia had sat up and leaned against Kota’s side. She had two massive paws draped around her, making it appear as if Amia wore Kota like some sort of protective cloak.

Kota slowly pulled away from Amia and sniffed at her a moment before coming to crouch next to Tan.
This one has suffered.

Tan tried reaching Asgar through the fire bond, but failed. The draasin was there, but the connection was weak and he dared not press, not after what Asgar had been through.

There was some kind of dark cloud that attacked him. Do you know anything like that? Is it tied to what happened to me?

Kota sniffed, nudging Asgar with her nose, pushing against him and then pawing at his wings.
He is unharmed now. Whatever you did must have healed him.

I don’t think I healed him. All that I did was halt the attack.

This is not anything that I have heard before, but we are young. You would need to ask one of the Old Ones.

Tan made his way around Asgar, searching for injuries, but finding none. Whatever had happened to the draasin had left him mostly unharmed, only weakened.
Who are the Old Ones?

They are the elementals who came before. The draasin. Wyln. Udilm. Golud. Nobelas.

Tan had heard of each of the others, but not the last. Were Asboel still with him, he might be able to find answers, but then, he felt that way frequently. So often, he felt as if he were fumbling along without his friend to guide him.

Looking at Asgar, Tan realized that he needed to understand what had happened. What kind of creature had attacked the draasin and nearly destroyed him? He had no idea where he might find answers, but there was one who
might
be able to help him, if only Honl would answer.

Rest, friend,
Tan told Asgar.
And we will watch over you.

The draasin twitched his tail, the first movement he had done on his own since the attack. Tan took that as a positive sign.