Changed By Fire (Book 3) (12 page)

She took Tan’s hand and pulled him with her, storming away from the First Mother.

A
mia didn’t stop
until the light from the fire was a distant glow. The night had grown cool and a chill wind gusted around them. The air smelled crisp, the earthy scent of fallen leaves clinging to it. But other than the wind, nothing else moved, as if the forest itself held its breath as they passed.

Soft bells tinkled. At first, Tan thought they came from the wagons at the Gathering, but then he realized they came from deeper in the trees and were moving closer, coming toward them. Another caravan coming for the Gathering.

Tan stretched out with his sensing. The caravan was not large—not compared to the Aeta family that had tortured Amia—and barely only a dozen wagons. There was something odd about the caravan, though it could simply be Tan’s irritation with what had just happened tainting his sensing.

“Do you need to rest?” he asked.

Amia clutched his hand tightly. Tears stained her cheeks and she wiped them away with her sleeve. Her neck appeared bare without the silver necklace. For as long as he’d known her, it was her marker of the Aeta. Now, without it, what would she be?

“We should reach Roine,” she answered. “He still needs me in Ethea. Now that you’re not staying here…”

“They will need me in Incendin.”

“You still need training.”

He pulled her into his arms and kissed her on the brow. “Then it will have to be you. I know you worry you can’t teach me, but what choice do we have?”

“I’m not sure…”

“Can you shape me again?” he asked, thinking of how she had gifted him knowledge of the ancient language.

She frowned for a moment, biting her lip, and then pulled away from him slightly. “It is different. I don’t think I can share this knowledge the same way I did the knowledge of
Ishthin
. With
Ishthin
, I simply modified a shaping, one I had seen before. I can show you what I know of shaping spirit, but there is something the First Mother does, a way of opening understanding, that I can’t replicate.”

Tan wondered if it were anything like when he’d been in the pool of spirit. Standing there, he had seemed to know anything he wanted. All the knowledge of the world existed for him to reach, if only he asked.

Could he have learned how to spirit shape while there?

Perhaps, had he considered the question, but now he would need to summon each of the elementals to call spirit back to the cavern. Even if the others answered, he wasn’t certain the draasin would. Wherever Asboel had gone, he deserved time alone, time with his family, especially if the vision he’d granted Tan with two eggs clutched in his talons was accurate.

He stopped and turned when he felt a shaping build distantly.

Roine?

It didn’t feel the same, not like the spirit shapers he had felt at the Gathering. This was different.

Tan concentrated. Rather than from the south, the direction he and Amia had come after leaving Roine, this came from the northwest.

“What is it?” Amia asked.

Tan let his concentration return to Amia. “There’s a shaping coming from the Gathering. Powerful, but I don’t know what it is.”

“Probably just from the First Mother. She is the most powerful shaper I’ve ever met.”

Tan looked at her with surprise. With her travels among the Aeta, Amia likely had met many shapers, now including at least two of the last warriors.

“It’s not the First Mother,” Tan said.

“How can you be certain?”

Tan examined the shaping again. “Since helping you, I can tell the difference between shapings.”

Amia frowned. “Different than before?”

“I’ve been able to sense shapings longer than I’ve been able to consciously attempt them. But it’s changed since we were in the cavern. Now there’s something like a signature to each shaping.”

Amia pushed her hair back behind her ear, twirling it around one finger as she did. Her other hand trailed to her neck, rubbing where the silver necklace once had been. “If it’s not the First Mother, who is it?”

Tan waited as the shaping continued to build. As it did, he recognized another part to it, as if another shaper added their touch.

But it was more than that.

The shaping was not spirit. Somehow, he knew that with certainty.

What, then?

It continued, becoming a painful pressure that built and built until he couldn’t tolerate it. He grabbed his head, trying to hold back the pain as it threatened to split him open.

And then it released.

The shaping occurred as a flash of light and a gust of wind.

As it did, Tan recognized a part of it. He had felt it before. Incendin.

Fire and light filled the night, burning brightly behind Tan and Amia.

She gasped softly. Fear came through their shaped connection. She clung to his hand.

Gusts of wind drew the shaping forward, as if they drove the fire, feeding it as it blew through the trees.

Could Incendin really attack the Aeta a third time? Could their people truly be so unlucky as to have Incendin come after them again? “The Gathering,” Tan whispered.

Amia stared at the blooming flames. A shaping built from her but she winced, jerking back from whatever she sensed through her shaping.

“Stay here,” Tan suggested. “I will go.”

Amia put her palm flat on his chest. “You can’t go alone. If this is Incendin, we barely survived last time, and that was with the draasin helping.”

“I have to try,” Tan said. “I can’t stand here and watch as Incendin destroys more of your people.”

Amia bowed her head. “They are no longer my people.”

Tan took both of her hands and squeezed. “They will always be your people.”

The tears that had dried in her eyes welled up again and she wiped them away. “Can you reach him?”

She didn’t need to specify who she referred to.

“I can try, but I don’t think he will come.” Even if the draasin did answer a summons, he wouldn’t be able to reach them in time to stop the flames.

But others of the great elementals might answer.

“What if she’s there?” Amia asked.

If the fire shaper twisted into the winged creature was among the Incendin shapers, Tan didn’t think he would have much of a chance of stopping them. If only Asboel
would
answer, but calling him might be more than dangerous. It might be exactly what Incendin wanted.

“I’m coming with you. If one of the…”

She trailed off, but Tan knew what she had started to say. If Incendin had an archivist with them—and how could they not, if they found the Gathering?—then she might be needed.

He took a deep breath and they started forward, running through the trees.

The forest blurred past. Tan held onto his sense around him, stretching out as his father had long ago taught him to do, listening to the sounds and sensing everything.

He pushed harder, a shaping building as he ran.

Golud
.

He spoke the name in a rolling rumble, using the cadence the elemental could understand. Tan couldn’t be certain golud would be found here—the elementals were not found everywhere—but if they were, he could use the earth to quench the flames.

No answer came.

Tan ran harder. Amia kept pace.

Wind whistled around them, a wind shaper working upon it, driving the fire and feeding the flames. Tan considered attempting a shaping to tamp down the wind but decided against it. Any shaping risked the attackers knowing he was here.

They came up a small rise. The soil was rockier and the trees thinner, giving a better vantage for seeing the fire as it stretched forward. Fire pressed in a ring around the wagons, as if attempting to swallow the Gathering.

“Great Mother!” Amia swore softly.

Through the crackling of the flames, he heard someone scream. The wind swallowed the sound.

Golud!

Tan sent this as a demand, rumbling through earth. This time, he felt the ground shake in reply.

The fire. Please.

Speaking to golud was difficult, different than the other elementals. He wasn’t certain golud would even understand what he tried to say.

The ground rumbled again. Agreement.

Flames died down, tampered by the presence of the great earth elemental.

Incendin shapers pressed harder, a powerful shaping building again. Golud resisted, pulling much of the energy out of the flames. Golud would not be able to stop the fire shaping entirely, but it could resist Incendin enough for Tan to help.

Now Incendin shapers would know something was different.

“Please,” he began. “Wait here. I can’t stomach the thought of something happening to you again.”

“I will go with you. We will help them together,” Amia said.

Tan inhaled deeply and ran toward the flames.

As he ran, he formed a wind shaping and worked against the Incendin shaping, forcing the wind against the fires. Did he reach for ara with the shaping? He didn’t really know—he had no idea what he did when he shaped, but he must if the wind shaping were to work.

Please help the son of Zephra
.

This came out differently than trying to reach golud. Speaking to ara required a light touch, almost delicate. A translucent flicker came to the wind, enough to make him think ara might answer, but then it disappeared.

Wind pressed against him. The shapers knew where he and Amia were.

The wind whipped around him in a spiraling torrent, threatening to lift him into the air. Tan focused on forging a connection to ara and begged for the wind to die down.

The wind started to falter, calming enough for him to regain his footing. He grabbed Amia’s hand and kept her close to him. “They know we’re here!”

She nodded.

“I can’t stop the shaping.”

She nodded toward the fires. The Incendin fire shaper pushed against golud. With enough time, even the elemental would be overwhelmed, driven back by the force of the shaping. Tan might manage to slow it, but not enough to save the Aeta, especially not as the wind continued to wail around him.

Tan tried pushing through the trees. The wind fought them as they went, trying to stand them up, holding them back from the Aeta wagons.

The sounds of screaming worked through the howling of the wind around them.

Tan pressed harder, wishing he had spent more time in Ethea trying to understand his shaping, learning to master even one of the elementals, but his connection to each was different. He could sense earth easily, but shaping it continued to challenge him. Wind answered at times, but not always. Water only seemed to respond when he neared the elementals. Only fire had been easy for him.

Ever since connecting to the draasin, he had felt an affinity for fire. He could reach for the draasin more easily than the other elementals, but it was more than that. Like when he had been at the Gathering, with the flames dancing around him. It might have been partly the Brother’s shaped influence, but Tan would have little difficulty shaping the fire, twisting it. He might not have the experience of the Incendin fire shapers, but he felt the same draw, and had even used that to defeat one of their fire shapers.

Could he do the same again?

What had he done when trying to rescue Amia? He’d pulled fire
through
him, feeding it into the draasin. Draasin were creatures of fire, born of elemental power. Fire would not harm it.

He hesitated, focusing on the flames. Doing this would be difficult, but if it worked, he might be able to quench the fire enough to reach the Aeta. At least he could slow the attack, give some of the Aeta a chance to escape.

“Tan?” Amia said, pulling on his arm.

He let go of her hand and focused on his connection to the draasin. For this to work, he would need to connect with Asboel. At least to warn him.

Prepare
.

He sent it with as much strength as he could. Connecting to Asboel across the distance taxed him, leaching strength quickly. Using limited conversation might preserve his strength.

Maelen
.

It came like a whisper at the back of his mind.

Tan nodded, pushing through an image of the fire. He felt the flames where he stood. They beat on him, not hot enough to burn. Energy hummed within the fire, something he could almost touch. Within it was the shaping made by the Incendin shaper.

Tan focused on this.

And then, with a shaping, he summoned the energy of the fire and pulled it into himself.

It tore through him, searing and hot. Had it not been for his connection to Asboel, the fire might have consumed him. As it was, it threatened to twist him, writhing toward his mind, so different than the last time he had done this.

Tan pushed it back, forcing the fire through his connection and into Asboel. He had seen the draasin absorb a fire shaping from the lisincend. Absorbing this fire should not be too difficult. The difference was the distance and how Tan acted as an intermediary.

Dangerous
.

The warning came from Asboel. With it, he asserted himself on Tan’s mind, drawing through him, connecting to the shaping and pulling upon it.

And then the fire was gone.

So, too, was the hot pain in his mind.

Thank you.

You seek to become Twisted Fire?

I seek to stop them.

Dangerous
, Asboel repeated.

He withdrew from Tan’s mind without saying anything more. Tan let him go.

The wind died suddenly. Tan stumbled, catching himself on the narrow trunk of an ash tree. His head throbbed, as if his mind itself was raw. His throat was dry and he coughed.

Amia grabbed him, holding him up. “What did you do?”

He shifted and turned away. “What I could.”

She touched his face, running her fingers along it. “Your face…”

Tan brought his hand up and touched the skin on his cheeks. They felt as raw as his mind felt, as if the fire had burned him. What had he risked by pulling the fire into himself?

“I used Asboel,” he told her. His voice sounded ragged to his ears, rough in a way it hadn’t before. “He absorbed the fire.”

“That shouldn’t be possible.”