Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) (13 page)

T
he tiles thudded
beneath his boots as Tan hurried through the tower. He would have answers. There was enough dancing around his questions and not enough cooperation with what he needed to know, and now there were buildings falling in the city because a faction still attempted to damage the bonds, as if they wanted to wipe away the last remnants of Par. Tan wanted to know
who
had attacked the rune, but he also wanted to know
why
.

Worse, Amia had returned to the kingdoms, summoned back by the Aeta. Thankfully, Asgar had brought her, but that left Tan without her guidance. After what he’d seen, he needed her.

The answer had something to do with Par, of that he was certain, and Tolman would answer him this time.

Only, he couldn’t find Tolman.

Rather than Tolman, Tan found Garza, wearing flowing robes that covered her bulk. The Mistress of Shapers role had diminished by placing Tolman in charge of the students, and she strode through the hall until she saw Tan. When she did, she froze and bowed deeply.

“My Utu Tonah,” she said.

“Come with me, Garza,” Tan said.

He didn’t wait to see if she would follow, making his way through the tower until he reached the room in which he had first encountered the previous Utu Tonah. It seemed fitting that he would question Garza here since she had been the one to bring him to the Utu Tonah all those months ago.

Taking a seat on the chair in the center of the room, he fixed her with the hardest stare that he could muster. He would not harm her, but then, he
would
have answers, something he did not so far.

Garza gripped her hands together, keeping her eyes lowered.

“You’re the Mistress of Shapers. Where is Tolman?” Tan asked first.

“My Utu Tonah, I do not know where he would have gone.”

Tan frowned. This would have been easier had Tolman been here. He felt that he could persuade Tolman in ways that he couldn’t with Garza. She could be intimidated, but that wasn’t what he wanted, either.

“I would know whether you support Par-shon.”

Garza frowned at him. “My Utu Tonah?”

Tan leaned forward. This had been troubling him since returning after finding the blacksmith destroyed. There had to be a faction in the city that supported Par—that was why the bonds remained on the buildings, even if they should have failed over time—and there was a faction that supported Par-shon and whatever the Utu Tonah had represented to them. He would know which was which.

“I would know if you support Par-shon.”

She swallowed and cast her gaze back to the floor. Garza had been something resembling decent to him when he had been trapped, but she had still followed the Utu Tonah. All had. Tan had the sense that most followed willingly, searching for the power that he offered through his connection to the bonds with the elementals, but began to wonder if not all had supported him as he had thought.

“I support Par-shon, my Utu Tonah,” she said.

Tan layered a spirit sensing on her and detected fear and anxiety, both of which he expected. But there was something else there as well, something that she hid from him. With enough of a spirit shaping, he could determine what that might be, but then, Tan had no interest in harming her. He wanted answers, preferably freely given.

“You support Par-shon and not Par?”

He said it softly and watched her.

Even if he were not able to sense spirit, he noted the way her pulse bounded with slightly more force and could practically hear her heart begin to race.

“My Utu Tonah?”

“I have come to discover that there is a faction of people who still support ancient Par,” Tan said. “I would know if you are among them.”

“Par has been gone for many years, my Utu Tonah. We are Par-shon only now.”

Tan sniffed and stood. He made his way toward Garza and kept his guard up, fully aware that she was a potent water shaper. He detected nothing from her that told him she prepared to shape, but he wondered if she had discovered some way to shield her shaping from him much as he did with earth.

He stopped in front of her and leaned forward, close enough that he could smell the distinct odor of grass and leaves, the scents of her garden. “You understand that I can shape spirit,” he said.

Garza swallowed and nodded.

“And you know that I can use spirit to detect whether you are truthful with me?”

Her eyes widened slightly, and he realized that she didn’t know that.

“Now again, Garza, do you support Par-shon?”

She raised her head and met his eyes. “Do with me what you will, Utu Tonah.”

Tan smiled. “Not ‘my’ Utu Tonah?”

“The Utu Tonah was never mine.”

Tan smiled. “Good.”

Garza blinked. “Utu Tonah?”

Tan turned away from her. “I am tired of everyone showing me false loyalty, Garza. You appear to be the first willing to say what you feel.” He reached the chair and faced her. “I need to know how many still support Par.”

“You can do with me what you want, but I will not reveal that.”

“I could simply take the information I want.” Tan had no intention of actually doing it, but he could use the threat of what he
might
do to persuade her. And he needed to know who supported Par and who supported Par-shon. The difference seemed minor, especially when he first came to Par-shon, but the implications were much greater than he could have expected.

“Then do what you will,” she said.

“I am not the same Utu Tonah as the one who came before me,” Tan said. “And from what I’ve found, the people of Par do not value the same as what Par-shon and the Utu Tonah valued.” He sighed. “It seems that Par values much of the same as
me
.”

Garza met his eyes and shook her head. “You say the right things, Utu Tonah, but we have suffered much. The last Utu Tonah came to Par making similar claims.”

“What claims are those?”

Garza hesitated, and Tan wondered if she would answer at all. She sighed. “He claimed that he sought only the safety of the elementals and that bonding to them protected them and allowed us to understand them better.”

Tan realized that he shared much the same philosophy, only his was born of a true connection to the elementals, one forged from the very first time he spoke to them when he nearly died and the nymid had saved him. From that moment onward, he had come to appreciate the elementals and recognized their unique potential. They were to be protected and understood, not attacked.

“And you fear that I am no different than him,” Tan said.

Garza sighed. “There were some who thought that you would not return. That you were content to rule the lands across the sea.”

Tan nearly snorted at the comment.

“And then you did return. The first thing that you did was destroy centuries of Par’s heritage. How could you be any different?”

Not the destruction of the tiles, those runes that prevented shaping in the tower and throughout the city. That had been added and were new enough that Tan knew they had come from the Utu Tonah. But the destruction of the bonds that he’d seen the Council wearing, bonds that he had mistakenly believed represented forced elementals bonding. Had he only taken the time to
ask
.

“I didn’t know,” Tan said softly.

Garza watched him.

“It probably doesn’t matter to you,” Tan went on, “but I didn’t know anything about Par. I knew only Par-shon. And Par-shon forced bonds, something I oppose. Since coming here, I have seen the way the bonds have been placed on the buildings throughout the city and have seen how they call to the elementals, not forcing an answer, but asking for their help. That is not the act of a people who would harm them.”

“Not harm, Utu Tonah,” she said.

Tan sighed. There had to be a different way to reach them, but if he couldn’t even reach out to Garza, how could he expect to be able to reach the rest of the people of Par-shon?

“What
can
you tell me about Par?” he asked.

“As I said, it doesn’t matter what you intend, Utu Tonah. You will not destroy the rest of Par’s heritage.”

“I’m not the one you have to worry about.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Only that there is someone—or some
ones
—placing marks on the bonds throughout the city. Whatever they do damages them.”

Garza frowned. “There are none in Par who would do something like that. The Mistress of Bonds would prevent it.”

“I
saw
it, Garza. A blacksmith with a mark for earth that had been damaged.” Tan wondered how long that blacksmith had stood. Could it be like some of the other buildings around the city and have been here for centuries? Or had it been a more recent addition to the city? Either way, the destruction of the shop was likely because of whatever damage had been done to the rune. “And what if the Mistress of Bonds was the reason it happened?”

Garza shook her head. The folds under her chin shook with the motion. “That is impossible, Utu Tonah.”

“Impossible? As impossible as your Utu Tonah being defeated?”

Garza’s wide face clouded, and Tan could tell that he was getting through to her, but not as completely as he would have liked. “You are more capable than he expected.”

“Did you ever wonder how I managed to defeat him?”

Would telling her help? Tan didn’t necessarily need Garza’s help, but he needed someone who understood what Par had been like to be willing to speak to him, to work
with
him, especially if he were to understand what it was that the Utu Tonah intended by coming to Par. And now, if there was something to the fact that these bonds were damaged, he needed to understand who might be doing it—and what they intended.

“You were stronger than him. And he underestimated you. When you were here…” Her eyes widened, and Tan suspected that she remembered she had been a part of his capture here. “He thought only of the draasin,” Garza went on. “With that creature and his failure with what he planned here, he thought that you would be able to bring him that bond.”

The final bond. Unity was what he called it, though Tan had no idea what that meant. The Utu Tonah had bonded to so many of the elementals, but that still hadn’t given him an understanding of them. He was connected to them, but it was forced, nothing like the shared connection that Tan possessed with them.

With the way that he had forced the bonds, Tan wondered if the Utu Tonah would ever understand something like the fire bond. Asboel claimed that no shaper had ever reached the fire bond before, but was that because they didn’t have the capacity or because they were not willing to submit to the needs of fire?

“What failure of what he planned here?” Tan asked, realizing that there was something more to what Garza said. That might be the most important piece of what she told him.

“You don’t know?”

Tan shook his head.

“That is not for me to share, Utu Tonah.”

“Garza—”

“I cannot. The Mistress of—” She cut herself off, clapping her hand to her mouth, and then turned and ran from the room.

Tan let her leave, not wanting to chase her and doubting that it would change anything if he did. But she hid something from him that was more than simply about Par. Understanding what she hid was key to understanding the Utu Tonah, he suspected.

But what?

He needed Amia with him, but she had returned to the kingdoms. Asgar would see her back when her task was completed, but until then, he was alone in Par-shon. Even Honl would be helpful, especially given all that the wind elemental seemed to have learned, but Honl remained distant. Calling him would only distract him, and there was no real need at this time. Only a desire to not be alone, which was how he felt.

For the first time since forging the first bond, when he had sealed himself to Asboel and known the connection to the draasin, Tan felt alone.

Amia was there as she always was, distant but at the back of his mind. Kota and Honl, too. Even the nymid were there, though his connection to them was different. But none were ever-present, not like he was accustomed to with Asboel when he had essentially shared Tan’s mind during his last days. There was a stark solitude, and Tan wasn’t sure that he wanted it.

Standing alone as he tried to understand a strange land, he missed his friend more than ever before. Even were he to reach into the fire bond and pick on the memory of Asboel that existed there, it wasn’t the same, and it never would be again.

Tan lowered himself into the chair that the Utu Tonah had once occupied, praying for answers. None came.

T
an used
earth sensing to alert him when Tolman returned to the palace, though he could just as easily have used water sensing, he realized. Knowing Tolman the last weeks, he had become attuned to him in ways that he wouldn’t have realized was possible before. Tan made a point of seeking him out.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

Tolman stopped and turned carefully toward him. “My Utu Tonah?”

“I have questions for you.”

The other man’s face blanched. “My Utu Tonah?” he repeated.

Tan debated what he intended to ask Tolman first. There was the question of Par and Par-shon, but Tan thought that he knew what he needed to do there. He would find Elanne and ask why she had been destroying the bonds throughout the city. But other than that, and assigning a new Master of Bonds, one who might actually be willing to work with him to help him understand the intricacies of Par, there was the other comment that Garza had made that left Tan with questions. She knew something about what the Utu Tonah had been after here in Par.

“You served the previous Utu Tonah, did you not?”

Tolman bowed his head. Tan was growing weary of everyone avoiding his gaze. “I served, my Utu Tonah.”

“What can you tell me of what the Utu Tonah planned for Par-shon?”

They stopped in front of one of the runes. Tan could tell that there was something else to it, though not
what
. Power surged from it, along with a calling to the elemental that would have been silenced by the tile the Utu Tonah had placed over it.

“I was not part of the inner council, my Utu Tonah.”

“But you were a part of the council.”

“That is for Par…” Tolman looked away, and his face flushed. “My Utu Tonah. I was not part of the previous council. I do not have answers to what you seek.”

“You can’t tell me what the Utu Tonah was after?” Tan asked.

“He sought bonds and gifted them to those loyal to him,” Tolman said.

There was more to what the Utu Tonah had wanted than that, Tan felt increasingly certain. Not only from what he’d read in the Utu Tonah’s journal but from Garza’s comment. There was something about Par that had brought him here. Maybe it was only that this was a place of convergence. Garza mentioned a failure, but Tan hadn’t discovered any failure of the Utu Tonah in his time here.

“There must have been something other than bonds,” Tan said. “Why else would he have come to Par?”

“We never learned, my Utu Tonah.”

“Some must have. You must have seen something that would tell you what he was after. Why else would Garza refer to his failure?”

The flush quickly faded from his cheeks, and he sucked in a breath.

“You know something.”

Tolman shook his head. “Nothing, my Utu Tonah.”

“I grow tired of the secrecy, Tolman. You told me that I was Utu Tonah. You allowed me to lead, but I can’t do it with the secrets. I know there’s a disagreement between those who still favor Par and those who follow the Utu Tonah. I have not decided which side you fall on.”

“There is no side, my Utu Tonah.”

“From what I have seen, Tolman, there is a side. I’ve already asked Garza which side she is on. Do I need to ask the same of you?”

Tolman didn’t have the chance to answer. One of the children—a young girl by the name of Molly—raced into the hall. “Utu Tonah!” she shouted as she saw him and came skidding to a stop in front of him.

“Is everything well, Molly?”

“Yes. Yes!” She glanced at Tolman and then turned her attention back to Tan. “I need your help.”

“Mine?” Tan asked.

She nodded and started down the hall, waving for him to follow. Curiosity as much as anything spurred him to follow. Earth sensing told him Tolman followed and helped him visualize the concerned look on the man’s face.

At the end of the hall, Molly led them inside a room Tan didn’t recognize. That wasn’t unusual; Tan didn’t recognize most of the rooms in the tower. Molly pointed to a blackened chair in the corner.

“Look,” she urged.

“What am I looking at?” Tan asked.

She pointed at the chair again, but Tan still didn’t know what it was that she wanted him to see.

Tolman seemed to recognize what Molly wanted to show them and walked to the chair, running his hand along the armrest. He brought it away and up to his nose. He sniffed his hand. “This was you?”

She nodded, her head bobbing enthusiastically. “Yes, Master Tolman.”

“What is this?” Tan asked, making his way over to the chair. He touched it as Tolman had and found the armrest warm. Using fire, he sensed the blackness to the wood and realized that it had been shaped, and recently. A slow smile came to his mouth. “You shaped this?” he asked.

He held onto the fire sensing, letting the awareness of it linger. There was something more to the shaping, almost a strength that he wouldn’t have recognized had he not been as skilled with the elementals. But this wasn’t only a shaping. This came from the elementals.

“Utu Tonah?” Molly asked.

He’d already checked each of the children and noted that none of them had a bond forced on them, so that wouldn’t explain the heavy presence of saa in the shaping. “Can you shape, Molly?” Tan asked.

She shook her head. “Not like you, Utu Tonah.”

Tolman touched his arm and jerked his hand back, as if afraid that he’d dared to touch the Utu Tonah. He nodded to the other side of the room, so Tan followed him over. Tolman leaned in and lowered his voice as he spoke. “That one didn’t have the same potential as the others,” he said to Tan. “That was why she had her lessons here. For her to do this…”

“She speaks to saa,” Tan said.

Tolman’s shoulders tensed, and he shifted his feet as if to block Tan from reaching Molly. “If she did, my Utu Tonah, it was not like before. Please, you cannot tear it from her—”

“Tear what from her?” Tan asked.

Tolman looked terrified, but Tan couldn’t understand what it was that would make him so nervous. Certainly not a young shaper of Par-shon, and a powerful one in these lands, learning to speak to the elementals.

“Please, Utu Tonah,” Tolman said. “Let her keep…”

Tan stopped listening and focused on saa. The elementals would be powerful here, and he’d already spoken to fire in these lands. It shouldn’t surprise him that another would be able to speak to the elementals in Par-shon, and especially not to saa. Something had changed in the kingdoms as well, and elementals that had not spoken to anyone for years had begun to speak once more, even to the point of forming bonds. The same would happen here, he suspected.

Saa,
he called, reaching through the fire bond.
Did you speak to this girl?

The steady crackling flame sense that he associated with saa returned.
Maelen. You object to this one?

Tan could saw saa as a thin streamer of smoke as it swirled around Molly. He smiled.
I don’t know anything about this one. Does she burn brightly?

Ah, Maelen. You know that fire could not bond if she did not.

Tan chuckled. Tolman stopped whatever he was saying and looked at Tan.

“You would laugh at my concern?”

“Not at you, Tolman, but at what saa says about Molly.” He went over to Molly and knelt down. “What does fire say to you?” he asked her.

A smile spread across her face, and she looked him in the eyes. It was refreshing to have someone actually look at him, and not with fear or anxiety about what he might do. “You said that they listen and that they will bond to us,” she said.

“You haven’t bonded.”

She shook her head. “They tell me that they can’t yet. But they
talk
to me, Utu Tonah! Just like you said they would.”

Tan couldn’t help but smile at her. “Saa thinks you have potential,” he said.

“You speak to them too?” Her voice fell to a whisper.

“Molly, I speak to all the elementals, but I’m connected to fire the strongest.”

She bit her lip and glanced over to Tolman. “They said I should tell you. That you would want to know. Master Tolman…”

“What about Master Tolman?” Tan asked.

She looked away from Tolman. “He said… he said it was dangerous to tell you if we were able to speak to any of them. That you would want to take them from us.”

Tan patted Molly on the head. “You were right to tell me. And I won’t take saa from you. That isn’t for me to do. Besides, how will I know how brightly you can burn if you don’t get the chance to speak to them?”

She beamed at him. “They called you something else, but I knew what they meant. It’s easier when they talk inside me.”

“What did they call me?”

She shook her head. “It was a strange name. Not a word I recognize.”

Tan smiled. “Was it Maelen?”

Her eyes widened, and she nodded vigorously. “That’s it! What does it mean?”

“It’s an old word,” Tan said. “And a name given to me by the draasin. Maelen were small creatures, but were said to be fierce.” She laughed and covered her mouth. Tan smirked and nodded. “Sort of like you, I suspect. And now you know as much as I do about the name.”

“That’s a funny reason for a name.”

“The draasin are funny creatures,” Tan said. “Keep working with saa, Molly. If they say that you have potential, then you need to keep working.” He nodded at the blackened arm of the chair. “And if that is what you can do when you work with saa, then I would agree.”

She nodded again, “I will Utu Tonah… I mean, Maelen!” She giggled again and ran back over to the chair.

Tolman waited by the door, and Tan waved for him to follow as they left Molly to keep working. In the hallway, Tan leaned in to Tolman. “You told them not to tell me if they could speak to the elementals?”

“My Utu Tonah…”

“No. This is enough, Tolman. How can I work with them if I don’t know what they are capable of doing? These children must learn to work with the elementals, but they need to do it in the right way. Someone like Molly, already forming a connection to the elementals, tells me that there is much potential here. You can’t hide that from me, not if I am to help them understand what they can do and how to use it.”

Tan didn’t bother to tell him that it wouldn’t matter if he tried. Tan’s connection to the fire bond would tell him. He had known about the others who had bonded through the fire bond.

“My Utu Tonah, I am sorry. I will accept whatever punishment you have for me.”

“Punishment?” Tan repeated. “I don’t want to punish you. I want you to work with me to help these children learn. And I don’t want to separate bonds that form naturally. The elementals would not choose to bond if they felt the shaper would abuse the bond.”

Tolman swallowed. “I… I think I misunderstood you, my Utu Tonah. Perhaps I have underestimated you as well.” He glanced at the now-closed door.

Behind it, Tan could hear snippets of Molly speaking to saa, though he didn’t listen to the conversation. With the fire bond, Tan thought that he could hear what was said, but he didn’t want to eavesdrop. Tan had the sense that Molly would share anything that he needed to hear anyway. But what he did recognize told him that she was learning aspects of shaping from saa, lessons that would be more powerful and meaningful than anything that she could learn from fire shapers, especially if she were bonded to saa.

“Do you really speak to
all
of the elementals?” Tolman asked.

Tan turned back to Tolman. “That’s what I keep telling everyone. After everything that I’ve done, you still question my ability to speak to them?”

“There are some who question whether you are able to speak to them as you claim. They think that you defeated the Utu Tonah because you were able to secure more bonds than the other Utu Tonah.”

Tan shrugged. “I was able to defeat him because I am able to speak to all the elementals. They strengthen me even without bonds. And it wasn’t bonds that defeated the Utu Tonah; it was the shaping of all the lands across the sea working together that stopped him. I only used those shapings.”

Tolman studied Tan a moment, squeezing his eyes shut as he took a few breaths. When he opened his eyes, he nodded. “This is something you must see, my Utu Tonah.”