Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) (15 page)

Tan chuckled. “I think you’ll find Amia more forgiving than you realize.”

Zephra approached Amia, and there came another knock on the door.

Pulling it open, he saw Maclin again on the other side. “I’m sorry, Maelen, but he came telling me that he could not wait any longer to see you.”

“Who?”

Maclin stepped to the side and revealed Tolman standing there, wringing his hands together. “Maelen. I know that you task me with the shapers, but there is something…”

Tan frowned. “Say it, Tolman.”

“Something that I would ask of you.”

“What is it?” Tan tried thinking of all the things that Tolman might ask, but couldn’t come up with anything. Was it something with the students? Did he want Tan present more? Or even less?

But he had another request altogether, one that had nothing to do with the students.

“Maelen. It… It is my wife. I would ask that you heal her.”

T
an leaned
over a cot in a small room. Candles burned incense at either end of the bed, and medicine soak rags rested on the forehead of a frail woman with stringy dark hair. Other than the candles, there was no other light in the room, leaving strange and swirling shadows. Garza stood against the far wall, watching him with unreadable eyes.

He should not have been surprised to see Garza here, but he was.

“When did she lose her bond?” Tan asked.

Tolman hadn’t wanted to tell him what happened, preferring to lead him to his wife in spite of Tan protesting that another might be better suited to help. “It has been many years, Maelen.” He brushed back her hair, pushing it off her forehead.

“Before the Utu Tonah came?” Tan asked. He looked from Garza and then to Tolman.

“The Utu Tonah was here for nearly fifty years,” Garza said. “She would not survive such separation.”

Nor was she old enough to be even fifty, not if she was Tolman’s wife. But Tan also hadn’t realized that the Utu Tonah had been here as long as he had. Fifty years under his rule. Tan had not been able to get a clear answer before, mostly because none were willing to speak of any time
before
the Utu Tonah, as if they feared even the hope of Par. Now that Tan had spoken of it openly, at least to those of the council, and to Tolman and Garza, there was a different openness about what might return. Maybe Tan might finally get some real answers about the Utu Tonah.

“How long?” Tan asked.

Tolman glanced at Garza, and she shook her head. What passed between them? What did Garza fear Tolman sharing with Tan?

“She… she was a Servant of Souls,” Tolman said. “The Utu Tonah did not particularly care for the Servants, preferring that the people follow his religion and worship his power and that which he could do with the bonds. Most followed, if only out of fear of what the Utu Tonah might do. Only the Servants, and the Mistress, remained.”

Why would they not have feared revealing themselves to him? Marin had willingly admitted that she was the Mistress of Souls. Tan had no idea what that meant, only that she seemed to have the people’s interest in mind.

“So he separated those who already had bonds of their own?” Tan asked.

Tolman nodded. “Those who would bond were allowed to rejoin through the Utu Tonah, but never to the same bonded.”

Tan stared at Tolman’s wife, thinking of the horror that had been in Par-shon. Learning things like this made him ever more pleased that he had managed to defeat the Utu Tonah.

“The Servants are spirit shapers, Tolman. Can your wife shape spirit?”

His eyes widened. “Spirit shapers?”

“That was how Marin managed to keep her secret as long as she did. There were others with her, also spirit shapers. I would imagine that
all
Servants would be.”

“But she was not!”

Tan sighed, “What would you ask of me?”

Tolman shifted his feet uncomfortably. “You said that you healed Zephra. I would ask that you try with Reyelle.”

“I don’t know if there’s anything that I can do. The separation was so long ago, and the repair for Zephra required summoning her bond back to her. If the elemental has fled,” and considering all that had happened in the time since the Utu Tonah had been defeated, that was a very real possibility, “then I will not be able to reach her.”

There might be another way to heal her, the same that he had done with Cora, but that had involved practically sealing her off from being able to reach the elementals again. That fate was nearly as bad as what had already happened to Reyelle, and with no guarantee that it would even work.

“Please, Maelen. I would ask that you try.”

“This is foolishness, Tolman,” Garza said. “As I’ve told you. There is nothing that anyone, even the Utu Tonah, can do to help her.” The large water shaper stepped forward and rested her hand on Tolman’s arm in an attempt to soothe him. “Take solace in the fact that you have done everything that you can to try.”

“No, Garza. Not everything. Not if the Maelen can do this.”

“Tolman… I have said that I don’t think that I can. I might be able to help her find comfort, and maybe let her rest more easily,” he said, but wasn’t sure that was true, “but reaching her and restoring her bond might be more than I can do.”

“But you will try?”

Tan sighed. He had already decided that he would try, but still doubted that it would work. “I will try.”

He moved to the side of the bed, ignoring Garza’s protests. She retreated to the back wall, huffing as she did. Tan glanced at Tolman. To help—if he
could
help—would require searching for her bond, which meant that he would need to find her bonded. “What type of shaper was she?” Tan asked.

“She… she shaped wind, Maelen. She bonded wind.”

Tan breathed out another sigh. Of course it would be wind. Not that he was weak with wind—his bond to Honl was testament to that, as well as the fact that he could speak to ara—but wyln, which he suspected she would have bonded here in Par—was a different challenge altogether. Tan had spoken to wyln, but he had rarely managed the same connection that he established when speaking with the other elementals.

Not only did he have to know what she shaped, but he would need to know the
name
of the elemental. And that, he suspected, she would not have shared with Tolman.

“Did you know her bonded’s name?”

Tolman shook his head.

He focused on the only other way that he might be able to learn the name of the bonded elemental and used a shaping of spirit, drawing on pure spirit, to layer it over Reyelle’s mind. The shaping reached a cold sensation, something that should not be, and there was a strange resistance. Tan pushed through, needing to draw upon the combined shaping from each of the elements, and added that to spirit.

He pushed this onto Reyelle’s mind. This was not an attempt to heal, and not an attempt to do anything other than discover information, but he found it more difficult than he would have expected. Had the time separated from her bond truly damaged her so much? His mother had spoken to him of how she wanted to die when she lost her first bond, and he had seen the way that others had been affected when they lost their bonds, not only Cora, but Vel. And Tan knew the pain of a lost bond personally. It would have been nearly enough to destroy him had he not managed to recover the bond to Asboel.

He pushed, surging his connection through Reyelle’s mind. The resistance fluttered and then faded, as if he pushed it aside.

Her memories came through the spirit connection. Shaping this way was an incredible invasion, one that he should have clarified with Tolman before beginning, but now that he was here, he didn’t dare withdraw, not if there was something that he could do.

He sorted through her memories. There were happy memories, like those of her marriage, and the day that she discovered that she was pregnant. There were sad memories, like when she discovered that she lost the pregnancy. And then there were mixed memories, those that Tan didn’t really know how to interpret, such as her time in Par-shon, serving under the Mistress of Souls, while also under the Utu Tonah’s rule.

He pressed through all of them, searching for an answer, trying to discover her bonded elemental’s name. He found nothing easily, as if she held that secret most tightly to her. And likely she did. Tan would have fought to restrict his bonded elemental’s names as well. Once those names were discovered, there was a different level of control over the elementals.

But if he didn’t find the name, he wouldn’t be able to help her. And Tan believed that he should try. Not only for Tolman, but judging by some of the memories that he’d glimpsed of her time working with the Mistress of Souls, he thought there might be something that he could learn from her that might help him understand what Marin might attempt next.

So he pushed.

Spirit flowed from him, raging through Reyelle in a torrent. Tan sorted through the different memories that he encountered, finally finding something that might work. There was a hint of excitement, but deeply buried. Through this, he realized that she hid more than her excitement, but she hid the reason for her excitement.

Tan expected that she hid those memories from the Utu Tonah, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Reyelle hoped that she could serve Par-shon, that she would help Tolman rise in standings with the Utu Tonah through her bonding, but someone else worried her. It took more searching for him to realize that she feared the Mistress of Souls discovering her bonding.

Had Reyelle known?

Tan focused on Reyelle’s hidden memories. There was the bond to wyln, a special time when she finally heard the wind and reached it, calling its name in a way that she never would have thought possible for herself. As he found this memory, Tan found the secret that she hid, and discovered the name: Yawla.

He receded from her mind, and as he did, he detected that same resistance that he’d encountered when he first probed her and attempted to reach into her mind to steal her secrets. Tan turned his attention to this resistance, but it faded, disappearing again as soon as he turned his attention to it.

Then he withdrew.

He took a deep breath and Tolman stared at him with hope in his eyes.

Tan shook his head. “I managed the first step,” he said. “The next will be harder.”

“The first step?” Tolman asked.

Garza seemed to glare at Tan from the back wall, though he wasn’t sure why she would be so irritated with him for attempting to help.

“She has been separated from her bond for too long to do this easily,” Tan said. “I could either attempt to seal off the injury that occurred when the bond was broken, or I can attempt to restore the bond. Restoring the bond is more difficult, but I’m not even certain that if I attempted to seal off the bond that she would recover.”

Garza stepped away and looked down at Reyelle. “You sound as if you have healed more than one separated from their bond.”

“My mother,” Tan began, “though that was a recent separation and close enough that I was able to restore her without much difficulty. And then another, though healing her required sealing off the wound formed by the loss of her bond. She nearly died when I attempted that. Had it not been for spirit shaping stronger than what I can manage…”

“Then do that, Maelen,” Tolman said. “If that is a way to ensure that she lives, do what you can to heal her.”

“Accomplishing that would require another who is no longer able to shape spirit in the same manner,” Tan said. What would Amia say about him implying that her ability with spirit had weakened? But he didn’t want to risk her shaping that much spirit, especially on a shaping that might not succeed, with her ability to shape altered by the pregnancy. “Which means that I must attempt to restore her bond,” he finished.

“And you can do such a thing after so much time separated?” Garza asked. “Or do you simply give Tolman hope that will fade when you fail?”

Tan turned his attention to her and sighed. “It’s possible that I will fail,” he admitted. “Even knowing the name of her bonded, it’s possible that I won’t be able to reach the elemental. And if I do, it’s possible that the bond cannot be reformed. But if I can, if I can reach her elemental, and if I can summon the bond back to her, then she should be restored to what she was before.” And then he would have questions for her. He would tell Tolman that later,
after
he managed to heal his wife. If he couldn’t, then would he attempt to seal off the spirit injury on his own, using the shaping that he’d seen Amia and the First Mother using as they healed Cora, or would he ask Amia for help, and accept the risk to her—and their baby—if something went wrong with their shaping?

Tan didn’t know, which meant that he needed to continue to try to reach the wind elemental.

Tolman stared at his wife. “Do what you can, Maelen,” he said softly.

Tan nodded, fixing Garza with a firm gaze. “I will.”

* * *

W
ind gusted
around the top of the tower as he listened. The hatchling clung to his shoulder again, though this time, Tan suspected that she understood why he had come and what he wanted to attempt. What was more, the draasin seemed interested in helping.

She licked his cheek and he wiped it off, smearing it across his cloak. She’d done it often enough that his cloak had something of a glistening crust. Eventually he would need to wash the cloak. Or convince the draasin to stop licking him, though he suspected that she found it more amusing than anything to keep doing it.

Do you think that you can reach the elemental?
the draasin asked.

Tan shook his head, uncertain.
I struggle with wyln more than the others of wind.

Wyln is strong in these lands, Maelen. Connect to wind as you do to fire and you would reach the elemental.

He grunted.
I don’t think that I can connect to wind the same way that I do to fire. With fire, I share the fire bond.

You have made this objection in the past, Maelen.