Broken of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 9) (17 page)

He sighed. Probably nothing.

Tan traced his fingers across the Seal and felt it tingle beneath his fingertips. The sensation was much like the others had given off when he touched them. There had been a level of guidance necessary for him to repair them, and with this one… he had assumed that it was intact. What if it was not?

Tan pulled on a shaping of fire and combined the rest of the elements to join into the shaping. He took that connection and let it surge into the Seal. As it did, there was a sense of resistance. Had it been there before with the other Seals? He didn’t remember. Pushing more of his shaping into the Seal, he felt a surge, mostly of spirit, that then pushed back against him.

Nothing changed. There was no sense of anything else from this Seal, which meant that it was likely intact, as he had believed. Not that it would be anything else. The cavern had been undisturbed when he found it, hidden and buried for countless years. But the Seal, and the runes along the wall, meant that it had not always been that way.

And Tan suspected that the Utu Tonah had known about the cavern, at least enough to search for it. Had not those of Par been steadfast, he might have discovered it. Would he have been able to hatch the eggs? Even if he had reached the lost Record, Tan doubted that he would have been connected enough to fire to hatch the eggs. Bonded to saa, or any of the other elementals didn’t mean that he would have been able to reach deep enough to help guide the hatchlings, but how could he have known that? The Utu Tonah had been primarily about obtaining power, hadn’t he?

Yet it troubled him that the person who seemed most intent on destabilizing these Seals had not been the Utu Tonah, but Marin, the Mistress of Souls.

“What is it?” Elanne asked.

“Probably nothing.” At least, he hoped it was nothing, but he had a growing concern that he needed to know more about what had brought the Utu Tonah to Par in the first place, and
why
he had sought power as he did.

“I will continue to study the Records,” Elanne said. “If I find anything…”

“Please come for me if you do,” he said.

He left her studying the runes on the walls and turned to the draasin. First, he would bring them to the cavern with Asgar. Let that be their den. It would serve them better as they grew anyway, with better access to the outside and easier hunting for them as they grew. With them gone, he would need to find a way to keep this cavern protected, but he thought that he had a way to accomplish that—if Kota would agree to serve as something like his guard dog until he came up with a better solution. Leaving the eggs here for much longer, especially if he wasn’t able to see them hatched immediately, placed them in danger.

But those were concerns for later. For now, he needed to return to the estate and see if there might be something that he could discover from the journals the Utu Tonah kept. And maybe, if there might be more that Tan could learn from others who had served around the Utu Tonah.

T
an sat
at a small table tucked away in one corner of the room he shared with Amia. This place, the one that he’d dubbed the Utu Tonah’s workspace, had a space where he’d discovered the journals from the Utu Tonah. From those, he had discovered that the man he had grown to fear had come to Par with a different agenda, but one that was not all that clear from his writing.

The small draasin curled underneath the table. She rested her head on his feet and occasionally would wake to lick him. Tan had given up on wiping away her saliva. Let her win whatever game she played with him.

He left the two journals that he had discovered propped open, flipping through the oldest of the two, searching for answers as to why the Utu Tonah had come to Par. That was the secret he had to discover. The Utu Tonah had sought power, but he had sought it with a purpose. Tan needed to learn
why.

Only, so far, there had been nothing in the journals that explain the reason that he had. The second journal had as detailed a description of the elementals as any Tan had ever seen, from names and types to ways to force the bond. In the wrong hands, something like this would be dangerous. Tan could not allow anyone else access to it. Though, in Par, there were enough who had lived through the Utu Tonah’s regime who would also know his method of bonding the elementals that it likely didn’t matter.

The clinical way that he described the elementals appalled Tan, but at the same time, he had actually learned something that he would not have found otherwise. Names for elementals that he had only known as hints or suggestions. Now he had names for earth in Par—that would be eylan—among the other names that he had never learned. Holding onto spirit when he had defeated the Utu Tonah had given Tan a glimpse of that knowledge, but he had not possessed it directly. The Utu Tonah had collected the knowledge in the same way that the ancient scholars had detailed their studies, documenting it much the way that he’d found in Ethea’s archives.

But Tan still didn’t know why he had come to Par. Was it simply because there were elementals that were not found in his homeland, wherever that might be? Or was there another reason?

If he thought that he might come to understand, the journals so far had provided no clues.

A knock at the door drew his attention away from the journals. He closed them and tucked them away in a drawer, careful to keep them hidden. There weren’t many even able to read the
Ishthin
they were written in, but the contents of the Utu Tonah’s journals were potentially dangerous.

The draasin didn’t move as he stood, but she gave an annoyed snort that he dared to shift her head. He shook his head in amusement as he went to the door.

Maclin waited for him. “Brenna said that I should find you, Maelen.”

Tan nodded. Brenna had been the only servant of the estate that he’d been able to find when he returned from the caverns, and she wasn’t the one who Tan needed to speak to. Maclin had the quiet understanding, and the observant eye, that he sought.

“Good. Come in.”

Maclin’s eyes narrowed. “Here, Maelen?”

Tan hurried back to the workspace, pulling the two chairs with him. “Here. We could go to the library if you would be more comfortable, but here is fine for me.”

In the library, he would have to contend with Amia listening in to the conversation, as well as possibly his mother. So far, she remained in Par, apparently determined to stay as long as necessary to see that Amia had the help she needed.

“Then this will be fine for me as well.” Maclin took a seat and sat with a rigid back. He held his hands cupped in his lap and at first stared at the walls before turning his attention to Tan. “What is it that you need from me?”

Tan cursed himself softly for making such a show with Maclin. He could simply have asked him while standing, and then taken a seat if it were necessary. Doing things this way only created formality when he had not wanted any.

“You served the Utu Tonah,” Tan began.

Maclin’s eyes twitched slightly. “You know that I did.”

“How long did you serve?”

Maclin closed his eyes briefly. “The Utu Tonah was in Par for many years before I was offered a position in his household.”

Then he hadn’t been here the entire time that Utu Tonah had been in Par, but hopefully long enough that Maclin knew more about the Utu Tonah than most. “You were head of his household?”

“Not the entire time.” Maclin pressed his hands together until the knuckles turned white. “What is this about, Maelen? If you are dissatisfied with my service, then I will see that another can take my place.”

Tan suppressed a smile. “Not dissatisfied. I think that without you, I wouldn’t have known the extent of Par, and the efforts that went into maintaining the connection to ancient Par while the Utu Tonah ruled.”

“If you are asking whether I was placed—”

“I suspect that you
were
placed, but that’s not what I’m asking about.”

“Then what?”

“I would know how much you were able to learn about the Utu Tonah in the time that you served here. Where was he from prior to coming to Par? What did he want by coming here? Was there anything other than the draasin eggs that he sought?”

Maclin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “When you live near enough to a man to serve him, you come to know him in a sense,” he started. “What he wanted was clear the moment that he came to Par. He wanted power. I cannot say what else he might have wanted, because he was careful not to discuss that in my presence, or with anyone that I had ever seen. As to where he was from…” Maclin shook his head. “There are things that we were not to speak of, Maelen, and that was one of them. Tell me, what is your interest in the Utu Tonah? He is defeated. There is nothing more to learn from him.”

Defeated, yes, but was there
really
nothing more that he could learn from the Utu Tonah?

“The man had an understanding of the elementals that had allowed him to bond to countless numbers of them. Without that understanding, he wouldn’t have been nearly the threat that he was. And he wouldn’t have managed to subdue Par so easily.”

“That’s why you ask?”

“No. I only wanted to understand why he came here,” he said.

“I thought you’ve said that you’re interested in keeping Par free.”

“That
is
what I’m interested in,” Tan said, “but there is still much that I could learn from him.” Especially if it had anything to do with what Marin did, and the strange attack that he’d experienced and the rune that had been atop the tower. Without knowing that, would he be able to find a way to keep her from attempting it again? Would he know what he could do to stop this entity that he’d detected?

He didn’t know.

And from watching Maclin and the reaction he had to Tan’s request, it was obvious that he worried about Tan’s intentions toward trying to understand the Utu Tonah. Not that Tan could blame him. The Utu Tonah had destroyed Par and had turned their heritage into something else, twisted, as they forced the bonds and pulled away those who could shape. A generation, maybe two, had been lost.

“I haven’t told you what happened when I discovered the Records,” he said. Maclin stiffened at the mention of the Records. Most who were loyal to Par had felt a certain protectiveness about the Records and seemed to fear that Tan might attempt to destroy them.

“You are said to have restored the Great Seals,” Maclin said carefully.

“I restored the Seals,” Tan agreed. “My connection to the elements and to the elementals allowed me the ability to understand how the Seals had been formed, and I could use that to restore them.”

“Maelen, I know this. That is why the faithful of Par do not deny your rule.”

Tan leaned forward. “The Utu Tonah did not destroy the Records either.”

Maclin frowned. “I have not said that he did.”

“No. But from what I have been able to determine, the Utu Tonah wanted to destroy as much of Par culture as he could, only he never went after the Records. Why do you think that was?”

“The Records were protected by the Mistress of Souls.”

Tan shook his head. “The Mistress of Souls attempted to destroy them. She was only able to succeed
after
he… after I defeated him. Marin is the reason that the Records were damaged and that I had to restore them.”

Maclin stared ahead, blinking slowly as he worked through what Tan had told him. “I had not considered that. If true, then much of what many of us know is faulty.” He turned to Tan. “The Mistress of Souls served to guide us and to offer words of advice. In that way, she served as something of a way for us to resist what the Utu Tonah did to Par, and how he turned our people against themselves. At least… at least, that is what I always believed.”

Tan formed a shaping of spirit and layered it gently over Maclin, but found no evidence of a spirit shaping buried within him. He had checked before, but there remained the concern that she might have returned and that she might have attempted to shape those around him. If that happened, who would Tan be able to trust?

“There is no Mistress of Souls, Maclin. That is the other reason that I wanted to speak to you. The people need someone that they can trust, someone who they feel represents them. You are the first person that I thought of.”

Maclin smiled. “Then you would be making a mistake. There has never been a Master of Souls, only the Mistress.”

“So Tolman has told me.”

“Then he must also have told you that none would support such a change. Doing so would only invite questions, and are you willing to answer those questions?”

“My wife was attacked on top of the tower because of a shaping I suspect Marin responsible for creating. Had I not managed to shift the shaping to myself, I don’t know that she would have survived. As it was,
something
powerful was nearly released, or might have been released.” He hoped the attack on Asgar was not related to what had happened to him on the tower, but he had a feeling that it was and that not only had he not truly defeated whatever Marin had set to unleash, he might have given it entrance into the world. “That is what must be discussed, at least within the council of Par. And I would have you serve in that role.”

Maclin stared at his hands a moment, slowly shaking his hands as he drew in soft breaths. “I… I will think on it, Maelen. That is all that I can promise.”

He stood and stopped at the door. “You are not at all what I expected when you returned to Par.”

Tan decided to take the comment as a compliment. “If you think of anything that might help me understand the Utu Tonah, please tell me.”

“Of course, Maelen.”

He closed the door behind him, leaving Tan sitting, wondering if he would ever find the answers that he needed, and whether it even mattered.

T
he draasin nibbling
on his toe woke him. Tan’s head rested on the desk, the two journals spread in front of him. The longer that he studied them, the more he suspected there had to be additional volumes. The first that he’d found detailed some of the earliest days in Par, but not
the
earliest days. And the other volume was a document of more recent events. There was nothing in between, and nothing prior to the first.

He looked down at the draasin and pushed her with his foot.
Where do you think he hid the others?

I’m hungry.

I’ll get you food, but where do you think he might have hidden the others?

Ask the other. There is more that he knows but does not share.

The other? Maclin?

Not him. The other.

Tan frowned, pulling the draasin so that she sat on his lap. As he did, he realized that her wings truly
did
seem to be shrinking, as if a lack of food or whatever changes occurred to her not only stunted her growth but were causing real physical change. Even her tail had changed, the spikes on it receding.

Does the change hurt?
His concerns could wait. He needed to know if the draasin—or whatever she had become—suffered.

She licked his hand as he tried to rest it on her back, rubbing along the soft spikes. They were smaller than they had been, though Tan knew that could be only his imagination. He grinned as she licked him, and he wiped his hand on his pants.

Does it hurt when you grow?

Tan laughed.
When I grow? You’re not growing, you’re changing.

They are much the same, Maelen. You cannot grow without change.

He patted her on her back.
Then it doesn’t hurt.

No more than any change.
She unfurled her wings and flapped them for effect.

A part of Tan felt sadness watching her attempt to fly. If her wings continued to shrink, she would never take to the air and never hunt as the draasin should.

Do not pity me. This form is what the Mother asks of me.

Tan met her eyes, and she stared back at him with something like understanding and peace. It took a moment for Tan to realize that she pressed spirit on him, and he didn’t fight it as she did. They shared a connection in that way.

Which other did you mean?

The other. The one you have helped.

Tan wished for a connection like he had with Asboel, where he could share images so that he would know who she meant. It would make understanding easier.

With the thought, the draasin pressed another shaping onto him. This time, it came with a memory, one of his, and he realized who she meant.

Tolman?

She licked his hand.

Why would Tolman hide things about the Utu Tonah from him? Tan had attempted nothing more than to work with Tolman, and had placed him in a position of authority because of it, but if there were things that he kept to himself, he might need to rethink his plan.

Unless there was another reason that Tolman hid from him.

Tan stood and carried the draasin with him as he left the estate and shaped himself to the tower. Inside, he hurried through the halls, stopping along each floor as he went. There were the students, but Tan found no signs of the earth shaper.

Reaching the top level and the wide, open room that had once housed the Utu Tonah when he ruled, he found it empty as well.

Where is he?

The draasin licked his hand.
You have forgotten how to search for another so soon?

He frowned and stepped out to the top of the tower. From there, he glanced at the ruins of the rune that had nearly harmed both he and Amia, and then focused into the city, using spirit and earth together as he did, reaching out with a powerful sensing.

You have not forgotten.

Tan sniffed.
I have not forgotten.

The draasin licked his neck.

In the city, he found Tolman. Tan should have known where to find him, but had thought that he would have been in the tower. Instead, he was with his wife, standing by her side, with another. Likely Garza, though Tan couldn’t tell that from here.

With a shaping of wind, he lowered himself to the ground outside the small home where Reyelle rested. Tan knocked, deciding it was best not to come raging into the room, and waited.

When the door opened, redness ringed Tolman’s eyes.

“What happened?”

He shook his head. “Maelen. I… I’m sorry I was not with the students today. I couldn’t leave… not when she’s like this.”

“What happened?” Tan asked again.

“Her condition has worsened. We don’t know why.” Tolman stepped to the side, letting Tan into the room. “She barely breathes. Garza does all that she can, but…”

Tan stopped in front of the bed where Reyelle rested. Garza glanced over at him, clenching her jaw.

“You could have left her,” she said softly. Tolman stood on the other side of Tan and wouldn’t be able to hear. “This is what
you
did.”

“I only tried to help.”

“Help? All that I saw was you trying to bind her with spirit. She had been stable for so long before you came. And now… now I am barely able to hold her here.”

There was a certain passion to her words that made Tan wonder just why Garza would care so much. She was a water shaper and a healer, but that didn’t explain the anger that she expressed.

Layering a faint spirit sensing over Garza, Tan reached into her mind. Doing this felt less of a violation than it once had, and when the draasin licked his neck again, he decided that he at least had her support, whatever that meant. With spirit, he traced through Garza’s emotions, using the lightest touch that he could manage. After all the time spent working with Amia and observing her training with the First Mother, he had a
very
light touch with spirit.

Through the connection, he detected a source for her irritation, one that was tied to a relationship. Garza seemed to recognize that he was there and started to shield her mind, but not before Tan recognized the connection.

“Sisters,” he said, looking from Garza to Reyelle. They looked nothing alike.

“You could have asked,” she said.

“Would you have said anything?”

Garza looked down at Reyelle. “I only wanted to protect her. That’s all that I’ve ever wanted.”

Tan hadn’t remained in Garza’s mind long enough to gauge much more of the connection. Doing so would have required him to push more aggressively and be more present in her mind, which he wasn’t willing to do. He had found what he needed and did not need to push any more than that.

“That’s why you’re so angry. You haven’t been able to save her.”

“And after what you did to her, I cannot.”

“Garza,” Tan said, touching her arm, “I did nothing more than what I just did to you. Reaching into her with spirit sensing would not have changed the illness. All I needed was to know the name of her bonded. That’s the only way that I can help her.”

“She would have protected that. Taking the name of her bond would have pained her.”

Tan frowned. It
was
possible that even weakened, she had managed to protect her mind so that she wouldn’t reveal the name of her bonded, much as it was possible that he had pushed harder than needed to even enter her mind. And if that were the case, then maybe Tan had been the reason that something changed.

The draasin crawled along his shoulders and jumped, landing atop Reyelle. She began licking at the woman’s face, moving her rough tongue across each cheek and then over her forehead.

Reyelle sucked in a breath of air.

Garza gasped. “What is that…
thing…
doing to her?”

Tolman clapped his hands together and reached for the draasin, but she looked up at him and hissed. He stepped back and made a face.

What are you doing?

What you should have done, Maelen.

Garza tried to push past Tan and started shaping water, but the draasin looked over at her. A shaping built, one that had strength and carried with it barely more than the hint of spirit. Garza staggered away, her eyes going wide, nodding slowly.

What should I have done?

She is harmed.

I know. Separated from her bonded. She suffers because of that.

That is not the only harm.

Tan frowned and shaped spirit, mixing with it water and letting this work through Reyelle. As before, there was a resistance, but it was more solid than before, as if it had taken a deeper hold.

This was the reason that her health failed, not what Tan had done to her, and… and not because of the separation of the bond.

What is it?

You will have to help her, Maelen. There is only so much that I can yet do.

How much time does she have?

She is failing.

I see that.

I am not certain that you do.

Tan pulled on more shaping strength, drawing from the elementals around him to bolster his strength. Through the elementals, he could draw even more than he could alone, and they helped prevent him from weakening as he shaped. Normally, he had Amia to help with the connection to spirit, and without her, it was the one connection that he lacked, leaving him feeling helpless.

Tolman watched Tan and eyed the draasin, helplessness on his face.

Tan pushed.

The shaping forced into the resistance he detected, pressing
through
it, but it moved slowly, as if oozing away from him. Reyelle’s mind was there, but almost sealed apart from him. For a moment, he wondered if this were something that Marin had done. Had she discovered that he had come before and intended to help heal her? This was not the attack of spirit. This… this was something else.

Yet familiar.

Tan recognized the resistance as the same as when he’d helped Amia. Unlike with Amia, there was no bond that had formed, and he didn’t share the connection with her to help her. He wouldn’t be able to assume the bond like he had with Amia, even if he wanted to.

Another
can
strengthen her,
the draasin said.

Her bonded.
I have tried to reach for her bonded, but failed.

You have tried speaking to the wind, but not to the bond.

They are the same.

Maelen, you continue to see limits that do not exist. You will fail all of us if you continue.

Limits. The draasin believed there was a wind bond, much like there was with fire, and that if he could reach that, he might be able to reach Yawla. But even Zephra, the greatest wind shaper that Tan knew, and twice bonded to ara, did not know of a wind bond. If she didn’t know of it, then how could such a thing be real?

Do you think that you serve the Mother the same as Zephra?

I think that we serve the elementals the same.

That is not the question, Maelen.

Tan strained for wyln, reaching again for the wind while continuing to press through the resistance around Reyelle’s mind. As had as he pushed, he couldn’t squeeze past this
thing
that attacked her, for it
was
an attack.

A gust of wind fluttered through an open window, swirling around him, but then fell still. The wind—at least, wyln—would not answer.

That is not how you will reach the bond.

Tan didn’t know
how
he could reach a wind bond, if it existed. He couldn’t even reach his own bonded elemental anymore. And wasn’t that how he had first learned to reach the fire bond? Hadn’t he reached through Asboel?

But… he hadn’t. The first time that he’d learned to reach the fire bond had come when Asgar lay dying. Then, he had learned to reach inside himself, to use his own connection to fire to reach the bond. As Asboel had said, he had always been a part of the fire bond; he had only learned to reach it when striving to save Asgar.

Now he would need to reach another bond, if it existed, and again because he wanted to save someone.

Tan shifted his focus over to wind. Normally, he drew wind from a combination of elemental power as well as what he managed to shape from within, but he suspected that he would need his own shaping ability to reach the wind bond. Borrowing from Honl, even if he could reach him, would not grant him that connection.

Focusing inward, he listened for the wind. His mother had taught him some of the earliest lessons on reaching it, on focusing on his breathing and the way that it swirled around him. He needed this connection to help him reach for it.

At first, he sensed nothing more than his ability to shape, but then he pushed deeper, straining as he had when he first learned to shape spirit. As he did, he noted something like a soft breath that gusted as soon as he reached for it. It recognized him, and as he touched upon it, questing through it as he’d learned to do with spirit that pooled within him, he felt a recognition.

Much like with fire, there was a bond to wind. That was how he shaped, pulling through that bond, drawing from each breath that he possessed and joining with all of the wind.

Tan used that steady sense deep within him and listened. There was something so very much like the earth sensing that his father had long ago taught him. Wind circled all around, and he let himself be drawn to it.

He could sense it swirling around him, the wind spiraling around Reyelle in ways that he had not noticed before, something translucent and clear, but definitely real, as if wyln intended to save her, cradling her as well as the elemental could. Each breath he breathed, and Tolman and Garza, had a similar translucent swirling, much like he had once seen when he first learned of Honl.

Beyond the elementals and the breaths coming from everyone around Reyelle, there was wind everywhere around him, even if it didn’t swirl and move. At first it was a vague sense, but the more that he focused, the more that he recognized touches of elemental power, elementals different than even wyln, or ara, or ashi. Had he more time and less urgency, Tan suspected that he could reach for each of the elementals, perhaps finally speak to them as he did to the others.