Servant of Fire

The vast expanse of Incendin spread all around Tannen Minden as he stood on a ridge overlooking the waste, ignoring the draw of the Fire Fortress for now. Hard, cracked earth split beneath him to form canyons where the rock dropped off to nothing but blackness. The plants growing throughout Incendin were equally dangerous, from the spiked shrubs scattered across the hard rock to the spindly trees that almost seemed to twist toward him as he neared. Even the thorny cacti that grew with flashes of green seemed out of place in the rest of the barren Incendin landscape. With every step, plants seemed to move with him; some even sprayed poisoned needles. Tan had learned to place a barrier of wind around him, but he feared the moment the wind would fail him.

Everything about this land seemed designed to torment, but more than that, to prevent access to its people. Without his ability to shape, he wouldn’t be able to safely make his way through.

In the distance, Incendin stretched toward the rocky shores of the sea. For a place as dry and hot as this one, massive waves crashed along its eastern shores, each wave powerful, as if the ocean attempted to reclaim these lands—or maybe the waves were Par-shon’s way of attacking, using water to slowly wear away at their enemy.

There was beauty here as well. Tan had seen it, not only from the strange, rare trees with long needles for leaves that flowered when the conditions were right, but also from some of the people he’d now fought beside. Once, he would have considered them enemies. Now, they were allies. 

They had to be, or everyone on the continent would suffer. 

His eyes were drawn back to the Fire Fortress, which rose toward the wisps of clouds that filtered the hot sun. He tried to ignore it, but it called to him, demanding attention. Spouts of flame shot from the top of the fortress, both stronger and different than the last time he’d seen it. The black walls that made up the fortress reminded him of a similar tower in Par-shon. Tan sensed no runes upon the Fire Fortress, nothing that would place him in the same danger that he’d experienced in Par-shon. The only danger was the fortress itself and the people within. 

“Are you certain you wish to do this?” Cianna asked.

The fire shaper stood next to him, the bright midday sunlight catching off her flaming orange hair, making it glow. Heat radiated off her skin, billowing like a furnace through the silky maroon shirt that matched the tight leather breeches she preferred. A playful smile danced on her lips, and her eyes darted from Tan to the Fire Fortress, and then back to the massive draasin Sashari that was crouched a dozen paces behind them. 

The draasin remained in place, wings folded up against her body, and her long, barbed tail flicking at the ground, as if sweeping back the attacking plants. Through the fire bond, a connection he shared with the elementals of fire and none other, Tan felt her wariness, but also the sense of respect she carried for Cianna. He no longer had to strain to reach the other draasin through the fire bond. Now it came easily to him, the only shaper he knew who was able to reach the elemental connection. 

“They summoned me,” he answered. When the summons had come, a strange call from the elemental kaas through the fire bond itself, Tan had known he needed to answer. That kaas—an ancient experimental joining of fire and earth—would call to him through the bond told Tan how urgent the need was.

“And Theondar?”

“He has more to worry about than this,” Tan said. 

Cianna placed her hands on her sides and laughed. The sound carried over Incendin before catching the hot wind and disappearing, almost as if ashi, the wind elemental of these lands, stole the laughter. “You think that Theondar cares so little about his Athan that he wants you running off to the Fire Fortress alone?” 

Tan twisted his ring, the marker of his office, on his finger. He’d accepted the role of Athan, but it still didn’t feel like it fit him completely—not after the sacrifices he’d made. Perhaps it would in time. Roine claimed that Tan had done as an Athan should, making the hard choices of one meant to lead. Those choices were the reason shapers had died. Elementals had died. Asboel had been injured. Those choices had been his fault. Could he make them again? 

Could he afford not to?

“Serving him, I do for the kingdoms,” Tan said. “In that role, I speak with his voice. But in this, I think I come to Incendin to represent the elementals.” 

“They cannot be trusted,” Cianna said.

By they, she meant the lisincend. It was a typical argument, especially for Cianna, who had grown up in Nara, which lay along the border with Incendin. How many times had those she loved been attacked by Incendin? More often than even Tan, and he had lost his father, his village, and almost everyone he’d ever known to Incendin. 

“They fought with us,” Tan reminded her. “They fight Par-shon. And the lisincend have been brought back to fire.” 

Cianna sniffed. “You claim this, but you’ll have a hard time convincing others of that. Too much has been lost.”

“Sashari has told you.”

The hard edge to Cianna’s face softened as she looked over at her bonded draasin. “She claims the fire bond has changed, that you work closely within it now. She’s said nothing about Twisted Fire.”

“Because the lisincend are no longer twisted. Not as they once were.” 

Tan took a step toward the rock, feeling the heat of Incendin all around him. Another step would lead him off the ridge, forcing him to use a shaping to lower himself to the valley below. A low howl echoed off the rock, a hound’s distant cry no longer as terrifying as it once had been. They might have his scent, but they would not be able to injure him. 

Incendin had changed, not only for him. Like all change, it would take time for others to understand what it meant. Tan wasn’t even certain that he fully understood the consequences of what he’d done by bringing the lisincend into the fire bond and healing them so that they were no longer twisted. All he knew was that it needed doing. 

And then there was the bond that he’d forced, an action he had never thought to take, one that in some ways made him no different than the Utu Tonah. 

Tan pushed away the thought. That was not the reason kaas called to him. 

“You will have me wait?” Cianna asked. 

“I would have you with me,” Tan said. He would rather have Amia, but as First Mother to the Aeta, she served in a different role. The people of the Aeta needed her, and he wouldn’t risk her coming to the Fire Fortress. Besides, like many, Amia still hadn’t fully moved past what Incendin had done to her family. Tan had stood witness when the lisincend had attacked her mother and others of her caravan, and had seen how Incendin had thought to sacrifice her in the name of creating another lisincend. 

Cianna laughed darkly. “Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of visiting the Fire Fortress and destroying it?” she asked. “Nara has fought Incendin for generations. My people have struggled with Incendin stealing our people, the same as they steal Doma’s shapers.” Fire surged from her, and Tan doubted that she shaped it intentionally. “Worse are those of Nara who make the crossing willingly.”

“You would take away their choice?”

“No,” Cianna said, jaw clenching as she glared at the Fire Fortress. “I would take away Incendin’s seducing them. How many fire shapers have the kingdoms lost to them? How much stronger would we be if they had not taken our shapers?”

The question was different than simple concern for the kingdoms. Fire shapers were not revered within the kingdoms, not as they were within Incendin. Other shapers viewed them as lower than those able to manipulate the other elements, and many feared an Incendin influence even when there was none. In the short time that Tan had actually experienced the university, he had faced the same fears in the way that the masters sought to understand where each student came from. He remembered all too well Master Ferran’s disbelief when Tan described what he’d gone through with the lisincend. Now Ferran was one of Tan’s most ardent supporters. 

“And how much worse off would we all be had Incendin not managed to withstand Par-shon all these years?” Tan asked. 

Cianna pinched her eyes closed and let out a frustrated breath. “Why do you wish for me to enter the Fire Fortress with you?”

“The others will fear that my loyalties are in question.”

“No one questions you, Tan—”

He raised a hand, silencing her. “They question whether I am more concerned about the elementals. And they should question. I don’t deny that I serve the elementals, or that I think the Great Mother gifted me with the ability to speak to them for me to offer my protection. But few will question your motives when it comes to Incendin.”

“I’m of fire. I will always be questioned.”

“You should look through my eyes, Cianna. You have more respect among the shapers than you realize.” 

She fell silent a moment. Then she sighed. “What is your plan? You think you can simply shape your way in? They’ll view that as an attack, you know.”

“This was never about shaping our way in,” he said. “This was an invitation, and one I have to answer.”

Reaching for fire and spirit, connecting to the fire bond, Tan listened for kaas. The great serpent of fire had been like the lisincend, twisted and sitting outside of the bond, but Tan had managed to heal it. At least, he thought he had. Part of that healing had required him to forcibly bond kaas to another. It had been necessary, but Tan still struggled with how that made him any different than Par-shon. He could tell himself that he’d done it to help the elemental, but hadn’t he done it to save others? Wasn’t that the same thing that Par-shon did? 

Tan’s connection to fire told him how Sashari waited, warily listening to everything around her, using the fire bond and her senses to monitor both Tan and Cianna. Distantly, he sensed Asboel, though the draasin remained motionless, still reeling from the battle with kaas that had left him wounded and weakened. 

Healing hadn’t managed to bring Asboel back to what he’d once been. The nymid had tried, but healing elemental powers, especially one of fire, was difficult. The nymid had managed to restore Tan when he’d embraced fire too closely and nearly transformed into one of the lisincend, but healing Asboel was beyond them. His wings no longer caught the air as they once had, and his injuries persisted. Tan tried not to think of whether Asboel would ever manage to heal. 

Then there was Tan’s connection to Honl. The attack with kaas had left Honl changed and different as well. Not damaged, at least not in the same way that Asboel had been damaged, but not quite like the rest of the ashi elementals. Where before he’d always been somewhat indistinct, nothing more than translucent air, now he had shape and form. Tan saw him less often than before, though he could call on him if needed. Honl was there, distantly at the back of his mind, but not as present as he had once been. 

The distant sense of kaas burned beneath the ground. The great serpent was unlike any of the other fire elementals. He was powerful and strange, a twisting of fire and earth, an experiment done by the earliest kingdoms’ shapers, and for reasons Tan still didn’t understand. What would make those shapers think they could twist the elementals? What would make them think that they had the right to experiment? 

Asboel chuckled distantly in his mind. Since his injury, he was more prominent in Tan’s mind, as if experiencing the world through Tan since he could no longer safely fly. If they survived the Par-shon attack, he thought there might be a way for Tan to use his shaping to help Asboel fly once more. For now, he remained safe, dependent upon Tan to keep him that way.

You think differently than those of that time, Maelen. And the threats of this era are different than what they knew.

Sashari perked up as Asboel communicated with Tan. Had she heard? Asboel was bonded to Tan differently, the connection changed by necessity when Par-shon had nearly stolen the bond. Now, spirit and fire wove together, tying them in ways that the initial bond had never managed. 

And you think differently than the draasin of that time, Asboel.

It was not always the case.

Both had changed much since the bond, and Tan didn’t think that either of them would undo those changes, but he would undo the damage. In time, he would find a way to heal his friend.

You will observe? Tan asked. 

A surge of annoyance came through the bond. That is all I have remaining, Maelen. Were you not so interesting, I might have begged the Mother to return. 

The response saddened him, but he understood. Without his wings, Asboel couldn’t hunt. Without the hunt, he did not feel like the draasin. 

But Asboel was still fire. He was still his friend. Tan would find a way to restore him.

But not today. Today was about the summons. 

Tan embraced the fire bond, pulling on it tightly, welcoming the sensation of fire all around him. With the fire bond, Tan called to kaas, knowing that the great serpent of fire would hear.

“Be ready,” he said to Cianna. Shifting his attention to kaas, he sent a different message. Tell Fur I come.