Born of Fire (The Cloud Warrior Saga Book 8) by D.K. Holmberg Read Free Book Online Page A

remained back in the home of the Utu Tonah, needing to communicate to her people. Just because she had crossed the sea with him didn’t mean her responsibilities as First Mother had changed. They were different, and delegated, which he knew Amia appreciated, as she claimed she no longer had the desire to lead, but there were decisions that only she could make, decisions that she didn’t trust to be delegated.
    At an intersection, he stopped and simply looked around. Nothing that Marin said made him feel comfortable that he understood the people of Par-shon as he would need to. And perhaps that was the point. She wanted him to question, but for what reason?
    He tried seeing if there was something to the people around him, but could identify nothing unexpected. The people were all dressed differently than they would have been in the kingdoms, or even within Incendin and Chenir, places where they had such a different culture than any that he knew. For the most part, everyone moving past him ignored him.
    Tan had made a point of wearing the same clothes that he would have worn in the kingdoms. He didn’t necessarily want to blend in. That was not the reason that he’d come to Par-shon. He needed to be here, make the necessary changes that he might find, and then leave.
    Only, now he wasn’t sure that he would be able to leave easily.
    In some ways, it frustrated him that this wasn’t a challenge that he could simply shape away. He’d grown so skilled with shaping, and so connected to the elementals, that he couldn’t imagine a situation where his ability to shape wouldn’t be able to save him. There was nothing to this that he could shape.
    Tan considered the homes and the shops around him. The style was different, with less of the arching rooflines and more of a flatter and squat design, almost as if Par-shon strained to sink into the land. There almost seemed a pattern to the way the homes were arranged.
    Some of the buildings had a series of markings on them that reminded him of the ancient runes, but these were different. He paused at one of them and traced his fingers through the pattern. As he did, a surge of earth pressed through him.
    Tan pulled his hand back and frowned.
    That wasn’t only a rune, it was a mark for the elementals.
    There was something similar in the kingdoms. The one that came to mind was on the archives, a rune for golud that helped seal the elemental into the stone. Tan had always assumed that the elementals had chosen to assist with the archives, but what if they were placed there much like the bonds were forced by Par-shon? He’d already learned that the ancient shapers of the kingdoms were in some ways not so different from Par-shon.
    Then there had been what the Utu Tonah had said. He had claimed that the kingdoms were the homeland of his ancestors. It might have been a boast, a claim made in the heat of battle, but there was something about it that made Tan wonder.
    He hadn’t spent enough time thinking about it, wondering whether there might be more to the former Utu Tonah than he knew. What if the Utu Tonah had descended from the same people as the kingdoms? What if there were secrets that he had understood that Tan had yet to learn?
    He pushed the thoughts away. He was different than the Utu Tonah, regardless of what the man had claimed. He was different than those of the kingdoms, for that matter.
    But the pattern on the building, a house that seemed no more unique than any of the others surrounding it, had the power of earth within the stone, supporting it in ways that he would not have thought necessary for a simple home.
    Tan listened for the elemental. It was there, a distant rumbling sound coming from deep within the earth. There were many elementals that he had no name for, and this was no different. Earth might exist in the bones of this building, but it had been there a long time.
    He made his way down the street, keeping his eyes on the buildings. A few others had similar