Fortress Of Fire (Book 4) by D.K. Holmberg Read Free Book Online

golud?
    The ground rumbled as if the golud heard Tan’s question.
    Asboel pawed at the ground, tearing at the earth with massive claws. His tail switched around him, slamming into the small trees nearby as if they were nothing. Golud may think earth came first, but always there is fire. It is life. It is everything. Without heat, there can be no rock.
    And golud, do they have names like the draasin?
    Asboel snorted. Ask golud.
    Tan had never really gotten much answer out of the earth elemental, but then again he’d never tried, not as he had with Asboel. There was a bond between him and Asboel, different even than there was with the other draasin. Could he even bond with another elemental? It felt strange to even consider it. With Asboel, he knew his mind, sensed his thoughts.
    Tan might be able to touch on the thoughts of Enya or Sashari, but it wasn’t the same. Whatever he reached of them likely came through his connection to Asboel anyway.
    Did his mother have the same sort of connection to ara as he had with the draasin? He hadn’t thought to ask and it seemed to him that ara was abundant, but what did he really know about the wind elemental? Could ara be like the draasin, with each having a name, a sense of self? Could the nymid? Or were they simply parts of the greater elemental power?
    Tan wished he understood. Maybe then he could understand why he’d been given the ability to speak to the elementals. What did the Great Mother intend for him? Surely it was not simply to stop Incendin. There must be more for him.
    Did you have a bond before?
    He almost asked about before Asboel had been trapped in the ice, frozen at the bottom of the lake, but caught himself. Nearly a thousand years had passed while Asboel had been trapped, long enough that the world had changed, that the threats of Asboel’s time had become something different. Then, there had been no twisted fire. Incendin had been nothing more than another land, one filled with fire shapers but not dangerous and deadly.
    Asboel sat on his haunches and twisted his head around, practically resting it on his forelegs. There has been no bond.
    None?
    He snorted and a spray of steam burst from his nose. Tan had long ago learned that the steam spouting from Asboel’s nostrils did no more harm to Tan than the heat of his spikes. He wondered if the flames from his mouth could harm him. Part of him doubted that they would.
    The bond between draasin and your kind is rare. It is not easy for my kind to form these bonds. There were those who would try, but the draasin are fierce. None succeeded.
    It is easier for the other elementals?
    Asboel clawed at the ground as if trying to pull golud from the earth. The others are less choosy and they forget easily, so it is rare for the draasin to bond.
    How rare?
    I have lived many cycles, but I have only heard of it once before. If the bond fails, I will be weakened.
    Weakened?
    Asboel’s tail switched from side to side. I cannot explain it any better, Maelen.
    Does it limit you? Tan asked.
    Not any longer.
    Tan laughed. Now that Amia’s shaping forcing the draasin to avoid hunting man had been lifted, he’d wondered what would happen, but so far nothing had changed. Maybe that was the point. The draasin could hunt man, but they had no interest in it. They hunted to eat, not for sport.
    That’s not really what I meant.
    Your question doesn’t deserve an answer.
    Tan sighed, thinking of the lisincend. He’d been convinced he could save him, that his ability to draw upon spirit would give him some insight about how to return the fire shaper who had sacrificed himself to become the lisincend, but maybe Amia was right. Unlike when Tan had nearly changed by fire, the lisincend had gone voluntarily—willingly—chasing fire for greater power. Tan had only done what was needed to save Amia.
    He pulled his legs in and sat, staring at the rock scattered around him. I thought I could save him. Fire consumed him too brightly.
    It is