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

difficult to return from fire.
    You survive. I survived.
    You barely survived, Maelen, and the draasin are fire.
    Tan ignored the comment about him. The same as saa? The same as inferin?
    They are fire as well.
    Tan couldn’t get the image of the burning lisincend out of his mind. He’d been so certain that he could restore him. Maybe his mother was right that he needed additional training, but why did it feel the other shapers knew less about some things than him? Why can’t they be saved?
    They chose their fate. I have been away from this world too long to understand, but they embraced fire too closely.
    Asboel turned his head away, staring through the trees, focused toward the south, toward Nara. It was where the draasin had settled after Tan had saved them, where Asboel and Sashari had gone to raise the hatchlings. But the world had lost two more of the draasin, stolen by the lisincend and destroyed.
    How did they take the hatchlings? Since the attack in Ethea, since defeating Althem, Tan hadn’t asked. The subject was too sore for Asboel, too fresh and raw.
    Asboel breathed out slowly, steam spilling from wide nostrils. The draasin are weakest when young, before they learn to control the flames, before they learn to climb the wind. Twisted Fire found where Sashari hunted. They took that safety from the hatchlings.
    Will there be others?
    There will always be draasin.
    Tan felt that wasn’t much of an answer. The world had missed the presence of the draasin. Maybe that was the reason shaping had become so rare, though if that were the case, then why was it that all the elements were affected? The other elementals of fire that Tan knew about, saa and inferin and saldam, were not nearly as powerful as the draasin. They hadn’t replaced the fire elemental in the draasin’s absence.
    But then, there were other elementals where two shared strength. The nymid and the udilm were both powerful water elementals. Tan once believed only the udilm to be the great water elemental, but experience had taught him otherwise. Could the same happen with the other elements? Were there other strong elementals of wind and earth? And if not, why with water?
    So many questions and never enough time for answers. Between Incendin remaining a threat, Doma shapers still trapped, and the barrier needing to be rebuilt, there simply wasn’t time to learn what he needed.
    Tell me, Maelen, why have you come to this place? Asboel asked, pulling him from his thoughts. What do you hope to learn here?
    There is much I need to learn. There’s so little I understand of the other elementals, but I didn’t come here for that. I needed to get away. I… I thought I could do something I could not.
    Asboel seemed to smile. With the draasin, it looked like a turn of his long jaw and the flash of sharp teeth. It was not the first time for you, nor will it be the last. You are fearless. You are Maelen. That is why I chose to accept the bond.
    Maybe Tan had tried controlling power he was never meant to control. Using the elementals to form spirit was one thing, but controlling the Mother meant a different type of power altogether, power that he had turned away from when he decided the artifact was not meant for him. But then, had he used the artifact, he could have saved the lisincend. With the artifact, he could have done many things. He’d seen what he could have done, almost as if he were sitting among the heavens, gifted with knowledge of the earth and stars.
    I wonder if I should have restored the hatchlings when I had the chance.
    Asboel turned to him and fixed him with eyes that seemed to swallow him. Concern formed a thick line down the center of his long snout. You cannot change what you cannot control, Maelen. Even the draasin know there are limits to power. Danger comes when you reach for more power than you are meant to possess. Even small changes have consequences.
    Tan looked at his hands. Roine and the others had been right. He shouldn’t have