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

tried saving the lisincend. After what they had done to the world, they didn’t really deserve saving.
    Come, Maelen, let us hunt together tonight. You will forget.
    Tan shook the dark thoughts out of his mind and stood. Let us hunt.
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    T hey soared high overhead , the city of Ethea growing ever more distant, nothing but a darkness far behind him. Villages streamed past, but Asboel never flew close enough to be a threat. Knowing what he did of the draasin, how had shapers ever felt the need to hunt the great elementals? They wanted nothing more than to hunt, though Tan didn’t understand why they should need to hunt and feed when he’d never gotten that sense from ara or the nymid. Perhaps the draasin really were different from the other elementals. Tan wondered why that should be.
    Clouds drifted past and it would have been cool if not for the heat radiating from Asboel. Tan held tightly to one of the spikes on his back, settled comfortably atop him. He felt a moment of peace. How many people could ever say they had ridden one of the draasin?
    Awareness of Amia surged through their bond, worry gnawing at her. He sent her the image of him soaring with Asboel, using it to reassure her. She seemed appeased by it and Tan released the immediacy of the connection.
    Where would you hunt? Asboel asked.
    Nara , Tan sent. He formed the image of the map he’d seen in the lower archives, and Asboel understood. How much of the map had been accurate when Asboel still hunted, before the time he’d been frozen in the lake? They banked, turning hard as his massive wings beat at the wind, sending them higher and higher until at last Asboel lowered his head and dove.
    Wind swirled around them. Mist shimmered from the heated spikes, sending moisture spraying onto Tan’s face. Translucent shapes like faces appeared and then disappeared rapidly; Tan had always seen the wind elemental when he rode the draasin.
    The air changed as they flew, growing warmer. The greens and browns of Ter, the flowing expanse of fields and small farms, shifted, slowly sliding into burned orange of the sandy desert that covered much of Nara. Like Incendin, Nara was a hot land, one tormented by the sun and lack of moisture, a place where fire thrived.
    Asboel swooped, circling a shadow moving along the ground. The image of a deer-like creature darting across the ground filled Tan’s mind. Asboel dove for it, reaching the animal before it could even register that it had been hunted, and grabbed it in massive claws, pulling it apart and eating as they climbed.
    Asboel seemed content. Another shadow appeared, the dark shape sliding through the sky. Tan looked over and saw the other draasin, Sashari, as she flew alongside Asboel. Tan focused on her and felt the distant sense of her within his mind, though it seemed to come more from Asboel than from any connection to her.
    And the youngest?
    She hunts, Asboel said.
    There was a hesitancy Tan only felt through the connection. She does not need to hide from me .
    Enya had no control. That is unusual for the draasin. It frightened her. That is another thing that is unusual.
    Tan hadn’t seen her since the archivists used the shaping Amia placed on the draasin to keep them from hunting man and twisted it, turning it so that she was under their control. To save Asboel, she had released that shaping, at least for Asboel. Tan had never given much thought about if the shaping remained upon the other draasin.
    Are the others still constrained?
    You ask if the Daughter’s shaping remains?
    Yes.
    It remains.
    But not for you? Tan asked.
    No.
    Would you like it removed from them?
    Asboel snorted. The shaping is not as limiting as you would believe, Maelen. We still hunt. We fly. That is all the draasin require.
    They flew for a while longer. Why did they hunt you? The ancient warriors, I mean. Why did they hunt the draasin?
    Not so ancient, Maelen. The draasin experience the world in a way you will never fully understand. We