The Cloud Warrior Saga, Tome 4: Fortress of Fire

1

THE SHAPING OF SPIRIT

Tannen Minden sat with his legs crossed in front of him, the cold stone floor of the cell beneath him and the stink of damp air filling the air around him. The shaping he performed came more easily than it once did, though still was not as effortless as what he knew was possible. For him to do what he knew necessary, for him to understand why he’d been given the gifts the Great Mother had given him, he would need to master not only speaking to the elementals but also shaping.

The First Mother stared at him, exasperation plain on her face. “You lose focus so easily. If you think to save this creature, then you will need focus.”

“I think my focus is fine,” Tan snapped. After spending the last two hours sitting across from this woman—the one who had nearly handed the kingdoms to a man determined to simply shape it to his whims—he was tired. His mind ached from the constant repetition of binding the air, water, earth, and fire together. Worse, there was the distant amusement he felt from Asboel. The draasin thought all of this quite a game. From Amia, he sensed only annoyance.

“Fine? If you’re to understand your gifts, you will need to be able to hold your focus regardless of what comes. You might never know you’re being shaped otherwise. And you know how they transformed. They stole from the People. This is not some simple shaper you plan to face.”

He shot her a look and then shook his head. She deserved his anger, but her punishment was severe enough as it was. No longer able to serve the Aeta, she was instead confined to this windowless room, held with chains wrapped to her ankles that kept her from going more than a dozen steps, and stuck teaching him what she knew of the ancient runes and of spirit shaping. She was one of the wandering people, now trapped for her crimes. What warmth could be found in the weak lanterns flickering in the room gave only enough light to see the bare, rock walls. Somehow, she still managed to carry herself as if she led.

Tan pulled on a shaping of fire and mixed it with elemental power. He no longer knew if it came from Asboel or one of the lesser elementals. He doubted that it mattered. Fire now came easily to him, flowing from him more freely than any of the other elements. He thought it from the fact that he’d bonded to Asboel, but he wasn’t certain. A nagging part deep within him worried that there was some residual effect from the way fire changed him. The nymid had restored him, but it was possible that fire still influenced him.

“I think I will do fine if needed.”

Her shaping built faster than he could react. As it did, Tan’s connection to the elementals was cut from him, sliced like a knife across his mind. A panic raged through him and he wrapped each of the elements together, binding spirit, and slammed it against her shaping. Her shaping snapped away from him.

“What was that?”