Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 (11 page)

She might think there was darkness in Theondar, but there was darkness in him, too. There were things that he had done in the name of Ilton that Lacertin couldn’t tell anyone, things he hadn’t even dared to share with Ilton.

But if she shaped spirit, she might already know.

“What happens now?” he asked.

Ilianna shook her head. “I need to understand how to use the plates. Whatever power they can access might be enough to stop Incendin. But these… these are only copies. The originals will have notes that we can use, more than what we have. The only original volume is this,” she said, showing him the one that had held the plate.

“Is that the reason he sent me for them?”

She sighed. “He sent you for them because I asked it of him. I want to save him, Lacertin. I will do anything to save him.”

He took her hands, feeling uncertain as he did. Her eyes were so much as he remembered, but the strength behind them was new. He had thought that her time with Theondar had changed her, but that wasn’t it at all. It was learning that she could shape, that she didn’t have to depend on warriors, that
she
was
a warrior, that would have changed her. And she had done all of it without formal training.

More than ever, she amazed him.

“I…” he started, but didn’t know how to finish.

“I know,” she whispered.

They stood for a moment, holding hands, Lacertin uncertain what to do next, when a knock came at her door.

She glanced over at him, pulling her hands free. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said.

“I will go,” he said, starting toward the door.

“No,” she whispered. “Not that way. Through the wall.”

She guided him toward the spot she’d shaped the opening in the wall and pulled on a quick shaping, forming the hidden doorway once more. She pushed the door open and sent Lacertin through as another knock came at her door, this one more intent than before.

“Ilianna?”

Lacertin’s heart thumped heavily. It was Theondar.

“Go,” she said, pulling the door behind her. She glanced over her shoulder at the door. “I need your help understanding how to use the plates,” she said. “I’ve not found anything in these texts. Help me find the originals.”

“Where can I look?”

“The archives. They won’t let me access the restricted section, not without Father, but you’re a warrior. They’ll let you pass.”

“You’re a warrior too,” Lacertin said.

“They can’t know that,” she said.

“Why?”

“They just can’t. Will you help?”

She started pushing the door closed before he had a chance to answer, not that she needed him to say it. For Ilton, he would do anything. “I’ll help,” he said.

Then the door sealed closed, shutting him in the darkness.

L
acertin knew
that he should get moving, that remaining hidden behind the wall would only end with being discovered and possibly risk the revelation of Ilianna’s secret, but he felt almost compelled to remain. The walls were thick, probably too thick for him to be able to listen through, but he remained anyway.

He pressed his head against the wall, straining to hear. As when he’d tracked Ilianna to Ilton’s room, the thin crack remained, though it slowly faded. A fluttering whistle of wind worked through the crack, and he used this, straining with a sensing of wind. He didn’t dare shape. Theondar would know if he did.

“When you didn’t answer, I was worried.” This came from Theondar, his deep voice edged with more emotion than Lacertin had ever heard from him. There was compassion in it as well, none of the usual bluster that Theondar seemed to possess around everyone else. Could it be that Theondar was actually
good
to Ilianna?

“After everything that I’ve been through, I needed to rest,” she said.

“I wish there was something we could do for your father.”

Ilianna answered something too soft for Lacertin to hear. Could she know that he remained in the walls? If she managed to shape spirit, he supposed that it
was
possible that she knew.

“Althem intends to strengthen the barrier. Now that we’ve lost Mal and Issan, there is even more urgency.”

The sudden change seemed jarring, unless it came from something that Ilianna had said. Lacertin hadn’t realized that Althem appreciated the barrier. He thought the prince only tolerated it because his father had wanted the barrier in place, but what if there was more?

And Mal and Issan were both warriors. Could they be gone too? Lacertin hadn’t seen them since his return to Ethea. Since Althem effectively ruled in the city, they likely served at Theondar’s direction. With Roln and Pherah gone, and now Mal and Issan, Incendin had destroyed more of their warriors in a shorter time than they had in years.

Not only warriors. If Ilton was right, they had gotten to him as well.

“The barrier serves as Lacertin intended,” Ilianna said.

“Lacertin?” Theondar asked. “He had the idea for the barrier, but it was the archivists and the other warriors who designed the shaping.”

If they continued to lose shapers—and warriors—maybe they would have to change the barrier, make it something more like what he saw around Norilan. The kingdoms would be isolated, but they would be
safe
.

There was silence. For a moment, Lacertin thought that the wall had sealed closed once again, preventing him from listening, but he still noted the way the soft breath of air came through the crack. He clung to what he sensed of the wind, curiosity and concern for Ilianna driving him.

But, he realized, she didn’t need him for protection, not as she once did. If she really could shape spirit, and Lacertin had no reason to doubt that she could, then she might be more capable than him. She might not have the same strength, but there was more to shaping than brute strength. It was the reason shapers like Wallyn were so successful. Sometimes, it was about what you knew, and the creativity with which you could use it, that granted real strength.

“Why do you dislike him so much?” Ilianna asked. “All he has ever done is serve at my father’s request, much as you now serve at my brother’s behest.”

Lacertin couldn’t help but feel that last comment was meant as some sort of dig at Theondar. Their voices faded and he knew that the time he’d be able to hear them was growing short. The opening in the wall continued to narrow, and soon it would be nothing more than solid stone once more. He could shape it, but that would only reveal his presence.

Before he turned away, he heard Theondar’s voice more faintly. “For you, I will try,” he said. “You know I’ll do anything—”

The wind disappeared, and all sound was shut off from him.

He leaned against the wall and sighed as he tried to process everything that he knew. Ilianna was a shaper, and she kept that from her brother, as well as the man courting her. Not Ilton, though. She hadn’t disguised from him her ability to shape, and it had been her request that had sent Lacertin away from the city. In a way, she had chosen him as her warrior, using him to reach the plates when she couldn’t safely reveal her abilities. Would she always hide the fact that she could shape, or would there come a time when she did so openly?

Without Althem being able to shape, she couldn’t unless she wanted to rule. And she had told him that she
didn’t
want to rule.

She had asked his help again, and he would do what he could, especially if it meant the possibility of helping Ilton.

Doing so meant that he needed to reach the archives, which were closed to even most shapers. Could he convince Nissa, Ilton’s trusted archivist advisor, to allow him access? If he couldn’t, was he willing to sneak into the archives? That was nearly as bad as violating the sanctity of the king’s final rest, but then, he hadn’t really done that. The king still lived.

First, he had to get free of the passageway.

Lacertin moved through the walls, retracing his steps toward Ilton’s chambers and stopping. With a shaping of fire, he created enough light for him to see what was around him. The passageway continued onward, but there had been another opening farther down the wall. Could he access Althem’s rooms the same way that he accessed Ilianna’s and Ilton’s? If he could, he might be able to get free.

* * *

T
he passageway twisted
and turned more than he would have expected. Lacertin grew lost as he went. He never would have expected the space between the walls to be so vast. Was it only Ilianna who knew, or were there others able to move discretely through the palace like this?

Eventually, he reached a set of stairs. Lacertin considered staying on this level, but so far, he felt as if he moved in circles. He was no longer even certain that he could find his way back to Ilianna’s room, so taking these stairs at least gave him a way forward. There had to be another exit from the passages. If only he could find it.

Not for the first time, Lacertin considered shaping earth and forcing his way out, but doing that would open him to questions that he didn’t want to answer.

Lacertin took the stairs that led down through the palace, hoping he wouldn’t encounter any servants. Halls like this seemed perfectly designed for servants, but they would need to be able to shape to reach any of the quarters on that level.

What other purpose would there have been to have these halls?

Unless they had been designed to enable the rulers to move unobstructed, and without fearing that others might learn of comings and goings. That would have value.

Ilton must have known, though. For Ilianna to know, surely the king had known. Who else?

After descending an impossibly long time, the stairs ended. Lacertin had to be well beneath the palace now, but where would it lead? Walls practically pressed against him, giving him only enough room to walk. Were he a wider man, or much taller, he wouldn’t have managed quite so comfortably.

After dozens of steps, he paused. He was deep enough that any shaping wouldn’t be detected here, and if it were, he might have another way to explain why he was there. He pulled on shapings of earth and wind, searching for an exit. The wind drew him the most, and he followed it, moving with increasing speed.

Then the hall ended in a solid wall.

Lacertin touched the wall and felt the cool, damp surface. How had he detected airflow through here if the hall simply ended?

He didn’t have the answer.

Lacertin turned back, trailing his fingers along the wall. Fine cracks were present there, barely more than the settling of the foundation of the palace. The wall itself was so smooth, he wondered if it had been shaped.

He stopped. If it had been shaped, maybe the cracks were intentional. Pulling on the wind, he used the shaping to reach for the sense of air moving through the passage. Then he smiled. It
did
move through the cracks, but there were dozens of them, and each so small as to be barely noticeable.

Shaping earth, he pressed into the nearest crack and then added fire, as he had before. Nothing happened. Lacertin released the shaping, and tried a different approach. Earth had to be a part of it, but that didn’t mean fire did as well. Fire had worked before, but maybe because it had been keyed that way. The ancient shapers had ways of leaving shapings that could be triggered, but only by the correct shaping.

Lacertin cupped a shaped flame over his head and stared down the hall at the end of the passage, considering the damp stone, before turning back to face the wall in front of him.

This time, he tried earth and water.

A dark line appeared in the stone about halfway down the hall. He hurried to it and watched as it slowly worked up and around in an ever-expanding line. It was narrower than what he’d seen at Ilianna’s wall, and different than the zigzagging shaping that he’d encountered with Ilton’s wall, but much the same as well.

He pushed, and the door opened.

Lacertin held onto a shaping, not certain where he would be led or what might be on the other side.

There was no need. The door opened onto a stair leading up. Lacertin took it and was met with another wall. He mixed earth and water, adding wind and fire when nothing happened. The shaping was different than any other he’d attempted, mostly because he added the elements in equal parts. The shaping made him think of what Ilianna had said about how she reached spirit.

The entire section of wall slid open. Lacertin stepped through, emerging in a wide, arched corridor. A steady drip of water echoed from somewhere in the distance, and a gentle gust of cool air touched his cheek. There was a deep sense of earth all around him, as if the entire city pressed down upon him.

Where was he? How extensive were these tunnels that he’d never known anything about before? Had Ilianna and Ilton known how far the passages extended?

He considered which way to go and decided to move to the left, toward the sound of dripping water. All he wanted now was to find a way out, but part of him wanted to explore, to understand what else the palace might be connected to.

After walking a dozen or so steps, he passed a massive door with a single rune stamped on the surface. Since he’d been sent to retrieve the plates, he recognized the rune. He might have recognized it regardless, but holding the gold plate, with this series of patterns stamped into its surface, had given him time to become acquainted with many runes he didn’t understand. This was one of fire, but not the rune for fire that he’d ever been taught.

Lacertin placed his hand on it and shaped.

The door shook but didn’t open.

He tried again, pressing into the rune with a stronger shaping of fire, but again, it shook—this time almost violently—and then stopped.

He wasn’t meant to get out that way. But why was the door here? It was too large to be for someone his size, and as far as he knew, there had never been men
that
much taller. What purpose would something like that have?

Lacertin moved on, continuing down the hall while holding a shaped flame above his hand. It flickered in the wind blowing through here.

A small pool of brackish water pooled over the path. Lacertin veered around it and continued. Maybe this wasn’t the right direction, especially if water flowed through here. For all that he knew, he might run into a situation where he couldn’t go any farther. And then what would he do? He wasn’t convinced that he would know how to find his way back to the doorway leading back to the hidden passage behind the walls of the palace.

In his haste, he almost stumbled into an opening leading down. At the bottom of a narrow stair, he found an actual door. Like the large, arching door he’d seen in the hall, this had a rune upon it.

Lacertin didn’t recognize the rune. It resembled earth, but also resembled each of the other runes. He decided to try shaping each of the elements into it. The shaping pulled away from him, sinking into the rune, but nothing happened. The door didn’t even shake, not as the one along the other hall had. He tried another shaping, this time pulling each of the elements together and twisting them, forging them together.

It was a shaping he’d never tried. With a flash of white light, the door opened and Lacertin stepped inside, holding the shaped flame before him.

The door closed, almost as if on its own. Lacertin ignored it. He recognized where he was, but didn’t understand how he had gotten here. This was the lowest level of the palace, deep beneath the main levels, and a level below even the dungeons.

From here he hurried, quickly reaching a familiar part of the palace. He would hurry to the archives. For Ilianna and Ilton, he would hurry.