Prelude to Fire: Parts 1 and 2 (8 page)

T
he walk
back down the stairs took longer than going up. Lacertin felt a heaviness weighing in him that mixed with a sense of sadness. Ever since coming to the kingdoms, he had been a part of something. First, it had been training at the university, struggling to learn what it meant that he could shape. Then it was mastering his shaping, first fire and then the other elements. After that, he had taught for a time in between fighting in the never-ending Incendin war, but it had never suited him. That was when Ilton claimed him, placing ever increasingly difficult tasks before him. With each one Lacertin managed to complete, his ties to Ilton grew.

“Where now?” Jayna asked.

“Down,” he said.

He leaned on her less with each step, strength slowly returning. With each step, his ability to shape returned even more. As it did, he pulled on a slight shaping of earth to steady him, nothing more than a trickle of strength, but enough that he didn’t need to lean on Jayna as he had.

When they reached the main floor of the palace, she started as if to head toward the main doors. Lacertin stopped and glanced around. Once Ilton died, he would have little reason to return to the palace. There wasn’t much remaining in his rooms, but now was the time to remove anything that he valued.

“Go on,” he said.

“Where are you going?”

“There’s another thing I need to do,” he said.

“You’re still not in any shape to travel on your own,” Jayna said.

Lacertin tried to straighten his back, but winced as he did. A sharp pain shot through him with the motion. “I’m well enough. I’ll return to the university so you can inspect me when I’m all done. Will that be acceptable?”

Jayna frowned before nodding. “I should return anyway. Master Wallyn will need help with Master Veran.”

“I would like to see Veran when I return.”

“Only if he’s well enough.”

It felt odd that a student would deflect the demand of a warrior shaper, but Lacertin didn’t argue. With Jayna, he doubted that he’d win anyway. She had proven to be stubborn and capable, a combination that allowed her to get away with it. “Fine. Only if he’s well enough,” Lacertin agreed.

Jayna nodded and headed out of the palace. Lacertin watched her until she was gone, then turned toward the stairs leading down. The wide stair narrowed as it led into the lower levels. He held onto the railing, careful to keep from falling. Now that Jayna was gone, he didn’t want to risk tumbling and injuring himself again.

When he stepped onto the landing, he made a point of lighting the shapers lanterns hanging along the hall. Lacertin used only enough shaping to give them a soft glow, barely more than that. The marble walls were bare, though statues in the shape of elementals were placed along the hall, as if a reminder of the origin of shapers’ strength.

He paused at the largest statue, as he always did. It was in the shape of a draasin, a winged creature, with massive spikes protruding from its back. A long, barbed tail curled around it, and the mouth was twisted in a tight snarl. More than any of the other statues, this one drew him the most, partly because the draasin had been hunted to extinction centuries ago.

Lacertin touched the top of the statue, resting his hand on the hard spikes and letting out a soft sigh.

“What would it have been like to see them flying?”

Lacertin turned to see Theondar studying him. He wore a long robe in a dark green, and his eyes flashed with light reflected from the lanterns. The sword hanging from his waist made Lacertin all too aware of the fact that his was missing.

“Most would say that it would have been terrifying,” Lacertin said.

Theondar stopped in front of the draasin statue and tilted his head. “If they were this size? Probably not.”

Lacertin allowed himself to laugh. Arguing with Theondar served no purpose, and really, what troubled him wasn’t the warrior shaper, but what would happen once Ilton passed. He would have to put away the foolish feelings he had toward Theondar.

“I seem to remember learning that they were much larger,” Lacertin said.

“History always manages to inflate the importance of things.”

The comment seemed strange to him, especially considering how little the shapers of today seemed to know compared to those who preceded them even a hundred years ago. With each generation, the knowledge faded. He couldn’t help but believe that it was tied to losing the connection to the elementals.

Lacertin motioned to the nearest lantern. “Yes, because our shapers have done such a good job recreating things like that,” he said.

Theondar only shrugged. “Lanterns and gardens do not mean they were any more skilled than us.”

Lacertin bit back the retort that came to mind. “I would thank you for helping me reach Ilton,” he said instead.

“I hear you found him unwell.”

Lacertin frowned. “From who?”

A dark smile pulled at Theondar’s mouth. “Ilianna was there.”

Lacertin struggled to think of where the princess might have been hiding but couldn’t think of how he wouldn’t have seen her. If she had, at least he understood how the box had ended up in her room. “I didn’t see her,” he said.

“There are other ways to reach the king’s rooms.”

“Is that how you visit her?” he asked.

Theondar’s smile widened. “My courtship of Ilianna is no secret.”

“I seem to recall it being a secret when I left.”

“That was before.”

The word hung in the air, and didn’t need any additional explanation. Before. Before Lacertin had left. Before the king had grown so ill that he was barely awake. Before Althem began his rule, even informally.

“Althem approves, then,” Lacertin said.

“Why does it bother you?” Theondar asked.

That Theondar courted Ilianna shouldn’t bother him, but it did. There had been a time before Theondar displayed a warrior’s talent that Lacertin thought
he
might court Ilianna. She was younger than him, but he had the king’s favor. Ilton thought such an arrangement would bring warrior blood back into the royal bloodline which, over generations, had faded. There hadn’t been a ruling shaper in over a century.

Theondar would serve the same purpose, though. Ilton would have approved, if only because it had seemed to be Ilianna’s choice.

“It does not bother me,” Lacertin said. Whatever feelings he’d had for her had been buried deeply over the years, so that he no longer had to convince himself. At least, he didn’t think that he did.

Theondar chuckled and then tapped the statue. “Tell me, Lacertin. What is it that brings you down into this level of the palace again? Weren’t you the one who claimed that you had no home?”

“There’s something I needed from here,” he said. He had intended to speak to Theondar about the barrier, but after seeing him… Lacertin wasn’t certain that he wanted to any longer.

“Truly?” Theondar asked, arching his brow. “You actually
have
something here?”

There wasn’t much that he possessed, but there were items from his home, things that had reminded him of his family—mostly his mother—now long gone. She had been a shaper as well, though in a time before the kingdoms requested that all who could shape come to Ethea. Like many within Nara, she had taught herself, learning what she needed to keep from destroying herself but never gaining the same level of skill that the shapers trained in the kingdoms managed.

There was a part of Lacertin that wondered if she had trained in Incendin. Within Nara, it wasn’t uncommon for shapers to make the crossing. Some returned, though it was rare. When he’d asked, she had refused to answer, so Lacertin learned not to ask.

“Ilton provided me quarters here,” Lacertin said.

Theondar shrugged. “I’m not debating that.”

“Then what are you debating, Theondar? Because you continue to try me when you know that it will be only a matter of days or weeks before you supplant me.”

Theondar smiled then. “Is that what you think? Do you think that I care so much about being the First Warrior?”

“I think that you’ve proven to be jealous of how Ilton has used me. I think that Althem has shown his eagerness to assume the throne. I’ve done nothing more than serve my king, and I will continue to do so when Ilton is gone.”

Theondar considered Lacertin for a moment, his hand still resting on the draasin statue, almost as if he were petting a hound. “Ilton believes you to be the greatest warrior the kingdoms have produced in nearly a hundred years.”

“I don’t make that claim.”

“No? You have done nothing to suggest otherwise.”

Lacertin sighed. “You have plenty of time to prove your worth. You’re young and have years ahead of you as you serve Althem.”

“What will you do when he dies? Will you leave the kingdoms, maybe return to Nara? After everything that you’ve seen, and everything that you’ve been a part of, do you really think that you can resume that life?”

Lacertin had struggled with that question since learning of Ilton’s illness. Could he resume such a life? All that he’d known the last ten years was serving Ilton, going where the king demanded, and fighting on behalf of the kingdoms.

Even under Althem, that wouldn’t change. There was no reason for it to change. He was a Cloud Warrior, and he would do what his king asked of him, even if it meant serving as Theondar demanded.

“As I said, I will continue to serve as I have always served.”

Theondar raised his hand from the statue and smiled widely. “Althem will be pleased to hear that you will.”

Lacertin turned away from Theondar and continued down the hall. He didn’t need to turn to know that Theondar watched him, or that a shaping built behind him. When he reached the room that had once been his, he hesitated only a moment before stepping inside and closing the door, shutting Theondar out.

T
he room
of healing in the university had a distinctly bitter aroma to it. Lacertin took shallow breaths to keep it from filling his nose and twisted in the hard chair, staring at the shapers lantern, resisting the urge to shape it on and then off while he waited for Wallyn to finish.

Lacertin couldn’t see exactly what he did, but he picked up the thread of the water shaping and noted the way that the master shaper sent waves of healing washing through Veran. It wasn’t so much the skill, though the design of the shaping was enough to tell him that Wallyn was a skilled water shaper, so much as it was the repetition, and the way that the shaping built. Using a shaping as he did took stamina with water, much more than Lacertin could manage.

He sat, rubbing his hands together. He’d remained in his room long enough to wait for Theondar to leave, hating that he hid. He should have taken the opportunity to share with Theondar what he’d learned about the weakness of the barrier… but he had not, letting old rivalries place the kingdoms in even more danger.

Worse, he knew Theondar served the kingdoms as well as he did. The man might do it differently, but there was no question that he served, risking himself the same as any other warrior did. Could he blame Theondar for gaining Althem’s favor? No more than others should blame him for gaining Ilton’s.

The water shaping eased and Wallyn straightened his back. He was tall and broad-shouldered, not muscular like Veran, but solid, as if built for a wider man. He had hair that hung to his shoulders, but it had begun to thin. Like most of the healers within the university, he wore a long robe tied at the waist with a length of rope.

He turned to Lacertin. “You were lucky to reach the university,” Wallyn said.

Lacertin shook himself at the sudden comment. “I tried what I could.”

Wallyn nodded. “You never were one to shape much with water, were you, Lacertin?”

He stood, making his way toward Veran. The man’s skin was pale and the thick gash that he’d seen across his chest had faded, leaving a purple line. Sweat beaded on his brow, and his breathing was steady and regular. Most of all, he lived.

“I thought the barrier held,” Wallyn said.

“The barrier did,” Lacertin answered.

Wallyn sniffed. “Then why is one of our warriors lying near death?”

Lacertin sighed. Partly, it was his fault. The barrier had been his idea. The archivists may have helped implement it, and the other shapers maintained it, but the barrier itself had been his suggestion. Veran might have mistakenly shaped through the barrier, but the fact that Lacertin had wanted to see the barrier, to see where Pherah and Roln had died, made him feel responsible.

“You know the reason,” Lacertin said. “The hounds slipped through the barrier.”

“How will it ever be effective if we can’t even keep the hounds from crossing? First Pherah and Roln, and now Veran—”

“You said Veran will live.”

“He will, but had there been any other warrior with him, I doubt he would have made it back to the kingdoms. Were you not with him…”

Lacertin sighed. Had he not been with him, Veran
would
have died. But had he not been with him, Veran would not have gone to the border in the first place.

“Jayna tells me that Alice left around the same time as we did. Do you know where she went?” Lacertin asked.

Wallyn waved a hand toward him. “I can barely keep track of my healers. What makes you think I would know where the warriors run off to? Even were I able to keep track of you, I’m not sure I want to.”

Lacertin watched Veran. “Will you send for me when he wakes?”

“Yes, yes. You can be notified. Now, you’ll need to let him rest. I don’t know why you thought you’d be able to speak to him. Surely Jayna knew that much.” Wallyn crossed his arms over his chest and frowned. “And you should seek healing as well. I know that we neglected you when you returned, but only because you were in better shape than Veran. Now that he’s stable, I think that we can focus on your injuries.”

“Mine are superficial,” he told Wallyn, who grunted and pushed Lacertin to sit on one of the nearby cots.

“Superficial. The Great Mother knows you are a skilled warrior, Lacertin, but if you have only superficial wounds after falling from the sky like that, then I’ll be a fisherwife.” He rested a hand on Lacertin’s head and a quick shaping built, washing through the warrior.

Lacertin had experienced healing many times before in his service to the king, but it didn’t get any easier. The sensation started in his forehead and washed down, leaving a cool trickling that trailed through him before settling in his chest. With a bite of cold, Lacertin gasped.

The pain he’d felt with each breath, the pain that he’d been fighting, finally eased. He let out a long, shaky breath.

“Superficial, you say. I say broken ribs.”

“Ribs mend just fine,” Lacertin said, rubbing a hand over his chest. He peeled the bandages away, no longer needing them as he had.

“They mend, and chances are good you would have, too. But it’s also possible that they puncture a lung and you bleed internally.” He cocked his head. “Have you ever seen a man bleed inside his chest? Terrible way to go. It starts slow, but as you continue to bleed, a person essentially drowns in their own blood.”

Lacertin grunted. “Seems that a water shaper would appreciate a death like that.”

Wallyn jerked his hand away from Lacertin. “You should watch what you say, Lacertin, or next time I won’t be here to heal you.”

Lacertin stood. “I appreciate that you’re here, and I’m sorry I brought you more work.”

Wallyn waved his hand dismissively. “Work is how we learn. You should know that. There are nearly a dozen budding water shapers, and each needs to learn how to hone their ability, don’t they?”

Lacertin stopped at the door, looking back at Veran. “Keep him well.”

“I didn’t know you cared so much for Veran.”

“Now that Pherah and Roln are gone, there are only so many warriors remaining,” he said.

Wallyn shook his head. “There will always be warriors, Lacertin.”

“Will there? The last was Birend. Before that, it was Theondar. The spacing seems to increase, don’t you think?”

“That’s not how the Great Mother works.”

“We don’t know how she works, do we? Now that we’ve lost the connection to the elementals, we’ve lost that insight.” From everything that he had read, the connection to the elementals had been one way the ancients had access to the Great Mother. Without that, did they really know what she intended for them?

“Now you’ve gotten philosophical? I thought the great Lacertin cared only for action. Isn’t that why you’ve spent so much time away from the city?”

Lacertin started forward. “I have done only what has been asked of me,” he said.

He wasn’t sure—and didn’t care—whether Wallyn heard him.