Changed By Fire (Book 3) Read Free Page A

he bled into that bowl of hers. Then she used his blood in some shaping. I thought it was the same as Fur used.”
    Lacertin’s eyes closed as he considered. “Perhaps she learned more of the shaping than I realized. Alisz has always been dangerous, even for a fire shaper. And now—”
    “Now she’s more than even one of the lisincend, isn’t she?”
    “It seems she drew her inspiration from the draasin. Perhaps that was where Fur went wrong, thinking to shape himself into something more akin to saa.”
    Lacertin made a point of meeting Tan’s eyes. He wore a hard expression, but mixed with it was pain. Tan couldn’t help but wonder what he had seen while in Incendin. What must it have been like, being so close to the lisincend?
    “You understand why I must return?” Lacertin asked.
    “But you don’t. You’ve shown that you don’t work for Incendin. You can return to the kingdoms, help fortify the barrier—”
    Lacertin shook his head. “The barrier will fall if it hasn’t already. That has always been the plan, the reason so many are taken from places like Doma and Chenir. Even after all the time I spent in Incendin, they kept them from me. I know little of what they do—or their strength—but with enough numbers, they can overwhelm the barrier.”
    “It’s held for so long!” Amia said. “Even my people recognize the value of the barrier.”
    Lacertin turned and stared again over the valley. “Like so much else before it, the barrier will fall.”
    “How can you be so certain?” Amia asked.
    “Because I helped build it in the first place.”
    “What will you do?” Tan asked. “If you won’t return to the kingdoms, what then?”
    Lacertin sighed. “The kingdoms were my home for many years. Ilton was my king. Althem?” He shook his head. “He is nothing like his father. He thinks to use those around him and refuses to listen. No—I can’t return to Ethea even were I to want to. Besides, there is much I have yet to do. Which is why I need your help, Tan.”
    Tan frowned. “What do you think I can do? I’m no warrior.”
    “No, you are more than a warrior. And you are not pledged to Althem, freeing you to do what is needed. The kingdoms have a warrior who serves willingly, though he might call himself by another name. Theondar would have failed. Yet you, a boy with minimal shaping, managed to handle Incendin not once, but twice. I think you are exactly what I need.”
    Tan started to shake his head, but he couldn’t deny the truth. He might have shaping skill, but that was not where his gifts truly lay. He could speak to the elementals. And they answered his call. Without the elementals, everything would have been lost.
    “What is it that you plan?” Tan asked.
    Lacertin fixed Tan with his stare, his back turned on the kingdoms. “The barrier will fall. When it does, Incendin will attack. Their shapers may be weak, but they have more of them than the kingdoms. As long as there is the threat of the lisincend, those stolen shapers will answer.”
    Tan blinked. “You plan to go into Incendin and attack the lisincend?”
    “If I don’t—if no one does—there is a real possibility that the lisincend will succeed in their plan. And if they become one of the greater elementals, there is no stopping Incendin.”

2
    An Argument Renewed
    A mia held Tan’s hand . After the connection they shared in the pool of liquid spirit, the physical touch seemed both inadequate and comforting. A soft breeze caught at her hair, pulling it from behind her ears so that strands flicked into her face, almost as if ara played games with her.
    “You didn’t ask about her,” Amia said, looking down the trail where Lacertin had disappeared. She kept her eyes fixed straight ahead, but tension simmered through the shaped connection.
    Her. His mother. He should have asked Lacertin more about her, maybe learn why she hadn’t come to him when she survived the attack in Nor, but did it matter? “What would he