Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire Read Free Page B

elemental to help him understand Cora’s injuries. There, faintly, was the severed connection. It was weak and pulsing, different than it had been with Zephra. With her, he had felt the jagged edge where the wind elemental should have been. With Cora, what remained was blunted. He could not reattach it, only seal it off to prevent it from harming her further.
    Using spirit, he placed a shaping over her mind, wrapping the blunted end of the bond in spirit and pulling it back, sealing it once more within her mind. Tan couldn’t tell what the bond had been to and couldn’t repair what had been lost, but it didn’t matter for what he intended to do.
    At least the convulsing eased. She no longer twitched, or even kicked; instead, she simply lay on the ground, the thin green film atop her a reminder that the nymid had helped.
    “What did you do?” Wallyn asked. “There was water, but too much for a warrior.”
    Tan glared at him, annoyance at how easily Wallyn had given up surging through him. “Do you speak to the nymid?”
    Wallyn frowned. “Why, no. The nymid are nothing more than a lesser—”
    Tan raised a hand to cut him off. “For someone who speaks to none of the elementals, you really think you should be making claims of one’s relative strength compared to another?”
    Wallyn huffed, glaring at Cora. “She will live now?”
    “I don’t know. I’ve done what I can. The nymid helped.”
    “Good. Then you may stay with her.” With that, Wallyn turned and started back down the street, moving with more grace than a man his size ought to manage.
    “You should really be gentler with them,” Amia suggested. “They have suffered through so many changes already.”
    “We’ve all been through change,” Tan said, touching Cora’s head and smoothing the hair back from her face. “Why should Wallyn be any different?”
    “He wasn’t the one who tried to separate you from them,” Amia said softly.
    Tan tensed. Of course Amia would know what he was feeling. It wasn’t only that Wallyn had reminded him of Garza by his size, but his mannerisms had evoked memories as well. Water shapers should be interested in healing, but Garza had thrown him in the testing room, had taken him to the place of separation without so much as an apology. When Wallyn hadn’t shown interest—real interest—in helping Cora, it brought those memories back.
    Tan lifted Cora. She was light and frail from years spent as a Par-shon prisoner, kept alive for reasons only the Great Mother could fathom, that had stripped her of any muscle. When Tan had first found her, he hadn’t even been sure she still lived. Vel had been the only one able to speak, and without his help, they might not have escaped Par-shon.
    The third shaper they’d rescued was in nearly the same shape as Cora. Since returning to Ethea, the healers had shaven his beard off because it had been far too matted to untangle and his hair shorn short, but his eyes retained that lost look. At least with Cora, they had learned her name. With the other man, they didn’t even have that. He remained silent, able to do nothing more than eat and breathe.
    “Where should we take her?” Tan asked.
    Amia touched the woman’s face, shaping her softly. “She’ll need more help than we can give her, but we need time to get her that help.” She looked up at him, her blue eyes catching the light of the fading sun. “There is something off with her spirit. It’s complex, more than I can do anything to help. Maybe in time…”
    Tan sighed. “They won’t give her the time she needs if she attacks again.” If she did, others would consider her too dangerous. He didn’t know what would happen to her then. Probably not the same thing as what had happened with the lisincend, but he wouldn’t put it past the other shapers to banish her from the kingdoms.
    “She has been through so much. There aren’t many who understand what it was like.”
    “My mother understands,” Tan said.