Serpent of Fire Read Free Page B

around him. At first it was a vague sense, but the more that he focused, the more that he recognized the touches of elemental power. Had he more time and less urgency, Tan suspected that he could reach for each of the elementals, perhaps finally speak to them as he did to the draasin.
    And he understood. All of fire was connected. He saw how Cianna’s fire stretched toward Sashari, but it also reached toward Tan. Asboel and Sashari were connected, but thin streamers stretched toward the other tendrils of flame around them. And Tan connected to Asboel, but there was connection to Sashari as well, weaker, but no less real.
    Tan pressed through this.
    Fire seared within him. He touched it upon Sashari and awareness of her burned. He sensed her surprise but didn’t risk the time to explain, hoping only that Asboel would already have told her the need for what he attempted. The fire bond was different than what he shared with Asboel.
    I need your memories of him .
    Sashari hesitated, and then she opened herself even more. For him, Maelen.
    The sound of her voice in his mind was lighter and higher than Asboel’s, but there was strength to it as well. Simmering beneath the surface was the urgency she felt—and unfamiliar terror.
    Tan borrowed from her memories, taking what she offered of the hatchling. So many of them were memories of both of the hatchlings. Their birth, the way they crawled from their eggs, the deep blue hatchling coming first, always bolder than his sister. Their first feeding. Even from birth, the draasin knew fire, spewing it onto the food offered to them before tearing at it with the abandon of youth. The pride she felt as the draasin crawled around her. The way Sashari introduced them to Enya. The interest the other draasin had in the hatchlings, curiosity mixed with another unreadable expression. Anguish when she thought them dead, different but similar to what he found within Asboel. Relief in learning that the hatchlings still lived. And then the move beneath the city, hiding and protected by the elementals drawn to the place of convergence. The first hunt, the fallen hatchling again showing his boldness, the way that he’d taken down a small deer, and the pride that Sashari had shown when he had.
    Other than a sense of boldness, Tan didn’t know enough to name him. It would not be enough.
    He sank back on his heels, holding to the connection with the elementals, feeling defeated. Amia pulled the hatchling toward him with her shaping of spirit, binding them together. Tan sensed the flickering of life and knew the hatchling would not be long for this world.
    Connect to him, Amia urged.
    I’ve tried. Asboel shared all that he can.
    Not Asboel. The hatchling.
    But he’s too weak.
    He sensed her shaping him, but didn’t know what she was doing. It was subtle and gentle and washed over him with a great strength. Relaxation flowed with it, as well as an idea.
    Tan assumed control of the spirit shaping that Amia worked. He added fire, drawing carefully through the fire bond, and pressed this through the hatchling. Awareness came slowly, weakly, and matched the fading life of the draasin.
    Slowly, steadily, Tan poured out all that he could, drawing on the fire bond, on the spirit bond with Amia, pulling strength from the surrounding elementals as he pressed through the sword buried in the stone, augmenting the shaping.
    The connection solidified. Not enough to know whether it would work, but enough that Tan could reach into the draasin.
    The hatchling was too weak to resist. Tan slipped among his mind, spirit and fire mingling and allowing him to access the draasin’s memories. He needed something—anything—that would help him find the right name, but feared taking too long, that he’d already missed the opportunity to help.
    Faded memories were there. The first feeding. Crawling on Asboel. Heat and fire all around him that Tan suspected came when they’d been abducted by Incendin, but, perhaps