Cloud Warrior 05 - Forged in Fire Read Online Free PDF

that had value.
    “I wish I knew what elemental she had bound,” he said. “Maybe that would help you to understand how to heal her.”
    The First Mother came over to the bed, standing where Amia had been when the shaping began. “It may be too difficult to determine without her help. Whatever bond was there has been gone for a long time.”
    Tan took a deep breath and stepped away. The effort of shaping Cora had weakened him too, but strength came back more quickly these days than it had when he first learned how to shape. Now he was able to draw on the strength of the elementals, use them to restore his reserves. It didn’t even seem to matter what he shaped.
    Tan glanced at the rune coin again. Amia nodded at it. “Go. See what she wants from you.”
    “You don’t want to come?” he asked.
    “I would like to see if there’s anything more I can do for her.” She focused on the First Mother, her expression growing harder. “That is, if you are able.”
    The First Mother placed her hands flat on the bed and took a deep breath. “I think it will be helpful for her to have additional healing,” she agreed.
    Tan pulled Amia to him and gave her a tight hug. “Be safe.”
    “You’ll know if I am not.”
    The connection would tell him. He was thankful for that fact.
    As he left, he heard the First Mother’s voice become sharper, and more like it once had been. “Now, Daughter, this next shaping will be even more complex.”
----
    T an found Zephra waiting for him in the home he shared with Amia. She sat in one of the plush chairs angled in front of the hearth. A book spread across her lap as she stared down at it, scanning the page.
    She looked up as he entered. “Where did you find this?” she asked, holding the book out in front of her.
    It had a thin leather cover marked with a rune for fire, and was one of the oldest books he’d come across that had such rune markings. The other covers had been blank.
    The book speculated about the various ways the draasin could be harnessed, though most of the beginning had to do with the actual hunting of draasin. In order to understand what Asboel had known before he had been frozen in the lake at the place of convergence, he had to learn what the ancient shapers had known of the draasin.
    “The archives,” he said.
    Zephra glanced at the book and back to him. “I have searched the archives. There weren’t texts like this.”
    Tan sat in the chair next to her. He took it from her hands and set it on the armrest. The book had once been meant only for shapers like him, but he wanted to understand the views of the ancient shapers before he let his mother or any others begin to go through it. The author’s feelings about the draasin were too much like what he’d seen from the kingdoms shapers.
    “These are where most can’t reach,” Tan said.
    “They should be brought out for others to study. The teachings of the ancient shapers should be shared, not confined like that. Think of how much we’ve lost because we can’t replicate the shapings they so easily managed.”
    Once, he’d felt the same way. He had wanted nothing more than to understand how those shapers of old had managed some of the things they had. The way their wielded their abilities seemed impossible. He had yearned for that level of mastery and skill.
    It had taken no more than this one book to change his attitudes. He had grabbed it, thinking he might understand something new about the draasin. Instead, he had learned the various ways shapers trapped the draasin, the techniques to hold them, the creations to confine them. As he had suspected, part of the tunnels beneath the city had been carved out with the intent to trap them. He still didn’t understand why. Asboel didn’t think the draasin had ever bonded before, but could it have been forced?
    “There are some teachings that should be forgotten,” Tan said.
    “Are you so certain that we can’t learn from the past?”
    He paused for a