Free Changed By Fire (Book 3) by D.K. Holmberg Page B

But if he had, could he learn to have the delicate control Cianna managed?
    “Try it again.” She released his hand and pointed to the saddle. With a snap of her fingers, heat shimmered up from within her, radiating from her body as it raced toward the saddle. Smoke simmered around the saddle, slowly rising into the air. She snapped again and the smoke faded. “This time, hold it low and steady. Focus on trying to heat only the surface of the leather. If you do this, then you can build from there, increase your control.”
    Tan took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on the saddle. He focused on where she’d held her shaping and tried to recreate the same by drawing it through him. This time, there came a sense of a flutter, but nothing more. He let out his breath and called fire as if calling to the draasin. The shaping came easily then, pressing softly against the inside of his ears and releasing with something like a soft breath of air.
    Heat shimmered above the saddle, barely creating any smoke, doing nothing more than creating translucent streamers of heat.
    Cianna stared and then ran over to it. She touched the surface of the saddle and turned to him, a smile on her face. “Can you intensify it now?”
    Tan focused on the heat and called for it to increase.
    Smoke quickly drifted up in response.
    Cianna nodded. “If you can do that, if you have control like that, then you can make other shapings more easily.” She touched his shoulder, her hand lingering as she did. “Keep practicing. Next time, we can work on more complex shapings.”
    She started toward the door to the practice yard and paused, looking back. “Most take a long time to learn any sort of shaping. You learn quickly. I think you might be able to be a powerful fire shaper in time. Now. Time for me to see what Seanan has done since I left him. Probably pissed I haven’t come help rebuild our wing of the university.” She waved. “See you next time.”
    After she left, Tan stared at the leather saddle for a long while. She thought he could be a powerful shaper, but why did he have the sense that he wasn’t doing any shaping at all? The shapings he made were different than what Cianna created, regardless of how they looked.
    What if he wasn’t shaping anything? What if what he did came from the elementals rather than himself? And if that was the case, how would he ever learn enough to help Lacertin stop Incendin?

7
    A Rescue
    T he smoke hanging over Ethea left pockets of clear air. Tan made his way through the streets, not really certain where to go for the night. The master shapers all had a place at the university. Roine likely would stay at the palace with the king. Through his connection with Amia, he sensed she still shaped, though it was a soft and gentle sort of shaping, nothing with much strength. Hopefully she could free the king from his shaping.
    And then what? Was he ready to leave Ethea and follow Lacertin into Incendin?
    Tan sighed. What he needed now was rest. The room he had stayed in when last in Ethea was gone, destroyed by fires, but there was a place he knew he might be able to sleep, a place Elle had shown him before they left Ethea.
    Moving through the city proved difficult. Crews of men wearing the king’s colors worked diligently to clear the mess of debris and burned buildings, blocking the street in many places. None bothered to more than glance at him. In other places, the streets were impassable, rubble forcing him to climb over or work his way around, always aware of how shaped fire simmered beneath him.
    Few other people were out on the street. There were those dressed in rough clothing, some singed and torn, likely without much of a place to go now that parts of the city had been destroyed. Then there were others, still dressed fairly well, hurrying through the streets. They all wore brightly colored scarves around their faces to protect them from the smoke.
    Tan shook his head when he saw the scarves. He didn’t