Free Fortress Of Fire (Book 4) by D.K. Holmberg

not the same shaper. I would not have been able to disguise myself from you. I wouldn’t have survived as long as I did in Incendin. I wouldn’t have managed to withstand the king’s shaping.”
    “You didn’t withstand it,” Tan reminded her but wished he hadn’t, suddenly wondering if it would change her mind about helping him learn to shape.
    His mother was a proud woman, and understandably so. Few matched her ability with wind shaping. Still, Althem had used her to get to Tan. Had Althem known about Zephra, he might not have tortured her, he might not have forced her to rely upon Tan saving her, the same as he had saved Roine and Cianna.
    “I did not. You’re right. Had I more strength with wind shaping alone, I might not have been as helpless when the First Mother severed my connection to ara. I’ve become reliant upon the elemental. Once, it might not have been the case, though I’ve always used my elemental connection to help with my shapings, but now I truly depend on it.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I should like you to not be quite as dependent as I am on using your elemental. I know you can shape without them. That power is within you. Ara has told me that most of your wind shapings come from you without their aid. That is what I will teach.”
    “Not how to speak to ara consistently?” That might be even more useful to him than anything else. Were he to manage speaking to ara with a better consistency, he might not need to worry about shaping. He had come to grips with the fact that he wasn’t a shaper, not like those trained in the university. Didn’t his ability came from the elementals?
    “That might be the lesson you want, but it’s not the lesson you need,” she said. With a shaping, the wind died down.
    Tan couldn’t tell if it came from what she did or whether ara aided her. Either way, the sudden change was jarring. And impressive.
    “I would like you to focus on your feet,” she said. “Call to the wind. You may have to chase it in order to catch it, but let it swirl around your feet. I will know if you try to reach for ara.”
    Unlike Cianna, she implied. With the fire shaper, Tan had managed to replicate many of her shapings using the elemental power. What his mother expected of him was different.
    Tan wanted to learn. He agreed that he needed to learn, especially after what he’d seen in Incendin. There was a part of him that wanted to tell her what he saw, but doing so risked her trying to keep him from it. And he couldn’t deny that what he’d done so far had felt more like luck than anything else. For him to be effective and be able to help the kingdoms against Incendin, he’d need to really master his shaping. That meant knowing how to use both his shaping and that which the elementals let him borrow.
    As his mother instructed, Tan focused on his feet. Wind could be difficult for him. Often, pulling a shaping of wind meant that he had to reach for the wind elemental for assistance. The only times it had really come easy was when he attempted to bind the elements together to make a spirit shaping. Then, his intent was different. He did not want to use the shaping of wind, but to use it to make the shaping of spirit.
    The dust settled on the ground didn’t move as he focused. Tan tried pulling on the wind, attempting to draw the shaping through him as he knew he needed to do. Pulling from outside of him would only use the elementals. With his mother here, he wasn’t even certain he’d be able to use ara. Would ara respond to him when Zephra stood by, determined to have him master his own shaping, or would the wind elemental bow to Zephra’s request?
    Tan focused on what he had to do to simply speak to ara. That came on a breath of air, a delicate way of speaking that he had to be certain he didn’t push too hard or he might upset the wind elemental. There was a playfulness to the elemental, different than what he noticed with the others, but could he use