Serpent of Fire by D. K. Holmberg

gained the reputation that they did, but he refused to kill her when she was no longer a threat.
    Through his bond with Amia, he sensed her dismay at what he attempted, but there was understanding as well.
    Like this , she said, guiding him through the shaping.
    The shaping draped over the woman’s mind but then layered through it, clinging to it, Amia’s presence ensuring that the woman would not be able to free herself. What they did changed this woman. He made it so that she would not bind another elemental, that she would forget what she had seen in the kingdoms, even that she would forget the shaping.
    Amia guided him to release the shaping, but with one additional flourish, Tan placed the suggestion within the woman that she help the elementals.
    As he prepared to release the shaping, the woman pulled a long-bladed knife out from behind her. Tan scrambled for it, but was too slow. She plunged it into her chest.
    Tan wrested the knife from her hands. She shouldn’t have been able to harm herself. She shouldn’t have wanted to harm herself, not with the shaping that he’d placed onto her.
    Using a shaping of water augmented by the nymid, he attempted healing, but he was weakened, drained from the attack.
    Can you help? he asked the nymid.
    There was a response, but it was faint and difficult for him to hear. Blood continued to pool around the woman, and her lifeless eyes stared at him with an almost victorious expression burning behind them.
    Tan dropped the knife and sunk to the ground. The ground shuddered briefly, as if golud was released, and then fell still. Elementals all around him went silent, as if ashamed of what he’d done.
    Cianna touched his shoulder and lowered herself to crouch next to him. “It is for the best. She did the honorable thing.”
    “Honorable?” Tan asked. “None of this is honorable. If they thought to be honorable, they would not have forced the bonds on the elementals. They would not treat them as if they were nothing more than horses to be saddled.”
    Cianna touched his arm. Her hand radiated heat and she let it simply sit, not trying to caress or anything else with seductive undertones like she so often would attempt. “And how did you feel about the elementals before you could speak to them?” she asked.
    Tan opened his mouth a moment and then clamped it shut. Before speaking to them, he hadn’t given them much thought. There had never been a reason for him to spend time thinking about the elementals. Always before, they were something mysterious, hidden, but had he not also considered them a part of the natural world?
    “I would not have wanted them forced to bond like this.”
    She smiled at him, as if he was too stupid to see her point. “Have you ever had a dog?”
    Tan frowned. “What does that have to do with this?”
    Cianna shrugged. “Humor me. Have you had a dog? Maybe a cat?”
    Tan watched her, wondering what she might be getting at. “We had a dog when I was growing up. Doshan. My father found him when hunting and brought him to our home. Mother wanted him to get rid of him. She said he was more wolf than dog.” Tan smiled at the memory, some of the anger he’d been feeling defusing. “With as big as he got, she was probably right. But he was a good dog and became well trained.”
    “Could you speak to your dog?”
    “Listen, Cianna. It’s not the same. You know that the way Par-shon views the elementals is dangerous. They think to use them, to use their power and ability—”
    “Likely no differently than your father thought to use your dog’s nose for hunting or tracking. You might have treated him well, but you used him just the same.”
    Tan stared at the darkness around him. He sensed Asboel’s interest in the conversation and recognized that he had been listening. I don’t think of you as a dog, Tan told him.
    Behind him, the draasin snorted softly. You ride me like a horse.
    Tan sensed amusement within Asboel and sighed. After a moment, he