The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “And Father? Does he talk to elementals?”

  “Not quite so strongly as I—or you, so it would seem.”

  “But he makes the bondars.”

  “Yes. He told me you uncovered memories of that. I’m surprised you were able to do so.”

  He studied her, thinking back to the visions he’d had when over the years. Within those visions, he thought he would have answers.

  The visions.

  That was the key to the Selection.

  There were visions.

  “You tried to shield them from me.”

  “I tried to shield the creation of the bondars from anyone who shouldn’t access it,” she said.

  “How could you be the Draasin Lord?”

  “Back to that, again?” Her voice seemed different, a little bit softer. More ethereal.

  “It’s sort of important.”

  “Perhaps, though I would argue it’s not nearly as important as you would make it out to be.”

  “Why? The Draasin Lord has been leading attacks on Terndahl for years.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  Tolan frowned. “I saw one of the attacks. I was there in Amitan when the disciples decided to attack.”

  “That is unfortunate. I don’t think you were ever intended to have witnessed our actions.”

  “Now you’re not denying it?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  Tolan grunted, looking away from his mother. All of this felt strange, but there was one thing that wasn’t complicated, and that was the fact he thought he understood what he was able to do but didn’t understand why his mother would downplay that.

  With all of this, learning how to find the disciples of the Draasin Lord, he’d already accomplished what the Grand Master had asked of him.

  Could he find more?

  The question he should be asking was whether he even wanted to find more. Or whether it would even matter. As he focused on what he detected, he could help but feel as if something were off about all of this.

  He kept coming back to his father telling him this would be like the Selection.

  He didn’t know.

  “If it’s so complicated, why don’t you simplify it for me?”

  “It all comes down to what you view as the Draasin Lord.”

  “I think we’ve established that.”

  “We’ve established what you believe the Draasin Lord to be. The Draasin Lord has been meant to be a representative for those who understand the elementals. For those who have that connection to the elementals, who, like yourself, have felt the question within them about the nature of power, they are guided toward the Draasin Lord, given an opportunity to find others like them.”

  Understanding came to him and he looked around, feeling the nature of the elementals. They were there, powerful and filling the room with their energy. “You use the Draasin Lord as a calling.”

  She nodded.

  “What about this place?”

  “It’s a place of power. The elementals come together here, joining us, and occasionally, they grant us their strength. They do so willingly, unlike the elementals forced to serve in Terndahl.”

  Something about the way she said it struck a note with Tolan. It reminded him of something he’d seen in Amitan. Could it be the same?

  There was the power he detected here, and there was no question within him that the power here happened to be significant. With such significant power, there would almost have to be something more about this place than what it seemed.

  “A Convergence,” he whispered.

  Could that be the key?

  His mother frowned at him. “How is it you know that term?”

  “There’s one in Amitan.”

  “You shouldn’t know that.”

  “I stopped one of the master shapers from attempting to use it to free elementals.”

  She cocked her head to the side, frowning deeply. “We haven’t had anyone operating in Amitan.”

  “I had the sense he was doing it mostly to try to summon power. I think he wanted to rival the Draasin Lord’s power.”

  “It would take someone considerably gifted with a connection to the elementals in order to do so.”

  “Why?”

  “As I’ve told you, the people who come here, the people drawn here, find their way to us because of their connection to the elementals and because they recognize the elementals are suffering as they are forced into the bonds. There aren’t nearly as many as we would like, but we suspected those who come here have the ability to speak to the elementals, if only a little.”

  “Do the elementals speak back to them?”

  “Not in so many ways. According to what we’ve seen, there used to be people who had the ability to talk to the elementals and to have them talk back, but such connections have been rare recently.”

  “Connections?”

  “There were connections between the shaper and the elemental. Some were incredibly powerful.”

  “Such as the draasin.”

  “That’s one.”

  “And you as the Draasin Lord?”

  “It amuses me you keep referring to me as the Draasin Lord.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No more than you are the Draasin Lord.”

  He tensed. “I’m not the Draasin Lord.”

  “With your connection to the elementals, you might as well be as much of the Draasin Lord as I. All that title is meant to reflect is a connection, a sense of power, and not much more. In that regard, you truly are as much the Draasin Lord as I am.”

  “That means Terndahl would come after me.”

  “If they know how you access your power, there would be nothing else they could do.”

  His experience with the Grand Master suggested otherwise. “But I can shape.”

  “Your shaping comes from the elementals. That is what makes your power unique.”

  Tolan didn’t think that was it. When he had been through the Inquisition, he had learned to reach the elementals in a different way, but he also had learned to reach his power in a different way. It had come to him, filling him, and now he no longer struggled to reach for that power, to know how to shape. He might not be able to perform everything the master shapers could do, but in time—and had he stayed at the Academy long enough—he might have been able to discover he could.

  “My power came from the elementals, but it no longer does.”

  “You say that as if there is a danger in it. Shapers connected to the elementals have quite a bit of strength. It’s one that only can serve at the leisure of the elementals.”

  “What about those like me?”

  “I’m afraid your experience is misguided. You still draw upon the elementals.”

  Tolan shook his head. He knew the source of his power. That was one thing he had grown increasingly confident about. He had seen the way he reached his shaping power and knew it was more than just the elementals. It had not always been that way, but now…

  It was what Master Minden had wanted him to recognize. The more he’d been working with his shaping ability, the more he had begun to truly understand what he could do and how that ability was different.

  “You’re saying everyone who comes here has power from the elementals.”

  “Everyone draws their power from the elementals. It allows them strength.”

  “What about those who reach power through the element bonds?”

  “Most are able to do that as well, but typically what we’ve found is that people who are connected to the elementals, and who draw power from them, aren’t quite as connected to the element bonds. They can do so when using various artifacts—”

  “Like the bondars. That’s why you make them.”

  “That’s right. The bondars are used for those who can’t reach for shaping on their own.”

  He debated how much to argue with his mother about the nature of his shaping. He didn’t know if it even mattered. “I can shape without b
ondars.”

  “Because you use the elementals.”

  “I did at first, but I don’t any longer.”

  She frowned at him. “You can shape?”

  Tolan nodded. “I can shape.”

  “How is it you have this ability?”

  The question seemed to have layers to it. He struggled to identify what else there might be within those layers.

  “I discovered it within myself.”

  “How?”

  “I had no choice.” When he had been in the Inquisition, he’d believed the change in his shaping ability had come from something his parents had placed around his mind, some way they had shielded him, preventing him from reaching shaping, but perhaps that wasn’t the case at all. Could he have found it on his own?

  “What did you do to me when I was young?”

  “We did nothing.”

  “You shaped me somehow. You wanted to hide from me the fact you were shapers. And the fact you had access to the elementals.”

  “We didn’t try to hide anything from you, Tolan. We were trying to help keep you safe.”

  “Which you did by spirit shaping me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  That had to be what had happened to him. It was the only thing that made the most sense about what he’d needed to do in order to break free, to free his mind from whatever had been happening. He had thought it was his parents, but what if there was another reason for it?

  “Why tell me all this now?”

  “Am I telling you or did you already know?”

  Tolan hesitated.

  She smiled. “I’m telling you because you’re ready.”

  “I’m no more ready now than I was before.”

  “Perhaps not, but the answer might be that we are ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “There’s a reason we’ve gathered in places like this. We have wanted to help free the elementals, let them loose from the elemental bonds, and yet, more needs to be done. If we don’t do anything more, places like the waste will die.”

  “It seems like the waste has already died.”

  “The waste is diminished, but it’s not dead. It can be reborn, much like other places can be reborn.”

  “Other places?”

  “Do you think Terndahl is the only place where the elementals were forced into the bonds?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “There are other parts of the world, Tolan, and other places where the elementals have suffered because of fear. Our intention is to free the elementals, to release them from captivity. In order to do so, we must understand how they are trapped. And your father tells me you have some experience with that.”

  “I do,” he said slowly.

  “We aren’t going to force you to do anything you aren’t comfortable with.”

  “Good, because it was starting to seem like you intended to use me to attack in Terndahl.”

  “What sort of attack would you expect?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I question your motives.”

  She smiled at him. “As you should. As you always should.”

  “Even though you’re my mother?”

  There was a pause.

  In that moment, Tolan had a glimmer of strangeness, one that suggested something else took place beyond what he knew.

  The Selection.

  That was what his father had said.

  If that were the case, then he had a vision in the Selection.

  There was a Convergence here. Or was there?

  Was his mother even here?

  Tolan shook that thought away. She was in front of him. She was real.

  “Mothers can make mistakes. I think we did when we left you behind. I suspect you could have learned far more had you stayed with us.”

  “Had I stayed with you, I doubt I would have discovered my connection to shaping.”

  “You would have learned about the elementals sooner.”

  He stared at her, not sure having this discussion was how he wanted to spend his time here. A part of him wanted nothing more than to return to the Academy, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to cross back through the mountain.

  “What is it you want from me?” That was the reason they had brought him here. She might speak as if there was some altruistic purpose and might try to make it seem as if she intended to help only the elementals, but Tolan couldn’t help but think there was some other purpose she wasn’t sharing.

  “You mentioned to your father that you know of the Keystones.”

  “I’ve encountered one.”

  “They are places of great power.”

  “So I understand,” he said.

  “And these Keystones trapped the elementals. If we could release them, we would have—”

  “Angry and rogue elementals wandering throughout Terndahl.”

  She frowned at him. “I don’t think you understand.”

  “No. I do understand. If we release the elementals from these Keystones, then there is a real danger to others. I’ve seen it.” And as hard as it was for him to admit, rogue elementals could be dangerous. They could be violent. He’d seen the way the elementals would fight for freedom, and though he didn’t blame them for that, it would be incredibly difficult to restrain the elementals if it came down to it. People would get hurt. Possibly people he cared about would get hurt. “I support helping the elementals. I support freeing them. Doing it has to be done in the right way. If we free the elementals, we have to make sure they won’t harm anyone else.”

  “I’m afraid that isn’t going to be easy,” she said.

  “Then we shouldn’t do it.”

  “You would leave the elementals trapped?”

  “I would leave them where they couldn’t harm others until we knew for sure whether they could be released safely.”

  “And I would free them, unmindful of the dangers it posed, recognizing they have suffered long enough.”

  Of all the things Tolan had been through, and all the experiences he’d had, he would never have expected he would be debating with his mother the benefit of freeing the elementals.

  And it wasn’t that he disagreed. He felt the elementals should be freed, and the more he saw them, the more he had the opportunity to recognize them in a setting like this, the more obvious it was to him they shouldn’t be trapped.

  Still, if he allowed the elementals to be freed the way his mother and father wanted them to be, he imagined another situation much like what he had experienced in the Academy, with elementals violently breaking free of the bonds and those without any shaping ability coming into danger of harm.

  There had to be some way of freeing the elementals where others wouldn’t have to suffer.

  “What do you propose?”

  “I don’t propose anything. I’m just telling you what I’m willing to do.”

  “I thought you had an affinity for the elementals.”

  Tolan turned his attention to the flame. He focused on the wind, and then earth, and then water. As he did, he couldn’t deny he had a connection—an affinity, as his mother said.

  “I do have an affinity for them,” he said. “If your intention was for me to be used to release the elementals so they could destroy Terndahl, then I won’t do it.”

  He turned back to her. There was a flicker. A movement. Nothing more than that.

  Within that flicker, he realized what he detected.

  Spirit.

  Someone—or something—used spirit on him.

  This was a vision.

  “You’re not even here, are you?”

  She watched him, a sad smile on her face.

  And then she disappeared.

  18

  Tolan strode through the meadow. The flowers were beautiful, and they gave off a hint of fragrance, a perfumed aroma reminding him of Ferrah, making him miss her far more than he had realized he did. Even Jonas. It had only been a few days since he had left, but he couldn’t shake the questio
ns he had. What was happening at the Academy now the Inquisitors had been called back?

  Even though he was outside and standing under an open sky, the sun shining down and a gentle breeze brushing against his cheeks, the distant sense of water nearby, he still felt as if he was a prisoner.

  It was a strange sensation, and he was surprised he would feel that way, but he couldn’t shake it. His vision of his mother had told him he had to stay, but then, his father had warned him of that, hadn’t he? He had told him that the moment he learned the identity of the Draasin Lord, he would be forced to serve.

  Tolan didn’t know why he’d seen his mother, or why it had been a vision like that. His father hadn’t given him any answers, and had seemed surprised that his vision would manifest as his mother.

  The elementals didn’t hold him, though he didn’t expect the elementals to do so. He could feel earth beneath his feet, and with every step, there came a rumbling, almost a sort of welcoming, as if the elementals were pleased by his presence. Wind whistled around his cheeks, caressing him gently, and he felt that as a welcoming touch as well.

  The sun shining overhead gave a sense of warmth, and even in that was the sense of the fire elemental. The burbling stream carried with it a different elemental. And those were just the ones he could easily reach. There were other elementals here, and though he didn’t attempt to grasp them, he knew they were here. The more he focused on them, the clearer it became that they were comfortable. They were free.

  What his father—and his vision of his mother—wanted from him was to allow other elementals to have that same experience. Could that be wrong?

  Tolan worked through what he knew about the elementals and the element bonds. Strangely, it felt as if he was in the wrong place to get the answers he needed.

  Which meant he would have to leave.

  Having not known what happened to his parents for so long during his life, he wasn’t sure he even wanted to leave.

  Yet, they had left him before.

  In a twisted sort of way, Tolan thought he understood, though that didn’t change the fact their departure from Ephra had left him in danger. They might’ve thought he was safe with Master Daniels, but they hadn’t bothered to come check, and they hadn’t known he was Selected.

  When had they discovered it?