The voice the draasin spoke with was nothing like any voice Tolan had ever heard before. It filled him, and it seemed to come from everywhere all at once. It was almost as if it bounced off the rocks, bouncing off the water trickling down the face of the rock, echoed through the air, and carried through the heat radiating off the massive draasin. All of it seemed to carry the sound of the draasin’s voice.
And all of it seemed to come from deep within him.
Tolan didn’t know what to do. He could barely move. The creature was impossibly large, a scale he’d never even considered. When he had been near the Keystone, attempting to draw out a draasin, there had never been anything like this. That draasin had been flame and fire, heat, but a smaller creature. Still large, but nothing like what he saw unfurling itself now. It had enormous leathery wings practically glowing with the heat. Sharp spikes protruded all along its neck and the back of its head. Deep golden eyes glowed, seeing everything with a bright-eyed intensity. Sharp talons at the end of four legs tapped at the ground, creating a rhythm Tolan hadn’t noticed before now. Now he was aware of it, it was the only thing he could feel. It seemed to fill him, as if it were all he should feel.
“How is it I can hear you?”
“Because I choose it,” the draasin said.
Not just draasin. Draasin Lord. That was what the creature had said.
Could this truly be the Draasin Lord?
There were rumors the Draasin Lord had trained at the Academy, but those rumors would only work if it were a human. There was no way an elemental had been at the Academy, but then, if anything were to be a Draasin Lord, it would be this creature.
“Have I offended you?” Tolan asked, looking for hyza. He had been brought here for a purpose, and the challenge now was in discovering what that purpose was. If he could uncover why hyza had decided he needed to come here, then perhaps he could understand things better.
“You have not offended me. You have been brought to me for service.”
It couldn’t be a coincidence the draasin would use the same term his father had used.
“Do you know my parents?”
“Should I?”
“I don’t know. They claimed they were acting in service of the Draasin Lord.”
“Perhaps they were. I grow weary of trying to keep track of your kind.”
“My kind?”
“Shapers. Humans. Those who play at understanding power but do not.”
“I don’t think they tried to play at power.”
“Perhaps not, but they play at having power they do not. There are many who have attempted to play at power they should not have.”
“They tell me they are trying to free the elementals from the bond.”
“As they should.”
Tolan struggled to believe what he was looking at. Part of it was his difficulty in believing the draasin was here in front of him. The other part came from the fact it seemed as if the elemental had guided him here.
There had to be some reason hyza had brought him here.
The challenge would be in discovering what that reason was. Whatever reason the elemental had brought him here had to do with him, and with some connection he had to the elementals.
“What do you need from me?” Tolan asked.
“What makes you think we need anything from you?”
“You brought me here. You wouldn’t do that unless you needed something.”
The draasin made its way toward Tolan, and as it did, the enormous creature radiated heat off its body, more than Tolan could withstand. It was powerful and gave off more significant heat than nearly any of the other elementals were able to create. He’d been around many of the other fire elementals, and none of them radiated heat quite the same way as the draasin did.
“You can’t enjoy the gift you were given?”
“There’s another reason. More than just a gift.” He was certain of that, though not why. “What reason would you have for bringing me here?”
It was more than just trying to discover the reason for bringing him here. Hyza had brought him here for a purpose. It wasn’t about just being here; hyza had brought him away from the other place.
“You haven’t revealed yourself to them,” Tolan said.
The draasin paused for a moment. As he did, there was another surge of heat and a strange fluttering of a connection deep within Tolan’s mind. He was aware of the elemental in a way he was not with any of the others. Whatever the draasin was doing was allowing him a greater understanding of him than even hyza had.
Images flashed in Tolan’s mind. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Within those images, he recognized elementals. There were elementals for all different elements, not just fire. They flashed in his mind, one after another, an unending onslaught of them. In every image he had, in every vision the draasin gave him, the elementals were free. They were not a part of the elemental bond. Other images flashed through his mind, and Tolan thought he caught sight of people, but that seemed surprising.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“Wait,” the draasin told him.
More images continued to appear, flowing through his mind, one after another. Within those images, it seemed as if the draasin wanted to show him something else. He didn’t notice elementals quite as often. In one, he caught sight of a draasin, though it was smaller than this one. Two people—a man or woman—were on either side of the draasin, and in a fleeting moment of the vision, Tolan could feel what they were doing.
A shaping.
The vision disappeared, but not before the sense of what he had experienced washed over him. They had forced the elemental into the bond. They had forced the draasin into the bond. In that moment, Tolan had known just how brutally they had done it. It had been a painful thing for the elementals, particularly for the draasin.
Other elementals came, and in one, he saw hyza forced into the bond, and in another, he saw earth elementals, names he once had known. So many came through his mind, and so many disappeared, forced down, changing the bond, making it stronger, but at the same time, changing other things.
In that regard, it was like what his father had suggested. The elementals forced into the bond had changed the elementals.
The visions didn’t end. More came to him, one after another, and he had to brace himself as they did. It was almost as if he had to see all the elementals forced into the bond, as if he had to experience it for himself. There was no reason to have to do that. He could feel the pain. He didn’t need to see another… Then another…
“Enough!”
The visions faded and Tolan took a step back, breathing out. “What was your point in showing me that?”
The draasin huffed at him for a moment before opening his wings. “For you to know what I have experienced.”
“You experienced all of that?”
The draasin pulsed outward with heat. “I did.”
Tolan thought about his experience with the visions, thinking about what he had seen within them. If the draasin had felt everything that had happened to each of the elementals, it meant he had been there.
“Why didn’t you do anything?”
The draasin let out a streamer of flame. “When it began, it was out of a desire to understand. The shapers thought they were adding to the bond and helping the elementals return to them. At that time, the bonds and the elementals were felt to be connected in a way we needed to restore.”
“They aren’t connected?”
“Not that way.”
“What changed?”
“Shapers who were doing so began to recognize how the element bonds changed for them. At some point, he decided all the elementals needed to be placed within the bond. They claimed it was for our safety and theirs, and there were enough elementals who went willingly. Not all did.”
Tolan couldn’t believe what the draasin was telling him. “The elementals knew what they were getting into?”
“They did not. Not exactly. If they had kn
own, they wouldn’t have gone quite so willingly. How could they have known they would be trapped within the bond and not allowed free?”
Something about what the draasin was telling him struck a chord for Tolan. “You knew them.” He looked up at the draasin. “The shapers who did this. You knew them.”
“I knew them well. They were our friends.”
“Why would they do this?”
“Fear. Power. A misunderstanding.”
The draasin turned away from Tolan, and he sensed the massive creature’s emotions for a moment. There was sadness and fear mingling within it. “They tried to come for you.”
The draasin turned in his direction, one massive eye glowing. “They tried.”
“How did you avoid it?”
“Not all shapers attempted to force us into the bond. Some fought. Many died.”
Tolan shivered. What was the point of sharing this with him? Were they trying to get him to know just what the draasin had gone through? It was terrible, but at the same time, it had happened so long ago, there was nothing he could do.
“Nothing?” The draasin started toward him, lowering his head so he could look into Tolan’s eyes. “You are the first in years who has attempted to reach the elementals. You shape outside of the bond.”
“I what?”
“You shape differently. It’s why I called you here. It is why I showed you what you needed to see.”
Tolan hesitated. “You brought me here.” It was more than that. “You showed me the vision.”
“I can show you more, if you would like.”
“More visions?” Tolan shook his head. He didn’t want any more visions similar to what the Draasin Lord had shown him—or of his mother. He would see her, but seeing her in that way left him feeling as if he’d been used. That and the other set had been enough, and he didn’t know he could tolerate another onslaught of those images rolling through him, forcing him to see the way not only the draasin had been treated, but the other elementals as well. “I think you made your point well enough.”
“If I made my point, you would be willing to assist.”
“You don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“I have lived for thousands of years.”
“Fine. Maybe you do know what you’re asking, but I don’t know what I can do. They wanted me to go and release the Keystones. Doing so might release the elementals, but it also is dangerous to the people around. If I do that, the people around the Keystones will be injured. They will view the elementals as dangerous and violent, the way they currently do.”
“They’re not dangerous and not violent.”
“None of them?”
The draasin didn’t answer.
“I didn’t think so. Even with humans, there are some who are helpful and some who are not. Some dangerous and some not. I imagine it’s the same with the elementals.”
“Staying within the bond for as long as they have has changed them. Those of us who can have done what we can to stabilize them, but there are limits to how much we can do from outside the bond.”
“What would you have me do, then?”
“Find a way.”
“Find a way. Just like that. I don’t think you fully understand what you’re asking.”
“Perhaps not, and yet, I can tell you don’t know what you are ignoring.”
Visions flashed into his mind again. This time slower. There were free elementals pushed into the bonds. Elementals that had remained hidden were forced away, dragged into it.
“How?”
Rather than answering, the draasin sent him even more visions. As they came to him, Tolan tried to keep them straight, to understand what he was seeing, but he could not.
And then came a dark-cloaked figure.
“The Inquisitors?” he whispered.
More visions appeared. Power surging. Elementals forced away. Tormented. Through the visions, Tolan could feel the torment, as if the draasin wanted him to know.
Tolan looked up at the draasin. He didn’t have any choice. Though his father had wanted him to see the free elementals, to understand the Draasin Lord, this was why he had needed to come.
Had Master Minden known?
Another image flashed, and this time it reminded him of something. A Keystone.
Were the Inquisitors placing more Keystones?
That didn’t make any sense, but it was tied to what the draasin showed him.
“How can I help?” he asked.
An image flashed into his mind. Within it, he had a sense of power. It was a sense of the various elementals, and they were drawn to it.
Tolan knew exactly what it was, though not why the draasin would show it to him.
“The place of Convergence?”
“We call it something else, but yes.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You ask how you could free the elementals without them harming others.”
Tolan nodded.
“This is the key. It’s a place where even the elementals understand. Released from the bond, the elementals will seek familiar things. This place would be familiar to them.”
If the elementals would be drawn to the place of Convergence, perhaps he could help them. He’d seen how they used the Convergence here, though he didn’t really understand it. They drew the elementals to it, giving them freedom.
“If that’s the key, then why not use the one here?”
The draasin snorted, steam bursting from his nostrils. “What must happen is not in this land. It would not serve the necessary purpose. This one.”
Another image. It was the Convergence within Amitan.
If he went there, it would mean he would have to get into the library, and he would have to somehow find his way down to the Convergence, and from there…
It would be difficult. It meant returning to the Academy with the Inquisitors having returned. But he could ask Master Minden for help.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“You must do this.”
“Because of my ties to the Academy?”
“Because of your ties to the elementals.”
The draasin stared at him for a long moment, and Tolan felt a mixture of emotions from the creature. The draasin looked nothing like he had expected. He was so incredibly large, and so incredibly powerful, he had to wonder how anyone had ever forced the draasin into the element bonds. With power like the draasin were able to summon, wouldn’t they have been able to fight?
“We fought,” the draasin said.
“I’m sorry.”
“You don’t need to be sorry. You need to understand that though we fought, there was only so much we could do. Fighting pitted us against people we cared about.”
Tolan had a sense he was telling him that because whatever else would happen, fighting might mean Tolan was pitted against people he cared about.
“How am I even supposed to get there?” Tolan glanced down at the rock, thinking about the mountain. “I don’t know the trick to shaping my way through.”
If he tried to go, he’d have to answer questions from his parents, and he would have to explain why he suddenly wanted to leave. He didn’t have those answers yet. He had what the draasin had shown him, but nothing more than that. And what he had seen didn’t necessarily mean he would be able to do anything to even help.
The Inquisitors might be involved, and there might be Keystones, but how would he find them?
The Convergence. It was all tied together. Reach the Convergence, understand what the Inquisitors were doing, and find a way to help the elementals.
In doing so, he would be working against them. Despite how they might serve the Academy, that was reason enough to do this. Even without that, he had to do this. If elementals suffered, he would help. How could he do anything else?
“There is no trick.”
“You’ll teach me how to cross?”
“No. I will bring you.”
With that, the Draasin
Lord lowered his head. There was a sense from deep within Tolan, from the connection he now had with the draasin. He needed to climb onto the creature. He looked at the draasin, unable to believe he wanted him to do this. A part of him—a very large part—wanted nothing more than to do it. If he could travel with the draasin…
Was that what he wanted—or was it what the Draasin Lord wanted of him? He’d been shown visions by the draasin, given images that he thought he needed to have, something similar to the Selection… and now he didn’t know if he could help.
This was for the elementals.
How could he not help?
Tolan climbed onto the draasin’s back. “Others will see you.”
“I’ve lived for a thousand years. None see me unless I allow it.”
With that, they took to the air.
20
Landing on the other side of the mountain happened quickly. Tolan found himself gripping the draasin’s spikes, trying to avoid falling, though he had done so the entire time they’d been flying. Everything about the journey had been unsettling. The trip had been fast; they’d streaked across the sky, the wind whistling past him so fast he could barely see. His eyes watered and the heat rising off the draasin seemed to increase the farther they went.
There hadn’t been an opportunity to understand how the draasin intended to conceal himself. Power bloomed from the draasin, enough that Tolan was convinced there was something to it that made it so he wouldn’t be able to see the creature, and yet, the draasin moved so quickly, he wasn’t able fully figure it out.
When they landed, he sat on the draasin’s back for a moment, remaining there as he looked around the landscape. There was something here he was supposed to see, though what was it?
“Where did you bring me?”
“To someplace familiar,” the draasin rumbled.
They were in a forest. Trees towered overhead, and somehow the draasin had managed to land in the middle of them, somehow navigating between them so they came down in a clearing.
Tolan climbed off the draasin’s back, and in doing so, he felt a connection to the earth that hadn’t been there before. It rumbled through him, filling him with another sense of awareness.
The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4) Page 22
