The Water Ruptures

by D. K. Holmberg

  At least it explained why it was restricted. Considering its age—and knowing how old the Academy was—a book like that would be incredibly valuable.

  “What about this one?” he asked, pointing to the second book he had gone through.

  “Ah. That is an interesting choice, and one I am surprised Master Jensen allowed you to read.” She glanced over to him, arching a brow, and he stirred, almost as if alerted to her talking about him.

  “The work of the first Grand Inquisitor? I figured since the Grand Master has allowed students to attend the Selection, they should have every right to understand the process. Who better to learn from than the first Grand Inquisitor?” Master Jensen said.

  It intrigued Tolan that the first Grand Inquisitor had such a philosophical approach to shaping. The Inquisitors had served a different role in the Academy over the years, and not one where he ever would have expected them to have been philosophical in the way he saw depicted in this book. Even more than before, he wanted to continue reading through it, see if there was anything he might be able to pick up from it.

  “And what of this last one?”

  “This last one is the most surprising.”

  “Why is that? I found it to be interesting.”

  “Did you? Why is that?” she asked.

  He considered his answer before saying anything. The master librarians were master shapers in the same way all of the master shapers throughout the Academy were. They were powerful individuals, and they exerted incredible control over their domain. With access and the ability to restrict that access to the library at their disposal, Tolan didn’t want to do or say anything that might upset one of them.

  So far, he had been given quite a bit of freedom in the library. Some of that came from the fact it seemed Master Minden liked him—for whatever reason. Maybe that came from the fact he had helped stop the attack on the Convergence. He didn’t want to lose that freedom. Not now he had begun to have a different type of question.

  “There is a description of shaping in it that is different than what I have felt before.”

  He cursed himself almost immediately. He didn’t need to reference what he had felt, only what he had read and experienced.

  “And what have you felt, Shaper Ethar?” Master Minden asked.

  “Nothing different than what we know from using the bondars,” Tolan said hastily. “It’s just… Well, it’s just it doesn’t seem as if this book references reaching for the element bonds. It speaks of shaping a different way, power coming from the shaper themselves.”

  He looked up, worried about meeting her eyes, but found her watching him with a thoughtful expression on her face. Why would that be?

  Maybe he had said something more than he should have. Or maybe he had gotten his interpretation of it wrong. It wouldn’t be impossible to believe he didn’t have the interpretation of that book correct. As much as he wanted to try and understand it, he might not be able to know exactly what the shaper had intended when writing.

  “You have identified something intriguing about that volume, and it’s something very few outside of the master librarians have ever identified,” she said. She glanced over at Master Jensen, frowning for a moment. Was she upset with him for sharing the book with Tolan? He should apologize and be on his way before he lost access to the library, but she turned her attention back to him, the weight of her gaze holding him steady. It was times like these when she looked at him with that intensity that he felt as if despite the milky film over her eyes, she was somehow able to see deeper into him than anyone else at the Academy. Almost as if she were shaping him. “The shapers who came before the Academy had a different understanding of the connection to their abilities. We refer to it by the same terms as they did, but that’s mostly paying lip service to the similarity with what we do. Most who study these things suspect our ability is quite a bit different than what their ability once was.”

  “Were they more powerful?”

  “The power of the element bond is nearly limitless, Shaper Ethar,” Master Minden said. “With power like that, we don’t ever need to fear losing our connection to shaping. We may grow tired, but the power we reach into, the power we can channel, does not. Those shapers,” she said, nodding toward the book, “had limits to their own abilities. It is those very limits we don’t have that make us so much more than they ever could be.”

  Tolan realized not only did this book have a description of a different sort of shaping, but it was much older than the Academy.

  “Who wrote this?” He glanced from Master Minden to Master Jensen. “You said one was the first Grand Master and the other one is the first Grand Inquisitor, but who wrote this?”

  Master Minden sniffed, glancing down at her notebook before looking up again. “That was written by one of my ancestors, Shaper Ethar.”

  “Yours?”

  “My family is descended from powerful shapers, and we have been affiliated with the Academy for as long as it has been in existence. While the first Grand Master is one of the founders, my ancestors are another.”

  Tolan looked back at the book, thinking through the implications of what she said. If her ancestor was one of the other founders of the Academy, and if her ancestor had some way of reaching shaping that was different than the Academy taught, then was there some connection between the two?

  He could see from the way she had devoted herself to her reading that she wasn’t going to answer any more questions. He let out a heavy sigh and pushed the books toward her. “I would like to continue reading these if I have the permission of the master librarians.”

  “You may continue to study them here. They are restricted, which means only master shapers should be reading them, but as you seem to have Master Jensen’s permission, I won’t intervene.”

  She took the books and placed them into one of the drawers. When she shut it, she looked up, and for a moment, it seemed almost as if her eyes cleared, but then that faded.

  Tolan hurried away, departing the library and heading back to what was now his quarters that he still shared with Jonas, Wallace, and Ferrah. He needed to organize it. Now he was a second-level student, it was time for him to work through his lessons.

  6

  It was late in the day on the fourth day after Tolan’s return from Ephra when Ferrah finally returned to the Academy. It surprised Tolan she would arrive before Jonas, who was in Velminth. Velminth wasn’t very far, much closer to Amitan than even Ephra had been. Par was quite a bit farther, and even if they had run along the Shapers Path, it would have taken quite a bit of time to have gone, established the Selection, and then return.

  During the time they’d been gone, he’d been trying to settle into the second-level quarters. The room was not all that different from the last. There were four beds and a wardrobe at the end of the beds. These rooms were a little bit nicer than the first-level rooms, and they had a small table next to their bed for their belongings. A series of paintings hung along the walls suggested the various elements, though they weren’t all that well done, and in the years since they were made, they had been around second-year students long enough that they had been damaged, some of the paint flaked off, one punctured, and something sprayed on the third. A thick carpet covered most of the floor, giving a little more warmth to the second-level rooms than there was in the first-level rooms. Shaped lights glowed in three sconces around the room, casting quite a bit of light around the entirety of the room. It took little more than a touch for these to be dimmed, and with Tolan here all by himself, he left them blazing brightly. He enjoyed the light.

  When Ferrah entered their new room, she swept her gaze around it. Her belongings were still stacked in a corner, piled much like his had been when he had first returned. Jonas’s belongings were also stacked, though he didn’t have all that many. The only other person to have been here had been Wallace, and a part of Tolan had wondered whether he would continue rooming with them as they progressed or whether he would find another se
t of roommates. It wasn’t that he and Wallace and the others didn’t get along, it was more that Wallace didn’t socialize with them quite as much.

  “You’re here,” she said.

  “I am,” Tolan said, sitting up. He had been reviewing what he could find of the elementals, going through the books he still had borrowed from the library. They were volumes Master Minden had lent him, and he kept waiting for her to ask for them back, but she never did. Either she didn’t care he had them, or she had forgotten. Considering what he knew of Master Minden, he doubted she had forgotten. “How was your Selection?”

  “Only one. How was yours?”

  “There were five students. And from what I can tell, they have been obnoxious since reaching the Academy.”

  “Is one of them your friend?” she asked.

  Tolan shook his head. “I came across him, but he didn’t pass the testing this time either.”

  “This is the same friend you went into the Selection to observe?”

  Tolan nodded. “The same. This time, I was standing on the other side of it, and it felt different.”

  “I know what you mean. There wasn’t the same nervousness I felt the last time, and I have to admit it felt good to be there and show those who doubted me all those years I had already passed the first level and even more, the Grand Master had allowed us to come out to the Selection.”

  “That’s not exactly what I was getting at, though that felt different, too. It’s more that the connection between us was different.”

  She studied him for a moment before starting to smile. “Did you think it wouldn’t?”

  “I didn’t expect to walk in and have him welcome me, but I haven’t seen him in the better part of the year. When I was last there, Master Daniels had been sent back to Amitan, and as far as he knew, I was going to head off to the mines.”

  “Well, he had to have been relieved you didn’t go off to the mines.”

  “I’m not sure if he was or not. I think Tanner always enjoyed that I wasn’t able to shape. It was something he had that I didn’t.”

  “What kind of friend is that?”

  “One of the only friends I had when I was in Ephra.”

  “I’m sure you had other friends, Tolan. Everyone has friends, even those who don’t know how to shape.”

  He glanced down at the book. It just so happened that he had been looking through the earth elementals, and as he had, he had been running his finger along the markings his father had made on the bondar. Every so often, he would pause and attempt a shaping, summoning the earth elemental through the bondar. It had become easier each time he did it, to the point where he now could summon only a low rumbling. Would it become as easy for him as fire was when he used the furios?

  “I haven’t really told you much about my parents,” Tolan said without looking up.

  “I figured they’d have to be shapers,” she said.

  “You would think so,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  Tolan breathed out. “My parents disappeared when I was younger. It came during an attack on Ephra by disciples of the Draasin Lord. They were there… And then they were gone. Most within the city believed they were claimed by the Draasin Lord, though enough people wondered if perhaps they hadn’t sided with him all along.”

  He looked over at her. Her face was pale. It wasn’t quite the reaction he had expected, but he appreciated she seemed to understand the implications.

  “They blamed you for that?” she asked.

  “I was too young to be blamed. I was still a child, so most adults didn’t think I had been corrupted by the Draasin Lord, regardless of what they thought about my parents. Children weren’t quite so kind to me.”

  “What did they do?”

  “Most taunted me, so when I had no ability to shape, it was something of a blessing. If I would’ve been forced to attend the shaping school in Ephra, I don’t know if I would’ve been able to tolerate it. It was easier for me to just be different, but not so different I had to deal with everyone else.”

  “But you had some ability even before you came here. You were able to sense earth, and you passed the Selection.”

  “We both know my passing the Selection was surprising. I think it surprised even the Grand Inquisitor.”

  She glanced around at the mention of the Grand Inquisitor, her gaze falling on the door in the far corner. A shaping built from her, as if attempting to seal off the room, though even if she did, Tolan wasn’t sure it would make a difference to the Grand Inquisitor. Ferrah still felt anger about the fact she had been spirit-shaped. She didn’t seem to mind that she had just taken part in a Selection where other shapers had been spirit-shaped so they would forget what had happened to them, but having it done to her was something different altogether.

  “That’s the reason why, when Master Daniels took me in, I felt as if I had been given a reprieve.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “It’s why his betrayal hurt so much more.”

  “And you never knew he was a spirit shaper?”

  Her comment got him thinking again and reminded him of what had troubled him ever since visiting Ephra. “What if he wasn’t a spirit shaper?”

  “You saw what he was able to do. Nothing other than a spirit shaper would have been able to do it in quite that manner.”

  “And yet, Master Irina didn’t know he was.”

  She studied him intensely for a moment. “You spoke to her?”

  “She was a Selector in Ephra.”

  “Why?”

  Tolan shrugged. “I don’t really know, but she was the one sent there. She ran the Selection, and it went faster than before, at least from my recollection of it. And I don’t know if she was the one to have gone because Master Marcella was a part of it also, and she had never taken part in a Selection.”

  “It could be,” Ferrah said.

  “Why do I get the sense you don’t think that’s the reason?”

  “Think of what we’ve experienced out there so far, Tolan. First there is you, and as much as I care about you—and I do—even you can’t deny it’s strange you would have been the one Selected. Then there’s the attack at the waste. I haven’t heard any of the master shapers talk about what happened there, and to be honest, I don’t expect them to, but that also took place out near your homeland. And then there is the involvement of this Master Daniels in whatever plot that was. What if there’s something taking place centered in that part of Terndahl?”

  “I’m not really sure what it would be, but…” Tolan thought about the strange wind attack when he and Master Marcella had been making their way to Ephra. He hadn’t really talked about it with anyone else, and with the way Master Marcella had dismissed the idea of an elemental attack, he had let himself forget about it, especially with everything else that had been going on. “There might have been another elemental attack on my way to Ephra.” He told her about what had happened, including the way he had attempted to reach the elementals. Ferrah watched him, her frown deepening the longer he spoke.

  “And Master Marcella didn’t think it was an elemental attack?”

  “It wasn’t shaped.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I didn’t feel any shaping, and she went searching for someone who might have attacked us and didn’t find anything. I’m as certain as I can be.”

  “If it was an elemental attack, then why? Do you think there were rogue elementals? Or was this another action on behalf of the disciples? Could they have freed them?”

  Tolan glanced down, looking at the book on the elementals. He didn’t think they had been commanded to attack.

  “I don’t know. It felt different than the attack we had here.”

  “How was that?”

  “That was frenzied, almost as if the elemental had been agitated.” He wasn’t sure why he was describing in that way, only that it fit. When they had been attacked by the rogue elementals in the Academy, they had both nearly died. “This
was nothing more than a persistent and gusting wind. It was power, and it nearly threw me off the Shapers Path, but I didn’t sense any malice within it.”

  “Tolan, you need to be careful with the way you’re thinking about the elementals.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re starting to be sympathetic toward them.”

  “Why shouldn’t we be sympathetic toward them?”

  “Because they’re dangerous. They’re a part of the bond. I know you have your own unique way of reaching your shaping, but I still think you need to be careful with the elemental component. If nothing else, go to somebody we trust and share with them what you’re doing. Even the Grand Master would be better than nothing.”

  “The challenge is finding someone who won’t pass judgment on me.” He didn’t want someone to think he had dangerous sympathies, and he needed to be careful with who he might approach. They had seen the way those who had a tendency toward the elementals had been treated. Jory had attempted to free them to control them, wanting power the same way the Draasin Lord had wanted power. Master Daniels had wanted something similar, though the disciples had managed to rescue him before he and Ferrah had a chance to find out exactly what that was. If he went around making comments like that, what would others think of him?

  The same sort of thing they had thought about his parents.

  And now he wouldn’t have his youth to protect him. He was too old and had been at the Academy for too long to be able to hide behind that.

  “I guess what I was getting at is what if Master Daniels was using a bondar to control spirit?”

  “There isn’t a bondar that can control spirit,” she said. “The one I was lent allowed me to combine the elements but didn’t control spirit the way the Inquisitors do. What you’re describing simply doesn’t exist.”