Tolan hurried out into the streets, focusing on the sense of shaping. There was power bursting all around him. It was that way in the city often. He had become increasingly attuned, a sign of whatever had happened to him during the Inquisition. He supposed he should be thankful for it, as without it, he would have less awareness of what was taking place around him.
As he turned a corner, he came face to face with Velthan and three of the first-level students.
Velthan grinned at him. “Ethar. They finally released you?”
“I’m not in the mood, Velthan,” he said.
“No? You’re too busy serving the Draasin Lord?” He said it loud enough so the others with him could hear. Velthan leaned forward, smiling as he looked at Tolan. “I always knew you did. Ever since your parents ran off and—”
A shaping built from Tolan and he pushed Velthan back.
He didn’t use much force, and yet the other man was taken aback by it, stumbling. When the shaping departed, he staggered forward so he landed on one knee. He looked up at Tolan, anger clouding his eyes.
“Like I said, I always knew.”
“And I said I’m not in the mood.”
Tolan spun away from him, heading off into the city. That was just what he needed. Now in addition to the second-level students spreading rumors about him, he would have Velthan and these first-level students spreading even more.
When would it end?
Maybe it wouldn’t. Could that be the lesson? Maybe that was the point of Master Irina holding him as long as she had. Regardless of whatever he might say, the damage was done. Any argument about his involvement was moot. He was tried and convicted.
He reached the edge of the city, and once there, he headed into the trees. It wasn’t long before Tolan found himself in the park far outside the city, knowing it no longer mattered what the Inquisitors thought. If they found him here, it wouldn’t make a difference.
Leaving the forest with a pulse of wind, the shaping lifting him up and over the wall, he made his way toward the center of the park. Everything was more peaceful here. There was quiet, and though he had the presence of earth and wind and fire and water, it didn’t feel dangerous.
Strangely, ever since uncovering his connection to the element bonds, he had felt less in control than when he’d he thought he was only shaping the elementals. At least with the elementals, there was shape and function, but with these shapings, there was the sense he was out of control.
He wandered until he reached the center of the clearing where the Keystone once had stood. He took a seat, his hands pressing on either side of him. It was peaceful here, calm, quiet. There was a sense of comfort in being here that he welcomed.
It was much easier to come here than to return to the Academy. At least here, he didn’t have to worry about others interfering when he attempted to practice.
He focused on fire, flipping through shaping after shaping, building one power after another. It came steadily, a surge of shaped magic, his control over it much more than it ever had been. He focused on the lessons he’d been through, his mind racing through the notes he’d taken over the last year, thinking of everything Master Sartan had wanted him to do. All of the shaping flowed out of him.
Moving on to earth, he worked through what he remembered of his lessons there as well. Sitting as he was, connected to earth—and in this place—he felt as if there were no restrictions to his ability to reach earth. Shaping after shaping flowed out of him until he was done with everything Master Shorav had taught.
He did the same with wind and then water.
It was tiring working through those shapings, but he rested, dozing off and then waking up to shape again. The position of the sun was all the notice he had that time was passing.
He could stay here. Continue to shape, practicing, and not return to the Academy.
Only… was that what he wanted?
There was still so much he could learn. There were things he had yet to uncover, lessons he still needed. And he was convinced there was some part of him that would eventually reach for spirit.
It had happened in his vision. Tolan was certain of that, though he didn’t know what he’d done. Attempts to repeat it outside of the vision had failed. There was some key aspect of that shaping he had yet to uncover.
Somehow, that shaping was more powerful than almost any of the others he had done.
After resting and then waking again, Tolan sat, focusing on fire. As he did, he added a touch of saa, mixing in the elemental. Flames danced, the fire swirling around him more brightly than before. He held onto saa, shifting to hyza, pushing forth the shaping he needed but focusing on that elemental as well. Both remained. Hyza made a circle around him, working its way around the park. No longer afraid he would somehow unleash the elementals, he made no effort to stop hyza. Releasing his control over it was easy and allowed him to focus on more elementals. He thought of esalash, the smoke elemental swirling, racing along the walls of the park.
Tolan sat back, watching as the elementals roamed. There was nothing about them that suggested they were harmful. They could be dangerous, but the same could be said about shaping in general. It wasn’t unique to the elementals. And the longer he had been around them, shaping his connection to them, the more he had begun to believe they had no interest in harming him.
If only he had some way of communicating with them. He felt as if he had the beginnings of a possibility, but every time he tried, there was no response. He didn’t believe the elementals were mindless creatures. There was some intellect to them. He felt certain of that.
Tolan shifted to the earth elementals, thinking of jinnar. It was the earth elemental he went to first, and rock began to rumble, forming the shape of the elemental. Tolan looked up at it, fatigue making him drowsy. “I wish you could talk to me.”
He’d come a long way from when he had feared jinnar during an attack at the Academy. Now he sat here, summoning the shape of the elemental, wishing to communicate with it?
Even if such a thing were possible, Tolan didn’t know he should want to do so.
The ground rumbled, almost as if jinnar were trying to speak to him. Tolan smiled to himself. Maybe the earth elemental was trying to speak to them, and if it was, what would it have to say? He might summon the elemental, but he also suppressed it, forcing the elemental back down into the bond. He had no idea what that entailed, other than there seemed to be discomfort for the elemental when he did it.
Holding on to the connection again, he shifted, moving to wind and ara. It was a powerful wind elemental, and the first one that came to mind. As he held onto that connection, wind whistled around him. A face came into view, translucent and almost imagined. He smiled at the wind elemental. “You’re all tied into the bonds, and I don’t even know why.”
He looked around. Hyza was wandering along the inside of the wall, the form increasingly more solid the longer he had it released. There was something very much foxlike about it, though there were still flames coursing within it.
Saa remained a flame, though it twisted, fluttering through the inside of the park, never causing damage. And they never threatened him.
Why had he not given much thought to that before?
Because of what he’d been taught. The fear had always been that the elementals were the domain of the Draasin Lord. Everything he’d ever heard was that the Draasin Lord wanted to release the elementals and control them. Seeing them like this, he had no interest in the elementals being controlled, but he wondered if perhaps they shouldn’t be free.
Why shouldn’t they? They were creatures, and they had power, and they belonged to this world. More than anything else, he felt that deeply.
He was too tired to focus on another elemental, so he rested, drifting once again.
When he awoke, he did so to a darkening sky. He looked around, jolted into alertness as he felt a tremor of fear about what had happened and where he was before finally remembering he was in the park. He wa
s alone.
But not alone.
Jinnar sat watching over him. Hyza sat on the other side. There was a sense of ara flowing around him. Saa had to be somewhere, especially if the others were here. Tolan smiled. “I wish this place didn’t hold you.”
It was a troubling thought. A dangerous one. Thoughts like that involved him siding with the Draasin Lord.
And maybe the rumors about him were true. He had claimed he didn’t serve the Draasin Lord, but if he was going to talk about freeing the elementals, what other answer was there?
He glanced at the sky, deciding by the time he returned to the Academy, it would be late enough that he should be able to sneak in. It would be much like what he had once done when he had first come to this place, and it would raise questions, but did those questions even matter?
He needed to stay in the Academy to continue his studies. He wanted to understand the element bonds. And as he looked at the elementals, he realized he wanted something more. He wanted to understand the elementals.
Where else would he be able to learn that but at the Academy?
It meant he would be forced to deal with the taunting. He would be forced to deal with all of the comments about his connection to the Draasin Lord. And he would be forced to withstand the unwanted attention from the master shapers.
Tolan could handle that. He would handle that.
He got to his feet. Jinnar and hyza did the same, and he had a sense of ara swirling around him, welcoming him.
When he left the park, he knew some connection to them would fade and the elementals would disappear. And maybe that was okay. He could return. This would be where he would come to pursue his own studies. It didn’t have to be at the Academy all the time.
With that resolution in mind, he reached the wall and looked around. Jinnar and hyza and ara all waited. Saa flickered, giving faint light that danced around the inside of the clearing.
Tolan climbed up to the top of the wall and watched to see whether the elementals would disappear or not, but they remained solid. Present.
And then he jumped over the wall.
As he headed back to the Academy, a feeling of relief washed through him. It was good to have come to a decision, even if it would be difficult. Then again, how difficult could it be? He lived so much of his life dealing with people making comments about him that a few more wouldn’t harm him. He’d grown accustomed to it and dealing with that at the Academy would not be his preference, but it was a price he was willing to pay in order to continue his work and to continue understanding what that work meant for him.
At the edge of the forest leading into the city, Tolan paused, stretching out his connection to earth sensing, feeling all of the interconnectedness within Amitan. Maybe that was all he had felt when he had wandered through the city before, though he didn’t think that it was. There had to have been something else. Maybe that had been spirit, and he had shaped it in some way he was unaware of.
And yet, Tolan didn’t think so.
Starting down the hillside, the sense of shaping echoed all around.
After taking a dozen steps out of the forest, he paused.
There was something different about the shaping.
He glanced up at the Shapers Path, suddenly fearful of what might be up there. There had been rumors of disciples near the city. Could they be somewhere nearby? If they were, the fact he was out of the city, out in the park, would be difficult for others to overlook.
He raced into the city. Once he was there, he continued to feel shapings building.
One particularly strong shaping exploded at the corner of the city, back in the direction he’d come.
Tolan skittered to a stop.
Why would there have been a shaping like that?
The earth rumbled. That was not an earth shaping. That was an elemental.
Jinnar.
No.
He launched himself into the air, using wind and fire, searching for one of the Shapers Paths. In the darkness, they glowed faintly, something he wasn’t aware of until standing upon it. He had only traveled upon the Shapers Path in the daylight, never at night, and never when he feared for an elemental making its way into the city.
He saw it in the distance.
It was jinnar, but moving alongside jinnar came hyza, prowling along the stone, the fire elemental walking alongside an earth elemental, neither of them where they should be.
Tolan’s heart lurched. This was his fault. He had summoned the elementals but hadn’t suppressed them again.
And now they were heading into the city.
Tolan raced along the Shapers Path, hurrying toward the elementals. He wanted to get near enough that he could try to speak to them, to warn them away. As he ran, he could feel something stirring within him. It was similar to the stirring he felt when he was shaping, but this came from a different place, a sense of nervousness, but a worry as well.
They were emotions, but they weren’t his.
Tolan stopped, staring down at the city, his gaze fixed on the elementals, unable to tear it away.
He was detecting their emotions.
That couldn’t be, could it?
You need to leave the city.
He sent the connection the same way he had before, uncertain whether it would work or not, but when he did, there came a pause. The elementals hesitated, stopping within the street. If anyone would wander out of the nearby buildings, they would get quite the shock.
Amitan isn’t safe for you. You can remain in the park, and—
Tolan didn’t get a chance to finish. A shaping built, slamming into jinnar.
The earth rumbled, and he felt the anger within the earth elemental. It was agitation… and fear.
The earth elemental didn’t want to return. It wanted to stay out of the bond. And somehow Tolan was aware of that.
Trackers must have appeared, but where were they? It wasn’t surprising they would respond so quickly. There were enough rumors about the possibility of elementals that he knew they would be on the lookout for this sort of thing.
Which was even more reason to have been careful.
What had he been thinking by leaving the elementals out in the park? The Keystone had been moved, so there was not anything to contain them as there had been. Now the elementals were able to roam freely—and it seemed they did.
Another shaping built and Tolan looked over, surprised by the suddenness of it.
It was one he recognized.
Not Trackers, but Inquisitors.
It surprised him that they would be the ones responsible for the elementals, but with their ongoing presence within the Academy, he didn’t have any reason to think they’d do anything else.
Movement caught his attention.
Hyza raced between the buildings, darting quickly, no longer glowing with the same heat as it had before. Still, Tolan could feel it through his connection to fire, a sense that made little sense to him other than the fact he had been the one who had summoned the fire elemental. What of ara? He couldn’t see the wind elemental, but he could feel the heavy gusting of wind and knew the elemental had to be here.
Please. I don’t want anything to harm you. Return to the park. I will come back to you.
Hyza stopped, looking up, and there was a flash of red in its eyes before it turned and raced back through the city, heading toward the trees.
Tolan let out a relieved sigh. At least hyza would get away. Jinnar continued to rumble, the sense of earth thundering, and he continued to send the request to the elemental, hoping it would return.
The Trackers—or Inquisitors, he wasn’t sure—appeared. They were little more than outlines against the night, their dark cloaks making them difficult to see. Tolan prayed he remained hidden.
Shapings slammed into jinnar one after another, a steady onslaught of power that built, crashing into the elemental. There came a heavy and painful rumbling, like that of thunder and a storm crashing nearby, and then jinnar exploded, returning t
o the earth bond. Before it did, Tolan felt the pain, a strange sense of caring, almost as if the elemental was ripped from where it should be and forced someplace it was not meant to be.
That had to be imagined, didn’t it?
He scanned for ara. As the wind elemental, it might be more difficult to find. And yet, the constant breeze had a source.
Tolan hurried toward the source. He found ara near the center of the city, making its way toward the Academy.
All three elementals had been following him.
But they hadn’t been a threat. He was certain of that.
Two Inquisitors appeared on either side of ara. Power built from them, trapping the elemental in between.
As they did, he became aware of the pain from the elemental again.
He wasn’t going to be the reason another elemental suffered.
Tolan crouched down on the Shapers Path and focused on smoke. All he needed was for a cloud to obscure ara, giving the elemental a chance to move away, to dissipate.
And he didn’t want to summon another elemental. He thought he could call upon esalash and create the necessary smoke, but doing so would place that elemental in danger, too.
The shaping involved was difficult, and he had tried it on a small scale while in the park but never on a larger scale like this.
He had to try. More than that, he had the bondar. He slipped his hand into his pocket, gripping the furios, and focused on the shaping, pushing outward, letting that power flow from him. As it did, as he began to rise, he quashed it, squeezing it down so that smoke began to fill the space between the shapers, obscuring their attack.
Tolan held the shaping. There was a shout and another attempt to clear the smoke, a shaping of fire that drew upon his smoke, but Tolan was holding onto the furios, and drawing power through the bondar gave him a greater connection than the shapers had.
Go. Please return to the park. I will come for you. I don’t want you to suffer the same way jinnar suffered.
He remained motionless on the Shapers Path, fearful that either ara had been trapped by the shapers or had decided to ignore him, but there came a fluttering and a swirling of wind. A brief flash of a translucent face appeared before him, and then it gusted off toward the north and the park.
The Water Ruptures Page 25
