The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Tolan Ethar. You have survived testing.” Master Rorn let a hint of wind swirl around, and then that faded.

  The Grand Master approached, and Tolan watched him for a moment, unsure what the Grand Master might say to him and uncertain what he might do, and he was worried.

  The Grand Master stopped, and smiled. “Master Ethar. You have survived testing.”

  He smiled, and sent a swirl of shaping toward Tolan, one of each of the elements. As he did, the power struck, using enough energy that Tolan could feel it wash over him. It happened so quickly, he wasn’t even sure how to react or whether he even could.

  And yet, as he felt that power wash over him, he didn’t know if he even wanted to react. That power rolled through him with an urgency, unlocking something within him.

  He hadn’t even known it was locked within him, but now the shaping was there, he could feel it, a tingling sort of sensation.

  “Is that it?” He looked at the others as they began to disappear on shapings, shaking his head. The Grand Master was the only one to remain. “I thought there would be more.”

  “Typically, students at your level don’t present themselves for testing, but also, typically at your level, students don’t have the necessary ability to withstand the type of shaping you have withstood.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You can be called a master shaper even if you can only manipulate one of the elements. If you are able to survive a testing from that master shaper, you can claim the title of master. In your case, you survived shapings from each of the elements, including spirit.”

  When he said the last, there was a hint of something more in the way he said it, and it left Tolan uncertain. He had felt the use of all the elements, but he wasn’t entirely sure just what else he had done.

  “What will you choose, Master Ethar?” the Grand Master asked, handing him his sword.

  Tolan took it, feeling the weight of it, feeling the energy from it. It was still warm from the various shapings the Grand Master had pulled through it. “What do you mean?”

  “Now you are a master shaper, you get to decide what you do, and none can choose for you.”

  6

  As Tolan reached the entrance to the Academy, he felt strange, and strangely different. He couldn’t help that feeling, and he wasn’t sure if it mattered. All he knew was that there was a sense of power flowing through him, and he had survived.

  He was a master shaper.

  After everything that had happened at the Academy, everything that had brought him here, the sense of uncertainty he had known, now he was here, now he had passed the test, he felt as if he belonged in a way he hadn’t before. That was not something anyone could take away from him.

  He was a master shaper.

  As he headed inside, he saw a familiar figure near the library.

  Tolan approached, but Master Minden didn’t seem to notice him, or if she did, she headed away from him, toward the back stairs.

  Tolan followed, knowing he should go find Ferrah, that he should find Jonas, and he should share with them that he had passed the testing for master shaper, but first, he thought he needed to follow Master Minden.

  He called after her, but she didn’t hear him.

  It was more likely she chose to ignore him. He hurried after her along the stairs, and he hollered her name.

  Finally, she paused.

  They were at the top of the stairs and she glanced over her shoulder, nodding to him, and then she stepped through the door.

  Tolan frowned, reaching the doorway, and stepped through.

  The portraits lining the walls all had a different appearance to them.

  They were vibrant and colorful, and there was a sense of energy to them and a sense of something more he wasn’t able to fully understand, only that there was power to them.

  “You presented yourself for testing,” Master Minden said.

  “I did,” Tolan said.

  “Did you decide you were ready?”

  “I decided I wasn’t able to wait around any longer and continue my studies.”

  “Which meant you were ready,” she said, smiling slightly.

  She didn’t seem disappointed.

  As he looked at the rows of paintings, the energy from them, he thought he understood.

  “You want me to stay and serve as a master librarian,” he said.

  “When I first met you, Master Ethar, I had believed you would have that potential. Not many do. We go many years without any student showing the necessary potential. It’s tied to their ability to reach the elements themselves, not just the element bonds. The element bonds are powerful, and we have plenty of shapers who show that potential, but reaching the elements, understanding that power, takes something else entirely. Not many are able to do so, and even those who can aren’t always capable of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the way we teach here at the Academy is not designed to help students gain that understanding.”

  She paused in front of one painting, and he realized it was again the young girl with a lizard behind her. The background of the painting was far clearer now than it had been before, and as Tolan looked at it, he wondered if there was something more he should be able to understand about it, but he still couldn’t make it out. There was an energy to the painting, a sense that struck him, but it was no different than some of the others.

  “The master librarians could teach it,” he said.

  “The master librarians could, but we have a different task.”

  Tolan understood that master librarians were serving in a way that involved continuing to accumulate knowledge, but there had to be something more than just that. He had to think it was not just about accumulating it, but coordinating it, compiling, and being ready for the possibility they would be able to use that knowledge in the future.

  And as he was here, Tolan couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more the master librarians wanted of him.

  “I’m sorry I’m not able to serve in the way you want from me.”

  “Do you think I’m disappointed?” Master Minden asked as she turned to him.

  “If you wanted me to serve as a master librarian—”

  “Who is to say you still cannot?”

  Tolan shrugged. “I suppose I still could.” Even then, he wasn’t sure he wanted to. He didn’t really know what he was going to do, but he couldn’t see himself sitting in the library, reading through all of these books, even if it did give him the opportunity to spend time trying to understand these paintings. The longer he was here, the more he thought he wanted to understand that, that he wanted to try to gain that knowledge, to try to figure out just what it was about these paintings that had meaning. Something about these paintings was important, but he wasn’t able to determine what it was.

  “If everything goes as it should, you will find that eventually you will have another opportunity.”

  “If everything goes as what should?”

  “I suspect you intend to go out and try to better understand the nature of the power that exists out in the world.”

  “I think I need to,” he said.

  “Because of your mother?”

  “That’s part of it,” he said.

  “Part, but not all of it.”

  Tolan closed his eyes and shook his head. “I have to know more about myself.”

  “Do you think she was able to change so much about you?”

  “I don’t really know. She influenced me, and I still struggle with knowing whether or not my memories are real and whether some of them were placed there by her.”

  “Do you know who you are now?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then what does it matter what you were?”

  “Perhaps it doesn’t.”

  She smiled at him and turned away, heading along the hall, glancing at the portraits. As she did, he couldn’t help but think there was something more he needed to find in the portra
its.

  And yet, maybe there was something more. Maybe there was something he could understand, some way to be able to use the power he could feel in them.

  “The paintings are different now,” he said.

  “I suppose they would be,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because you are different.”

  “How am I different? All I did was pass a testing.”

  “You passed a testing, but in doing so, you changed something about yourself. You have become a greater part of what you are meant to be.”

  Was that what it was?

  Tolan didn’t know, but the only thing he really did know was that he had done what was necessary. In order to no longer sit through classes, in order to try to find who he was, the person he was meant to be, he had done what he thought was necessary.

  But there was more he needed to do.

  “I think I need—”

  A sense of power began to build near him, and he turned to look down the hall.

  Master Minden was there, and she frowned as well.

  She started forward, shaping building from her, an enormous amount of power she suddenly called upon. Tolan followed her, doing the same. He realized she was calling power through the runes, reaching for the power of the Convergence. Some distant part of him recognized there was a significant threat.

  Tolan gathered himself and shaped, pulling upon the same sort of power, but he was weakened. The testing to become a master shaper had taken quite a bit out of him.

  He hurried along the hallway, straining, worrying about what was coming, when power exploded.

  Had Master Minden not been there, he wasn’t sure what would have happened.

  Everything shattered backward, slamming into her, and she forced her hands forward, using an enormous shaping of power to push against whatever was driving against her.

  The walls around them began to crumble and wind swirled, slamming into her barrier.

  Tolan was there, and he added what he could, shaping with as much strength as he could, drawing upon the power of the runes, trying to summon energy, using what he could to call from someplace deep within the ground.

  In doing so, he could feel that energy seeping up, the way it trailed up from the ground. There had to be something more he could do.

  As he looked over at Master Minden, he noticed the tension in her eyes, the way she was holding onto that barrier, and he worried.

  She might not be strong enough for what was coming.

  Tolan had to hold his hands out, and he glanced behind him at the rows of paintings, and was reminded of the image she had shown him.

  He swept a shaping of spirit behind him, using what she had done, and in doing so, felt a connection to those paintings. It was a strange and powerful connection, and in that, he had a sense of understanding.

  He could use that energy. He could use the power. He pushed it out, letting it flow away from himself.

  It came from elementals, but it came from someplace within himself.

  He drew that, adding the power of the runes, adding it to what he was drawing from himself, and from someplace deep below him, from the Convergence.

  He added that to the barrier Master Minden was holding.

  It was still almost not enough.

  There was pressure slamming up against them, a battering force slamming over and over again against them.

  “What is it?” he asked, managing to get the words out through gritted teeth.

  “This is your mother,” Master Minden said.

  “How is she still so powerful?”

  “She shouldn’t be,” Master Minden said.

  A figure appeared. It was his mother. She strode forward, her dark hair streaming behind her, power swirling around her. It was something physical, tangible. It was enormous and amazing.

  It left Tolan practically trembling under the force of her power. He wanted nothing more than to back away, to escape, but he worried that if he were to do so, he would leave Master Minden alone.

  He had to do anything in his power to help her.

  He could feel energy coming off his mother, the way she was trying to call to him, and there had to be some way he could overpower what she was doing.

  There was nothing.

  Somehow, with the power she held onto, with the energy she had swirling around her, she was able to overpower not only Master Minden, but Tolan too.

  It was an impressive display.

  He held onto it to see if there was some way that he could resist, but the more he focused, the harder it was to do so.

  She smiled at him.

  “Did you really think you are going be able to hold me?”

  “You aren’t going to leave the city,” he said.

  “I’ve already escaped.”

  “You’re at the Academy.”

  “At the Academy that has been weakened,” she said, smiling. “Why else do you think I had the Inquisitors attacking?”

  Tolan frowned. “What do you think you’re going to be able to do?”

  “At this point, I’m going to leave.”

  “You aren’t going to make it out of Terndahl,” he said.

  “You have grown in skill, but you won’t be able to do anything to stop me. I think you are still too caught up in your feelings toward your mommy.”

  Her taunting him like that filled him with even more rage.

  He tried to fight it, to ignore it, but couldn’t. That feeling and emotion flowed up within him, and he tried to fight through that, to ignore what she was saying to him, what she was doing to him, but he couldn’t.

  There was nothing but anger at what she was doing and what she was saying.

  He drew upon the power of the ruins, tapping into the Convergence, and he tried to reach the power of the elementals and the portraits behind him, but could feel his own strength fading.

  He had already used so much energy during the testing.

  Had she attacked earlier, he might have been able to hold out. Which meant she knew what was going on. She had planned this.

  “You’re afraid of me,” he said.

  “I already told you that you will be useful.”

  “You waited until I was weakened.”

  “As I said,” she started, and force began to build against him, slamming into him. It came with an unrelenting cascade of power.

  Master Minden was forced back, her arms beginning to tremble, the milky glaze in her eyes beginning to thicken. Even as she fought, as she called upon power, she was forced back a step.

  Tolan fought back, holding on to Master Minden, trying to hold her up, trying to help her resist what his mother was doing, but the two of them weren’t going to be strong enough.

  He was going to have call for to help.

  Hopefully someone else would realize what was taking place. The Grand Master had to know what was happening, didn’t he?

  “Why aren’t others coming?”

  “Because they are in a testing,” Master Minden said.

  His mother laughed, throwing her head back and cackling. “Do you think I planned this so poorly? You and your woman thought you could gain testing, as if it means something. And yet, it means so little. All that matters is your own potential and the power and how you use it. In your case, you wasted too much exposing yourself to the rigors of the Academy. You, who could be so much more.”

  Tolan focused deep within himself and continued to hold out, afraid of what was coming. The more power she pushed, the more she resisted, and the more certain he was that he wasn’t going to be able to withstand it.

  He had to find some way.

  As he pushed against her, as their shapings continued to build, he couldn’t find anything within himself to stop her. He held onto that energy, holding onto that focus, and he tried to resist, trying to push, but there was nothing within him.

  But there was something.

  Bondars.

  It was the one thing he hadn’t yet used. He grab
bed the sword the Grand Master had returned to him.

  It was time to use the sword, to try to figure out if there was anything he was going to be able to draw from the bondar. He had what he was able to shape from all around him, from the runes and from the portraits, but if he combined all of that, even in his weakened state, he might be enough.

  Tolan grabbed the sword and pointed it at his mother.

  He pulled upon power, sending it outward, letting that blast into her.

  She frowned at him, and there was a certain urgency within her.

  As he held onto that power, as he was holding out a shaping, he could feel it flowing around him. He pushed outward, straining against her.

  There came a surge against him. Power flashed against him.

  There were others here.

  “You aren’t doing this alone,” he said.

  “Why should I do it alone?” She glanced at Master Minden. “You aren’t doing it alone.”

  He could feel at least three others, and all powerful.

  Holding onto the sword, he focused his shaping and wondered if there was some way he was going to be able to resist what they were doing, some way he could overpower them, and he swept his shaping outward, blasting with everything that he could.

  It exploded, crashing into his mother.

  She staggered back, and with a burst of lightning, she disappeared.

  There were still three others, and Tolan raced forward, grabbing Master Minden, helping her forward.

  As he did, he could feel the energy against him, and he held onto it, focusing on where they were.

  He reached the end of the hall and saw an opening in the ceiling.

  There was a shaper there.

  His breath caught.

  “Master Daniels?”

  He hadn’t seen Master Daniels since his initial attack, and now Tolan saw him, now he knew what role he played and how he worked with his mother, he couldn’t help but feel even more resentment toward the man.

  Master Daniels grinned at him. “You have grown in power. She knew you would.”

  Tolan held the sword out and Master Daniels laughed.

  A shaping of spirit swept past Tolan and slammed into Master Daniels.