The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6)

by D. K. Holmberg

  She squeezed his hands and he took a deep breath, which he held before letting it out.

  “We should get going before I change my mind.”

  “Will you?”

  “I don’t think I can. I need to be the one to stop her.”

  In the distance, the city of Ephra began to come into view. It was the first time he had approached as a master shaper. There was no expectation he would return to the Academy, no expectation he had any responsibilities other than what he chose for himself. And approaching the city in this way left him with a mixture of emotions.

  Even if he didn’t choose to just go after his mother, if he didn’t choose to chase her out into the waste, he would have had countless opportunities for employment. Master shapers were in high demand, and now he’d passed the testing, Tolan would never have to worry about what he would do with his time or how he would spend his days. He would be able to serve Terndahl in whatever way he thought was necessary.

  There had been a time when he had wondered about what his life might be like. When he’d feared what would happen to him, whether he would be a woodsmith like Master Daniels or forced to enter the mines to find work. All of that uncertainty, that fear, had filled him after losing his parents and then gotten worse when Daniels had been sent back to Amitan. And now he’d been promoted to master shaper, he didn’t have to worry about anything like that.

  It was a strange sensation.

  Ferrah squeezed his hand, almost as if she knew what he was thinking, and they skirted around the outside of the city. Once they reached the end of the Shapers Path, they shaped themselves down from it.

  Tolan had been tempted to use a warrior shaping but using it and taking Ferrah with him would take energy, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to use any more than necessary at this point. For now, he was content to walk.

  His mother had gotten a head start on him, and though she might have already delved into the waste, Tolan wanted to be ready for whatever they might face, so he approached carefully. In doing so, he felt something building.

  He turned his attention to the north, feeling that sense of power, and he frowned.

  “What is it?”

  “I can feel something,” he said.

  “Is it her?”

  Tolan shook his head. “I don’t think this is her. It’s something else.”

  It was familiar, and it took him a little while of pursuing it to realize what it was: elemental power.

  It was out there, and alone.

  Tolan headed toward it, focusing on that sense of the elemental, and Ferrah followed him. In doing so, they continued toward the waste but veered off a little bit to the west beyond the route he normally would take.

  And as they traveled, he could feel that energy building, the sense of the elemental, and he couldn’t help but wonder if there was some reason he would encounter an elemental wandering free like this.

  For a moment, he had hoped it was the Draasin Lord. If he had access to the Draasin Lord, that kind of power, he wouldn’t have to worry about anything his mother might do to him. They would be able to reach her and this tainted Convergence. When they did, he believed he would have strength. The Draasin Lord—and the draasin—was incredibly powerful.

  As he approached, he waited for the elemental to reveal itself, but it stayed hidden. Tolan could feel it nearby.

  “You can come out,” he said. He sent a hint of spirit shaping with it, not sure whether or not the elemental would respond, though they had always responded to spirit shaping before. As he did, he continued to expect there would be something from the elemental, some response, but there was not.

  And he hesitated.

  Maybe he was making a mistake.

  Elementals out here, this close to the waste, could be dangerous. He didn’t fear the elementals the same way most within Terndahl did, but he understood the power of the elemental was such that it might be angry and wild.

  He had no idea what the elemental might have experienced, and if it was any of the elementals that had escaped the bond and was trying to stay free, it was possible it would not react well to a shaper approaching.

  Even though he was using spirit, Tolan was worried that he was pushing too much energy and drawing the wrong sort of attention to the elemental. He focused on the sense of the elemental and held onto that shaping, pushing outward with spirit, trying to connect to it.

  Ferrah stayed behind him, crouching, almost as if aware of it.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said.

  He pushed out with a sense of spirit again, and he waited, hoping there would be something from the elemental he might be able to uncover. The elemental remained hidden from him.

  Or, not hidden from him. It was hidden from Ferrah.

  The sense of the elemental was there, prominent within his mind. It was familiar to him, a strange combination of earth and fire. Hyza.

  He glanced over at Ferrah, and found shaping building from her, sweeping outward. “You don’t need to do that.”

  “Do what?”

  “You’re shaping,” he said.

  “There’s something here.”

  “I know there is. It’s hyza.”

  “There’s an elemental here?”

  “There is, but he’s going to disappear if you keep shaping like that.”

  “If there’s an elemental here, we—”

  “We don’t need to do anything,” Tolan said.

  “Tolan. We are master shapers now. That gives us a different responsibility than we had before.”

  “Yes. Our responsibility is to determine what we need to do on our own, and not always do what the Academy tells us.”

  She frowned, but her power began to retreat until there was little more than a hint of it from her. At least she wasn’t going to continue to push. He knew she wasn’t going to try to overpower the elemental, not with him here, but what would she have done if he had not been?

  Tolan held onto his connection to hyza, and he continued using spirit as a probe, but there was no response. It was almost as if the elemental had wanted him to know he was here, but then had retreated. Could it be afraid of Ferrah?

  That troubled Tolan. He didn’t want the elemental to be afraid of Ferrah. He didn’t want the elementals to fear anything. He wanted them free, the same way the elementals on the other side of the mountains were free.

  He focused on the memory of those elementals and used spirit to push that through to the elemental. There was a hint of resistance, but the more Tolan focused, the more certain he was that he was able to wear down that resistance.

  He wanted the elemental to find safety.

  There came a surge of response, and then the elemental began to retreat.

  “Is that it?” Ferrah asked.

  “The elemental departed, if that’s what you’re concerned about.”

  “I’m not sure what to be concerned about.” She sighed. “I’m still getting used to the idea they are free.”

  “There are more free elementals than you know.”

  “I’m also aware of that.”

  “When this is done—”

  She looked at him, taking his hand, and her shaping washed over him. It was warm, and connected the two of them. “When this is done, you can do whatever you think we need to do. I’ll stay with you.”

  “Even for that?”

  She turned away. “I don’t know. I can help with this. I know we need to do this. For that…”

  She didn’t have to say it. He understood. For what he thought would be needed, the separation of the elementals, she might not be able to stay with him.

  For now, it didn’t matter.

  Holding her hand, they started toward the waste.

  9

  Darkness spread over the edge of the waste, making it difficult for Tolan to make out anything too far from the border between Terndahl and the waste. He’d come here many times before, and each time he came, he still had the same sense he’d had the very first t
ime he’d been here. He recognized the enormity of it, the power within the waste, and just how much was missing.

  His understanding of the waste was different now than it had been when he had first come, though when he had come before, he had no ability with shaping and had never truly understood the absence of power within it.

  “I can’t believe we still intend to cross it,” Ferrah said.

  Tolan glanced over at her, and he forced a smile. Her red hair was pulled back behind her head, keeping it out of her face. “You don’t have to come with me.”

  “I wasn’t about to let you go off on your own. Not for this.”

  “You’re not going to let me?” He offered a hint of a smile, no longer forced. “Now we’re master shapers—”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Tolan turned his attention back to the waste. He did know what she meant. He strained, sending his awareness out beyond him, focusing beyond the waste, thinking if there was something out there, he might better understand the role he had to play, but as he focused on it, there was nothing informative within it.

  It was quiet, though it had been quiet to people for years. The waste was a vast emptiness devoid of any shaped power, and yet he understood there were still aspects of the elements within it. Regardless of what happened here, the way the power had been drained free from it, he understood there had to be some shaping energy present.

  It was there in the simplicity of the place. Stepping out across the border still allowed him to feel the stone beneath his boots. In the daylight, he could feel the sun burning down, hot and painful. Occasionally, a hot wind would whisper across the stone. And even while out there, Tolan was aware of the beating of his heart within his chest, the steady pulsing of blood through him.

  All that was tied to the elements.

  Regardless of what he had been taught and the way he believed, there was still power within the waste. It was just that it was different than what he had long known.

  He might not be able to reach the element bonds, but he still didn’t know if he would be able to shape the elements while out there. He thought he would. It was what he had told the Grand Master. And Master Minden thought it might be possible.

  Tolan took a deep breath and stepped across the border.

  When he did, there was a sudden change within him. He recognized the difference, the way his shaping energy suddenly was peeled away from him, a sense of power and knowing that came free.

  It seemed to Tolan that all he needed to do was to hold onto that awareness and perhaps he would be able to connect to the element bonds, but there was something that seemed to tear away from him. He took a deep breath, thinking about the deep part of himself, thinking about his connection to the other elements, and wondered if perhaps he might be able to use that power to connect to it. If he could, then perhaps he wouldn’t have to fear.

  There came a faint stirring, but it wasn’t enough to utilize.

  Though that sense was within him, there was nothing more about it that he was going to be able to use. Despite knowing he was connected to the elements in a different way than most shapers, he still wasn’t sure whether he would be able to use that faint power.

  Ferrah joined him, stepping across the boundary, and Tolan glanced over at her. “I hated it when we were here the first time,” she said.

  “I didn’t really mind it the first time. It’s different for me now.”

  “I still can’t believe how you were able to head across as far as you did.”

  Tolan glanced back at the border. It was a distinct demarcation. The rock and desolate nature of the waste ended abruptly, transitioning over to a rolling grassland at the border of Terndahl. Trees grew in the distance, and not far from where they now stood was the city of Ephra, a place he had been able to feel upon him with spirit until he stepped into the waste.

  That there could be such an abrupt change was surprising but given what he’d seen about the way the power was used, the runes that had gone into creating that, he had to believe it was all tied together. If only he could understand. And if it was tied to whatever had happened to the Convergence, he had to play a role.

  “That time, I—”

  “I know you didn’t have any connection to the elements, but you would still have to have known something was weird here.”

  “I was aware there was something off, but when you don’t have any ability to shape, it isn’t nearly as bad as you would think.”

  And perhaps that was the key. Without any ability to shape, there was no need to fear what was on this side of the barrier. He had become reliant upon his shaping ability, on the connection that he could form to the elementals and to the element bonds. Despite what Master Minden claimed, and that she believed he had some other way of drawing upon shaped power, he wasn’t certain that was the case.

  “How are we going to find her?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I thought I’d be able to detect something.”

  “You don’t?”

  He breathed out, trying to focus on the sense of the waste. There was nothing. “If there’s anything here, I don’t detect it.”

  He started forward. It was so much easier when he was able to use his shaping ability, to travel along the Shapers Path or to even hold himself in the air, but he was going to have to go by ground. By foot. Perhaps he should have searched for horses. If there was no water, he wouldn’t have been able to keep them alive. It would be hard enough to keep themselves alive, even with their supplies.

  And he had no idea whether there would be a way for them to return quickly. If he was right and they reached a place within the center of the waste, a Convergence that had been twisted and tainted, then he thought they might be able to use that to help them return. Find his mother—and possibly figure out how to defeat whatever was out there.

  The more they learned, the more certain he was that this other being was out there, that whoever was responsible for this tainting of his mother and others existed in a way he would have to stop.

  “We could have camped for the night at the edge of the waste,” Ferrah said.

  “That would have just wasted more time,” he said. “She’s not slowing.”

  “I know. I just thought we might be able to adjust.”

  “I think we should keep moving. I’m afraid I’ll lose my focus.”

  Ferrah took his hand, squeezing it.

  He was appreciative of her coming with him, and had she not, he still wondered whether he would’ve had the strength and the fortitude to be here. Perhaps he would not have. Tolan knew he would’ve kept after his mother. This was something that needed to be done, and he had begun to believe he was the only one willing to do it.

  Tolan wrapped his cloak around himself, pulling it tight. As he went, there was a sense of heat rising around him, that of the waste radiating energy.

  “It doesn’t cool down like it does in Terndahl,” Ferrah said. Her voice was hushed, little more than a whisper. “I keep waiting for the temperature to drop.”

  “There’s no wind, either.”

  “There’s no connection to the elements,” she said.

  “You just mentioned the heat. And we’re walking on the stone. There are aspects of the elements here; it’s just a matter of us being able to find them and knowing how to use them.”

  Those connections were going to be important here in the waste, but he wasn’t sure how they were going to be important or what it was going to mean if he couldn’t reach them. They would have to find some way to have access to those connections, and if he could uncover the key, perhaps he might be able to find a way to use that power.

  Ferrah glanced over her shoulder. “This is the farthest anyone has ever crossed the waste.”

  Tolan followed the direction of her gaze. In the darkness and the distance, the border of the waste was still clear. It seemed almost as if the faint moonlight reflected off the stone, casting everything in a pale, silvery light. The rock reflected it mo
st easily, but by the time it reached the border of the waste and the grasses leading into the main part of Terndahl, everything darkened, as if a shroud had passed over it.

  “It’s not the farthest anyone from the Academy has come. Others have crossed deeper into the waste,” he said.

  “Your mother.”

  Tolan inhaled deeply and nodded. “Her. Those who went after her.” He hesitated. “I don’t know how she was able to go so deep, but that’s how all of this started.”

  And it was because she was involved that he had to do this. And because of her, he knew he was going to have to find the answers, though he had no idea whether those answers were ones he would be able to do anything with. In the time he had spent trying to understand his mother, trying to understand her motivations, he had not been able to uncover anything. There had to be something more, but any attempt to use spirit on her had failed, though given her own strength of spirit, that wasn’t entirely surprising.

  It wasn’t spirit that he thought was the real problem. It was her time within the Convergence that had changed something within her, making her less than she had been.

  “If she’s only able to shape spirit, perhaps it wouldn’t have mattered.”

  “I think she can shape the other elements, though not as strongly as some.”

  They fell into silence, heading across the rock. After a while, the ground changed, leading them downward. From the edge of the waste, it was difficult to know the contours of the land, and coming here now, the way the land seemed to shift surprised Tolan as it brought them down and down. A deep valley formed and then stretched onward.

  By the time they reached the bottom, they both were panting and they paused to take a sip of water.

  He attempted to use earth, attempting the sensing, but there was nothing out there he was able to sense. It was times like these when he was far more aware of what he was missing, the absence of the connection to the elements—and the elementals. At least on the other side of the border, he had those connections, and he had the belief that he could use them in order to better tie into what they needed to do. In this case, without having them, Tolan wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to have to do, only that he and Ferrah would keep trudging forward.