He could shape here.
And it was more than just his ability to shape here, but his ability to connect to the elementals, and to use the bondars, and to reach for the power of the Convergence. Because of that, he had to wonder if all of this was part of some grand plan of hers.
Only… It wasn’t her plan.
Tolan frowned, focusing on what he could detect, and reached for Ferrah.
Drawing through that strange connection to hyza, reaching for his own ability to shape, he bound the elements together, adding spirit, and with a flash of lightning, transported them back to Amitan.
17
The sudden change was jarring. Element and elemental energy pressed upon Tolan, surging through him in a way that left him staggering. He stumbled forward on the rooftop of the Academy, trying to suppress the nearly overwhelming sense of power that blasted through him. It was something he could scarcely hold onto, a sense of energy that was beyond anything he had experienced before.
“It’s too much,” Ferrah moaned.
He blinked open his eyes to see her lying on the ground, curled up, trembling.
“Just try to relax,” a voice said.
Who was that?
Tolan looked up, trying to focus on who was there, whether there was any reason for them to be concerned, but it was only Master Minden.
He let out a sigh, pushing back and down on the sudden sense of the elements and elementals that was threatening to overcome him. It was all around, more than he was able to withstand.
Master Minden was there, tapping him on the side, trying to comfort him.
“Ferrah,” he said.
The librarian nodded, turning to Ferrah, and spirit seeped out of her.
Tolan was far more acutely aware of the sense of spirit than he had been before. He suspected it was because of the change, the suddenness of the transition, but he didn’t know if that was the case or not. It was equally possible something had happened while they were away. He had bonded to hyza after all, whatever that might mean.
Gradually, he was able to tamp down the sense that rolled through him, trying to find a peace, but even as he did, it was almost too much for him to bear.
“What happened?” Master Minden asked.
Tolan looked over at Ferrah. She appeared to be resting, her eyes closed, her breathing steady. She was calm and hopefully recovering.
“Was that because of the transition from having no sense of the elements to having nothing but a sense of the elements?”
“It can be unsettling,” Master Minden said.
“I wasn’t expecting anything quite like that,” he said.
“Most who transition from the waste do so gradually. They step out of it, and there is a threshold. As a student, few are aware of the nature of that threshold, and few can recognize how it gradually allows them an increased connection to the elements again. In your case, having traveled on that warrior shaping, you bypassed that threshold.”
“I was able to shape on the waste.”
“It worked?”
He nodded slowly. “It did, but I think we were wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“About the Convergence.” Tolan told Master Minden what he had encountered, the twisted elementals, the Guardians around the Convergence, and his feeling his mother had guided him. Through it all, she stood for a moment with her fingers pressed together, her lips pressed into a tight frown.
When he was done, she nodded. “Help me with Master Changen.”
Tolan lifted Ferrah and carried her into the Academy. Master Minden guided him to one of the rooms, though not one they would have used prior to the attack that had destroyed a section of the Academy. When he settled her on the bed, he brushed hair away from her forehead. “How long will she sleep?”
“As long as she needs. We can wait until she comes around, or we can speak now.”
Ferrah would likely want him to wait until she awoke. She wanted to be a part of it, and given her knowledge and skill, he wanted her to be a part of it as well.
“Will it harm her if we wake her now?”
Master Minden shook her head. “Nothing more than what has already occurred. It’s really the transition that’s the hardest. Sleeping allows a more natural recovery, and in time, I suspect she would have rebounded regardless, but I thought to ease it for her.”
Master Minden touched Ferrah on the forehead. There was another hint of spirit shaping trickling out, and when it struck Ferrah, she took in a slow breath before opening her eyes.
Ferrah sat up, looking around.
“How long was I out?”
Tolan shook his head. “Only a few moments. We returned, and Master Minden was there to help you.”
She sighed. “I thought maybe you had gone away again.”
“Not this time,” he said. He looked over at Master Minden. “Is there a good place for us to talk?”
“You don’t think this would be ideal?” She asked it with a hint of a smile and motioned for them to follow.
As Tolan helped Ferrah off the bed, she looked down, almost as if she didn’t trust she had only been out for a few moments before following him down the hallway. He paused as he looked at the portraits, once again seeing more painting along them than he had before. Each time he came through here, something seemed to change. Occasionally, it was added details to one of the paintings, and other times entire paintings appearing to him that hadn’t before.
There were only a few that he was not able to adequately see quite yet.
Within those few, he had to wonder if there was something more he needed to learn before he would be able to see what existed in them.
Master Minden continued along the hallway, waiting for them at the end near the stairs.
“Did you find anything new?”
“Did you expect I might?”
She sent her gaze skimming along the portraits. “It’s difficult to tell. I’ve spent considerable time in these halls, and each time I pass through here, I feel as if I pick up on a new detail. Perhaps that’s little more than my imagination, but I think something changes for me each time.”
“Mine definitely are changing,” he said.
“What do you see?” Ferrah asked.
“A change in the paintings,” he said.
“Paintings? I thought these were just blank canvas.” She glanced from Tolan to Master Minden. “I’ve often wondered why you spent so much time in here.”
“You don’t see anything?” Tolan asked.
“There’s nothing to see.”
“Perhaps in time, there will be. You’re now a master shaper, so it is possible you will develop enough of a connection enabling you to see what is to be seen here.”
Master Minden made her way down the stairs, and Ferrah took his wrist.
“What do you see?”
“The first time I came here, I didn’t see much. I thought the portraits were much like what you see, but each time I come, there’s more detail revealed.”
“How is that even possible?”
“I’m not really sure, to be honest. I think it has something to do with how they were painted and who painted them.” He hadn’t given enough thought to that, but he did believe there was something tied to the painters. The portraits were old, all of them incredibly ancient, and made during a time when the elementals were still free. It was within those portraits that he felt a sense of energy and power, and he felt as if there was something there that he could find if only he could grasp what it was.
“Most of them depict the elementals.”
“Maybe that’s why I can’t see it,” Ferrah said softly. “Maybe they don’t want me to see them.”
“I’m not sure that’s it,” Tolan said.
“Really? I haven’t given the elementals nearly the same consideration you have. I think they don’t view me in the same way as they view you.”
“I wonder if it’s possible for you to have a connection to them.”
“I d
on’t know if I want one.”
“Even after everything we’ve seen together?”
“I don’t know,” Ferrah said.
Her gaze lingered on the paintings for a moment, and Tolan considered staying here with her before deciding to pull her along with him. Master Minden needed to know what they had seen and experienced, and they needed to talk through what else they would need to do.
When they reached the main level of the Academy, he expected to find Master Minden waiting for them, but she wasn’t there.
Tolan used a hint of spirit, questing out with it, and as he did, he detected her farther down the stairs.
That was unusual.
He nodded to Ferrah and they continued down the staircase, descending into the depths of the Academy.
They had held Daniels in this part of the Academy, keeping him trapped while he was questioned. That wasn’t where Master Minden guided them.
An ornate doorway blocked him as he followed her sense. The wood was heavily oiled, and the runes on the surface marked each of the elements. There were other carvings along the door that took Tolan a few more moments to identify. Elementals.
There were many of them.
He pressed his hand on the door, testing it to see if there was a shaping within it, but he detected nothing.
It was unlocked, and once he stepped through, a massive room spread out in front of them. He froze in place. It had a high ceiling, easily twice his height, and the stone was almost perfectly smooth. Shaped stone. Markings along the walls reminded him of something from his vision with hyza, symbols and runes that filled the space.
Tolan’s breath caught as he looked around.
All of this was considerable power.
There were shelves lining one end of the room, and a table occupied the center of it, with chairs around it. More paintings hung on the free walls, all of them faint and faded, something a little bit more difficult for him to see. Small orbs set into the walls served as lanterns, shaped light drifting from them.
Master Minden waited near the table.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“You have been asking about the Circle,” she said.
“I have been, but you have said that we—”
She waved her hand. “I thought we could avoid bringing you too far into the Circle, but unfortunately it seems as if that is not to be. Now you’re master shapers…”
That had been what she’d been waiting for. “This is within the Academy?”
“It’s easy enough for us to reach. Very few people come to the lower levels. Nearby, as I suppose you recall, are the prisons, though they aren’t occupied all that often.”
“Not that often,” Tolan said.
Master Minden smiled sadly at him. “Ah, yes. Your own Inquisition. Think about what you learned during that Inquisition.”
“Are you really arguing that I benefited from it?”
“You benefit from all experiences, Master Ethar. Even painful ones. Perhaps especially then.”
He glanced back at the door, having not noticed it had swung closed on its own. As he looked, it started to open again, and the Grand Master appeared. He looked thin and frail, almost as if he had been through some sort of torment in the time since Tolan had seen him last. It hadn’t been all that long, but still, Tolan had a sense he had suffered.
“I received the summons, Asmane.”
“We will wait for the others,” Master Minden said.
“Others?” Ferrah mouthed to Tolan.
He shrugged.
“I can only surmise this has something to do with the return of Master Ethar and Master Changen?”
Master Minden nodded. “They returned from the waste.”
“I can see that.”
“You can, but it’s the way they returned from the waste that is important.”
“Could you do it?” the Grand Master asked, turning to Tolan.
“I could shape,” he said.
“You could,” he said, breathing out. “None has ever been able to shape out on the waste. What was it like?”
“We should wait,” Master Minden said.
“Who else are you expecting?”
“There are others who should arrive.”
The door opened and his grandmother entered. Irina looked at him, flicking her gaze from him to Ferrah before turning to Master Minden and then the Grand Master. She said nothing as she strode into the room, taking a seat at the table.
That meant one other.
Everyone here so far was somebody Tolan had already known or suspected was a part of the Circle of Warriors. There were more chairs around the table than people, and if they were only waiting for one more, then he had to wonder why.
Were no others expected to come?
Still, he waited.
Ferrah stayed near him, and neither of them spoke. It was almost as if the silence were necessary, though Master Minden and the Grand Master were speaking softly to each other on the far side of the room. Every so often, one of them would look in their direction.
The door didn’t open again.
Master Minden finally cleared her throat, turning to the table. “I thought…” She shook her head. “Perhaps it doesn’t matter what I thought. All that matters is that we have who is here. We need to discuss matters of the Circle.”
“Does it need to be quite so formal?” Irina asked.
“In this case, I believe it does. Master Ethar has returned from the waste, and he brings troubling news.”
“Why is it troubling?” Irina asked.
“We have long believed the waste is tied to a place of power, and when we started learning about how that power has been corrupted, we began to think there was a possibility we could restore it. What Tolan brings to us is news that perhaps that is not the case.”
She turned to him, leveling her gaze on him, and waited.
The other two glanced in his direction.
Tolan cleared his throat nervously before telling them about the Guardians and the Convergence, adding toward the end what he had detected of the twisted elemental.
He wasn’t sure how that news would be taken. That was the part of it worrying him the most. The people in this room, these people, understood his view about the elementals, but he didn’t know if they shared it. Master Minden did. He had even begun to think that perhaps the Grand Master shared his understanding of the elementals. The one he didn’t really know was his grandmother. Would Irina view the elementals as creatures worth saving and protecting?
“If the Convergence isn’t the way she grasped power, it means there’s something else,” Irina said.
Tolan nodded. “That was my thinking too. She kept telling me I was needed for something, and I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. Even now, I don’t really know what exactly it was. Only, when I was out there, focusing on the sense of the waste, I began to question whether or not what she wanted from me was some way of being able to detect the Convergence out there.”
“Why would she need the Convergence?” Irina asked.
“Possibly the same reason she’s been pursuing the Convergences all around Terndahl.”
“We have uncovered several of them, but there are bound to be more,” Irina said.
That was Tolan’s suspicion as well. The more he learned about the Convergences and how often they were found, the way they were connected to the world and the sense of spirit, along with that of the other elements, the more he began to think places like that couldn’t be all that rare. Perhaps they had believed they were rare, and the ones beneath Amitan and the Academy were isolated, but he had now visited three of them, and Irina knew of two others.
“That doesn’t answer who she’s been working with,” the Grand Master said.
“It’s possible she isn’t working with anyone else,” Irina said.
“There has to be someone else,” Tolan said.
They all turned toward him, looking in his direction, and he glanced at Ferrah. A wor
ried expression crossed her face, and though he couldn’t read what she was trying to get at, he could feel through his connection to spirit that there was uncertainty within her.
That was a new connection for him. Not spirit, necessarily, but the ability to detect any emotion because of spirit. Why would he suddenly be so aware of that from her?
“I think of what she said when she was captured here. Something suggested to me that she not only was working with someone else, but they have something greater planned.”
“Greater than tainting the Convergences?” Irina asked.
Tolan frowned. It had to be more than that, didn’t it?
He thought about what he knew about the Convergences, and the way she had attempted to taint them. He thought about what he knew from the way she had influenced shapers, first in Ephra and then other places, possibly influencing even other Inquisitors. He even thought about what he knew from what she had done while trying to twist the place of Convergence.
There had to be some purpose behind it.
“The elementals,” he said.
“What?” Ferrah asked.
“The elementals. We encountered just one of the tainted elementals, but the Draasin Lord suggested there were others. That’s what this has been about.”
“If she was trying to twist elementals, there would’ve been an opportunity to do so before,” Ferrah said.
“What are the two of you getting on about?” Irina asked.
Tolan turned toward the others. “When we were in the waste, we detected a twisted elemental. It was the only one, but I have a sense there were others. The Draasin Lord suggested to us it was twisted by its exposure to the waste, and it wasn’t able to tolerate that, but I have to wonder if perhaps there was something more to it.”
“You think your mother is somehow responsible for twisting the elementals?” The Grand Master asked.
“Perhaps indirectly. Or perhaps even directly.” Tolan thought about what he knew and what his experience had been.
Maybe she really was responsible for that.
“There might be a way to find out.”
The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6) Page 17
