The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  The pressure of other shapings suddenly sprang around him, and Tolan looked around as three master shapers appeared. One was Master Sartan. Tolan was pleased to see him, and even more pleased when his fire shaping began, pressing down on the Shapers Path, suppressing whatever it was Tolan had done.

  The other two were shapers Tolan didn’t know. They worked with Master Sartan as they suppressed the elemental, squeezing it back into the path. When they were done, one glanced down at the fallen form, the figure Tolan had attacked with his fire elemental shaping. He grabbed one and the other shaper grabbed the other, nodding at Master Sartan before shaping themselves away, disappearing on a flutter of wind mixed with flames.

  Master Sartan turned to Tolan. Anger raged on his face and he twisted his hand as he shaped, and Ferrah let out a heavy sigh.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

  “We were following the—”

  “I know what you were following. What do you think you were doing, chasing power like that? You are still first-year students in the Academy. You are far too untrained for anything like that.”

  “Anything like what?” All Tolan knew was they had been attacked by some incredibly powerful shapers, but not who they were or why they had attacked.

  Master Sartan motioned for them to follow him. He stalked along the Shapers Path, and as he went, shaping spread before him, smoothing out the Shapers Path in areas Tolan hadn’t realized were damaged. Parts of it were gouged, as if the fire shaping had significantly damaged it, but after Master Sartan was done, it was completely smooth, leaving the path once again intact. He guided them quickly through the city, circling around the upper level. Every so often, Tolan would glance over at Ferrah, who shook her head, almost as if afraid to say anything. From above, the city looked no different than it did at any other time. There was activity throughout, with shaped wagons and merchants carting things through the city. Thousands of people made their way through the streets, looking so small from this high up. Buildings protruded, pointing toward the Shapers Path, and only the Academy came close to reaching it. Even the central capital building was not nearly as massive or impressive as the Academy.

  When they neared the Academy, Master Sartan shaped himself down, and he wrapped both Tolan and Ferrah with a band of wind, pulling them down with him. They landed in the courtyard more roughly than Tolan thought was appropriate or necessary, but he didn’t say anything, not wanting to further anger the master. They hurried into the Academy, sweeping past students, and Tolan caught sight of Draln, who eyed them with amusement.

  They followed the hallway before reaching a small staircase along the back of the Academy, a place Tolan had never visited. Master Sartan hurried up the stairs, a band of a wind shaping still wrapped around Tolan and Ferrah. He could do nothing against it.

  He didn’t want to argue, and didn’t dare resist without knowing what Master Sartan intended. A part of him feared Master Sartan had realized what Tolan had done, that he had released an elemental, but if he did, he expected the master would’ve said something more. Instead, he reached a small doorway and knocked.

  After a moment, the door opened and Grand Master Erich Normandale stood on the other side.

  The Grand Master was smaller than most, and the hallway made him appear even more diminutive. Behind thick spectacles, he had a gaze filled with so much power, that when he looked at Tolan and that power rested on him, it left Tolan unsettled.

  “What is this?” the Grand Master asked.

  “There was an attack,” Master Sartan said.

  “Who?”

  “Disciples of the Draasin Lord.”

  Tolan and Ferrah looked at each other, sharing a glance. Those had been disciples of the Draasin Lord?

  He had only a little experience with people who followed the Draasin Lord. All he knew was that they chased the elementals for power, seeking to control them, pulling them from the element bonds so they could lord over them and rule both elementals and shapers. The Draasin Lord was the worst of them all, wanting the kind of power he shouldn’t be able to obtain, but supposedly far more powerful than nearly any other living shaper.

  “Are you sure?” the Grand Master asked.

  “You can ask these two. They raced off to confront them.”

  The Grand Master turned his attention to both Tolan and Ferrah, studying them intently. He had seen the way the Grand Master had disarmed Jory when they had faced him in the Convergence, leaving Tolan wondering just how powerful he was.

  “Close the door,” he said, nodding to Master Sartan.

  Tolan trailed after the Grand Master, looking around what presumably was his office. It was enormous, with rows and rows of shelves around the room, books Tolan suspected were either too valuable or too dangerous to be held in the library stacked on the shelves. A table in the center of the room held strange-looking devices, some reminding him of bondars. Two plants were situated either side of the table, planted in enormous ceramic pots, their leaves twisting as the branches strained toward imagined light. Near the back of the room was a chalice that stood nearly as tall as Tolan. He couldn’t see it clearly, but a silvery liquid seemed to reflect outward, a liquid remindeing him of what he’d seen at the Convergence.

  “What did you experience?” the Grand Master asked.

  Tolan turned his attention back to the Grand Master. He had taken a seat behind an enormous desk and rested his hands on the surface, holding Tolan and Ferrah with that heavy gaze of his, his eyes demanding an answer.

  “There was a shaped explosion,” Tolan started. There was no point in denying what he had sensed, especially as he suspected the Grand Master knew quite a bit more about him than he had wanted known. Could he even know about Tolan’s connection to the elementals? It was possible he did, especially if he had been speaking to Master Minden. “I wasn’t sure what it was, but I—”

  “You detected an explosion and chased after it. A shaped explosion at that.” The Grand Master stared at Tolan.

  Sweat beaded on Tolan’s brow and he wanted to shrink away, to disappear and be anywhere but here. He had survived the attack and had stopped them with Ferrah’s help. Shouldn’t they be treated with a little bit more respect than this?

  But then, Master Sartan was right in that neither had thought it out. Mostly, it had been Tolan. He hadn’t given it the necessary thought, and shouldn’t have run after the explosion of power, especially without any real shaping to fall back on.

  “I wasn’t sure what it was, and before we said anything, I thought we should—”

  The Grand Master leaned forward. “You thought you would chase after a shaped explosion. The same way you chased after an elemental both here and in your homeland.” The words lingered in the air and the Grand Master leaned back, flicking his gaze to Ferrah. “And you brought another with you. Shaper Changen has considerable talent, and I would hate to see it wasted sacrificing herself against a disciple before she was ready.”

  “She didn’t—”

  “I went with him willingly,” Ferrah said, glaring briefly at Tolan. “He needed help, and as he’s my friend, I thought it was best I helped to ensure he didn’t get into too much trouble.”

  “And did you get into too much trouble?” the Grand Master asked.

  “They were powerful shapers,” Tolan said. “They were able to dismiss every shaping we had.”

  “I’m not surprised they would be able to do so, Shaper Ethar. And while Shaper Changen is quite talented, even she doesn’t have the same talent as the disciples, at least not yet. Perhaps in time and with training, she might develop it. So might you, Shaper Ethar.”

  “There were three attacks,” Master Sartan said. “Each of them was targeting the Shapers Path, and had they not intervened, the path might have been destroyed.”

  The Grand Master looked past Tolan to Master Sartan, and Tolan shifted in his seat, wanting nothing more than to turn and look back at the master fire shaper, but decided against it.
He was already in enough trouble as it was, and the idea of angering the Grand Master was not something he wanted to do. He had already upset him, so needed to be careful.

  “Were you able to restore it?”

  “I restored most of the section where they were. There will need to be quite a bit of work done on the other two sections, but they were able to prevent the entire structure from collapsing.”

  “Good.”

  “They were using elementals to attack,” Master Sartan said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I saw one. An earth elemental.”

  “An earth elemental on the Shapers Path?” the Grand Master asked.

  “From what it appeared. We suppressed the elemental, but it was not easy. It was incredibly powerful, even there.” Master Sartan took a step forward, positioning himself between Ferrah and Tolan, who were sitting on two hard wooden chairs. Tolan glanced up but couldn’t read Master Sartan’s face. “There was another elemental, though we didn’t see it. There was evidence of fire that could only come from a fire elemental.”

  “Did they unleash it?” the Grand Master asked.

  “I will search, myself,” Master Sartan said.

  “There was no fire elemental released,” Tolan said.

  He didn’t want Master Sartan wandering out and searching for the elemental, and most certainly didn’t want Master Sartan to come across the elemental Tolan had seen when out with Marcella. He still didn’t know what his connection to the elementals might be, but it wasn’t one where he was in danger from them. They had power, but then again, he seemed to have some connection to them. Maybe not control. That seemed to be too much to believe, but definitely a connection.

  “How certain are you of this?” the Grand Master asked.

  “They had a fire elemental, but it disappeared. They made it disappear.” Tolan tried to clarify it at the end, worried it would sound almost as if the elemental had run off.

  “Do what you must,” the Grand Master said, nodding to Master Sartan.

  “What of them?”

  “Leave them with me. I have a few more things I will talk to them about.”

  Master Sartan glanced at Tolan and then at Ferrah before striding out of the room, leaving them sitting there, watching the Grand Master.

  Moments passed before the Grand Master spoke again. “I can’t decide if that was incredibly brave or incredibly stupid,” he said.

  “Stupid,” Ferrah said softly.

  “I was just trying to—”

  “I know what you were trying to do, but as you are untrained, and with intermittent connection to your shapings, from what I hear, I’m not sure you were the best person to approach this situation. Then again, had you not intervened, it’s possible the disciples would have succeeded. They planned this well. First drawing our most talented shapers away from the city and now focusing here.”

  The Grand Master leaned back, steepling his fingers together.

  Tolan shifted in his chair under the weight of the Grand Master’s gaze. There was almost a sense of a shaping, but he wasn’t sure what kind of shaping it would be. If he was shaping him with spirit, would it work against him?

  “Why is it important for the Shapers Path to be intact?” Ferrah asked.

  The Grand Master glanced over at her. “That’s what you’d like to focus on?”

  “Marcella told me there have been more elemental attacks since we were out in the waste, so I understand that part. Why attack the way they did?” Tolan could feel Ferrah’s gaze on him, almost trying to silence him. “The attack was focused on the Shapers Path. Why is that important? It seems as if Master Sartan intended to repair it quickly. Aren’t the paths for people who can’t shape?”

  The Grand Master leaned back and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The Shapers Path is mostly for those who cannot shape, and it allows others to navigate through our city more effectively than they would be able if we didn’t have the Shapers Path, but it serves another purpose, one few who aren’t elevated through the Academy know about.”

  “What purpose is that?” Tolan asked.

  “It’s one that provides protection.”

  “What kind of protection?” Ferrah asked.

  “The Shapers Path is designed to create a barrier over Amitan. It does several things, but what’s applicable in this sense is that it helps protect those who live within it, and it allows us to train here without the risk of attack we might face otherwise.”

  “There has to be more reason than that for the disciples of the Draasin Lord to have attacked it,” Ferrah said.

  “Ferrah,” Tolan hissed.

  She glanced over at him. “There has to be, Tolan. The Grand Master is saying something, but there has to be some reason behind it.”

  He thought she was right. If the barrier the Shapers Path formed created a protection within the city, could it not also serve another role that had to do with the Convergence?

  The Grand Master watched him, seemingly ignoring Ferrah.

  Was this some sort of test? Did the Grand Master know he hadn’t been spirit-shaped?

  “Is this about Jory?” he asked softly. It was a nonspecific way of broaching the subject, and if nothing else, it would allow the Grand Master to acknowledge what might have been taking place without needing to inform Ferrah. The only problem was that by asking, he suspected Ferrah would realize there was more to what was taking place than she knew.

  The Grand Master stared at him for a long moment. Something in his gaze shifted, and Tolan felt a stirring within him that he pushed back against.

  That had to be a spirit shaping.

  “Selector Harris probably managed to get word out about what he discovered,” the Grand Master said.

  “And if that’s why the disciples attack?”

  “Possibly, though we have dealt with attacks from the disciples of the Draasin Lord in the past. It wouldn’t be the first time, though rarely do they manage to get so close to Amitan. For the most part, we have other ways of preventing them from reaching us, so we are quite protected here in the city. If they have somehow found a way of getting past those barriers, we need to be even more cautious.”

  “Why would they increase their attacks?” Ferrah asked.

  Tolan looked over, hating that he had kept from her what he knew of the Convergence, but the same time, maybe the Grand Master would reveal its presence, and he would no longer have to keep things from her.

  “And who is this Selector Harris?”

  “He’s someone who has betrayed us,” the Grand Master said.

  “And how was Tolan involved?”

  “Selector Harris is the Selector who brought Shaper Ethar to the city. They are connected, and because of that connection, we investigated all other connections Selector Harris was involved in.”

  Tolan’s heart sank. It would’ve been so much easier had the Grand Master been willing to admit what had taken place, but it seemed as if he was going to keep that to himself. This meant Tolan would have to keep from Ferrah the truth of the Convergence.

  “Does it have anything to do with the memories I’m missing?” Ferrah asked.

  The Grand Master shifted his gaze to Ferrah, staring at her. “Interesting.” He chuckled. “Rarely do we have so many with such potential.”

  “What is this about?” Ferrah asked.

  “I believe, Shaper Changen, you already know.”

  Her eyes widened and she leaned forward. “The Convergence?” she whispered.

  The Grand Master nodded. “Unfortunately, it seems as if word of the Convergence has managed to escape, and now the disciples of the Draasin Lord are after it.”

  6

  In the week since the appearance of the disciples of the Draasin Lord, Tolan hadn’t seen Ferrah very often. She was present in class and would return to the room late at night, but typically well after everyone else had gone to bed and been asleep. He didn’t try to find her after the first few days, realizing she wanted her
space. What he wanted was an opportunity to explain, but she wasn’t interested in that, and Tolan couldn’t blame her, as he had kept things from her.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” Jonas asked on the evening of the fifth day following the events on the Shapers Path. He sat perched on the edge of his bed, chewing on a hunk of bread, glancing at Ferrah’s empty bunk. Wallace wasn’t in the room, either, and Tolan was thankful Jonas had waited until it was just the two of them to ask.

  “Ferrah is upset with me about something.”

  Jonas grunted and tossed the remains of his roll at Tolan. “You think? I was hoping for something more specific than that, but if you’re going to be an ass about it, then maybe I’ll go ask her.”

  Tolan glanced at the door, but there was no movement on the other side. “It has to do with the attack the other day.”

  “You mean the one you once again ran toward and had another opportunity to see an elemental?”

  “That one,” Tolan said. He wanted to argue, but there wasn’t any point in it, as he had done exactly as Jonas said. What was it with him running toward danger? It wasn’t that he felt particularly brave, but at the same time, he always felt as if he needed to respond, even if there were others who could do as good a job. “There were disciples of the Draasin Lord attacking.”

  Jonas tensed. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “Because I was told not to,” he said.

  “And why are you telling me now?”

  “I didn’t realize Ferrah would be so angry with me and wouldn’t talk to me for the next week.”

  “This all has to do with you dragging her in with you?”

  “Partly.” He flicked his gaze to the door again, but there was still no activity. “But it has more to do with the reason behind the attack.”

  “Why do I get the sense you’re not going to tell me?”

  “Because the Grand Master doesn’t want me to,” Tolan said.

  “He doesn’t want you to tell me in particular?”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to know.”

  “Then why do you know?”