The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

“If that’s what you’re doing, that would be an incredibly complicated shaping. And if you’re shaping an elemental into existence, maybe that’s not something you should be attempting.”

  “None stays” he said, but the memory of the draasin came to him and he wondered if maybe he should say something about it to Ferrah. He had very nearly drawn a draasin into the world. While he didn’t know if it was real or not, the power surging from it had felt real enough.

  “Even if they don’t stay, I worry what this means,” she said.

  “Like I said, none of them stays.”

  “Is that what you’ve been doing out here?” She turned to him, her arms crossed over her chest, and she frowned. “Have you been spending your time out here trying to reach each of the elementals, using the knowledge within the books Master Minden gave you?”

  “Not entirely,” he said.

  “Tolan!”

  “I’m trying to see what sort of shaping I might be able to do,” he said.

  “What if you’re not shaping at all? What if what you are doing is drawing elementals? We’ve seen how dangerous they can be.”

  Tolan had expected this argument and didn’t know how he would justify what he’d been doing, especially not to Ferrah. She was a traditionalist, and he worried he would have to explain himself more, but at the same time, she also had an open mind; with her interest regarding the strange powers found in Par, he wondered if perhaps she might be more open to the possibility he had some unique method of shaping.

  “We’ve gone through this,” he said.

  “I know we’ve gone through this, but I just didn’t realize.”

  “I know you didn’t realize, and I know you were thinking I was doing nothing more than imagining elementals. This is my shaping.”

  She continued to stare. “How did you shape in the wind classroom?”

  “I used a shaping through the bondar,” he said.

  “No. How did you shape? Did you use this connection to the elementals?”

  Tolan didn’t want to deceive her. She deserved that much, and especially deserved him telling her that his ability to shape came from the elementals, but she looked at him with an expression reminding him of the way people had looked at him when he was younger. It was the same expression others within the city had worn, the one that cried out that he was a follower of the Draasin Lord.

  “Tolan?”

  “It was the elemental. The more we study them, the more I’ve realized the elementals represent the aspects of shaping the master shapers are trying to teach us. Think about it. Today, we were asked to use a shaping so similar to the elemental foye. How else do you think I was able to overpower your shaping?”

  “Well, I had thought you were shaping, not realizing you were summoning elementals.”

  “I was shaping, but at the same time, also connecting to what I know of the elementals.”

  She looked at him for a while before turning her attention to the sculpture once more. “Can you show me another?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think I need to see another.”

  “No judgments?”

  “I can’t promise that, but I will try to understand.”

  He nodded. As he commenced shaping the next one, he again focused on fire. He used fire for several reasons, not least being that he felt as if he had the most control over it. This time, he focused on smoke, letting the elemental fill the air with traces of steam, rising higher and higher as it swirled around the outside of the tower before dissipating.

  “I’m not familiar with that one,” she whispered.

  “Sure, you are. That’s one Master Sartan has taught us. Esalash.”

  “I didn’t realize it was the same elemental. What he talked about in class is not nearly as potent.”

  “What is talked about in class isn’t the same. That’s what I’ve been trying to say. I don’t think the elementals they’ve been teaching us about are the same as the elementals this book has.”

  “Why wouldn’t the master shapers know about the elementals in the book?”

  “Maybe they do, or maybe their knowledge is different because they’ve never seen them before.”

  “Maybe you’re only creating an image of an elemental the way you’ve seen it in the book,” she said.

  Tolan shrugged. “That’s entirely possible.” He didn’t think so. When he imagined the elemental, he focused mostly on the power in the connection to the element, not so much on the shape of the elemental itself. That seemed to come naturally, suggesting whatever it was he did was real, it came from the power of the elemental and not so much from anything he actually did.

  “What else can you show me?”

  “I’ve spent quite a bit of time working with various elementals,” he said. “Some of them are exactly what you’d expect, but some are unusual. Not all are the way we were taught.”

  He focused on earth, calling one elemental after another. The ground shifted, rumbling as elemental after elemental surged forward, revealing itself. There was a part of Tolan that wanted nothing more than to show off, to reveal to her the various elementals he could summon, and as he worked, he held them for a moment before releasing them.

  “None of those looks like what I was expecting,” she whispered.

  “What were you expecting?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I was expecting something else. The fact you have summoned this makes me wonder what else you might be able to summon.”

  He met her gaze. He knew of her interest in the draasin, and knew that with the spirit shaping, she had forgotten what had happened at the Convergence. It was something she had longed to see.

  “There’s something else I can show you, but…”

  “But what?”

  “But I worry I don’t have the necessary control over it,” he said.

  “Why wouldn’t you have the right control?”

  “Because it’s the only elemental I felt as if it took on a life of its own.”

  She gasped. “The draasin.”

  He nodded. “When I try this, one of the elementals I attempted was the draasin. I… I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted to see if all elementals would work with this place.”

  “And?”

  “And it worked,” Tolan said.

  “What do you mean, it worked?”

  “What I mean is when I was focusing on the draasin, I saw it.”

  “You saw one?”

  He decided not to say anything about seeing a draasin when they were at the Convergence. That one had been larger than the one he had focused on, but then, the one he had accidentally started to summon had started off small and continued to grow. If he had lost control of it, it would continue growing, and he worried what would have happened at that point.

  “I summoned one,” he said.

  “Can you show me?” she whispered.

  It was the first time she said it without any hesitation. There was no sense of judgment, only a yearning.

  It was the same yearning Tolan understood. It was the yearning he had experienced when he had begun to pull upon the sense of shaping, the sense that had allowed him to reach for wind and then water. It was a yearning that filled him, one that left him compelled to continue to try to shape. It was that yearning that drew to him, demanding he try again and again. It was that yearning, that desire to understand, that had compelled him to try to reach for power he had never known.

  Ferrah deserved to know what that was like.

  He started to shape.

  Fire came so easily to him these days, but more so in this place. As he shaped fire, feeling the stirring deep within him, latching onto that sense of warmth that came with it, he focused on the image of the draasin, thinking of the characteristics that made it unique. That was what was required for the summoning, and as he focused, as he drew upon that power, he continued to feel the stirring.

  When Ferrah gasped, he realized something was happening.

&
nbsp; Tolan looked around, and it wasn’t until he looked up that he realized the draasin—small as it was in this first, earliest stage—was beginning to form. It took shape over his head, small at first but gradually beginning to elongate, and then it spread its wings.

  Its wings were enormous. From there, Tolan continued to push power, though letting it flow from him in a steady trickle, careful, afraid if he unleashed too much, he would release the draasin. He was afraid of doing that, afraid of that power, and afraid of that elemental. The others didn’t worry him the same way the draasin did.

  Perhaps that was a mistake on his part. Maybe he should be more afraid of the other elementals, as there were plenty of others tied to the other element bonds that were equally powerful, as noble and frightening and terrifying as the draasin.

  He thought about what they had experienced on the edge of the waste, the power that had taken over a dozen master shapers, and that power had been mostly earth and wind and water. There was no power of the draasin within it, and even that power had been terrifying.

  “It’s magnificent,” Ferrah said.

  Tolan eased back on his connection, not wanting to push too much strength into it, but even as he eased back, he felt the power drawn from him.

  It was the same thing he had felt before, the same sort of power he had experienced when he had attempted to call to the draasin, and much like then, the connection to it was incredible, the kind of power that attempted to steal from him, to unlock the power of fire, to force its way free.

  “Ferrah—”

  Tolan grabbed her arm and pulled her back toward the wall. He released his connection to the shaping, but as before, the draasin continued to hover in place, the wings continuing to spread. The sides of the draasin continued to expand, more and more power flowing into it. The creature was becoming enormous.

  Now it was easily as large as Tolan, and was not done growing. The wings were each the size of his entire body. And the draasin moved them, flapping them in the air, and heat slowly filled the space around them. Tolan tried to tamp down his connection to fire, pushing it deep within him, but it continued to surge. Everything he did to resist the draasin growing and flowing failed.

  Ferrah cried out.

  Tolan grabbed her and raced toward the wall. He climbed up on it, and once he was there, he tried to push down the sense of fire, trying to push away the shaping, but it continued to come, practically drawn from him, as if demanded by the power of the shaping.

  There was nothing Tolan could do to stop it. It continued to flow from him, and everything he did, every attempt to push that power down, failed.

  Ferrah began shaping. It pulsed toward the center of the clearing, toward the sculpture, but it wasn’t successful.

  “What did you do?”

  “This is what happened the last time,” he whispered.

  “Then why did you try again?”

  “Because you wanted to see the draasin.”

  “Are you freeing a draasin from the element bond?”

  “I… I don’t know.”

  Tolan tried to sever the connection, but it continued to build, rising within him. He heaved against it, trying to force it back, but the power surged.

  Ferrah started shaping, pushing earth, mixing water, and the combination wasn’t enough. Tolan decided to try the same thing, adding a shaping of earth, feeling that surge within him, focusing on that stirring.

  The draasin stabilized.

  “I don’t know if I can stop this,” he said.

  “We have to stop it,” she said. “If you are somehow releasing this creature, we need to stop it.”

  Tolan stared at it. It continued to get larger and larger. With each passing moment, he could feel the heat rising. If he did nothing, would there be any way of suppressing it without going to the masters?

  “Can you help?” he asked.

  “I’ve been trying.” Shaping built from her again, this time focused on the draasin. She used a combination of earth and water, mixing in a hint of wind. “Nothing seems to work.”

  “Maybe this isn’t even real,” he said. And yet, the longer he stared at it, watching as the draasin continued to appear, the more he felt there was something quite real about it.

  And here he had thought Jory was the one who would release one of the draasin, but no—it would be him. All because he had wanted to show Ferrah, thinking after everything she had done to try and know what they were like, she deserved this opportunity.

  “Why isn’t it retreating?” he asked.

  “I haven’t been able to get anything to work on it,” Ferrah said. She continued to shape, but she had retreated to the other side of the wall and now was shaping across it. Tolan knew that wouldn’t be effective.

  As he watched, the draasin set off circling.

  20

  Tolan took a step back, moving toward the wall, and as he did, his heart continued to pound. The draasin swirled, circling, continuing to move toward them. Much longer, and the draasin would reach the edge of the park, and Tolan feared what would happen if it managed to break free.

  The draasin swooped toward him.

  Tolan ducked, rolling, forced away from the wall and out toward the center of the clearing once again.

  He wasn’t going to be able to stop it like this. It would take something more, perhaps him remaining willing to throw himself out there, but how?

  “Get going,” he hollered at Ferrah.

  “I’m not leaving you,” she said.

  “I’m not going to let you stay here while this attacks.”

  “What makes you think you get to decide what I do?”

  “Please.”

  He stared at the draasin as he begged. It was all flames, fire swirling along its length, and even its wings were made of fire. Power radiated from it and the larger it got, the more solid it seemed to become, almost as if separating from the bond—however this was possible—made it more tangible than it had been otherwise.

  The draasin swooped again, and once again, Tolan dropped to the ground, rolling off to the side. Why did the draasin come at him in this way? Did it think that by attacking him, it could be free?

  He didn’t have any control over it. With the other elements, when he had shaped them, summoning them out of his imagination, there had been a belief he could dismiss them. Whether that represented control or not, he didn’t know. It had always worked.

  Maybe there was another way.

  Rather than dismissing the draasin, could he ask the draasin to disappear?

  There was no reason that should work. There was no reason anything should work, much less freeing a creature out of legend, and yet, that was where he was.

  Tolan focused on the draasin, holding his hand out in front of him. As he did, the creature continued to swirl, though never flying all that high. It seemed like that was important.

  The draasin kept his eye on him, fixing him with a dark gaze as it circled.

  Something within the draasin’s eyes triggered the stirring within him.

  Tolan reached for that sense and focused on the draasin, but this time, he focused on trying to reach it.

  There was no reason it should work, no reason other than his desperation.

  Please.

  He begged within his mind. As he did, there came that fluttering sense again.

  He focused on fire, the connection he had focused on before, and tried to encourage the draasin to return to the bond. That was what he imagined, at least.

  Tolan had no idea whether it would be effective, but there was nothing else that had succeeded.

  The draasin continued to swirl around him, but it seemed as if the flying was slowing.

  “Tolan!”

  He didn’t dare remove his attention from the draasin, fearing if he were to look away, he might lose control—whatever control he had—from this creature. For now, it seemed as if he had some measure of control over it, and he needed to maintain it.

  The strange stirrin
g within him persisted. Tolan tried to beg, trying to ask the draasin to return to the bond.

  For a moment, there was nothing, but then there came a sensation, one he could only describe as fear.

  The draasin was afraid.

  Why should a creature like that fear?

  The sensation gave him reason to hesitate, and in that hesitation, he once again begged, pleading with the connection to fire, afraid if it failed, if he failed, the draasin would escape, and if it did, he would be responsible for freeing an elemental.

  Please.

  As he sent the request again, it seemed as if the draasin changed its focus.

  Rather than attempting to pull upon him, pull upon his connection to fire, he felt the fluttering, that stirring within him, begin to retreat. There was once again that sensation of fear, but along with it came a sort of reluctant acceptance.

  Why should he be aware of that?

  The draasin began to disappear, fading, first growing smaller and smaller before eventually, power from it flickered out. He stared for long moments, terrified he still hadn’t been successful, but the longer he looked, the more convinced he was the draasin was no more.

  Letting out a shaky breath, he started to back up, and as he did, he realized Ferrah wasn’t where he thought she would be.

  Tolan stood on the wall surrounding the park.

  She wouldn’t have left. He didn’t think she would have simply abandoned him with the draasin, though he had attempted to send her away, so maybe she had decided to do as he had asked.

  Tolan jumped down and then commenced a search for her using his connection to earth sensing. There was an emptiness, as if she had disappeared, or perhaps someone had shaped it so she would disappear.

  A void.

  He had experienced that before when he had felt convinced there was someone else out here, and now he detected it again. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Tolan hurried off into the woods, racing after the sense he suspected came from where Ferrah had disappeared. He hurried forward, heading toward that distant sense of the void. Racing into the darkness, he tried to see if there was anything with the void he could understand. For a moment, he thought he could sense something, but then it passed.