“I thought you didn’t want me to take the bondars from the Academy.”
“Only because you tend to draw the wrong kind of attention.”
“And this doesn’t?”
“Not quite as much as you. Are you going to use it or what?”
Taking the bondar, Tolan tried to draw wind through it, and it came slowly, but at least with a shaping of wind, he was able to protect himself a little bit. He looked up, searching for where the attack had come from, but saw nothing. “I didn’t even detect a shaping."
“It targeted you.”
If it was targeting him, then it meant it was one of the Inquisitors. The disciples—and his father—would not have targeted him. Had any of them been left to recover? There had been nearly a dozen of the Inquisitors, and that wasn’t saying anything about Aela.
Tolan focused, searching through the sky for a sense of shaping, but there wasn’t anything.
“That’s strange,” he whispered.
“That you were attacked or that it hasn’t returned?”
“Mostly that it hasn’t returned.” He’d grown far too accustomed to being attacked since coming to the Academy. He had gone through his share and more of shaped attacks on himself or on those around him.
Another shaping built and he looked up, preparing to push away with wind, ready to swirl it through the withering, perhaps to add a sense of ara to it in order to prevent anyone from reaching him, but there was no need.
The Grand Master lowered himself in front of them. He glanced from Tolan to Ferrah. “Shaper Changen. I didn’t realize you were outside the Academy.”
Ferrah flushed again, this time more deeply than she had before. “I’m sorry, Grand Master, it’s just that—”
The Grand Master waved his hand dismissively. “You don’t need to explain. I understand you and Shaper Ethar have a unique friendship.”
This time, it was Tolan’s turn to flush. Warmth worked up his cheeks. “Grand Master, I don’t know what to tell you about the attack, but Master Aela—”
“I know all about Aela. She thought she could distract me with an attack, but unfortunately for her, spirit shapings don’t work quite as effectively on those who can shape spirit.” He glanced from Tolan to Ferrah. “You did well managing to avoid her attack for as long as you did.”
“I think I got lucky,” Tolan said.
“Luck or skill?”
Tolan thought about everything he’d done. “Perhaps a bit of both.”
He wasn’t sure whether there had been some skill to it, but the more he thought about it, the more he thought it was both, as he had said. He would like to have skill, and in the time he’d been in the Academy, his knowledge had continued to grow and develop, but he still wasn’t where he could be if he’d remained there.
“It was interesting you decided to bring her there.”
Tolan turned away from the Grand Master, looking around the park. “I wanted to get her away from the city.”
The Grand Master watched Tolan knowingly for a moment. “Ah. Then you did well, Shaper Ethar. It did take us a little bit longer to reach you, but perhaps you prevented others from experiencing the danger of a shaper attack upon Amitan.”
“What happened to Aela?” he asked.
“She has escaped.”
“Escaped?”
“It seems she and the others with her had a very different approach to shaping. Unfortunately, it has weakened the Inquisitors.”
“I’m sorry, Grand Master.”
“Why would you be sorry? You helped ensure they weren’t successful. I think they saw an opportunity and decided to use that opportunity to maneuver for power. Fortunately for us, they were unsuccessful and they underestimated not just me, but you.”
The sound of the forest around him caught his attention, and Tolan looked around. Every so often, he thought he had a sense of shaping near him and he began to worry the disciples would appear. If they did, he might have to reveal to the Grand Master the role he had, and he had no interest in doing that.
“I think we should be heading back to the Academy,” the Grand Master said.
“Are you worried about another attack?” Ferrah asked.
The Grand Master nodded. “There’s always the possibility of another attack. Unfortunately, when it comes to what we’ve experienced, they will see this as a sign of weakness. Where they see weakness, they will think they need to press.”
A shaping built from the Grand Master, powerful and swift, and Tolan was acutely aware of how he used spirit, pushing it out, sweeping in a sharp arc radiating away from him. When it cleared, the Grand Master nodded, looking from Tolan to Ferrah.
“Do you think you can make it back on your own?” he asked.
“You aren’t going to guide us back?” Ferrah asked.
“I don’t know that it’s necessary,” he said.
She nodded, and when she did, the Grand Master pushed off with a shaping, taking to the air, and disappeared. It wasn’t so much that he ascended to the Shapers Path high overhead, it was simply that he disappeared.
“I’d like to learn how to shape like that,” Ferrah said longingly.
“It was a mixture of each element bond,” Tolan said.
She glanced over at him. “How do you know?”
“I could feel it.”
“You could feel the shaping the Grand Master used?”
Tolan nodded.
“Are you always able to detect shapings like that?”
“Most of the time, but usually it’s a matter of knowing when someone is shaping, and lately it’s a matter of being able to determine what element bonds are used.”
“You do realize how valuable that is, don’t you?”
“From the way you say it, I imagine it’s quite valuable?”
She laughed. “Quite.”
“Well, the Grand Master wanted us to return to the Academy.”
As much as he might want to continue his conversation with Ferrah, he also didn’t want to linger out here any longer. They should disappear before the Inquisitors returned.
Ferrah eyed him for a moment before nodding.
With that, she shaped, heading to the Shapers Path. Tolan held onto the withering, squeezing it and sending a shaping of wind through it. It wasn’t controlled, and he blasted upward, coming to land next to Ferrah on the Path. His strength was gradually returning, and he hoped by the time he reached the Academy, it would be back enough that he wouldn’t be quite so weakened.
They started back along the Shapers Path, neither of them speaking. In the distance, the city began to loom into view. As they neared, the distant sense of a shaping caught his attention, though it wasn’t in the city at all. It was behind them. As he approached, Tolan hesitated, glancing back, worried the shaping was close.
Ferrah glanced in his direction. “What is it?”
Turning toward the shaping, he focused on the nature of it. Behind him stretched much of the forest. In the distance, he could vaguely make out the edge of the clearing where the Keystone had been, where he had been attacked by the Inquisitors, and yet, that wasn’t where he detected the power. The shaping came from somewhere else, farther from the city, in a place he couldn’t quite understand.
It was far enough from him that he wondered if perhaps he was even detecting it correctly. And maybe he was not.
When the shaping came to him again, Tolan was certain of what he was feeling.
Buried within the shaping was a sense of the elementals. It was the same sort of shaping he used, the same way he grasped at power. As it surged, it resonated within him.
His father.
He was still out there, and what was more, he was near enough that Tolan could detect his shaping.
“Tolan?” Ferrah said.
Tolan squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted those answers, and he wanted to know why his father had suddenly appeared, but more than that, he wanted to know where his father had gone, but not like this. Not after what he’
d seen of them.
Instead, he turned away, heading back toward Amitan and the Academy.
When the shaping came again, he tried to ignore it, but every so often, he glanced back, thinking he might catch a glimpse of his father. Each time the shaping returned, he stiffened, and it wasn’t until they crossed over the border into Amitan and neared the Academy that the sense of the shaping finally began to fade to nothing.
6
Life back at the Academy was no different than it had been before. Tolan had expected to be greeted with scorn and derision, but there was none of that. It was almost as if the others at the Academy didn’t know what had taken place. Most of the students had been sequestered in the dormitories, though some had been outside the Academy, locked away. When the uprising had begun, they hadn’t known it was Inquisitors versus the Academy. All they thought was that the disciples had attacked. Most within the Academy had enough sense to run when that took place, which was why no one had made note of his absence.
The student dormitory for the second levels was awash with activity. Most of the students sat in the common area, and they did so in groupings of friends, chattering loudly, some playing games while others sat and read, but for the most part, all were oblivious to the Inquisitor uprising.
Ferrah patted his arm. “It’s okay. No one knows what happened,” she said.
Tolan’s gaze swept around the room. No one knew about what had just happened, but they all still knew about the Inquisition. They all still viewed him as a servant of the Draasin Lord. Now he knew the truth of his father, how could he be anything but what they’d always believed him to be?
He looked around, shaking his head. “I don’t know that I want to be here.”
“Jonas will want to see you.”
“Will he?” After the Inquisition, he was no longer certain how Jonas viewed him. They had been friends, but when he had begun to shape more easily, Jonas had been suspicious of him—and rightly so. Tolan had been secretive about how he’d been shaping. Tolan should talk with Jonas, at least to smooth things over.
“You know he will.”
“I think… I think I need to stop in the library.”
She frowned as she looked at him. “The library? Why would you need to go there?”
“Master Minden saw me when I was chased by the Inquisitors.” She had done more than that. She had seemed to know who he was and why the Inquisitors were after him, but she also had helped escort him to a place where he could escape. He had questions about her, and didn’t know if she would even be there to answer them.
“If you want, I can go with you.”
“I’d like that.”
They looked around for a moment, and when they did, his eyes settled on Jonas.
He was sitting near the far wall, talking to Gray and Tara, but when he locked eyes with Tolan, he sat upright.
“I guess I’m not going to the library quite yet,” Tolan said.
If he turned around now, it would be abandoning his friend and basically throwing away any friendship they had. And Master Minden would be at the library when he finally returned. He didn’t need to go to her now in order to talk with her about her role in all of this. He could find her another time. Besides, if he waited, he might have a better understanding as to what had taken place and his role within it, not just hers.
Starting toward Jonas, Ferrah stayed with him, her hand resting on his arm. He held onto it, comforted by her presence. As he approached, Jonas glanced from him to her.
A hint of a smile started to twist his lips. “Well?”
“Well what?” Ferrah said.
Jonas grinned. “It’s about time the two of you…”
Ferrah looked down, almost as if realizing she had her hand resting on Tolan. Her face flushed, putting more color into her pale and freckled cheeks, but she didn’t remove her hand.
“Where have you been? The Academy has been on lockdown.”
“So we’ve heard. We were in the library,” Ferrah said.
“Always in the library.” Glancing at Gray, a slender man who had never really aligned himself with any group, Jonas smirked. “I think they have someplace in the library that they sneak away to.” Turning his attention back to them, he asked, “Do you know why we were on lockdown?”
“I don’t,” Tolan said quickly.
“Some are saying there was another elemental attack. The Great Mother knows we’ve had enough over the time we’ve been here.”
That might be a better thing to believe than the truth. He should have asked the Grand Master what story they were going to let out, but he hadn’t. What sort of things would the Academy want known about the Inquisitors? With Aela a part of it, and the likelihood there would be no further lessons on spirit shaping, he suspected the Grand Master would try to keep it quiet.
“Maybe it was an elemental attack,” Ferrah said.
Tolan clenched his jaw. It was increasingly difficult to refrain from saying anything. He didn’t want others to know he was as partial to the elementals as he was, but he also didn’t like the idea that others blamed the elementals for various attacks. That sort of behavior led to fear, and with fear, there was a greater willingness to shove the elementals back into the bond.
“I bet Ethar here was a part of it,” a deep and drawling voice said.
Tolan turned to see Draln heading toward him. He was dressed in his formal cloak, and the sneer on his face reminded Tolan of the Inquisitors. It wouldn’t surprise him to learn Draln had some spirit-shaping ability, and it wouldn’t surprise him to learn they’d tried to recruit Draln.
“After all, the Inquisitors did find reason to hold him as long as they did.”
“And they released him,” Ferrah said.
Draln turned to her, shrugging. “They may have released him, but they held him long enough. They don’t do that unless there’s reason to do so. He’s guilty of something.”
“You’re guilty of being an ass.”
“Why won’t you let Ethar defend himself?”
Tolan didn’t say anything, and Draln continued to smirk.
“See? He can’t defend himself. Because I’m telling the truth.”
“Or he doesn’t say anything because there’s no reason to,” Ferrah said.
“I think it’s cute you feel the need to defend him like that. What are you going to do when he’s taken away for his next Inquisition? Are you going to go to the Inquisitors, tell them they have it wrong, and be surprised when they drag you away to the Inquisition? I can assure you, I’ve seen what happens when people think they can influence the Inquisitors.”
That was part of Tolan’s fear. He didn’t want people he cared about getting drawn into it, and certainly didn’t want Ferrah to get pulled into an Inquisition. She had a brighter future at the Academy than that. With people like Draln, he knew he needed to speak up, and if he didn’t, Draln would continue to taunt him, abusing him.
At the same time, he didn’t trust himself. Now he knew the truth of his father, he didn’t know if there was anything to say. He was everything they’d always accused him of being.
The image of his father standing with the other disciples of the Draasin Lord flashed back into his mind. With it came the sense of power he had from them. The same power that resonated within him. That couldn’t be a coincidence. It was almost as if he should have gone with them. Perhaps if he had, he would better understand his brand of shaping. There were lessons he could learn at the Academy, but no one had been able to teach him how to use shaping the way he did, to involve the image of the elementals in it, to make his power greater the way he did.
“What are you going to say to the Grand Master?” Ferrah asked when Tolan had said nothing.
“The Grand Master knows I’m not involved in any of this. Besides, some of us report what we see,” Draln said.
“Yeah? And what are you reporting?”
“Only that we know exactly what Ethar here is up to.”
Ferrah gave
him a searching look, practically begging for him to say something, but there wasn’t anything for Tolan to say.
“I’m sure the Grand Master appreciates your support,” he said.
With that, Tolan pushed his way past the other man, heading to the back rooms and the quarters he shared with Jonas and Ferrah. His bed looked far too inviting, and being as tired as he was after the attack, he wanted nothing more than to sink into it, to drift off to sleep, but if he did that, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to get back up.
Ferrah followed him into the room. “You can’t let him keep pushing you like that.”
“I don’t think it matters,” Tolan said, taking a seat on his bed.
“It matters. You know it matters to someone like him. He’s going to use your unwillingness to fight back against you.”
“I’ve dealt with people like Draln my whole life.”
“Your whole life?”
“Well, ever since my parents left.”
Ferrah took a seat on the bed next to him, glancing at the doorway. A shaping built from her, wind and earth, and with it, she created a barrier that swirled around them. It muted the sounds from the great room, isolating them. “This isn’t quite the way I’m sure you wanted to have a conversation, but this might be the only way we can.”
Tolan stared down at his hands. “I told you everyone had always accused me of serving the Draasin Lord.”
“Because your parents were abducted.”
He looked up, meeting her eyes. “Apparently not abducted.”
“You don’t know that. If the Draasin Lord can spirit-shape, then they could have been forced to serve. You know what happened when I was spirit-shaped.”
Tolan took a deep breath. “What if they can’t be spirit-shaped?”
“Anyone could be spirit-shaped.”
He shook his head. “I haven’t been spirit-shaped. They’ve tried, and I think that with enough force, they might be able to push past my natural barriers, but when they have attempted to spirit-shape me, they’ve failed.”
“Because you have the ability to shape spirit.”
“Apparently. But it’s more than that. There are techniques you can use to avoid spirit-shaping.”
The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4) Page 6