Landing on the ledge, he looked around the inside of the room. It wasn’t much changed from the last time he was here, and though it had only been a few weeks, it had been long enough and so much had happened that it made it painful to look around.
“This is where they held you?” Ferrah asked.
Tolan headed to the center of the rune. He had to deal with it. He had to come to terms with the fact he was no longer captured, and not in any danger. Aela was gone. Most of the Inquisitors were gone. They wouldn’t use this place against him again.
Motioning to the marking on the floor, he turned slowly in place. “Can you see it?”
“What are we supposed to see?” Jonas asked. His voice was hushed, and at least he was taking this far more seriously than before. Tolan was thankful for that.
“The rune. There is one set on the floor that matches the one on the wall. When I was here, Aela used the rune to overpower any defense that I might have.”
“I don’t really see anything,” Jonas said. Tolan pointed and Jonas frowned while looking down at the floor. “Do you think all of the towers have markings like this?”
“I know the wind tower does,” Ferrah said.
“It does?” Tolan asked. He looked up. “I don’t remember seeing a marking like that on the tower.”
“Because you’re so focused on creating your strange spiral of wind, but if you were to pay attention to the floor, you would’ve seen there was a rune very much like this there.”
If there was one in the wind tower that matched the one in the spirit tower, it likely meant there would be one in each of the towers. Maybe only the higher-level students, those who had committed themselves to a particular element bond, ever got to experience the power of the runes. Them and Tolan.
He focused on spirit. Reaching the shaping of it was difficult, and required that he abandon all control, to release himself and embrace a sense of emptiness, and to focus on the memory of the vision that had come to him. When he did, he could feel power flowing up from within him. It came from a deep place, buried, practically as if he had to force it out. As he did, he pushed it through the rune, wondering if he could use the power of it as well.
It surged for a moment, but then it faded. All control over it got lost.
Tolan shook his head. Either he wasn’t strong enough or he was far too inexperienced to be able to manage a shaping like that.
“What did you do?” Ferrah asked.
“I tried to shape.”
“What did you try to shape?”
“The ground,” he said, smiling briefly.
“Do you really think that shaping here is going to work against spirit?” Jonas asked.
“Not really, but I thought I’d try to see if there was anything I could detect about the way they placed the pattern.”
That was true enough, though he didn’t really expect to be able to uncover anything.
“Did you?” Ferrah asked.
Tolan shook his head. “No.”
He looked around the floor. It was easy to remember where he been forced, how he had been confined with the power within the rune, and he remembered where he had been lying when Aela had forced him down. The bondars should be nearby, but as he suspected, there was nothing.
“It looks like they took them,” he said to Ferrah.
“Did you expect otherwise?”
“Not really, but I was hopeful I might be able to still have them.”
“I think you should be thankful that you survived.”
“You don’t think that I am?”
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
Jonas grunted. “The two of you.”
Tolan looked over at Jonas. “The two of us what?”
“Could the two of you stop bickering? You sound like my parents.”
Tolan started to say something, thinking that he would smart off to Jonas, when a shaping began to build. It was powerful—and close.
He backed up, wrapping himself in a barrier of fire, inverting it immediately, protecting his mind. He readied a shaping and his heart hammered, fear coursing through him. There would be only one reason someone would come to the spirit tower, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to confront the Inquisitors again.
Instead of Inquisitors, the Grand Master landed inside the spirit tower.
12
Tolan held onto his shaping, keeping his mind protected, still uncertain, regardless of the fact it was the Grand Master who had arrived. The other man looked around from Tolan to Ferrah and then to Jonas. It was difficult to know how the Grand Master would respond to the fact they were here. Would he be angry they had come to the spirit tower?
“The three of you aren’t quite what I was expecting.”
“I’m sorry, Grand Master, it’s just that—”
“You were hoping to find your bondars.”
Tolan blinked, nodding. “How did you know?”
The Grand Master smiled, looking around before turning his attention to the rune. A shaping built from him, soft and subtle, and it spread away from him, heading down into the rune. As it did, Tolan detected it, noting the way it reverberated against him.
Was the Grand Master shaping spirit?
Why would that be the first thing he did when he came to the spirit tower?
When he looked up, the Grand Master met Tolan’s eyes. There was something within them that seemed almost knowing, as if the Grand Master understood what Tolan had done and the way he’d used spirit.
“There are many things I know, Tolan Ethar. Unfortunately, I suspect Aela took your bondars. She was far more capable than I would’ve expected when I confronted her, and the only reason for such competence from her would be the use of bondars to augment her strength. Now, the spirit tower has long been home to spirit bondars, but she didn’t throw spirit at me but earth and fire, and I believe those are the two bondars you had?”
Tolan nodded. There was no point in denying it.
“As I thought. Unfortunately, it gave her a bit of an edge. Otherwise, we would have been able to restrain her and find some answers.”
“Why did she attack you?”
“She was after you, Shaper Ethar, but unfortunately for her, she thought I would side with her in this. She lost track of the fact the Inquisitors and the Academy are separate entities.”
“But the Grand Inquisitor—”
“The Grand Inquisitor serves at the Academy at my insistence. Irina and I are old friends, and in that regard, I trust her implicitly. It’s why I invite her for all the Selections, and why I have allowed her to keep the Inquisitors involved in the Selections. I had thought in doing so I would be able to bridge the divide between the Academy and the Inquisitors, but…”
“I didn’t realize there was a divide.” Ferrah glanced from Tolan to the Grand Master. “We haven’t seen anything like that in Par.”
“Undoubtedly, you have not. Par is a unique place, filled with unique history. Much like Ephra.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“There are quite a few questions I imagine you have, Shaper Changen, and do not worry about whether or not I will answer them. First, I would like to have a few words with Shaper Ethar, if you don’t mind?”
Ferrah glanced at Tolan before nodding. She grabbed Jonas and they reached the ledge overlooking the drop back down to the main part of the spirit tower, and with a powerful shaping of wind, they disappeared.
When they were gone, the Grand Master turned to Tolan, smiling. He pressed outward, a flurry of power, and it took Tolan a moment to register that he used each of the elements, forming a barrier around them.
“Forgive the necessity of the barrier, but I fear there are eager ears these days.”
“Ferrah and Jonas wouldn’t try to listen in.”
“Perhaps not them, but others might.” The Grand Master walked to the center of the rune, looking down at it. “I wasn’t expecting to detect such a skilled touch from you,” he said. He look
ed up. “And know I mean no disrespect by that.”
Tolan tensed. “What sort of touch?”
“With spirit.” He smiled. “Don’t worry, Shaper Ethar, I will keep your secret safe, the same secret the Grand Inquisitor is keeping.”
“You knew I could use spirit?”
“When you were Selected, the Grand Inquisitor suspected you had potential for spirit. It would be the only explanation as to how you would pass the Selection without being able to shape any of the other traditional elements. It is rare enough for spirit to appear in isolation, but it has been reported to have occurred before.”
“So, you knew about spirit before and didn’t tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell, Shaper Ethar. If you had failed to reach spirit, it would have done you no good to know why you had passed the Selection. And if you had believed you were destined to reach spirit, would you have tried so hard to reach the other elements?”
“Probably,” he said.
The Grand Master watched him, smiling for a moment. “Perhaps you would have. Knowing you as I have over the last year, it is entirely possible you would have. Regardless, you proved yourself when she attempted to shape you. It would be far easier if we didn’t have to worry about your knowledge of the Convergence, but considering your potential with spirit, that proved difficult. It would’ve required wiping away more memories than she felt comfortable doing.”
“I thought I was safe from spirit because I could shape it.”
“After your experience with Aela, did you still feel that way?”
“No, but I was here.”
“As you were when you met with the Grand Master.”
Tolan frowned. It was true enough, and in a place like this, so connected to spirit with the power of the spirit rune placed on the ground, he wasn’t necessarily as protected as he would like to be. With this rune, she would have been able to do anything she wanted. Spirit might have protected him, but there would’ve been a limit to how much protection it would have provided. And given what he’d seen, he would have been disappointed to have lost everything.
“As you no doubt have come to realize, the spirit rune grants great power. The Grand Inquisitor thought she could remove only your memories of the Convergence, and I think she was surprised it failed. When I discovered it, I trusted you would not use that knowledge in a way that would damage the Academy. We both agreed to keep an eye on you, and you proved to be challenging to do just that.”
“I’m sorry.”
The Grand Master smiled. “There’s no need for you to be sorry. You are an interesting young man, and have shown a tenacity that should not be surprising for someone so willing to submit themselves for Selection without any ability to shape.” The Grand Master raised his hands, smiling. “And I know the reason you submitted yourself, but that changes nothing. Your friendship mattered to you, much like you have proven your friendships now matter to you. No doubt you will report to them everything we talk about.”
“Unless you tell me I can’t.”
“Tell you or shape you?”
“How did you know we were here?”
“I placed a specific touch on the rune, enough that I would know whether it was being accessed. Typically, accessing a great rune like this requires someone to have far more skill in order to trigger it, and yet, you who have not trained with any spirit shapers, managed to do just that.”
“Probably because I had one used on me.”
The Grand Master smiled. “Perhaps that’s all it is, or perhaps there is more to it. There is something quite natural about your shaping ability that is different than most.”
Tolan swallowed. Now was the time he could tell the Grand Master about his ability to reach shaping without accessing the element bonds, but if he did that, then he opened himself to a different type of question.
Maybe there was a different approach he could try.
“Do you and the master librarians ever discuss the things students are researching?”
The Grand Master furrowed his brow. “That’s an interesting question. Why would you ask that?”
“I was curious.”
“An interesting thing for you to be curious about, Shaper Ethar. To answer your question—no. We don’t routinely discuss research topics of the students. The master librarians are granted the freedom to monitor the use of the library, and there’s no reason they should do otherwise.”
Tolan nodded. If that were the case, it was possible that Master Minden hadn’t shared with him.
“Then again, there are times when the master librarians find things that they bring to my attention.” The Grand Master smiled, and something in his eyes seemed to twinkle. “I believe you and Master Minden have formed something of a friendship.”
“She’s helped me,” he said carefully.
“There aren’t many students who draw her notice. I can count on one hand the number who have over the years I’ve been here. Most of the time, she leaves the students alone, focusing on her research, allowing the other master librarians to interact with them.”
Tolan waited for the Grand Master to say something more. Would he question Tolan about the types of things he’d been reading about? That would raise eyebrows, as would the fact that he continued to have such interest in elementals, though the Grand Master already knew that. He had been around Tolan enough that he understood the type of things that intrigued Tolan.
“She tells me you have potential to be a master librarian.”
Tolan nodded.
“She has had that conversation with you, then. Interesting. Usually, the master librarians wait until a student has graduated to approach them about their potential to serve as a librarian.”
“She showed me the hall of portraits.”
He scratched his chin. “Did she? Then she must be quite eager to have you serve. The last student who showed such potential was Master Jensen, and even with him, she was far more reserved.”
How long ago must that have been? Master Jensen was old now, incredibly old, and he imagined that it would’ve had to have been decades ago. And here he had thought Master Minden old. He would never have imagined she would have been responsible for drawing out Master Jensen.
“Did you see anything?”
“On the wall of portraits?”
The Grand Master nodded. “It’s a test, you know.”
“I didn’t know. What sort of test?”
“If I told you that, the test wouldn’t be useful.”
“I saw several individuals, and she showed me the portraits of the elementals.”
“Did she?”
“I wasn’t able to see anything. I think she was hopeful I’d be able to make them out more, but the colors were subtle and the paintings were quite faded.”
The Grand Master smiled to himself. “Sly, that one.”
“Why?”
“You know what I see when I go to the wall of portraits?”
“The same, I would imagine.”
“Now, but when I first went to them, there was one image I could see. One. The others are protected by a shaping, and that shaping is designed to help the master librarians determine who has potential. If you can see more than a few—and the number is kept by the master librarians, so don’t ask me how many it is—then you have the necessary potential.”
“Master Minden said you’d have the necessary potential to be a master librarian.”
“I suspect that she’s being kind. I have learned quite a bit throughout the years, and because of that, I’ve grown, which allows me the ability to see the portraits, but at the time, there was nothing.”
“What does it matter if I can or can’t see images in the portraits?”
“It’s a marker of how you think,” the Grand Master said. “To be honest, I’m probably not the best person to explain all of that. I know enough to be dangerous, but certainly not as much as someone like Asmane.”
Tolan couldn’t help but wonder what it meant that he
had seen the images he had. Many of them were at least well enough depicted that he could make out details upon them, but toward the end of the line, he hadn’t been able to see much of anything.
“There are certain images which carry greater weight than others. I suppose that’s why Master Minden claimed that I have the potential—or would have had the potential—to have been a librarian.”
“Which one?”
“The one with the first shaper. For the most part, there isn’t anything in the other images I was able to make out. I could see details, faint lines that were a promise of something more, but when it came down to making out anything of use, that was not my strength.”
“What sort of things do you mean by of use?”
“I mean there are images that depict the elementals. I’m sure she told you that.”
“She did, but the one with the draasin, I couldn’t see anything.”
“Nothing?”
“Swirls of color. They were faint, but I couldn’t make out the three draasin she claimed were there.”
The Grand Master turned his attention back to the rune, and as he did, a shaping began to build. “When I went there, they were all blank. I remember thinking it was strange they would paint so many portraits like that, nothing but empty canvases, and yet that isn’t at all what they did, as you know.”
“Can you see the three draasin?”
“Not like Master Minden can.” He pulled his gaze up, still not having released his shaping. “I think I understand why she wanted you to go, though I’m surprised she did.”
“Why?”
“If you can even make out anything on that draasin portrait, it tells her you have the potential to truly understand the elementals.”
“I don’t understand how that test even would work.”
“It’s a shaping, no different than the Selection.”
“Master Minden wanted me to leave the Academy.”
The Grand Master tipped his head and studied him. Tolan wasn’t sure if he should have shared that, but it seemed important, necessary to get out, and he feared if he didn’t reveal it, he wouldn’t learn the reason behind it. He wasn’t hearing it from Master Minden, so he needed to find out from the Grand Master if there was something that would explain why she had wanted him to leave with the disciples of the Draasin Lord.
The Wind Rages (Elemental Academy Book 4) Page 13