“Serves.”
“She serves this other?”
“Yes. Know her?”
Tolan laughed bitterly. “If only I did.”
The elemental tipped his head to the side again strangely, regarding Tolan. There was the soft shifting sensation within Tolan’s mind, and he realized that the elemental was digging within his mind, searching for information. Tolan didn’t fight it. There was no point in fighting it. He wanted the elemental to know what he knew. He wanted the elemental to recognize he had no interest in trying to harm him.
“Did you get what you needed?”
The wind elemental stirred again. “Inside you.”
Tolan shook his head. How could the wind elemental, especially connected to spirit as he was, not be able to know he was not with his mother?
“She is his mother, but she is not with him,” Ferrah said, stepping forward. She tipped her head in a similar manner as the wind elemental, though she wasn’t able to twist around quite as much. “He’s struggled with her his entire life. He doesn’t remember much of his childhood because of her. She has taken that from him. She has taken much from him.” Ferrah smiled. “Test me.”
The wind elemental shimmered again.
Ferrah gasped softly. There had to be a spirit shaping, though it was one that Tolan couldn’t even feel. The presence of it was a subtle and soft, so slight he was barely even aware of it.
“Not you,” the wind elemental said.
Tolan shook his head, but it was Ferrah who answered.
“She is not with him. She used him. Help us understand what she did.”
The wind began to stir. Tolan looked around, worried that there might be some other assault, but it came from the wind elemental. Everything began to shimmer. An image began to form.
The image that formed created something of a city. Tolan stared through the wind, trying to make out just what it was that the elemental was attempting to show him, but even as he did, he struggled to recognize it. There was a form there, but it wasn’t one he identified.
The wind continued to swirl, a pattern beginning to take shape. At first, there was nothing more than just a translucent shimmering, but then it began to solidify.
Tolan had a sense of the spirit shaping he had seen from his mother. It reminded him of the illusion she had created, only this one was obviously an illusion.
“What’s he doing?” Ferrah asked. She took his hand, staying close to him.
“I think he’s trying to show us something, only I don’t entirely know what it is.”
The image continued to form, and then it stayed.
Within it was a sense of emptiness. There was a city, and then there was nothing. Emptiness.
He looked over at the elemental, frowning. “Is that what you’re trying to show me?”
The image shifted again. This time, there was a hint of darkness within it.
As he looked out upon it, he recognized something to the darkness. It was the same way that his mother had used the power when they had been within Terndahl. He had seen that darkness, and he had come to know it. It was the darkness he had tried to push out of her. He had failed.
The energy shifted again. Now there were figures moving around between the buildings. Homes. The shape of that was unusual, the city unlike anything he had ever seen before, but with the figures moving, he thought he understood. It was much like the strange elemental city he had visited before. Within those domed roofs, there was a sense of power. The buildings were different than any were found within Terndahl, but then again, they would be. Terndahl didn’t have anything quite like this.
He felt the shifting. The people began to disappear, taken by snatches of darkness. Each time one disappeared, there was a hint of power that swirled around it, snatching it away.
Finally, there was one remaining.
The wind shifted again, and it stirred toward this elemental.
“Who took your people?”
There was another stirring, and energy began to swirl around the wind elemental. It shimmered for a long moment before finally passing.
As it did, Tolan understood.
Perhaps not his mother, but the one she served was the one responsible for this.
“How?”
The elemental released the illusion. “Don’t know.”
“You said there was danger. Who is the danger?”
The image formed again, and once again he was aware of the elementals being plucked from the village. Tolan didn’t understand, but perhaps that wasn’t for him to understand. The only thing he needed to do was to figure out just what this person his mother served was after. When he did, then he thought he would have some way of stopping her—only how could he when he had no idea where she was?
The elemental shimmered and ultimately fell silent.
Tolan looked over but the elemental said nothing more.
He breathed out, focusing on the sense of power he detected. There was nothing. He was still troubled. With everything that had happened, he still didn’t know enough about what had happened to the Draasin Lord. He needed to figure it out, to offer something to the Draasin Lord in order to help, but he didn’t know what it would take.
There had to be some way to reach the Draasin Lord. He struggled, searching across the distance as he focused on the sense of the draasin, though even as he did, there was an emptiness within him.
He would have to find some way. He wasn’t about to leave the Draasin Lord behind.
Ferrah touched his arm.
When he turned toward her, she nodded. He followed the direction of her gaze and realized she was looking at the elemental. The wind elemental was shimmering in place, and there was a strange vibration to him.
“What’s going on?” Ferrah asked.
Tolan used spirit, reaching toward the elemental, straining to learn whether there was any way to uncover information that would be useful. The shimmering persisted, the vibration of the elemental increasing in intensity.
“What is it?” Tolan couldn’t detect anything from him, though that wasn’t all that unusual when it came to this elemental. When it came this elemental, he didn’t have any real ability to detect anything. Only the strange emptiness from him.
He strained for it, trying to reach across the distance, using spirit to latch on and see if there was anything he might be able to find, but he could not.
The elemental wasn’t open to him.
Even though the elemental was connected to spirit in a certain way, Tolan wasn’t able to understand what it was. He strained, trying to find a way to connect, but each time he attempted to do so, the hint of spirit the elemental pushed back against him seemed to obstruct him.
There had been a strangeness in him from the beginning. Now it seemed even more potent.
Why should that be the case?
It seemed to Tolan that the elemental was struggling with something. The shimmering continued, the strange trembling taking place, and as much as he tried to understand what it was, he wasn’t able to recognize what was taking place with the elemental.
What about wind?
He probed, using wind, and when that failed, he added a hint of spirit to it. The combination opened him to the elemental in a different way.
Then he understood.
The elemental struggled.
They were out on the waste, separated and away from other powers. The elemental needed some sort of connection.
What he needed was to reach a place of Convergence, some place that would allow him to reconnect with power, but Tolan didn’t know if he would have enough strength to transport himself and Ferrah, along with the wind elemental, to any place like that. For that matter, he didn’t even know if it would be possible to transport the wind elemental at all. With the strangeness of the wind elemental, and the strange energy he detected, it might not even be possible.
“How do you connect to wind?”
The wind elemental ignored him, still shimmering.
Tolan looked at her. “I think that when he helped us, he used much of his connection to wind.”
“The elemental can be separated from wind?”
“Not entirely, but out here…” He swept his gaze around the waste. The rocks towered over them, leaving them in a valley of sorts. Heat radiated from them, mixing with the power of the sun burning down. There was an emptiness here. Tolan struggled against it, and though he could feel the stone beneath his feet, and though he could feel the heat and even the wind coming off the elemental, he still didn’t have an awareness of all of the elements. It was difficult, and he struggled to try to hold on to any sort of connection. “I think the elementals get tired out on the waste. We need to find a way to help them.”
“Where would we go?”
Tolan looked at the elemental. He continued to shimmer, almost as if he were trying to take form and failing.
An idea came to him, but it was one he wasn’t sure would even work. Even if it did, there might be some danger in attempting it. Not so much for him, but for the elemental.
He headed toward the elemental, holding onto the orb bondar, pressing it out from him. He looked at the elemental, trying to meet the creature’s gaze. “I think I can help you, but it’s going to involve you trying something different.”
The elemental continued to shimmer. There was a trembling sense.
“I can bring you someplace where you can restore yourself.”
Even saying it left Tolan wondering whether or not there was anything that could be done. The idea he could push the elemental into a bondar, and that the elemental would be willing to do so, seemed unlikely.
If it worked, though, then he might have a way of helping.
They had to try.
He held out the orb bondar. The elemental struggled against him.
The shimmering persisted, and Tolan knew that if he did nothing, something would happen to the elemental. He could feel it within himself, and he was aware that if they allowed the elemental to remain here, he would suffer. Possibly die.
That was what his mother wanted.
Maybe not that. His mother seemed to want many things. Possibly she even wanted to try to control this elemental, but he had to find a way to prevent it. He had to find a way to draw enough power into the elemental so he could learn more about what his mother was trying to do.
The elemental shimmered again. This time, when he started to come back, there was a hazy quality to him. Whatever was happening was accelerating. Tolan had to act quickly. He focused on the elemental and used a hint of spirit, latching onto it. As he did, he used another connection of wind and spirit, and then began to add the other elements.
Ferrah took Tolan’s hands. “You have to focus it toward the bondar,” she said softly.
“I don’t want to hurt the elemental,” he said.
“I know. And I think you’re going to have to prove that to him.”
“How?”
Even attempting this, holding on to the sense of spirit and wind, trying to force the elemental into the bondar left him questioning whether there was anything he could do. The elemental struggled, but Tolan focused, holding onto each of those elements, forcing the elemental down. He squeezed, tying it into the bondar, pushing with more and more strength.
As he did, the elemental struggled, but he wasn’t strong enough to withstand what Tolan was doing.
The wind whipped around him, tearing at his clothing, ripping at his skin, pulling at everything all around him. Gradually, the wind began to die down. When it did, the elemental swirled into the bondar, forced into it by Tolan. There was a sense through spirit of the anger coming off the elemental. Tolan tried to use that same amount of spirit to prove to the elemental he didn’t want to harm the elemental, but how could he prove that?
He had to force understanding into the elemental, but the idea of forcing anything, especially upon the elemental, didn’t feel right to him. Did it matter, though?
If he protected—and saved—the elemental, wasn’t it worth it for what he had to do?
He tried to hold that thought within his mind, trying to coax the elemental into knowing what he was doing, and the reason behind it, but even as he did, Tolan didn’t know if he succeeded. The connection to the elemental through the sense of spirit was there, but it was faint. That connection left him struggling to know whether the elemental believed what Tolan had done was for the right purpose, or whether the elemental believed that Tolan had acted similar to his mother.
There was a sense of betrayal coming off the elemental.
That, as much as anything, hurt him.
Ferrah took his hand as the wind died down, squeezing it. “You did what you needed.”
Tolan stared at the orb. He could feel the sense of the elemental within it. It was stronger now that it was concentrated within the bondar. “I know.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
Tolan held out the bondar, shaking his head. “I can’t help but feel as if this is the same thing done to the elementals long ago.”
“What do you mean?”
“Forcing them. Pushing them into the bond.” He let out a slow breath. “In all the time that I’ve been at the Academy, I have learned that I wanted to help free the elementals. Now I’m the one forcing the elemental down into the bondar.”
13
Holding onto the bondar left Tolan with a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew it shouldn’t matter, just like he knew he was doing what was necessary, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he had done the very thing the elementals feared. By using the bondar and turning it into a containment for the elemental, a bond of sorts, he was becoming the very thing he had railed against ever since coming to the Academy.
Was that how it had started?
He couldn’t shake that feeling, and if it was the case, then perhaps his questioning of the purpose for the bond, and the nature of them as the elementals had surged into them, needed to be directed in a different way. He’d treated the bonds as something that had tormented the elementals, and in the time he had been aware of the elementals and the bonds, there was no doubting there were some tormented within it, but there was also the fact that the Draasin Lord and other elementals had shared with him that the elementals had gone into the bond voluntarily.
That wasn’t something a creature that feared the bond would have done.
Tolan looked over at Ferrah. She watched him, an expression of concern written on her face, but there was nothing Tolan could say. How could he, when the only thing he could think of was shame?
“We need to get moving,” he said.
“Tolan. We can talk about this.”
Tolan held onto the bondar, carefully tucking it into his pocket. “There’s really nothing to talk about at this point. The only thing we can do is keep moving. Eventually…”
Eventually he intended to do whatever he could to free the elemental from the bondar, but once he did, then what?
He had to figure out what his mother and whoever she worked with were doing with the others. That was the key. Something had been done, and there had to be some reason they had been tormented, but he didn’t know what it was other than they were chasing power, using some aspect of chaos to do so.
“Where do you want to go?”
He focused on the sense of the elements. He thought he could use a warrior shaping, but he wasn’t entirely certain. Carrying himself across the entirety of the waste would be a difficult shaping. Distance seemed to matter when the power was weak. In this case, he didn’t know if he would have enough strength to reach the place where he needed to be.
He shook his head. “We have to find someplace where I can help this elemental regenerate the strength he needs. Then we also need to find what happened to the Draasin Lord.”
“Do you think we can do both?”
“I don’t know.” He had protected this elemental, but to understand what his mother was doi
ng, he thought he might need to question the elemental. Trapping the elemental within the bondar hadn’t given him a way to get the answers he needed.
Short of connecting with spirit. Unfortunately, he had a sense that the elemental wouldn’t be able to answer him. There was anger within the elemental, and now that Tolan had confined the elemental within the bondar, he didn’t know if he would get the answers he wanted.
He looked around again, but as he did, he didn’t see anything.
It was going to depend on what he could feel.
“I don’t know if I can get us back to the free elemental land.”
“Then we need to go somewhere else,” she said.
“I don’t know where to go.”
“We saw something from above.”
“We did, but when I was falling, I wasn’t able to reach it.”
“There has to be some way,” she said.
“What if there’s a blockage of some sort that keeps us from getting to it?”
She glanced at the orb. There were so many questions he wished he would’ve had answers to. Having an opportunity to speak to the elemental, to better understand the purpose of it and what it had been doing, would’ve been beneficial, he thought, but instead he had to rely upon nothing other than a sense of the shaping around him.
There were the attackers. He needed to start there.
The problem was he didn’t know he had enough strength to get to them and then combat whatever it was that had happened to them.
He thought he could try to find them and knew they hadn’t traveled all that far away from where the attack had taken place. If they had, he would have been aware of it in a different way. Instead, the elemental had guided them, drifting them to where they were now.
That was where they had to start.
He took Ferrah’s hand, lifting them on a wind shaping.
They started across the ground, Tolan holding onto Ferrah with a sense of wind, wrapping it around her in a way that allowed him to understand whether or not there was anything he needed to be concerned about, and yet, he didn’t detect anything as they traveled.
The Elements Bond (Elemental Academy Book 7) Page 14