The Elements Bond (Elemental Academy Book 7)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “I have an idea,” he said to the elemental.

  “What?”

  “We need to draw some of them off.”

  “You attack.”

  “I would rescue as many of your kind as I can.”

  As he said it, Tolan realized it was harsh. Calling the elemental that, saying they were his kind, felt somewhat abrupt. The elemental had done nothing to him and had wanted only to try to help. He had a natural suspicion, especially given what he had been through.

  There was a wind stirring.

  Tolan realized suddenly he didn’t even know anything about this wind elemental other than his age. He knew the elemental had suffered, and he knew he had been tied to this land for a long time, but there was nothing else he knew about him. “Do you have a name?”

  “Rory.”

  “You have a last name?”

  The elemental studied him, twisting his head in an unusual fashion. “Last?”

  Tolan stuck his hand out. “Rory. I am Tolan Ethar.”

  The elemental swirled wind around him.

  Tolan focused, listening for the sound and energy of power near him. In doing so, he was able to detect a presence. He focused on that sense, and he let that awareness consume him. It was near enough he thought he might be able to draw upon it. He held onto that awareness, letting it fill him and focusing upon that power.

  He sent a brief pulsing of shaping out.

  Nothing more than that. There was no point doing anything more than a brief pulsing. He thought that would be all that was needed to alert whoever was out there that there was someone else here.

  There was no response.

  Tolan attempted it again, thinking about the nature of the shaping.

  He looked over at the wind elemental. If that was what his mother was after, hunting for elementals like that, then she would expect there to be not just a shaping, but spirit within it.

  There would be a mixture of it.

  He pushed out with wind and spirit.

  The wind elemental looked over, seeming to recognize what he did.

  This time, there came a response.

  The energy that flowed outward, striking him, was sudden and aggressive, and Tolan recognized the moment that it struck. He had to brace himself for the force of it.

  He waited for a moment and then continued to push out with wind and spirit. The mixture of the two elements drew the attention of something else.

  “How many attackers do they bring?”

  “Depends,” Rory said.

  “It depends on what?”

  “Us.”

  “How many do you think are free like yourself?”

  “Not many.”

  Tolan used a shaping to mask himself and Rory.

  In doing so, he realized it was a mistake. There was no need to mask Rory. The elemental could hide himself, becoming translucent, and as he looked over at the elemental, he saw he was doing just that.

  Tolan shifted the nature of the shaping around himself.

  He used the type of illusion he’d seen from his mother and wrapped that around him, trying to conceal himself. He didn’t want the attackers to come across him before he was ready.

  Gradually, there came a sense of movement across the ground. It happened slowly, but with each step, Tolan could feel power thundering. It came toward them, filling the earth with its energy.

  He held onto the shaping, focusing on the sense of it, and prepared to attack.

  The key would be figuring out where to attack.

  If he was right, none of these people would be natural shapers on their own. They would be like Ferrah. But then, Ferrah was a natural shaper.

  Not here, she wasn’t.

  The elementals would need power; they would need help. They would need for him to separate them from the orb bondar, and to separate them from the power they were holding onto.

  Tolan could do that. He knew he could do that. He held on to that sense and that knowledge, and he held on to the understanding of what was taking place here, and he focused on what else he needed to do.

  He would attack.

  It wouldn’t be the first time he had faced someone who had an orb bondar. When he had faced off with the villagers his mother had used, it had been a similar skirmish.

  Similar, but not the same.

  In that case, the orb bondars had stored a finite amount of power within them. In this case, with the elemental likely bound within, there might be a limitless amount of power available to them. There might be enough energy within them that would allow them to continue their attack.

  It was something he would have to be careful with.

  The first person came close to him.

  Tolan waited, focusing on the sense all around him, but there was no other sense of a shaper coming close. He held onto that sense and then surged. He used a combination of earth and water, shifting the ground so he could attack. The ground exploded up briefly before pulling them back down. Tolan wrapped that power around the shaper, trapping them within it.

  There was a soft scream, nothing more than that, but Rory wrapped wind around them, concealing the scream.

  Tolan glanced over at the elemental. There was nothing other than a translucent haze visible to him. Because of that, he could barely even see where Rory was, but he could feel him. Was that intentional, or was it because Rory hadn’t hidden himself nearly as well as he needed to?

  Tolan scrambled forward, holding onto the shaping that masked him, and found the shaper bound in the ground.

  An orb rested on the ground near them.

  Tolan picked it up and stepped back.

  Examining the orb, he realized it was different than the one he had. It was similar, but not quite the same. Tolan studied the orb, running his fingers along the surface of it as he tried to better understand what was within it. Could he detect the energy there? He thought he could. As he focused, he detected something there, a sense of power.

  Fire.

  That fire was enough that Tolan thought he could draw it through the orb, but in doing so, he would be using the elemental against its will.

  That wasn’t what he wanted to do, either. What he wanted to do was to free the elemental, but he didn’t know if freeing the elemental would lead to it being recaptured. It might be safest to hold on to the orb, bring it away, and then decide what to do.

  There was movement near him.

  Tolan remained completely motionless, wrapped in a shaping meant to conceal him, trying to hide from anything that might approach.

  He wasn’t sure if it was even going to work.

  Tolan flicked his gaze from side to side, not wanting to turn his head. He could hold onto a shaping that would conceal him, but he worried he wouldn’t be able to do so with enough force that it would keep these shapers from recognizing where he was.

  Instead, he had to focus on what he might be able to detect.

  It was subtle.

  It was near him, but it was so soft, so subtle, he could barely find where it was.

  They were masking themselves as well.

  The people doing so were using enough skill and power he wasn’t sure he would be able to find them.

  He used a hint of earth. With that element, at least he had already revealed he had an ability with it, and he wanted to hold on the possibility they didn’t know he could use each of the other elements. There was an immediate response.

  It came directly toward him.

  Three attackers strode forward. They were subtle, masked in some way.

  Tolan focused on them all at one time. Three was going to be difficult, especially seeing as how they were powered by the elemental bondars.

  Could he find a different way?

  He’d attacked the last one by using earth and water, trapping the shaper, but in this case, maybe there would be another approach that would be just as effective. Tolan tried something different and focused on the sense within the ground. He thought he might be able to push outward
, probing in such a way he could force the shaper deeper into the ground.

  That wasn’t going to work. They were resisting every attempt he made.

  Instead of that, he shifted his focus.

  If he could detect the orb, then maybe he could target that. He targeted their hold on the bondars. When the first one struck, the shaper he targeted lost his grip on the orb. Tolan let out a cry of satisfaction when the bondar went flying.

  Wind whipped around it and started to pull the bondar back toward the other shapers.

  There was a wind shaper nearby.

  Rather than focusing on that, Tolan pushed with wind, directing it away. Hopefully Rory would do something with it.

  He focused on the next shaper. This time, he targeted wind using water. They were opposites, at least when it came to shaping. Tolan had to hope the shaper wouldn’t be prepared for the force of water. Tolan had strength here; he wasn’t limited as he was in the waste. He was surrounded by the energy and the power of this place.

  The water struck, swirling around the shaper, and he was battered back.

  Something struck him from behind.

  Tolan went staggering, his hold over the shaping lost.

  He spun, and a shaper stood in front of him.

  He was powerful. Tall, muscular, and had dark, beady eyes.

  Tolan pushed outward, using earth. He wanted to attack in a way that would drive the man back, but even as he did, his attack wasn’t enough. This shaper was strong.

  Tolan could feel the strength within him and how he was resisting anything that Tolan did. He tried again, using earth, anchoring himself to the ground as he summoned strength and drove it forward.

  The elemental was tied to earth.

  Of course, he was. Looking at him, Tolan could see it would be.

  He tried a different approach.

  Reaching for fire, digging into his connection to hyza, he called upon that power.

  Hyza answered, though the answer came from a great distance, almost as if he were hesitant, unable to fully understand what Tolan needed from him.

  The burst of fire struck, and when it did, the man went staggering backward.

  Tolan attacked again. He used fire over and over, battering at the man.

  Hyza helped, but within this connection, there was a limit to it.

  The man started to get back up.

  Tolan wasn’t going to be strong enough on his own.

  There was one other thing he could try.

  He shaped spirit, sending it into the bondar, trying to alert the fire elemental within who he was and what he was trying to do. Surprisingly, there came a surge of response from within it. The bondar exploded power from it and Tolan borrowed that, letting that power consume him, and he forced fire out at the shaper.

  It struck, and the man staggered back.

  Tolan continued to hammer at the grip the other man had on the bondar, trying to sever his connection to it. He struck at it, over and over, trying to free it.

  The man somehow managed to hold onto it.

  Tolan had to strike again. He hit it again. And again.

  Finally, he could see the bondar starting to move.

  With a burst of wind added to it, the bondar went rolling.

  Tolan streaked toward it, sliding across the ground, searching for some way to get to the elemental, but someone else was there first.

  They looked down at him with a face of disgust.

  Tolan shifted the nature of his shaping, using earth. He gambled on the possibility that this shaper wouldn’t be bound to earth the same way that the other one had been.

  Hyza still had a connection to earth he could lend, and Tolan borrowed from that, letting that connection explode from him. The combination of it was powerful, and it struck upward, sending the elemental blasting away.

  Tolan grabbed for the bondar, stuffing it into his pocket.

  He had two.

  There was a third, and possibly a fourth, given that this other shaper was here. He had to figure out what was taking place around him, but first he had to find a way to stop them. Earth rumbled toward him, exploding upward.

  That sense of earth wasn’t nearly as strong as it had been, but it was still powerful.

  He used a shaping of fire, countering earth.

  The man who had attacked was tied to earth. He didn’t need the bondar to be able to shape.

  Tolan had thought that the people his mother was working with wouldn’t have access to power on their own.

  That was a mistake.

  Wind and water struck him from either side.

  Tolan was trapped in between. He could feel that energy flowing toward him, and he resisted, pushing outward, countering each of them.

  He was countering elementals. Knowing that and knowing he didn’t have the same access to power as he did within Terndahl, he would have to try something else.

  He didn’t want to use the elemental bondars, but did he have a choice?

  He reached for the earth bondar, holding onto the fire one, and sent a trickle of spirit into it as well.

  When he did, there was the same sense of understanding. He was able to reach the elemental. He hoped they knew that all he needed was a hint of their power. Nothing more than that.

  Fire and earth radiated out from him.

  It was almost not enough. Were it not for the fact he had access to hyza, Tolan wasn’t sure he would’ve had enough. With hyza flowing through him, the sense of that elemental strong within him, Tolan was able to call upon enough strength he was able to counter what they were doing.

  He pushed, sending more and more energy away from him, the force of it driving the shapers back. He had to be careful, though. He didn’t want to drive them so far back he wasn’t able to reach for the bondars they held. If there were five attackers—no, six—then he needed to grab for these six bondars.

  If he could free them, that would be six elementals he could help.

  It was a start. He had no idea how many were out there.

  There was a scream.

  Tolan jerked his head around, looking into the distance.

  With a blast of fire and earth, he could feel the other shapers thrown back.

  Rather than going toward their bondars, he raced toward the sound of the scream. He didn’t like the nature of it and worried about the source of it. Could that be Rory?

  Rory should’ve stayed hidden.

  He found the wind elemental facing off against three people. The lead person held one of the orbs outward, clutching it in their hand, holding it toward Rory. The wind swirled around, and Rory fought, the scream screeching out across the distance as he did.

  He was being pulled into the bondar.

  Tolan had done the same thing to him, and seeing how he fought, seeing the fear within him, the way he shimmered, the agony he could hear upon the wind, Tolan regretted having done that.

  If only he could have done anything else.

  He gripped the two bondars he held and pushed spirit through them, trying to alert the elementals what he needed from them.

  Could they even understand?

  Tolan didn’t see how that would even be possible. If he were right, they were connected to spirit and because of that, they might be able to know just what he was trying to do, but at the same time, he didn’t know if he was connecting to them by pushing through the bondar.

  He didn’t have time to contemplate any further. He focused on the energy within that bondar, and he sent it blasting out at two of the attackers. He tried to target all three of them at the same time, but the attack on the lead person failed.

  The other two were thrown back. Tolan shifted toward the lead attacker, sending his blast at them, but they twisted, and he was thrown back.

  Tolan shifted his attack, grabbing onto the bondar, squeezing it and trying to pull power through it. He focused on fire and earth, reaching for hyza, trying to send his need to the elemental. If only he still had access to the Draasin Lord, he m
ight be able to fight with even more force. He pushed out, letting as much as he could flow from him. There was a response, but that response was faint. It trembled within him.

  He had to separate those other two attackers from their bondars, but he could barely detect them.

  There was a strange thing about the shapers in this land. He was able to detect the power they were using, but barely. They were potent when they shaped, but they didn’t press against his awareness. There was no sense of them the way there would be in Terndahl.

  Tolan pushed outward again and blasted at the attackers. He took to the air, using earth and fire, holding onto the power of the two bondars to help supplement him. When he was up in the air, he focused water and wind on the third attacker. The suddenness of it sent the man staggering.

  Tolan was driven down. He tried to move, but he was held in place. He strained, trying to find some way to move away from where he was, but he was held, unable to do anything.

  He had to break free of their bondars, but they were holding him.

  Even as he pushed out with earth and fire, he could feel the energy they were holding upon him.

  Tolan hurriedly shifted the nature of his shaping, using spirit, lashing it within himself, reaching for answers. He dug deep within his mind, scrambling for the information he knew was there. The understanding of the bondars was within him.

  It was buried deep down within him.

  There. He understood what it would take to create the bondars, but he also understood what it would take to destroy them.

  He pushed outward with spirit. That was the only element he used. The others were able to be countered by the shapings around him, but he had a sense spirit was not. He tried to ignore Rory’s screams. He tried to ignore the sound of the elemental’s suffering. He tried to focus only on the sense of the bondars.

  The shaping was one he could do.

  It required spirit, and only spirit. It didn’t surprise him that his mother would be able to use that shaping too. It was the kind of shaping that had allowed her to free the other elemental, to free the Guardian. It was the shaping that allowed her to damage the Convergence and everything around it.

  He lashed out with spirit. It exploded.

  As it did, Tolan focused on it, letting it blast outward in a circle around him.