“But what if it did?”
“It would be powerful. Dangerous.” Ferrah leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. “Tolan—why are you asking these things?”
“Because I think my—”
He didn’t get a chance to finish. The door opened and Jonas hurried in, his cloak dirtied and his face showing signs of fatigue. He looked around the room and a powerful shaping of wind built from him, slamming around all three of them in a barrier.
“Is Wallace here?”
“Just us,” Ferrah said, glancing from Tolan back to Jonas.
“Good.” He sank onto the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “We were attacked the entire way back to Amitan.”
“Attacked?” Tolan asked.
“Disciples, at least that’s what Master Nevith thought. The attack came suddenly, attempting to tear us off the Shapers Path. There was enough shaking and trembling, it caused the path itself to buckle. We had to hurry along it to make it back to Amitan safely.”
“The Path buckled?” Ferrah asked.
“I don’t know how to describe it. It was there, and then it buckled. It sort of created a hill, but it was nothing like anything I’ve ever experienced before. I asked Master Nevith if he thought he could repair it, and he claimed he did, but we didn’t stay behind for him to investigate further. He was worried because we were escorting our Selection back.”
“Just one?”
“There were three.”
“Why do you sound as if you’re disappointed?” Ferrah asked.
“My year was unusual. Normally there’s only a single person Selected from each year, and when it was both Draln and I, that was significant. With this, with three having now been Selected, I can’t help but feel as if our being chosen wasn’t nearly as impressive as it was before.”
“There were five in Ephra,” Tolan said.
“Five? That’s a lot for Ephra. No offense, Tolan, but it’s not exactly a hotbed of shaping.”
“Master Irina made it sound as if the numbers were good.”
“That is good. It’s more than I would’ve expected for there to have been at the Selection. It’s more than I think there has been at any Selection from a single place before.”
Tolan started to think about what he knew of the composition of various classes and knew Ferrah was right. In their class, there were at most two people from any given place, and the most came from Velminth. It was rare enough that he understood there shouldn’t be so many people from a single place getting Selected.
And five?
That was odd.
“What do you think it means?” Tolan asked.
Jonas glanced from him to Ferrah. “Why would it mean anything?”
“Think about it, Jonas. You’re talking about a Selection where so many people have been plucked from a single place.”
Jonas flopped his head back, shrugging. “I don’t think that really matters. All that matters now is they are first-levels and we are second-levels.”
“There are more of them than there are of our class,” Ferrah said.
“You don’t know that.” Jonas kept his eyes closed, and he crossed his arms over his chest as if to sleep. “For all we know, there were none chosen from any of the other cities. We don’t know what took place there. Maybe the Selection was such that only a few were chosen.”
Tolan shook his head, but he wasn’t going to argue with Jonas about this. “What more can you tell me about the attack?”
Jonas sat up and glanced from Tolan to Ferrah. “I already told you everything I can about the attack. When we were come upon by the disciples of the Draasin Lord, we had to run. I don’t think I’ve ever moved so quickly along the Shapers Path as I have at that time. Even with it changing as it was, we ran.”
Tolan glanced over at Ferrah, but she kept her gaze on Jonas. “Did you have any difficulty getting between here and Par?” Tolan asked.
Ferrah shook her head. “Nothing like what you experienced.”
“Wait. You had trouble too?” Jonas asked, turning to Tolan.
Tolan told him about the wind attack and left out the part of how he had directed the elementals. He still wasn’t sure how much of that to share with Jonas, and Ferrah’s advice on keeping some of that to himself stuck with him. She was right, he shouldn’t reveal too much about his connection to the elementals and he needed to be careful with making it seem as if he were too sympathetic to them.
“It’s almost like they don’t want us to have a Selection,” Jonas said.
“What was that?” Ferrah asked.
“I don’t know. It’s almost like they don’t want to have a Selection. Maybe the disciples are afraid there are too many shapers preparing to oppose them,” he said. He rolled over and raised up to rest his head on his arm, glancing from Tolan to Ferrah. “What if they’re afraid of numbers?”
“They’ve never been afraid of the Academy before. To the point where they came and attacked.”
Jonas rolled back, staring upward. “There is that. It was just a thought.”
“What was your Selection like?” Tolan asked, looking at Jonas.
“Nothing all that extraordinary. We got to Velminth, and it took a few days for the Inquisitor to arrive. We had the Grand Inquisitor, if you could believe that.”
“You did?” Tolan asked.
Jonas rolled his head toward him and cocked an eye open. “Why?”
“Because I had the Grand Inquisitor in Ephra.”
Jonas shrugged. “We don’t know how many Inquisitors there are, so I don’t really know how uncommon it is for the Grand Inquisitor to be a part of the Selection.”
“When I went through the Selection in Ephra a year ago, most people thought it was unusual for the Grand Inquisitor to have a role in it,” Tolan said.
“I think you two are trying to find some sort of excitement that doesn’t exist,” Jomas said.
“Or maybe we’re finding the excitement that does exist,” Ferrah said. Jonas waved his hand at them. “Don’t you think we should look into how many were Selected from various cities?” Ferrah asked.
“Only if you want to continue chasing this down, but I’m not entirely sure we need to,” Jonas said.
Ferrah leaned back, studying Jonas for a moment before turning her attention to Tolan. He could see the uncertainty in her gaze, and it was more than just with Jonas’s response.
“What did Wallace experience?” Jonas asked.
“Wallace hasn’t returned, yet,” Tolan said.
“Not yet? I thought my trip was the last to make it back to the city.”
“Apparently not. Ferrah just got back, much like you.”
“How is it you took no longer than I took and you’re already back?” Jonas asked.
“Par isn’t as far as either of you seem to think. With the connection to the Shapers Path, we have the ability to get there pretty quickly.”
“How quickly?” Jonas asked.
“It only takes the better part of two days.”
Jonas barked out a laugh. “The better part of two days? We get to Velminth in less than a day, and that’s traveling on a Shapers Path. I’m sure it’s the same with getting to Ephra, especially as we all have made that journey before.”
Two days on the Shapers Path. Tolan couldn’t even imagine what that might have been like. And yet, a part of him wished he would’ve had the opportunity to go with Ferrah to Par, if only to see where she lived and what it was like. It was different than Ephra, but no less the edge of the empire than Ephra was.
A voice in the hallway outside the room caught his attention and Tolan sat up, glancing over at Jonas. “Did you go by yourself?”
“Did I go where?” Jonas asked.
“To the Selection, where else?”
Jonas pushed himself up and rubbed his eyes. “Why?”
“Did Draln go with you?”
“No. He was dragged along with a different Selector. I figured that was my reprieve from him.”
“Do you know where he went?” Ferrah asked.
“Why would I have even asked about that?”
“Because all of us have been sent back to where we were Selected. Everyone but Draln.”
“Maybe he didn’t get to go along on a Selection,” Jonas said.
Tolan hadn’t seen Draln in the days since his return, so he didn’t think that was likely, but what explanation was there?
Discovering involved asking around, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to do that. At the same time, he wanted to know whether there was anything about the number of students Selected. The more he thought about it, the odder it seemed. Much like Ferrah had said, there really shouldn’t be more than one or two people Selected from any city at any given time. It was rare enough to be Selected, and with so many having succeeded this time, it changed the dynamics of the Academy considerably.
Tolan got to his feet and headed to the door. By the time he reached it, he didn’t hear the sound of voices out in the hallway anymore.
“Tolan?”
He glanced back at Ferrah and shook his head. “I’m just going to check on something,” he said.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” she said.
“You know me. I wouldn’t do anything too ridiculous.”
“The problem is that I do know you.”
He flashed a tight smile and headed out into the hall, searching for where Draln and his buddies had gone. The hallway outside the student rooms was quite a bit nicer than what they had in the first-level dormitories. Even before their promotion to this level, Tolan had been here, having come when he had been trying to help injured students after having just come to the Academy. Both had recovered, though he hadn’t seen them since.
Twisted stone sculptures rested on the ground along the hall. Most were strangely decorative and he paused at one, wondering if it might represent a rune or whether this was something else. There was nothing about the pattern on the sculpture that left him thinking it was anything more than just a simple sculpture, but now he had spent as much time as he had in the Academy, he had to believe everything had some purpose. Even things that didn’t quite look like they should.
He shook away those thoughts. That wasn’t why he was here now. He was here to approach Draln.
He heard voices near the end of the hall and found Draln and four other students sitting in the practice area. It was a part of the living area designed to prevent a dangerous shaping from escaping. It also was the place where he had found the injured students, and he wasn’t surprised to see Draln here, though it had been weeks since he’d seen the man.
“Ethar,” Draln said, sneering at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Probably the same thing as you,” he said.
“I doubt that,” Draln said, looking at the others. Tolan realized shaping built from each of them, a gentle, subtle sort of shaping that went from person to person. It was far more controlled than anything Tolan could have managed.
“Don’t you need to be heading back up to one of the towers and working with your bondars?” Draln continued. “I hear there are plenty of first-level students you can work with. Maybe they’ll help you feel more at home.”
“At least I was allowed to go out on a Selection,” Tolan said.
“And what makes you think I wasn’t?”
“Jonas said you didn’t go to Velminth.”
“Velminth,” Draln said, waving his hand. “What was there for me in Velminth? With my shaping ability, I would need to remain in Amitan to serve on the Council.”
“I’m not sure the Council has any place for someone like you,” Tolan said.
“The Council needs skilled shapers to guide us toward the future,” Draln said. “If you would’ve been paying attention when we had members of the Council in the Academy over the last few months, you would have known that, but I suspect you were too busy trying to discover your connection to your element bonds.”
“Where did you go if not to Velminth?”
“It doesn’t matter where I went. The better question is who I went with.”
“Who did you go with?”
Draln leaned forward, his sneer growing more intense. “The Grand Master.”
He looked around at the others, and Tolan realized they were watching him with a bright-eyed intensity. All seemed to think Draln was somehow the key to their gaining power, and maybe he was. It was possible Draln and his connection to the Grand Master and to shaping would be a way to lead them toward a stronger position than they already had. If Draln was already politicking to serve on the Council, Tolan could imagine others were doing the same.
Maybe it was a mistake that he and Ferrah and Jonas weren’t. At least Ferrah should. She was incredibly gifted, and he could see her serving on the Council someday, though from what he had seen so far, she wanted nothing more than to become a master librarian.
Jonas was a skilled shaper, but he could be impulsive, and that impulsivity led Tolan to believe Jonas had a different role. Maybe he would join the Inquisitors.
“How many were Selected?”
“What?”
“How many were Selected?”
“What does that matter?”
“I’m just curious.”
“We found one. The same as we usually do. Great Mother, Ethar. You really are a strange one. I’m sure that comes from your time in Ephra and spending so much time near the waste, but you need to stop asking such odd questions.” Draln turned away, looking at some of others behind him. “Maybe Ethar is the traitor they’re looking for.”
“What was that?” Tolan asked.
Draln glanced back at him, sneering. “A traitor, Ethar. I overheard the Grand Master while I traveled with him. There’s a traitor at the Academy. They think the Draasin Lord is planning something and has to have someone on the inside responsible for it.” He grinned at him. “Maybe it’s you.”
Tolan turned away and ignored the sound of their murmuring voices behind him.
Only one from the Grand Master. Only one with Ferrah in Par. And several from Velminth, where the Grand Inquisitor had been involved. And five in Ephra, where the Grand Inquisitor had been involved. And a traitor in the Academy who worked with the Draasin Lord.
While he wandered, not looking up, he nearly slammed into another of the second-level students. Haervn Voil was a dark-haired man from someplace far west in Terndahl. Tolan didn’t know him well, other than that he was a shaper of moderate ability.
“Ethar. How long have you been back?”
“A few days,” he said, blinking.
“Wasn’t it amazing? The Selection is so much easier when you aren’t the one worrying about whether you will pass.”
Tolan flashed a smile. “It is a whole lot easier that way, isn’t it?”
“And to think how nervous I was when I learned the Grand Inquisitor was going to be performing our Selection.”
Tolan froze. So far, he would be the third person the Grand Inquisitor had been involved with. “How many were Selected?”
“That’s the thing. We had more than usual. I can’t remember how many are Selected each year, though I blame the Inquisitors on that. Most agree it’s no more than one, and rarely two. We had four this year.”
“That is impressive,” Tolan said. “It’s good to see you. We’ll have to catch up later.”
Hearvn nodded and wandered down the hall. He was friendly with Draln, but friendly in the way he wanted to ensure he didn’t anger the man, and Tolan suspected he was heading toward Draln and the others to share how many had been Selected as a way of impressing him.
The Grand Inquisitor involved with the increased number of students Selected from these places left him feeling uncomfortable. He needed to find out more.
Maybe it was nothing more than a strange Selection and an increased number of students chosen. Combined with the last Selection and now this one?
Something was taking place, and while he might not know enough to be able to understand
just what that was, he recognized there was something strange happening.
It might not be his role to uncover what it was, but he would pay attention, keep his eyes open, and be prepared. He had to anyway. Strange things seemed to happen both to him and around him. Unfortunately, he was afraid they were already happening and he had already been brought deeper into something than he had intended.
7
There was a somber air to the interior of the library, and as Tolan sat at a desk, staring at the books in front of him, he couldn’t shake that sense. There was always a silence within the library. It was fostered by the master librarians to ensure anyone who came to the library had a peaceful place to study. Today was not that much different, but there was something more than just the somber atmosphere.
He looked around, trying to piece it together. Ever since returning to the Academy from the Selection, something had felt off. It came from the murmuring throughout the Academy, a murmuring that fit with his experience, the questions he’d asked, and it left him wondering if perhaps there was more going on than what the master shapers had shared.
He glanced at the dais, seeing Master Minden working with her back hunched over whatever volume she was reading through. There were times when he wished she would be more forthright with him, and yet she had provided him with much more than most of the master shapers had ever offered.
As usual when he looked over at her, the sense of a shaping built, though he was no longer certain it came from her. It was possible it came from the Convergence deep beneath the earth, and not so much from the master shaper.
“Tolan,” Ferrah said, whispering. Even in, her voice carried far more than it should.
He jerked his head around to her, meeting her eyes.
“If you’re this distracted, maybe we should not stay here.”
“I can’t help it,” he said.
She nodded to the books in front of him. Nothing he’d managed to obtain provided him any real insight. So far, Tolan had found nothing more in the books on elementals, and he closed them, slipping them into his pouch. Eventually, he would have to return those books. He enjoyed having access to them, to continue to study them, and yet the longer he did, the more he realized he probably no longer needed them. How long ago had it been since he’d memorized everything within them? The time spent at the Keystone had given him a different knowledge and understanding of the elementals, and though he no longer knew whether that experience reflected reality or whether it was tied to that place alone, Tolan thought he did understand the nature of the elementals.
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