“There are always rumors going around the Academy.”
“These are different.”
She arched her brow at him. “How is that?”
“These involve you.”
He waited, worried she might react poorly, but she didn’t. She only watched him, her gaze lingering on his face for a moment before taking a bite of cheese. “There are always rumors going around the Academy about me, too.”
“Why were so many students Selected during this time?”
“Would you rather have fewer students at the Academy, or more?”
“I guess I want there to be the right number of students at the Academy. Ideally, everyone who is Selected has the right ability.”
“And who determines who has the right ability?”
Tolan shrugged. “Presumably spirit shapers, but—”
Master Irina shook her head. “That is something many people get wrong. Most believe the Inquisitors responsible for making the Selection, but it is not on us to make it. We confirm it, but we aren’t the ones choosing who joins the Academy.”
Tolan frowned. “If not the Inquisitors and the Selectors, who is it?”
“What was your experience when you came for your Selection?”
“Mine was different.”
“How so?”
“Because I went to support a friend. I probably shouldn’t have, but I guess that was the price for my going.”
“You still believe you don’t belong?”
“I guess I know I should be here now.”
“You guess. And yet, everything you have done and seen since coming here has proven how you belong at the Academy.”
Tolan nodded, taking another hunk of bread and chewing it slowly. “What does that have to do with the Selection?”
“Because who chose you?”
Tolan frowned. “You did.”
“I did nothing. I performed the shaping necessary for the Selection, but I didn’t choose you. In some respects, you wouldn’t have been one I would have chosen.” She smiled and shook her head. “That’s no slight, Shaper Ethar. It is simply a matter of tradition. We have typically Selected those who have demonstrated shaping ability. It makes the time spent at the Academy more fruitful, but as you have shown, that is not necessary. You have given us as Selectors something to think on, and because of that, the process has changed somewhat.”
“It changed because of me?”
“It changed because we realized we were flawed in assuming only those with shaping ability could be Selected.”
Tolan chewed thoughtfully, thinking of everyone who had been Selected in Ephra. As far as he knew, everyone there had the ability to shape, unlike him. “Were any Selected who weren’t able to shape?”
“Not this time.”
“This time. Which means you think it’s possible in the future someone might be Selected who isn’t able to shape.”
“That remains the possibility, Shaper Ethar. And it gets back to my original point.”
“And what point is that?”
“The point of who is responsible for your Selection.”
“You’re saying you weren’t, which means you believe I am responsible.”
“You are the one who presented yourself for Selection. Because of that, who else can you credit with it?”
“But that doesn’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t it? I think it changes everything.”
“Why?”
“If you’re looking for someone to either blame or give credit for your Selection, you need to look inward. And you need to continue to take ownership of your place here.” She got up, gathering the plate of cheese, and started away.
Tolan leapt to his feet. “Master Irina?”
She paused, turning back to him.
“Is there anything with Master Daniels I should have been aware about?”
“Master Daniels was not a faithful servant of the Academy,” she said.
“I know he wasn’t, it’s just…” What did he want to admit to her? “I feel betrayed.”
“Many of us feel betrayed.”
“He seemed to have some ability with spirit.”
“We’ve spoken of this already. He was not a spirit shaper.”
“Could he have used a bondar?”
She frowned, turning toward him. “The bondars allow an easier connection to the element bonds. There are bondars that allow access to each of them. Spirit is no different.”
That was the first he’d heard of that. “Are there spirit bondars at the Academy?”
She studied him for a moment before her mouth pressed into a tight line. “Get some rest, Shaper Ethar. If you don’t, the next day will be difficult for you.”
Tolan almost shivered as she walked away, worried she knew something.
12
The inside of the spirit-shaping classroom was almost uncomfortable. After having spent the night having difficulty sleeping, then sitting alongside the Grand Inquisitor, Tolan wasn’t sure he wanted to have a day in his spirit class, but seeing as how they had these infrequently, he needed to attend as many as he could.
There were fewer students here than he expected. Could some have decided they weren’t going to reach spirit and simply abandoned class?
The classroom setting was oftentimes difficult to sit through. When it came to spirit, Master Aela was particular about how she used it, ensuring the students sat organized across the floor in a specific pattern. A thick rug spread across the floor, which she claimed was designed to help them feel as if they could reach something more.
“Today I would like all of you to focus your minds. We are going to work on opening yourself up to each of the elements. As all of you have reached the second level, all of you have potential for spirit within you.”
“We can all be Inquisitors?”
The question came from the front of the room, and there was a nervous sort of chuckling after it.
“Not all will become Inquisitors. The Inquisitors are those who have a natural spirit shaping ability, not the way we are going to practice today. I know their presence around the Academy can be somewhat intimidating, but the Inquisitors are here for all of our protection.”
Tolan glanced at Ferrah. She sat in front of him and over a few rows, and seemed to recognize he was looking in her direction. When she glanced back at him, she shook her head slightly.
She didn’t want him to do or say anything, though he didn’t know if there was anything to do or say.
“What we’re going to work on today is your way of opening yourself up to each of the elements. Now, I don’t have a bondar for each of the elements the way some of you might need”—her gaze paused on Tolan for a moment before drifting around the rest of the room—“but as each of you has the potential to shape each of the elements, you are all capable of at least reaching for their power. It doesn’t have to be shaped in order for you to open yourself up to spirit.”
“It’s not going to work,” Jonas grumbled next to him.
“How do you know? If we can reach spirit, think of how useful that might be for us.”
Jonas looked over, shaking his head. Tolan and Ferrah hadn’t gotten him involved in much of anything, not wanting to dig into the rumors of the possible traitor at the Academy. The presence of the Inquisitors all around had limited their desire to do so. For the most part, Tolan—and everyone else at the Academy—went about their studies but did so in a way that would hopefully keep them from drawing too much attention.
He had a pair of bondars with him, both the earth and fire, and with them, he wondered if he might be able to reach for aspects of the spirit shaping Master Aela was trying to teach more effectively. He couldn’t help but feel as if there was some way he needed to reach spirit, and if only he could, he might be able to know more about the Selection, and he might be able to better prepare himself if he were ever spirit-shaped again.
Considering everything that had occurred throughout the Academy, and all of
the times he’d been challenged, Tolan thought having some way of protecting his mind from spirit would be beneficial. Wasn’t that what each of the master shapers were teaching these days? They all wanted to demonstrate there was something more, and in doing so, they were trying to help everyone else reach for a way of protecting themselves.
He didn’t know that spirit would help protect them from the elementals, but when it came to the elementals, Tolan no longer knew if he even needed to be protected from them.
He tried to push that thought out of mind. It was dangerous.
“What I would have you do is focus your thoughts internally. When you do, think about what you know of each of the bonds. As each of you have been here for nearly a year, your knowledge of the bonds is far greater than it had been before you arrived. What I would ask you to do is think about your connection to each of the element bonds. Use that, connect to it, and let that knowledge flow through you. As you do, you need to press that power together.”
“That’s it?” somebody near the front of the class asked. Tolan shifted, trying to see who it was, but he wasn’t able to make them out. It wasn’t Draln. He sat rigidly, focusing on Master Aela, likely determined to reach for spirit. If any was going to be an Inquisitor, Tolan suspected it would be Draln.
And after having seen the Inquisitors throughout the Academy, he couldn’t help but feel as if Draln was the last person who should become one. Draln was the kind of man who would abuse that power.
“When you can shape independently, reaching for each of the elements, something a few of you are capable of doing without a bondar, then you can learn to bind those element bonds together. As you do, then you can reach for more power than you would otherwise, and perhaps you can reach a semblance of spirit. Those who are able to reach spirit on their own feel it is a pale reflection of true spirit, and yet it does manage to accomplish many of the same tasks.”
Tolan frowned to himself. That might explain Master Daniels. As much as he had thought the other man had been using some other technique, it was possible Master Daniels had simply been binding each of the elements together, using that type of shaping in order to reach for power he should not have had.
And knowing what Tolan did now, that his parents likely were responsible for creating bondars, he couldn’t help but think Master Daniels had power added.
“Begin.”
“I can’t believe that’s all the instruction she gives us,” Jonas muttered.
“I’m not sure it would help, anyway,” Tolan said. “Seeing as how I can only shape two of the element bonds, I don’t know it would matter.”
“You can shape two, but you can sense four,” Master Aela said, approaching.
A heat washed through him. He hadn’t known she was so close, and he looked down.
“You are showing incredible growth, Shaper Ethar. I would suggest you continue to work on reaching for each of the element bonds. It’s possible in time, you will be able to reach for water and wind as effectively as you can earth and fire.”
Tolan looked up. He hadn’t realized Master Aela had been following him closely enough to know he was able to reach for those two elements the way he did.
But then, he had to believe the master shapers all spoke about the students, likely planning what was necessary for them to survive the next testing, if that was what they wanted.
He leaned back, closing his eyes. He focused on fire and earth, using those first, and the connection to both of the elements came quickly. It was much more quickly than it had been before, but then, he was touching the bondars, using them to help him reach for power.
The real challenge would be reaching wind and water. Though he could do so in the classrooms now with bondars, doing so outside of the class, finding some way to shape without needing the bondars, was still beyond him. Eventually, Tolan would need to better understand what it would take, and there was a part of him that suspected the potential was there, if only he could find it.
Fire and earth overwhelmed his ability to reach for wind and water.
He released his hold on the bondars, focusing on wind. As he did, he breathed in and out steadily, using his connection to his own breath, to that of the breathing around him, thinking if he could find some way to connect to it, he might be able to reach for power.
There came no sense of the stirring, the telltale sign suggesting he could reach for the element bond. He had grown accustomed to knowing that sense, and the more he focused on it, the more certain he was there had to be something there, if only he could find it.
What about water?
Licking his lips, testing the moisture in his mouth, he started there, thinking from that to the way his heart beat, focusing on the blood within him. Those were the lessons he wanted to take. As he did, he didn’t find anything that would make a difference.
He wasn’t able to reach them.
But he could reach his ability to sense both wind and water. At least that much had changed. Always before, he had struggled, knowing the elements were there, but also that he had no way of truly reaching them.
A sense of shaping built all around him. All of the second-level students were trying to mingle their shapings together, trying to combine that power, and Tolan wished he were able to do the same thing. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he could not.
“Are you able to do anything?” Jonas whispered.
“No.”
“Me neither. I wonder if perhaps I would’ve been able to do it when I was in my testing for the second level. At least then I had one of the bondars for each of the elements.”
“I don’t think they cared if we reached spirit at that time,” Tolan said.
“You think that’ll be the next test we have to face?”
“You’re already thinking about that?”
“We need to be thinking about our next test all the time, Tolan.”
Jonas was right. Instead of focusing on the identity of the traitor within the Academy, and instead of worrying about what it meant that the Inquisitors were here, wandering the halls, he instead needed to be more focused on his own abilities. He had to be prepared for what he could do and what would be asked of him in the coming months and years.
If he were to stay at the Academy, he was going to need to continue to progress. That was one constant he had experienced in his time here. The more he learned, the more it felt as if there were other aspects he needed to know. It wasn’t just reaching each of the elements through the bondar. Eventually, there would be another test, and the potential for another promotion.
Why wouldn’t it be connecting each of the element bonds together to forge spirit?
Then again, Tolan didn’t know if that made the most sense. The master shapers had the ability to reach each of the element bonds without a bondar. In his mind, that would be the next test.
At that point, they would shed even more students, leaving the upper-level ranks more barren. Those who didn’t pass would be allowed to continue to work, but in time, Tolan understood those who didn’t pass would eventually be released from their Academy responsibilities, allowed to head back home or wherever their assignments took them.
That wasn’t the fate he wanted. The longer he was here, the more he had an opportunity to shape each of the element bonds, the more he felt he wanted to understand shaping. He wanted to master it. He had come a long way from where he’d begun, and now it was all about knowing the elements.
And, when he was honest with himself, the elementals.
It was dangerous, and if the Inquisitors were to uncover him out in the park, working with the elementals, he would likely end up within the Inquisition, which was part of the reason he had refrained from heading out to the park.
“How long do you think we need to stay and continue to practice?” Jonas asked.
“I haven’t had the sense Master Aela was too eager to allow us to leave before the end of her training time.”
In many of the other class
es, if the shaping assignment was complete, they were allowed to leave. Spirit was different. When he was here working with spirit, and working with Master Aela, he often felt as if he needed to linger, waiting to ensure there wasn’t any part of the assignment he’d missed.
But then, part of that came from Tolan’s interest. He wanted to know the elements, wanted to know spirit in particular, and he thought there might be something he could learn from Master Aela that he couldn’t work on anywhere else.
“I haven’t, either. I just don’t know if I’m opening myself up the way she wants.”
“With the two of you be quiet?” Ferrah whispered.
Tolan nodded quickly and Jonas grunted.
“Of course, she probably can reach each of the elements. She’s probably shaping spirit right now.”
Knowing Ferrah as he did, Tolan didn’t think she was.
He closed his eyes again, thinking about what Master Aela asked. If part of the assignment was mixing the various elements together, then he needed to do so in a way that would allow him to use them.
He focused. Wind and water first. As he did, he let the knowledge of them flow to him, letting that sense roll through him, and tried to find a connection to shaping those elements, but it didn’t come. That didn’t mean it couldn’t, only he wasn’t able to do so now. Rather than trying to force a shaping that wasn’t going to work for him, he focused instead on sensing each of the elements, letting awareness of them flow to him.
Would there be any way of mixing element sensing together?
It was different than what Master Aela suggested, and yet the more he thought about it, the more he wondered if that were perhaps possible.
He had recognized spirit shaping before. He had been exposed to it more than most within the classroom, and if he could at least summon some sort of spirit sensing, he had to think the next step would be understanding what would be necessary to mix together in order to shape it.
The sense of shaping continued to build all around, and as he focused on each of the elements, he became aware of something else.
At first, Tolan wasn’t sure what it was or whether he was detecting anything accurately, but the more he focused, the more certain he was that it truly was spirit.
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