“I needed the free elementals. I needed to show Irina and Ferrah the free elementals. And I needed to know whether they were influenced.”
“You have already been through here, Tolan. You know there was no influence.”
“I thought there wasn’t,” he said.
Tolan pushed out, focusing on that sense. As he did, he was able to push power outward. It was subtle, and by letting it wash over his father, he could detect it. It flowed outward. When it struck his father, he recognized just a hint of that darkness within him. Chaos.
He had tested his father before. When he had been here before, he had tested everything, trying to ensure there was no other touch, but now when he pushed that sense of spirit and probed at him gently, there was a part of him that wasn’t even sure if the touch of chaos was real. It was only because of the time he had spent with his father, time he had once believed he would never have, that he was able to recognize the darkness and its influence.
How many others would’ve been influenced in such a way?
“You detect it?”
“Detect what?” His father glanced from Tolan to Irina.
Spirit built from her, and it washed over his father, sweeping through him. It happened rapidly, and there was a subtlety to it that Tolan didn’t possess. “It’s there. I thought you said he had been cleansed.”
“We thought my mother had been cleansed as well.”
“If not, perhaps Ferrah is still touched.”
Tolan turned toward her. He hadn’t considered that, but the idea was troubling. By probing her, using spirit, he felt for the possible influence of chaos, but when he did, there was no sense of it.
“I don’t detect it from her.”
“Why him?”
“I don’t know. Maybe it was the duration of the influence.”
“What are you talking about? There is no influence within me.”
Tolan ignored him as he thought about Ephra and the attack on the Academy. He thought about what he had noticed from people he had known. Tanner. Others from within the city. He and Irina had believed there was a spirit shaping upon them, but as they had peeled shapings away, there had been nothing. At the time, he hadn’t known enough to be able to probe for chaos and could have detected.
What if there was an influence?
Maybe he could remove it, but as he probed at it, using his connection to spirit, he couldn’t find it. There was no way to peel it off, not as there had been with Ferrah. Whatever had happened here had been far more subtle.
“I can’t do anything with it,” he said.
“Perhaps not here.”
“Perhaps not,” Tolan said.
“You thought there was a place of Convergence here.”
Tolan turned to his father. “We need to see where you brought me the first time.”
“I’m afraid I am not going to be able to allow that.”
“Father—”
“I was willing to entertain some of this when you first arrived. You did us a great service by stopping your mother and proving what had happened to me, but you have the Grand Inquisitor with you, Tolan. You are now a master shaper. You are fully integrated into the Academy.”
“I am.”
“I know how the Academy views the elementals. This place is a place of the elementals.”
“It is.”
“Then why should I permit you to reach for the most sacred part of this land?”
“Because it’s the only way that might save the elementals. Not just the elementals you have known and worked with, but all of them.”
His father stared at him, and then he took a deep breath. “I don’t know what you will find there.”
“I don’t either, but if it’s a place of Convergence like the others, I need to understand.”
This was a different land than Terndahl. The Convergence was different. The elementals were different. And though he felt the touch of that darkness on his father, he didn’t sense anything from within him that would make him think his father was a threat. Even though he could sense that darkness within the other elementals, there was nothing here that was a danger.
What had changed?
His mother had come here for a purpose, and that purpose was what he needed to uncover.
“I don’t need your permission. I’m only asking as a courtesy,” he said.
He hated the way it sounded, how harsh and brutal the words were, but he also didn’t want to do anything that would cause any additional danger to the elementals. In order to better understand what was taking place here, he needed to be able to know more about the Convergence that was here.
“Then go without me.”
Tolan glanced at Ferrah, and she nodded to him. “You don’t have to do it like this,” she whispered.
“We need to investigate it.”
“He’s been through as much as you,” she said.
Tolan sighed. That was the part that was difficult for him. As much as he kept telling himself he didn’t know his memories, what must his father be thinking?
He was no different than Tolan when it came to that. He didn’t know and couldn’t trust his memories, either. With the way his mother was able to use spirit, the way she was able to place memories within their minds, he recognized he wasn’t as alone as he had believed.
Tolan turned to his father. “She’s going to keep hurting people. My goal is to help ensure others don’t get hurt, but also to ensure the elementals are safe. I went looking for her and I found something that leaves me to believe whatever she did here, and whatever she experienced here, taught her something that has guided her along the path of where she’s going and what she might do.”
“She’s not here,” his father said.
“I know she’s not here, but there is still a touch on you that’s not on others. It’s different here than it is in Terndahl. I need to understand that difference.”
“And you think you can only learn that by going to the Convergence?”
“I don’t know. I think I can learn more by going to the Convergence.”
His father looked at him, glancing from Tolan and then to Ferrah, finally settling his gaze on Irina. “If you promise you’re doing this for the right reasons.”
“I’m doing it for the elementals. There is no better reason.”
19
Tolan didn’t need his father to guide him to the building housing the Convergence, but he also didn’t want to have to force his way there. There would be others who would question his presence, and he didn’t want to give anyone a reason not to permit him and Ferrah, along with Irina, to make their way toward the Convergence. And as he approached, he could feel its energy. He pushed outward with spirit, trying to use it in order to connect to the sense of the Convergence, and there was a faint sense of something he’d detected before to it. It was soft and subtle, but it was definitely there.
What, though?
Tolan could almost place it. If he were to shape into it…
Ferrah held onto his arm. “What do you hope to uncover here?”
“All of this is strange,” Tolan said. He looked around, his gaze sweeping the landscape. There were elementals here, and he didn’t even need to use his connection to spirit to understand something about them was different here than how they had been when they escaped from the bond. He could feel it.
The effect was subtle, though when he pushed out with spirit, he was able to detect the shifting change, and to know just what it was he could detect.
“What is it you’re concerned about?”
“My mother was here. That fact I know.” He looked at her, locking eyes with her.
“Just because this is one of them doesn’t mean you’ll learn anything here. She wasn’t here all that long.”
Tolan didn’t think she had been, either. His father would have had different memories, and though they were a jumble, it seemed to Tolan it would be difficult for his mother to have changed so much that others would not have
picked up on it.
“I know, it’s just…”
He didn’t have a good answer other than that he believed this was where they needed to go, and a place that had been important to his mother, at least early on when she had been working to better understand the elementals and what the connection to them meant. If Tolan could grasp that, he might get a sense for what she had done and what she was trying to hide from him.
They reached the building, and his father paused in front of it. “You will not harm this place,” he said.
“I don’t intend to harm it,” Tolan said.
“We came here to get away from the Academy. We came here to try to understand the elementals.”
“You came here because Mother wanted you to come here.”
His father nodded slowly. “That might be why we initially came, but I’m not talking about her and me.” His gaze drifted to some of the other villagers around them. They were watching him, tension within their posture. “There are others here, Tolan. Now you’re a master shaper, they will be distrustful of you.”
“I know the people here aren’t with the so-called Draasin Lord.”
“You do, but what of the others?”
“Irina knows that as well,” Tolan said.
“She can speak for herself,” Irina said. She crossed her arms over her chest, locking eyes with Tolan’s father. “I have been the Grand Inquisitor long enough that I can recognize someone who means to harm Terndahl and anyone who lived within it.”
“And?”
She breathed out. “Your mind is too confused for you to be of much use.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If I had any doubt about whether my daughter had her touch upon you, it’s answered by what I detect here. It’s different than what I detect when questioning the others.”
She hadn’t shared that with Tolan. The only other he knew about was Master Daniels, and yet, Tolan didn’t have a sense of much from him, either. Master Daniels had attacked, working with his mother, but much like his mother, there was no ongoing influence within his mind. He had been used, but at the same time, he had been used willingly. Even now, it seemed to Tolan that Master Daniels embraced the way he had been used.
“It’s okay,” Tolan said.
His father took a deep breath and pushed open the door.
It was better he did that than force Tolan to push his way inside. Not that he would’ve hesitated. In order to know, to be able to test the Convergence as he thought he needed to do, he had to come inside.
The room was as he remembered. When he had come here before, everything had been overwhelming. He had struggled with the idea his father was still alive, struggled with the idea he was asked to spy on behalf of the Academy, and he had struggled with what he had seen and experienced while he’d been here. They had shown him his mother, but that had been an illusion, a way of giving him comfort, almost a way of shaping him.
Now that he’d returned, he wondered whether or not that had been something his mother had influenced.
She was skilled with spirit, and he wouldn’t put it past her to be able to use spirit in such a way that would be almost untraceable. It was possible she could have left her influence here, upon the Convergence, in such a way that none would have even known that she had done so.
“I have never seen sculptures like this,” Ferrah said as she entered the room. She made a circle around one, and a shaping of fire crept out from her.
Tolan swept his gaze around, noting the way the elementals he detected within here reacted to her shaping. Would she notice the way the elementals seemed to curve toward her shaping, or would that be something she remained oblivious to?
It might even be that she wasn’t necessarily oblivious to it. Knowing what he did about her view of the elementals, she just might not see them the same way he did. She might be able to recognize the elementals, but she might not pay attention to them in the way he did.
Tolan headed toward the center of the room. When he been here before, he remembered the figure coming out of the darkness. The Draasin Lord had given him that illusion, but perhaps there had been a reason behind it.
Tolan had spent some time with the Draasin Lord, and he knew the draasin was not influenced in the same way as the other elementals. It was possible he had been touched, though now Tolan was here, he didn’t know if that was the case or not.
Focusing on the Convergence, he could feel it.
Much like when he had been in the heart of the waste, Tolan had been aware of the sense of that Convergence. He could feel it even then.
This Convergence was somewhere deep below him. Tolan pushed outward with spirit, letting that sense connect to it. It hummed within him, a deep awareness that vibrated. He added the other elements, sweeping downward. The mixture was powerful, and in this place, he added a touch of his connection to the elementals. The only piece he wasn’t able to reach was a connection to the runes. There might be some way to do so, but he would have to search for any runes physically present here.
Tolan looked over at his father. “Are there runes upon this building?”
“There are runes on all buildings here.”
“Are there any that are distinct?”
Ferrah and Irina were watching him, and there was a question burning in Ferrah’s eyes, but it was one Tolan didn’t know how to answer quite yet. He was certain there were runes on each of the places of Convergence.
His father shook his head. “Nothing that would be different. We settled here because it was an ancient place, one of power. The elementals guided us.”
Which meant what was here might be so old that his father wouldn’t even know. Maybe his mother hadn’t even known.
Tolan shifted the nature of his shaping, letting it sweep away from him. No longer did he focus it down toward the Convergence deep beneath the ground, but instead let it spread all around him, trying to find whether there was any other influence he might be able to uncover. He didn’t find anything.
He couldn’t find it with shaping, and without delving into the Convergence itself, he might not be able to find it.
There was a way.
He turned toward the hidden earth elemental. Jinnar was there, hiding in the darkness. Ever since they had arrived within these lands, jinnar had followed them.
“I need to know where the markings of power would be found.”
He spoke it slowly and added earth and spirit, sending it toward the earth elemental. The combination rolled outward.
When it reached jinnar, there was a deep rumble, but nothing more.
If the elemental knew, there wasn’t going to be any way to communicate with him.
Tolan turned in place, looking around the inside of the room as he searched for anything that would help him find answers. In order to do so, he would need to reach for one of these elementals to see what they might know.
Tolan stopped. Did it have to be one of these elementals?
It was possible he could approach a different elemental. Hyza had been to these lands, he was certain of it.
Tolan froze, turning back and looking all around him. He let that sense continue to flow, and this time he focused on spirit and fire, which he turned inward, reaching for the vague and faint connection to hyza that he knew existed within his mind. It was subtle, but ever since that vision and the connection he had formed between the elemental and himself, he had known it was there.
He could draw upon it.
Closing his eyes, he sent forth the connection.
Are there runes here?
When hyza answered, it came from some place deep in his mind. There are patterns everywhere.
Can you show me?
You already know where they are.
Tolan tried to think about what he had seen, and yet as he looked around, he didn’t find anything. If he already knew what they were and where they were, how was he going to find them?
An image flashed in his mind, coming from hyz
a. Tolan recognized it immediately.
He headed out of the chamber, stepping back out into the bright sunlight. Ferrah and Irina joined him, and Tolan took to the air on a shaping of wind, hovering there. For a moment, he was reminded of how absurd something like what he was doing would’ve seemed even a little while ago. The idea he would have such control over the elements and even over the elementals would have been impossible to believe.
As he looked over the village spread out below him, he grew angry. His understanding of his connection to the elements had been kept from him. His mother had prevented him from knowing that side of himself. Had he only had the opportunity to know who he was and what that connection meant, he would have been able to learn how to shape sooner.
Even if he had learned how to shape sooner, would it have changed anything? Tolan had needed to go through what he had in order to reach his connection to not only the elements, but also to the elementals. Because of the way he had learned to shape, because of the trials and pain he had gone through, he had learned a control of his power that he might not have gained otherwise. He thought of people he knew within the Academy, their experiences of coming to the Academy already having power and not needing to chase it in the same way he had. Because of his ignorance, and because of the fact that when he had first presented himself for Selection, he had been an outsider and had pushed himself in order to try to better understand whether his connection to the elements was even possible.
“What are you hoping to find?” Ferrah asked.
“Hyza tells me everything I need is already within me.”
“It sounds to me that hyza is playing a game with you,” she said.
Tolan glanced at her. “He is the reason we survived the waste.”
“Then maybe not playing a game with you, but why would he talk in riddles?”
Tolan shook his head. “I’m looking for runes.”
“You said that, but why do you believe there would be runes around the Convergence?” Irina asked.
“Because at the Academy and then again in Par, there were runes around them.”
The Chaos Rises (Elemental Academy Book 6) Page 19