A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  A Fading Fire

  The Elemental Warrior Book 2

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2020 by D.K. Holmberg

  Cover by Damonza.com

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Author’s Note

  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  Tolan stormed through the halls of the Academy, annoyance flashing within him. He didn’t like getting summoned in this way, and he really didn’t like that they would call for him, demanding that he meet. He shouldn’t allow himself to get so upset, but it felt as if he had so much that he needed to get done, and there simply wasn’t the time to do it all. There was even less time to do it when he received a summons like this that would draw him away from his other responsibilities.

  “Would you slow down?”

  Ferrah kept pace with him, and she glanced over at him every so often, her cloak stirring with the speed with which they walked through the halls. They didn’t pass any students, though that was mostly because of the time of day.

  Tolan shook his head, running a hand through his increasingly shaggy brown hair. “I can’t slow down until we get this sorted out,” he said. In the distance, a pair of Inquisitors made their way along the hallway. Their black cloaks seemed almost as if they didn’t move with the speed they marched along the hall, something Tolan found irritating.

  When it came to the Inquisitors, there was much about them that he still found irritating, despite how he had helped them.

  “You don’t need to run. You are the spirit master, after all.”

  Tolan grunted. He might be the spirit master, but there were times, especially times like now, where he still felt like the student of all of those years ago. When he had been here as a student, he had been at the mercy of others summoning him, which was no different than he felt now. He felt as if he were expected to jump the moment the other master shapers demanded.

  “If I don’t answer the summons quickly enough…”

  Ferrah caught his arm, pulling him back around so that he would look at her. “Take a deep breath.”

  Tolan clenched his jaw and nodded.

  All of this because he had made a point of trying to prove himself.

  And he had.

  There was no doubting he had demonstrated his skill with spirit, which had benefited the Academy. It had also been difficult. By demonstrating his knowledge, he had given up his one advantage over the Inquisitors, leaving him with only his experience. The problem was that many of the other Inquisitors had more experience than he did. Now that they had his knowledge of shaping spirit, they no longer viewed him the same way they had before.

  It was a disadvantage, and it was one that he hated, but at the same time, Tolan was determined to do whatever he needed to serve the Academy.

  He focused, centering himself as he prepared to answer the summons. There was no reason to be this irritated and agitated, nothing other than the fact that he knew the Inquisitors would be a part of this. Even so, there was no reason to let them bother him as much as they did.

  They turned a corner in the hall, passing a pair of statues resting on either side of the hallway that marked various elementals. It still surprised him that the Academy would have so many sculptures for the elementals, given the previous hatred for them.

  Ferrah took his hand, and together they walked along the hallway, moving a little bit more slowly now than they had been when Tolan had first received the summons. No longer were they racing through the halls. Now there was a controlled step to them.

  “Breathe,” Ferrah whispered.

  Tolan took a deep breath and inhaled some of the scents of the Academy. There were floral fragrances mixed into the air, mostly from the bouquets of flowers stuffed into vases along the walls. In some places, it looked haphazard, as if whichever gardener had decided upon the flowers they would choose for the arrangement had picked the nearest collection of flowers but made no point of trying to coordinate the colors. As far as he could tell, he didn’t think they had any sort of shaping—or sensing—ability, either. The earth sense coming off the flowers was not nearly as coordinated as what it should be.

  Ferrah glanced over at him, frowning. “What are you looking at?”

  “The flowers,” Tolan said.

  “The flowers now?”

  “They aren’t put together right,” he said.

  She started to laugh but cut off as she watched him. “You’re serious.”

  He shrugged. “I feel earth within them,” he said.

  “Even if they aren’t put together quite right, do you really think it matters?”

  “Considering everything we’ve dealt with regarding earth, I think it matters a little bit,” Tolan said. He paused at the nearest of the vases, resting his hand along the ceramic surface, tracing a pattern in the blue paint. He could almost imagine it was a rune, though it was not one that he recognized. He pressed out with a brief probe of earth mixed with spirit, straining to see if there was any connection that he might share with that vase, but came up with nothing. “Earth is still tainted,” he said. “Regardless of anything else that we do, we are going to have to come to terms with that.”

  “It shouldn’t matter to you,” Ferrah said.

  Tolan stared at the vase, the flowers within. There were two roses—one yellow, one red—a few daisies, and a broadleaf flower that seemed to overwhelm the others. Through his connection to earth, he detected how the other flowers detested the way that larger flower overwhelmed them.

  It was a strange thing for him to be aware of, though when it came to the various elements and how they interacted, it wasn’t altogether shocking that he would feel something.

  “Just because I can shape without reaching for the element bonds doesn’t mean I want to leave the bond tainted the way it is.”

  “The Grand Master is working on it,” Ferrah said.

  “The Grand Master is, but I need to help.”

  “I thought you were.”

  Tolan just nodded. He had attempted to work with earth as much as possible, struggling to find answers as to what had been done to the bond, along with why it had been done, but had still failed. Despite his attempts, he had not yet uncovered the key to what Roland had done to it.

  And there was no doubt in his mind that it was all due to what Roland had done. He was responsible for what had taken place, and until Tolan could figure that out, he didn’t think they were going to be able to stop him.

  Ferrah watched him, pulling h
im around so that she could meet his gaze. “Is this all about you and him?”

  He shrugged. “Shouldn’t it be?”

  She started to laugh. “You aren’t going to be able to do everything.”

  “I’m not trying to do everything,” he said.

  She laughed again. “You could have fooled me. You’re determined to stop him all by yourself.”

  “Others get hurt when they get involved.”

  “So let them get hurt.” She squeezed his hands and forced him to look up and meet her eyes. There was affection within them, concern as well. It was an emotion that Tolan sometimes wondered whether he deserved from her or not. “You aren’t the only one who has to risk yourself to benefit the Academy. You aren’t the only one who’s been willing to risk themselves.”

  He shook his head. “I know.”

  “You say that you know, but your actions say otherwise. Ever since Roland got away, you’ve been disappearing.”

  “Somebody has to try to understand what he’s been doing.”

  “And somebody has been.” She glanced behind her, along the hall, looking toward the Grand Master’s room. “If you had been paying attention, you would have realized that the Grand Master has all of the Inquisitors looking.”

  “They…” Tolan cut himself off. There was a time when he would’ve claimed that the Inquisitors wouldn’t have been able to do anything when it came to stopping Roland, but how could he argue that he knew any more than them? He couldn’t. Not anymore.

  Perhaps that was what troubled him the most. He was no longer the one the Academy needed to go to for answers.

  “You’re right. I need to put more faith in the Inquisitors. I just have history with them.”

  She grunted softly. “We know you have history. The Great Mother knows you have history. These aren’t the Inquisitors who are responsible for what happened to you. All of those Inquisitors are gone. There’s no reason for you to hold onto those memories the way that you do.”

  Tolan inhaled deeply, smelling the collection of fragrances from the flowers, wrinkling his nose at the pungent aroma coming off the larger flower. He didn’t recognize it, but perhaps it didn’t matter. He didn’t necessarily need to recognize it to know it. All he had to do was stretch out into the earth bond, however tainted it might be, and he could identify it. Perhaps the earth bond’s taint was what made the flowers so pungent.

  “Come on,” Ferrah urged.

  Tolan tore his gaze away from the flowers and followed her. When they reached the Grand Master’s room, she paused in front of it, holding her hand out. The shaping that built from her was a mixture of earth and wind, the combination allowing her to sweep beyond whatever barrier the door presented, probing beneath it as she stretched outward.

  “He’s not here,” she said.

  “The summons said that we were to come to his room urgently,” he said.

  “Yours did,” she said.

  He shook his head. “How is mine any different than any others?”

  “I’m not saying it is,” Ferrah said. “All I’m saying is that your summons said that we needed to get here.”

  “You didn’t receive one?”

  “The summons was with spirit,” Ferrah said. “Seeing as how I don’t have a connection to spirit…”

  Tolan took a deep breath and reached for his connection to spirit. That connection was there, initially faint, but it grew stronger the more that he probed at it. He probed outward, searching for anyone on the other side of the door. He had visited the Grand Master many times over the years and was quite comfortable in his quarters, unlike when he had first gone there. There was a time when going to the Grand Master’s room felt like a punishment, and though there was still a bit of hesitation at receiving a summons like this, it was not at all the way that it had once been.

  “I don’t detect anything.”

  “So he’s not here.”

  “The summons said—”

  A burst of energy came to him. It was shaped energy and it pulled through the air, making use of the sense of spirit near him, as if it were drawing upon the Convergence deep beneath the ground. Likely if it came from the Grand Master, that was exactly what it did. He would have the ability to call upon that power without stepping foot into it.

  At least that was one thing Tolan could do that some of the Inquisitors could not. He also could reach into the Convergence, tapping through the spirit rune, using that in order to access greater stores of power than he would otherwise.

  “What is it?”

  “We didn’t come fast enough,” Tolan said, taking her hand and heading out the main entrance of the Academy.

  Once outside, bright sunlight shone down, illuminating all of the city of Amitan. The smells of the city were different here as well. Thankfully, there wasn’t the floral fragrance that was present within the lower level of the Academy. Hints of roasted meats and vegetables and breads mixed with the smell of all of the people within the city. Some was foul, but not all. The connections to the people within the city pressed upon him as well. Tolan could feel it through earth, through spirit, but he also felt it carry to him on the wind that gusted through the air, the fluttering of water that connected him to the heartbeats of people nearby, even to the heat radiating off everyone. The city, much like many other places, combined all of the elements in its own signature. Tolan could embrace that, feeling that power, and could identify Amitan without even opening his eyes.

  It was home to him. He had been here long enough now that it had become something much more than he had ever expected it to be. His childhood home of Ephra could never rival what he now had in Amitan. Many students who came to the Academy found themselves caught up with the life within Amitan. Tolan wasn’t the first who chose to remain, and he doubted that he would be the last. So many students enjoyed their tenure at the Academy and found the rigors of their study rewarding, so they remained—or perhaps chased different dreams if they didn’t find the success they once had.

  The summons called out to him, and Tolan followed his awareness of it, heading through the street as he made his way to the small park near the Academy proper. The park was a wide green space, grass and trees and a pond that all allowed students at the Academy to find a connection to the elements and the element bonds that they wouldn’t necessarily have within the Academy. It was here where Tolan had found himself drawn when he was a student. It shouldn’t surprise him that here would be where the Grand Master would summon him.

  They entered the garden and Tolan slowed, feeling the awareness of other shapers near him. Not all were Inquisitors.

  Tolan had thought they would all be Inquisitors, that everybody who would be connected to spirit would hear the summons from the Grand Master, but that didn’t seem to be the way that he used his power. Most of those summoned could use spirit, though, including Velthan. Tolan nodded to him politely. It was only a matter of time before he tested for promotion to full master shaper.

  Tolan glanced over at Ferrah, having brought her once detecting the summons. “Do you feel anything?”

  She shook her head. “I told you, I’m not connected to spirit, so I don’t expect to feel what you do.”

  Tolan shook his head. “I’m not so sure that this is about what somebody with spirit can feel.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  Tolan frowned. “I don’t know. It’s just…”

  He slowed, trailing off as he came across a trio of Inquisitors standing with Velthan. Kerry was the youngest of them, and though she was connected to spirit more strongly than the other two, her junior status gave her lower rank among the Inquisitors. Tolan didn’t fully understand how that worked or why that would matter, but when it came to the Inquisitors, it seemingly did.

  Thomas and James stood on either side of her, almost flanking her like guardians. Tolan felt them send out a spirit search the moment that he appeared, as if they were concerned that he would suddenly pull upon a shaping and use it on them. He f
ound that ironic, considering how Inquisitors had been known for using spirit shapings on others as they tried to defend the Academy and all of Terndahl.

  “You were summoned as well?” James asked. He was heavyset, with a bulging belly that pressed upon his dark Inquisitor clothing, and he had a poorly trimmed beard that in other circumstances would make Tolan smile. The connection to spirit he maintained was significant, though. Tolan could feel the power surging from him, using a shaping that Tolan had demonstrated through his shared knowledge.

  “I thought it was for all who were connected to spirit,” Tolan said, looking around the park. Other than the three Inquisitors and Velthan, he saw no one else nearby. He stretched out, pushing with earth, and realized why that would be.

  The remainder of the people were not far from them. Near the pond.

  Tolan glanced over at Ferrah. “Not only spirit shapers,” he whispered.

  “What was that?” Kerry asked.

  Tolan looked over at her. She had dark hair and the dark complexion of one who came from the far south of Terndahl. Tolan imagined that she was from Parashan or perhaps Laineth, though he didn’t know. If he were to use spirit upon her, he might be able to detect the answer, but he also suspected that if he were to use spirit upon her, she would rebel, throwing up a barrier that he would have to struggle to get past. He had once believed that spirit shapers had natural immunity to spirit, and while there was some level of immunity, it wasn’t absolute. Spirit shapers could be shaped no differently than others.

  “It wasn’t only spirit shapers who were summoned,” Tolan said, glancing at James and then Thomas. He was the oldest of them, and from the way he stood with his hands balled at his sides, he seemed the most irritated by Tolan. Many of the older Inquisitors were irritated with him, partly because of his rapid ascent through the Academy and partly because he had known spirit better than them, however short-lived his advantage might’ve lasted. There were times when he wished that he had not demonstrated the shaping to them. Of course, had he withheld that shaping, they would have weakened the Academy. Tolan wanted to serve the Academy, which meant that he needed to reveal the secrets that he had learned, if only so that he could help protect those he had pledged to serve. “If you use earth, wind, water, or even fire, you will find what I’m saying,” Tolan said.