A Fading Fire

by D. K. Holmberg

  Shaping exploded within her.

  Tolan turned his attention back to Roland. “Do you feel what I’m doing?”

  “It’s too late for your precious elementals. Too late for any of them. Don’t you recognize what this is doing?”

  “All you’re doing is pulling power into the element bonds.”

  “Is that all you think I’m doing?” Roland sneered. “Why would I want to connect power to the element bonds?”

  “Because you don’t have any way of reaching them otherwise.”

  Roland glared at him. “I’m creating a way for those with me to reach this power. You cannot understand.”

  The comment was so similar to what the lizard had said.

  The sense of power from the other man continued to push outward, but Tolan ignored it. Tolan was stronger than Roland. Not only that, but Tolan was better connected to the elements.

  He could feel the way Roland tried to steal power.

  Stopping him would be a simple matter. All it would take would be to push.

  Only… that wasn’t quite right. He needed to draw power upward. It began to flow. He reached for that power, trying to reverse what Roland had done.

  Roland fought back.

  It was a strange battle, standing across from each other, neither of them saying anything. Tolan didn’t move toward Roland, and the other man didn’t attempt to move toward him.

  Both struggled against the power here. Roland was connected to that power, but he wasn’t naturally connected. He pulled.

  This time, he didn’t pull the power toward him, but through him. It went out toward the elementals. He gave them what Roland tried to steal. There was another effect. By forcing this power outward, he connected them to the land. Everything began to change. Power around him shifted, and now Tolan could connect to it.

  Roland could not.

  Tolan shifted his attack. He no longer had to pull on the Convergence that Roland was trying to create. The only thing he needed to do instead was to focus on that which flowed from him.

  “You’ve already lost.”

  Roland attempted to shape. It would carry him away from here.

  Tolan resisted. He wasn’t about to let the other man escape again. He held him.

  Power trapped him in place. Roland cried out, yelling at Tolan, but he ignored it. Instead, he focused on the power within him. He forced Roland to remain.

  Movement around him caught his attention. The elementals approached.

  They were connected to the land. As they approached, everything was changing. Everything was returning to the way it was supposed to be. The pit changed as well.

  Roland took a step toward Tolan.

  Tolan tried to hold him, trying to keep him in place, but he couldn’t. Somehow, Roland was still powered by the elements. As Tolan connected to Roland, he realized that wasn’t even quite true. It wasn’t just that Roland was connected the elements, but he was connected to spirit.

  He was connected to the lizard. Light.

  Tolan pushed against it, but Roland charged him.

  Tolan brought his hands up, forgetting that he held onto the sword bondar. The blade slammed into Roland’s chest. Power exploded from the blade, and it ripped through Roland, exploding him in light.

  His eyes widened briefly as he died.

  Tolan staggered back, pulling the blade free from the fallen man.

  Tolan sank to his knees. The elementals continued their circle, heading around the pit, drawing power out. Connecting to the land. Everything changed.

  Kerry started toward him, attempting to shape, still pushing back the power that was around them. As Tolan dropped to the ground, Kerry started toward him.

  He looked over at Ferrah, and found her shaping. Energy was flowing from her in a way that it hadn’t before.

  She locked eyes with Tolan, raced over to him as he lowered his sword bondar, and threw her arms around him. “How are you here?”

  “I reentered my body.”

  “I don’t understand. Maybe I can’t understand.”

  “I’m not sure I can either, but I’m back.”

  “It’s over?” She looked down at Roland, glancing at the blade in Tolan’s hand. Maybe she wouldn’t tease him quite as much about his use of the sword now that he had been the one to cut down Roland.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “But you stopped him.”

  “Roland might be dead, but the reason he attacked in the first place isn’t gone. He was influenced.”

  “Roland was influenced?”

  “Toward the end. I don’t know if he was always influenced.”

  If only Roland had allowed Tolan to know his mind better, then he might have been able to offer him more help. Instead, Roland had made a choice.

  It had given Tolan no choice.

  He swept his gaze around at the elementals.

  All of them had taken on their human form, and they moved away. He had helped them, but something else was changing for them as well.

  “If Roland was influenced, then how are you going to find the one who influenced him?”

  “I know what influenced him. It was an elemental of spirit.”

  Ferrah’s eyes widened briefly. “That’s not going to be easy to stop.”

  “I will help,” Kerry said.

  Ferrah turned to her. This time, there was no frown on her face. “We might need your help,” she said, hesitating a moment. “I’m sorry for my initial reaction toward you. I guess… I was threatened.”

  Kerry sniffed. “Why would you be threatened?”

  Ferrah looked over at Tolan. “He’s given so much to the Academy. He has been willing to risk himself so often, and I have rarely seen anyone else willing to do the same.”

  “You haven’t been willing to risk yourself for the Academy?”

  Ferrah held Tolan’s gaze. “What I’ve done hasn’t always been for the Academy.” She turned and looked at Kerry. “If you are willing—and able—to fight on behalf of the Academy, and given what I’ve seen here, along with your willingness to risk yourself, I think that you are, I need to find a way to trust you the same way that Tolan does.”

  Kerry looked at Tolan. “I don’t know that I would have trusted him were it not for the shaping he placed on me.” She held his gaze and Tolan felt spirit swirl out from her. “When he gifted the knowledge of spirit, I understood what he had done, and what he was willing to do. I’m not so sure how many of the other Inquisitors did, but I did. I vowed to help however I could. I will still help however I can.”

  Tolan took a deep breath, looking off into the distance. They had stopped Roland. He was gone.

  There was still the issue of the lizard and spirit.

  That wasn’t resolved. Nor was the issue of the Convergence and why the ancient shapers had formed the waste. There was something to it that he needed to better understand. That understanding would come later. For now, they could enjoy their success.

  Though Tolan thought he understood what had happened to Light, he didn’t know if he was going to be able to place the lizard back into the prison that had held him.

  28

  Standing in the hall of portraits now left Tolan with an empty feeling. When he’d come before, there had been a sense of understanding. There had been a sense that he might have been gifted with some knowledge, and perhaps an understanding of the power that existed here.

  How could I have been so wrong?

  He stared at the painting the lizard had come from. The bright light that glowed took on a different meaning. Always before, he had struggled to understand the purpose behind it, but he hadn’t known. Even now, he wasn’t entirely sure he understood. The only thing he understood was that he had made a mistake.

  “That painting again?”

  Tolan looked over at Master Minden. She was near the end of the hall, leaning on a cane. With a shaping of spirit, he pushed out a sense of power, testing whether or not she was injured, but there didn’t seem to
be anything within her that was truly injured.

  Only tired.

  Given what she had gone through, and everything that she had suffered, he understood.

  For that matter, he was tired. He wanted to lie down and rest, but he had come here, thinking that if nothing else, he might be able to find some answers.

  “I feel like I have to come here.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were wrong.” He swept his gaze along the paintings. All of the elementals here began to take on a different meaning.

  What if they were all like the lizard? If they were, and if the lizard somehow managed to free them, then would there be anything we would be able to do to keep ourselves safe?

  Tolan didn’t know if it would even be possible.

  And if not, then what would change?

  The lizard was powerful. Connected as it was to spirit, and because of spirit’s connection to the other elements, there was a real danger to the elementals.

  Tolan had wanted to try to help the elementals, and it might be that what he had done was the very thing that he had feared most. He might have somehow brought the elementals into danger.

  “We have been wrong many times,” Master Minden said, making her way toward him. She wobbled slightly as she walked, more than she ever had before.

  Tolan shook his head. “We haven’t been this wrong before.” He nodded to the portrait. “The lizard was trapped here.”

  “I think all of the elementals in these paintings are trapped in a way.”

  “No. I mean the lizard was trapped. Imprisoned. He was held here.” Tolan turned and looked at Master Minden. “Intentionally. He was kept separate from the bond. I don’t really understand anything more about it other than that the lizard attacked.”

  “Tolan—”

  He took a deep breath, and he swept his gaze along the line of the portraits. “I think the lizard is why you were attacked. I suspect the attack was meant for me, but it struck you instead. I think the lizard has been controlling Roland, at least recently. He came here, and though he wasn’t able to escape, it influenced him.”

  Master Minden turned her attention back to the paintings. “Why would they be here if they were trapped like that?”

  Tolan shook his head. “There’s so much we don’t understand. There’s so much that we need to.”

  Such as the waste. Why would that create a separation with the land Beyond?

  He still didn’t fully understand it, though he thought he needed to. That was what Roland had been after, trying to figure out some way of tapping into the deeper connection.

  “What will you do?”

  “We aren’t as alone as we were before,” he said. As he closed his eyes, he could feel the connection to the elementals distantly. Even beyond the waste, that connection remained.

  It seemed as if it was tied to him, though he suspected it was tied more to the way that the elementals had bridged their connection to the land.

  That seemed to be the key, somehow.

  “There’s other people. Other knowledge. And—”

  “Other people who could be influenced.”

  Tolan nodded slowly. “There’s that.”

  “I think it’s time I visit this land Beyond. I think it’s time I begin to work through the library there.”

  “We have to do more than just that.”

  “What more?”

  “We need to explore that land. We need to know what else is there.”

  Master Minden studied him for a moment. “I’m not sure the Grand Master will approve.”

  “I don’t know that he gets a choice.”

  It troubled Tolan that he would feel that way; that he would feel as if the Grand Master wouldn’t be able to be in charge. Even so, when it came to the elementals, and when it came to the land Beyond and everything that he had done—it felt right.

  Tolan was the one who had done it. He was the reason they had survived.

  And he would have to be the one to go and explore Beyond.

  He wouldn’t be alone. Ferrah could go. Now that she could shape there, she wouldn’t be helpless. Maybe Kerry, though he didn’t know if she would want to leave and visit those lands again. The elementals would be able to help him. He would need their assistance.

  And he fully expected to find something strange and different. Given what he had already uncovered, he couldn’t help but feel as if there would have to be something else there. There would have to be some sort of knowledge, and there would have to be an answer.

  He worried about what that answer would be. He worried what it might mean.

  More than that, he worried whether there would be any way that they would be able to push the lizard back into the portrait.

  As he stared at the painting, it seemed as if the girl within it watched him, almost as if she knew what he was thinking—and understood.

  Grab book 3: A Fire Reborn

  The threat Tolan has long feared has been defeated, but a new danger emerged, one that poses a threat to both shapers and the elementals.

  For the first time since mastering his connection to the elements, Tolan fears an elemental. He's long advocated the elementals were misunderstood, and tried convincing others within Terndahl to free them from the bond, but the appearance of Light has proven his mistake.

  Chasing the threat leads Tolan to take a dangerous journey, one that challenges all that he's learned of spirit and brings him back to the lands beyond the waste where he discovers a secret hidden from the rest of the world for centuries.

  What he uncovers is more deadly than anything he's ever known, and one his unique connection to the elements might not be enough to stop. It will take more than a master of spirit to survive; it will take a true element warrior.

  Author’s Note

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you so much for reading A Fading Fire. I hope you enjoyed it. If you would be so kind as to take a moment to leave a review on Amazon or elsewhere, I would be very grateful.

  I’m also always happy to hear from readers! Email me at dkh@dkholmberg.com. I try to respond to each message. Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook as well!

  Review link HERE.

  All my best,

  D.K. Holmberg

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  Series by D.K. Holmberg

  The Dragonwalkers Series

  The Dragonwalker

  The Dragon Misfits

  Elemental Warrior Series:

  Elemental Academy

  Elemental Academy: Spirit Master

  The Cloud Warrior Saga

  The Endless War

  The Dark Ability Series

  The Shadow Accords

  The Collector Chronicles

  The Dark Ability

  The Sighted Assassin

  The Elder Stones Saga

  The Lost Prophecy Series

  The Teralin Sword

  The Lost Prophecy

  The Book of Maladies Series

  The Book of Maladies

  The Lost Garden Series

  The Lost Garden