Marcella studied him, and Tolan worried he’d offended her again. It didn’t take much to upset her, and it seemed he had a knack for it; everything he’d done seemed to irritate her.
“That is what I’m getting at, Shaper Ethar. What can you tell me about the various elements you detect?”
“I can feel the presence of each of them.”
“That’s too easy of an answer, and something I would expect the earliest students just learning of their sensing to answer. From you, someone who approaches the second year at the Academy, I would expect a much more robust response. In order to progress through your second year, you need to be able to describe the elements. That is why I have you out here, Shaper Ethar. If you aren’t able to describe the elements and are not able to describe in detail what you’re able to sense, you won’t be able to move on.”
Tolan nodded quickly. There were several different tests along the way through the Academy. Getting in was hard enough, but there were other tests, and he didn’t know what they were. Older students were forbidden from discussing them, though rumors abounded.
Reaching the spirit classroom had been difficult, and since he had been able to use his connection to the furios, he had succeeded, though he wasn’t sure whether he had cheated—or if it even mattered.
The next step in his progression through the Academy would be more difficult. It was designed that way, intending for only the most capable to progress through each level, but Tolan didn’t view himself as one of these.
He had passed the Selection, which meant some part of him was able to be a shaper of the Academy. Which element should he focus on first? That seemed to be what Marcella wanted from him, but he wasn’t sure exactly how to describe the elements. He was aware of them in a vague sort of sense, and while he, like most, had a connection to the element bonds and could sense them, anything more than that wasn’t usually within his capabilities. Most of the time, it was outside his grasp.
Fire.
Through his use of the furios, he had a connection to fire, though it was a different sort of connection than he possessed with the other elements. Was there anything he could detect about fire?
He touched the furios in his pocket. As he focused on fire, as he felt for the warmth of it within the air, the stirring through the furios called to him.
There were strange eddies flowing through everything. Heat comprised all living things, connecting them. As he focused on that, he was aware of it in a way he hadn’t been otherwise. Those connections flowed through him. It was what he focused on first of all, but they also flowed through Marcella, and as he shifted his awareness away from himself and over to the master shaper, he could feel the way she was the one using the heat, and that it was radiating from some place deep within her. The longer he focused on it, the more he could practically see the way it was a part of her, but also separate from her.
When he had connected to the furios before, he had detected similar currents of shapings. Recognizing it came from Marcella wasn’t anything new, but it was how it was connected to her that he found himself taken by. Her shaping came from a place deep within her, drawn out and connecting to the air, her power channeled outward, creating that connection between the element bond and the heat in the air.
Tolan could practically see it. There was enough power there that he focused upon it, but even that left him feeling different. Anything he might do would be very different from the way Marcella shaped.
Without turning to her, he connected to his shaping, drawing upon the power through the furios; he attempted to subtly add to what she had done. He wasn’t certain he would even be able to do much, and it was unlikely he would be able to match the way she held a warmth within the air. Mostly, Tolan was curious about whether or not he could add to her shaping and whether it would resemble the way she pulled power.
“You’ve been silent long enough,” Marcella said.
“I can sense how there is shaped heat in the air. I can sense how that heat comes from deep within you, and that your shaping is what has turned the air, making it warmer.” A flicker of movement behind her caught his attention and his breath caught. He made a point of not looking beyond her, not wanting to bring her attention to the fact there was an elemental now prowling at her rear, but how could she not know?
And it was his fault.
Anytime he used the furios, he somehow pulled elementals from the element bond. It was dangerous to do so, but it was also dangerous for those elementals to be allowed to roam freely. Even after everything he’d been through, he still believed that, believing the elementals were dangerous.
Worse, he wasn’t sure it was an elemental. It might only be his shaping.
“Shaper Ethar?”
Tolan blinked, keeping his gaze on her rather than looking beyond. He didn’t need to look in order to know and feel the elemental. More than even his connection to the heat in the air from her shaping, the connection to the elemental was potent, and that power filled him.
He could draw upon it. Now the elemental had been freed or summoned—Tolan didn’t know which it was, and a part of him hoped it was only that he’d summoned the elemental rather than freeing it—he had a much greater connection to power.
Not just a connection to power, but an awareness of fire and the nature of it. Mostly, he could feel the elemental nearby, a small creature resembling a fox, though made entirely of flame. The elemental remained hidden, as if a creature of fire like that could hide. Tolan could practically feel the elemental watching him, as if waiting, trying to determine what Tolan might do, but there was nothing he could do. He didn’t have the necessary power to push the elemental back into the bond, and wasn’t certain he had the desire, either.
“Ethar!”
He blinked, focusing on her again.
“I can sense the way you’re working your shaping. You have twisted it in such a way you intend only the air around the two of us to be shaped,” Tolan said. As he used the elemental, as he focused on that bond, he realized that was true. It was a localized effect, nothing more, and it wasn’t as if Marcella was trying to shape extensively. It was almost as if she intended to shape only so that he and she were aware of it.
“Keep going,” she said.
“I don’t know what else to say.”
“You’re focusing on fire, so focus on what effect you can sense of the shaping.”
“I can detect the way you hold it.” Tolan could practically see the shaping as it influenced the air around them. There wasn’t any reason he should be able to see something like that. Detecting a shaping, sensing it, was something very different, but being able to actually see the shaping?
That shouldn’t be something he could do.
“I don’t know anything more,” he said.
Marcella watched him, her lips still pressed tightly in a frown, and she shook her head. “That’s unfortunate,” she said, turning away. She released her shaping and the heat extinguished, but so too did the wind, along with the steady flowing of the water and even the pressure upon him coming from the earth. All of her shaping suddenly relaxed.
She started away from him, but stopped, freezing in place.
“Shaper Ethar, you need to stay back.”
“Why?”
“There’s something dangerous here,” she said.
“What?” His body tensed, and he knew she must have detected the elemental. Now she did, what would she do with it?
Ever since they had found the Convergence, Tolan had been aware that some elementals at least were helpful. It was possible not all were, and he acknowledged some were even dangerous. He had seen the destruction caused by certain elementals, but others were clearly helpful. At least to him.
More than that, it meant this wasn’t just a shaping but a true elemental.
He didn’t know whether this foxlike elemental was helpful or not but had a sense it wasn’t dangerous. If it were, it would have attacked, or would have attempted to destroy, but there�
��d been nothing other than his sense that the elemental was there, practically watching them.
“There’s a rogue elemental,” she said. “I can feel it, but I’m not entirely certain where to find it. I don’t want it to spring out on you before you have a chance to get away.”
Tolan swallowed, trying to force moisture down his throat. She couldn’t see the elemental? It was there, barely only ten paces away from her, though hidden behind the tree. Even as the elemental hid, he knew it didn’t do so all that well. The tree concealed part of the elemental but did nothing to hide the heat flowing from it, nor did it do anything to prevent Tolan seeing it.
Why could Marcella not see it?
“What do you intend to do with it?” he asked.
She glanced over her shoulder at him, her frown deepening. “You’ve been at the Academy long enough to know the answer to that, Shaper Ethar. The elementals are dangerous, which is why they must stay a part of the bond. When they go rogue, they are incredibly destructive. Entire cities have been ravaged by them.”
As much as Tolan had the sense that the elementals weren’t dangerous—at least, not all of them—he had seen the destruction they caused. Even when there were master shapers around, men and women capable of containing the elementals and confining them back within the bond, they had caused significant damage.
This creature seemed timid, almost shy, yet curious. The elemental had approached and remained hidden despite the fact Marcella had an enormous shaping of heat washing over her.
“What’s involved in replacing the elementals within the bond?”
“For the most part, we wrap the bond energy around them,” she said, taking a step forward.
Tolan waved at the elemental, trying to encourage the creature to move on, even to disappear, but it didn’t. It stayed, watching, and the longer it did, the more likely it was that something was going to happen to it.
“Does it hurt the elemental when you do that?”
“Hurt?”
Tolan nodded. “These are creatures, aren’t they?”
“They aren’t creatures in the same sense of the word as others, Shaper Ethar. They don’t have any way of hurting, not like you or I.”
“Can they die?”
She paused and spun toward him. “What?”
Tolan shrugged. “Can they die? I’m just trying to understand more about the elementals.”
“They have a long lifespan, if that’s what you fear. And while we don’t know whether they are immortal or not, they are unlikely to feel pain when we place them back within the bond.”
“Unlikely doesn’t mean they don’t,” he said.
He needed to be careful with this line of questioning. It was possible he would anger Marcella. He had enough issues at the Academy as it was and didn’t need to have another master shaper upset with him. He needed her willingness to work with him, to help him, so he could continue to progress. He was tired of lagging behind.
“Do you think we should be more tolerant to the elementals?” Marcella asked softly.
“I don’t know. I’ve been studying some of the ancient history, looking back at the time when it seems the elementals were freed, and it didn’t seem as if they were dangerous then.”
“The elementals were freed, but we didn’t have the same control over our power as we do now. Think of everything we’ve done with shaping. You can see it with the Academy and everything within Terndahl, Shaper Ethar. Without our connection to shaping, without our ability to have done what we have, the city wouldn’t ever have become the place that it is, and it is a place of power. We owe all of that to the element bonds and the way we can draw power from them.”
Tolan studied her, considering debating, but he wondered how many of the master shapers understood it was more than the element bonds that kept Terndahl safe. It had just as much to do with the place of Convergence as with the element bonds. Were it not for that convergence, a place that drew considerable power, he doubted Terndahl would have flourished.
“Is it still here?”
Marcella looked around, still frowning. “I can’t detect it. Perhaps it has disappeared.”
Tolan made a show of spinning around, but as he did, he could still see the elemental nearby. He could still feel the power coming off it. He almost smiled to himself. At least the elemental had realized it needed to hide, if nothing else, so she didn’t harm it.
“The Trackers must be alerted,” Marcella said.
“We could track it,” he said.
“That is not our responsibility. And the others have more skill at such things, not to mention after what happened at the waste…”
“What about what happened at the waste?”
“It’s nothing.”
“I was there. I know it’s not nothing.”
She scanned the forest before turning back to him. “The grand master suspects it was an attempt to release more rogue elementals within Terndahl.”
“Why would they do that?” He glanced at the elemental, which still hid. Perhaps it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the Draasin Lord.
She frowned at him. “They seek to upset the balance of power, Shaper Ethar. The easiest way for them to do that is in releasing elementals that distract our focus away from Amitan. As it is, we are spread thin chasing them.”
Tolan hadn’t heard that. “The Trackers are spread thin?”
“All of us. With as many rogue elementals as we’ve discovered, even master shapers have been drawn after them.”
The Trackers would be brutal when it came to the elementals. He’d seen the way they combated rogue elementals before and how quickly they took care of them, dispatching them in a way that seemed almost brutal. The idea of the Trackers doing the same thing to the smallish elemental he’d seen, one that seemed nothing but curious, bothered him.
If only he had a greater control over his connection to the elements, and a better understanding of how to use the furios, he might be able to make it seem as if the elemental had returned to the bond. Far safer still would be for him just to encourage the elemental to disappear. If the Trackers couldn’t find the elemental, they wouldn’t be able to force it back into the bond and then there would be nothing they would do that would harm the creature. Regardless of what Marcella said, he had a sense that forcing the elemental into the bond did cause harm.
“It’s time to return, Shaper Ethar.”
With a shaping, she streaked upward.
Tolan hesitated. She expected him to follow, but first he wanted to check on something.
He started toward the tree where the elemental hid, pulling the furios from his pocket and moving quickly but carefully. He needed to get this over with before Marcella realized something was amiss and returned. The moment she did, he would run the risk of her realizing he had some connection to the elementals. Other questions would arise. They were the kind of questions he intended to avoid. They were the kind of questions he had avoided asking himself.
“I’m not going to hurt you, but you need to get moving,” he whispered.
The elemental crawled forward. Hyza looked much like a fox but larger, and made entirely of flame, and heat radiated off it, but not unpleasantly so. That heat stretched from the elemental to Tolan, swirling, and probed him almost tentatively.
“She’s gone, but I don’t know how long she’ll be gone,” he said, glancing toward the sky overhead. Already, Marcella would have questions about why he had taken so long to return. And he could deflect those questions by pretending to be unable to follow, but he worried that wouldn’t be enough. She was a master shaper, and she was clever. “You need to get moving before others come. She intends to alert the Trackers, and—”
The elemental began to shake.
Heat shimmered around it and when it shook, Tolan couldn’t help but feel the same agitation the elemental must be feeling. It was as if the elemental wanted him to know, and as he focused on it, he realized what it was that troubled it.
The Trackers.
“You fear them?”
The elemental continued to shake and took a step back.
It was even more reason to believe the Trackers were brutal. More than that, it suggested the elementals were aware of the Trackers and what they did. Did that mean the Trackers harmed them? From everything he had seen, the elementals had wanted to come out of the bond, which was why forcing them back left him troubled.
“You need to hide. Or return to your bond.” Tolan didn’t know whether that was possible.
He turned his attention upward and could feel the heat from Marcella’s shaping.
“I need to go, but you need to keep yourself safe.”
He pushed off with a shaping of fire, launching himself toward the distant Shapers Path. As he went, he watched as the elemental remained frozen in place. It might only be his imagination, but the creature seemed as if it still trembled.
Tolan wished there was something different that he could do, and wished there was some way he could ensure the Trackers didn’t harm the elemental, but what was there? He was not powerful enough, not by a long shot, and even if he were, what would he do?
When he reached the Shapers Path, Marcella watched him. “What took you so long?”
“I had a little trouble with my shaping,” Tolan said.
She pressed her lips together again in a deep frown. “I’m glad you managed to get it together. I don’t have any interest in carrying you back to Terndahl.”
He forced a smile and she started off, leaving Tolan to follow. He glanced back down to the ground, and though he couldn’t see the small elemental, he had an awareness of the creature and worried he was leaving it there to die.
4
The grounds of the Academy were well kept, neatly groomed, with all of the shrubbery shaped to look like various animals. The greenery lining the central courtyard always astounded Tolan, especially when he returned after being outside the city and experiencing what it was like in other places. Amitan was unique within Terndahl, a place that possessed dozens and dozens of shapers of various capacities. It was so different than what it had been like in Ephra, a relatively large city on the border of Terndahl with only a few master shapers. There were shapers within Ephra, though only four Tolan knew about who had trained at the Academy.
The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2) Page 4