“And if I can’t remember?”
“Then your best bet is to avoid getting attacked altogether.”
“That’s great advice.”
“I’m being honest with you.”
“He’ll know I have a tendency to use fire.”
“You have more than a tendency,” she said, smiling. “He’ll know that’s the only element you can shape. He’s seen how you reach into the bond and the power you can use, so either he will be prepared for what you might throw at him or he will simply use a different element that has some immunity to fire.”
“Like earth.”
She shrugged. “Watch.”
She focused on the small flame shaping, and the ground rumbled, rolling forward, and it swallowed the flame, suffocating it. The strength of her earth shaping consumed his flame, cutting it off with little more effort than the tiniest of earth shapings.
“Great,” Tolan said.
“You wanted to see the kind of thing he might throw at you.”
“I did. I just didn’t realize it was going to be so easy for you.”
“I might be a stronger shaper than Draln,” she said.
There was no boasting in it, and for his sake, he hoped she was a stronger shaper than Draln. Facing someone like her, who had the ability to challenge him and the kind of mind he knew her to have, would force him to continue to improve. The only problem was that he didn’t have much time. Days rather than weeks. Even if he had weeks, Tolan wasn’t sure it would be enough time to master the parts of shaping necessary to make this something of an even match.
Not without unleashing the elementals.
That was the part of this he worried about. It wasn’t entirely that he worried about facing Draln—though he did—but it was more that he worried what might happen if he revealed he used elementals as part of his shaping. Would someone make the connection that each of his shapings seemed to take on the shape of one of the elementals? So far, no one had made that connection, and even the person he thought might had only believed he was wildly shaping power. If Ferrah couldn’t see the elemental within his shaping, maybe it meant Draln wouldn’t, either.
“You need to try it again,” she said.
“What’s the point? If I use fire, you’re just going to counter it.”
“I might, but you need to see if you can come up with a shaping that will allow you to ignore what I might do. That’s all part of the duel. Not only is it a matter of strength, but it’s a matter of creativity. Strong shapers don’t necessarily always defeat weaker ones. Sometimes, a weaker shaper will outsmart a stronger one. And sometimes, you can use an element bond the other isn’t expecting, or perhaps use it in a way they weren’t expecting.”
He focused on fire, once again thinking of saa. If he could use that elemental, he might be able to draw more power, but how would he use it? He knew the way saa existed, and having read through the various elemental books, he had an idea of what type of flame saa preferred, but nothing more than that.
In order to defeat Draln, he would need a greater understanding not only of himself, but of the elementals.
As the flame crackled into existence, a shaping built from Ferrah, and earth once again rumbled, starting to come out of the ground.
Tolan focused on his connection to saa, trying to feed more power into it. As he did, the elemental blazed more brightly, and as her earth started to curve around his shaping, he exploded outward, sending a surge of power that forced the stone back, shattering it.
Ferrah was thrown back.
“That was good,” she said, leaning forward.
She twisted her shaping, taking it in a different direction, and with a combination of earth and water, she smothered the flames, starting to tamp them out. Tolan nudged saa. He wasn’t sure exactly what it was he did, only that it seemed as if he coaxed the elemental to change directions. The flame shifted, crackling more brightly, burning through the water shaping that Ferrah attempted to use, and when she did, the elemental exploded outward against earth again.
Ferrah leaned forward, smiling. “You’re better at this than you give yourself credit for.”
He released his hold on saa, relinquishing it slowly. It took a moment, but the flames flickered, and then they disappeared.
“How did you do that last one?”
“I don’t know. I changed the direction of the flame.”
“I saw that, but that’s an unusual shaping. Usually, when you mix water and earth in such a way, there’s no way for fire to overpower it.”
“I told you how I perform a shaping.”
“And I told you I don’t think that’s exactly what you’re doing. You might be using your imagination to help you with those shapings, and that might be what grants you some connection, but I don’t think you’re having the effect you believe.”
He shrugged. “Does it matter? If it works, then—”
She wiped her hands on her pants, leaning toward him. “It doesn’t matter. That’s what I’ve been trying to say to you. And if it does work, then use it. Be creative. You have strength in fire shaping, and maybe that’s all you need to defeat Draln, but even if you don’t, if you can be creative like that, you should be able to stop him.”
Creative. What if he could call upon a mixed elemental? Hyza was earth and fire, but there were other mixed elementals. If he could reach one, then it might be enough to throw Draln off.
She leaned back, resting her head on the wall. “I feel like I’ve been trapped here for far too long,” she said.
“You want to get out into the city?”
“The last time we did, there was a little more excitement than what I wanted.”
“I doubt we’re going to find more of the disciples.”
“You might have just cursed us.”
She smiled and he took her hands, helping her to her feet. They made their way down through the Academy building and out the main entrance. Once outside, he glanced up at the sky. Clouds streaked across it, heavy and dark, practically screaming of a coming rain. If he could reach for water, he might be able to detect how much rain was coming, but then, if he could reach for water, he might be able to push away the storm clouds and keep the city from getting soggy.
But then, there had to be shapers who did such things. The city rarely saw rain, only enough to refill rain barrels and provide water for the city, but even that might not actually be necessary. With water shapers and their ability to pull moisture from anything, it wouldn’t take much for a simple shaping to replenish the city’s stores.
“Where do you want to go?” Ferrah asked.
“Well, we were heading to the market before. And then there’s something I want to show you.” It was time for her to see the park.
“The market won’t be active.”
“Why not?”
“It’s the wrong time of day, and the market when the attack came was on the Farthing Festival.”
Tolan frowned. “I’m not familiar with that one.”
“You probably wouldn’t be, not from Ephra. It’s a more easterly sort of festival, and celebrates a bountiful catch, something the sailors of old used to celebrate.”
“Why would they recognize it in Amitan?”
“All festivals are recognized in the capital, Tolan. They want to make sure everyone feels welcome, and in order to do so, everyone’s customs need to be appreciated.”
“There are some customs that could be forgotten,” he said.
“Such as?”
“There are some in Ephra I never really liked. One was the Sharven, a day where we traveled to the edge of the waste and the shapers would send their shapings out over it, as if to demonstrate our strength over it still.”
“So, you have been to the waste before.”
“Not like we did with the Academy. Most just watch from a distance. The Shapers get close. When I was younger, before I knew I had any ability to shape, I never really understood what the big deal was. The shapers always portra
yed themselves as incredibly brave for even approaching the edge of the waste.” Tolan could remember seeing Master Daniels as he approached, the faint streamer of his earth-shaping building, the ground trembling with each step, as if echoing in time with Master Daniels’ fear of making his way toward the waste. At the time, Tolan hadn’t really understood. He had thought the masters had been exaggerating, blowing their fears out of proportion, but the more he understood what they had done during the festival, he truly appreciated just what they had risked.
“I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the Sharven celebrated in Amitan,” Ferrah said. “Though now we’ve been to the waste, I wonder if that’s the masters’ way of celebrating it.”
They wandered through the streets, the occasional shaped cart moving past them, and Tolan would have to step off to the side to avoid getting run over by it. He looked around, still marveling at the way shaping power was used within Amitan. So many simple things were shaped here, things that would never have been shaped in Ephra, but the use of shaping made sense. This was a place where shapers existed with much power, a place where they were able to exert their strength, to demonstrate the various exotic ways in which shaping power could be used. Why wouldn’t everything be shaped here?
“You’ve been distracted,” Ferrah said.
“I’m no more distracted than I usually am,” he said.
“Is it Marcella? I’ve seen the way you look at her, and when you came back from your last training session, you were quiet.”
He hadn’t told anyone about how Marcella had tossed him into the ocean and preferred to keep that memory to himself. It wasn’t so much that he was embarrassed, but it was the idea of failure that troubled him. If he had no hope of reaching water, what would the point be of attending classes with Master Wassa?
And maybe that would be what came next.
“Tolan?”
He forced a smile, shaking his head. “It’s nothing.”
“I can tell when it’s more than nothing,” she said.
“Fine. It’s not nothing. I found something,” he said.
“What did you find?”
“You’ll have to come with me.”
She frowned at him, tucking a strand of her red hair behind her ears. “This sounds interesting.”
“I don’t really know what it is. I thought you might be able to help.”
“Why me?”
“Because of what you’ve described in Par.” There had to be something similar to what she had discovered in Par. There were ancient artifacts and he believed what he had found was something like that.
They turned the corner, and he felt the building sense of a shaping. It wasn’t uncommon to feel the slow building of shapings within Amitan. With as many shapers as were scattered throughout the city, it would be unusual not to find someone shaping, but this was the kind of power reminding him of the attack on the Shapers Path.
He glanced over at Ferrah. “Do you detect anything?”
“Why?” she asked carefully.
He breathed out, a part of him wishing he didn’t pick up on this sense of shaping, wanting to have a moment to simply wander the city with Ferrah rather than to be worried about what might be coming their way. The last time had been a significant attack. If he ignored it, wouldn’t he be contributing to the disciples if it were them again?
“It’s just the sense of power building again.”
“You don’t think it’s them.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s not up above us like it was before.”
“Come on, Tolan. Let’s go see what you want to show me.”
As much as he wanted her help, he was drawn toward the sense of power building, and turned down a few narrow paths before reaching a part of the city he’d never visited before. A wide park opened up, stretching out but leading toward the capitol building. The capitol was comprised of stone shaped smooth, and it had two arms angled off a main section, each of equal size and prominence. Tolan stared at it, feeling that power rising, and wondered if it came from within the building. There was no reason there wouldn’t be shapers within it, especially as many of the rulers of Terndahl had been trained at the Academy.
“Here? This is where you detect the buildup of power?”
“You don’t feel it?”
“I don’t have the same connection as you when it comes to the rising sense of power. I wish I did. Then I wouldn’t have to feel quite as helpless as I do when it comes to you and your ability to detect shapings, but—”
A sudden explosion cut her off.
One wing of the capital building exploded.
Stone was flung everywhere, streaking toward them, and Tolan reacted, swinging his arm, holding the furios and focusing on hyza. Flame erupted, streaking from the end of the furios, and he managed to prevent the explosion from catching him. Debris continued to rain down, and he could feel the shaping Ferrah held pulsing out from her.
“What was that?” she asked.
“I don’t know. A powerful shaping.”
Another shaping started building, once again coming from the capital. Tolan raced forward, and when he neared the building, he could feel the effect of the shaping as it began to grow ever more powerful.
Ferrah grabbed his arm, pulling him around to face her. “We can’t be here, Tolan.”
“But there’s going to be another explosion.”
“There might be, but you can’t be here. You were present during the last attack, and if you’re here for this one, what do you think the master shapers are going to say?”
He looked over at the capital. She was right, but that didn’t make it any easier to turn away and abandon an attempt to help. He felt as if he needed to help, that he needed to do something.
Even if he stayed, there would not be anything he could do—not without finding who was responsible for causing these attacks. If they were powerful enough to destroy a building like this, it would be powerful enough to destroy him, too.
Ferrah dragged him backward.
He allowed her to pull him, and as he reached the street, another explosion thundered, the stone of the capital once more cracking, debris and fragments of stone raining down. Ferrah wrapped them in a shaping of wind, creating a buffer, but even that wasn’t quite enough. She pressed her hand up and heat added to the wind, and the combination caused the stone falling all around them to explode back outward, away from them.
“We need to get back to the Academy,” she said.
“Wait,” he said.
“Wait for what? Another explosion? We were lucky the Grand Master didn’t push us too much during the last attack.”
“They won’t blame us for this.”
“Are you so sure? The two of us present at two attacks within the city? What are the odds of that?”
“They won’t believe me capable of it, anyway.”
“But they might believe me capable.”
He let out a frustrated sigh as Ferrah dragged him down the street. As they went, he stared, wondering if there was going to be any evidence of another attack, but none came.
After a bit, he pried his arm free and turned back toward the capital. “I just want to see who was responsible. If this was the disciples of the Draasin Lord—”
“If this was them, then we need to keep moving.”
As he considered resisting, there came a sense of building power, though from a different location. Movement from behind him caught his attention. Shapers from the Academy and throughout the city would be coming this way, and if he stayed here, if he remained where he was, it was possible someone would realize they were here.
“Come on!” Ferrah urged.
He had turned to follow her when he caught sight of a figure streaking away from the capitol building that turned along their street.
He glanced over at Ferrah before starting toward them. He held tightly to the furios, gripping it against his palm, letting the runes press into his skin. As he ran, he focused on an image o
f hyza. Depending on what he encountered, he wanted to be ready. It was possible the person he followed was nothing more than someone escaping from the attack, but the faint sense of a shaping suggested otherwise. He didn’t want to get caught unprepared.
The other person rounded a corner, leading him along a busy street.
“Who were you chasing?” Ferrah asked.
Tolan looked around, searching for a sign of where the other person had gone, but he had lost them. They had to be along this street.
“There was someone who came this way. I think they were a part of what happened back there.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not really, but I’m not willing to sit back and do nothing.”
“Tolan… this isn’t our fight.”
“Aren’t we a part of Terndahl? Doesn’t that make it our fight?”
She studied him before shaking her head and sighing. “Fine. Where do you want to look?”
Tolan was thankful she was willing to come along with him. He would have gone on his own but having her here made it more likely they could find where the person had gone.
“See if you can detect any shaping,” he said.
Power built from her, and Tolan didn’t know what sort of shaping she used to detect others. He had some way of detecting a shaping that didn’t involve focusing on it. Through that, he was able to focus on the presence of shaped power, and in this case, it was coming from far along the street. He grabbed Ferrah’s arm and dragged her with him. They hurried past other people, and he murmured his apologies as they went.
At the end of the street, he finally caught a glimpse of the person they had been trailing. The dark cloak caught his attention, and he pointed. “Do you think you can hold them?”
“What if it’s not the right person?” Ferrah asked.
“And we’ve made a mistake, but if it is…”
“Fine, Tolan. Let me just tell you I’m not thrilled you have me doing this.”
The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2) Page 14