The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2)

by D. K. Holmberg

  “Why keep this yourself?”

  “I guess I just wanted to see if I could understand anything about it.”

  “Have you talked to any of the master shapers?”

  “I asked Master Minden about powerful bondars, but she warned me against using them.”

  “Because you can unleash power that is more than you can handle.”

  “Now you sound like one of the master shapers.”

  She shrugged. “Why, because it’s true? That’s the reason we aren’t allowed to bring the bondars out of the classrooms. You’ve seen how powerful they are. With that,” she said, nodding to where he kept his hand in his pocket, “you are far more connected to the elements.”

  He thought about telling her it wasn’t the elements but the elementals, but after spending as much time as he had out in the park, he was no longer certain. All he knew was that there was the stirring within him each time he reached for that connection, and that with it, he had managed to shape.

  “It’s probably true,” he said. “But it’s strange. It’s outside of the city. In a clearing. It’s almost like I was meant to find it.”

  “Oh, Tolan…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “The sound of what?”

  “You talking like that about a bondar. It was bad enough when you wanted to make one, and now you’re sounding like you believe you were meant to find a powerful one. I don’t like it.”

  “You don’t want me to have access to this bondar?”

  “I’d rather have you learn to shape without it,” she said.

  “That’s just it,” he said. “I wasn’t learning to shape without it, and the more I continue to practice, the more useless my time in the various classes feels. Think about what Master Shorav has us doing. Most the time, he’s having us work on after he talks to us about the elementals. I’ve done all the reading I can on the elementals, so anything he’s teaching isn’t anything I need to gain from him, and without an ability to use the bondar, any shaping I might try is useless.”

  “It doesn’t have to be useless,” she said.

  “But it is. As much as I want to be able to perform the shaping he’s trying to demonstrate, anything he’s teaching is useless until I have a greater access to the various element bonds.”

  “Maybe you won’t reach some of these element bonds,” she said softly.

  “It’s possible I won’t,” he said.

  “But you do with this bondar?”

  “With this bondar—or whatever it is—I’m able to reach each of the element bonds. I’ve tried not only fire, but earth and wind and water.”

  “What of spirit?”

  “I don’t know that it’s meant to help reach spirit.”

  “You don’t think this is dangerous?”

  Tolan threw his hands up in frustration. “The entire thing is probably more dangerous than I should be doing. And at the same time, I don’t know what else to do. All I want is to be able to shape, to do the things you do, but even with fire, my connection is so different than anyone else’s.”

  “Show me.”

  “Show you my shaping?”

  “No. Show me this bondar.”

  Tolan’s gaze drifted to the door. No one had interrupted them. “It’s time for our session on wind. Master Rorn would be disappointed if we didn’t appear.”

  “Fine. We’ll go to the wind class, and then after that, you can show me this bondar. If it’s not dangerous, then you should be able to work with your friends.”

  He nodded. She was right. If it wasn’t dangerous, he shouldn’t be keeping it to himself. The others could shape the elements without needing the bondar all the time, but maybe they could do even more near the massive bondar.

  She helped him to his feet and looked up at him. “It’s okay that you don’t have the same power as everyone else.”

  “Says the woman who has access to all of the element bonds.”

  “I would think that matters the most. I don’t judge you in any way for not being able to reach certain element bonds. I recognize all of us are different.”

  Would she recognize that when he suddenly could shape elementals?

  So far, she hadn’t seen the elementals he had summoned, though he had, and he was certain that was what he was doing. Regardless of what Ferrah believed, elementals came from his shapings.

  “How late are we going to be?”

  “We woke you up early this time,” she said.

  “This time?”

  “We tried waking you up yesterday, but you’ve been sleeping so soundly, we haven’t been able to.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “What time have you been getting in?”

  “Late,” he said.

  “How late is that?”

  He looked down rather than meeting her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve been focused on working through as much of the…” He smiled, shaking his head. He needed to be careful, not wanting Ferrah to know he had been working through trying to summon each of the elementals. That might draw the wrong kind of questioning. “Shaping as I could. I’ve been trying to work through the various lessons we’ve been taught in our classes.”

  “That’s even more reason for you to have someone else with you. If nothing else, if the shaping goes awry, you need to have someone there who can help you correct it.”

  “Like I said, I’ll bring you with me tonight.”

  “And you might need to talk to one of the master shapers,” she said.

  “I don’t know that I want any of the other master shapers to keep me from this. I’ve been able to reach elements I haven’t been able to even consider reaching before. At least with earth, I’ve had some ability on my own, but with wind and water… I’ve never had any potential with those, and all of a sudden, now I do. With this bondar, I’m able to reach for wind, use it to create a breeze, to swirl around me, so many things I have only imagined before.”

  “And water?”

  “I’ve made it rain. I’ve felt mist spraying on my face. I felt water rising up from the ground.”

  “None of those are shapings we’ve discussed in class,” she said.

  “Those are the shapings I could think of,” he said hurriedly.

  She studied him for a moment before letting out a frustrated breath and heading out of their room. Tolan checked his pack and ensured his books were there, along with the furios. When he was confident they were, he followed her out of the room and down the stairs to the main section of the Academy. Some of the older students walked through the hallways, and Tolan nodded politely as he passed them, following Ferrah as she guided him toward the wind tower.

  They snuck in the back of the class, but there was no need to sneak at all. Master Rorn wasn’t even there, so there wasn’t any delay on their part. Tolan took a seat next to Ferrah and considered motioning to Jonas to join them. Usually in classes, he sat near Jonas, but maybe for today he could stay near Ferrah.

  Slowly, some of the other students made their way in, and they all took their seats in the usual places. A shaped bell softly tolled and Master Rorn appeared, sweeping into the room, his robe practically floating. How much of it was shaped?

  Master Rorn could be difficult for Tolan to read. He was a powerful wind shaper, thin and yet skilled, like so many wind shapers. Even Jonas was lanky and lean, yet strong despite that. Those who favored wind often took on those characteristics.

  “Today, we will be talking about various elementals,” he said, pulling out a board and starting to write on it. He used a shaping to document, leaving swirls of chalky letters on the board. The level of control Master Rorn displayed with his shaping awed Tolan. None of the types of shaping he had tried recently had involved that level of control. Maybe part of it was because he had been focusing on the elementals, rather than truly focusing on trying to follow the shapings instructed by the master shapers. If he were to attempt to copy those shapings, he might have
more control, but instead, he was left with nothing other than making the wind move, fluttering it, swirling around him. Even that was enough.

  “Take notes, students,” he said.

  Tolan dutifully pulled out his notebook and started copying the same things Master Rorn was documenting on the board, but surprisingly—or not so surprisingly—much of it involved information about elementals he had already known. There was some on ara, a powerful wind elemental, one that led to the heavy gusts that blew in out of the north. It was one of the wind elementals Tolan had experimented with and was now familiar with. There was the mention of foye, a wind elemental that had a different connection, not tied to the wind, but mostly to breathing and an interconnectedness between people. Tolan had experimented with this elemental as well. There was information about joil, and as Master Rorn documented, Tolan set his pen down.

  “Aren’t you going to take notes?” Ferrah asked, leaning toward him.

  “This one is wrong,” he said.

  “You don’t know that,” she said.

  “The book Master Minden let me borrow has information about the elementals. This one is wrong.”

  “There is more chatter than I’m accustomed to. Is there someone in the back of the room who would like to speak up?”

  A warm flush worked through Tolan and he wiggled in his seat uncomfortably. He needed to be careful, especially in a wind-shaping classroom. Master Rorn would easily overhear him, and he didn’t want to upset him when it came to his descriptions of the elementals. He had already learned there were many different descriptions of elementals than what he’d seen in the books. While what he knew might be one thing, the documentation within some of these ancient records was different.

  For some reason, Tolan suspected the ancient records were more accurate.

  No—he knew the reason. The ancient records were made by those who had a much closer connection to the elementals and didn’t rely upon seeing them only when they were freed from the element bonds. They had known them almost on a personal level. The things he had seen and read about suggested that to him.

  Ferrah shot him a look and Tolan stayed silent, choosing to say nothing. It was better to do that than to draw even more attention from Master Rorn. The other man continued to talk, documenting various elementals, and Tolan just sat with his hands on the desk, his pen set aside, the notebook resting next to him. He didn’t need to take notes on this.

  Ferrah documented, and with each note she made, she glanced over at him. He could practically read the irritation in her and suspected she wanted to tell him she had no intention of sharing her notes. At the same time, why would he need to take notes on this? He had the books that he’d borrowed.

  After a while, Master Rorn replaced the board, sliding it out of the way, and pulled the tray with the bondars out and set it on the desk at the front of the room. “Today, we are going to focus on shaping the wind within you.”

  “Why?” somebody asked from the opposite side of the class.

  “Because there are times when you must hold wind within you. Perhaps you are unable to breathe. Perhaps you want to maintain a capacity to hold your breath for longer. Or perhaps you have someone you care for who is unable to breathe on their own. This shaping will help with that.”

  Those who needed the assistance of the bondar all got up and made their way to the front of the class. Tolan went forward, grabbing one of the bondars, before taking his place back at the table.

  Ferrah glanced over at him. “See? This is the kind you should be using so you can be ready for testing.”

  “I’m not disagreeing I need the assistance of a bondar,” he said.

  “You’re just disagreeing that you need to do so in a regulated environment.”

  “It’s not that, either.”

  “What is it?”

  He raised a finger to his lips and turned his attention to Master Rorn. They had missed something while talking, and he could already tell Master Rorn had no intention of repeating it. Hopefully, Ferrah would share what he might need to know, but if she refused, he would have to just sit there for the rest of the class.

  “Now is your turn, students. What I ask you to do is focus on the wind within you, and when you’re successful, you can focus on the wind within your partner, but not before you master what is within you.”

  Tolan glanced over at Ferrah. “You already know how to do this, don’t you?”

  “It is one of the earlier lessons.”

  “Then why is he going through it now?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he thinks we need a refresher on it? A lot of the lessons we’ve been going through these days have been somewhat basic. I think they’re worried about the attacks and how prepared we are if we need to defend ourselves.”

  “Why would this help with defense?”

  “Because if you can remove someone’s ability to breathe, you can remove their ability to attack.”

  “This shaping allows you to stop someone breathing?”

  “Of course. Think about how it’s designed to have you focus on your own breathing. Once you do that, then you can begin to work on the breathing of someone else. If you can augment it and help them, it also means you can stop it.”

  Why was the Academy teaching first-level students this kind of lesson, unless they were preparing them for the possibility of an attack by the disciples of the Draasin Lord?

  It was even more reason to continue to work with the massive bondar, trying to figure out what it would take to gain mastery over his connection to wind. The same thing could be said with water. He needed to have that connection so he could heal if it came down to it. He didn’t want to lose his friends simply because he didn’t have the ability to shape wind or water the same way they did.

  Tolan focused on his breathing, reaching within him, searching for a connection to wind. It was there, he knew it was, especially as he now had felt it, but could he do so with a bondar?

  He reached for the sense of wind. If it worked, it would come as a sense of fluttering, a stirring deep within himself. He had known that stirring often enough that he thought he should be able to reach it, but he’d never managed to do so with a bondar.

  He held onto the sense of wind, letting that shaping flow through him. As it did, he felt the faint and familiar stirring deep within him that he had felt when near the massive bondar.

  It slipped away from him.

  It had to be the same, didn’t it?

  Tolan reached for it again, demanding a connection. He didn’t know if it would work or if he could hold on to it, but he was adamant he’d find out.

  The stirring came again.

  Tolan latched onto it.

  He focused on an elemental, choosing foye, as it connected the breath between people, and he focused on himself. It was there, the sense of the shaping lingering within him, and as it did, he continued to draw upon it, letting that sense rise more and more, ever more powerful, until with a burst of air, he let out a shaping.

  “You did it,” Ferrah said.

  Tolan glanced over at her. “What did you feel?”

  “I felt the shaping. Didn’t you?”

  “I wasn’t sure what I felt. There was a burst of wind, and I felt a stirring within me, but I didn’t know if it was going to work.”

  “What do you mean by a stirring within you?”

  “That’s what I detect when I shape. It’s a stirring. I can latch onto that stirring and use it, but not all the time.”

  “Can you do it again?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t even sure what I was doing this time.”

  Only—that wasn’t quite true. He remembered the way he had felt the stirring and how the bondar had helped him summon it. When he focused on the elemental, drawing that image of power forward, together he had managed to bring a sense of the shaping.

  He focused on shaping again, and this time, felt the stirring more rapidly. The bondar helped him connect to it, and now he knew what it was a
nd how to reach it, he was able to grasp for it.

  He strained, struggling for that connection to the bondar. He visualized the elemental again, and with a surge of wind, once more it came through him.

  Now all he had to do was use it.

  This time, he would add to himself like Master Rorn suggested.

  With a flurry, it seemed as if the wind rushed down, filling his lungs, and his chest expanded, surging with the power of the wind that suddenly overwhelmed him.

  “Tolan?” Ferrah asked.

  “What?” His voice was loud, booming, and others near him laughed.

  “Did you shape again?”

  He breathed out, and with it, the shaping dissipated, the sense of wind leaving him.

  He had succeeded. He had shaped wind. Not once but twice and using a normal-sized bondar. All he needed to do was try it again.

  How many times could he be successful?

  Better yet, was there any way to be successful with the other elements?

  It wasn’t so much earth, though he did wonder whether or not he would be able to shape earth more easily now he had connected to the massive bondar. It was more about water. There was so much that water would allow him to do, things he couldn’t do without it. If he were somehow to be able to connect to that, to have that ability to heal, then he had to believe that attempting to use earth, wind, and water would change his shaping significantly.

  “Now you need to let me attempt a shaping on you,” Ferrah said.

  “I’m not sure that’s all that fair,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Mostly because you are a significantly better shaper than me.”

  “That’s not the point, and haven’t I been talking to you about that? It’s not so much the strength of the shaper as it is the way you use your shaping.”

  “I don’t have any impressive way of using my shaping. I was lucky to do what I just did.”

  “That’s not luck. That’s you demonstrating an ability.”

  He waited. “What should I expect?”

  “What do you want me to do? The shaping can be used in several different ways.”