The Earth Awakens (Elemental Academy Book 2) Read online

  The Earth Awakens

  Elemental Academy Book 2

  D.K. Holmberg

  Copyright © 2019 by D.K. Holmberg

  All rights reserved.

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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

  Author’s Note

  Also by D.K. Holmberg

  1

  The air was hot this far to the east. Tension rose within Tolan Ethar, the kind of tension that came from approaching the waste, a place devoid of all life. It was a place that created a separation for Terndahl, a place where the shapers kept themselves safe from those who served the Draasin Lord.

  Tolan had only seen it in his dreams.

  He’d come close before, but never as close as now. Within Ephra, his hometown, there was an annual festival where the master shapers led people up to the border of the waste and the master shapers would stay there, staring over the vast expanse of nothingness and attempt to shape into it. It was a demonstration that served a purpose: to show the shapers weren’t afraid of the waste and the power that supposedly lived out in it.

  “Can you believe we’re here?” Jonas whispered.

  Tolan glanced over at his friend. They were dressed in their traveling cloaks, prepared for whatever they might encounter, but the cloaks were far too warm for the heat radiating from the waste. Jonas stared out toward the waste, his eyes wide and excitement written on his face. Wind fluttered his brown hair and a sheen of sweat lined his forehead.

  “I’ve never really wanted to see it before.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because beyond the waste is the Draasin Lord,” Tolan said.

  “We don’t know that. No one really knows where the Draasin Lord is. Rumors speak of him beyond the waste, but there’s nothing there.”

  “We don’t know that either.”

  “I’m sure someone does. There are shapers powerful enough to attempt a crossing.”

  “There aren’t any strong enough to make that crossing.” Ferrah tucked a loose strand of curly red hair behind her ears, shielding her eyes from the sun. She had been listening near them and been silent as they approached the waste. Much like the other students, she whispered. With so many students approaching, it was a soft and silent murmuring that drifted into the air and disappeared into the waste. “There aren’t any Shapers Paths that cross over the waste, and it’s so vast that every attempt to shape across it fails.”

  The Shapers Paths were roads in the sky, formed out of power and meant as an easy way to reach faraway places. They had traveled along several of the Shapers Paths on their way here, using them to navigate quickly. When they had neared the edge of the waste, they had been forced off the Path. As Ferrah suggested, the Path did not extend this far out.

  Before heading to Amitan and the Academy, Tolan had no experience with Shapers Paths. They didn’t have any in Ephra, and though there might be some in other places, he had only heard about them since being selected to attend the Academy and had only used them once: to arrive there. Then again, Tolan had never believed he had any ability to shape in the first place, so believing he was capable of traveling along a Shapers Path would have been beyond him.

  “Why would shaping fail with the waste?” Jonas asked.

  “The entire waste is devoid of the power of the element bonds,” Master Barry said. He was older man, and held a handkerchief in one hand that he continued to dab at his forehead. “Many have attempted to shape into the waste, trying to push against the borders, but they have failed. The most we manage to do is keep our borders intact.”

  “What would happen if the waste started retreating?” Jonas asked.

  One of the students nearby laughed. “The waste won’t retreat. The Draasin Lord is too powerful,” Draln said.

  “The waste existed long before the Draasin Lord and will exist long after he is gone,” Master Barry said. “All we know is that it’s a place where there exists no connection to the elements. The bonds fail. It’s been like that for hundreds of years, and in those hundreds of years, every attempt to change it has failed. Perhaps your class will be the one who changes that.”

  “Not likely,” Jonas said.

  A shaping built from him and he pressed out, letting it roll out over the waste. As he did, it dissipated, striking some invisible thing and failing.

  Others tried the same thing near him, and with each, the sense of shaping failed, no differently than Jonas’s had.

  Tolan didn’t even bother trying. He might have an ability to shape, but his ability wouldn’t have done anything and would require revealing his furios, the bondar for fire that granted him an attachment to the fire bond.

  “Aren’t you going to try?” Jonas whispered.

  “I’ve been near enough the waste before to know what happens when people try,” he said.

  “How often would you come here?”

  “This close to the waste? Never. The master shapers did. The rest of us from the city would follow them, but we stayed a reasonable distance back.”

  “What’s considered a reasonable distance?” Ferrah asked.

  “Far enough away that you can glimpse only the beginning of the waste and nothing more.”

  Tolan thought about the first time he’d been here. His parents had still lived with him then. He’d been young, no more than seven or eight, and terrified. Most who came to the waste were a little bit older for their first time, but his parents had attempted to reassure him, telling him there was nothing to fear here, that there was still much life around him, and that it was just one more part of the world.

  He should have known then that something was wrong.

  Others feared the waste the same way as the students around him did, and for good reason. Most people within Terndahl recognized the innate power of the element bonds. That was part of their connection, part of their heritage, and connected as they supposedly were to the various element bonds, they should have been able to remain safe, but there was a sense of emptiness when it came to approaching the waste, a certain fear their power would be taken from them.

  “What would happen if we attempted to cross?” someone asked.

  Tolan glanced down the line and saw another of the first-year students, Sarah, looking out. She had come from the eastern edge of Terndahl, the same as him, though she wasn’t nearly as close to the border as he was. Ephra was near enough to the waste that they could make the journey in a day by foot, whereas most other places within Terndahl required a several-day journey. Either that, or they had to shape themselves there.

  “Some have tried. There a
re stories of men and women who have packed water skins and food and have headed out over the waste,” Master Barry said.

  “It doesn’t kill you?”

  Master Barry shook his head. “The waste is a desert, an empty wasteland, but it does not actively kill you. The hardest thing for you would be the fact you would be severed from your connection to the element bonds. Most who have the ability to reach the element bonds fear losing that connection, and that is why so few have attempted to cross it.”

  “I thought some had tried to shape their way across.”

  “Very powerful shapers have attempted to make a crossing before,” Master Barry said. “Very few get very far.”

  “Beyond the waste?” Ferrah asked.

  “We have attempted to circumvent it, to circle around it, but it’s incredibly vast, and traveling by sea has failed, as has attempting to circle around the north. There is nothing but an endless swathe of the waste. For all we know, it continues forever, though none truly believe that to be the case.”

  “Your people couldn’t sail around it?” Jonas asked, looking at Ferrah.

  She glared at him. “The people of Par don’t really care about sailing around the waste. Most are more interested in fishing.”

  “You’re just saying that because they can’t do it.”

  “The people of Velminth are certainly welcome to try, too. I thought you were something of a mountain man.”

  “I’ve spent plenty of time in the mountains, but I have no interest in crossing.”

  “What do you think is beyond it?” Tolan asked.

  Master Barry smiled. “I think there’s nothing behind it. I think the waste extends onward and onward, a place we aren’t meant to go. Man, and his connection to the element bonds, belongs this side of it.”

  “What about the stories that the Draasin Lord is on the other side of the waste?” someone called.

  Master Wassa approached the group and smiled. “They are nothing more than stories. As I said, there is no way for anyone to travel across the waste. We have tried and failed, so for those of you who believe the Draasin Lord has somehow managed to not only bring himself but all of his followers across the waste, you would be mistaken.”

  There were several long moments of silence.

  “This is it?” Draln walked up to the edge. Near the edge of the waste, the grass changed from a bright and vibrant green to dry and nearly lifeless, and there was a rapid transition, a point where life suddenly stopped and changed over to rocks before eventually becoming a bleak and barren expanse of darkened land. Flowing sand rolled in the far distance, but not near them. The sun shone brightly and it was warm, but not excessively so. “I don’t get why this is so impressive. Why did we get dragged out here?”

  “This is part of every first-year student’s journey,” Master Barry said. “You must know about the waste, and you must know what it feels like to have your powers suddenly separated from you.”

  “Do we have to do this?” Jonas muttered.

  He didn’t say it quietly enough and Master Wassa came up behind him, chuckling. He was a larger man and despite the heat, he didn’t seem to be sweating at all. His enormous, flowing robes swept around him. “All must experience the separation.”

  “Why?” Jonas asked.

  “You were selected. And now you must be separated. Consider it a part of your journey. When you return, you will have faced something all young shapers fear. At this point in your shaping career, you have embraced you power. Many of you have become dependent upon it. Some of you have begun to show great potential. All of you fear losing it.”

  He swept his gaze along the line of students. Tolan suspected the master’s voice had been shaped to carry, and though Master Wassa was a water shaper, he was also something of a skilled wind shaper as well.

  “When you’re ready, we ask that you approach the border and take at least a dozen steps across. When you’re there, you will remain for one hour.”

  “Why an hour?” someone else asked.

  “An hour is long enough for you to be tempted. Everyone must feel the sense of the separation. At first, you will have some residual connection to the element bonds. For those of you who had been drawing upon that power when you cross the waste, that will linger within you, and the sooner you attempt to use it, the sooner you will find it separated from you. Some will wait. Those of you who continue to wait will find that power difficult to reach, but we have learned that the most powerful shaper can still draw upon their element bond connections within that hour. What we want is for you to find yourself separated. It needs to be enough of the separation for you to experience a moment of panic but know that it will return when you cross back over to Terndahl once again.”

  Master Wassa turned away and the students along the line all glanced at each other, including Jonas, who looked at Tolan before turning his attention to Ferrah.

  “Who’s going first?” Jonas asked.

  Tolan took a deep breath. He had only recently connected to his power, but he also didn’t fear losing it, probably not the same way others did. His identity wasn’t wrapped up in it. He reached into the pocket of his cloak, tapped on the furios, and took a step across the border.

  “Look who’s chasing after the Draasin Lord,” Draln shouted.

  Tolan hesitated, his back stiffening, before continuing onward. He had heard such taunts before, and Draln couldn’t know what that meant to him. No one in the Academy knew. He forced himself to ignore the taunt, heading deeper and deeper into the waste. As he went, he felt nothing other than heat. Tolan didn’t know if he should be afraid, especially as from what Master Wassa said, his connection to the element bonds would be separated—though he still didn’t know exactly what his connection to the element bonds was. He could reach for fire, but when he did, his connection to it was so different than what it was for others. How could it be, when it required he visualize the elementals in order to create a connection to power?

  He glanced back and saw he was the only one out in the waste.

  Would others follow? This was required of them, at least Tolan had thought so, so he expected they would. But maybe he was the only one willing to venture this far out into the waste.

  A dozen steps. An hour. None of that sounded terrible.

  Only, he’d once had visions of the waste. Those came racing back to him now.

  When he had been selected for the Academy, he had seen the waste in a way he had never seen it before. He had chased the elemental power in his vision, letting it follow him, and in that vision, the elemental had trailed after him, heading into the waste itself. That went against what he believed about the waste and went against his belief that whatever power existed out here was minimal. Supposedly, the waste was a place of emptiness, a place where there was nothing. There was no connection to the element bonds out here. Without that connection, there would be nothing for him.

  It was a good place to test what he could do.

  If he had a connection to power in the element bonds, then he wouldn’t be able to shape. If his power depended upon the elementals the way he thought it might, maybe it would be different.

  When he was far enough, he stared outward. Rocks spread all around him, bleak and dark. Every so often, he thought he caught the edge of a shimmering sand dune, but that was difficult to tell. Likely it was nothing more than his imagination, especially as he wasn’t deep enough into the waste to see the sand, and unless he ventured farther out, he wouldn’t encounter it.

  How far had he walked? He turned and realized he had to be a hundred paces or more out into the waste. Others had begun to follow, but they did so cautiously, only a few steps over the border, before pausing.

  Tolan stood, staring out into the waste, and reached into his pocket and ran his finger along the furios. When he encountered the runes along it, he squeezed them, as he often did.

  In order to reach for power through the furios, he had to draw upon an image of an elemental, feel the power
of the fluttering within him. Traveling on the Shapers Path had required he draw upon a shaping of fire, and he had only enough control to blast himself onto the path. He didn’t have enough to reach it with any sort of security, not like so many others within his class. Most were able to control their travel to the Shapers Path using their connection to shaping to guide their way, often using more than one element in order to do so.

  Eventually, Tolan had to hope he could reach another of the elements. It had failed him so far.

  He was to stand here, but what was the point in that? He settled onto the ground, crossing his legs, sitting, connected to the waste.

  With his hand on the furios, he focused on fire, trying to reach for that elusive element, focusing on one of the elementals. Hyza came to mind as it often did, mostly because it was the one he had seen first—and the most often. Hyza was a mixture of fire and earth, a combination of power that should not exist, and yet somehow still did. With that combination of power, the elemental was unique. Somehow, when he connected in that way, he thought he could reach for hyza and power, but today it wasn’t there.

  And why should it be? He was out on the waste.

  Tolan continued to trace his finger along the furios. He was the only student he knew of who had a furios. The bondars were used in their classroom, an opportunity for them to try to connect to the element bond they struggled with otherwise, but this furios was his. Without it, he would never have developed the way he had.

  There was no sense of separation from anything. There was no sense of anything, for that matter.

  It reminded him of when he had traveled into the northern mountain range with his parents, though it might be a bit hotter and windier. In the mountains, they had reached a point where they climbed above the tree line and it looked awfully bleak. It was colder, and he had been dressed in a heavy cloak when he had traveled with his parents, their attempt to see how much he might be able to connect to earth. But that hadn’t brought him any closer to the element. He had known about his connection to earth-sensing since he was young, and they’d hoped to elicit a greater connection, to draw forth an ability to do more than just sense earth, and be able to shape it. But that had failed.