The Elements Bond (Elemental Academy Book 7) Read online

  “The waste?”

  Tolan took a chance and focused, using what he could of the connection between them. He was able to bridge that connection, sending power to the elemental.

  He created an image.

  In doing so, he could feel the elemental latching onto that sense.

  That sense was there, deep within him.

  He pushed outward, creating what he could of the waste. It was a vast emptiness, but there was something else. The Convergence was there, and not an emptiness. Protected. The Guardians were there, offering what they could of their defense of the waste. He showed the elemental the way the bondars were there, how they had formed, creating a protection for the Guardians, and because of that, the waste was not something to be feared.

  The elemental responded, though it did so in a strange fashion.

  Tolan focused on that sense, struggling to grasp whether there was anything more he might be able to learn.

  He reached across the distance, searching for any sense of the strange wind elemental. He needed to find some way to fully reach him. He was an unusual elemental, and Tolan struggled to make sense of him, struggling to know just what he needed to do to have a more substantial or a more solid connection to the elemental, and to use that connection to know whether there was anything he could learn from him.

  Even though he used spirit, there was no other sense from the elemental.

  Its energy came to him, and he held onto that, using what he could to find a true connection to this elemental.

  That was what it was. A connection.

  He probed, sending spirit and wind, and still didn’t come up with anything.

  “What happened?”

  There was a sense of fear from the elemental, and Tolan thought he needed to better understand just what it was, but without having an opportunity to truly understand the elemental, he didn’t know he would be able to do anything for him.

  Ever since learning about his shaping ability, and learning about what he could do, helping the elementals had been a part of it.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Here,” the elemental said.

  Tolan frowned. They were here?

  He tensed, readying a shaping, but a question came to him.

  If this elemental was wind and spirit, what would the others be?

  He probed, sending out fire mixed with spirit. That didn’t seem to latch on anything. When he tried earth mixed with spirit, he felt it.

  There was a trembling, a faint sense, but there was definitely something there.

  He hesitated.

  It was all around him.

  Gradually, a shape took form.

  Much like the wind elemental, this earth elemental had something of a human form.

  Tolan was surprised by that.

  Even more surprising was that Tolan could barely feel him. The sense of the elemental was there, but it was so faint he found it difficult to detect.

  Would there be another?

  Everything around him was dry and arid, and to find anything more would be surprising, but what if there was some connection to water?

  Tolan probed with water and spirit. When he found it, the sense of it was so subtle and faint he almost believed it wasn’t there.

  His breath caught.

  “You’re the three I saw.”

  The wind elemental nodded.

  “And why did you attack me?”

  “We did not. Something else.”

  “Who?”

  The elemental turned away, but Tolan could feel the fear within the elemental. It was that fear which he felt the strongest. It was a surging of emotion, and it trembled within the elemental, leaving Tolan with a sense of something terrible.

  It wasn’t just the wind elemental who was afraid. The earth elemental shared that fear. Even the water elemental did, though Tolan could detect that one the least of all.

  He frowned as he glanced from one elemental to the other, trying to understand just what he was detecting, but there was no sense of it. All he was able to determine was that something was amiss.

  He tried to push through the spirit connection, searching for an answer, but there was none. The elemental kept that answer from him.

  He needed to better understand the fear within this elemental, but how?

  “I can help,” Tolan said.

  “Can not,” the elemental said.

  “I can.”

  “Others say same.”

  “Others?”

  “Others like you.”

  “What others like me?” Were there others around here? Once he was able to get out of the building, he could find out if there were. Then he would see if there was anything he might be able to do. There had to be some way to offer help to the elemental, but what would it take?

  “Warriors.”

  Tolan frowned. “Warriors?”

  10

  There was no sense of movement near him. The elementals had disappeared, leaving him in the room, and Tolan waited, lingering for a moment to see if there was anything else he might be able to learn from them, but gradually, they had disappeared. The elementals were connected to spirit and to their element, which made them considerably powerful in a certain way. It was a strange connection, and though it created something unique, he sensed it also created a danger to them.

  He could anticipate what the danger would be. When it came to his mother and how she had used spirit on others, he could see her trying to use that in a way that would terrorize the elementals. He could anticipate his mother drawing upon spirit, forcing these elementals to serve.

  If she had, then why wouldn’t she have brought them to attack before?

  Could she have?

  Maybe she had and he hadn’t even known it.

  The nature of these elementals was such he hadn’t even been aware of them until he’d mixed both elements together. The connection was there, subtle, and by trying to reach for them, using not only a single element but spirit, he was able to uncover the sense of these elementals, but he had no idea if there were others like them.

  If there were, then he might have been around them and not even known.

  The idea he could have been around other elementals and not have been aware of them was surprising. After everything he’d been through, the idea that there could be elementals he had never even heard of, and could never even know, still troubled him.

  He looked around and kept waiting for the elementals to return, but there was no sign of them. He focused on the building, on the smoke and the fire, and the wind that came through here. It was hot and pressing and unpleasant. There was no water here, which surprised him, given that there was the water elemental that had appeared before him.

  He needed to find where they’d gone.

  He focused, using spirit, latching onto that sense and latching onto that sense and trying to see where they had gone, but as he focused, there was nothing.

  No sense of spirit. No sense of wind or earth or fire or water. No sense of the strange new other elementals.

  He continued to probe, searching. The elemental had been here before, and it had done so in a way that had been difficult for Tolan to detect. He hadn’t even known the elemental was present until it had revealed itself. If it were the case now, then the elemental might still be near him, but he didn’t think that was the case.

  Taking a deep breath, he pulled on each of the elements, using a shaping to carry him outside of the building, but not much farther. It was a risk. Without knowing what else might be here, Tolan didn’t know if it was safe to use the warrior shaping, to carry himself just beyond the building, but he thought he needed to. To have an opportunity to try to understand what might be out there, he was going to need to see where he was.

  From outside, the building was little more than a rounded rock.

  Had he not known what it was, he might not have even been aware of it.

  He found other similar mounds, and he made a small circuit, lookin
g at all of them, searching for some understanding of what was here. There were dozens of them. If they were all like the first—and Tolan suspected they were—then all of them would be places where the elementals had existed.

  Why, though?

  Some of them had smoke coming out of their tops, but it came up with such a soft, shimmering quality that it was difficult to make out. It was almost as if they were trying to shield their presence here.

  He frowned, sweeping his gaze around, and then pushed out with spirit, mixing it with the other elements. He was probing, searching for something. All he wanted was some way to find the other elements, to see if there was any other elemental near here, but he didn’t come up with anything. If there was nothing, then why had he detected those three? Why had they come for him?

  What if those were the only three here?

  Tolan thought about what he knew about this place. It was beyond the waste, though as he looked around, it felt as if it were still the waste.

  When he had been atop the Draasin Lord, there had been something beyond the waste. There had been life and lush grass and trees and a breeze, a warm sun, and everything that suggested that there was something more beyond there.

  With that being the case, then why?

  He needed to better understand that, but he wasn’t going to achieve it on his own. More than that, he needed to find the elementals.

  He had no idea where they were, and he had no idea why they were hiding from him. All he knew was that there was no sense of them anymore.

  He could linger, but for what purpose? He needed answers. He needed to find the Draasin Lord and Ferrah.

  Tolan focused on the Draasin Lord. He didn’t have an elemental bond to Ferrah he could use, though he wondered if such a thing were even possible.

  There was a sense of connection. That sense was faint, little more than imagined, but as he focused on it, he thought he could feel that awareness growing. The Draasin Lord was out there, and Tolan could latch onto him.

  As the awareness of the Draasin Lord came to him, Tolan called to him, trying to find that sense of the draasin, but he wasn’t sure if that was all he should do.

  It was the warrior shaping that had drawn that elemental to him.

  Tolan was certain of it, but why?

  Was there anything he could replicate that would do it again?

  He focused on drawing each of the elements to him. If that was what had called to the elementals before, then maybe he could use it again, and maybe he would be able to draw that sense to him. He focused on it, letting the power of each of the elements fill him, delving deep within him to find spirit.

  As he did, he was left with a question.

  There was something here that had separated him from the elements when he had first come around. Tolan didn’t know what it was or why there should have been the separation, only that there had been one.

  As he probed, he realized he was growing weaker. Talking with the elementals had taken much out of him. He was tired. The effort of being out here, and of trying to connect in a place where the elements were separated from him was difficult. It suggested he was still within the waste, though why?

  He knew how difficult it was for elementals to exist within the waste, so why would they spend their time out here?

  They feared warrior shapers.

  Did they think her a warrior?

  Tolan understood fearing what his mother might bring but thought he needed to better understand what he might encounter out here.

  He wouldn’t be able to do that while growing weaker like this. If he waited too much longer, then he would either have to rest and recuperate—and out here, there was no guarantee he would even be able to fully recuperate—or he would need to use a warrior shaping to carry him away. Once he did, Tolan thought he should be able to find this place again, but what would happen if he could not?

  Perhaps nothing. The elementals were here, and he could feel them, but that didn’t mean he had any responsibility to try to save them.

  Still, he wanted to try. He wanted to do whatever it would take to help them. He breathed out, focusing on the sense of the elementals, focusing on the sense of spirit, but still felt nothing.

  Using the warrior shaping, he let it carry him.

  It brought him to the free elemental lands.

  Tolan stopped at the edge of the village. He breathed in, letting the sense of elementals, of elements, of the element bonds all fill him. Restoring him.

  He pushed outward with spirit, trying to quest for the sense of the Draasin Lord.

  Hyza was there, hiding deep within his mind. He sent a request to hyza, wanting the elemental to reach through the fire bond and help him alert the Draasin Lord that Tolan had returned.

  He had a faint sense of acknowledgment, a reverberation of energy that suggested that hyza understood and hopefully was doing what Tolan needed.

  He walked through the village. It was strange being back, but stranger still was the sense of these elementals. He focused on them, searching for spirit within them.

  As he did, he detected nothing.

  There was the sense of each of the elements, and in some of them, he detected more than a single element. It was like that with hyza’s combination of earth and fire, but it was like that in several others as well. Many elementals were combined, made up of aspects of more than one element bond. It made them intriguing. It made them powerful.

  None of them had spirit.

  The only elementals that had spirit were those he had encountered out in the strange waste. Spirit was useful with the elementals. When he had attempted to speak to them, he had needed spirit to do so, so why would detect it from them now?

  It didn’t make any sense.

  Tolan focused on spirit, focusing on what he could detect, and thought about everything else around him.

  He could feel that energy here.

  A dark shape appeared in the distance.

  Tolan used a shaping of wind and carried himself to the mountaintop, waiting for the Draasin Lord.

  As the Draasin Lord approached, Tolan was aware of something between them. It was fire, the connection there, a connection that surged within him. It was powerful, though it surprised him he should be so aware of that. Always before when it came to the Draasin Lord, Tolan was aware of fire and the connection to it, but he wasn’t aware of much more. Now, he could practically feel the elemental.

  And because of that, he was aware of the anger within the elemental.

  The Draasin Lord was frustrated.

  Could he be mad at Tolan?

  When he landed, he did so with a massive stirring of wind, a fluttering of his wings, and heat that radiated outward from him. Ferrah jumped off the Draasin Lord’s back and came running over to him. She threw her arms around him before backing away and shoving him.

  “What happened?” she snapped.

  The Draasin Lord watched him, the rumbling energy coming off him.

  “I was attacked, and I fell.”

  “We were aware of it. The draasin tried to catch you, but you got trapped underground.”

  “I’m not really sure what happened there,” Tolan said. He remembered the fall, he remembered cushioning his blow, and he remembered even what it had taken for him to escape, though not at all how he had fully escaped. Then there had been the three elementals standing overtop him.

  “I crashed someplace within the waste. Only it was a different part of the waste than I had been before.”

  “What happened?” the Draasin Lord asked.

  “Did you know that there are elementals mixed with spirit?”

  The Draasin Lord stared at him, locking Tolan’s eyes with those deep golden eyes of his. A pressure of fire came from deep within him. Tolan felt something from him, and he thought he understood. The Draasin Lord had not known.

  “There were three of them,” he said, sharing with both the Draasin Lord and Ferrah at the same time. He breathed out. “The wind elemental cam
e to me first. He was wind and spirit, and for some reason, I could see him. He looked like a man.”

  “There is no elemental like that,” the Draasin Lord said.

  “There were three elementals like that,” Tolan said. “One was wind, one was earth, and there was one of water, though I wasn’t able to see him nearly as clearly.”

  The idea that there would be three humanoid-like elementals was strange, troubling, but he had seen them.

  More than that, they had the ability to appear and disappear with little more than a thought. If they could do that, he still couldn’t shake the idea they might be around even now. As he swept his gaze around, he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps there were others like that.

  What if anyone who had spirit was one of those elementals?

  He would’ve known. They would have known.

  “Where did they go?” Ferrah asked.

  “That’s just it: I don’t know. They left the building they were in, and when I departed, I couldn’t find them.”

  “Can you bring us?” Ferrah asked.

  “I could, but it would require a warrior shaping. I don’t know that I could do it without,” he said, looking over at the Draasin Lord.

  As strange as the idea seemed, he knew he could carry the Draasin Lord if it came down to it. He had done so before, but it had been a time of great need. He would need to rest, though standing here in these lands, breathing in the power of the elements and the element bonds, even that of the elementals, Tolan was getting the restoration he needed. He thought he could stay here and with enough time, he might be able to draw upon the power he needed to fully restore himself.

  When he did, then he thought he could carry the others.

  Ferrah would be easy but carrying the Draasin Lord involved a considerable effort and a considerable pull of energy. It would involve drawing upon power that would weaken him. Once he was there, it was possible he wouldn’t be able to return them.

  With the Draasin Lord, it might not even matter. The Draasin Lord would be able to carry them.

  “Let’s recover a little bit,” he said.

  Tolan took a seat, and Ferrah joined him on the ground. “What else did you learn?”

  “The elementals were scared,” he said.