The Shattered Elemental (The Binding Trials Book 4), page 1
The Shattered Elemental
THE BINDING TRIALS BOOK 4
D.K. HOLMBERG
JASPER ALDEN
Copyright © 2024 by ASH Publishing
Cover art by Damonza.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Author’s Note
Series by Jasper Alden
Similar Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter 1
There was a strange weight in the air, one that seemed to hang heavy upon Lathan. He didn’t know if it was tied to his understanding of the elemental energies, such as it was, or if this was real. Regardless, as he focused on the strange power that he was able to pick up, he started to question if he could use it in any way.
Returning to the city had been an easy journey. He had traveled with Isa and had followed whatever power that she had, flowing on the undercurrent of energy that existed. It was something beyond any way that he had ever imagined was possible before now.
“Why is it that I can feel something? It’s strange, but I wouldn’t expect to detect anything,” Lathan asked, looking over to her.
The sky crackled, and he noticed that there was a steady streak of lightning moving from the clouds overhead, shooting straight down and toward them. It would be either Jef or Marin, and he wasn’t entirely sure which one of them was coming first.
“You are Asiran. That is why. And I would imagine that you can feel more than even I can feel.”
He wasn’t exactly sure about that. He could, however, feel something. And it was the fact that he was aware of something that suggested to him that whatever power was here and whatever pressure was building, while potent, was useful in a way.
He took a deep breath, focusing on the strangeness that he had uncovered previously, wondering if maybe there was a way for him to draw on that power. “Are you staying?”
“We have found the Asiran,” she said.
“That’s really not an answer,” he said.
But in a way, he suspected that maybe it was an answer, and it might be the only answer that he was to receive. To them, he was some long-lost powerful ruler, and somehow, he had returned.
“We must help you understand.”
“So you will train me?”
“You are the Asiran,” she said.
He smiled at that, feeling as if maybe it were a little bit more ridiculous than he had expected, but perhaps it didn’t need to be. Perhaps it was what it was.
Instead, he turned, looking all around. He couldn’t feel anything here. But in a way, he was going to have to try to find how to open himself to spirit so that he could better identify if there was anything here he could use. That was going to be the key, after all. Spirit would help him connect to other powers, and it might even help him free others, especially if they were somehow still influenced by the Sacred Mother.
When the crackles of lightning cleared, Marin stepped over. She looked harder than she had when they had first set out from the village, and her clothing was dirtied, though Lathan suspected that his was, as well. Her hair was wild, the wind whipping around her the way that it often did. And he felt a bit of spirit coming off of her, the same familiar sense that he had started to identify when she was using it.
“Why have you been waiting out here?”
“Either we’re waiting on you, or we’re waiting on my comfort level,” he said. “And honestly, I’m not entirely sure which it is. Maybe a little bit of both?”
“You decide,” Isa said.
He couldn’t decide. At this point, he wasn’t even sure that he wanted to decide.
But it was good that Marin had come, because if there was a danger in the city, a danger to their people, then they were going to need others with spirit to try to free them.
“Henash and others from the kingdom are on their way,” he said.
“You saw them?”
“I caught sight of movement as we were coming down. And… I can feel them. Can you?”
She was quiet for a moment. There were aspects of spirit connection that were different between the two of them. “I don’t feel things the way you do. And maybe that’s okay. You really have a different connection altogether.”
It wasn’t just his connection that was different, though. It was him, in some way that he still wasn’t entirely sure how to explain or how to describe. Lathan was part elemental, descended from his father the shadow elemental, and his mother, who was connected to the spirit element but not elemental.
“I wanted to stay back there,” Marin said, turning and looking behind her, as if to stare in the direction that they had come from. “They wouldn’t let me. Apparently I can’t wait to see if the draasin would return.”
He blinked. “Did you really want to?”
She looked up, as if to find the draasin circling. “Why shouldn’t I want to? We haven’t seen anything like that—and neither has anyone else. We haven’t even heard of anything like that. I know that you probably can talk to them in some way, but…”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t be able to talk to it. It’s more about trying to… Well, I’m not even sure what it is like. It’s just a matter of trying to make sense of what I can do and what I can be, maybe.”
Another crack of lightning came and then landed near them. Jef stumbled forward. Once done, Lathan looked over to the Maelen, curious what they might say. They waited, watching.
Jef stepped free and shivered. “I’m not so sure I care that much for that. What are we going to do now?”
“Let’s get down into the city and see if there’s anything that we need to do. Some of these were our people. Or at least, they should be.”
“And if any of them are with the Derithan?” Jef asked.
“I’m starting to think that perhaps we misunderstood the Derithan. Or at least, we might have. I’m not sure.”
Lathan started forward. The landscape was fairly barren, and he wondered if he would be able to identify any sort of elementals that were here. Then again, now that the Sacred Mother was no longer here, he doubted that there would be any reason for elementals to have remained. And those elementals that might have remained would obviously have known that doing so would be dangerous to them and for them.
“It feels so different,” Marin said. “I feel… emptiness. Then again, I suspect you feel it, as well.”
“I do. It’s sort of leaving me on edge.” He glanced over. Then he watched the Maelen stayed close to them, dressed in the gray jacket and pants that Lathan suspected was some uniform of theirs, though some had more embroidery than others. All carried a weapon with them, long, slender swords. “I’m going to need to figure out what they are doing so that we can avoid any more surprises.”
“And have you?”
“Not particularly,” he said.
Once they got to the outskirts of town, he felt a little bit more uneasy. He was reminded of the very first time that he had come here. There had been others with them, and they had turned on he and his friends, especially after it had been revealed that the Sacred Mother had wanted them to do so. Now that he was here, would they have to face other dangers? Other threats?
As he said something to Marin, wrinkles in the corners of her eyes suggested the concern she felt. “I wonder how much of them were controlled. She had so much power over spirit, and given the way that she was able to use her connection to it, it seems to me that is the key to it.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But if that is the key, then there has to be some way that we can get past what she did here. We did it once.”
“Did we?” Marin said, looking over to him. “That was all you.” She started to smile. “I trust that you can handle this, though.”
He wasn’t sure what he could handle these days. At this point, it was difficult for Lathan to know how difficult the challenges that they might face might be. They had been dealing with such impossible things, including now a powerful elemental of spirit that had wanted to use them, though Lathan still didn’t know what the Sacred Mother had wanted to use them for.
They reached the outer edge of the city. Jef had been quiet, but the moment that they reached the outskirts, he withdrew a binding stone from his pocket and held it in hand as he swept it away from him.
“I’m not feeling anything,” Jef said.
Jef shot her a hard look. “And you don’t know. If there is anyone still here, including any of the elementals, that are serving the Sacred Mother, I want to be ready. If I have to bind it, then I will. And if we need to make more binding stones, that’s what we have Lathan here for.”
“Or you could just ask the elementals to go,” she said. “Just send them away.”
“Assuming that they would leave. What if they want to be here? What if all of this is about some way of collecting power?”
“I don’t think that’s what it is,” she said.
But like her, Lathan wasn’t sure.
The outskirts of the city were the busiest. Lathan suspected that was out of a comfort, or perhaps a discomfort, as the case may be. The people here were not exactly sure if it was safe for them to get any deeper into the city, a place that the Sacred Mother and her elementals had controlled. For that matter, Lathan wasn’t even sure if he knew that, either. It was better that they have a chance to test. And considering what his type of connection happened to be, he had to hope that he could help discover how much of an influence might remain.
Many of the people were those he recognized, though not all. Most of them were townsfolk that they had brought here. Some might be from elsewhere, either outsiders or people who had ventured to the city for protection. It was another thing to be concerned about, though was it for him to be concerned about? Lathan could use the elementals—or at least, he could borrow power from them—which others could not do, but that didn’t mean that it was something that he wanted to be responsible for. For that matter, he wasn’t sure that he should be the one responsible for what happened here. It might be more than what he could handle.
And as far as he could tell, none seemed aware that there was anything that had happened. That was reassuring, but a little surprising, as well. He would’ve expected that somebody would’ve known something had happened. The calm here was a little unnerving, especially considering everything that they had been through leading up to this point.
He leaned into Marin. “Nobody even knows,” he whispered.
“The focus wasn’t on them,” she said. “And she was trying to use you up until the last few moments. So maybe it’s better this way.”
Lathan didn’t know if that was true or not, but right now, perhaps that wasn’t the issue that he had to resolve. Now it was a matter of getting settled, dealing with the consequences of removing the Sacred Mother from her position here, and ensuring that she couldn’t cause additional challenges for them.
“I’m going to check on a few people here,” Jef said. “The two of you go. I can’t do what you can do, anyway. And I’d probably just get in the way.”
“Are you sure?” Lathan asked.
“Well, I’m sure that I can’t do what you can do. I’m not so sure that I’d get in the way, but I don’t want to cause a problem, and I do want to check on a few things.” He glanced the way they had come. “Why aren’t they coming in here?”
As they entered the outskirts where the townsfolk had been held, he had noticed that the Maelen had waited. They didn’t enter the city. They stood as if on patrol, and what was more was that there was a strange sense of an energy that emanated from them, which Lathan suspected was tied to their ability with the elements, not that he knew that with certainty. It was possible that they had binding stones on them. More likely, he figured, considering all that he had been through. At least, binding stones were a kind of power that Lathan understood, not like this connection to the elements that they had described, a connection that he wasn’t even sure if he could understand.
“I don’t even know. Maybe they are concerned about getting too close?”
“Or maybe they’re watching for other elementals,” Marin suggested.
“If it was about elementals, they would’ve come with us,” Lathan said. “So this is something else.”
As he watched, he saw that they were making a steady circuit around the city.
“They’re looking for other traps,” he said.
“Would you have felt something?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible that I wouldn’t.”
It was hard for him to admit that, but seeing as how he was part elemental—something that was still strange for him to consider—he might be best equipped to pick up on such things. Then again, they were far more potent than he was, and they had an ability with the elements he did not have. They had a connection far different than anything he had.
“The others are going to be here soon enough. I wouldn’t be surprised if Henash has brought extra support. We could use that to search the town.”
“I’m a little concerned about if we find something before they get here,” she said. “Unless they’re almost here?”
“They looked to be a little ways out, so we probably have a couple of days, though it’s hard to know. If they are using binding stones and if Henash is with them, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that they were able to travel much faster than I would’ve expected.” Especially considering he thought there were others from the kingdom that were coming with Henash. Henash was talented. There was no doubt of that. But there were others who were even more talented.
And they needed time here in this town.
He wasn’t entirely sure what they would even find. The biggest concern was finding elementals, but if they found something along those lines, it seemed as if it should be a relatively straightforward process for him to be able to neutralize it, especially given what he had been able to do with that sort of thing in the past. He could bind it.
“Let’s go. I want to see if there is any sign of her or of her people, or elementals, for that matter, remaining.”
All around, Lathan felt an undercurrent of strangeness. Maybe it was more imagined than real, but it felt as if there was something still in the city, perhaps a residual from what the Sacred Mother had done.
Lathan had never taken an opportunity to explore the city. Not like this and not unencumbered, as there had always been a representative of the Sacred Mother with him when he had visited before. But now he couldn’t help but wonder if perhaps there might be something about this city that was significant.
The Sacred Mother had chosen this place, hadn’t she?
It was probably just about her access and reach with the elementals, he figured. Or maybe there was another reason. With her, it was difficult to know.
He remembered the first time that they had come here. He remembered how he had marveled at the way the buildings had looked, and how it had all felt so marvelous, and even delicate. Knowing that the Sacred Mother had used the elementals, and likely had forced them to serve, left him thinking that perhaps she had forced them to build much of the city. Some of the buildings were newer, with an almost crystalline structure. Then there were older buildings, some made of a thick, gray stone that emanated a sense of energy from them, though what he detected from that was difficult for him to understand.
Maybe there would be something about the Sacred Mother they could learn by going to where she had been. So long as they avoided traps—and Lathan had to believe she left some sort of trap behind—they might understand what she had been after. An entity like her would have to have had an agenda.
“How much of the city was tied to her at the elementals?” Marin asked.
Before he could answer, there was a trembling. Lathan immediately turned. He noticed that one of the nearest buildings had started to tremble, and stone from within the building had started to rise, building with elemental power.
Marin started murmuring something, though Lathan didn’t know if her connection to the wind was even going to matter now. Here, where the Sacred Mother had been and where she had bonded other elementals, left questions about whether or not the elementals would even respond.
He was surprised when the wind began to swirl, picking up.
“Good,” she breathed out, as if she had been equally concerned.
Lathan tried to make sense of whether there was anything here that he could feel. He did not really understand the connection to the elementals, nor did he really know if there was any part of what he could identify of them that would make much of a difference, but he did, however, recognize some of that power.
