The Shattered Construct (Essence Wielder Book 3), page 1
THE SHATTERED CONSTRUCT
Essence Wielder Book 3
DAN MICHAELSON
D.K. HOLMBERG
Copyright © 2023 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
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Author’s Note
Series by Dan Michaelson
Similar Series by D.K. Holmberg
Chapter One
The entrance to the headmaster’s office was closed as Dax approached, though he still had access to the building, so at least he thought that he had an opportunity to go and visit with the headmaster, even if he couldn’t spend much time with him. Dax had not seen Desmond much ever since he had been named the headmaster of the Academy. He wasn’t sure if Desmond would even welcome him.
He stood in front of the door and could feel some of the energy radiating from inside of it, an energy that seemed to emanate from the runic markers along the surface of the door. Dax could identify many of the markers now in a way that he could not before. His time studying the runic markers, and mastering some of the patterns, given him that ability, much more so than he had ever possessed before now.
He should’ve brought Rochelle with him. He knew that she would’ve wanted to have been here with him, but at the same time, Dax couldn’t help but feel as if this was something that he had to do himself. He wanted to do it alone, even. He had questions for Desmond, mostly about his mother and what role she had within the Empire, questions that he didn’t want to ask in front of anyone else until he had an opportunity to understand what it meant for him—if anything.
The door itself seemed a bit more imposing than it had been when the last headmaster was here. Maybe it was layers of essence that Desmond had placed over the door, or perhaps it was just the man who now occupied the office. Whatever it was, Dax felt there was an energy here.
Perhaps that was what bothered him more than anything else. The fact that coming here meant he was opening himself up to the possibility that somebody at the Academy would know him, and his essence, and what he was capable of doing, in ways that he had been trying to keep to himself, but ways that he no longer knew if he would be able to conceal.
He sighed and knocked on the door.
There was no answer.
He’d come here several times, and each time, Desmond had been gone. He kept waiting for him to be there, thinking that he needed to have an opportunity to talk, because there were things that they needed to discuss. Especially what was happening in the forest, and what role, if anything, Dax needed to have there. It troubled Dax that Desmond had not interacted with him, especially as long as he had known him.
Even Gia and Cedrick had known Desmond for a little while, but neither of them seemed to be as concerned that Desmond was now the headmaster. Perhaps Dax shouldn’t be concerned about it, either, but there was something strange about having somebody who had worked with him, and who had known him in different ways, becoming the headmaster where he could play a significant role in Dax’s education.
He knocked again.
When there was still no answer, he turned away. He headed out of the administrative building, back down and outside, where he stood for long moments. Dax shouldn’t be disappointed. He had greater access to the headmaster than almost anybody else. At least, he would’ve thought that was the case if Desmond hadn’t become so difficult to reach since he ascended to the role of headmaster.
It was early enough that he still couldn’t go to classes, but he still had an assignment he had to finish. Dax needed to get to the transference barn and finish his chores. The barn had been rebuilt after the attack and fortified with far more runic markers than it had before, but they still relied upon the students to help.
He stopped in front of the transference barn. The structure was similar to how it had looked before but was not quite the same. The stone had been fortified with different runes—and many of them were incredibly complicated markers compared to what they were before—other layers of power had been worked into it, as well. Dax wasn’t certain, but he suspected that Desmond had arranged to have some untraditional runes placed, as Dax didn’t recognize all of them.
He hesitated a moment, gathering himself, before he pushed on the runic markers that unlocked the door. Once inside, he paused again, taking in the smells around him. The barn was a barn, and it took a moment for him to adjust to the spells inside. Animals moved inside pens and cages, creating a scurrying energy, mixed with the occasional call from some of those same animals. There were fewer now than there had been before the attack, which Dax was thankful for.
There was no sign of Alex.
That was unusual. Most of the time, she came here before him, and was often well into her chores before he even arrived.
He started to make his way through the holding pens, and began to care for the different animals, working from one to the next, and pausing every so often to test his transference. A pair of frosthooves were near the back wall, and Dax felt some of the icy essence radiating from them, creating a rippling wave of cold around them. The small, squirrel-like hinterhorns were in cages to the left, partially because the two different creatures got along reasonably well, and partially because the hinterhorns could tolerate the cold. There was some space on the far side of the frosthooves before a few larger empty pens. The center of the room had rows of different cages, only about half of which were occupied.
The back room, where they held the silk shatter and some of the other creatures, was no longer sealed off the way that it had been, having been destroyed far more thoroughly than any other part of the transference barn. There hadn’t been the same need—or desire—to build it as there had been for the rest of the transference pens.
By the time he was halfway through his rounds, Alex came in, looking a bit disheveled, her eyes hollow with red rings around them. She looked over to him, nodding and saying nothing, and set off to work on her own chores. He continued working, and when they were near each other working on different creatures—Dax with a strange little violent squirrel and Alex working on something that was called a corgal—he glanced over in her direction.
“Can I help you with anything?” he asked her.
She paused for a moment, stiffening. She had her back to him and didn’t turn toward him. “I’m fine. Sorry I was late.”
“It’s fine,” Dax said. “I have my share of times when I’ve been late. But I don’t want you to feel like you have to stay because of me.”
She started to laugh, and there was a bitterness to it. “What makes you think I’m staying here because of you?”
“I know that it’s not because of me, but because of the animals. I shouldn’t have said it like that.”
She started to laugh. Some of the tension left her voice. “Coming here is normal for me. This helps me feel better. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
Dax understood what she meant. There were times when the transference barn carried a sense of normalcy that he didn’t have in many other places. It was comfortable, comforting, but there were other times when knowing that these creatures were sentient, and that they were trapped, made it difficult.
Not all of them were sentient, but it was close enough.
In the time that they had been working together, Alex had come to see the creatures as something more than just creatures and believed they had a connection to much more than what they had thought before. The time that they had spent working together had helped them bond, and had bonded them to the creatures, to a certain extent.
“Well, if you need anything… Please, just let me know so I can help.”
She looked at him for a moment. “Th
A bit of a quick smile curled on her lips. It was the first emotion other than sadness she’d displayed since she coming to the barn this morning.
“Well, my grade still does depend upon it, but I’m starting to think that Professor Madenil might allow me to get away with just coming here and not doing anything else.”
“Considering what you were involved in, you might be right.”
That was about as much as she had acknowledged his role in everything that had happened in the city, and on the Academy, to this point. Some of the instructors had captured creatures that had been released—by Dax—and had attacked the Academy. It was only once Dax had provided the essence crystal to the silk shatter queen that the attack had been called off.
It was still a problem. Others had been involved—the Order had infiltrated the Guardians and assisted in the attack on the city. Dax hoped that Desmond had gotten word to the Emperor about the level of infiltration, but he wasn’t certain. There wasn’t much he could do about it at this point. He was just a student. A student that had been involved in stopping the Order and what Ames had planned more than once, but a student, nonetheless.
They continued their chores, and by the time they were finished, Dax had done most of it. Alex had simply nodded, as if to silently acknowledge the fact that he was doing most of the work.
“How is your project going?” Alex asked, interrupting the silence between them.
Dax had been crouched in front of one of the small teral, focusing on the transference of energy between them. He could feel the power within them, and how the teral seem to be focused on a bit of life essence that he could draw upon. Each of the creatures had their own unique connections to their essence and he could learn something new from each of them. This type of life essence was different from what his friend Cedrick possessed, whose essence was more destructive than the healing, almost relaxing essence that he felt from the teral.
“My project?” Dax shook his head. “With what happened at the Academy, and with my role…” he glanced over to her, and then shook his head, realizing that he shouldn’t have said anything about that, even though there were quite a few people who knew that he had a hand in things. “I sort of forgot about it.”
“It’s usually a requirement to complete the term.”
Dax snorted. He been too distracted.
“If you want any suggestions, I could help,” Alex offered.
“You would?”
She shrugged. “Not to help you cheat, but then again, the project isn’t really the kind of thing you can cheat on. It’s more of a way of demonstrating the kinds of things that you’ve learned over the time during you your term at the Academy.”
“Well, our term at the Academy has been a little different than most.”
She was quiet for a few moments, scratching at her chin. She held onto a long piece of grass that she had been feeding to the creature. “It really has been, hasn’t it? You were forced to progress so much faster than most. I imagine most of you have already reached the second-tier acolyte level.”
Dax had at least reached that level, though he wasn’t sure how much further he had progressed. Some of his progression came from having had a second vision of the Great Serpent, and some of it came from how much transference essence he had been using.
“You’re probably right. And I think they’re trying to help us all become full wielders as soon as possible. At least, that was what the prior headmaster had wanted.”
“Well, I knew you had been working with him when you first came.”
Dax arched a brow at her. “You knew that?”
“If I was going to spend time with somebody in the barn, I want to learn as much as I could about them. You had a bit of a reputation about you. You came to the Academy as a Nelson, but you didn’t have fire essence. Or maybe you did but didn’t want to reveal it. Either way, people talk.” She shrugged, as if that explained everything. “Everybody said that you had been meeting with the headmaster since your very first week at the Academy.”
“At least initially,” Dax admitted.
“Why?”
“I didn’t really understand the kind of essence I had when I first came to the Academy. I know, it’s surprising because I’m a Nelson, but that’s why ended up at the Academy in the first place. Most people know what they’re able to do. I didn’t.”
She snorted. “I’m supposed to have lightning essence. At least, that’s what most of my family has. We come from the Urnal Mountains, and unfortunately, that type of essence is pretty common there, and me not having it is… Well, let’s just say that it’s a bit of a thing for my family.”
“But I’ve seen your essence,” he said, and immediately wished that he hadn’t.
She arched a brow at him. “You’ve seen it?”
He breathed out heavily. “That’s something I can do. I can see essence. That was the very first thing that I was able to do when I first came to the Academy, and why the headmaster was working with me. He thought it would be useful.”
“Transference,” she said, almost to herself. “Make sense. You need to see the type of essence to know what you’re working with, and to know what to do with it. Interesting. I would not have expected anybody to be able to see essence, but there are different types of essence forms that allow you to structure your essence and construct different spells in order for you to try to visualize it. You just do it without having any visualization spells.”
“Something along those lines,” Dax said.
“That’s how you have been able to work with all of these animals? At least I know your secret now,” she said.
“Great,” he muttered.
“I don’t know. I’d be pleased if I could do what you can. Being able to see essence is not something that most people can do. And combined with the transference ability you have… Well, I’ve not heard of anybody having that.”
“I think that’s how the headmaster felt.”
“You should be pleased. I get the sense that you aren’t.”
“Well, I am now, it’s just that when I first came to the Academy, I was looking for—”
“Fire,” she said.
He shrugged.
“So you’re concerned about disappointing your parents, as well.”
“I was worried about my father. Not so much anymore. Still, there are times when I wish I could use my essence a little bit more effectively.”
“Like when? I think it’s pretty effective here.”
“With transference. In the barn. But I’d like to be able to defend myself if we have another attack.”
She frowned, and then she flicked her gaze down at his essence blade, before turning her attention back up to him. “It looks like you already have that.”
“I suppose.”
“I never took valor. Never wanted to.”
“Most people don’t choose valor unless they think that they are going to have to serve in the military, or they are like me, and live along the unclaimed lands.”
“Right, or unless the registrar assigns it to them.” She shook her head. “There was a time when the registrar seemed to be so arbitrary in her assignments, but these days…” She frowned. “I suppose I should be pleased with the classes I’ve been assigned, but they have been a bit more challenging for me to get some electives in.”
