Breaking Step (Dungeon Runner 3)

Breaking Step, Chapter 59

Tibs took slow and long breaths before speaking. "Fine. How should I have gone about it, then?"

Don grinned. "You really want to insult me right now, don't you?"

"You are kind of rubbing your 'I know so much more than you do' in my face; so yes, insulting you is tempting."

"Sorry." The grin didn't vanish. "But I do know more than you."

"Don," Tibs warned.

"Why are you waiting until after you're out of control to gain it?"

"How else am I going to do it?"

"The same way you didn't insult me. The same way you're not at the guild right now, trying to burn it to the ground."

"I can't do that. There's too much magic protecting it."

"But you want to."

"But I can't!"

"You could try, then deal with the consequences."

"Don," Tibs growled. "I know you're trying to get me to understand something about how that relates to my training, but I don't get it."

The sorcerer considered something, then nodded. "You're exercising control before the fact."

"Because I know that trying it isn't going to do anything. Channeling a new element is the only way to figure out how it's going to affect me, so what I have to do to control it."

"No, it isn't."

"Don, I've tried—"

"It's all emotions, Tibs," Don cut him off. "It's what the elements do to you. They increase one of them beyond what you're used to."

"Which is why I need to channel him," Tibs said slowly, struggling with thinking that Don was being slow on purpose. "I need to experience it and figure out how to handle it. It's not like I've experienced anything like that before."

"I've seen you angry, Tibs. You don't need an element to experience being out of control."

"And do you have any idea how hard that is to control?"

"In fact, I do," Don said flatly, and Tibs looked away. "But what's important here is that you don't fly off in a rage at the slightest insult. You know how to control it before it happens."

"No always," Tibs whispered.

"True, but most of the time, you do. You were able to stand by Tirania as she spewed her lies about how great the guild is. I expected you to plant a knife in her heart. I certainly considered melting her on the spot."

"Yes, but I had to work at it. It's what I'm telling you about controlling Lightning and Metal. Until I—"

"You can work on that first."

"How?" Tibs asked in exasperation. "How do I learn to control something I'm not experiencing?"

Don leaned back in his chair. "There's this set of belief, out of the Kingdom of Terrobor, that we have grown apart from the elements. They mean we as everyone. They believe that even people who don't have an element are connected to them. That it's where our emotions come from. We lose control when one of them grows too strong in our lives. It was a passage in this research document I read on the validity of the elements as representation of events in the world." He waved that aside. "It was when I was trying to decide what I'd focus on as a scholar. I read just about everything I could get my hands on back then. I went back to read more about their beliefs."

"I can help you with that," Tibs said. "The elements told me they don't influence people like that."

"Except you. But that they do or not doesn't matter."