Elemental Rush (Elemental 0.5) (7 page)

My stomach lurched, and I had no handholds. I flung my arms to the side, but the hole was barely wide enough to accommodate me, so my fingers raked into the dirt.

I seemed to be lowered forever, and the darkness caused panic to build. Finally a faint light brightened the darkness, and the soil settled into the ground around it.

“This way,” the Earthmover said and began walking down a carved corridor. I didn’t know which direction we were going, but I figured under the wall and out of the city.

We walked for a long time, and I wondered how Isaiah had made this journey with his injuries. I kept circling through what I’d witnessed and what I had worth staying for in Tarpulin. The only thing I could put on my list was Felix.

I would miss my brother if I abandoned my obligations here. And I knew I could never return. Not only to the city, but to Felix’s side. He would never forgive an act of rebellion.

The hallway opened into an underground chamber, where Isaiah lay on an altar of earth, white bandages covering his eyes. He sat up as we entered. “Did you bring Adam Gillman?” he asked.

“As you requested. He came as easily as you said he would too.”

I quickly moved to Isaiah’s side. “What happened?”

“You saw what happened,” he said.

“Did I?” I asked. “Who hurt you?”

“Alex blinded me,” he said, lighting tracing the gauze on his face.

I frowned, trying to make the facts line up. “But, how? Alex was on the stairs. You weren’t.”

“I don’t know, but I didn’t get touched physically. I believe he ripped my power out through my eyes.”

“Ripped your power out?” I’d never heard of such a thing. What kind of Firemaker can rip out earthmoving power?

“I felt him in my mind, in my body. Then he pulled, and I couldn’t see, and I started bleeding.”

“Alex used your earthmoving power to bury the Academy.” My voice sounded haunted, afraid. I hated it. Sentries didn’t show fear. And I, Adam Gillman, didn’t allow myself to feel anything.

Yet over the course of the last several days, I’d been confronted with tasks and situations I didn’t know how to handle emotionally.

“While he was doing that, I felt something. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, and I thought you would be the best one to tell.” Isaiah stood up, groaning as he did. The other Earthmover stepped closer to assist him, but Isaiah waved away the effort.

“I think Alex is a woman,” he said.

I couldn’t sleep the next night. I hadn’t slept when I’d returned to my quarters, and I’d contained myself all day in my bedroom, only leaving it in favor of the balcony as the sun rose and when it set.

I couldn’t get Isaiah’s speculation out of my head. Announcing that the Supremist could reach inside someone’s being and steal their power was disturbing enough. But a woman?

Our society had morphed two centuries ago when the first man Manifested his firemaking Element. Since he was the first to Manifest, Firemakers became the leaders of their Councils. They led society. Only males Manifested as Firemakers, Airmakers, and Earthmovers, and only females Manifested as Watermaidens.

Elementals and humans had managed to find a balance between them by establishing the Council system.

I think Alex is a woman.

Isaiah’s voice haunted me while awake. I rose from bed and dressed, determined to either silence it or confirm it.

Thirty minutes later, I peered around the corner and into the hall leading to Alex’s chambers. I thought he’d have guards, but the corridor was empty. The door was locked, but even his bolts were nothing when up against my sentry training.

I slipped into his quarters in less than twenty seconds. It was darker here than in the lit hallway, and I took a few moments to let my eyes adjust. I took a deep breath, filling my body with air so I wouldn’t have to breathe.

I crept through the outer foyer, looking for anything I could use to validate or discredit Isaiah’s claim. I found nothing, not that I expected to. But sentries were nothing if not thorough, and I didn’t want to miss the slightest clue.

The Supremist didn’t have a kitchen, as he certainly never cooked his own meals. The next room was a formal living room, and it sported high ceilings, plush furniture, gold draperies, and stones that had been hand-polished. My boots made squeaking noises as I moved over the glossy surface to the next door.

I tried the knob and found it locked. Strange, I thought, to have a bedroom locked inside an already secured apartment.
What could he be hiding?
My anxiety rocketed, and I swallowed to remain calm.

I listened for his mind, but couldn’t find it. Not even within a dream. Of course, not everyone had dreams, but I expected to hear something. I didn’t. So I picked the lock with quickness and ducked into the room.

Darkness blanketed everything, save for a strip of light that shone underneath the door in the corner. The balcony doors were flung wide, but there was no moon to lend her light tonight. Another door stood behind the bed, and yet another to my right. I supposed the Supremist needed multiple escape routes should trouble come calling so close to home.

With my back pressed into the wall, I watched the narrow ribbon of light coming from under the bathroom door. A shadow made it flicker, then another, as someone took two steps near the door. I couldn’t hear Alex’s mind yet, great as the distance was between us.

I stole across the room and positioned myself next to the bathroom door, so that when he opened it, it would conceal me. Within seconds, the knob twisted and the Supremist exited.

I heard his footsteps, but could not see him. Something swished against the floor, a sound I couldn’t place—until Alex moved far enough into the room that I caught sight of him.

He was wearing a long, pink nightgown, which swished against the stones and his feet.

Or rather,
her
feet.

Exposed as she was, it wasn’t hard to tell that Alex was a woman. If the clothing hadn’t revealed all, the low cut of the nightgown certainly did.

My mind raced through the oath I’d taken. Was it binding if the person I’d made it to was a fraud? Didn’t they have an obligation to be who they said they were in order for the pledge to mean something?

The fissures in my loyalty became chasms. Deep gorges I did not think I could breech—and I knew that as soon as I got out of this apartment, I’d be getting out of Tarpulin.

Out of my sentry life completely.

“So are we set to get the city open?”

I had a hard time keeping the startled shout contained at the sound of my brother’s voice. He waltzed out of the bathroom wearing only his boxer shorts and running a towel through his wet hair.

Alex turned toward him, giving me another eyeful of her girl parts. Felix obviously saw them too, because he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.

My thoughts became a whirlwind. I didn’t know what to think about Felix knowing Alex was a girl. He was as no-nonsense as they come. I couldn’t believe he’d willingly and knowingly keep Alex’s secret.

But maybe the way she was kissing him had something to do with that. I had next to no experience with girls. We didn’t have time for romance while on the sentry track, and the closest I’d come to having feelings for a girl came from admiring the beauty of the Watermaidens. As a general rule, sentries didn’t have relationships—we couldn’t disclose everything about what we did, and that made building a trusting partnership nearly impossible.

Alex finally pulled away, a small smile on her face. “Yes, we’ll get the city open tomorrow—a day early.” She moved back to the balcony, her frilly nightgown making that annoying swishing noise again. “I’m worried about how the townspeople will react.”

Felix followed her and embraced her from behind, placing a kiss on her neck before saying, “You’re the Supremist. They’ll accept whatever you say.”

She murmured something I couldn’t hear while I wondered if I could scurry across the room and out the door when they had their backs turned. Panic welled up at how long I’d have to stay here with the two of them.

“I feel something…abnormal in the Territories,” Alex said, and for the first time since I’d met the Supremist, she sounded scared.

“Abnormal?” Felix asked, swaying gently with her.

“Yes, something’s wrong. I’m not sure what, but I can feel it. More Elementals than there should be.”

“But we’re breeding them,” Felix said gently, and that was definitely an abnormality.

“I feel more than have registered.”

Fear bolted through me. I had the information I’d come to find—and a lot more. I hadn’t thought anything would crack the bond I had with my brother, but seeing him make out with Alex—knowing that he was harboring her secrets—made a distinct fissure in my confidence in him.

I looped two fingers in a small swirl and sent a whisper of air along the floor. It slid under the crack in the bedroom door and went into the outer chamber. I snapped my wrist and the air obeyed, sending something crashing to the floor.

Felix jumped away from Alex, shielding her behind his massive frame. “Get dressed,” he hissed as he strode toward the bed. I noticed now that it was rumpled and that his sentry uniform lay discarded on the floor. He had it donned in less than ten seconds and was creeping toward the door by the time I looked back to Alex.

The nightgown had been abandoned, and now Alex was shoving her arms through a type of vest. It was skin-colored and made her shoulders wider. It covered her chest and sloped into her waist. She yanked a tunic over that, and all traces of her womanly curves were gone. She pulled pants on, then covered it all with her crimson Council robe. In less than a minute, she’d gone from my brother’s feminine lover to the Supremist, most feared man in the Territories.

“I hear nothing,” Felix said, half-turning back to Alex.

I pushed the air along the floor again, sneaking it around his bare feet to the outer chamber. Then I slashed my hand back, bringing the air under the door once again. This time it whooshed against Felix’s skin.

He leaped back, cursing. “An Airmaster.” He turned, grabbed his boots from the floor with one hand, and clenched Alex’s in the other. “Let’s go.” He hurried her out the back door, sealing me in her bedroom with the sound of a clicking lock.

I wasted no time. I ran across the room to the balcony where Alex and Felix had been moments before. I jumped onto the railing and threw myself into the sky.

I didn’t leave
the city right away. I attended to my duties the next day, standing guard near the Supremist’s fortress as she gathered the townspeople to the market square. She gave some speech about equality and the need for educational reform. I didn’t listen to her.

Instead, I watched the people. They shifted in nervous clumps. No one spoke, and when the Supremist finished her speech, they all turned and headed to work. The merchants set up their stalls and opened their wagons. The people shopped, though little was said beyond the discussion of prices.

Not a single Elemental attended the meeting or lingered in the square. I didn’t know if there had been any survivors, but I knew if there were, they wouldn’t have hung around here. Clearly, the Supremist did not want Elementals in Tarpulin anymore.

I wished I knew why. In the past, I’d have asked my brother for his speculations. Now, I regarded him with a wary eye, tensing when he moved closer to me. “Care for a sticky bun?” he asked. His voice grated against my eardrums, because I’d heard him speak softly, lovingly even, to Alex.

He’d been keeping secrets from me, and that was something we’d vowed we’d never do. I felt something inside me wither, but I kept my face impassive. “Sure, I haven’t eaten yet.” I followed him into the market to his favorite baker, telling myself I needed to play the right part.

I’d been trained in the art of espionage. Three of the best months of my sentry education were spent as an undercover agent inside the Elemental Academy. I labored as a training partner during the day, and at night I snuck around the school. My assignment had been to find out which instructors were performing well, and which weren’t.

It was while I was hanging out in the rafters of the Earthmover’s lair that Isaiah spotted me. His instructor had noticed nothing, but he was an excellent Elemental. I’d given him high marks, and as I bit into my sweet bun, I wondered if the Earthmover instructor had been killed in the Academy.