Fall of Sky City (A Steampunk Fantasy Sci-Fi Adventure Novel) (Devices of War) (29 page)

“You’ll see,” I told him. “Give them a chance. They proved themselves to me. I needed friends and you weren’t there.”

His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.

“And that’s okay. But if we are the ones left of some of our Families,” I gestured to the Bahrains and Haji, “then let’s do something that will make the world remember why we’re members of the seven stronger Families.”

That didn’t seem to have any effect on them.

I licked my lip and remembered the image of my father burning. He’d been so strong even as his flesh curled. “Let’s do something to make them proud.”

Keeley looked to Joshua.

Yvette took a step closer to Haji.

Haji gave me a long dark look. But he stayed.

Yotaka nodded, a smile perched over his silvered triangle beard. I could almost hear him say, “Well played. Well played.”

CHAPTER 25

OH GOODY

Days
turned to weeks. We trained every day relentlessly. Ino City was in perpetual motion, trying to stay one step ahead of Varik. All the
letharan
cities were on high alert and were in constant communication with Ino City. We had become a headquarters of sorts.

Our training sessions with Yotaka started out brutal but progressed to something else entirely. He showed us how to use each of our Mark elements without having to remove clothing, something that Keeley was very happy about as her Mark was on her chest and she didn’t enjoy having to bare it. She still refused to use it. Anything that brought up earth, she couldn’t do.

I could understand why.

Yotaka found other ways for her to use her element. Instead of concentrating solely on soil, she concentrated on growing things and healing. As her Mark was of hearth, there was a wide range of things that she could do. She practiced healing the
lethara,
and found she was quite successful at it. He regained the use of his full medusa and was starting to get back feeling and control of the three trunks that had been damaged. Ino City appreciated her work.

Joshua’s Mark was more of the earth kind. He could manipulate dirt and plants, though he was less interested in learning his Mark and more interested in creating new technologies. Yotaka would shake his head after fitful bouts of practice and send him away to play with his “toys.” He was the only one who still had to remove his clothing in order to work his Marks.

Yvette and Haji were working well together. Yvette’s Mark, obviously, was water. At the beginning of our lessons, her Mark had receded to three small rivers of blue on one shoulder, but as we practiced, they multiplied and coursed down one arm, across her shoulder blades and down the other, even spreading onto her back. As far as Marks went, hers was nearly as powerful as mine.

Mine was spreading as well, and now overtook my entire body, even creeping up my neck and onto my face. I looked…different. I hardly recognized the man staring back at me in the mirror.

Haji was still distant. His Mark was spirit, and according to him, it had presented itself during the winter years of the last turn. He’d been excited to rub it in my face when we met for spring festival, but that had never happened.

He was a different man than the boy I’d known, the boy who had been my best friend for so long. I think part of his frustration with me was that I, too, was different. He’d needed
his
friend. He’d lost nearly his entire Family, and he just wanted his best friend back. I wasn’t the boy I used to be either.

I missed him.

Yotaka ended our individual sparring sessions with a clap clap clap of his hands and gestured with his long fingered hands that we should gather around.

“Are we done, Yotaka-
san
?” Joshua asked.

Our teacher didn’t even acknowledge the question. “What would happen if you fought together?”

We all kind of looked at each other.

“Isn’t that what we’re ruddy well doing?”

Yotaka closed his eyes for a quiet moment and opened them again, his expression resigned. “You fight like Synn, and when you fight, you fight alone. Your Mark goes out by itself and does nothing more than melt things because you are lava. Keeley’s Mark goes out and heals with light, and that is all it does. Yvette produces water, and there is nothing more than just water.”

“We get it,” Joshua grumbled.

Yotaka reached out with his hand and hit the taller man in the back of his head. “Think of what you could do if you were to combine your gifts. Fight together instead of alone.”

We all looked at each other.

He took a step back.

Yvette opened her mouth, shaking her head with a shrug. “I guess Synn and I could make steam, which could—” Her hands rose, palms up. “—cover an approach or a retreat?”

Joshua’s lips turned down as he nodded. “Synn and I can make glass fairly decently, though we need to work on tha’. Imagine the loads of money we could make sellin’ it.”

Yotaka shook his head.

“Haji and I,” Keeley said quietly, her green eyes brightening as she looked on my best friend, “could heal people on a whole other level. We could heal the soul.”

I watched the two of them. In order for Haji to heal anyone else, he’d first have to find a way to heal himself.

Yotaka clasped his hands with a subdued clap. “Joshua and Yvette, pair up.”

Joshua moved to stand by her with a grimace. “What are we going to do? Make things grow to the detriment of others?”

She threw him an oh-grow-up look.

“Keeley and Synn, pair up. Haji, please join me.”

I gave Keeley a tight lipped, unsure nod.

She returned it.

Yotaka turned his back to us and whispered in Haji’s ear.

“What do you think we could do?” Keeley asked quietly.

I shook my head. “I have no idea. We won’t be making glass.”

“Can you do anything other than lightning fire?” she asked.

I stared at her in surprise, but then remembered that she’d been spending a lot of practice sessions with the
lethara
. “Oh yeah. Yotaka showed me all kinds of things I can do. Uh, I can light candles with a thought. Um, there’s also this.” I flicked my thumb and a static flame shot out of it.

She jumped back with a startled giggle.

I smiled and put it out. “Plus there are other things, too. Apparently, my Mark is a mix of Ino and El’Asim so I have fire and storm. It’ll be interesting to see what I can do outside of here.”

She bit her lip and watched our instructor nervously. She still wasn’t really good in combat sessions. “We can’t do anything with plants, and I won’t do anything with earth.”

I shrugged. “We’ll figure it out. You’re able to manipulate living things on a molecular scale.” I shook my head. “Fire’s living. Kind of.”

She gave me a wide eyed, closed lip look.

“So, um, how’s the patient?” I asked.

She sent me a small smile. “Good. He’s doing better.”

I already knew that. I just didn’t know anything else to talk about.

Yotaka turned back to us.

Haji headed for the door.

I frowned and watched him go. “I don’t know what to do with him.”

“Haji?” Keeley asked in surprise.

I nodded. “We’re both so different now.”

“Do you want his friendship back?”

“Yes.” I turned my attention back to her, her red hair streaming down her back uncharacteristically loose. I liked it that way. “Yes, I do.”

She shrugged. “Then try talking to him like you
are
a friend.”

We didn’t have any more time to discuss it.

A stream of fire came shooting toward us.

Keeley and I dodged away from one another. He sure loved his bug-humping fire. There wasn’t a sky-fearing thing I could do to block it.

But I could attack. So while dodging the stream of spraying flames, I shot back in static lightning lava flows.

Yotaka shied away but not fast enough. His robe caught on fire.

I wasn’t about to stop and worry. That old coot had survived a lot worse than me. But then he changed his flame to something else that hardened the lava. I had no idea what just happened, so I changed it up.

With my ability to manipulate storms came the ability to create wind and gather water. There really wasn’t a lot of water in the immediate area. I was really going to have to reach. In order to do that, I had to pause in my attack and concentrate on the nearest large body of water, which was in the bathing chambers two levels above.

He took that as the perfect opportunity to attack.

But his flames never reached me. They were stopped at a shimmering wall of sparkling particles.

I didn’t ask. I just reached for the water, heated it to steam, created the wind to collect it all together and brought it down the staircase, through the door and directly over his head.

Then I let it go.

He was drenched.

I decided that might be a good time to pause. He looked like a wet cat. I didn’t let go of my Mark. I just stopped attacking him.

The sparkling particle shield didn’t drop either.

Yotaka nodded and dropped his arms. “Synn, if you would please stop making it rain, I would greatly appreciate it.”

I bowed, my fist in my palm, and called off the cloud.

Yvette flicked her eyes to the floor, pointing to the cloud with her thumb.

I nodded minutely and took the cloud out into the hall, allowing it to rain gently out there.

Keeley straightened and dropped her shield.

Yotaka shivered. Steam rose from him as he dried off. His long silver hair was still damp, but he was otherwise dry again.

“That was awesome,” I murmured to Keeley. “Thanks for covering my butt.”

“No problem,” she whispered back, but she was shaking. “I had no idea what I was doing.”

Yotaka didn’t give Yvette and Joshua much time to think, either. He rolled his hands and flung.

Theirs was a bit more comical. Yvette took the water and tried to drench him. However, she had to bring it in as water, not as a cloud, so he was able to prepare. He turned the water into steam, giving Joshua the opportunity to attack with vines, encircling Yotaka’s body with them and gently squeezing.

It didn’t take long for the vines to die, become brittle and fall away.

Then Yotaka let the two of them really have it. The only thing that saved them was a cascading wall of water. It acted as a shield that instantly evaporated and became steam.

Yotaka gathered another ball of fire, ready to launch it at them.

All the water had evaporated, and Joshua was all out of vines. There was also no dirt for him to manipulate (poor planning on our part), so they were out of tricks.

I gathered the steam into a cloud and released it behind Yvette, enabling her to take the water at the same time that Keeley set up her shield in front of them.

Joshua let the vines fly, touching Yvette’s hand, water leaping to join them.

Yotaka’s fire bounced off the shield and he found himself bound by the vines again. He was also drenched, which limited his ability to kill the vines before they squeezed out his breath.

He gasped something.

“Should I let up a bi’?” Joshua asked.

“Possibly?” I said. “He could be saying he needs to breathe and good job.”

The vines let up.

“Good job, Joshua-
kun
,” Yotaka rasped. “Can you let me go now?”

“Oh, sure.” The vines slowly retreated, and the water soon became steam again.

Yotaka stared at Keeley and me for a long moment. “Why did you interfere?”

“We didn’t interfere, Yotaka-
san
,” I said, bowing my head. “We assisted. They needed a minute to regroup and find another attack or defense that would work. We merely bought them the handful of seconds they needed to do so.”

“And if this had been a real life battle?”

“Us against you?” I asked. “There wouldn’t be three of us on the sidelines. We’d all be in there together.”

“All.” Yotaka straightened. “And how would you use the Mark of spirit in battle?”

Keeley cleared her throat. “We could use it to make the enemy lose heart, lose the need or will to fight back.”

That was good. “Or use it to bolster our own emotions when we feel the need to quit.”

Yotaka nodded, a slight smile on his face. “That is what I was thinking as well, and that is why I had Haji doing just that.”

We all turned as he headed back into the room, a ghost of a smile on his face.

Keeley’s expression brightened. “That’s how I was able to call up the shield. I would never have thought to do that on my own. I would have much preferred to hide. I am a healer, not a fighter.”

“I was wondering,” Joshua said. “That was bloody brilliant, by the way.”

“I didn’t have to do much with Synn,” Haji said with a churlish stare, “but there was some bolstering of Keeley and Joshua.”

Yotaka walked up to Keeley. “You say you are a healer and not a fighter. Have you talked to many healers?”

She shook her head.

“Then I think it is time for you to do so. Now that our
lethara
is once again healthy, you need to understand how a healer fights. This will be a good lesson for you.”