Obsidian Sky (19 page)

Chapter 12 - Leah

Can I do this? Aidan wondered, as he walked through the Infirmary. Is this possible?

A cry of pain interrupted his thoughts but he was able to rein his attention back to the task at hand. The Field of Visions had been full that day, and normally it would have been his next stop after class, but he wasn’t in the mood to play with his Fire Arts. Today, he was thinking of a different kind of wish fulfillment, and so he decided to head for the Infirmary.

The commotion around him acted as a wonderful white noise, preventing the villagers from catching wind of his taboo thoughts. Raising the dead is not impossible, he thought to himself as he turned a corner.

It had been done countless times since Advent. Though Aidan had not seen it happen personally, there were too many eye-witness accounts to dismiss the notion. Still, there was an unsaid rule against it. He could see it in the faces of the listeners whenever a resurrection account was detailed. Not that it mattered to him what others generally thought, but Leah…what would she think? Especially since he would need her help to do it. Raising the dead with the Judge…it was a tall order, requiring no less than three Yen in exchange. Aidan had two, and Leah might give up one, but was it the right thing to do? He still wanted to make the Judge pay for murdering his family, but could he do it without backup Yen?

Aidan sighed and examined the palms of his hands, watching the liquid fire pumping through his veins. There was no doubt greater heights he could reach in power. New techniques. But it would take time, and things were beginning to move in a direction in which there would be little leisure. For now, he would have to rely on his abilities. And his good judgment.

Turning into Leah’s room, all of his worries disappeared once he saw her smiling face. She immediately brushed back her hair and wiped her face with the blankets that were draped over her legs.

“Am I beautiful?” she batted her eyes playfully. Aidan chuckled, strolled over to her bed and leapt upon it, making it creak under the weight of the two of them. Leah patted his leg as he fixed his gaze upon her. He didn’t need to ask. He could tell she had been crying.

“How is my warrior today?” she asked, finally meeting him face-to-face. He kissed her before she could utter another word, so hard that it rocked her head back. She smiled from beneath his lips and reciprocated, kissing him back several times in rapid succession. A creak of the door interrupted them as their heads swiveled to the entrance. A glimpse of a nurse’s gown flashed and then vanished behind the closing door. Once it clicked shut, they both burst out laughing.

“Are you feeling better?” Aidan asked, turning to her with a concerned look. She patted his cheek.

“It’s a little different from a normal miscarriage,” she said, maintaining her smile. “And it helps a little that I didn’t even know I was pregnant…but…I could be better, I guess.”

“Has your father come to see you yet?”

“He’s sent over some flowers, but I understand he’s busy.”

“Are you going to be in here much longer?”

“They want to keep an eye on me for a couple of days but I can request to go home whenever I want.”

“Are you?”

“Not yet,” she said, turning her head towards the window. “If you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” he said, looking at the door. “You know, the Elders are going to be handing out assignments for missions shortly. Part of me was kind of hoping you were going to join me in one. We don’t have a say in the team composition, but there’s always that chance.”

“You really think I’m ready to go out there and fight again?”

“Are you?” Aidan asked, facing her again. She smirked and tried to smack him playfully in the face but he caught her hand.

“You know I am,” she said with a wink. “You think I’m going to just let you have all the fun?”

“You don’t have to put on a strong face for me. I just want to help you out in any way I can. Just tell me what you need, and I’m there.”

“Just don’t leave me behind,” she said in all seriousness. Aidan could tell immediately by the hardening of her face and the disappearance of her smile that this was what she wanted most. Not her child resurrected from the dead. Not to become an Elder or to have a wonderful life free of conflict. It was this.

For Aidan to not leave her behind.

And he would do his best to honor her wish. Though they had been married almost a year, they had only known each other for about the same length of time. They were still learning and teaching each other, and it was only recently that Aidan had realized just how much Leah needed him – he had previously only known how much he needed her.

They had met in gym class, back when the Elders in all their superior wisdom had thought that throwing thirty young villagers together in the Field of Visions to spar was a good idea. It had been chaotic, but to this day, the youth of Lowsunn discussed the glory days of when gym had still been on the class roster. A simpler time, they say.

Nevertheless, it was no accident that the day Aidan met Leah, it was also the day he received his first strike towards expulsion. He was still unsociable then, not even talking to Isaac and barely uttering a grunt to Bailey. Since he had a knack for fighting, Bailey had asked him to join the gym class in order to not only gain favor amongst his peers, but to also show that he was in Lowsunn for a reason. Reluctantly he had joined and he mainly just stood around, watching his classmates play in the grass and casually spar. He sat there in his robe with the hood on, just listening to the occasional clash of swords and the spurts of giggles and cheers. He didn’t dare get involved in their play, more for their sake than his. Even the teacher understood that. She stayed next to him to ensure he didn’t cause any trouble, but she took no action towards getting him to participate.

He had been debating on whether to take a nap or walk away altogether when Leah had first caught his eye. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly that had caught his attention. He remembered a flash of blue. And then a literal twelve-foot wall of dirt had sped past his face, nearly smacking him in the side of the head. Startled, he shot up to his feet and followed the dirt wall’s path with his eyes. It continued barreling forward until it smashed into a student, sending him flying off balance a few yards from where he had once stood. It took him a few seconds to move again.

Aidan swiveled around and found the source immediately.

She was already drawing forth another dirt wall from beneath the ground, and she was cackling like a witch the entire time.

“Leah, cut it out,” the teacher yelled. “It’s not fair to them!”

“What’s not fair?” Aidan asked, making the teacher shriek in horror. She jumped and put a hand to her chest as he removed his hood and let his spiky hair flow. “What’s not fair?”

“How she’s overcoming the others. She’s received special training from her father and they haven’t, so it’s quite unfair.”

“And why does that matter?”

“Her father is an Elder of Lowsunn.”

“Oh, is that all?” Aidan said aloud, glaring at the teacher. The words had clearly carried to Leah’s ears for she immediately turned towards him with a scowl. He tried to deny the churning in his stomach when she did. Was this another one of her abilities? Being able to paralyze someone? To make someone fall under some kind of hypnotic spell? He shook his head and looked back at her again, but the feelings were still there. She was so beautiful that it could be nothing but sorcery. She had an elegance to her like royalty but her toned body was both chiseled and soft simultaneously. How did she manage that?

Nevertheless, she was approaching him fast, and as she got closer, the effects were only getting worse.

“And who are you?” she asked, pointing a finger in his face. Aidan swatted it away absent-mindedly and she gasped in horror. She faced the teacher immediately. “I want him to be my new sparring partner.”

“Um, we’re not going to do that,” the teacher said, glancing back and forth between them.

“Why not? Because he’s from the outside? What difference does that make?”

“He might not be able to control himself.” Aidan rolled his eyes at the remark. Did she remember that he was standing right there?

“I can handle him. I’m ready,” Leah said, examining Aidan up and down. He snickered and stepped away from the two women, walking out into the open field. He was more than willing to prove that she wasn’t.

“There’s a lot of boys around here that think they’re tough,” the blue-haired girl explained, pacing around him. “They talk a big game just because I’m a girl, when they’re the ones that end up on their butt.”

He didn’t hear much of what she said. He could tell she was speaking, but all he could see was her face. It was cute when she scowled.

“Are you listening to me?” she finally screamed. He shot his head up to attention.

“Who me?” he asked. “No, not really.”

“You’re just like the rest,” she spat, extending her palms to the ground. “You’re going to regret underestimating me.” The other students in the field backed away and let Aidan and Leah have their space. Leah smiled and called forth another wall of dirt, which emerged from the grass and reached further and further up into the sky. Aidan stared in awe as its top reached beyond the clouds and its borders extended so far out that he couldn’t even see Leah and the rest of the field anymore. Before he could ask what she intended to do with the wall, he got his answer. The wall flew forward as fast as a punch, and he had little time to react. Instinctively he threw up a fire shield but he knew before the sphere completed around him that it wouldn’t be enough.

To his surprise, the wall stopped just before impact and exploded into chunks, each the size of an adult hand. The chunks hovered around him as if pondering what to do next and then decided to form back together again. Except this time they enclosed around him like they were part of his own fire shield, encasing him inside a gigantic shell like an oversized cocoon.

Trapped, he began preparing to blow his way out of it when he heard the first crackle of electricity. His eyes shot upwards and he narrowly jumped backwards in time to dodge the lightning bolt. Another crackle sounded off behind him and he fell to his belly as it shot from one side of the sphere to the other, being absorbed back into the dirt wall. Aidan heard three more crackles from beneath him and he decided to stop playing around.

Clenching his fists tight, he summoned all the power he could muster from within his body, jumped into the air, and then unleashed it like a bomb. The walls around him exploded and crumbled to the grass. While he was in mid-air, a sharp pain suddenly shot through one of his ribs. He clutched his side instinctively and his hand wrapped around a shard of ice that was jutting out of his torso. He landed to his feet and narrowly ducked under a shower of ice shards that were soaring toward his head. As he sprinted away, he locked his eyes onto Leah, who was feverishly summoning every trick in her playbook to put him down. More dirt walls. Ice showers. Fire waves…

If she was summoning fire, was she immune to his attacks? He scowled and dropped to one knee to avoid a bolt of lightning, which grazed his spiked hair and made it stand up even more. With tiny streams of electricity sizzling across the spikes in his hair, Aidan decided to stand slowly to his feet. He couldn’t help but smile once he saw the shock on her face. The intimidation had worked. From a distance, it must have looked like the bolt had struck his forehead and still he had rose, unharmed, and ready for more.

He thrust his hands behind him and formed his hands into claws, calling forth the flames from them, feeding them with the will to hurt. He didn’t want to harm her gorgeous face, but he couldn’t back down once provoked – not from anyone. Through the soles of his feet, the liquid fire poured, crawling across the ground and spreading like a web in all directions, extending out for a half a mile, cracking the surface and preparing the terrain for his ultimate attack. Once his hands were as red as blood, he slapped them together. The ground made a booming sound and a tsunami of fire roared from the cracks, heading straight for Leah.

She had long sensed the danger coming from behind him. The several rock walls, all covered in thick ice borders were a testament to that. But it made no difference. Living in Lowsunn, she was used to leisure and rest. Time to cool down. He never let his fire die, and that became evident the moment the tsunami of flames smashed into the first rock and ice wall.

It consumed it like it was made of fire too and proceeded to devour the rest, showing no sign of slowing. What made no sense to him, however, was what Leah decided to do upon her inevitable fate.

She didn’t run.

Instead, she met it head on, running forward as if it were a veil or a curtain. The two forces collided, and it appeared that the flames had claimed another victim. But then she emerged from the tail end, still sprinting forward, and to the horror of everyone watching the fight, they saw that she had emerged completely naked.

The fire may have consumed her clothes, but not her. And certainly not her will. With a wave of her hand to the right, the dirt flowed around her body from beneath and encased her in an armor of rock, covering everything from the neck down. Aidan blinked and tried to think of how to react when she was suddenly right in front of him, a fist encased in rock at his face.