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A day without my sister, and my nerves were shot. I couldn’t stand it. Was she okay? Where was she? Had they moved her? Gods, if anything had happened . . . Dwelling on the possibilities was driving me nuts. I knew she got my message, but whether she understood and heeded it was an entirely different story. This was Fera.
Then again, maybe I should’ve been more concerned with myself. Yesterday hadn’t gone well, with the interrogation, failed escape attempt, and the whole bath thing. I wasn’t denying I needed to get clean, it was just – water. I couldn’t resist grabbing the chance.
After a very good bashing on five other women, they called in someone else who eerily reminded me of my mother. Resistance hadn’t gone very far. She used logic.
Now I was locked in the room, sitting on the cot. Unfortunately, they’d added an extra lock on the outside that I couldn’t see. I’d been fed well, better than Fera and I’d eaten since we left home. The gashes on my chest had been attended to by a healer, with a couple larger ones stitched up and a salve provided for the burns. My old clothes had been washed and repaired, but they’d give me given a loose, shapeless dress of really soft cotton to wear instead.
I had to admit it hurt my skin less.
With my knees pulled up and my head between them, I was trying very hard not to break into a million pieces. I wanted Fera back. It felt wrong to be separate from her like this. The tribes would’ve been one thing; with new lessons to distract us and the fact we could still communicate. Locked in separate rooms was not the same.
I heard the door click and slide open. I went tense all over. “Unless you’re Fera,” I managed, “go away.”
There were footsteps and a weight on the cot. “Eat,” said a woman’s voice. “Then you’re to come with me.”
I lifted my head and peered at her suspiciously. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I’m just following orders.” I said nothing in reply and looked at the tray she’d set down. Food. Gods, I was getting as bad as Fera. This was the result of my first decent meal in weeks and a good night’s sleep; I ended up with my twin’s stomach.
My stomach growled, which meant I couldn’t not eat it. Very carefully, trying not to let my hands shake, I tucked into the meal. It wasn’t rich or fancy or anything, just plentiful. As I ate, I studied the woman. I was trying to stockpile as much information as I could about this society; their type of lifestyle? Were they all elementalists?
When I was done, I got up without too much complaint. “Where are we going?” I asked softly. “What about my sister?” The woman just shrugged some more and led me out into the hall.
As I followed, I realized I’d pulled my braid over my shoulder and was plucking at the end nervously. My heart was beating so hard it hurt in my chest. I was taken around a couple corners and then up a short flight of stairs into a small room with a wide window. The other side of the window was dark.
Or maybe that was another illusion.
Standing against the glass was spy number one. He nodded to the woman and she left while I was still in my moment of shock. That dissipated quickly when he looked at me.
“What do you want?” I demanded. “I already told you everything! And where’s my sister?” I felt tears prick my eyes. “If I don’t see her, then so help me I’ll –”
“Cry?” he suggested.
That hurt. “Maybe I will,” I snapped, stepping forward until I was practically in his face. “Everything’s gone insane and I want to see Fera!”
“I’m sorry,” he said suddenly. I was too confused to reply. “If I had known you two had never been separated, I would’ve done something different.”
I frowned. “How did – I never said –”
“I talked to her. She gives a lot away.”
I glared at him. “You are not exploiting Fera! Just because she’s a little foolish and probably thinks you have a nice face doesn’t mean –” I stopped when I heard yelling. I looked around in confusion until I realized it was coming from behind the door I’d entered through. “What –?” I shifted to move to the door.
Whoever placed a hand on my arm. “Just wait,” he said. I was too disoriented, and worried he’d electrocute me, to argue. The voices rose and after a minute I could pick out a distinct one. I resisted to overwhelming urge to yell, just in case it was a trick.
Then the door opened, and amid a few sparks, Fera was rudely pushed in. She froze for a second, when she saw me, and I felt a grin split my face. I rushed forward, letting out a cry, and grabbed her hands, just to make sure she was real. “How are you?” I blurted out. “What’s been happening to you? – You didn’t do anything stupid, right? What –”
“Mira I’m fine! I’ve been worried sick about you! You’re not hurt?”
“Of course not!”
“Do you know what’s going on? ‘Cause I am so confused –”
The Stalker cleared his throat. Fera seemed to notice him for the first time. Her expression darkened and she almost stormed over to him, except I put an arm out to stop her. She looked at me questioningly and I shook my head.
She threw up her hands and rolled her eyes as I turned back to the personal parasite. I drew a deep breath and focused on him. “All right,” I said coldly, “what do you want?”
“To talk,” he said.
Fera and I both stared at him. “Um,” she sounded uncertain. “When you tried to talk to me, there was a lot of me trying to burn you.”
“And we started yelling,” I added.
He sighed. “Yeah, okay, I’ll admit things didn’t go as planned.”
Flames flicked on Fera’s fingers. I felt a moment of panic, because I didn’t have the ability to counteract her. “Stop,” I said quickly. “He already apologised for splitting us up.” She didn’t look to happy about letting the flames turn to smoke.
“Now what do you want to ‘talk’ about?” I asked. “Because if you think we’ll be more cooperative after your divide-and-conquer attempt failed, you’ve got another thing coming.”
He shook his head. “I don’t want more information,” he told us. “I believe your story, and I also believe that you really don’t know more.”
“Amazing,” Fera said sarcastically. “The stalker believes our story.”
“You like cutting me off,” he noted.
“Fera likes cutting everyone off,” I said, folding my arms. “So if you don’t want something from us, then are you explaining things? Since you are hiding something.”
“I’m not hiding anything,” he grumbled. “It’s just . . . sensitive information. Everyone’s quite mad about it all. But you already know more than you should, so I’ve decided I can’t make things worse by telling.”
“Uh-huh.” Fera looked at me, confused. I motioned that I’d tell her later.
For a brief second, I thought I caught a glimpse of a smile on his face. He walked over to another door and opened it. “I’m going to show you around a bit.” He made a gentlemanly gesture for us to go first.
Fera frowned. “Show us around . . . the prison?”
I sighed. Sometimes my twin was so clueless. “He means his home, Fera,” I said. “All these people – they live here.” She looked shocked at that. I walked through the doorway being graciously held open for me, leaving Fera little choice but to follow.
Outside the door, I was certain something had been done to the window. An open-air hall looked down on a massive courtyard. Small balconies protruded at intervals, some with seats, some with pots of plants, some with other strange collections. I stepped over to the closest balcony and looked down. People were going about their business and it looked like an ordinary place.
While the part of the building we’d come from was three stories tall, the other sides around the courtyard were only two stories tall. I couldn’t see how large the building was, but it seemed this place was huge.
I watched as men and woman ranging through all ages talked and worked. They were dressed in normal Freckanian attire. I saw a large group of children ranging from as young as three up to around ten in the care of two adults.
Fera walked over to look out, and mister unknown stood between us.
“We have some additional fields and pens outside the compound,” said the stalker. “But we grow a decent amount of crops in the far quadrant, and raise some quails and a couple goats in the one next to it. We try to be as self sufficient as possible. See where the kids are playing? We’ve made that whole area a place for them to run around and have fun. The rest is just general green space.”
“Why are you risking this?” I asked. “Aren’t you all worried we’ll escape and tell the rest of the world? Wouldn’t it be safer to, I don’t know, make us think this was just a hallucination and hide the building or something?”
He shook his head. “I’m doubtful you’d fall for it, and besides we don’t have that level of power.”
Fera looked at us blankly. “Power to do . . . what? I thought you said you weren’t a demigod!”
“They’re elementalists, Fera,” I explained. “They use a fifth one called aether – better known as energy. Basically, they can make things appear different than they are and shoot lightning.”
She nodded slowly. “Cool!” she grinned.
He looked at me. “How come she just accepts it but I had to give you the detailed explanation?”
I tilted my head and smiled. “Because I’m the smart one?”
“Hey!”
“Oh come on, Fera. We both know it’s true!”
“That doesn’t mean you have to advertise it!”
I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Okay, moving on.” I looked at the guy standing between us. “You said you wanted to talk and explain, which is great because I have a few hundred more questions.”
He frowned at me, knitting his eyebrows. “Do you ever not have questions?”
“That is a negative,” Fera confirmed.
I scowled. “Ha-ha.” Fera giggled and even our follower looked like he was trying not to laugh. Maybe he was human after all. “Whatever,” I said sternly. “This is a secret society but . . . how does no one know? Or is this a recent thing?”
“Nope. We’ve been around for, uh . . . centuries? A millennium? Actually, I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “We’ve stayed in hiding and let the rest of the world do their own thing.”
I tried to think that through. “So, are you different from the other tribes in that the ability is bloodline related?” I asked. Everyone knew elemental abilities were random and that parents only increased the likelihood of what the children would turn out to be.
Something sad flashed across his face. “No. We’re just like all the others.”
Even Fera understood the improbability. “But then how . . .?”
“A long time ago,” he said, taking a deep breath, “when we decided to go into hiding, we knew others would still be born like us. The thing is, as we faded from memory, parents began to get scared as their children showed off our talents. So there’s always some of us out there, keeping an eye and ear out for hints of another aether elementalist. When we find them, well, parents are often okay with letting those children go. We bring them here and raise them.”
I felt my stomach drop. “So every one of you . . .”
He nodded. “We grow up here. This is our family, and the only family we have. Very few of us have ever tried to live elsewhere, and hardly anyone gets involved with anyone, since all of us here are like siblings, and who wants to risk a lie or knowingly giving up their kid like that?”
The thought made me sick. “That’s – that’s horrible! Don’t any of you try to go back? See your birth parents? Anything?”
His face was shadowed as he bowed his head. “Occasionally . . . I tried, a few years ago, but . . . it didn’t go so well.”
I felt something I hadn’t expected: I felt sorry for him. I felt an awful pity that he hadn’t gotten his real family. I couldn’t imagine not having Fera or our parents. “I’m sorry,” I said softly, moving close. “I’m really sorry.”
He looked sideways at me and tried to smile, but I could see it was fake. “Yeah, well, what can you do?” he said lightly. I wanted to make a suggestion or say anything. The problem was coming up with something that didn’t sound fake.
I watched, wanting to make this right, as he put a mask on his face again. He straightened up and looked at the people below. It was hard not think of them as what they were: orphans. “Anyway,” he said, “that isn’t what I wanted to talk about. It’s not important.”
Part of me wanted to yell that such a thing was important, but Fera flashed me a look as a warning. That didn’t happen often, so I figured I’d better heed it.
“So what did you want to talk about?” Fera asked. “That weird crystal you mentioned, maybe?”
He stared at her. “That’s actually right. How did you . . . never mind.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Oh, yeah, about that . . .” They both turned to me. “I confirmed something, on the scroll.”
“And you just didn’t remember this yesterday?” His voice was a little harsh.
“No,” I said angrily. “It was one line in the first verse which is half nonsense to me and it was a different phrasing. I wasn’t sure.” I felt my face heating up. “Look, all it says is that its home ‘lies deep’, whatever that means. I still don’t know what it is, exactly. What it does.”
He remained fixed on me for a second, then gave a slight nod. “Right, well . . . now to explain.” He exhaled slowly, raking a hand through his hair and making it even messier. “This is going to be complicated.”
“Welcome to our world,” Fera said. “How about you start from the beginning.”
“Which beginning?” he said. “There are two.”
I folded my arms. “Try the one that warranted you knowing the Wind Tribe has gone crazy and then following us,” I suggested icily. “Then we’ll see how much more is missing.”
He seemed to take a minute to collect his thoughts and put them in order. “I think it’s self-explanatory that, in order, to keep hidden, we have informants spread out over Freckania. That’s how we caught word of what the Wind Tribe had declared to the Council, and right away it seemed bad. We looked into it a little bit, found out they were after a crystal, and we guessed which one. Now we’re trying to do something to keep the peace.”
I frowned. “That makes less sense,” I said.
“I get you want to, like, stop a coup or whatever,” Fera said, “but that still doesn’t explain why you were following us. Or at the celebration. Or, you know, the creepy parts!”
He looked slightly embarrassed. “Look, I was at your celebration for my own reasons.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “I was just curious! We don’t have that sort of thing here, and twins of fire and water is just so unlikely . . . well, I figured the thing would be so big I’d get forgotten. No harm was meant, really.”
I thought he was keeping something back, except I couldn’t pinpoint it. It wasn’t even like it sounded that silly; if anyone was kept in one place, hidden their whole life, it was understandable to want to get out at some point.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll let that pass for now. You still haven’t explained why you were following us.”
He shrugged. “I was still in the vicinity when I got the message about the Wind Tribe. I hadn’t headed back here yet. Then I found some of the members camped out, and I heard them talking about some clues and the crystal and how a couple of girls had broken a . . . I think they said fountain, causing them delays. I put two and two together pretty quick and decided I’d try and help you.”
“By stalking us?” Fera’s voice was indignant.
“I never said it was a good plan!” he protested. “I kept thinking I should try and help more, but sometimes I lost track of you two for a day, and then how exactly was I – just some stranger – supposed to approach you and gain your friendship? So I just followed, figured out what I could, and tried to aid you.”
I snorted. “Bloody good job you did,” I grumbled sarcastically. “And by the way – you’re still a stranger!”
“Okay, okay!” He raised his hands peaceably. “I can’t change the past, so I don’t know what else I can do!”
“For starters,” Fera said, “you could finish explaining. So far, all I’ve gotten is that a lot of coincidences led you to start following us, and you mysteriously know about the very real threat posed by the Wind Tribe. How?”
“That’s the other beginning,” he said. “How much do you know about history, and the Ancient Times?”
Fera looked at him, somewhat clueless. I knew a little bit, because it was a popular historical topic, and I tried to formulate what I knew into words.
“That period’s a myth,” I said hesitantly. “A time when, you know, they say the gods walked the earth and spoke directly to humans, and elementalists were new. There isn’t even an explanation for how it ended; merely the impression that the gods left humanity to their own devices. It’s obviously just legends that merged together over time. It never happened.”
He looked at me seriously. “Ah, but it did.”
“Is this the part where you say you were there, thousands of years ago?” Fera asked. I shot her a sour look for asking such a dumb question while he tried not to laugh too hard.
“I’m nineteen, not nineteen-hundred.” he managed, composing himself. “So just because the Ancient Times talk of gods, you think all the stories are myths?”
“Well . . . yes. We know for a fact that elemental abilities arose after generations. It’s obvious that the first people who developed them were viewed as impossible, and so people found stories of gods walking the earth easier to believe,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Kind of like how you found it so much easier to believe I was a demigod, instead of an elementalist?”
“Actually, that is a perfect example.”
He looked over the courtyard. “It’s a decent theory. But it’s assuming all myths have a grain of truth, instead of a grain of falsehood. Tell me, if you did something incredibly stupid and suffered horribly as a result, would you want to remember it?”
“No,” Fera and I said immediately, our voice chiming together.
He gave a slight nod. “Exactly. The other tribes made a point of forgetting, erasing it from history. Whereas we, here, preserved it.”
“You mean to say you have recorded knowledge dating back the gods know how long?” I started drumming my fingers against my arm, but stopped quickly because it hurt.
“We have really good historians.” He shrugged. “So, the crystal. Honestly, I thought we were the only ones with records of it, but I guess it’s not surprising that the tribes hid illicit information about that, even though they weren’t supposed to.”
“But what is this thing?” Fera growled. “I don’t get it!”
He took only the briefest pause before saying, “It’s the key to ultimate power. Whoever possesses the crystal will see their powers become a thousand times more effective. That’s why the Wind Tribe is after it.”
I stared at him for a moment. “What?” I half-screamed, causing a few heads below to turn towards me. “You mean we’re chasing a magic stone? I thought it was a metaphor!”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because when talking about ultimate power, a metaphor seems far more likely than an actual physical object!”
“Calm down,” he said. “Let me explain.” I glared at him, not liking it, and let him continue. He took a calming breath. “Towards the end of the Ancient Times, the gods decided to retreat from the earth. To help humanity and elementalists continue advancing without their help, they created the Arasha Crystal. Arasha means ‘peace’, in the old language. Things weren’t supposed to end as they did, but, well, the Crystal came with a flaw.”
“What a surprise,” Fera mumbled. I shushed her.
He was gaining confidence. “For some reason, it only affected those who held it in their possession. That’s why the tribes formed. If, say, the Earth Tribe held it, then all earth elementalists of age would strengthen, their power and skill almost rivalling that of the gods.”
“Then let me guess,” I interrupted. “People got power greedy, wanted it permanently in their possession, and a giant, idiotic war broke out.”
“Yeah, it was pretty predictable,” he confirmed. “Anyways, the war went on for a long time, and the Crystal was constantly stolen. It was ended, eventually, by our first leader, a man named Tobanicus. He stole the Crystal, took it to a shrine of the thirteen gods –”
“Twelve,” Fera corrected.
He shook his head. “No, thirteen. We have one. Anyways – he stole the Crystal and used the power it gave him against it and destroyed it. It shattered into pieces and the war was over. Each of the main tribes took a piece. Tobanicus gave up his life to achieve it. That was the price the Crystal demanded. A life freely given.
“The tribes were told to hide their shards and forget the locations. Obviously, that didn’t happen because the Wind Tribe apparently knows about it and you two found a scroll.”
Silence fell for a long minute, drawn out until it felt strained to the point where if one of us would move it would snap. I figured it rested on me to make a response, because Fera wasn’t exactly tactful.
“First of all,” I began cautiously, “That was not the greatest explanation, but I think I understood. Second of all, ordinary people having the power of a god . . . Freckania would be in chaos.”
“It’d be worse than just Freckania in chaos,” he said. “It’d be the whole world. You know about magic in other countries, right?”
I shifted my weight. “Yeah. Freckania is the only country with natural born elementalists. By the time we’re six we’ve developed powers. In other countries, they have to study and practice for over a decade to reach the level of skill we consider normal for a ten-year-old. But if they’re not considered part of the group that has the Crystal, they’d be unaffected, right?”
“Yes, but that’s not the problem. Freckania is the land loved by the gods. That’s why we have natural elementalists. That’s why the gods left the Crystal here in the first place. We don’t experience the famines and natural disasters that other countries do. We don’t even have an army or a military system in place, yet we’ve never been at war since the Crystal. Freckanians already hold more magical power than magicians in other countries, that’s why we’re never invaded. Imagine if we suddenly had a military-oriented government, and the ability to do magic like gods.
“It wouldn’t just be Freckania that changes. It’d be the whole world. No one would be able to stop a Freckanian army with the Crystal.”
I swallowed. “People who aggressively go after power are rarely satisfied. So if the Wind Tribe were to succeed in Freckania, then the rest of the world . . .”
“It’s doomed,” Fera finished. “We’re doomed.”
Mister know-it-all looked desperate. “Maybe not. The shards might not have power on their own and you’re already ahead of the Wind Tribe by sheer luck, if you let my people here help you then –”
“No,” I said flatly. Both he and Fera stared at me. “I’m not taking your help. Information is one thing, this is another. You followed us and got mixed up in our own business and, well, I don’t trust you!”
He had the nerve to look shocked. “Why not?”
“What’s your name?”
“That’s not –”
“Exactly my point!”
“Um . . .” Fera raised her hand tentatively. “As much as I love watching Mira yell at people, one thing – I get you’re known in this place, it’s just . . . how did you expect to convince them to help a couple of random girls that probably seem a little . . . crazed.”
For a moment, he looked a little like a cornered animal and I clued in. “You’re the leader,” I said.
He sighed, slumping his shoulders a little. “Yeah. That’d be me.”
I looked at my twin and we shared an equal look of uncertainly. “How?” Fera asked at the same time I said, “But you’re nineteen, that’s way too young!”
“Not really,” he said, straightening. “We’re democratic about selecting leadership, too, you know. There’s a tribe wide vote when the previous leader dies. Anyone of age is eligible. When our old one died . . . for whatever reason most people voted for me. It’s not like I wanted the position.”
Fera and I looked at each other and then stepped away at an unspoken agreement and began to argue under our breath. Deciding what to do was not easy. We had to leave, and soon. Fera wanted to take a little bit of their help, then escape. I was against any aid, and pointed out that trying to escape was futile.
In the end, we picked neither choice and became so fed up with one another that we huffed and went into silence. There was a glaring contest, that neither of us won, and we were left with no choice but to turn back to the suspicious leader.
He looked between us. “Well?”
“Well nothing,” I said.
He seemed surprised. “You mean you just argued for five minutes and came up with nothing?”
Fera and I shrugged. “That’s about normal for us,” she said.
He took that remarkably well, accepting it with a half shrug and moving the topic of conversation along. “Well, think on it some more. I’ll show you two around now. If you have any more questions feel free to ask. You’re not going to be restricted to your rooms, because that’s clearly a bad idea, but you’re not allowed to go anywhere without a guard.”
That seemed fair, and we weren’t really in a position to argue, so we followed our oddly-nice-captor as he led us through more halls and rooms.
The place was like a city crammed in under one roof. It really was almost entirely self-sufficient, allowing for almost all the daily necessities to be made right there. Occasionally, it was explained, they made surplus and sold that at nearby markets for the Acru needed to purchase whatever they couldn’t provide for themselves.
The large room we’d entered in was used for artifacts, catalogued and stored for safe keeping. There was a massive archive just off it. It was a historic collection more extensive than any I’d seen in a museum. The decrepit feel was due to the lack of interest in maintaining it, which had the added bonus of being great for deterring unwelcome visitors.
Much to my surprise, they also boasted a large collection of aether Relics, and a little bit of the knowledge needed to make them. Children were given half-life ones, so they didn’t accidentally burn themselves to death by overextending with the lightning.
The true art, it was confirmed, was lost. Where and when true Relics had been formed was still an utter mystery.
We were shown a few other places, like a library almost as large as the one back home – almost, but not quite – and Fera suspiciously asked if they were all stolen. I smacked her for that.
After that, some guards were assigned to us and we were basically left to our own devices. While the prospect of staying here and living in a civilised place for a while was tempting, I knew we couldn’t take anything they offered if we ever intended to leave.
Our mess, our fix.
I went back to the library and began browsing the many titles, hoping to find more about the Arasha Crystal and the war that ended the Ancient Times. Anything to keep the Wind Tribe from getting their hands on the shards, and probably reassembling it.
Running my fingers horizontally on the spines, eyeing the titles, I paused on an odd one. Lunar Effects on Arcane Enchantments. Well that hardly made sense.
Frowning I slid it carefully off the shelf. The cover was plain and simple with no author or anything. The guard cleared his throat. I looked over.
“You won’t get anything out of that, miss,” he said. “It’s just a bunch of random symbols.”
I knitted my eyebrows. “What are you . . .?” I realized how familiar that sounded. No way.
I dropped the tome hurriedly on a table and raced back to my room, darting in and seizing my pack. I hurriedly yanked the scroll out, too excited to bother being careful.
Fera peered inside curiously. “I think I’m on to something,” I gasped out, pushing past her and sprinting back. She followed me with a yell of confusion.
I flipped open the book to a random page and then unfurled the scroll. She bent over next to me. “What do you see?” I asked breathlessly.
She stared at the two items. “They look the same!”
I nodded. “I thought they might. And,” I flipped to just inside the cover and pointed to a symbol branded into the corner. “That’s similar to the sign of water elementalists – probably an earlier version. Do you know what this means?”
She opened her mouth like she was going to say yes, paused, and then said, “No.”
I sighed. “It means there’s a reason I can read this and you can’t. I don’t know how – but it’s written in a way that only a water elementalist can read it.”
“Huh. I guess that could explain it,” she admitted. “This is just one more edge over the Wind Tribe.”
I nodded. For the first time, I had a small sliver of hope that we might actually pull this off. We were ahead, and there was little chance the air elementalists could learn what had to be done.
Unless they kidnapped or tricked some poor person. Would they really be that heartless?