My head swam as I trudged after Loken. He led the Ethereal task force around a corner and out the back door. There were five of us other than Loken. Three guys, a girl about my age, and me.
Manicured grass covered the space between the Council building and the back of the surrounding security fence. In the hour since I’d left home this morning, the suns had traveled higher into the sky. I raised a hand to shield myself from their glare.
Loken sat cross-legged on the ground, and the rest of us joined him in a circle. The grass tickled my legs as I folded them in front of me. Somehow, I ended up sitting next to Loken. Our knees brushed together, shooting a warm thrill through my body. I inched closer to the dark-haired man on my other side.
After everyone was settled on the ground, Loken folded his hands in his lap and scanned the group. He examined each of the other members one at a time. I averted my gaze and tried to ignore the flip-flop in my belly when he looked at me.
His eyes had been the first thing I’d noticed about him when we’d met over a year before. A gray that couldn’t decide, from one moment to the next, whether they wanted to be dove soft or cold steel. The day we’d met, laughter danced behind those eyes.
He’d taught an Advanced Elemental Practice Class at the University. Of course, I hadn’t been in attendance. Rey signed up as soon as he had the prerequisites. He and Loken became fast friends, and Rey introduced us when I stopped by after class one time. Loken refused to budge from my side until I agreed to a date.
He broke up with me a year later, which I now knew was around the time the Vision occurred—although it was a secret back then. Pace died a couple months later. Loken tried to be there to help me through it, but I refused to see him. While my world continued to spiral out of control, the Council added to my troubles by announcing the Vision.
Things had been a lot simpler on the day Loken and I met. Pace was alive and well, Loken wasn’t obsessed with saving the world, and I wasn’t a Mage-hunter.
If we were going to work together, I’d have to grow a tougher skin—stay focused. There were too many memories to sort through. But I couldn’t do this job if I was going to fall apart every time I looked at him.
I steeled myself and looked straight into Loken’s face. Most of my team members wore smiles, but every single one looked forced. Mine felt painted on my face. Inside, my stomach churned.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, you’ve gained a couple new people on your team, including me.” He touched his own chest and jerked his head toward me. “So let’s do some introductions.”
“Introductions?” said the stocky middle-aged man across from me. His deep brown skin looked unblemished except for the fine smile lines around his mouth. Dark curly hair was cropped close to his head. “We were all here just yesterday. Except that was what?” He mouthed numbers, silently counting. “Forty days ago?”
That prompted a giggle from a slender girl on Loken’s other side. She looked about my age. “Sorry.” The girl shrugged. “I laugh when I’m nervous.”
Her short, stylishly mussed hair blew around her head in the light breeze, framing almond-shaped eyes. Her skin had a golden undertone that suggested partial Earth-One Asian ancestry. The girl puffed up her cheeks and blew a breath to flip an unruly lock of blue-black hair out of her eyes.
It was nice to see that the rewinds screwed with other people’s heads the same way they screwed with mine. Technically, since this was the fifth timeline, the day we thought of as “yesterday” had ended long ago. We’d lost forty days.
Actually, we hadn’t lost them. We’d been awake and active, going about our business. I’d been spending time with my family, while the Ethereal task force had been doing . . . whatever it was Ethereals did. We just couldn’t remember it. It was like the whole world had amnesia, and we needed the elders to tell us what had happened.
The part-Asian girl wiggled her fingers at me. “Hi. I’m Krin. You are?”
I opened my mouth to talk, but Loken beat me to it. “This is Ashara,” he said. I glared at him. If he noticed, he ignored it. “She’s been assigned to this group after displaying Ethereal ability in the last timeline.”
My eyes strayed to a camera propped on the back of the Council building. If everything had gone as planned, it and other cameras had been recording for the last forty days. The elders, whose consciousnesses had been preserved, would have watched as many of those recordings as possible before the last rewind—recordings that might include me, doing stuff I didn’t remember doing, stuff that made these people think I was an Ethereal. It was all too surreal.
“Do we really have time for this introduction thing?” said a blond boy. He looked only a few years older than me, around Loken’s age. His fair hair was slicked back off his forehead. He glanced at me and frowned. “We need to get to work. We can’t spend our time coddling this little girl. I vote we continue on without her. As planned.”
The boy looked around the group, his eyes wide and expectant. From the upward tilt of his chin, I guessed he was used to getting his way. The others averted their eyes. They didn’t agree with him openly, but none of them spoke in my favor either.
“That’s out of the question,” Loken said.
The blond boy opened his mouth to speak again, but Loken’s glare shut him up.
“Introductions,” Loken repeated, still looking at him.
The blond boy huffed a loud, exaggerated sigh. “Okay, if we have to do this. I’m Elis. Elemental practice has never skipped a generation in my family.” He stuck his chin out and stared down his nose at the rest of us. “I discovered my gift when I was three, and I’ve been practicing ever since.”
Krin rolled her eyes skyward. “It sounds like you’re very important.”
Elis’s lips pursed, but he said nothing more.
“I’m Jin,” said the dark-skinned guy who’d remarked about yesterday being over forty days ago. He smiled, showing off a deep dimple in one cheek. “Both my brother and I are Ethereals.”
Elis’s eyes widened and he nodded, impressed. “I didn’t know that.”
“Is that rare?” I asked.
“Very,” said the man next to me, the only other person in the bunch who hadn’t spoken yet. He looked to be in his late twenties. Almost as dark as Krin’s, his hair was cut short and out of the way, contrasting with shockingly blue eyes. Even in the Dutem season, when both suns graced the sky, he’d somehow managed to keep his clothes unwrinkled and sweat-less. “Less than three percent of practitioners are Ethereals,” he continued. “It’s rare enough to have two practitioners within a single generation. Two Ethereals in a single generation is remarkable. Why isn’t your brother on our task force?”
“He didn’t register. He’s just fourteen and our sister wouldn’t let him.”
The blue-eyed man rested his elbows on his knees and rocked forward, examining Jin more closely. “I’d be interested in researching your family tree. How many . . .” His voice trailed off and he chuckled softly. “Sorry. Just stop me next time I get carried away with my curiosities. I’m Mauryn, by the way.”
I waved in greeting. Mauryn waved back, showing off a red strip of cloth tied around his wrist. Odd, since red was one of the colors the Believers were so fond of. I wondered what it signified on Mauryn’s wrist.
All eyes fell on me. I glanced at Loken for a hint as to what I was expected to do, but his expression was as blank as everyone else’s.
“Okay.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I’m Ashara.”
“Ashara Vinn?” Elis asked. The disdain had melted from his tone.
“Do I know you?”
Elis shook his head.
Mauryn leaned forward again, the way he had a moment ago when examining Jin. “Most practitioners have heard of you.”
I glanced at Loken for confirmation, but his expression remained unreadable. Facing Mauryn again, I quirked an eyebrow upward. “Why?”
“It’s not every day that a Mage just shows up in public and attacks children. You must have a strong history of elemental practice in your family. When did your ability first manifest?”
A warm flush crept over my cheeks. Did everyone know my story? And what did elemental practice in my family have to do with Pace’s death? I hesitated before saying, “I, um, just found out I’m an Ethereal.”
“Are you adopted?” Krin asked.
“No. But I never knew my father. I’m guessing he had practitioners in his family.” Or this is all a big mistake, and I have no business being here. Later, I’d have to press Loken about what I’d allegedly done in the prior timeline that had prompted this new assignment. I nudged Loken’s leg with my knee, “Now that we’re done with the introductions, do we have something planned for the day?”
Loken cleared his throat and swiped a hand through his hair. “Absolutely. I’m going to give you guys a crash course in Mage-combat.”
My vision filled with the sight of my mother. Tears fell, dragging her dark eye makeup in streaks down her cheeks. That’s how she looked whenever I went with her to visit Pace’s grave. Only this time, in my mind’s eye, the name chiseled into the gravestone was my own.
My eyes darted around the yard, first to the fence separating me from the world outside the Council grounds. Unlike the front side of the fence, this side had no opening. The pattern of ten-feet-high silver-colored bars traveled across the backyard and around to the front of building, with no way past except over the top.
I turned the other direction toward the back of the Council building. A woman with a long blond braid over her shoulder leaned against the door to the building. Lean muscle stood out on the arms she crossed over her chest.
“Who’s that woman?” I inclined my head toward her.
Loken answered without turning to look. “Elder Ethereal is watching over us today to make sure the transition goes smoothly.”
“Why aren’t you leading us?” Elis called across the yard to the elder.
Elder Ethereal pressed her lips tighter together. “It’s not my job.” Her voice came out low, and perhaps with a hint of annoyance. She stayed stock still against the door, but her gaze shifted to Loken.
“Like I said, Elder Ethereal is just observing. You’re to address any questions to me.”
“Why isn’t Elder Ethereal leading us?” Elis asked. “The elder elemental specialists are leading all the other groups.”
Krin’s lips twisted to the side, like she’d just finished sucking on something sour. “Do you ever just stop talking?” She turned to Loken. “With all due respect, sir, can we know why we aren’t being led by Elder Ethereal?”
“That’s fair enough,” Loken said. “The Elders believe that, as a group, you have enough basic training that you don’t need an Ethereal to train you. I have as much knowledge as anyone about Ethereal abilities, and I have more experience with new recruits than any of the elders even.”
“Has she been reassigned?” Krin asked.
“Yes, of course.” A muscle in Loken’s jaw twitched.
“Was she reassigned because you were assigned here?” I asked. “Or were you assigned here because she was reassigned?”
The jaw muscle twitched again, and I knew I’d asked the right question. Loken answered through gritted teeth. “She was reassigned because I was assigned here.”
Despite months of intense training and discipline, everyone started talking at once.
“Why?”
“What happened?”
“This wasn’t the plan.”
I’d been involved with the Council for no more than a couple hours, and already I was getting a little sick of these people and their plans. I’d much preferred the plan where I spent my last few days with my family, and no one expected me to help save the world. The plan where my mother wouldn’t have to cry over another of her children’s graves. And I wouldn’t have to be in that grave.
Loken raised a hand and waited for the group to quiet down. At the same time, he flashed me a cold stare. “Elder Kohler assigned me to this task force because—on top of my education in elemental theory and training—the elders believe I’m best suited to integrate Ashara into the group.”
All eyes locked on me, and I tried to shrink into the ground. Sadly, beneath the soft grass, the hard dirt would not give.
“Loken!” snapped a voice behind me, from the back door of the Council building.
Loken turned to meet Elder Ethereal’s frown. His lips pursed and unpursed in silent conversation with the elder. His expression slackened, and I figured he’d lost the argument. He turned back to the interior of our circle. “Let’s move on to defense.”