Buried Embers (Elemental Seekers Book 3)

by H. M. Sandlin

  The prophecy said that the dryads were bad, but that didn’t mean the true earth elementals were bad. Each elemental group had come to earth with an elemental creature. The water elementals had water sprites, air elementals had sylphs, the fire elementals had dragons, and the earth elementals had dryads. No one knew if the void elementals had anything special with them. The true elementals didn’t consider void an element. They thought they were part of the earth long before they came seeking refuge from the shadow king who created earth.

  The shadow king hadn’t been seen since he destroyed all the human elementals after they started fighting between themselves, causing massive destruction on earth. The shadow king created realms for each element and sent the elementals to live there. They weren’t allowed to let humans know they existed.

  Void users had been rare before the banishment, but afterward, only a handful of human void users existed. If there were any others, they kept themselves hidden. It was the most dangerous magic, and it could consume the user if they allowed any of the dark magic of void to be used while they were using the light magic of void. So far, I had been careful, and no dark magic had seeped into my golden magic, but I used it as little as possible to be safe.

  I had to use it last week to save an entire town of human fire elementals after they were poisoned by the bokal berry in the fire realm. I was pretty sure I hadn’t let any dark magic in, but I passed out at the end of the healing. I was too scared to think about what would happen if I messed up. Supposedly, almost all void users eventually go crazy with a lust for power.

  Abby grabbed my arm and pulled me out of my thoughts. “Come on, Mrs. Sullivan is going to take us to our rooms.”

  Mrs. Sullivan, our headmistress at the school, led us down a long hallway.

  “You girls will stay together here. Your parents are right up the hall if you need anything. You should be safe. Chet knows people on our side that were able to enchant the whole place to keep the Pulhu from being able to track anyone in here. From the outside, it looks like an ordinary warehouse.”

  “Why aren’t there any windows?” I asked. I noticed the lack of windows right away. I didn’t like being underground or in tight places.

  “We are on the basement level. It is the safest. The levels above us house more people who are fighting the Pulhu, but we don’t want them knowing about you or what you have been doing. Most of the people in the upper level still need to go out in public and could be caught by the Pulhu. We don’t want them to break into their minds and find you. The people upstairs don’t even know there is a basement level.”

  “How many people are going to fight the Pulhu?”

  “So far, only about one hundred people are here.”

  “That’s not a lot.”

  “No, but it will grow as things get worse.”

  “What do you mean, as they get worse.”

  “I forgot, you have been in the fire realm and don’t know what has been happening. The darkness is getting closer. Ordinary humans are now starting wars with each other over nothing. There have been nonstop terrorist attacks, and all the major powers are gearing up to fight each other. There is even a mandatory draft in many countries.”

  “We need to stop them,” I said in horror. “They will destroy the world.”

  “We have been trying, but no one can get through to them. The regular humans think they are doing the right thing. Everyone is being manipulated by the darkness, or maybe by the Pulhu.”

  I thought back to what the air elemental had told me. We only had until the end of summer before the darkness arrived. I easily used half of that time dealing with the fire elementals. I needed to find the earth elementals right away. When I asked Mrs. Sullivan she told me not to worry, Chet had an idea about where they were, and he would tell us after we got some rest.

  She left us in our room, and we both rested for a few hours. I couldn’t sleep any longer, so I snuck out of the room, careful not to wake Abby. She had done a lot in the fire realm and needed her sleep.

  I made my way back down the hallway, first stopping to see if my parents were around. I met them in the main room. They called it the meeting room since everyone met there. The rooms were too small in the rest of the place for big meetings.

  I talked to my parents for a while, letting them know a little bit about what I needed to do next. They weren’t pleased, but they knew I had to, or the whole world could potentially be destroyed. They let me know they supported me and asked if there was anything they could do to help. I gave them the task of finding anything they could on void, but I warned them not to let anyone know they were researching it unless they fully trusted them. When my dad asked how dangerous it was to go into each realm, I sidestepped the question. I couldn’t lie to them, but I didn’t want to tell the truth either.

  Giving them something to do would keep them from worrying so much about me, and I really did need more information on void. I saw Chet walk down a different hallway while I was talking to my parents and followed after saying goodbye. I promised to meet them for dinner. I was surprised they weren’t trying to follow me around. Before I learned I was an elemental, my parents wouldn’t have allowed me to do half of the things I was doing lately. Maybe they realized I could take care of myself. I was almost an adult, after all.

  I strode down the hallway like I knew where I was going. I didn’t see anyone familiar, but the few people I passed didn’t try to stop me. I continued until I heard Mrs. Sullivan and Chet talking. They mentioned my name, and I stopped. It wasn’t right to eavesdrop, so I started forward until I heard Chet say something about the imposter. I stopped again and looked up and down the hallway. When I didn’t see anyone, I put an invisibility shield up and crept closer to the open door.

  “We don’t know which one is the imposter,” Mrs. Sullivan was saying.

  “What if we got it wrong. We can’t let her sit in their jail. She could be the chosen.”

  “What if she is the imposter and we break her out of the Pulhu jail? She could destroy everything.”

  “I think we need to tell Sally,” a new voice chimed in. It was Mr. Merrem. I heard Mr. Connor agree.

  “If we tell her, she will try to save the girl no matter what. She could be captured too.”

  “We can’t tell her. We can’t take that chance,” Mr. Burwel spoke up. I was surprised he was here. I didn’t think Mrs. Sullivan would trust him since he was from the council. He was part of the reason Mrs. Sullivan was suspended from the school. That was before Mr. Mitchel had shown his true allegiance to the Pulhu in front of Mr. Burwel. I knew Mr. Burwel was a good teacher, and if everyone decided to trust him, so would I. I could still learn a lot from him.

  I listened to them argue with a few other voices I didn’t recognize. When they finally agreed not to tell me, I slipped back down the hallway to find my friends. We needed to break this girl out of the Pulhu prison. She could be the key to saving the world from the darkness, and the adults weren’t saving her.

  I used my connection to call my friends to the main room. I picked a table in the corner and waited for everyone else to show up. Once we were all seated, I put up a silence bubble. No one would be able to hear us talk. I wished we could all talk in our heads, but I was only able to connect with them. They couldn’t hear each other, and I didn’t want to relay all the information to everyone.

  I told them what I heard the adults saying.

  “I can’t believe they didn’t tell us,” Richard said.

  “I can,” Tider replied. “They are trying to protect Sally and keep the world from being ruled by the darkness. They think Sally is the chosen.”

  “We all think Sally is the chosen, don’t we?” Abby asked.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I told you guys I wasn’t sure. I think we need to find this girl. Until we know for sure which of us is the chosen, we need her with us.”

  “And what if she is the imposter. Remember the note we read, beware the imposter?”

  �
��If she’s the imposter, it’s better for her to be with us than with the Pulhu. I’m sure they are trying to corrupt her. If they think she could be the chosen they will want her to embrace the darkness. If she is the imposter, she can destroy the world by trying to fight the darkness. Either way, in the hands of the Pulhu, she is dangerous. With us, she might not turn to the darkness at all.”

  “Let’s break her out then,” Adam said.

  “I agree. Even if she is the imposter, we can’t let her be a prisoner of the Pulhu any longer.”

  Tider was the only one who wasn’t sure we should save the girl, but after a little more arguing, he finally agreed. We talked about ways to find out where the Pulhu could be hiding her. We wouldn’t be able to ask anyone, or they would know what we were up to.

  We saw Chet heading toward us, and I lifted the silence bubble as he walked up. We started talking about random things, and he looked at us strangely.

  “What are you up to?”

  “Nothing,” we all said.

  “I’m sure you’re up to something.”

  “We are trying to find out where the entrance to the earth elemental realm is,” Tider said in a quiet voice. He was the best at lying, and we all nodded. Technically it wasn’t a lie. We were trying to figure that out, we just had to deal with the imprisoned girl too now.

  “I can help you with that,” Chet said. “Why don’t you follow me. We have a room set up down the hall where we all can put our knowledge together to try to figure out what to do next. I have a map in there of the locations I think they might be in.”

  Chet led us to the room he had been in with all the other adults, discussing the other girl. I looked around as we walked in, amazed at how big it was and all the different maps taped to the walls. Chet explained that each map was a different part of the world. He showed us the red pins sticking out of the maps. They indicated a strong Pulhu presence. I noticed many areas where a group of red pins was surrounding a black pin. Chet explained the black pins were for us, those not in the Pulhu, and actively fighting back.

  There weren’t many black pins compared to red pins. Seeing the maps reminded me how far the darkness was already spreading. Too many people were becoming corrupt, and more would follow.

  Chet led us to a few maps on the back wall. They were of each continent. Blue pins were placed sporadically on the maps. I watched as Chet took one of the blue pins out and replaced it with a green pin.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Each blue pin is a location that could be the entrance to the earth elemental realm. We have someone going and checking those places out. If they aren’t viable options, we change the pin to green, so we know it’s not the right spot.”

  “How do you know if it’s not the entrance?”

  “We don’t always, that’s why there are a couple of yellow pins. Those are for unsure areas. If an area has become populated and is teeming with people, we know it isn’t an entrance and mark it off. The entrances to the realms are set in areas that humans can’t live in or get to easily.”

  “That makes sense. So how will we figure out which of these places is the right place.” I looked at the maps. There were at least fifteen different places marked with a blue pin and a few yellows. “This is going to take a lot of time.”

  “Don’t worry. We have a plan for that. Jordan is going to start transporting you to these spots. He will only take you and Abby, so he doesn’t get tired too fast. He should be able to take you to at least three to four spots each day. We also have another transporter who can help if we need her.”

  “I don’t even know what I’m looking for.”

  Chet walked across the room and grabbed a pile of books. “These are the best books on earth elementals. I’ve read them, and they talk about a symbol carved into a tree that opens the portal.”

  He walked over to a set of drawers and pulled out a yellowed piece of paper. “This was inside one of the books I unearthed during one of my digs. It’s the only thing I’ve found that resembles the symbol I’ve read about.”

  He handed the paper to me. I spread it out on the table in front of me. A triangle surrounded by an oval with lines that could be wings crossing the center was drawn on the paper. It looked familiar. I had seen this symbol before. I tried to remember where, but the memory was too blurry. Hopefully, it would come back to me. I asked my friends if they had seen the symbol, but none of them remembered it.

  I asked Chet for a copy, which he handed to me from another pile of papers. He said he had been giving them out for people to keep an eye out for it. He hadn’t heard anything back from anyone yet though. We moved back to the map.

  We made plans for which sites we wanted to go to first. I used my connection to Richard and asked him to keep Chet occupied while I looked around the room. I wanted to see if there were any areas Chet didn’t want me looking.

  Richard asked Chet a question about one of the areas with red pins, and I slowly walked around the room, looking at the different maps on the walls and glancing down at the desks. I didn’t see anything that talked about a Pulhu prison, but there were a lot of papers on different businesses the Pulhu owned.

  As I rounded one of the desks on the far side of the room, Chet abruptly stopped his conversation with Richard and walked over to me.

  “What are you looking at, Sally?” he asked.

  “Nothing really. There is so much information on the Pulhu here. It must have taken years to gather it all.”

  He laughed nervously. “It did, but it’s mostly boring paperwork.” He led me back to the map. “This is the most important part, finding the earth elemental portal.”

  “Can we start now? I want to find it soon.”

  Chet relaxed as I talked about the map and seemingly forgot about the rest of the room. “No, tomorrow is soon enough. You need to read those books and get some rest. You just got here after all.”

  Chet talked for a few more minutes and then shooed us out of the room, telling us he had some work to do. We headed to the main room. We had our own work to do.