by Megan Linski
Not that I minded. Professor McCauley had sneered at everything that had tried to kill her off so far, so obviously she knew a thing or two about staying alive.
“Water is more important to find than food in a survival situation. Depending on the situation, you will either need to find a source or have a Toaqua draw it up for you,” McCauley preached.
Water was easy. I could supply it if we ran into a pinch, and Sophia had fire.
Unless one of us died, and the rest of us were screwed.
“If there is adequate access to water, the human body can survive around twenty days or so without food. Keep in mind, however, that by this time you will be very weak, and it will only take a matter of days without food before you become useless and unable to harvest or hunt.” McCauley scanned the room with piercing crow eyes. “Therefore, daily nutrition becomes very important, for both you and your Familiar.”
McCauley took a tray and began passing it around the room. “These types of plants are local to the region, and edible. You can find them in many places on earth. Memorize their appearances and names.”
When the tray passed to me, I focused on it. Cattails, the inside of conifer bark, acorns, wild blueberries. Not exactly the most delicious, but when you were hungry, anything looked good.
I passed the tray behind me, and McCauley said, “There will be a quiz next time you come in. Anyone who doesn’t pass I don’t expect to last long. Class dismissed.”
People gathered their things and headed out. McCauley’s comment was obviously directed toward the tournament. Besides me, there were at least four other people in here who were going to be competing. I knew she was watching us and expecting us to do well.
I passed a bunch of squealing girls in the hallway complimenting one of the girls on her brand-new Familiar. I wasn’t sure what it was, but it looked like a pink pom-pom. At least she had a year to bulk the thing up before she was forced to compete.
I winced as the girls squealed again and continued on. I thought Survival Instincts was going to be a blow-off class, but now that I was forced to be in the tournament, I made myself pay attention. And it was a good thing, too. I’d already learned how to make a quick shelter.
I no longer skipped class. I’d need every piece of information available to keep me and my team alive out there.
I heard someone else giggling— and I knew that voice. Around the corner was Sophia. She was leaning against the wall with a bunch of books in her hands. Esis was perched on top of them. Ezra was with her, grinning coyly. They hadn’t seen me.
I was about to turn around and go the opposite way before Sophia said to Ezra, “Seriously, your Liam impressions are the best.”
“Aren’t they?” Ezra snorted. “It took months of perfection to get just the right scowl.”
I slunk against the wall at Ezra’s comment, hiding. Ezra and Sophia were talking about me.
The little bastards.
I was about to round the corner and confront them before a question from Sophia stopped me in my tracks. “So… what was Liam like? Before he lost Nashoma?”
What was I like? What made her think she had the right to ask that question?
I decided to hold back and listen in. Eavesdropping wasn’t right, but hey, it was way better than playing the fool.
Ezra laughed. I imagined him looking up, because any time someone asked him a question the idiot always had to glance skyward, like the answer was on the ceiling. “What was he like before Nashoma? Well, let’s see. His favorite thing was swearing. Still is. I think he started saying the F-Bomb when he was like, ten.”
Sophia laughed, and I smiled. Yeah, that pretty much described me.
“He laughed a lot. He was always up for an adventure, whatever it was. He loved exploring. He wasn’t a big sports guy, but he enjoyed being active. Hiking was one of his favorite things.”
“I love hiking, too,” Sophia said quietly.
“And he loved helping people,” Ezra added. “He’d jump in any time to lend a hand. He had the biggest heart.”
“Seriously?” Sophia’s tone was doubtful. “None of that sounds like Liam.”
“Is it really that hard to believe?” Ezra sounded amused. “Word around school is that he’s the reason your Fire started emerging, and pretty strong, too.”
Dammit. Should’ve known that would get out somehow. The damn trees had ears around here.
“It’s just…” Sophia paused. “He was pretty blunt about it when he told me he hated helping people.”
“Don’t believe him. He’s just being a jerk. It’s like his default setting is grumpy nowadays.”
Sophia and Ezra laughed together, and I scowled. Thanks, assholes.
“Nashoma just amplified those traits,” Ezra said. “He became super brave. He was never afraid of anything. And he was a really good leader. Better than I ever could be.”
Doubt that, Ez. People adored my brother. They rotated around him like he was the sun. I’d never been like that— popular.
“And now he’s not the same,” Sophia said.
“Now…” Ezra sighed. “He’s secluded. He doesn’t like being around anyone, not even me. He goes to class and then locks himself up in his dorm. I can’t talk to him without being insulted.”
Ouch. That was kind of true, but it hurt. I had been a dick to Ezra lately, along with everyone else.
“He seems very spiritual,” Sophia commented. I think she was trying to direct the conversation into a more positive light.
“He is. He’s super religious. Not that it isn’t true, or anything, but I think Liam was more into our culture than any of us because he took the responsibility of being firstborn so seriously. It really hurt him when our dad told him he wasn’t going to be chief anymore.”
Fuck yeah it did. Second most painful day of my life was when Dad brought me in to tell me he was passing on the chief hood to Ezra. Fricken sucked.
“You said he was a good leader, but that he likes seclusion,” Sophia mulled. “What does that mean?”
“He’s always kind of been a lone wolf, pun intended,” Ezra said. “Even before he lost Nashoma, he found it hard to let people in. He’d shoulder other people’s problems but never share his own. It’s just how he is.”
“I bet he would’ve made a really great chief,” Sophia said.
That small bit of praise made me want to fly. It was nice Sophia believed in me.
Until she said, “How do you feel about being chief?”
I imagined Ezra shrugging. “I don’t know. It is what it is.”
I knew he wasn't into it. But it wasn’t like he had a choice now. My one bad decision had cost me Nashoma, but it had also cost my tribe its leader, and my brother his future.
“Do you… do you think he wants to make it through this tournament?” Sophia asked. “He said he didn’t want to die, but…”
Sophia made a good point. Yeah, I didn’t want to die. But I didn’t really want to live, either. I was caught in the middle.
Ezra’s voice became heavy. “I don’t know. We were super close before Nashoma died. Then once it happened, it’s like he couldn’t see me anymore. He just… forgot about me.”
A surge of guilt rampaged throughout my insides. Ezra and I had been close. We’d practically hung out every day, even after I started at Orenda. That had changed pretty quickly over the past few months.
I made a mental note to hang out with Ezra more often. I didn’t realize it until now, but I missed him.
“Are you excited to find your Familiar?” Sophia asked him, trying to change the subject. “I wasn’t sure, but once I found Esis, it’s like my entire life changed. I’m so happy now.”
“I don’t know.” Ezra’s tone was guarded. “Not really.”
Not really? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“I get scared, you know,” Ezra said, quietly now. “After seeing Liam go through what he did, if having a Familiar can cause you that much pain, I’m not sure I want
one.”
Double whammy. If I was guilty before, I felt like melting into the floor now.
This was my fault. My grief over losing Nashoma had pushed my brother into thinking having a Familiar was a terrible thing. But though my time with Nashoma had been so short and the pain afterward so intense, I wouldn’t have changed a thing.
Not for anything.
Ezra paused. “Why are you asking about Liam, anyway?”
Yeah, pawee. Why are you trying to dig up dirt on me?
She hesitated. “We’re tournament partners. It’s my job to know as much as possible about him. I depend on him for my survival out there.”
It was a great excuse, but I didn’t buy it. Neither did Ezra. I could hear it in his voice. “Well, if the rest of us can’t get him to open up, maybe you can. He really likes you.”
“You think?” Sophia’s voice sounded hopeful.
“Oh, yeah. I know my brother. He’s really mean to the ones he likes the most. It keeps them from getting too close.” I heard footsteps. “I’ve got to get to class. Catch you later.”
“Yeah.” Sophia went the opposite way, I assumed. I turned the corner and saw them going in different directions.
Sophia’s hair was bouncing up and down on her shoulders behind her. I longed to explain to her that I really wasn’t as big of a prick as she’d been told.
But I couldn’t, you know, because I was.
I took a step forward to go after her, but then thought better of it. I needed to spend my free hour alone.
BANG, BANG, BANG.
I was jolted out of my dreams at the loud noise and wrenched awake. Somebody was trying to bang down my door at eight o’clock on a Friday morning.
I moaned and rolled over in bed. I was going to kill whoever was out there. Fridays were my days to sleep in, and my body fricken ached all over. Twelve hours of sleep hadn’t done anything to dull the pain that’d been coursing through me last night.
“Liam!” I heard Jonah’s voice outside the door. “Let me in, man!”
People from other Houses weren’t usually allowed in dorms that didn’t belong to them, but people made an exception for Jonah— mostly because he was friends with my family, and also, because the female RA’s from my dorm loved having a gay best friend around. As long as no teachers found out, it wasn’t a big deal.
He was going to bust the door off its hinges. I staggered out of bed and wrenched the door open.
“I swear to the ancestors, Jonah, you’re gonna die,” I snapped immediately.
Jonah looked down once at me in my boxers. “Good morning, sexy.”
“Are you checking me out? Because I’m seriously not in the mood,” I growled.
“Baine called us in for a training session for the tournament,” Jonah said. “We gotta go. It starts at nine, beachside.”
“Oh.” It was like Baine to ruin a perfectly good Friday. “Fine.”
I slammed the door in his face, threw on some clothes, and staggered outside without combing my hair.
Jonah offered me a doughnut. “Breakfast?”
The sight of it made me feel like puking and devouring it at the same time. Chronic illness was fucking stupid. “Yes.” I grabbed it and shoved it down my throat.
“You’ve got jelly on your face,” Jonah sang out. He was way too chipper in the morning.
I waved my hand as we walked by the pools. A huge wave welled up out of them and crashed down on Jonah, soaking him from head to toe.
“What the hell?!” Jonah yelled at me as Toaqua people laughed. “Was that really necessary?”
“Was it necessary to ram on my door to wake me up, Paul Bunyan?” I snapped.
“You wouldn’t have woken up any other way,” Jonah said back.
I rolled my eyes, because I knew he was right. I raised my hand and the water soaking him was drawn out of his clothes and hair, leaving him completely dry again. I opened my palm, and it splashed on the floor over his boots.
“What’d you do that for? Maybe I liked looking soaked and seductive,” Jonah said.
By the ancestors, I couldn’t deal with him this early in the morning.
“Why are you even studying to be an Elementai, Jonah? Why don’t you just become a model for some sex toy catalogue instead?” I asked.
“If only.” Jonah sighed dreamily. I slapped myself in the forehead. It’d been a joke, but seriously, I could see Jonah leaving school for such an opportunity.
Squeaks was waiting for us outside of the Toaqua dorms. She squealed happily when she saw Jonah, and followed us outside. She stumbled over her big feet a few times and knocked over a couple of statues on our way out. I shook my head. If I ever met a more clumsy hippogriff than Squeaks in my life, I’d protest for the species to continue.
It was still cloudy outside, but the storms had passed late last night. When we got to the beach, Squeaks tripped and went head over heels into the sand. While Jonah helped her up, I looked around for Sophia. She was there, sitting on a large rock by the shore.
Imogen wasn’t with her, which was odd. Those two girls were hardly apart lately.
“Hey,” I said as I approached her. Sophia looked up, and I asked, “Where’s Imogen? It’s almost nine.”
“She isn’t coming,” Sophia said. “She has a cold.”
“You heard from her?” Jonah asked.
Sophia went slightly pink. “Uh… no. I haven’t talked to Imogen since yesterday. A Nivita girl from her dorm hall told me that this morning, before I left.”
This was irritating. Our first training session, and Imogen was skipping. Usually I wouldn’t care if someone didn’t show up because they got sick. Like, stay in bed, because I don’t want that shit. I hated when classmates showed up with a cold or the flu. All you were doing was making people miserable and spreading it around.
But this was survival, and we only got so many chances to get this right before we were literally tossed into the threshold of hell. She’d better be puking out her guts right now, because having a cold wasn’t a good enough excuse for, you know, learning how to avoid death.
“That’s okay,” I forced myself to say. “She needs to take care of herself and get strong for what’s coming.”
“You don’t seem to think that way when it comes to yourself,” Sophia said.
“I have different standards for myself. If I stayed in bed every time I felt ill, I’d never leave my room,” I told her.
Jonah and Squeaks nodded solemnly behind me, in unison. It was a little weird.
“What about Sassy?” I asked. “Is she gonna show?”
“I don’t think so.” Sophia shook her head.
She couldn’t even send Sassy? This was getting interesting. I was starting to think that Imogen not showing up was because of something that happened between her and Sophia and not this imaginary cold.
Drama was the last thing we needed right now. These girls needed to get it together.
“Imogen should be here. There are only two more sessions after this,” Jonah said.
“What?” Sophia’s expression became surprised.
“We only get three training sessions with Baine,” I told her. “More than that is considered cheating.”
“Great.” She wrinkled her nose. “I guess we should make the most of it.”
We waited on the beach for Baine to show up. But nine o'clock came, and then nine thirty, and Baine was nowhere to be seen.
Okay, this was majorly annoying. First Imogen wasn’t coming, and now Baine was late to his own damn training session. We were so going to lose.
"I'm about ready to head back to my dorm," I said. It’d been annoying before, but now it was seriously pissing me off. Did Baine even care if we survived?
"Let's just wait a few minutes longer." Sophia looked around. She was getting nervous.
"Hold on a minute, guys…" Jonah looked around, and Squeaks' head swiveled on her neck. "Do you hear something?"
I paused and listened closely. There was… t
he rushing of water— the approach of an oncoming wave.
"Jonah, get Sophia up in the air!" I screamed.
I ran toward the forest and paused at the edge while Jonah took Sophia's hand tightly. He pushed his free palm toward the ground and the two of them rose into the sky, hovering far above the beach. Sophia clung tightly to Esis as she was sent soaring into the skies. Squeaks followed them, beating her wings so she could match their height.
Then it came. Trees bowed over as a massive wave came rushing out from the forest. I immediately threw my hands up in front of me, fingers wide, to prevent the wave from knocking me over. The water swelled around me and rushed back into the ocean, but it was hard. I struggled to keep my balance, and my strength, as the force of the powerful wave threatened to bowl me over.
Jonah saw that I needed help and curled his fingers into his palm. Immediately I felt the wind pick up around me and it spun quickly in a circle, protecting me from the water. Sophia was looking around above me, unsure of what to do.
The wave was getting stronger, harder for me to fend off. Eventually, the water broke through Jonah's shield and crushed my magic. I was drug underneath the wave and rushed out to sea. I heard Sophia screaming.
I couldn't tell which way was up. But I knew I needed to breathe. Summoning what magic was left within me, I pushed my hands downward and the water around me shot me up like a rocket. I broke onto the surface. I felt Jonah's Air magic around me as I was lifted to the clouds, where he, Sophia, and Squeaks were levitating.
The wave below us had vanished, returning to the ocean. The beach was soaking wet, and a few trees had been knocked over. As far as we could tell, everything was safe. Jonah drifted us downward. We landed and looked around, not sure what had just happened.
Without warning Jonah was knocked down to the sand by a jet of water that slapped him in the back of the head. He groaned, and as Squeaks raced to check on him the pools of water she stood in turned to ice. Her feet were caught. Squeaks squawked and tried to pull free, but as hard as she tried to escape she just couldn’t break the hold the ice had on her.
The ice was spreading. It was growing over Jonah and Squeaks’ legs, their bodies. I tried to use my own Water magic to stop it, but it was far too strong. Whoever was controlling the element had more experience than I did. No matter how much I willed the ice to turn to water again, it just wouldn't obey my command.