But at some stage, at some point in amongst the dark thoughts and bleak world my mind was submitting to, a bright flare of light pierced the black of night... with a most welcomed ray of promise.
The Pyrkagia arrived.
Called by all the destruction and Fire. Maybe just aware that their prince was slowly dying. It didn't matter, their appearance meant one thing. Hope.
Whatever had happened with the Alchemists, the Pyrkagia had survived. And their success couldn't have been better timed. Still, I glanced around expecting to see some strange humans wielding stolen Ekmetalleftis power, but none sprang out behind the dark bushes and trees. Just the Pyrkagia. No one else.
I didn't have energy enough to be thankful for that fact.
Silent tears were streaming down my cheeks by now, but the sight of the Pyrkagia at least filled me with the warmth of hope and promise. They immediately began to surround Theo with their own Stoicheio. Dozens of Pyrkagia protecting my Thisavros better than I was able to do.
I turned my attention to the Gi, finally managing to concentrate enough to demand the Earth produce a thorn laden vine. With it grasped painfully in my hand I sliced my wrist, without delay, and then held my arm aloft.
"Stop!" I shouted above the noise of bubbling lava, the groaning of the Earth and the crackle of Pyrkagia Fire. "Stop now, or I..." Or I what? Kill you all? Feed the Earth and miraculously save the day with my blood alone? I had absolutely no idea what giving my blood to the Earth would do. It had insinuated that with it, the Earth would be strong enough to deny the Gi, but it had never said it would be strong enough to do more than that.
"Daughter," a Gi said loudly then, voice level and entirely devoid of emotion.
He walked out of the row of Ekmetalleftis that faced off against us. I don't think they included me as their enemy, as their efforts had solely been focused on Theo, until reinforcements made them stop. But they should have.
"Calm yourself. We mean you no harm," the Gi added.
"You harm what is mine," I panted through gritted teeth, and watched as the collective Gi sucked in a simultaneous breath, then glanced at each other with ill concealed shock and mild disgust.
"He is not yours," the man pointed out evenly. "You do not belong here with them. You are Gi."
If one more person used that excuse to convince me of something I did not want, I was going to scream. But conversation was better than the battle we had just had, than the battle Theo had just barely survived. So I held the frustrated shriek inside.
"I don't even know you," I said instead, staggering to my feet, better to confront him. The man had taken several steps closer, I wanted to be prepared.
"Don't you?" he asked cocking his head to the side and flashing the most alluring shade of green in his eyes.
I felt the Earth's call immediately. I felt the deep seated sense of familiarity that I had glimpsed upon the Gi's arrival. I felt the connection that made me believe I was tethered to a rope that led directly to this man. A pull that I was finding harder and harder to deny.
"Who are you?" I whispered, lowering my arms finally and feeling the blood begin to trickle back down towards my fingers.
"Child," he said, voice softening, but his face remaining that detached impassive all Athanatos seem able to do. "I am your father."
The words meant something, I knew they did. But in that second I just felt numb.
My blood finally made it to the tip of my index finger and dropped to the waiting soil below. The Earth breathed out a soothing sigh, settling beneath us finally, quelling the inferno that had threatened all of Auckland city.
Is this true? I asked it. My voice inside my head sounded hollow.
He is the Gi Rigas, the Earth replied.
Is he my father? I pushed, but the Earth remained ominously silent. Answer me? I demanded, at last feeling something other than numb; an almost frantic need to have this denied.
"It will not speak out of line," the Gi Rigas said, well aware of the questions I'd been asking the Earth, it seemed. I had no idea what he meant by that threatening statement though. And it was threatening, I just knew.
"I don't know you," I insisted, searching for something more intelligent to throw up as argument to this impressive, yet slightly scary man.
"No. But that does not change the fact that you are Gi."
And that argument was not one I could deny any longer.
Heaven help me, but this was actually happening. My world was slipping away.
I may not have fully accepted what I had become, but I had accepted that of all the Ekmetalleftis, I was Gi.
I looked around the half destroyed golf course, taking in the sight of a battered, but still hanging in there, Aktor. The angry, but strangely quiet Pyrkagia, watching this unfold with wary eyes. And a mud covered, exhausted and defeated looking Theo.
What should I do?
I didn't want to leave Auckland. I knew this with a certainty that rocked my soul. I didn't want to leave my home, my city. That was a given from the start. But this ache, this agony of impending separation, was not for that. But for Theo.
My Theo.
"I don't want to leave," I said, voice and heart broken, but somehow the words reached his ears.
His gold flecked eyes flicked over to the Gi Rigas and I watched as he straightened his back and held his head up high.
"I request permission to speak to the princess," he said in a strong, level voice.
My head jerked back at his petition, at the finality of those words. What they acknowledged. What they said to all those present; Pyrkagia, Gi... and me. I forced my eyes to leave the face I had come to know so well, and take in the response on the face of the man I knew not at all. The Gi Rigas surveyed Theo with mild intrigue. It had to be an act. He'd just been trying to kill him moments ago, almost succeeded, and now he was being civil?
"Very well, Prince of Pyrkagia," he said regally, as though gifting Theo a boon. "But try anything and we will attack your city."
Theo's eyes shifted to my face, a question there that I couldn’t quite decipher. Was he asking me if I controlled the Earth? I didn't. I had stopped the eruption from happening, but I had the feeling that the Rigas held more sway than any of us could ever know. The fact that he'd listened in on my mental conversation with the Earth earlier was enough to let me know he was powerful. Very powerful indeed.
Theo nodded, reading something on my face. Maybe my inability to answer the question was answer enough. He walked the short distance to where I stood and looked down at me. I could tell he wanted to reach out and touch, to seek comfort through that sense. But he just clenched and unclenched his hands at his sides and stared at me.
Several seconds ticked by.
Finally, he found his voice. "Sweet little Gi," he whispered. I was unsure if anyone else could hear him, but the Earth rushed through me and put my mind at rest.
We will shield your words, your blood has strengthened us.
I glanced down at my hand, noting that I'd actually been bleeding this entire time and all that blood had been soaked up greedily by the Earth. I breathed a sigh of relief. The Gi hadn't noticed, I was sure, otherwise they would have done something to prevent it. The more of my blood the Earth had, the stronger it seemed to become. I wondered if it would become strong enough to banish them, to win a battle against its own people.
I knew, though, that was wishful thinking.
"They can't hear you," I said softly back to Theo, and watched his eyebrow arch in that familiar way it always does.
"But you're not in control here, are you?" he queried.
"No. There's too many of them for the Earth to fight back." And why would it? The Gi belong to the Earth. I saw the same conclusion on Theo's face. I breathed out slowly through the pain of defeat. Because this was a defeat, wasn't it?
"I don't want to leave," I whispered again. The one sentence shouting to be let out in my head.
"And I don't want you to go," he admitted, shifting clo
ser, letting the heat of his body wrap around my frame, the only part of him which could openly embrace me right now.
"But you're letting me go anyway," I replied, through a tight throat.
"Casey," he said, and I watched stunned as tears welled in his eyes. "I will never let you go. Do you hear me? You are mine. My Thisavros." The words were a vow, but I sensed a 'but' in there all the same. He closed his eyes, fists clenched tightly still at his sides and let a ragged breath of air out. "I will find a way for us to be together," he said when his eyes opened, covering me in a golden glow. "I will find a way back to you. One that they can't fight against. I promise."
Oh heavy, heavy heart. How could this hurt so much? I was fighting back the tears, but all that did was create more and more of them, making Theo appear blurred and my throat close completely, while my body sunk in on itself.
"Dear, sweet Casey Eden," Theo murmured, his Stoicheio finally unable to resist soothing me. "No matter what, they are your kin. They mean you no harm. All they desire is you home, safe."
"I'm not one of them!" I insisted.
"Oh, but Cassandra. You are."
I didn't care about the Gi watching. I didn't even care, in that moment, about the Gi Rigas' threat. I launched myself into Theo's arms and sobbed against his chest.
This was really happening. God help me somehow to survive the pain.
"Think of it as an opportunity to learn, Casey," Theo whispered in my ear, his voice cracking even as his hands smoothed a path down my back. "Learn the Gi Ekmetalleftis history. Hone your skills. Stay strong." He ducked his head down and lifted up my chin with the tips of his finger and thumb. "Because I will come for you. We will be together one day. I promise you that."
One day. One day in the future to an Athanatos could mean decades, centuries away. Hell, Theo was over three thousand years old. I couldn't find solace in his words. The length of time available was too much for my mind to comprehend and accept.
I was losing Theo.
And he was letting me go.
"There has to be some way," I pleaded, swiping at the moisture on my face. Theo's thumbs came up and wiped across my cheeks, helping to smooth them dry again.
There were more tears, I knew it, but I was fiercely trying to hold the rest of them inside.
"I would lay down my life for you, Casey. You know this," he whispered. "If you were to ask me, I would lay down my brethren's lives as well."
A strained silence stretched out between us. He was offering to force the Pyrkagia to go to war for me. Against the might of the Gi, who had already proven they weren't above total destruction of a city in order to get what they wanted. Who had already proven that they were a match for Pyrkagia, and more than a match for Theo.
And I wasn't strong enough to stop them either. I'd halted proceedings tonight, barely, but the Rigas scared me. I could feel a depth of power to his Stoicheio that had no comparison. We would not win this battle and that was even before the Alchemists regrouped, returned and decided to join in as well.
This was my city. For Auckland and its people; my parents, Sonya, even the Pyrkagia, I would not cling to what I wanted to be mine, by sacrificing them.
Turning away from Theo to face an unknown future with people I didn't recognise, but strangely felt connected to, was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. Nothing would ever come close again, I was sure. But this was a battle that Theo and I would lose. There was no denying that.
And although Theo had made his promises to find a way back to me, I vowed to myself to do the same right then. I would find a way to be with Theo. No matter how long it takes.
Hope still existed, even as I felt imaginary chains wrap around my body, pulling me away from those I loved. And with that resolute hope came something else just as miraculous.
A line had definitely been drawn in the sand now, and with one last deep intake of fortifying breath, I crossed it. Until that moment I had not truly believed. But I did now. I chose to believe the dream conversation with my grandfather. I chose to believe everything that I could do now was because of what I had become. Two days in a pit of dirt, four days connected to the Earth. And now this.
Acceptance of what I had become felt... liberating. I was a Gi Ekmetalleftis. And I had the rest of my very long immortal life to get what I wanted.
And I wanted Theodoros Petropoulos. He would be mine.
"I love you," I whispered in answer, seeing the comprehension of what my declaration meant mixed with the joy of hearing my words wash over Theo's face.
I didn't say it to hear him say it back. Theo Peters was a hard Athanatos, bred to handle loss and sacrifice, styled to never show his inner thoughts. Oh, he slipped occasionally, but he was very good at what and who he was. Powerful, arrogant, princely.
But then, Theo Peters was also the most confounding man I had ever met.
He reached forward and wrapped me up in one final embrace. I savoured it. I closed my eyes and prayed I'd never forget his warmth, his Fire, his scent. Never forget this moment. His lips brushed across my ear, his breath washed down my neck and his Stoicheio reached inside the very core of me, and touched my heart and soul.
And he rasped, "And I love you too, Casey Eden. Eternally."
Dear sweet heaven, he'd said it. He'd said the words. So beautiful, so bitter-sweet, so heartbreakingly poignant.
A sobbed breath hitched in my throat, an ache so real I felt it in my blood, in my bones. He loved me. And I loved him.
Theo reached down and cupped my chin with his finger and thumb, tilting my tear stained face up to his. With an unimaginable depth of pain and sadness, he leaned in and touched his lips to mine. Softly. Tenderly. Too briefly.
Then he was gone. Walking away and taking a part of me with him.
How did I survive this? How?
My knees gave out first, then my breath, my heart, as pain tore through my chest. My fingers digging into the soil at my sides automatically, seeking comfort, desperate for relief from the ache.
And as the Pyrkagia prepared to leave the golf course I heard a hardened command inside my head, sinking barbs right into my heart.
Anaisthetikos, now! the Gi Rigas' voice echoed in my mind. I don't think he knew I could hear him. My fingers dug further into the Earth, determined to catch his next words. And kill her Thisavros.
My mouth opened in a scream, but only I could hear my warning shout. The last thing I saw, before my world became an insular bright white haze and nothing else, was a thick vine wrapped around Theo's neck. Blood pooling on his collar as skin was torn.
My screams never stopped; an aching, heart-wrenching accompaniment, as the vision of my beloved fighting for his life was seared on my mind...
His gold blazing eyes on me; a final message of love staring out of a terror-filled face.
Theo.
Oh God, no!
Theo.
Description
'Birdsong was the first thing I registered. The sharp caw of a parrot, but there was more than one. And somehow they overlapped to make a beautiful symphony out of what should have been an unmusical sound. I grinned; the feeling of my lips tipping up was foreign. How long had it been since I last smiled?'
Casey Eden has had her life turned upside down and inside out, just when she thought it was going somewhere. Thrust into a new and dangerous world, and not knowing who to trust, Casey has to push herself to be stronger, harder, and better than she has ever been before. To top things off, she's now battling with her new Elemental powers alone, and living thousands of miles away from home.
A forest wreathed in power.
A dangerous world full of predatory beings.
And a passion for Fire even the soothing scent of Earth can't calm.
Faced with a corrupt and rotten group of powerful beings, in an environment which calls to her soul, but lashes out unexpectedly to trip her up, Casey must dig deep to traverse the hurdles before her. But to do that, she has to embrace an old lesson of belief. A less
on her dead grandfather taught her, which now carries an entirely different and ominous meaning. But she soon begins to realise anything is possible when you choose to believe.
Prologue
And Another Day In Hell Had Begun
Mist curled around my ankles and stretched hazy fingers up my legs, making it look like I floated through clouds, not walked through a rainforest. But the sensation of being cut off from the ground beneath my feet felt real. Earth, my Stoicheio, no longer talked to me.
A bone deep sense of loneliness settled within my heart. But it wasn't just the feeling of abandonment that caused such immeasurable pain. My losses went deeper than being separated from the Element that was meant to sustain me.
Theo.
His name echoed through my mind, made a whimper rise up my throat and an ache so unfathomable pierce my heart, cleave it in two. Theo was dead, so why was I walking through a mist shrouded forest in search of something I knew could not exist?
Floor dwelling animals scurried away from my path, the sound of their claws scratching over dirt and fallen leaves sent a bolt of familiarity through me. But it had been weeks, possibly months, since I'd actually touched a creature of the Amazon and felt my soul cry out with joy. They ran from me now, as though I was the devil.
The boughs of the vine laden trees flanking the trail I walked - no floated - on leaned in closer, blocking out what little light was available overhead. Darkness edged in from the corners of my eyes, my vision dimming, but not yet succumbing to the void I so often found myself in these days. I pushed on, forcefully expelling the desire to give in.
They had taken so much already, too much already, they would not take my mind too.
But that argument was debatable, as I ducked under a branch, the hiss of a snake entwined around it reaching my ears, and stepped out into a clearing, that in normal circumstances would not exist in this dense parcel of flora and fauna.
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