I was standing by this point, hands fisted, frost coating every surface in the room, the building moaning as the ground shook. Hell, I probably had smoke pouring out of each ear. I knew I was panting. I knew there was green and gold and white blazing from my eyes. I knew I must have looked an absolute fright.
Then Theo said, "She is remarkable, isn't she?" There wasn't awe in his voice, but ice.
My neck felt stiff as I turned my head slowly to look at him. His eyes were blazing gold, staring daggers at my brother.
"And if you think I will let you harm her more than you already have done, you need to think again," he added, in a low growl.
"And you've done much better, princeling?" Mark asked. "Seems to me the part about her heart being broken is all on you."
"She has had my heart since before she became what she is," Theo said mildly. "She will have it still when this is all said and done. What happens in between is on you. Or perhaps your grandfather. But at any rate, it's definitely on the Alchemists and no one else."
I sat down on the sofa again because my legs were shaking.
"Now, you see," Mark drawled, sitting forward in his seat. Theo matched him, moving forward on his side as well. Tension stung like ice picks on the chilled air. "We may have known Casey was the chosen one, but we sure as hell didn't choose her. Why do you think Gramps left NZ? Because he was trying to keep knowledge of her quiet."
"That makes absolutely no sense at all," Theo said abruptly.
"Think about it," Mark explained. "The Alchemists discovered Genesis was approaching." There was that word again. "An Aether would be created by Aetheros. They did their homework, read the stars and all that crap, and came up with Casey."
"So how does Casey's grandfather leaving protect her?" Theo demanded.
"Because the only way to keep her out of their clutches was to divert their attention from within ranks," Mark said slowly, as though explaining quantum physics to a child. "He did that by going to CERN."
"CERN?" both Theo and I said at once.
"And here's where you're gonna like having me on your side," Mark pointed out. "CERN, or Centre européen pour la recherche nucléaire."
"What?" I said as Theo translated, "The European Organisation for Nuclear Research."
What the hell?
"In Geneva," Mark added. "Home to the Alchemists."
Theo sat back on the sofa with a soft exhalation.
"BFFs now?" Mark asked.
"Hold on," I interrupted, ignoring Mark's banal question. "Nuclear research, what's that got to do with Elementals?"
"Not nuclear as in power plants and submarines," Mark retorted. "But nuclear as in particle physics, as in high-energy physics, as in particle accelerators and proton synchrotron boosters. As in what is the universe made of? And my sweet sister, what it is made up of is Elements. Five of them."
"The fifth Element isn't always around," I said automatically.
"Yeah," he said slowly as Theo added, "That's why."
Mark and I both swung our attention towards him.
"His Highness has got it," Mark exclaimed.
"Got what?" I stupidly asked.
"Why the world's out of balance," they both said at once.
I sat back in my own seat and frowned. "I don't get it," I finally admitted.
"OK," Mark said, leaning forward excitedly. "It's like this. Each Element has a purpose. Earth to keep us grounded and at peace."
"Fire to keep us passionate about our survival," Theo offered.
"Water to keep the oceans in harmony with nature," Mark added.
"Air to balance the weather and keep the atmosphere in good health," Theo finished.
"I've heard that before," I said, trying to remember.
"Hippolytos," Theo provided. Yes, we'd had this discussion back at Aeras. How the fifth Element, Quintessence, was designed to keep all Elements working in harmony, needed only when they flux out of balance, affecting the world.
"The storms," I said, quietly. "The bad weather."
"The start of Genesis," Mark whispered.
"What is Genesis?" I asked. Both Gramps and Earth had mentioned it.
"Basically, it means 'The beginning,'" Mark explained. "When Genesis starts, an Aether is called forth. It's been building for twenty-three years now until it reached a tipping point and Genesis really kicked in."
"What's been building?" I asked.
"Imbalance," Theo offered. "The Amazon rainforest being culled," he added. "Global warming melting polar ice caps. Bush fires out of control in the Australian outback. Man-made CFCs depleting the ozone layer. Imbalance."
All the things we'd discussed at Machu Picchu with Hip.
"You know," I said, staring at Theo in particular. "Hip also said Ekmetalleftis were meant to maintain the balance, so it's because of you guys falling down on the job that has led to us being where we are now. Take that a step further," I pushed when he raised a single eyebrow at me in response. "And you might as well say you started Genesis, which means..."
"You guys made my sister an Aether," Mark finished smugly. Then held his hands up in mock surrender at Theo's growl and quickly said, "Don't burn the messenger! Don't burn the messenger!"
"How old are you?" Theo snapped. Mark just smirked.
"Someone's gotta mess with Your Highness," he quipped with a shrug.
I closed my eyes, but when that didn't make the headache that was forming retreat, rubbed the heels of my palms into the sockets.
"Oraia," Theo murmured. "You need to eat."
My eyes opened and just because of how I was lying and where I was facing they fell on Mark. For the first time since he'd been here the dance I used to see in his eyes was back. Overshadowing the act he'd been using, the pretence that he was free and easy and didn't have a care. Mark had always been a fun loving guy, but this today had all been a performance until right then.
When he looked at my Thisavros and heard the care in his voice directed at me.
Except Theo wasn't my Thisavros, so maybe the act was on us now and not Mark.
"I'm fine," I whispered and Theo growled. He was doing that a lot.
My eyes found his disbelieving ones and suddenly we were the only two in the room. Mark disappeared. The imbalance of the world disappeared. Betrayals and mysteries and pain and torture and heartache disappeared. Just us.
He reached out and cupped my cheek and whispered, "Please let me feed you."
My breath escaped in a rush, because the need in his eyes was real.
He wasn't just falling. He'd fallen.
And still it was different from before. Still he looked at me as the woman he'd met one day ago. Less than twenty-four hours ago. Not the girl he'd chased and flirted with for a whole year. Not the innocent he'd introduced to a world of heated passion. Not the person who had grown in more ways than she could count. He saw me as the me now. The complete package.
I might as well have not existed before yesterday.
And that broke my freaking heart.
The journey is half the battle. The journey is half of what makes us, us.
"I'm going to see what Aktor has to eat," I said standing up from the couch. Theo immediately came with me. My eyes darted to Mark, who seemed to be taking in a lot more than I'd realised.
"Didn't you want to find out about Pyrkagia?" my big brother asked Theo, seeing my need for escape, offering me an out.
"Yes," I said, enthusiastically. "You get started on that and I'll be right back."
Theo stilled, frowned slightly and then must have seen something in my eyes. Maybe it was panic.
He nodded, reached up and brushed my cheek with the back of his knuckles and then sat back down.
"Bring me something sweet, would ya, sis?" Mark asked. "Or if you can't find sweet, I'll settle for Isadora. Might be time I tried bitter with a twist of sour to it."
I snorted as I crossed the room and went in search of Aktor. I needed clarity and as much as Sonya would offer a shoulder to
cry on, tearing up was a one way road I'd never get out of if I went down it now. I needed straight up, no strings attached, give it to me hard.
And OK, maybe Theo was affecting my hormones or something, because that did not sound as above the waist as it should have when thinking of the old butler.
I found him in the kitchen. Not alone.
I hovered at the door until Isadora noticed me, then pretended I'd just arrived and walked in. She narrowed her eyes at me and unable to come up with a snarky comment soon enough, I blurted, "Theo wants you in on the next part of the discussion."
Oh, good grief. Could she have looked any smugger.
"I'll get going then. Are you joining us?" she asked me.
This was playing right into her hands, but I couldn't help feeling she was biting off more than she could chew with my brother. He may have lied to me, hidden stuff from me, maybe even betrayed me - although I was having trouble deciding if that's the right word anymore - but he was my big brother. He'd knock that smug right off her dial and make her choke on it.
Huh. Maybe I had another name to add to that friend list.
"Nah, I'm going to hang out here with Aktor," I said, slipping into a chair.
"Why?" she asked suspiciously.
Of course she did. Couldn't just take the hand I offered and play it. Had to second guess each move.
Bit like me with her, I suppose.
"Because I've had enough of Mark," I offered with a level glare.
"I'd like to believe that's true," she drawled. "And Aetheros knows I understand the sentiment, but something tells me you're lying."
I let out a purposeful groan.
"Isadora," I snapped. "He lied to me, hid a huge-arse secret from me, and then left me here to deal with the fallout. You can have him, and when you're done, send the pieces to Switzerland, apparently that's where the Alchemists live."
Silence filled the kitchen.
Then Isadora spun on her heel and practically ran to the front room, smoke trailing behind her as she skidded over the marble tiles.
Aktor started chuckling.
"You made that up," he accused, merrily.
I wish I had.
"CERN," I said instead. "Geneva."
The mixing spoon in his hand clattered into the bowl of batter he'd been stirring.
"You know what this means?" he said quietly. I shook my head. "It means we can fight back."
"And who is we?" I asked, raising an eyebrow at the old man.
His shoulders dropped; it hurt almost as much as everything else right now, seeing that level of defeat. The reminder of his exile.
"I'm so sorry, Aktor. That was unkind," I rushed to say.
"No, Miss Eden. It's the first time since I met you that you've acted like an Athanatos."
"I'm not sure that's a compliment."
"Au contraire," he said with a sad smile. "It's the first time that I've truly believed you might just make it out of this wretched episode with some of that fire of yours intact."
I swallowed.
"Yeah, about this wretched episode," I murmured. "I could really use some advice."
The cake batter got pushed aside, and then Aktor was pulling down the ouzo from behind a packet of pasta in the pantry, and grabbing two shot glasses off a nearby shelf.
"This calls for fortification," he announced.
And I had the sudden realisation that my "wretched episode" was far worse than I had thought. If the butler was hitting the booze, I was in deep freaking trouble.
Chapter 10
And Then I Knew True Fear
"He thinks it will return," I said, downing the last of my shot glass with a grimace. Aktor refilled it immediately, as soon as it hit the bench.
He'd also put out cheese and crackers and a bowl of dried fruit and nuts, all of which I was tossing down my throat along with the seventy-five proof.
Now this is how lunch should be served. Go the Greeks!
"You know," I added, eyes shuttered. "When we, er, do the, um, deed." Yeah, that was all me, not the booze talking. I'm immortal; I can handle my liquor.
Aktor smiled kindly.
"He may have a point."
"You don't really believe that," I accused softly, then staring into my topped up shot glass, tipped it to my mouth and downed the lot.
Whoa. That hit the spot.
Aktor refilled the glass, then placed a piece of aged cheddar on a cracker and handed it over.
"Ouzo or snack?" I asked.
"Whatever gets you through the day, Miss Eden."
I wasn't sure I could face another burn so quickly, so munched on the cracker instead.
"I have never heard of a Thisavros connection being broken," the old man said in between my loud crunching.
"Is it like mating for life or something?" I asked around my mouthful in the most unladylike display I had ever effected.
"More or less. You can walk away, but the connection will always be there. Easily brought back to life with only a little tender care on both parts."
"So it's a compulsion to stay together?" I queried, frowning at the thought of loss of will.
"No, not at all. It can change, become a different kind of love. A need to show respect and honour toward someone. But it is still a treasured relationship."
"Theo once said you can only have one Thisavros at a time," I said tentatively.
"That is true."
"So, does that mean you can have one after another, when the connection changes to something less romantic?" God, I think that ouzo was going to come back up my gullet soon.
"Of course not," the butler replied. "What part of a Thisavros connection cannot be broken did you not understand?"
All the blood left my face and my head spun, the room tilting slightly, my fingers gripping the edge of the table top, nails digging into wood. Isadora, that freaking lying bitch, was so going to die.
"What about Melita?" I whispered.
"Melita? Ah yes," Aktor said, eyes going back in time. Oh say, fifteen hundred years back. "What about Melita, Cassandra?" he asked.
Aktor only used Cassandra when he needed to really soften a blow, otherwise he stuck with the more formal Miss Eden. Things were not looking good. I grabbed the ouzo and downed the shot for courage.
Wiping the sticky substance away from my lips with the back of my hand I breathed fire for a second and then gasped, "Isadora."
"Ah. That's right. I remember now," the butler said ominously. And if Dora had still been here, I think she would have shrivelled under the look of anger that marred the old man's face. "Melita was special, as I'm sure you're aware. Theodoros adored her, but she betrayed him. Their relationship did not end on good terms."
Then the words I hadn't realised I still needed to hear, even after everything that had happened since Brazil and Isadora's treachery, were uttered.
"She was never his Thisavros."
My hand shook as I reached for the ouzo bottle. Aktor beat me to it and refilled my glass then placed cheddar on two crackers and handed them to me. I forced myself to eat the snacks first then followed them up with a sip from the aniseed brew.
"One Thisavros and one only," Aktor whispered. "And you are his."
"Then why is it broken now?"
"I do not have the answer, Miss Eden. I only know that despite the memory loss he has fallen fast for you all over again. Does that not say something?"
"But he doesn't remember. What if he never remembers me?"
"Would that be so bad?" the old man asked gently. "If the alternative is his absence from your life completely?"
I shook my head, the ouzo sloshing around in my belly with aged cheese and cracker meal. It didn't feel pretty.
"I'm not sure it's enough," I finally admitted. Realising this was my problem. Not Theo's. All mine.
I had to get my head around this new dynamic. I had to accept the love he offered now in place of the love we'd had.
Me. It was all on me.
"I don't know
if I can do this," I said on a hitched sob.
"My dear," Aktor said softly, reaching over and cupping the back of my hand where it lay on the table's surface with his larger one. "Ask yourself this, can you walk away? Because what you are admitting is an inability to change that will lead you down a different path than Theodoros'."
I lifted stinging eyes to his face.
"I don't know the answer to that," I said, voice rough with pent up emotion. "All I know is this hurts too much. More than the King's doctor cutting open my chest. More than my grandfather's betrayal. More than anything I have ever felt in my life. I want him back."
My Theo. My Thisavros.
"Don't give up on him," Aktor pleaded softly. "Trust that he'll find his way back to you one day. I cannot believe it is permanent. I can.. not. It goes against everything we have been taught of Aetheros. He would not bestow this gift and have it abused in such a way."
"That's blind faith and most religions have it," I pointed out. "And most followers are let down a time or two along the way."
"Ah, but where those religions are based, in most cases, on complete blind faith as you say, I have actually conversed with my god. I know he is real."
"You do?" I asked, surprised.
"Very... old... man," the butler said slowly, pointing at his chest.
I smiled.
"Ancient," I offered. "And I guess it would be rude to ask what you guys talked about, huh?"
"Extremely," the butler chided with a teasing smile. "Besides, how can he not exist, if we do?"
"Yeah, humans say that about their gods too."
He scoffed. "We bend the Elements, Miss Eden. We don't just live. We play with life."
"Sounds very close to a god-like complex there, Aktor."
He shrugged.
"Maybe, but it is nonetheless true."
And that's why Athanatos are so arrogant. They believe it.
The Chilling Change Of Air (Elemental Awakening, Book 3) Page 10