Playing With Fire (Power of Four Book 2)

by SF Mazhar

  Eventually, Aaron gave up. He couldn’t sleep – not in there, in any case. He slipped on his shoes and crept outside.

  He sat down on the steps of the hut, letting the cool breeze wash over him. The entire city was asleep. No one, except Aaron, was outside. He savoured the stillness of the night, the quiet of the slumbering city. The longer Aaron sat there, the more he didn’t want to go back in and sleep. He knew he should. They’d be leaving early in the morning and God only knew how much more trekking Neriah had planned. If he didn’t sleep, he’d be tired to the bone the next day. But the cool air had woken him up and Aaron wasn’t one to lie around wide awake. Maybe if he went for a walk, he would tire himself out.

  Aaron headed away from the huts, careful not to wake anyone up. His feet led him to a small pathway through a dense forest, almost of their own accord. Aaron went along, trusting his instincts. Maybe his core was calling out to its element.

  Aaron walked through the lush, green forest, his footsteps muted on the soft, mossy ground. Aaron stuck both hands into his pockets and walked slowly, thinking about the journey to come, contemplating what would happen once he got the Blade of Adams. Would Neriah train him? Would his dad?

  Aaron tried not to think about his dad. He hadn’t had the chance to speak to him before he’d left. Ever since the argument with Neriah, Chris hadn’t been able to get up from his bed. It was as if that fight had left him drained and unable to stay awake. Aaron shuddered at the thought of his dad waking up to find his wife, son and brother-in-law all missing. He would be beyond furious. Hopefully they would get to the sword soon, maybe even the next day, and they could get back to Balt quickly.

  Aaron’s foot caught on something and he stumbled. Or rather, he was about to. It was dark, but the bright moon showed Aaron his feet had somehow got caught in twigs and overgrown roots. Worse, he couldn’t free them. He felt something scratchy crawl around both his wrists before suddenly they were pulled up. Branches from the tree behind him had encircled his wrists, holding them high above his head.

  “What the–?” Aaron was rendered speechless with shock. He pulled, but the branches held tight, stretching his arms. “Let me go!” he instructed, but the forest held fast. Aaron struggled as hard as he could, but he couldn’t free himself.

  A low chuckle sounded. “You know, it’s not everyday you see an Elemental caught up in his own element.”

  The voice stilled Aaron, his erratically beating heart skipped. He looked up, peering through the darkness.

  He saw Kyran, casually leaning against a tree with his arms crossed at his chest.

  “Then again, we don’t get many Elementals like you, do we, Ace?”

  12

  Scorching Chats

  Aaron’s hands curled into fists above his bound wrists.

  “Let me go.”

  Kyran smirked. “Free yourself,” he said. “You are the Elemental for Earth after all.”

  Aaron struggled. Anger was fast replacing his surprise, but that didn’t give him any better control of his element. “I said, let me go!”

  Kyran straightened up and sauntered closer to Aaron. “When are you going to get it, Ace?” he said. “Control your element. Seize it and bend it to your will. Force it to obey.”

  Aaron’s eyes narrowed with fury, blood pounded in his ears. It was one thing to play a Hunter training another to keep his cover in Salvador, but quite another for Kyran to openly mock him like this. To remind Aaron of how he pretended to be his friend, when all along he was the enemy.

  Aaron’s jaw clenched. The branch of the tree behind Kyran twisted back and sprung forward, aiming for Kyran’s head.

  Kyran just tilted his head, moving the bare minimum to avoid the collision. He turned back to eye the tree.

  “Not bad.” He turned around to face Aaron, only to see he had freed one arm.

  Aaron swiped his hand and Kyran was forced to duck out of the way this time, as a branch – thick as Kyran’s neck – came hurtling at him. Aaron tugged his other hand out of the loosened grip of the vines he had managed to command and turned all his attention to the twigs and roots that were still holding on to his feet. No sooner had he freed himself and stumbled forward than he raised both hands and sent a powerful ripple at Kyran, who jumped out of its way.

  Aaron raised his hands again, ready to throw another ripple at him in case Kyran retaliated. But Kyran didn’t lift a hand to fight back. He didn’t even look bothered by Aaron’s attacks. In fact, he was laughing as he turned to face Aaron, green eyes bright with amusement.

  “You’re starting to pack a real punch now, Ace,” he said. “Still not enough, but it’s a start.”

  “Stop it!” Aaron yelled and the trees around them shuddered, groaning against the ground, threatening to uproot themselves.

  Aaron wished they would. He wanted to throw them at Kyran, like his dad had done with the Lycans. He wanted the trees to lift into the air and hit Kyran – hard. He wanted to hurt him for everything he had done, for every lie he had told, for pretending to be his friend – for everything he had done to Rose.

  Before he could think past his rage, Aaron launched himself at Kyran. His first strike was dodged by a chuckling Kyran. His second was caught.

  “Easy,” Kyran said, holding on to Aaron’s clenched fist. “You’ll pull something.”

  Aaron saw red. He kicked Kyran’s leg, making him let go. In a flurry of movement, Aaron called for more trees to swing forward and hit Kyran, but they missed each time.

  “You need to work harder,” Kyran said, dodging the attacks. “I’m barely trying here.”

  “Shut up!” Aaron’s anger got the best of him and he went for Kyran again.

  This time, when Kyran caught Aaron’s wrist, he twisted it, easily turning Aaron around and pinning him against the nearest tree. Aaron grunted, struggling to free the arm that was held behind his back, but Kyran’s grip remained firm.

  “I suggest you calm down,” Kyran said next to Aaron’s ear. “You don’t want to wake up the whole city.”

  “Yeah?” Aaron snarled. “I don’t want that? Or you don’t want that?”

  “Trust me, Ace, you’ll want to hear me out.”

  “No!” Aaron used his free arm to push against the tree and he threw Kyran back, freeing himself.

  He turned around but didn’t throw anything at Kyran. He simply stood there, leaning against the tree, breathing hard, angry green eyes fixed on the boy he had once trusted.

  “I don’t want to hear you out,” Aaron said. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

  “Why?” Kyran asked.

  Aaron’s eyes bulged out and he spluttered. “Why? You’re asking me why?”

  “Yeah,” Kyran said calmly. “Why won’t you hear me out?”

  “’Cause all you’ll do is tell more lies!” Aaron spat.

  “What lies did I tell you?” Kyran asked.

  Aaron snapped his mouth shut before he swore at him. Anger thrummed inside him. His fingertips were buzzing, his core ready to feed him more power. He could almost feel the forest ground sitting tensed, ready and waiting for his command. Yet a small part of him readily and greedily latched on to Kyran’s words, wanting nothing more than to believe him. He pushed that part away.

  “You kept your identity hidden,” Aaron said. “You lied about who you were.”

  “No,” Kyran said. “I didn’t lie at all. I was asked my name and I replied with the truth. My name is Kyran. No one asked my father’s name.”

  “Neriah asked,” Aaron said. “My dad asked, even I asked you.”

  “And I refused to answer,” Kyran said. “I didn’t lie.”

  “Come on, Kyran!” Aaron cried with agitation as he pushed away from the tree that was supporting him. “You’re not getting out of this on technicalities! You hid the truth about who you are. You hid the fact that you’re the Scorcher – you’re the one who tore down the Gates. You’re responsible for the disasters that hit the human realm! You’re
the reason so many people have lost their homes – their lives! You’ve killed hundreds of mages, not to mention the torment of the mages trapped in their own homes, in their own zones because you’ve let vamages control them!”

  Aaron was breathing hard, his chest heaving and burning with rage. Kyran in comparison stood calm and collected, just staring at Aaron.

  “It’s funny that, isn’t it?” he asked.

  Aaron was going to hit him. The trees groaned in response to Aaron’s fury.

  “Which part?” Aaron spat.

  “All of it,” Kyran said and started walking toward him. “All that pain, the lives lost, the homes destroyed, the zones taken over; it’s funny how it all can be pinned on one person.” Kyran stopped before Aaron, holding his furious glare. “You’d think I’d struggle to find enough hours in the day for all that destruction.”

  “It doesn’t take long to start fires,” Aaron replied. “Especially for a Fire Elemental.”

  “True,” Kyran mused. He leant forward, close enough to whisper to Aaron. “But even I can’t start fires without being there.”

  Aaron blinked at him. “What?”

  Kyran pulled back and smirked but his eyes were furious now, no glint of mischief or amusement. “Think back over the four months you spent in Salvador,” he said. “Think about how many crimes were said to be the work of the Scorcher. How many times the Scorcher was out killing mages and burning down Gates, yet all that time, I was in the same house as you.”

  Aaron stilled. His mind flashed through all the meetings he had attended at the Hub. Most of them had started with a new crime report on something horrendous the Scorcher had just done. And every single time, Kyran had been sitting in the same room.

  Aaron remembered something the Hunters had discussed shortly after Kyran had been arrested. “You left Salvador every full moon,” he said. “Maybe that’s when you set up the attacks.”

  “Oh come on, Ace!” Kyran pulled back and finally lost his smirk, true annoyance lighting his features. “Think about it. How could I set up multiple attacks in one night? And even if I did, the attacks were said to be done by my hand. It was apparently my Blade that burnt cities to the ground. How can that be true if I was in Salvador?”

  Aaron didn’t have an answer. His mind was fighting Kyran’s questions, screaming at him not to fall for another trick of the Scorcher’s. He was the enemy. He couldn’t be trusted. But Aaron somehow couldn’t bring himself to fully believe that. It was easier to think of Kyran as the enemy when he wasn’t standing right in front of him.

  “Those attacks, the ones they blamed me for, were committed by Raoul and his Lycans,” Kyran said. He shook his head. “It wasn’t me, Ace. I’ve never killed a mage. I’ve yet to burn any city to the ground.”

  “You’re lying,” Aaron said, his voice threatening to break. “I saw you. Zhi-Jiya shared a memory of you burning down an entire village–”

  “Of Banshees,” Kyran said. “Banshees, Ace, not mages. You would have seen that if the entire memory had been extracted.”

  Aaron stared at him, desperately wanting to believe him. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked.

  Kyran paused and his eyes held a strange emotion, one Aaron couldn’t figure out. “Because your mind isn’t tainted,” Kyran replied. “You weren’t brought up with Neriah’s lies. You haven’t lived your life blaming everything that goes wrong on Hadrian and his Scorcher. You have a chance to see things for what they really are.” His eyes held Aaron’s. “I’m not who they say I am. I’m not the monster Neriah wants you to believe, and neither is my father.”

  “Your father is a vamage,” Aaron said.

  “That doesn’t make him a monster.”

  “But it does make him demonic.”

  Kyran quietened and straightened up. “You’ve still got a lot to learn about mages and demons, Ace,” he said. “I would advise you to make quick work of it, so you can recognise who’s pure and who’s demonic.”

  “Is that what you are? Pure?” Aaron asked.

  Kyran shrugged. “Not completely, but I’m not demonic either.” He pocketed both hands and tilted his head to stare at Aaron. “You remember the map at the Hub?”

  Aaron was thrown at the sudden topic change. “Yeah.”

  “You remember how many zones Hadrian has?”

  “It’s hard to forget,” Aaron replied. He could still clearly see the map of the mage realm in his mind, with its blue zones outmatched by the red.

  Kyran smiled. “Here’s a little maths teaser for you,” he said. “If there are twenty-six zones in our realm and my father supposedly has control of nineteen of them, how many of those nineteen reflect Neriah’s deceit?”

  Aaron frowned. “What?”

  “Neriah’s been lying,” Kyran said. “He’s been lying for years. We don’t have nineteen zones. We have nine. Ten zones belong to demons.”

  Aaron stared at him with shock. “How?” he asked.

  “Demons have found a way past the Gates,” Kyran said. “They’ve been fighting mages for centuries – long enough for them to find ways to outsmart the mages and their defences.” He took in a long, somewhat troubled sigh. “Raoul and his Lycans have been sneaking into cities without the Gates falling. How they’re doing it, I don’t know, but they’re getting in and then forcing the chief of the city to bring down the Gate so they can take over.”

  “Neriah said something about them too,” Aaron started. For a fleeting moment, Aaron forgot all about the animosity he had for Kyran. It felt like they were back in Salvador, discussing the threats to their realm like Hunters would. “Neriah seems to think the Lycans are making new tears, creating their own back doors,” he said.

  Kyran snorted. “I’m surprised Neriah noticed,” he said. “He’s been so busy blaming my father and accusing me of tearing down Gates. I thought he’d never figure out who the real culprit is.” Kyran held a hand to his chest. “I never took any zones from the mages. Raoul took them from Neriah and I took them from him. I’ve cleared demons out of more sub-zones than all of Neriah’s Hunters put together. It was me and my father’s vamages that drove Raoul and his Lycans out of six zones and secured them with Gates.”

  Aaron’s eyes widened. “What?” he asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Kyran said, his eyes blazing with anger. “Contrary to popular belief, the nine zones in my father’s name are all Gated. I put the Gates up myself.”

  Aaron’s head was swimming. There was too much being thrown at him for it all to make sense but Aaron understood one thing – there wasn’t only seven safe zones after all. There were sixteen. Hadrian’s zones and Neriah’s zones were Gated. So it was only the ten zones under the demons’ rule that were open zones. They were the ones that allowed the flow of elemental power to seep through and disrupt the human realm.

  “I don’t get it,” Aaron said. He looked up to meet Kyran’s eyes. “Why would Neriah lie?”

  Kyran let out a harsh laugh. “Can’t you see it, Ace? He made Hadrian public enemy number one, so others would do what he couldn’t.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Destroy him.”

  Aaron didn’t know whether or not to believe him. Everything Kyran had said could very well be true. Then again, it could be nothing but lies.

  “You risked getting caught to come and tell me this?” Aaron asked. “Why would you care if I know the truth or not?”

  Kyran smiled. “I thought we were friends, Ace.”

  Aaron felt like he had been stabbed, straight through his chest. “I thought so too,” he said. “But we’re not friends, not if you’re against the mages.”

  Kyran shrugged. “I’m not against them. As long as they pledge their allegiance and submit to my father’s rule.”

  “Even if I were to believe you only have nine zones, and all nine are Gated, Hadrian is still a vamage,” Aaron said. “He killed James Avira – an Elemental that was supposed to be like family to him. How can you think he’s fit to
rule the mages? How can anyone pledge allegiance to someone like that?”

  “There’s always two sides to a story,” Kyran said.

  “For some stories it doesn’t matter,” Aaron replied. “There’s always a right and a wrong. A few days ago, you came with your vamages to the City of Balt and let them kill twelve mages. How are you going to spin that one, Kyran? You going to tell me that was right?” He stared at Kyran with angry eyes. “I was there, I saw what your vamages did. You might not have killed anyone, but you didn’t stop your vamages, just like you didn’t stop them from murdering Sam and Rose’s parents.”

  The air around them chilled, raising goosebumps on Aaron’s flesh, but he didn’t care. He stood in front of Kyran, whose hands had curled into fists and eyes darkened to a poison green.

  “I didn’t hurt them,” Kyran defended.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Aaron fought back. “You didn’t save them either.”

  “I tried!” Kyran snapped. “If I had got there sooner, I would have saved them, but by the time I reached the house it was too late.”

  “Too late?” Aaron frowned. “What are you talking about? You were with the vamages!”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Kyran argued. “I arrived afterwards.”

  “So you just happened to be hanging out in the human realm by yourself that night?” Aaron asked. “You really expect me to believe that?”

  “Believe what you want,” Kyran said. “I didn’t come here to convince you of my side of the story.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  Kyran didn’t speak right away. The wind blew past them, ruffling their hair and clothes. The cold seeped into Aaron’s skin, chilling him.

  “I know what you’re planning with Neriah,” Kyran said quietly. “Don’t do it, Ace.”

  “Do what?” Aaron asked.