by Amy Braun
“You said there was another part of the Primordials that separated,” I said when I found my voice again. “What was it?”
“Ah,” Vitae sighed. “This is where we come to the most difficult part of our predicament. Exhausting so much energy to create the Guardians made the Primordials weak. They left the humans to evolve on their own and retreated to rest in the earth. Their power now goes into helping the earth thrive. They help keep the forests green, the soil rich, the water drinkable. We all love them for that. But humans do not understand the truth the way we do. They have no idea that with every new machine, every severed tree, every toxin or oil spill, they are destroying the last energies of the Primordials. What resides in the Guardians and the Stormkind is sufficient only for us, and while we are strong, we are not immortal. We have friends and lovers and families that can be killed in combat, either by the Stormkind, or the Mistrals.”
She fell into a quiet silence, as if an old memory was resurfacing and saddening her.
“We all tried to adapt to the human ways of life,” Vitae said. “We understood their fascination with the unknown, the need for competition and advancement. We know they are not so different from us, as we are simply a secret, gifted version of the human race. But we cannot abide by the way they treat the earth our ancestors left us to guard.” She looked in my eyes. “I would be lying if I said I was not grateful that humanity advances very slowly after each Centennial.”
I swallowed the lump of nerves in my throat. I suppose I could see her perspective, if I didn’t think about the millions of people that died on the last Centennial. That had been one of the strongest pieces of evidence when the SPU began to form that the Centennial was not an event to disregard lightly– death certificates and missing persons reports that all stemmed from a single day, when millions of people across the world were killed in a flurry of freak storms.
“Yet some of us– the Precips, who are established to tether to the water and ice based Stormkind– are willing to abide by them. We will guard the humans, as the Primordials have asked us to. The Mistrals, however, have no such loyalty. They despise humans for torturing and slowly killing the Primodials that gifted them with control over the wind and dust Stormkind. They have chosen to reclaim the throne left open by the Primordials by using their ultimate weapon.”
“What is…” I knew the answer as soon as I asked the question.
The Guardians were amazing warriors. I had seen that from Hadrian, Ferno, and Turve. I hadn’t seen Vitae or Zephys fight, but they wouldn’t be carting those swords around if they didn’t know how to use them.
But I remembered the way that hurricane-Stormkind looked at the man who stabbed me– Mortis. How scared it had been of the black-eyed Guardian. The entire purpose of the Guardians was to control and restrain the Stormkind. If they were able to wield them half as well as they could wield their swords…
A shiver wracked my spine. I crushed the pillow to my chest.
“How are they going to use the Stormkind?” I whispered.
“I do not know,” answered Vitae. “The Precips and the Mistrals had a grave falling out two Centennials ago. We lost many of our brothers and sisters in arms, along with any communication we had to the Mistrals.”
As she spoke, I noticed Hadrian out of the corner of my eye. He was no longer leaning against the wall, but standing straight up with his arms binding his chest. The depth of the anger I saw in his eyes seemed fathomless. They were navy blue pits that threatened to swallow me whole and smother me if I looked at them for too long. So I looked away.
If Vitae noticed– and I was pretty sure she had– she didn’t say anything.
“Where do I fit in?” I whispered.
“I wish I knew,” she told me. “The man who attacked you– Mortis– is not known for his kindness to the Stormkind. We know the destructive nature of our charges, but we also treat them with respect. The men you encountered tonight do not have that kind of consideration.”
Vitae looked at me. “The blade that pierced you. It was crystal, you said?”
“Yeah, I mean, I think so. I didn’t have that long to look.”
She leaned closer and held her hand out toward my chest. Her eyes lifted, seeking permission. “May I?”
My first reaction was hell no, since I didn’t know what she was going to grab, and I didn’t want her feeling me up with Hadrian watching. My second thought was that of all the things I could think about, that should have been the last.
The third and final thought was that I was chained up, and there was no way I could stop her from touching my chest, let alone strangling or punching me or whatever else she intended to do.
That being said, Vitae was obviously feeling less hostile toward me, and even though Hadrian was having some kind of inner turmoil, he’d brought me pillows, blankets, and food. I was a prisoner, but they weren’t hurting me. They were scared of whatever I was, and what I could do.
I lowered the pillow into my lap and nodded slowly.
Vitae’s fingers curled around the collar of my shirt and gently pulled it down. I blushed a little, knowing Hadrian was watching. I tried to tell myself I didn’t really care if he saw my exposed chest– I had nothing by the way of curves to display– but the most I had ever done with a boy was at one of Piper’s parties last year. There was some sloppy kissing and a couple awkward gropes before I realized I needed to get the hell away from him. I don’t know what I wanted from Hadrian, assuming I should have wanted anything… but it wasn’t that.
Though when Vitae pulled my shirt collar down to the beginning slope of my left breast, all thoughts of Hadrian vanished.
Ever since that awful night in the hurricane, I had noticed the weird scar. I hid it from everyone, tried not to think about the skin that shouldn’t have healed so quickly. It was engrained in my mind– a raised white path of skin over my heart.
The scar was still there, an ugly patch of rippling skin and bumpy spots. I looked closer, and saw that the ripples resembled the sigil of the Mistrals, and the spots looked like the teardrops from the Precips sigil. I hadn’t noticed that before, because I had never seen their sigils. I just thought it was a weird scar.
Now I knew it was something so much worse.
“What– it– it didn’t look like that before.” My voice was shaking. “Why did it change?”
Vitae sighed and slowly released my collar. She reclined in her chair as if all her energy had been drained. “I do not know, Ava. If you were to be marked, the scar should have resembled the one you became tethered to. Instead, your scar is a combination of water and wind, and I have no understanding as to why. I am sorry.”
I pulled my collar down and rubbed the scar. I hadn’t even felt it change. It didn’t hurt, but I didn’t want it there. I wanted to scrub my skin until it was gone.
“I wish I knew how you fit into this,” Vitae told me. “I do not know how it is possible for you to be human with Stormkind powers. Because of that, I do not know how to reverse it.”
Hopelessness crushed in my chest. “There has to be a way though, right?”
Vitae shook her head. “If there is, Mortis is the only one who knows it. And he is not likely to share.”
Tears pricked my eyes. I looked between Vitae and Hadrian for answers, for some kind of pipe dream, anything to make me believe I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life like this– some warped hybrid with the power to create storms, who couldn’t touch anyone without being afraid that she would suck them dry of their very life.
Vitae, as if reading my thoughts, stood up from her chair. “For what it is worth, I do not believe that you can harm us or anyone else unless you choose to use your powers. I will have Hadrian remove your chains momentarily. But you cannot leave this place until we know exactly what you are capable of, and what Mortis has created you for. You touched Hadrian first, which means you are tethered to him. He will show you how to contain your gifts. As you are still human, you will likely be an adept st
udent.”
“But–”
“Ava,” the harsh commander I had met was back in full force. Vitae wasn’t going to take no for an answer. “Mortis has been following you. It is never wise to be on his radar. Your only chance for safety remains with us. Until we have formed an effective plan to combat Mortis and keep his Stormkind from destroying the world, you have no choice but to remain in these walls.”
The tears I’d been holding in my eyes betrayed me. They slipped down my cheeks and dropped from my chin. Neither Vitae nor Hadrian seemed to notice or care. She was a stone, and he was a boiling volcano.
“I shall see to it that you are fed and provided new clothing. The showers still work, so I will escort you to the baths when you need to wash yourself. I know this is unconventional and disfavored, but please remember that you are safe with us, Ava.”
With that, Vitae turned and left the prison cell. Hadrian uncrossed his rigid arms and shuffled toward me. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and withdrew a small key. He knelt in front of me and looked in my eyes.
“Do not fight me, Ava.”
His tone wasn’t sharp or aggressive, but he didn’t leave room for argument, either. We both knew I was trapped.
Hadrian unlocked me from the wall and removed the cuffs from my wrists. They were a little sore, but not chafed. Though I barely noticed the pain because of the ache in my heart. I scrambled to gather the pillow in my arms again, needing something to hold and knowing it couldn’t be Hadrian.
He pulled the chains from the wall and dropped them and the cuffs into the tote bag. I saw him moving, though my eyes were fixed on the ground. I couldn’t get the tears to stop. I felt him lift the blanket from the cot. He unfolded it and wrapped it around my shoulders without a word. For whatever reason, it made me cry harder.
Hadrian knelt in front of me again. I dropped my eyes to his chest, wishing the tears would stop. Then his hand lifted and reached for my face. I flinched and shuffled back. He hesitated, as though he realized I was worried about hurting him.
I thought he would do the smart thing and pull away. Instead, his fingers deftly smoothed down my cheeks, wiping the tears away. My sobs were painful in my chest.
“Hadrian, please…”
His thumbs stroked my cheeks idly, with heartbreaking gentleness. I could tell that his hands were rough and callused from centuries– millennia– of fighting, but all I could feel was the warmth in his palms and the softness of his fingertips. He kept my face in his hands until I felt I could breathe again.
Then he pulled away.
“I am sorry for the way I treated you,” he said. “And I am sorry for the way I will continue to treat you.”
There was a pinch in my chest, a pain that spread into an ache when he stood up, gathered his things, and left me alone in the darkness of my cell.
It didn’t take long for the tears to start again.
Chapter 7
The only consolation I had was that the Precips kept their word the next morning. I was fed, given new clothes that had probably belonged to Vitae, and was taken out of my cell to be trained by Hadrian.
Not that he was very chatty when he came to collect me. He met me in the hallway outside the showers and told me to follow him. That was the extent of our conversation as we walked to the outdoor gym. He was wearing yet another tight black shirt, but had swapped the jeans for black sweatpants. Both of his swords were strapped across his back, the rain-and-sword sigil of the Precips printed on the exterior of the scabbard.
I trudged behind him, keeping my eyes on the swords so I wouldn’t look at any other part of his excessively toned body, above or below the waist.
I hated my hormones for the way they acted around him. After all, I was supposed to be blisteringly angry with all of the Precips, and Hadrian in particular. Instead, Zephys had cooked me pancakes for breakfast, and Vitae had offered me some of her best soaps when I showered. For beings supposedly older than the dinosaurs, they had surprisingly human tendencies.
Which of course, sprouted a thousand new questions. I couldn’t stand the silence as we walked, and even though I didn’t think Hadrian would answer anything I said, I was compelled to try.
“Yesterday Vitae said that you have families,” I said.
Hadrian’s shoulders tensed, but he didn’t turn around. He walked a little quicker, but I was able to keep up.
“Do you have a family?”
He marched on. I changed tactics. “I mean, if Zephys is some kind of distant cousin and Vitae is your sister or girlfriend, or–”
“They are not. I am the only one left of my family.”
That shut me up pretty quick. “Oh. I’m really sorry, Hadrian.”
I winced. Pathetic, pathetic, what are you thinking, you tell someone you’re sorry when you’re late for a meeting, not when they’ve lost their entire family–
“Stop thinking about it, Ava.”
Right. The mind-reading thing. There was something I could ask about without risking any emotional damage. Hopefully.
“How does the mind-reading work? Can you hear me all the time?”
“No,” he replied as we reached the end of the hall. “Only when I choose to. Telepathy is part of the tether. We connect to it and it allows us to communicate with the Stormkind.”
That shocked me. “They can talk?!”
“No,” he answered, taking back that shock. “Their minds are simpler. The Stormkind were modeled after humans, a test for the race the Primordials wished to create. They understand a few basic emotions. Need, hunger, fear, contentment. We know how to predict their movements when we pursue them, because when they are not causing destruction, they are looking for it. They travel through the air looking for areas with a high populace before landing on earth and restarting their hunt. Their actions make them akin to what you know as zombies. They think only of the hunger and the hunt. This might make them sound frightening–”
Might? I thought.
Hadrian glanced at me and continued, “But ironically, they are much easier to read than human minds.”
“Can you read anyone else?”
“No,” he told me as he reached for the door. “Only you.”
“Does the tether go both ways? Am I able to read your mind?”
Hadrian’s shoulders bunched. He whirled around, a fierce spark bursting in his deep blue eyes.
“Do not try to read me, Ava. It will test my very, very limited patience.”
Meaning yes I could, but he would make my training much more difficult, if not impossible. Any softness or favors he might offer me would be void. He could even hate me.
“I’m just trying to understand you,” I said quietly. “You were all over the map yesterday. First you were angry, then you were kind, then you were angry again, then kind again, and now there’s this–”
“I do not want your understanding. I am here to show you how to control your abilities as a Stormkind hybrid. It is my duty to teach you how to resist any urge you might feel to create a storm from the energy around you, so you will not lose control and seek to devour any life-force you set your sights upon.”
I would have called him out and told him to stop being a jackass– among many other things– if I hadn’t heard the bitter, hate-filled way he’d said Mortis’s name yesterday. Sure, I was never going to be a fan of the guy who stabbed and tortured me, but I was scared of him. Hadrian didn’t seem to be. He looked a second away from exploding.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Mortis had something to do with the deaths in Hadrian’s family.
“Look,” I said. “This is day one of my training. You’re not the only one who has problems. The least you could do is pretend to be nice to me again.”
Hadrian’s eyes ignited, but he didn’t say anything. He pushed open the door leading to the gym, and held it open for me. He shot me an impatient glance. I put a little too much effort into my smile.
“See?” I remarked with an overabundance of cheer as I p
assed him, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Hadrian rolled his eyes and shook his head. My phony smile turned a little more real.
I looked ahead, grateful to be outside and away from that box. I know there aren’t any good places to sleep in a prison, and the extra pillow and blankets made the cot way more comfortable, but I was a girl who lived for the outdoors. My favorite things in the world were walking to the beach, feeling the sun on my skin and the sand between my toes. I loved the smell of dewed grass in the morning and the scent in the air before a rainfall. Being trapped alone in the dark wasn’t my cup of tea.
The outdoor gym was near the entrance of the prison yard, a desolate space of cracked concrete, dead grass, bent basketball hoops, overturned picnic benches, and rusty bleachers. Wrapped around the yard was a twenty-foot chicken wire fence with coiled barbed razor wire at the top. I wasn’t worried about it being electrified, because the power was still out. It wasn’t like anyone was going to bother with a providing power to a prison, anyway. Not when we could cook with fire and gas grills for the next little while. If the cavemen could do it, so could we.
My eyes lifted and I took in the clouds over my head. They didn’t look menacing yet, but I knew how fast the weather could change. Right now, there was no trace of a blue summer sky anywhere.
“How do you tell the difference between a natural storm and one caused by the Stormkind?” I asked.
“A good question to start your lessons,” replied Hadrian. I almost jumped when I heard how close he was. If he took another step, his chest would be flush with my back.
If he noticed, he didn’t say anything. He stood beside me, closed his eyes, then inhaled deeply. He released his breath after a moment and looked skyward. “Do you smell that?”
“Huh?” I was a little too transfixed by the way his face relaxed, the smoothness of his skin, the way his hair brushed against the top of his spine when he tilted his head.
Heat filled my body when he turned those one-of-a-kind blue eyes on me. “Look up and take a deep breath, Ava. Smell the air.”