The Tempting Touch Of Fire (Elemental Awakening, Book 1)

by Claire, Nicola

  I scrambled to smother the blast of liquid fire; the Earth responding to my command, but immediately seeking Theo's death in the next instant. For every directive I gave it, the Gi worked to circumvent my attempts. If it wasn't for Theo's own abilities, he would have succumbed by now. But at least my efforts were not making it easy for the Gi either.

  Still, neither Theo nor I could prevent the onslaught completely; there were simply too many Gi to fight. I needed to do more than just command the Earth.

  I rounded to face the closest of those Ekmetalleftis surrounding us and screamed, "Stop!"

  The Earth groaned and protested, but didn't cease its assault on Theo and Aktor. I couldn't reach the old man, but he was somehow holding his own. I think that was because the Gi knew he wasn't the greater threat. I shouldn't have reached for Theo's hand when they arrived. I shouldn't have shown them how close we were. It had been a tragic mistake. They were relentless in their attacks on him now. Because of me.

  He managed to dodge a few more blows and block others with his Fire. I succeeded in diverting those roots that shot unexpectedly out of the ground with a harsh blast of concentrated soil to break or divert their projection. But if I was tiring from the effort each counterstrike cost, then Theo probably was as well.

  Sweat coated his brow and ash covered his clothes. He was stumbling, and retreating, purely on defence and nothing more. And slowly, torturously, being taken further and further away from me.

  I fell to my knees, grasped the soil beneath my hands and pounded the Earth desperately. Stop! I commanded and a brief interlude of peace followed my words. Only to be shattered by a brightening glow of green from the Gi's eyes and recommencement of the ground rolling beneath us.

  I needed to use my blood, but I didn't have a thorny vine or sharp blade to slice my skin. I dug my fingernails into the flesh of my forearm, but they just left small crescent moon shapes and a minimal amount of red that refused to drip. And as soon as I started to call on the Earth for a thorny vine to aid me, the Gi struck again.

  And again.

  And again.

  And suddenly... they succeeded.

  Theo got swallowed by the ground so swiftly, all I saw was a flash of gold from his eyes as he disappeared. I couldn't breathe for fear. But adrenaline coursed through me, speeding my heart rate, escalating my respirations, and making panic become a friend. I reached deep inside myself, using the fear and adrenaline to focus my concentration. To command the Earth to bring Theo to the surface again. It took everything in me, and left me panting for breath and coated in sweat. But despite my effort, despite the adrenaline flowing through my veins, my attempt was still harried and therefore too unskilled. I was so desperate to save his life, my execution was less than perfect.

  Twice more he crawled out of the soil and clambered up the sides of a still deep pit.

  Twice more I had to pull on empty reserves to get the Earth to bend to my will.

  I was shattered and beaten. And so was Theo. How long had we been fighting? Seconds? Minutes? It felt like hours. We were losing and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

  I didn't even have time to wallow in that fact.

  A geyser erupted a foot away, just as Theo successfully - and miraculously - emerged from the pit. I screamed in utter defeat, as my command to the Earth, to push Theo in the opposite direction to safety, left him more harmed than saved. In my rush to avoid that lethal spray, I had injured him. The realisation of that almost hurt me as much as it surely did him.

  He looked terrible. Awful. Utterly exhausted in his own efforts to fight off attacks from magically appearing branches and vines, while he avoided the lethal spray of a geyser, or the boiling liquefied heat of lava. He managed to incinerate those branches and vines that I couldn't reach quickly enough, as they wrapped around his ankles trying to pull him beneath the ground, or towards the lava, again and again.

  And my attempts to rescue him were just compounding the effects.

  I wanted to cry. I wanted it all to end. But my desires meant absolutely nothing. I was a pawn, a chess piece, an insignificant part of a greater thing.

  And to top it off, all I could think, all I could repeat inside my head, was that my Earth, the Earth that talked to me and followed my commands, was trying to kill my Thisavros. I felt strangely abandoned in my hour of need. A desolate feeling that had no right to exist when we were fighting for Theo's life.

  I pleaded with the Earth to stop.

  I shouted aloud and in my head for an end to this madness.

  But still the Earth returned after each command, with renewed effort and a deathly presence to finish Theo off. The Gi were bloodthirsty in their attempts to separate me from Theo. They ignored all of my pleas. They hounded him in a wave attack, one after the other commanding the Earth in groups of ten or more at a time.

  The level of power they wielded when combined was unfathomable, neither Theo nor I had a hope of fighting them off. But still we both tried. Still he fought to get to me, laid down his life again and again to keep me at his side.

  It was like watching a piece of you get ripped away, ripped apart. Slowly destroyed. I used every ounce of energy I had left to battle them. To protect him. To save his life.

  But I was failing.

  Please don't die, I pleaded in my head, no longer able to cry the words aloud. Stay alive, I begged. For him. For me. Don't give up. But he couldn't hear me and even if he could, it wasn't enough. I wasn't strong enough to defend him and summon something suitable to cut my skin and spill my blood. The Earth had told me it needed my essence to fight this number of Gi. But I couldn't save Theo and give the Earth blood at the same time. It was too much, too many, they were too fast.

  They knew what they were doing; wearing me down, keeping me occupied, and ultimately, killing Theo in the process. I was so mad, but so tired, I couldn't even sob in distress.

  I don't know how much time passed, it had already felt like hours when Theo battled his way out of that pit, only to face a lethal geyser. And since then we'd fought thick roots and sharp vines, boiling mud pools and sulphuric smelling water fountains. And the rolling, groaning, tumbling soil of the Earth. Split asunder, moaning in pain, as though the Earth itself was being destroyed, not just the man I loved with all my heart.

  I'd already acknowledged Theo would die. I hadn't accepted it, but the kernel of that thought had taken root inside my mind, and like the insidious deathly branches that shot from the soil towards my Thisavros, it dug deeper and deeper into my psyche, threatening to suck me down into a bleak and dark abyss.

  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 closer, 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 lear
n, 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.