Mark of Four

by Tamara Shoemaker

  Malachi.

  She reached, strained her whole being, but she couldn’t reach far enough. Her mental processes felt slow, sluggish. Jayme was gone. If she could just reach the edge of the falls.

  Alayne stepped into the water, her shaking legs lifting and floating with the current. From the hill beside her, she sensed Malachi watching her, silent.

  She reached the edge and clung to a rock, taking in the foaming spray, the long drop to the rocks at the bottom, the deep, deep black pool of water two hundred feet below.

  Alayne shook her head, struggling to think. There was no way he would have survived the drop. He hadn’t twisted the elements when he fell, just as she hadn’t bent them when the knife had passed her face. Neither of them had expected a physical weapon; they’d both been so caught up in the elements that the knife had slipped through their defenses, and Jayme’s life was forfeit. Even if he had managed to bring a wind and escape the sharp rocks at the bottom, the dagger ... the dagger to the center of his chest...

  He’s dead, her heart whispered. Dead, dead, dead. She turned empty eyes up the hill to where Malachi slowly stepped down the slope toward her.

  He was no longer a threat. No one mattered anymore, not the advancing killer, not Daymon, Clayborne, the Vale, her abilities, Kyle, Marysa, any of it. It was all a cruel joke, and she would wait for someone to laugh and explain that it was a mistake—that what had passed was simply a dream. She would wake up in her dorm room and head down to breakfast to meet Jayme, and he would laugh at her when she told him her nightmare. He’d pull her close and tell her once again that he wasn’t going anywhere.

  From a long way away, Alayne felt Malachi’s huge hands grip her shoulders and turn her to him. She looked through him into nothing.

  “Hey,” Malachi snapped his fingers in her face. “Hey, snap out of it, girl. Get yourself out of la la land; we gotta get moving. I still want to pay my respects to your parents.”

  Alayne stared dully at him. A tiny portion of her brain clanged alarm bells, but they were muted behind the heavy weight that dragged at her thought processes.

  Malachi pursed his lips as he eyed her. “I’d say you’re dead on your feet. Gone into shock or whatever it is they call it. Well, so much the better. There’ll be less tussle gettin’ you out of here.” He leaned over, sweeping her into his arms, one under the back of her knees and the other around her back. The blood that still seeped from the wound on his shoulder stopped immediately as he held her, though the lacerations didn’t noticeably change. He nodded with satisfaction. “Seems like you’re gonna be even more use than I had thought.” Instead of heading for dry ground, he gripped the water elements and yanked them into a powerful bend, allowing the water to lift him to its surface.

  Alayne felt as if she were watching from outside herself. She could feel the element bend, but it was as if someone else took note of it, not her. She couldn’t seem to wake herself up.

  They approached the head of the falls at a swift pace, faster and faster, until they’d reached the brink, and they shot out over it into the void. Instead of dropping as Jayme had done, they stayed straight, the water carrying them across the valley far below into the blackness of the night.

  Alayne vaguely wondered how far the water would stretch, when Malachi would be tired of holding both their weights. She wondered if he’d drop her like so much baggage.

  A streak of color shot through the air from the mountain. It came so fast, Alayne couldn’t decide what it was, but all at once, she was thrown out of Malachi’s arms. She tumbled toward the ground.

  Alarm bells were really clanging now. Alayne glanced down as she fell. The smooth grass of the prairie swiftly approached. She reached for the air element, inwardly struggling against her sluggishness.

  She didn’t reach fast enough. Suddenly, Daymon was there; he grabbed her around the waist, his face angry. “What are you trying to do? Kill yourself? If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying hard to keep you alive.” Alayne looked around, amazed. They were floating about a hundred feet above the valley. Behind them, the waterfall roared. Malachi hung on his pool of water a hundred feet above them. He was heading their way. “I’d appreciate a little help.”

  “He’s coming,” Alayne whispered, watching Malachi over Daymon’s shoulder.

  Daymon immediately dropped like an eagle that had spotted its prey, braking only when they were about ten feet above the ground. He let go, and Alayne tumbled the last few feet, knocking her teeth on her tongue when she landed. She tasted blood.

  The adrenaline she had been lacking coursed through her veins all at once, and the fog lifted. Jayme, she silently screamed. Fury darkened her vision. Malachi hung above her, warily watching Daymon, who had notched himself comfortably in mid-air, directly between Malachi and Alayne.

  “Come and get her, Malachi,” Daymon yelled. “I dare you.”

  Malachi threw back his head and laughed. “Well, you do got cheek, boy. I’ll give you that. But this time, you’re in way over your head, and I ain’t givin’ up first. You sure you wanna take me on? I got the drop on you in age and experience. You run away now, and you might live to tell somebody ‘bout how you stood up to Simeon Malachi.”

  “You sure do have an inflated view of yourself, old man.”

  Alayne’s mouth twisted into a faint smile. He’d been very careful to emphasize old.

  Malachi must have thought it was funny, too. He roared with laughter. “Bring it, kid. Let’s see what kinda stuff you’re made of.”

  Behind Malachi, a strip of sod peeled off the valley floor as the wind shrieked into it. The long grass came loose and shot toward Malachi at lightning speed. It hit his face, shoulder, and back with so much force, it embedded itself into his skin. He looked like a porcupine. Thin trickles of blood ran from the tiny holes made by the grass. Malachi slapped at the stings, his expression changing from amused tolerance to snarling hatred in half an instant.

  The next second, he dropped out of the sky, the water reaching the ground before him and creating a pool into which he could crash. A huge wave splattered the prairie grass. He leaped from the pool and twisted it into a spinning circle, lengthening it, shaping it until a cyclone of water towered fifty feet in the air.

  Daymon dropped to the ground between the water cyclone and Alayne. Without looking at her, he snapped back over his shoulder, “Would you please get yourself into some shelter? For the love of all that’s holy, you are sitting out in the middle of this prairie like you’re ready for a midnight picnic.”

  Alayne inched toward the incline behind her again, watching the water cyclone writhe toward Daymon, wishing she could help but knowing her presence distracted him. He looked impossibly small next to the towering maelstrom.

  Suddenly, he shot twenty feet to the left. Without the element bend, his momentum would have tumbled him head over heels through the grass, but the wind that had pushed him also held him steady from his bend.

  The water cyclone collapsed into a single horizontal sheet of ice, fifty feet across. It hovered atop the swirling leaves and then shot with lightning speed at Daymon.

  Who just as quickly took to the air again.

  It’s a game of cat and mouse, Alayne thought. Daymon’s good at dodging, but Malachi will get him in the end.

  She shivered. Concentrating, she pulled together a whirling cloud of sand from the valley’s topsoil and blew it toward Malachi. He had expected something from her direction; the sheet of ice that had missed Daymon was instantly back in his control, and he covered himself inside a solid sphere of clear ice. The sand hurtled fruitlessly against the barrier.

  Daymon sent a great whirling gray cloud hurtling into a tornado. It turned black as it picked up dust and blew right over the sphere of ice where Malachi hid, whirling there in place. Daymon’s face strained, and he kicked the ground in disgust. The tornado collapsed into nothing, raining rocks and debris all around.

  Malachi’s ice cage stood fast.

  Something co
ld latched itself to Alayne’s ankles. She glanced down, gasping in horror. Malachi still pulled the elements from inside his cage, while his ice remained impervious to attack. The water from the waterfall and river had left its bed and crept over the flat land to her feet. Now they were encased in a solid block of ice, and when she reached for the water element, she could not touch it.

  Well, at least he can’t keep the other elements away from me. She concentrated as she raised the temperature in her legs and feet. She increased the heat, and her skin turned a rosy red. She’d have burns after this—well, at least for a second or two until the Vale healed them.

  The ice against her legs turned back into water, and her legs came free. She blasted the remains of the ice with a huge fire ball.

  Daymon still pummeled Malachi’s ice cage with great gusts of turbulent wind, but nothing worked. Alayne motioned to him to wait. He stopped.

  She filled her palm with fire, adding more and more until an inferno towered above her head. With all her strength, she hurled it toward Malachi’s ice cage. It wasn’t nearly far enough. She reached for the air element, but Daymon was there before her.

  The wind shrieked, blowing the fire ball directly at Malachi’s ice.

  As soon as the fire hit the cage, Alayne grabbed the element bend from Daymon and pulled it into a circle. Tongues of fire circled the cage, cinching tighter and tighter until flames licked the ice structure all around.

  Alayne and Daymon watched with satisfaction as the ice began to melt. Through the blurry ice in the flickering brightness of the flames, Alayne could see the strain on Malachi’s face as he struggled to hold his element.

  It did no good.

  The fire burned hotter and hotter, and the wind circled continuously as the ice melted.

  Suddenly, Malachi let go, and the element snapped back like a giant rubber band. The ice cage collapsed in a great wall of water on top of Malachi, and he dropped and rolled out from under the whirling fire. He sprinted up the foot of the mountain.

  Alayne thought they’d won, but as Malachi ran, he threw spears of jagged ice from the river behind him. They sped toward Daymon and Alayne like streaks of white light. Alayne dodged three of them, but they kept coming. Malachi ducked between trees, his form less and less visible as they swallowed him.

  She had to follow him. She leaped into a sprint, but she heard a grunt behind her. She whirled around.

  A spear had caught Daymon in the thigh. Blood soaked his shorts, and he buckled. “Don’t go after him, Alayne,” he yelled through his gritted teeth.

  “He is not getting away with this,” Alayne snapped. Ignoring his frustrated yell, she sprinted toward the mountain.

  Malachi’s flannel shirt remained barely visible as he leaped up the hill. She reached the sharp incline, but Malachi had disappeared over the ridge.

  Alayne closed her eyes, her steps stuttering to a stop. “I’m sorry, Jayme.” She’d failed him, failed him utterly. Now the only thing to do was to make sure that the man who had killed him paid for it with his life.

  She reached for the element beneath the mountain and strained. The ground began to shake. Alayne pulled harder, gasping with exertion. The rocks shifted underneath the mountain, and Alayne almost lost her grip on the element. Gritting her teeth with determination, she pulled with all the strength she had and more that she didn’t know she had.

  With a terrific grinding, screeching creak, the earth opened below the mountain.

  Alayne watched in awe as the mountain slowly collapsed. Rocks fell first; the waterfall where Jayme had disappeared tipped sideways, tumbling in slow motion. The boulders and dirt buried the water as it fell. Trees tilted and turned root-side up. With a great shifting and grumbling, the mountain settled into a huge, spread-out pile of dirt, rock, and debris. A cloud of dust wafted upward in the dark, blotting out the moon overhead. Then the only sound was the leftover pebbles that hadn’t yet found a home, trickling through the loose dirt.

  “Eh, you weren’t too bad.” Daymon’s voice behind Alayne was filled with grudging admiration. She turned to him. He stared at the gap in the mountain range. The top of Clayborne’s spire stood in the distance.

  Alayne didn’t answer. After a long moment, she reached for the bloody gap in Daymon’s jeans where the ice-javelin had impaled him. He’d ripped it out, and blood had plastered the jeans to his leg in a glistening sheath. Her fingers parted the material, and she softly touched the jagged wound, sliding her skin gently over his leg from the top of the cut to the bottom. His flesh sealed together seamlessly, and soon the only evidence of a wound was the blood that still saturated his clothes.

  Alayne’s knees trembled. Tears filled her eyes; Daymon was a blur on a watery canvas. She turned her back on the school and began walking. She didn’t stop until the sun crested the peaks, shooting its brilliant rays across the shallow dips and swells of the land. She suddenly sat down amid the prairie grasses and curled into a fetal position.

  Daymon woke her at midday and carried her on the wind back to Clayborne.

  Chapter 30

  Alayne lay, lax in Daymon’s arms, shock hazing her mind. He carried her seamlessly through the air element. She tried to recover, to take control herself, to gather her ragged edges, but a cloud had misted her head.

  Jayme was gone.

  Marysa was gone.

  She’d failed them both. She, the Quadriweave, had been too slow, too late, too stupid, too everything and too nothing to keep them safe.

  She couldn’t cry, and for the first time, she wished she could. Anything to dissolve the burning ache that hardened in the center of her chest. She writhed inwardly from the pain.

  Daymon muttered a curse under his breath.

  Alayne roused herself. “What?”

  Daymon pointed at Clayborne’s spire.

  The place was in chaos. The surrounding fields were a mosaic of fire-walkers and students. Near the support leg, Professor Brinks was in pitched battle with six fire-walkers. Other professors were scattered across the grounds, and someone had apparently gone for help. Boats and shuttles from the Continental Guard lined the river and the fields, and uniformed Elementals faced off with fire-walkers everywhere.

  Daymon dropped steeply from the air near the riverbank. As soon as he landed, he set Alayne on her feet, his hands on her waist steadying her. “Alayne, can you get up to your room without help?” Two fire-walkers tackled a Continental Guard right next to them, and the man went down, screaming in pain.

  Scared, she might be. In shock, she probably was. But by all that was holy, she would not go down without a fight. Two of the people she loved best in the world had died under her watch. No more.

  In answer to Daymon’s question, she dug into the water element of the riverbed. A huge wave roiled up, dousing the guard and the two fire-walkers, flattening several other fire-walkers who struggled along the river bank, and rocking the Continental Guard boats in their berths.

  “I’m going to help,” she shouted at Daymon.

  She sprinted down the riverbank toward a large group of fire-walkers that struggled with several professors. Manders was among them, his glasses askew as he ruptured a geyser from the ground, flinging it toward the fire-walkers.

  It doused some of them, but not enough. The remaining ones threw their fire to their downed partners, who revived and joined the fight again.

  Alayne and Daymon arrived at the fight at the same time, Daymon hurling himself into the thick of things, blowing his uncle’s water at the nearest fire-walkers. Alayne yanked the earth beneath the walkers. She raised a long strip of sod, dropping it on top of them to smother them beneath the dirt.

  Manders glanced her way, surprised. “Alayne, are you all right?” he shouted.

  “I’ve been better,” she yelled back, hauling another wave of water toward a group of fire-walkers that sprinted toward them.

  Manders shouted, “Corral them to the river, Daymon! The ones in the spire, we’ll force into the pools!” He da
shed toward the spire, followed by several other professors.

  Alayne whirled to survey the landscape. More shuttles arrived with the Continental Guard streaming from the hatches, and the air was a frenzy of elements. Currents of air, fire, water, and earth flew every which way, and Alayne slammed the elements this way and that, concentrating on the bright spots of fire-walkers, clearing the path for anyone else. She blocked out any thoughts of Jayme or Marysa; she focused on what was happening around her.

  Manders stood on the steps of the spire with the professors and the Continental Guard streaming past him. He stared past Alayne, horror in his gaze.

  Alayne turned.

  Boulder-sized rocks and a massive geyser of mud spewed from the near bank of the river. Alayne’s eyes widened as a figure emerged from the mud, slinging it off of him in a wave.

  Malachi.

  For a long, eternal moment, Alayne couldn’t move, couldn’t even reach for the elements. She had collapsed a mountain range on top of this man, and yet, he approached, charging up the bank and roaring in triumph.

  He’d spotted her. She moved her frozen fingers to the elements, stripping aside the shock. The river reached out to drag him back into its bed, but he had none of it. He ripped the water from her grasp and surged the river downstream, where it sloshed over its banks in a mini-tidal wave.

  Manders and Daymon appeared on either side of her. “Use the other elements, Layne,” Daymon yelled. “We’ll distract him.”

  “I don’t think so, boy,” Malachi shouted as he threw a shield of ice in front of a whirlwind that Daymon hurled his way. As the whirlwind flew by harmlessly, Malachi flung the shield at the three of them, but Manders exploded it before it hit them.

  Alayne peeled around to come at Malachi from behind. He countered the move, running to the side where he could see all three of them.

  Alayne ignited her hands and sent fire streaking across the grass. Malachi dodged it, but only barely, dousing it before it could hit him. His face was hard with concentration.

  Alayne slung the resulting mud at his face, hoping to blind him, but he sliced it away and sent a barrage of ice-javelins at her. She slammed onto the ground as she dodged them, rolling to her feet.