by Blooding, SM
She gave me a confused frown.
I let out a sigh of a chuckle. “He was a giant in my eyes, capable of conquering anything. So strong.”
Yvette nodded, a slight smile on her face. “Mother was the same, though—” She let out a ghost of a laugh. “She never harvested lightning.”
We shared a grin.
“Je ne peux pas le croire.”
I could understand how she couldn’t believe it. If I were in her shoes, I’d have a hard time with it too.
She stared into space, her smile lost. “I tried so hard to forget her.”
“I’m sure it was your way of coping with losing her.”
She was quiet. “Did you try to forget your father?”
I shook my head, my lips smashed out in thought. “I kept those memories to fuel my anger.” I pointed to my chest. “That’s the trigger for my Mark. Anger.”
She blinked.
“But now I wonder if it’s enough.”
“I should be happy,” she said with a confused nod.
“But you’re not.” I let one arm flop over my knee. “You’re—” I took in a deep breath. “—scared she might leave again.”
She nodded. “And I feel like she lied when she died.”
“And maybe hurt because she didn’t come to rescue you?”
“Even though I know—” She gestured to her head. “—that she ne pouvais pas.”
I agreed. Sabine would not have been able to do so.
“No one can find Sky City,” she continued, “so how could she have even tried?”
“And how did she cope with losing you?”
Yvette licked her lips. “They had other children after I was taken.”
“Your father?”
She shook her head. “My mother has a slew of men in her harem.”
That was something I didn’t know. “So now you feel cheated? That maybe she didn’t love you as much as you loved her?”
“I feel betrayed,” she whispered and looked at me in surprise. “And stupid for feeling that.”
I let my head fall back against the wall. “All I have left is a mother who never wanted me because she couldn’t see my Mark when I was a baby. She never even asked me to stay with her tribe for a turn. Father requested that Ryo, Oki and Makoto stay with him so that he could get to know them.”
“Unwanted.” Her hands were limp.
“Oh, she wants me now. Ryo’s concerned that I want to take head of Ino.”
“And do you?”
I shook my head, licking my lips. “Honestly, I want nothing to do with all of this. She wants me now that I have some worth to her?” I rubbed my nose. “No. Nuh-uh. I’m not going to make it that easy for her.”
Someone entered the hallway from the platform grate. He paused, searching the hallway, and then headed in our direction. It was Ryo. He studied the pair of us, standing at our feet. “Rough day?” he asked in Handish.
Neither of us said anything.
He shrugged. “Well, come on. You’re about to get some training on how to use those Marks of yours.”
I looked at him, startled. “I didn’t realize Kilak had cleared me.”
“Lots of things happen without us knowing.” He turned and headed back to the platform. “Sabine mentioned that you had no experience using your Mark and that it has almost vanished?”
I glanced at Yvette. “I need to learn to use mine,” I said softly so that only she could hear me as I got to my feet. “I’m not going to sit around and let others dictate how my life’s going to turn out.”
Yvette raised her chin, her pink tongue darting out.
I offered my hand.
After a slight moment, she accepted it. “Oui, maybe you’re right. After all, I now know that water didn’t kill my mother or our Family. They all survived.” She nodded, her eyes dim.
I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave a squeeze.
She responded by looking at me, the distance receding in her violet eyes. “Don’t think this means I like you. I still think you’re a bossy jerk.”
I grinned, dropping my arm. “And you’re still a prissy know-it-all.”
We joined Ryo on the platform. He shot me a playful smile and wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I shook my head and sent him a churlish glare.
He punched some buttons on the control panel, twisted the dial, and the platform sank.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
He sent me a glance from the corner of his eye. “We have workrooms a couple of floors down. Can’t hurt the lethara down here.”
“I didn’t think we could hurt the lethara anyway.”
“Yeah, well, the more we got to thinking about your Mark, the more we started to worry. You’re not fire. You’re lava. We’ve never pit our lethara against Lava Boy before.”
I glared, the pounding in my head finally receding.
He just grinned as the platform stopped and the grate opened.
“How is he?” I asked. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked before, but I’d been a bit busy. That was a horrible excuse. “Did he get any of the poison Joshua was talking about?”
Ryo’s sighed with a wince. “Yeah, he got it pretty bad on one side. That Keeley of yours helped a lot.” He watched Yvette’s reaction.
She didn’t have one.
He frowned in disappointment.
I shook my head and sent him a look that said, “I tried to tell you.”
He rolled his eyes. “He should be fine, we hope. It’s almost like a nerve agent. We think he might have lost three trunks, so we’re evacuating that part of the city, and there’s some partial damage to his medusa, but we seem to be maneuvering fine, so we’re hoping we caught it in time.”
I nodded. It had to be scary to think they might have to abandon their lethara if it had sustained too much damage. “But you think he’ll be okay?”
Ryo nodded.
The hallway we were in was brighter somehow. The tiled floor was a pale blue, the ceiling a bright green and the walls were…opaque.
Ryo led us through a wide arched doorway, into a room of letharan skin walls and brick columns. Ino Yotaka was waiting for us in the middle of the room, his hands clasped in front of him.
“Okay,” Ryo said, clapping his hands. “My job was to hunt you down and bring you here.” He bowed slightly at Yotaka. “My job here is done. Have fun. Ino Sensei,” he said to the teacher with respect, “good luck.” He flared his eyes in my direction and then left.
Yotaka stood, swathed in a black robe and pants, but said nothing.
Yvette looked over at me, her expression curious.
I shrugged.
We heard the metal grate grind again, and voices echoed in the corridor outside. We were joined by Keeley, Haji and Joshua.
Yotaka nodded and rose to his full height. “It has been brought to my attention,” he said in Handish, “that none of you know how to properly use your Mark.”
Joshua tipped his head, his expression bored. He shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking on the balls of his feet.
“Perhaps,” Yotaka said, his wise eyes missing nothing, “you think you do.”
Joshua shrugged. “Sure, I know how ta use my Mark. M’ father taught me before we were taken.”
“Then use it.”
Without more warning than that, a ball of fire appeared in the air and launched itself at Joshua.
His eyes widened. His Mark leapt off his arms, ripping his green shirt, and batted the fire ball. He roared in pain, doubling over, one hand clamped over his arm, and glared at Yotaka, the ball of fire hovering over his shoulder.
The teacher smiled with a nod, bringing the fire back to his hand. “Not bad. Not bad, Joshua-kun. Good reflexes, but what was the thing you did not take into consideration?”
“You’re a bloody mad man?”
Yotaka appeared to think about that and shook his head. “No. You failed to understand that you were fighting fire. What is the best way to put o
ut a fire?”
We all stared at one another, not quite sure where he was going with this.
“Come now, you are all great minds, schooled in the great Collegium of Sky City. What feeds fire?”
Was he talking science or magick?
“Synn,” he barked. He stood directly in front of me. “What feeds fire?”
“Air?”
He nodded and paced away. “What could you have done to fight the fire instead of calling the limbs of plants, Joshua-kun?”
Joshua blinked, his brain obviously not working to block out the pain yet.
“Air,” Keeley said. “He could have called up the element air and extinguished the flame by suffocating the fire.”
“But we don’t claim that element with our Mark,” Joshua said, straightening, his hand still clamped around his arm.
“But how did you raise a sand storm?” I asked.
He shook his head, looking very confused. “I called on the sand i’self. I just moved it.”
“Ah,” Yotaka said with a sage nod. “A good use of your Mark. So how would you do that here?” He gestured around the rather blank room. “How would you smother the fire?”
Joshua looked around and shook his head. “There’s nothin’ in here for me to use.”
“You could use the vines,” Keeley said hesitantly, “to create movement of air and manipulate it to create a bubble that would at the very least contain it.”
“Yes,” Yotaka said lightly. “Very good. Let’s try it.”
That was all the warning Keeley had before the fireball was launched at her.
Joshua leapt between it and his sister, his vines fluttering, creating a whirlwind of an effect. The fireball hovered in place but did not go out.
Yotaka’s eagle eyes narrowed. “This was not for you to perform, Joshua Bohrain, but for your sister.”
“She doesn’t use her Mark,” Joshua ground out. “Would you call back your flame, sir?”
He turned and paced away. “It is nice that you are willing to protect your sister, but she must learn to defend herself or she becomes a liability to your group.”
“She’s no liability,” Joshua said between clenched teeth. “She’s the ruddy brains.”
“Without the ability to act?”
Haji stepped in. “Who are you to tell us who has what rights? Can you not tell that she is terrified?”
“Of what?” Yotaka demanded, turning on us. “Of the fire? Of her shadow? Of her Mark?” A lash of flame erupted from his hand.
I raised my hand, my own lightning fire lashing out, whipping Yotaka’s flame from its course, my shirt bursting into flame.
Keeley didn’t move, her green eyes wide.
Yotaka slashed his hands to his sides, all fire extinguished in the room.
My lightning fire recoiled as Joshua pulled back his vines.
We all looked at each other uncertainly.
“Your Marks were awakened through fear, hurt and anger.” Yotaka walked in front of each of us, piercing us with his dagger gaze. “You fear them,” he roared in Keeley’s face before moving to Yvette. “You refuse to use them.”
Yvette curbed her flinch and straightened her back, glaring at him.
He moved to me. “You handicap yourself with toys and trinkets as a way of getting around using it.”
I shook my head and glared down at him. “It was the only way I knew how to use it. Teach me,” I yelled. “I am ready.”
He huffed, his eyes turning up. “Are you?”
I nodded. I had never been so sure of anything in my life. “I am. I’m ready to fight back with everything I have, not just with the parts of me that make sense.”
“And,” he gestured to everyone else, “your friends?”
“They’ll be ready,” I said quieter, but with no less conviction. “They were willing to escape. They’ll do whatever they must to stay away from the Hands.”
“Does this mean hiding?” Yotaka asked. “Or fighting?”
“Where can we hide?” Keeley asked quietly. She lifted her gaze to meet Yotaka’s. “When they can find us here in the furthest place that anyone could be?”
Yvette looked at her friend, but said nothing.
Haji narrowed his eyes and took a step back. “They killed my entire Family. There were few survivors. If all you’re going to do is stand around and cry when your mother—” he shouted, pointing at Yvette, “—is still among the living, then I am out of here, and I am going to find someone else who actually has the ability to stand up.”
He was going through a lot, but he was still my best friend. I moved to follow.
He pushed me away. “You left. And you chose them over me.”
I stared at him in confusion. “I chose the best way out of there.”
“And this was it? A plane without landing gear? No. You had no plan. You only knew you wanted to be with them. So go. Be with them.”
I turned and looked around the room. This was all wrong. “Stop!”
Haji turned and glared at me.
“What are we doing?” I demanded. “Look at us. What do we really hope to get out of any of this? What were you hoping for when you decided to build that plane?” I asked Joshua.
“To get my sister to a better place,” was his immediate answer.
“And you, Keeley, you helped him plan it. Why?”
She took a step closer to her brother, her fingers inching toward his hand. “He’s all I have.”
“And you, Yvette,” I turned to her with an open hand, “you wanted to explore the world, to discover it.”
“But I don’t know if I want to take on the Hands in order to do it,” Yvette said, taking a step toward me, pointing to the floor with one hand. “It’s one thing to want to explore the world, to see all the different things. But look at Varik. He’s evil. How do we fight that?”
“How do you think,” Haji demanded, advancing on her, “that you are going to be able to have the freedom to discover anything if the Hands are everywhere?”
“They’re not.” She looked to Joshua for backup. “They’re not.”
Joshua let out a long breath. “They are, Yvie. There’s nowhere left to hide.”
“I don’t want to fight.”
“Then do not.” Haji stared at her in disappointment. “But I thought there was more to you than pretty hair and fancy dresses.”
The room filled with an angry silence.
“We’re all scared,” I said.
Everyone except Yotaka looked up at me.
“Some of us are fighters, others would rather hide. But one thing I believe…” I recalled our times in the laboratory, how we interacted and solved problems together. “…is that we do better as a group.”
Haji rolled his eyes.
“You’ll see,” I told him. “Give them a chance. They proved themselves to me. I needed friends and you weren’t there.”
His nostrils flared and his jaw clenched.
“And that’s okay. But if we are the ones left of some of our Families,” I gestured to the Bahrains and Haji, “then let’s do something that will make the world remember why we’re members of the seven stronger Families.”
That didn’t seem to have any effect on them.
I licked my lip and remembered the image of my father burning. He’d been so strong even as his flesh curled. “Let’s do something to make them proud.”
Keeley looked to Joshua.
Yvette took a step closer to Haji.
Haji gave me a long dark look. But he stayed.
Yotaka nodded, a smile perched over his silvered triangle beard. I could almost hear him say, “Well played. Well played.”
CHAPTER 25
OH GOODY
Days turned to weeks. We trained every day relentlessly. Ino City was in perpetual motion, trying to stay one step ahead of Varik. All the letharan cities were on high alert and were in constant communication with Ino City. We had become a headquarters of sorts.
Our training ses
sions with Yotaka started out brutal but progressed to something else entirely. He showed us how to use each of our Mark elements without having to remove clothing, something that Keeley was very happy about as her Mark was on her chest and she didn’t enjoy having to bare it. She still refused to use it. Anything that brought up earth, she couldn’t do.
I could understand why.
Yotaka found other ways for her to use her element. Instead of concentrating solely on soil, she concentrated on growing things and healing. As her Mark was of hearth, there was a wide range of things that she could do. She practiced healing the lethara, and found she was quite successful at it. He regained the use of his full medusa and was starting to get back feeling and control of the three trunks that had been damaged. Ino City appreciated her work.
Joshua’s Mark was more of the earth kind. He could manipulate dirt and plants, though he was less interested in learning his Mark and more interested in creating new technologies. Yotaka would shake his head after fitful bouts of practice and send him away to play with his “toys.” He was the only one who still had to remove his clothing in order to work his Marks.
Yvette and Haji were working well together. Yvette’s Mark, obviously, was water. At the beginning of our lessons, her Mark had receded to three small rivers of blue on one shoulder, but as we practiced, they multiplied and coursed down one arm, across her shoulder blades and down the other, even spreading onto her back. As far as Marks went, hers was nearly as powerful as mine.
Mine was spreading as well, and now overtook my entire body, even creeping up my neck and onto my face. I looked…different. I hardly recognized the man staring back at me in the mirror.
Haji was still distant. His Mark was spirit, and according to him, it had presented itself during the winter years of the last turn. He’d been excited to rub it in my face when we met for spring festival, but that had never happened.
He was a different man than the boy I’d known, the boy who had been my best friend for so long. I think part of his frustration with me was that I, too, was different. He’d needed his friend. He’d lost nearly his entire Family, and he just wanted his best friend back. I wasn’t the boy I used to be either.