Born of Aether: An Elemental Origins Novel (Elemental Origins Series Book 4)

by A. L. Knorr

  I spotted a soft-cheeked woman scrolling on her cell phone and sitting on a bench by herself. "Excuse me," I said.

  She looked up. As she registered what she was seeing, her eyebrows pulled together with concern, then fear.

  "I'm not begging," I said, putting my hand up. "I don't want anything from you. I'm just wondering," I tucked a stray hair back behind my ear, "am I in Kyoto?"

  Her brows jumped from fearful to surprised. "You don't know where you are? Are you okay?"

  "Yes, I just need to get to a storage facility behind a post office in Kyoto. It's in the Hayashi district. Do you know if I am close?"

  "I don't know that area," she said. "But you are in Kyoto." She took a deep breath and a thoughtful look came over her face. She inhaled through her nose with more intention this time, leaning forward toward me as she did so. Was she smelling me? That strange scent that Toshi had loved so much?

  "Thank you," I said, and turned away.

  "Wait," she said. "Would you like me to put the address into my GPS for you?"

  My heart leapt with gratitude. When I turned back to her, her face looked completely different to when I had first approached her. The concern had melted away and she looked eager to help. "Would you?" I practically sighed with gratitude.

  "Of course," she said. She slid down the bench and patted the space beside her.

  I sat down and gave her the address. I peered at her phone and noticed the date on her phone. July 5. Shock jolted through me. I had ridden the Æther for a dozen days. I should be dehydrated, starving, and unable to move. But I felt good, energized even. Was the time indicative of the way Æther travel would always be? Or was it indicative of the deadline of my task? Questions I wished I had someone to ask.

  "There you are," she said, holding the phone so I could see the screen. A blue line on the map appeared, showing that I was less than ten kilometers away.

  "Looks like there is a train," she said, scrolling. "No, there are three trains you could take to get there."

  "Would you mind zooming out?" I asked.

  She pinched the screen to zoom out so I could see the layout of the city.

  "A little more, please?"

  She gave me a strange look, but did as I asked.

  I could now see the shape of the Kyoto harbor and which direction I had to fly.

  "Thank you, you've been so helpful," I said. I had enough information to get me closer.

  "That's all you need?" she said, her brow wrinkling. "Not the train schedule?"

  I smiled. "No, but thank you just the same." I got up.

  "Okay, good luck." Her voice was doubtful.

  I felt her eyes on my back as I made my way toward the discount store. With no money and no phone and no ID, my only option was to fly.

  I went back to the changing booth at the open market and was winging my way over the city once again within a few minutes.

  * * *

  "ID please," said the gruff man behind the desk at the storage facility.

  I swallowed hard and my heart began to pound. "My grandfather, Daichi, he sent you my thumbprint as identification. I shouldn't need to present you with paperwork. We chose your facility because of your state-of-the-art ID system." I hoped this was flattering to him. If he insisted on an ID card, I was screwed.

  He frowned, and slid his chair close to the computer on his desk. "Last name?"

  I told him for a second time. The seconds ticked by and I began to sweat, and not just from the warm summer afternoon.

  "Here we are," he said. "You are right. Fingerprint ID." He shoved a small black box with a transparent panel on the top toward me. "Right hand."

  I gave him my right hand and he took my thumb and pressed it to the panel, rolling it from one side to the other. A blue line of light rolled across the panel.

  He nodded, satisfied. "Door to the right of you," he gestured. "You know your code? If you don't then there is nothing I can do to help you," he warned.

  "Yes. I know it."

  A metal door clicked and swung open and I went through. A long hallway of small lockers stretched out under fluorescent lights. I found the box and put in the code.

  Relief flooded my limbs as the door popped open and I retrieved my backpack. I opened it and rifled through the contents. Cell phone (dead), cash (more than I felt safe carrying), photo ID, passport, sneakers, two changes of clothing, bank card to a bank I didn't recognize. Something crackled and I dug deeper and retrieved an energy bar. I smiled. Daichi could be thoughtful when he wanted to be.

  Listening for movement on the other side of the door, I decided it was worth the chance. I hid around the corner of a stand of lockboxes, took off my silk robe and yanked on underwear, the twill pants, a bra and a t-shirt. I was just pulling on the canvas sneakers when the door opened and a voice called, "Girl? You finished?"

  "Yes," I answered. I zipped my backpack shut and pulled it over my shoulder, my mouth dry. "All done." I appeared around the corner and left the locker-room as the man stood aside and held the door open for me. His eyes swept me from head to toe, noticing my change of clothes.

  I ignored his look of curiosity. "Can you tell me if there is a hotel nearby?"

  "Soiko Hotel," he grunted. "Two blocks." He jerked his head indicating the direction. "Can't miss the lights."

  I thanked him and left, hitting the ground running.

  * * *

  Soiko was by no means a luxury hotel, and my room was more of a pod with barely enough room to stand. But it had outlets, a bottle of water, a clean single bed, and a wifi connection.

  I plugged in my phone, kicked off my shoes and grabbed the water. I guzzled the entire thing and then collapsed backward onto the bed. I was tired, but considering how far I'd traveled, I felt remarkably good. I was in the right city, I'd retrieved my stuff, and I was within the time frame that the sword was still on display. So far so good.

  For the first time since I left Canada, my thoughts went to my girlfriends. As if it could read my mind, my cell phone chirped with messages for so long I wondered if it would ever stop. All of them were between Targa, Georjayna, and Saxony.

  Skimming the messages and photos that came through, I saw that they’d each arrived safely and were already embroiled in relationships and adventure. I smiled as I read Saxony’s descriptions of the children she was looking after, and how she’d already met a cute Italian man named Raf. Targa had sent through jaw-droppingly gorgeous photos of a red-brick mansion covered in ivy, and choppy gray seas with golden sand beaches. From Georjayna, the image of a tall, dark and handsome man carrying a bunch of broken windows against what looked like a garage. Jasher, she explained, was drop-dead gorgeous, and also a complete troll. Even the bad news made me smile. My friends were safe, cared-for, and having the kinds of adventures teenage girls were supposed to have.

  I considered texting the girls but decided to delay it until after I had the wakizashi. Questions were not something I had time or energy for at the moment. I tapped out an email to let Daichi know that I had arrived and was checked into the hotel.

  I looked up the museum on the map. I could take a high-speed train into the city center and go on foot from there. With any luck, the wakizashi could be in my possession by tomorrow. How I was going to go about stealing it, I had no idea. I'd have to formulate a plan when I knew what I was dealing with.

  I took a shower in the world’s tiniest bathroom, brushed my teeth, and crawled into bed naked and clean. As my eyes drifted closed, the faces of my friends faded away and other faces took their place. Toshi, Aimi, my parents. I was back in Japan, back home. Only it didn't feel remotely like home, and my parents and my fiancé were long-dead and buried. And Aimi? Was she still alive? Had she and Toshi had a good life together, or had she betrayed him or used him the way some Kitsune were known to do?

  6

  Toshi wasn't completely right about it being easy to convince our parents that we were perfect for one another. A few days after our secret engagement,
his father came to visit my father.

  Like us, Kito was descended of samurai-class and after studying tool-making under a master in Hiroshima, he was now one of the few remaining swordsmiths working under the Nihonto Tanrenkai, Japan's newly formed sword and forging society. Toshi worked as one of his sakite, an assistant. Kito was respected in Furano, Tottori, and beyond the Tottori Prefecture—as far away as Kobe and Kyoto.

  My mother ushered Aimi and me out the back while the men lit their pipes and settled in for a man-to-man discussion of dowries and family alliances.

  "And don't you dare eavesdrop at the windows. I'll know if you are there," my mother whispered as she sent us away. She didn't mean eavesdropping in human form. Aimi and I were notorious for taking our creature shapes so we could hide and listen to the adults talk. Mother had finally caught me when I had forgotten that birds do not look from one human to another while they are in conversation, following along with each speaker. Aimi would never have made such a mistake, but she had been a fox before she'd ever been a human, and I was a human who was trying to figure out how to be a bird.

  I protested my mother's kicking us out but she would have none of it. My skin felt clammy with anxiety and my stomach threatened to bring up my lunch of steamed fish and rice. Toshi's father Kito was a fierce man, a man I knew to be good and strong, but also to be hard and determined to have his own way. What if he had found fault with me? It was irrational. Toshi's father would have barely known I existed until Toshi, or Toshi's mother on his behalf, brought me to Kito’s attention.

  "Come on, Akiko," Aimi said, taking my hand and pulling me toward the path that led down to the sea. "Don't worry. We know what the outcome will be."

  "We do?" I asked, my voice trembling. I craned my neck, looking back at the light in the windows of our home, tempted to take wing and find somewhere to perch in a rafter or just outside the shutters.

  "Of course. Why else would Kito have come unless it was to arrange a marriage for his son. Let's go swimming. It will distract you." Aimi picked a piece of long grass as we passed through the woods toward the ocean.

  "I don't feel like swimming." In point of fact I felt like vomiting.

  We walked in silence down to the beach where huge boulders lay scattered along the coast like some giant had long ago abandoned a game of marbles. Aimi scrambled up on one of the biggest ones, lifting her skirts high enough to expose her long pale legs. I climbed up after her, the smaller of the two of us. We sat down on the stone, warm from the sun. Aimi began to peel the grass into small green curls, whittling it down to a filament. She regarded me with her strange, moss-colored eyes. "You used to hate Toshi."

  "I never hated him," I said. "He was mischievous and annoying, but I never hated him. Besides, he is not that little boy any longer."

  She raised her eyebrows and gave me a sly look. "No, he's not." Her tone was pregnant with meaning. This was my Aimi. Everything she said meant more than just the words she spoke. Innuendo was her playground.

  I whacked her softly on the leg and almost smiled, but I felt too much worry to smile.

  "You are not the only person in our village to notice,” she said. “There are plenty of girls who like Toshi, girls who have spent the last few years not ignoring him, like you have." This was Aimi’s way to bring some thought into my head that had not arrived there on its own.

  "Who likes him?" I said, sharply. That day on the rock slab, there had been no doubt in my mind how Toshi felt about me, and I him. But now, doubt began to creep in.

  Aimi canted her head and gazed at me without answering. Her eyebrows crept slowly up her forehead.

  "You?" I blinked with surprise. "You never said."

  She shrugged. "The eligible men in our village have black hearts. All except for Toshi and his father. They are the only good ones."

  "All?" My head jerked back in surprise. "That can't be true." My mind skittered over the young unmarried men in our village, calling their faces up in my memory. It was the good-looking ones who came to mind first, fine faces with strong bones and good teeth. "What about Mitsuo, and Soichi, and Yuji."

  "Mitsuo has the emotional construct of a beetle, Soichi is a pervert and a liar, and don't talk to me of Yuji. He's a pirate, all he cares about is money. He would step on his own grandmother's face if he thought it would get him favor with his rich uncle."

  My jaw went slack at the conviction in her voice. "How do you know all this?"

  She laughed. "Little sister, I am a creature of the Æther. I can see into their hearts and the rot that lives there."

  "I'm a creature of the Æther, too. Why can't I see it?"

  "You will," she said, tossing the curls of grass into the waves and crossing her legs under her. "Give it time."

  "And you can see into Toshi's heart?"

  "I can," she said, looking at me unblinking.

  "What does it look like?"

  "Toshi's heart is a rare white pearl," she said. "It glimmers with all the colors of the rainbow. Light pours down from the Æther and into him as though filtering first through a crystal." Whenever she talked like this, I would stare hard at her, trying to winkle out whether she was playing with me or not. "There is only one other heart that is more beautiful."

  "Whose is that?"

  "Yours," she said, smiling at me in her crooked way, her fox’s eyes unblinking.

  I shoved at her shoulder. "This isn't funny. If you liked Toshi, why didn't you ever say anything to me?"

  "It's not up to me who Toshi marries," she replied. "You know that as well as I."

  I frowned. "So you would marry him if our father and Kito agree you are a better match?" Bright green jealousy oozed from my heart at the very thought of Toshi marrying anyone else, especially my sister.

  "Like I said, Toshi is a good man. The best to be had," Aimi answered, her voice sly.

  "Ugh," I groaned. "This is not a time to talk in circles. Would you agree or wouldn't you?"

  "Who am I to deny our parents?" She shrugged.

  "Don't do that," I said, picking up a pebble and whipping it into the ocean.

  "What?"

  "Pretend that you're subject to the laws of humans. You are Kitsune, you don't have to do anything anyone tells you to do. You could disappear tomorrow and start a whole new life somewhere else, with someone else, if you wanted to."

  "And leave all this? Our parents? You?" She was still avoiding answering my question. This was her nature. Aimi was as evasive as she was beautiful, as crafty as she was swift. She just didn't often turn her prevaricating ways on me. I enjoyed watching her ply them on others, but I had thought of myself as immune until now. "Come on," she said, sliding down off the rock and splashing into the shallow waves. She waded through the water to the beach.

  "Where are you going?" I got up and walked along the tops of the rocks to reach the sand. She strode across the beach away from me, her dark head bobbing as the sand got deeper. "Aimi," I huffed after her.

  Her dark head of hair rippled and disappeared, her dress collapsed into a heap on the sand. A big lump moved under the mess of fabric, trying to find an exit.

  I sighed. "I hate when you do that. You know I'm the one who will get stuck washing your dirty clothes." As the younger sister, my tasks were the most menial ones.

  A glossy blue-black fox the size of a large dog shook off the dress and looked over her shoulder at me, her tongue lolling out as she laughed. Her eyes were as bright as limes and her sharp teeth gleamed white. She flicked her tail and darted up the beach, over a moss-covered log and into the bush.

  I lifted my hands out to the side, pulled my arms rapidly into through the wide arm-holes of my robe, my body shimmering like a mirage in the desert. Wings, feathers, talons and impossibly sharp eyesight took the place of my soft human body as I phased into a kintail – a small but nimble bird of prey.

  I snatched at my dress before it hit the ground, carrying it in my talons to drape it over a dry rock. I picked up Aimi's dress, laid it beside m
ine, and winged over the woods, my kintail scream letting my sister know that the hunt was on.

  The woods had gone as quiet as a tomb. The presence of a large predator had silenced every rodent, bird, and nearby deer. Animals didn't know the difference between a fox and a Kitsune. Aimi had no interest in stalking and killing prey, not anymore. But as a girl Aimi weighed nearly a hundred-twenty pounds, and when she chose to take her full size as a fox, she was enormous. Large enough to give even another predator pause to attack her. She was solid blue-black with soft thick fur and a ruff around her neck. She was nearly impossible to spot when she hid in shadows. Her mistake was looking up at the sun to watch for me. The light would reflect in her bright green eyes and my raptor's vision could find her as I soared overhead.

  My shadow skimmed over the tops of our thick rainforest as I winged for the gorge. A small river gurgled over stones and fallen trees, rolling its way to the sea. The rubble of years of old avalanches had built haphazard natural stairs along the canyon. My head cocked as the sound of toenails scraping over stones echoed up to me. I banked left where a fissure in the rock met the river.

  From my vantage point I could see what Aimi could not, that the space between the rock walls ahead of her narrowed to barely a hands-width and she was flying toward it at full speed. My little heart leapt into my throat and I screamed a warning cry. She didn't slow down and I called again. She sped up.

  She hurtled toward the narrow gap, her black form shimmering into a fox the size of a kitten. She passed through the opening, her pelt skimming the rocks, and landed on the paws of a normal sized animal, smaller than her original shape. Aimi's unique fox-laugh bounced off the canyon walls, sounding like it was coming from everywhere.

  Screaming my applause and relief, I dipped lower as the running fox disappeared under an overhanging ledge and continued through the fissure, scrabbling over stones and then sliding into the trees like a ghost.