Elemental Heir (Ridley Kayne Chronicles Book 3)

by Rachel Morgan

  He hesitated. “Here? We could go back to—”

  “Yes, here, Archer. In the cold. In the rain. We’re not going anywhere near your Shadow Society friends.”

  He sighed. “That’s not what I meant, Ridley. I just—I thought you’d be more comfortable if—never mind.” He took a deep breath and wiped the sheen of moisture from his face. “My family has always been part of the Shadow Society. My father has been director for over a decade. My mother was once a member too, but she got bored of all the meetings and the politics, and Lilah was never that interested in being part of the official proceedings either. But my father made sure I was part of it all from a young age.

  “He always told us elementals were … unnatural. Twisted and perverted by the magic that constantly lived inside them. Intent on taking over and ruling the people who had no magic. It was our noble purpose to rid the world of them.”

  Ridley clenched her shaking fingers into fists. “So many lies,” she hissed.

  “I know. But back then, I believed him because … well, why wouldn’t I? Why would my father lie to me? I still don’t understand why he lied. Why he still lies. Sometimes I wonder if … if maybe he actually believes the things he’s always told me. It’s what the Shadow Society has taught its members for so long.”

  “So when you saw me all those years ago when we were children and I accidentally used my magic while in your home, you thought I was one of these twisted, evil people?”

  “No,” Archer said immediately. “No. That was the moment that planted the first seed of doubt in my mind. It was one thing when elementals were faceless evil people that the world would be better off without. It was entirely another when it was you, a person I knew. You were Lilah’s best friend, not some evil, inhumane being. So even though I knew I was supposed to tell my father, I didn’t. I told no one.”

  Ridley held his gaze as she nodded slowly. This, at least, she could believe. If Archer had told someone, the Shadow Society would have killed her years ago. “So you started doubting,” she said, “but that was years ago, and your father still seems to think you’re a loyal member of the Shadow Society. Clearly you never confronted him about the horrendous things he does to elementals.”

  Archer’s jaw tightened as his gaze slid away from hers. “It was just … it was easier to go along with things. Easier not to question. I thought maybe you were an anomaly. That I could put you into a separate category while still hating the rest of those faceless elementals.” He pressed one fisted hand to his mouth before continuing. “It’s terrible, I know. Horrible, shameful.”

  “Yes,” Ridley said harshly. “It is.”

  Archer nodded. His gaze had settled somewhere in the region of her chin. Or perhaps her shoulder or neck. Somewhere that wasn’t her eyes. “So when I finished school and went to France, it wasn’t just to take a year off and have fun. I didn’t accidentally discover that elemental community while hiking La Tournette. I was sent there when my father discovered it. To infiltrate, to gather information.”

  “Yeah, I figured,” Ridley muttered. “A long-term undercover operation, as your father reminded everyone earlier.”

  “Yes,” Archer answered quietly. “But I wasn’t lying when I told you that I started to change there. It just … it wasn’t in the way you assumed I meant. My father had warned me that elementals were master deceivers, but the more time I spent with them, the harder it was to believe. It seemed that everything he’d ever told me was untrue. And yet … how could my own father be so wrong? How could he have told me so many lies? I couldn’t quite believe that either, so I existed in this conflicted space for months.

  “When I returned to the city the first time, with that flash drive of information that I was supposed to pass on to one of the protectors, I was still planning to give it to my father instead. I may have spent most of my youth disregarding every rule my parents set, wasting their money, and generally making an art form out of caring as little as possible about anything, but when it came to Shadow Society stuff … yeah, disobeying my father wasn’t an option. It just wasn’t.

  “So even though I felt awful about what I was planning to do, I hadn’t yet realized that I could choose not to. My loyalty was to my family and to the Shadow Society, and that was just the way it was.”

  Archer finally met Ridley’s eyes. “So you went all that time without telling your father about me,” she said, “but then you were going to give him a flash drive that had my name on it.”

  Archer shook his head. “I removed your name. And Serena’s, and one other. I removed the names I recognized.”

  Ridley felt a jolt of surprise, then reminded herself once again that most of what came out of Archer Davenport’s mouth was a lie, so he might very well be lying about this too. “Great, so a few of us would have been safe, but you were happy for the others to die.”

  “Not happy, no. But yes, I was going to give up those other names. Because I was—I am—a terrible person. I didn’t think I had a choice. But then …” Archer’s eyes slid down once more, seeming to look through Ridley. “I was standing inside my own home, waiting for Dad to return from work, and it just … it didn’t feel like home anymore. And it suddenly hit me that every experience I’d had out there in the wastelands with people I was supposed to hate was genuine, real, full of hope. And I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t betray them like that. It was a terrifying decision, Rid, but it was such a relief.” He ran a hand through his hair, almost smiling for a brief moment. “But I was still too afraid to go against my father. Too afraid to confront him. I decided to pretend I’d never been there.

  “I had just made the decision when two men arrived at the apartment, responding to some security alarm I must have unknowingly set off. I suppose I could have let them see it was me. Told them nothing was wrong. Told them to leave. But … everything was still so confused inside my head. I had no plan. So that’s when I hid the flash drive—just in case they caught me—and ran.”

  “And that’s when my father helped hide you,” Ridley said.

  “Yes. I lied, just as I did to you, about how I’d accidentally found an elemental community. But everything else was the truth. After I left, when I eventually made contact with my father, it seemed he thought it was an elemental who’d broken into our home. So I went with that. Told him one of them had followed me, that I was risking blowing my cover, that I’d ended up losing the flash drive along the way. He told me to return to the elementals and continue gathering more information.

  “As the months went by, I had limited contact with him, and I made excuses about why I couldn’t return or why I couldn’t access certain information and send it to him. But eventually he became impatient and insisted I return home. I had to concoct a story about how my true intentions had been discovered just before I left, and how I’d had to fight my way out with magic and hadn’t been able to steal any information. I told him they had never fully regained their trust in me after I was unable to deliver the flash drive to the intended recipient in Lumina City.”

  “And of course he believed you,” Ridley said quietly, bitterly, “because everyone believes the lies Archer Davenport tells.”

  “Ridley—”

  “We stood in my living room and I asked you point-blank if you were part of the Shadow Society. Remember that, Archer? Do you remember how you denied it? Do you remember using the words ‘absolute truth’?”

  “It was the truth,” he insisted. “It just wasn’t the whole story.”

  “Right. And why exactly did you decide to keep the whole story to yourself when you could very easily have it explained it all right then and there?”

  “I just … I was ashamed, okay? You trusted me. Your father trusted me. So because of my stupid pride, I didn’t want to admit that I used to be one of them. And I was leaving it all behind anyway. I had planned to leave the city and my family and the society forever. They would never be part of my life again, and there would never be a reason for me to tell you wh
at had happened in the past. Especially since you and I weren’t that close yet. I mean, I … I knew I cared about you. More than I had expected to. But I didn’t know it would turn into anything. I didn’t know how close we would become. And I certainly didn’t know someone would discover the location of multiple elemental groups and tell the Shadow Society. I didn’t know I would be captured and dragged back to Lumina City.”

  “Where you’re still lying your way through everything.”

  “Yes. I don’t know where Jude Madson got his information from or how much more he knows, but I can’t exactly find out anything about future Shadow Society plans if they know he’s right about me betraying them all. I swear, Ridley. They’re the ones I’m lying to, not you. Please, please believe me. Even if—if you never … forgive me for everything I’ve kept from you … at least believe me.”

  Ridley shook her head and looked away. She wasn’t saying no. She wasn’t sure what she was saying except that everything hurt and whether she believed him or not, whether she forgave him or not, that didn’t change. In a small voice, she said, “Disgusting and unnatural.”

  After a moment of hesitation, Archer asked, “What?”

  “In the meeting. That’s what you said about our magic. My magic. You want to get rid of us and our disgusting, unnatural magic.”

  “Ridley—”

  “It wasn’t that long ago that you told me you thought it was beautiful.”

  “I do think that.” He moved toward her, and once again, she stepped out of his reach. “Rid, I was just telling them what they wanted to hear. Repeating their own words back to them.”

  “And when you used the word ‘beautiful,’ were you just telling me what you thought I wanted to hear?”

  “No. In fact, I figured you didn’t want to hear something like that—especially from me—but it was the truth and it slipped out.”

  Ridley released a long sigh and shut her eyes. “You’re such a great actor, Archer Davenport.”

  “This isn’t an act, Ridley, I promise. Nothing with you is an act.”

  His anguished tone was so genuine, Ridley struggled not to believe it. Perhaps this was the truth. The fact that he wasn’t currently knocking her out with arxium and dragging her back home to the director of the Shadow Society was a good sign. She opened her eyes again, thinking vaguely about the fact that putting the gas mask back on for this confrontation would have been a good idea. It hadn’t even crossed her mind until now.

  “I want to believe you,” she told him as she met his desperate gaze once more. “I really do.”

  “Please, Rid—”

  “And I think I actually do.” She pushed her hands through her damp hair. “Despite my better judgement, I think I do believe you.”

  “Thank you, Ridley. Thank—”

  “Which probably just makes me really stupid.”

  Archer shook his head, holding her gaze. “Every moment we’ve spent together recently was genuine. Every time I told you how I feel about you, it was real. You must know that.”

  Ridley wanted to look away, but she couldn’t. She wanted to cry, but she refused. “It doesn’t really matter. Even if everything you’ve told me is the truth—and even if I believe you—it doesn’t matter. Because I’m returning to the elementals and you’re not. This is the end for us.”

  Archer turned his gaze down. He clenched his jaw, then nodded slowly. “I hope you at least understand why I put off telling you the truth for so long. I knew it would be the end for us, and even though it was wrong, I wanted to delay that for as long as possible.”

  Ridley let out a frustrated sound. “You don’t know that, Archer. If you’d been truthful from the start, maybe it wouldn’t have gone this way.” She lifted the backpack, shoved her arms through the straps, and tugged it onto her shoulders. Turning her back to him, she let her magic rise from her skin as she prepared to become air. “But like I said,” she added, “it doesn’t matter now.”

  “I do know, Rid. I know because I haven’t finished telling you everything.”

  She hesitated, her back still to Archer.

  “There’s more,” he said, and it sounded a little as though his voice broke on the word ‘more.’

  “More?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

  “I have to tell you … everything.” He tugged at his hair with both hands. “I should have told you long ago, but—” He inhaled sharply, blinking furiously. “I didn’t want you to hate me,” he finished, his voice hoarse.

  Ridley let out a heavy sigh. She wanted to hate him. She wanted it so badly. She could even try to pretend that this sickening ache eating away at her core was hatred, but she knew it wasn’t. It was pain because of how much she’d come to care for him. It was shame because she’d been stupid enough to fall for him when she knew—she knew—she shouldn’t have. “I don’t hate you,” she said quietly, wearily. “I may never like you again, but I don’t hate you.”

  He couldn’t look at her as he said, “You will. Once you’ve heard everything.”

  “What’s worse than you betraying my trust and being part of a secret organization that wants to kill me?”

  He swallowed. His breaths grew shallower. His eyes glistened, and he blinked furiously again, then pressed a fist over his mouth. This is an act, Ridley reminded herself. A damn good one, but still an act. It isn’t real. He’s just trying to—

  “The Cataclysm wasn’t an accident.”

  Ice-cold shock flooded Ridley’s body.

  A moment passed.

  Then another.

  Another.

  “E-excuse me?”

  “The GSMC was meant to be the end of the energy crisis,” Archer said in a shaky voice, “but the Shadow Society—my father—saw an opportunity to change the world. To cripple it. To control it. To decimate the population and ensure the survivors would always fear magic.”

  Ridley opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

  “The Shadow Society selected certain cities around the world. They convinced those in power that something might someday go wrong. They planted the idea of hovering arxium panels. The right people liked that idea. The arxium panels were slowly put in place. More panels were discreetly embedded in the ground around these cities. And as the event itself—the GSMC—grew closer and closer, my father made sure that the complement of magicists for every group conjuration that would take place that day included at least one Shadow Society member. A person who would make very slight adjustments to the conjuration they performed. Adjustments that rendered all the other energy conjurations useless.

  “Near every group conjuration, Shadow Society chapters gathered in secret. They had all been taught an ancient conjuration my father discovered. A conjuration people used to do to … cleanse small areas of land for renewal and regrowth. A conjuration that stirs up the magic in the elements until it reaches a point where it reacts violently, wiping out everything in that area.”

  Ridley’s body was shaking now, but still she couldn’t utter a word.

  “It was only ever meant to be done by one person on a small scale,” Archer continued, his voice still shuddery, broken. “Not in groups. Not attached to the kind of amplification conjurations that were going on because of the GSMC. But I … I didn’t know that. I didn’t know anything back then except what my father told me: We were aiding the GSMC. We were clearing the world of all the bad in it. Elementals and their magic. All dangerous magic. He said the world would be a better place afterwards. And I—” Archer breathed in a ragged breath “—I believed him. I was young. I thought my father knew everything. If he said this was how we would save the world, then I figured he must be right.

  “So when he—” Archer broke off, blinking again as he cleared his throat. “When he took my hand and pulled me into the circle along with my mother and everyone else, I didn’t stop him. I …” Archer shook his head, leaned forward with his hands pressed to his knees, and breathed in shakily. His voice was strained and oddly high-pi
tched as he said, “I watched my father start the conjuration that ended the world, and I didn’t do anything to stop him.”

  Ridley shook her head, tears fracturing her vision. “My mom …”

  “Your mom,” Archer whispered. “And billions of other people—” He broke off as he straightened, turned away, tugged at his hair yet again. “All dead,” he managed to say. “And afterwards, when I saw what had happened, saw how many people had been wiped out, I felt so … so sick. I couldn’t believe he—we—had done that. I thought I might die from the guilt. So I told myself to never think about it. That was the only way I could survive. It was the only way I wouldn’t … implode.”

  He turned back to face her, but his red-rimmed eyes and contorted expression were blurred by her own tears. “So when I told Lilah it wasn’t appropriate for her to be your friend anymore, it was because of my own guilt. It was because I couldn’t stand to look at you knowing what I’d done to you.”

  A sob clawed its way up Ridley’s throat as her heart cracked open. A shuddering breath passed her lips. She whirled around and pushed blindly through the flowers and bushes until she came to the edge of the roof. She grabbed the railing that ran atop the wall and pulled herself up. She stepped over the railing.

  And she let herself fall.

  Down, down, down, glittering glass panes flashing by and the road rushing toward her, until finally, with a heartrending cry, she pushed her magic out and vanished.

  10

  It wasn’t an accident.

  Ridley fled the city upon the gusts of a windstorm and kept going until she was too weak to continue. Which wasn’t particularly long. The wind slowed to a persistent breeze as she collapsed on a crumbling street of a storm-ravaged wasteland suburban area, her body sick and shaky. Part of it was the shocking knowledge that the entire world had fallen apart because of a small group of power-hungry people. Part of it was simply hunger.

  It wasn’t an accident.