The Fifth Queen

by Ali House

  Chapter 12

  Her twenty-first birthday was a month and a half into the New Year, but nobody on Briton knew it. Although Kendra had worked hard not to lie to anyone on any of the other islands, she had broken that rule on Briton. She needed the Humanists to see her as a potential ally, which wouldn’t happen if she let them assume anything about her. Pitor had told her that it was okay to lie to those on Briton, because she was there for a bigger purpose. The rest of the Segment needed to see her as someone they could look up to for guidance, but Humanists would eventually grow to fear her.

  Having her birthday on Briton was the biggest risk she’d had to take so far. While there was always the possibility that she wouldn’t get a vision, Kendra knew that if she was given a vision, she would Accept that power no matter what element it was. But it wasn’t just the power that worried her, it was the mark of power that came with it. The Elemental Tattoo could show up anywhere on her body and if it was in a place that couldn’t be hidden, such as her neck or hands, then her secret would be discovered and her cover blown. Hopefully luck would be on her side.

  The day before her actual birthday, Kendra pretended to come down with the flu. It carried over to the next day, giving her a perfectly reasonable excuse to stay in bed and miss class, as well as an explanation in case she happened to zone out during a conversation. Sara was none the wiser, wishing her well and offering to bring some soup later that day before leaving for class.

  Kendra was in the middle of a book about a group of Humanists who had banded together to take down the Six-Elemental when her vision came. Everything went black and suddenly she saw a giant fireball before her, burning brightly with orange, yellow, and red flames flickering all over it. The fireball crashed into the side of a mountain, both objects exploding outward with tremendous force. Then everything went black and her mind cleared. There was no doubt in her mind when she thought, “Yes”.

  After her sight came back, she held her breath and waited. A few seconds later she felt the tell-tale prickling of the Tattoo that accompanied her element, in the very centre of her back. The breath she let out was more like a sigh of relief. That part of her body wasn’t usually seen by anyone else – she’d be able to keep this secret easily.

  Although she felt the urge to immediately start practicing with her element, she knew that it would have to wait. In only a few months she’d be off this island and able to practice freely.

  Chapter 13

  As soon as Kendra arrived on Cambria, she felt a tension she didn’t know she’d been holding start to melt away. A highway was all that separated Cambria from Briton, but the islands might as well have been on opposite ends of the planet. Spending two semesters on Briton had seemed like a short task, but those eight months had felt like years.

  Although she only had to spend three months on the island as an Elemental, she was constantly worried that she would be found out. It wouldn’t have surprised her if Humanists had somehow learned to smell Elementals or sense their presence. Luckily her vigilance paid off and nobody discovered her secret. She left the island, telling Sara that she was going to go back home with all the knowledge she’d discovered. When Sara asked if she’d made up her mind regarding Acceptance, Kendra smiled and said that she had a lot of information to sift through, but implied that she was leaning towards Denying and made sure that Sara knew she was taking the bible with her. The look on Sara’s face was almost one of relief, and Kendra wouldn’t have been surprised if someone else was putting pressure on her to get her to become one of them.

  By the end of her time on the island, Kendra could understand why Briton was so dangerous. The Humanists wanted the island all to themselves, and without any Elementals there to challenge them they would become a hateful vacuum, spreading their prejudice unopposed. How long would it be until the Humanists tired of only having one island under their control and tried to spread out to other islands? How long until the entire Segment was unsafe for Elementals?

  Briton was a warning sign for what could happen when those in power turned a blind eye to obvious hatred, and she now understood why the Eriksons had put such emphasis on this island when they talked about creating a better world. The Council thought they had everything under control, but they’d only put a bandage over a deep cut. Laws were good and all, but if you couldn’t prove that someone had broken one of them, or if the people enforcing the rules were just as corrupt as those breaking them, then you’d never achieve any success.

  If her time on Briton was any indication, after sixteen years of being quiet, the Humanists were starting to fall back into their old, hateful ways. Before long, they’d be back to full power, being openly hateful and intolerant to all Elementals.

  The more Kendra learned about history, the more surprised she was at how often it repeated itself.

  Δ

  The first day of training was just as tough as she remembered. By the time classes finished, almost every muscle ached. When Kendra looked over at her roommate, Xan, she noticed that he looked worse than she felt. Xan was taking the same elemental training course, so they were in the same classes, but it was his first year, so he had no idea what he was in for. Those going into elemental training knew that they’d first have to complete a week of basic training, but most didn’t realize it would be so intense. The Cambrian motto was to train the body as well as the mind, so if anyone wanted to learn how to use their element, they’d first have to survive basic training. Kendra wondered if this was the reason some people didn’t bother taking the course and if it wasn’t counter-productive to the new Forces mandate.

  “Want. To. Die,” Xan said as they walked out of the training room.

  “Showers first,” Kendra replied. “The hotter the better. And stretch out those muscles while you’re in there. Trust me.”

  It was something she’d learned during her previous course, that a hot shower after training helped relieve some of the pain in her aching muscles. Considering how much the two of them were sweating after running all those drills, showering was also a very practical idea.

  As the hot water soothed her muscles, Kendra realized that she’d been optimistic to think that the second time around would be easier. Maybe that would’ve been the case if she’d trained every day in between, but other than jogging every day or so, Kendra had done nothing. She’d been too busy concentrating on her studies and trying to infiltrate the Humanists. Hopefully her muscles would realize that all of this was familiar and stop aching soon.

  When she was finished, she waited for Xan outside the shower room. He emerged ten minutes later, looking much better than when he’d gone in.

  “Okay, that helped. Good advice, Chen,” he said.

  “I’ve already told you to call me Kendra,” she replied, smiling. “And I’m glad I could help.”

  They walked back to their room, commiserating about how out of shape they both felt. Lia and Will, their other roommates, were already in the room, having finished their last class an hour earlier. Lia and Will were both from Cambria, although they hadn’t talked to each other before becoming roommates. Xan was from Aesira, so Kendra was able to imply that she was from Drakkar.

  “It’s unfair,” Xan said, collapsing onto his bed. “All I want is to learn how to set things on fire with my mind... Why do I have to run and jump so much?”

  “I take it you two had a fun first day?” Lia smirked.

  “The price to pay for having an element,” Xan sighed.

  “That’s almost enough to make me not want an element.” She paused. “Almost.”

  “Well, if you want to come back once you’ve Accepted,” Kendra said, “I suggest you keep training in between. That class kicked my butt.”

  Lia nodded. “I shall keep that in mind.”

  Kendra liked her new roommates. Last year her roommates had all been in different courses and they’d spent most of their time apart, making friends with people in their classes. This year Kendra was in the same class as Xan, and Will and
Lia were taking the introductory basic training class. Lia was only twenty, but Will was twenty-one and was an air elemental. Despite this, he had no desire to take the elemental training course – something the others couldn’t understand.

  “But why wouldn’t you do the Elemental training?” Lia had asked him upon learning this.

  “I’d rather just learn the general stuff,” he’d replied.

  “But they’ve got mixed classes, so you can do both at the same time.”

  “Yeah,” Xan chimed in. “Don’t you want to learn how to be cool and knock stuff over and push people around?”

  Will raised an eyebrow. “Are you here to learn how to set people on fire?”

  “Of course not! I mostly want to start campfires and heat up cold tea.”

  “I can’t wait until my birthday,” Lia said dreamily. “I hope I get a really cool element, like ice or electricity.”

  “Why don’t you care about training with your element?” Kendra asked Will.

  “Air is stupid,” he huffed. “It’s not the element I wanted, so why should I waste my time learning how to use it. All I could do is mildly annoy people.”

  Xan sighed melodramatically. “Yeah, air totally isn’t as cool an element as fire. If I had air, I definitely wouldn’t bother training. I’d just throw myself off the first bridge I saw – that’s how lame air is.”

  Will tried to glare at him but ended up laughing in spite of himself. Xan and Lia joined in.

  “You know, the Six-Elemental killed Magnus Erikson with air.”

  Everyone turned to Kendra.

  “What did you say?” Lia asked.

  “She suffocated him,” Kendra helpfully elaborated. “Drove all the air away from him so he couldn’t breathe.”

  “But I thought the cause of death wasn’t released,” Lia said.

  “Wait,” Xan remarked, straightening up. “Wasn’t there something about how the Six-Elemental killed Erikson without leaving a mark on him? Suffocation would totally make sense.”

  Kendra shrugged. “It’s an urban legend I heard once. I don’t know if it’s true, but if it is, it proves that air might not be the lamest element.” She looked accusingly at Will.

  “I wonder how long someone would have to train to be able to do that...” Xan muttered to himself, getting lost in his own thoughts.

  “Good effort, Kendra,” Will said, “but it’s going to take more than an urban legend to get me to think air’s cool – especially since I don’t need to kill any megalomaniac leaders. Why couldn’t I have gotten electricity instead?”

  Although Kendra couldn’t understand why someone would Accept a power that they had no interest in, she’d decided to leave good enough alone. It sounded like Will wasn’t going to change his mind any time soon, so anything she said on the matter would be wasted breath.

  If anything, the exhaustion felt by Xan and her after their first class was confirmation to Will that his decision had been the right one.

  “You mocked me, but I bet you’re both wishing you hadn’t chosen elemental training,” Will smirked, stretching out his not-so-sore muscles. “Right?”

  Xan shot him an unimpressed look from where he was still lying on his bed, using the least amount of effort possible. “Just you wait, Will. In a few weeks I’m going to set fire to your socks.”

  Δ

  The next week they moved onto elemental training, which meant that Kendra was finally going to learn how to use her power. It had been too risky to try using an element on Briton, especially one as dangerous as fire, so she hadn’t had a chance to try it out yet. She told herself that it was a good thing she was going into training fresh, as there were no bad habits to unlearn.

  Their class split off according to their elements, leaving only six people in the fire course. The instructor focused on controlling fire instead of using it as a weapon, but Kendra knew that the lessons would still be beneficial. After all, learning how to contain a fire and shrink it down was simply the opposite of learning how to increase it. It was too dangerous to try applying that kind of knowledge here, but once she was away from the base, she’d be able to put it to the test. Of course, first she’d need to find a safe place to practice.

  “Wow, you’re really into this,” Xan said after one of their classes. “You were intensely focused.”

  “Did I forget to mention that I really like fire?” she teased.

  “At least I know that if I ever need help, I can ask you.”

  “In that case, I promise not to take it easy on you.”

  She knew that Xan had no real plans to use his element, but was glad that he was taking the time to learn how to control it, unlike Will. If Will ever found himself in a situation where his element would be helpful, he’d regret his decision – especially if someone ended up hurt because of that inexperience.

  On Tecken, before the ISS took control, participation in the army had been mandatory. Each person, once they’d graduated, went into two years of training, learning how to fight and protect themselves, and eventually learning how to control their element – if they Accepted one. The Eriksons knew how important it was that every person on the island be able to control themselves and their power, but the ISS didn’t seem to care.

  Theoretically, it sounded like a good idea to have mandatory classes for all Elementals, but in this day and age there would have to be some discretion. There were many people who Accepted in secret – especially on Briton – who wouldn’t want anyone to find out the truth. Then again, once Kendra managed to rid the Segment of prejudice, maybe there would be no more need for secrets.

  As she lay in bed that night, she thought about the kind of world she wished everyone could live in – a world free of hatred. It wouldn’t be easy to create this utopia. The days of declaring oneself an Erikson and demanding your rightful place in power were over.

  Before her high school graduation, Pitor and she had mapped out exactly how she would rise to power. Once she had finished all of her practical learning on the other islands, she would return to Tecken and work for the ISS, growing through the ranks until eventually taking over as Leader. From there she would follow the path of Magnus Erikson the First, becoming beloved by all before turning her charm to the rest of the Segment.

  That had been the plan, but over the years it started to look too simplistic. As Kendra travelled through the Segment and learned more about the people and politics, she began to think differently. The problems plaguing the Segment weren’t as simple as she’d thought and solving them would require more than marching onto an island with an army and telling everyone to surrender. The more she learned, the more she realized that this wouldn’t work. After all, she knew how both Magnus Erikson’s plans had played out – domination, war, death, and failure. If she followed their path, eventually she’d end up the same. There had be another way: a better way.

  She hadn’t mentioned any of these thoughts to Pitor because she knew he wouldn’t understand. He would try to keep her on the same course, but she couldn’t do it any longer. Pitor had never been off of Tecken, so he didn’t understand what it was like to live in a different place, with a different history, with your own concerns and issues. The people of the Segment would need a reason to follow her, and she intended to give them a good one.

  Over the past few years, a new plan had formed in Kendra’s mind, one that considered all the mistakes of the past and worked out how to avoid them – a plan that didn’t involve making the same mistakes over again. A plan that would surely result in success.

  But even with this new path, there was still one thing standing in her way. Pitor had told her not to concern herself with the Six-Elemental, but the more Kendra learned, the more she began to realize how much of a threat Tyler was. As long as the Heroic Six-Elemental was around, Kendra’s dream would always be in danger of failing.

  If she wanted to succeed, something would have to be done.

  Part TWO

  Chapter 14

  Five
months later. Stanton

  Kit Tyler woke up in a cold sweat, bedsheets tangled around her body. The details of her nightmare were slipping away, but the sense of fear and desperation it had brought remained. Breathing hard, she put her hand on her heart and reassured herself that it was just a dream. She was in her apartment on Stanton, she was surrounded by friends, and she knew who she truly was. She was safe. Repeating the words over and over, Kit felt herself calming down with each reprise. She was in her apartment on Stanton, she was surrounded by friends, and she knew who she truly was. She was safe.

  The nightmares came less frequently these days, and sometimes she could go months without having one, but then something would trigger her and they’d start up again. She’d hoped that over time her memories of all the terrible things she’d done while brainwashed by the Tecken army would fade, but whenever they came back they were just as strong as they’d been sixteen years ago.

  Eventually her breathing steadied and her heart stopped racing. After calming down, she noticed that she was alone in the bed. A glance at the clock showed that it was almost six in the morning. Untangling herself from the sheets, she headed to the living room, walking softly.

  When she entered the room, she saw that Vaughn was sitting on the couch, reading. He was still wearing his night clothes and his red hair was sticking out in a few places. There would only be one reason he’d be awake this early, and it wasn’t good.

  “I did it again,” she said, her voice filled with regret.

  He put down the book and took a deep breath. When he turned to face her, it looked like he was going to say no, but then he paused and nodded.

  “Yeah,” he admitted.

  Her heart sank. She would take ten times as many nightmares if it meant that she’d never call out Nathan’s name again. Any person would be disheartened to hear their partner call out a former lover’s name in their sleep, but Vaughn’s loathing for Nathan went beyond simple jealousy. Not even Nathan’s death had been enough to cure Vaughn of his intense hatred for the man.