by Megan Linski
“There’s a ball?” I asked. Lovely. Because a dance was just what I needed when the one guy I might’ve said yes to hated my guts.
“Yes,” Baine replied. “It takes place following the tournament. It’s a celebration to present the participants as full members of the tribe.”
“Please,” Liam scoffed. “It’s a party to celebrate the winners. We all know that.”
Jonah frowned. “We have no chance of winning with that kind of attitude.”
“Who said I wanted to win?” Liam asked.
I couldn’t help but feel that Liam had a point. I just wanted to survive. My jaw clenched as my anger once again surfaced.
“You’re all capable of winning,” Baine assured him. “But you’ll have to set your differences aside. You must choose to work together.”
“Why? What’s the point?” Liam snapped.
“I agree.” I couldn’t believe I’d said the words until they escaped my mouth. As soon as I started, I couldn’t shut them off. “I was forced to come here. I left my family and my entire life behind. Now I’m told I have to team up with the guy who dragged me here if I want to live?”
This was bull. All of it. I just wanted to go home. I wanted to see my family again. I didn’t even care about Amelia’s teasing or Dad’s stinky socks. I missed Mom’s hugs and Dad’s deep belly laugh. I missed driving into the city to shop at the mall all day with my friends. I missed my own bed and all the memories I left behind.
The only good thing about Orenda was Esis… and maybe Imogen. I’d thought there was more to Liam, too, but now I wasn’t sure.
Baine looked completely dumbstruck. I’d surprised everyone with my outburst.
“The Elemental Cup tests and secures your bond with your Familiar,” Baine said slowly. “It also tests your ability to work with other Elementai and determines your place in society. It’s my understanding that you’re here for a reason, Sophia. That reason being the very thing you left behind.”
My parents.
I knew exactly what he was saying. If I didn’t play my part, I’d no longer be able to protect my family. I recalled how Amelia said my parents’ Familiars could be killed for my parents’ crimes. If what Imogen told me was true, that Elementai didn’t live long without their Familiars, my parents were as good as dead. I’d never let that happen.
I had only one choice. Suck it up, work with Liam, and make sure he doesn’t quit on us.
Liam whirled around and started back toward the castle. I scooped up Esis in my arms and instantly chased after him. I didn’t look back to see if anyone else was following.
“Liam, wait!” I called.
Liam stopped abruptly and spun to face me. “I just want to be alone right now.”
He pierced me with his dark eyes. Though his eyebrows were tight, there was a softness in his eyes when he looked at me. My gaze flickered to his lips. I had the sudden urge to brush my lips against his, to take away his pain and make everything better.
What am I thinking? Liam would never kiss me. He hates me.
“You want to survive, don’t you?” I blurted.
Liam hesitated. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“So do I. Whether we like it or not, we need each other. Can’t we just try to get along?”
When he didn’t say anything, I added. “For Imogen and Jonah’s sake.”
Liam’s features softened. “If we have any chance of making it through that tournament, there’s something we need to do first.”
My curiosity piqued. “What’s that?”
Liam sighed and glanced around, like he didn’t want to talk about it out in the open. “Meet me by the fountain next to the greenhouses tomorrow at dusk. We can talk then.”
I headed down to the fountain the minute the sun was starting to cast the earth in a warm autumn glow. Ezra cried out something when I left the Toaqua dorms, but I ignored him. This was important. I couldn’t be distracted right now from what I was trying to tell Sophia.
She was about to get a huge wake-up call.
When I saw her, I paused for a moment to observe. She was working on homework, crouched over a pile of papers that was sitting on an open textbook on her lap. She sat on the ground with a muddled expression I couldn’t decipher, the fountain towering over her and looking like it was about to attack. Esis was on her shoulder, peering at her homework like he was reading it, too.
I noticed something strange. Sophia kept switching her pen from one hand to another, writing with both, chewing on her bottom lip like she couldn’t grasp what the book was trying to tell her.
“Can’t decide which hand to write with?” I asked as I approached. She looked up and grimaced a bit when she saw me. She obviously was in a mood. Esis, though, peeped and grinned like he’d never been more ecstatic to see me. Weirdo.
“I’m ambidextrous,” Sophia said. “I play with my hands when I get agitated.”
Hm. She could use both hands equally. Dad once told me that was a sign of a strong Elementai. Maybe she was someone I needed to watch out for, and not someone who was weak. “Why are you anxious?”
“It’s just… this work. I don’t get it.” Sophia huffed a stray strand that had fallen out of her ponytail away from her eyes. “The Elementai world is confusing, but Koigni magic is the most frustrating of all. There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”
“What do you mean?”
“For me, everything has to be even. Symmetrical,” Sophia explained. “I don’t like when things are out of order, and Koigni magic, it’s all feeling. Chaos isn’t my thing. I can’t handle it.”
I didn’t say anything. Even after my help, Sophia was still struggling. She wanted perfection and organization. But fire was rampage and chaos. Sophia kept suppressing the part of herself that she was most— probably on account of being taught to suppress it by Toaqua parents, whether she knew it or not.
She’d been raised like a Water child, and she clearly wasn’t. You couldn’t put a square peg in a round hole. At some point or another, she was going to have to embrace who she was.
Maybe she would, after today.
“Come with me,” I said. I jerked my head in the direction of the forest. Sophia slammed her book and threw it in her bag. She went to fling it over her shoulders, but I shook my head.
“Leave it,” I told her. “It’ll be here when you get back.”
“You’ve still got your bag,” she countered.
“It’s got things we need,” I insisted. “Just do as I ask.”
She did. I turned into the forest with my hands in my pockets, and she followed, Esis wrapped tightly in her arms.
We walked for about ten minutes before we came to the base of a mountain. It towered above us like a proud warrior who refused to move in spite of outstanding odds against it. A range of smaller mountains dotted the area around it and spanned along the seashore, but the one in front of us was the most prominent. It was craggy and spiked, and a thin dirt path wound its way up to the summit. The very top had snow dotted upon it, but we wouldn’t go that far.
She looked at me. “Up?”
“Up,” I responded. “It’s a mile climb. There’s a well-worn path. You can make it,” I told her.
“Shut up. I go hiking all the time. I know I can make it,” she muttered under her breath.
I laughed under my breath before I took the lead. I was feeling well today, so I’d picked tonight to make this hike. There was no guarantee that I’d be able to tomorrow, and this couldn’t wait. Sophia needed to know.
I was out of breath pretty quickly, but I continued to put one foot in front of the other as we ascended the rocky slope. It was slow going, and we were silent. Sophia kept looking at me like she was concerned, and I hated it.
I stumbled for a moment. She reached out to catch me with the hand that wasn’t holding Esis, but I shoved it away.
“I’ve done this a million times. I don’t need your help,” I grumbled.
She scowled. “You’re sick, aren’t yo
u?”
“Define sick.” God, she made it sound like I needed to be on bedrest. The nerve of this woman.
She tilted her head. “What’s wrong with you?”
A part of me jerked inside, and I said, “No one knows.”
She was looking at me in a way that physically hurt. I didn’t want her stupid pity. I was just as normal as she was. Just had a broken body.
I wanted her to see me that way, too. But I felt like that was wishing for the moon.
When we finally reached the top, an inner peace washed over me and I was able to breathe normally again. This was my favorite view, hands down. The mountaintop looked down upon the entire forest and all of Orenda Academy. The castle was far below. From here you could see the masses of magical creatures flying around it. The summit we’d reached was a relatively flat space, a decently sized area of a few hundred feet that was encapsulated in a circle. The ground was nothing but dirt and rock, with a few remnants of wooden bowls filled with incense people had brought up here. The sky had turned to a burning orange now, streaked with lines of red and purple. It cast the mountainside in a bright glow of warm, muddled colors mixed with elongating shadows.
At the center of the circle was a large totem pole. It had the symbols of each of the Houses, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth stacked upon each other, with Nivita on the bottom as a growing leaf, Toaqua depicted as a rushing wave within a water droplet, Yapluma as a gust of wind, and Koigni symbolized by a singular flame.
Koigni was only topped by one other totem. Anichi… the Soul House. Anichi was commemorated with a complicated swirling design, meant to symbolize the spirit.
Sophia stared at the Anichi symbol like she didn’t know what it meant. She was going to hear the whole sad story today. Esis hopped out of her arms and skittered around the totem pole, looking up at the Anichi totem with an unhappy expression.
It was lonely up here. And quiet. I put my bag on the ground and turned to face her.
“What is this? Why did you bring me here?” she asked.
“Sit down, Sophia.” I gestured to the dirt below the totem.
“What, on the ground?” She gave me a skeptical look.
“Yes, Sophia.” I gave her a hard look. “Today would be nice.”
She sat. I took out a tiny placemat that I made in Basket Weaving (yes, I was proud of it, thank you) and set it on the ground before I placed another group of items upon it. A stick of sage, a leather pouch mixed with various incenses, a small leather drum, and silver bells on a wristlet. Lastly was a wooden smudging wand, with eagle feathers splayed out in a fan across the top and small designs carved into the wood. The wand was old, and had been made with the feathers of my grandfather’s Familiar. It’d been a present from my dad when I turned eighteen.
Usually this type of thing would require more people. There’d be dances, multiple chanters, and songs that would go on for days. Elementai would be wearing ceremonial outfits, not jeans and t-shirts. People didn’t just up and summon the ancestors on a whim— and definitely not on a Tuesday.
I could get in trouble for this. But this was my birthright. It was something that I wasn’t going to let be taken away from me.
Sophia stared at me. Esis had left the totem to crawl into her lap. I sat on the ground and let my wrists hang off my knees.
“The first thing you need to understand is that there weren’t four original Houses,” I said. “There used to be five.”
“What?” Sophia reeled back. “How? What happened to the fifth House?”
“Let me start from the beginning.” I cleared my throat. “Hundreds of years ago, the Hawkei had no power. They were just normal human beings, a tribe of people who sought to live in peace like anyone else. And, for a long time, they did.”
My tone turned dark. “Then the colonizers came. They brought all kinds of diseases our bodies couldn’t fight off. They hunted down our food and stole our land. They hated us for our brown skin and customs that they considered strange. At first, we thought coexistence was possible, but more and more settlers kept coming, and they didn’t want peace. They wanted us gone. There weren’t enough of us to fight back. A war meant certain extermination. We were dying.”
Sophia looked down at the ground. Her expression was sad, and a little muddled.
“Our shamans pleaded with the ancestors to save us from our fate. Suddenly, the skies opened, and from them flooded a dazzling array of magical creatures, hundreds of them in number. When they reached the ground our spirits fled out of our bodies and attached themselves to the creatures. Once the bond was set, we found we could control the elements— Earth, Water, Air, Fire, and Soul.”
Sophia’s eyes were as wide as Esis’ now. The little guy perched on Sophia’s arm, his ears up and listening intently.
“Though we had our creatures to defend us now, and our magic, we still knew we needed to hide. So we walked until we found a special place of seclusion, a world that was so far removed the colonizers didn’t dare venture through it. The forests and mountains surrounding it were filled with deadly animals, thick tar pits, and treacherous mountains. The weather was harsh and changed constantly. There was no gold and little room for farming. The strangers didn’t want it. The land was dangerous, but we would make it work. We had our magic now, and we had our Familiars.”
“Then what happened?” Sophia was immersed in the story. Esis’ little tail waggled, and I smiled slightly.
“We knew we had to diversify to survive. You’ve noticed that there are a variety of races within the school. The Elders believed the more footholds we had in cultures around the globe, the better chance we had if the colonizers found us again. Nivita and Yapluma went to places like Africa, South America and Asia to find partners and bring them back here. At first, it was for diplomatic reasons, but then people started falling in love. Koigni worked on mating with influential and rich Europeans to gain power. Toaqua is the most traditional House, so we stayed behind to manage the tribe… which is why I look like me and you look like you.” I grinned at her.
“I always wondered about that.” She cuddled Esis. “Sometimes I don’t think I’ve got any Hawkei in me, because I can’t see any traits.”
“Don’t believe that. You’ve got Hawkei blood in your veins just as much as I do,” I told her. “If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be able to summon fire. You wouldn’t have been able to bond with Esis.”
Sophia stroked Esis’ head, and I continued. “Arthur Cedrick was a settler from Europe, but he wasn’t like the others. He was a friend to the Hawkei. He’d been outcasted from his family and from his town because he preached that the Hawkei and the settlers needed to live in peace. When he had nowhere else to go, the tribe took him in. He used his large family fortune to build a castle here, to remind him of those that he missed growing up in Scotland. He had no known heirs and offered the castle as a gift to the Hawkei before he passed away. The Elders used it to create Orenda Academy, a place where Elementai could come to learn how to use their magic. The castle had been specially designed by Arthur’s daughter, Anna, who wanted the estate to go to the Hawkei and crafted it specifically for use of our powers.”
“I thought you said Arthur had no known heirs? How could he have a daughter?” Sophia asked.
“Anna died before Arthur. She had some sort of disease. Her illness was so strong not even the Anichi could heal her, only prolong her life for a time,” I explained. “Arthur was so grateful for extending her life that he left us everything he had.”
“So Anichi could heal?” Sophia asked.
“Anichi was the strongest House. They had control of the spirit, of healing,” I told her. “They ruled each of the five Houses equally. They had the power to heal Anna, at least for a time.”
“If they were the strongest House, how come they aren’t here anymore?” Her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.
“Something horrible happened. Koigni… destroyed them.” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Koigni was jealous
of the power that Anichi had and wanted it for themselves.”
“That’s awful.” Sophia frowned.
I nodded. “Koigni was looking for something, some sort of object that only the Anichi had and that gave them the power to rule. Whatever it was became lost to legend, but the stories say that whoever had possession of this item could control the fate of the Hawkei— even control the ancestors.”
Sophia held her breath, and I continued. “A great war broke out between the Anichi and the Koigni. The other Houses tried not to get involved, which ended up to be a grave mistake. Toaqua’s, Nivita’s, and Yapluma’s inaction led to the demise of Anichi House. Koigni completely destroyed them. Healing magic was gone with the Anichi. So was whatever the Koigni were looking for.”
I paused. This part was hard to explain. “The Koigni felt like they were in charge now, but the destruction of Anichi brought upon the Elementai a terrible curse. Without the healing House, we could no longer heal ourselves or our creatures if disease or terrible injury came to one of the tribe. Neither could we communicate with the ancestors as easily as we once could, because with Anichi remained that gift. We no longer had a ruling House, so each of the Houses became divided. We began to fight amongst ourselves, which led to more death and slaughter. We were killing each other faster than the settlers ever had, and worse yet, we were at risk of exposing ourselves to the outside world.”
The wind blew, casting a few strands of hair in front of my eyes. I swept them away and said, “It became clear that after Anichi was destroyed that if we didn’t stick together, the Elementai would die out. So we became forced to rely on each other for survival. We stopped mating with outsiders, and the Elders ruled that people could only marry within their own Houses. We stayed within the confines of the village instead of venturing outside, except for rare occasions. Once Anichi was gone, everything changed. Elementai could no longer survive without their Familiars as they could before. Our world had become different.”
I stopped speaking. I stooped down to slip the bell wristlet over my wrist and to pick up the drum.
