Hidden Embers

by Amanda Perry

  His voice sends a shiver down my spine. He’s been quiet for a while now, and I almost forgot about sitting on his lap. I turn my head and rest my cheek on his shoulder trying to hide my blush. His shoulder vibrates with silent laughter, which means he probably noticed my change in color anyway.

  The lightheartedness of the moment doesn’t last. What I’ve just been told races through my head. Part of me wants to call them crazy and make a run for it. No one in their right mind would believe people could actually have the ability to set things on fire. A larger part of me can’t ignore what happened back in Washington and again, just now. Too many things don’t make sense to me.

  Rubbing at my temples, I try to ease the headache that’s starting. It’s not working. My head spins while I try to sort through my questions, deciding what to ask first.

  “Dad,” Jaxon interrupts the teasing going on between him and Leanne. “I’m guessing Riley has about six million questions. Maybe, we should explain what’s going on?”

  “Oh!” Dad jumps up and comes to sit closer to Caleb and me. “Sorry, kiddo. Leanne distracted me.”

  He sends Leanne a playful wink, making her blush.

  “It’s okay,” I rub my temples to match the pace of the swirl of images flowing through my head.

  Dad squints at me, focusing on my hands as they rub my temples. “Hold that thought.”

  He leaves the room in a hurry before anyone can question him.

  While he’s gone, I distract myself with thoughts of how kind my father is to Leanne. I like witnessing the love they share for each other. They’re thoughtful and caring toward one another and it’s refreshing.

  Dad rushes back into the room with a glass of water in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. “If you’re getting a headache again, take one of these. Doctor’s orders.”

  Complying quickly, I take the pill I forgot about. I’m used to having to tough out headaches, not taking things for relief. My heart squeezes when I realize my dad must have picked up the prescription for me in case I ever needed them.

  Dad waits for me to set the glass down and focus on him before he speaks. “Okay, well let me start by saying you are not alone in this.” His expression turns serious, but still shows his calm nature. “We are all elementals, and we are all here to help you with this.”

  He pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts. Running his hand through his hair he takes a deep breath and continues. “Elementals are a lot like humans, but we’re a different race. We evolved right along with humans. Elementals originated when the gods and goddesses walked the earth. Some of them procreated with humans, and Elementals were born. Most humans didn’t like the idea, so when the gods and goddesses were sent above, the humans and the Elementals separated. Over time the humans forgot about our existence. Normally for a person to be an Elemental, both their mother and father need to be elementals. The only reason I never told you about us is because your mother was not an Elemental. There should be no way for you to have—”

  “How do you know she wasn’t?” I break in, my forehead wrinkling.

  He smiles softly at my interruption. “When an Elemental comes into their power, when they master the element they’ve been chosen to manipulate, they’re blessed with a few extra… gifts.” He struggles with the last word. “More like enhanced senses, I suppose. It’s almost too hard to describe. Most elementals are born into this world. This is new for all of us to be explaining everything to you like this. Had I known you existed and had an affinity for an element, I would’ve been teaching you these things from a very young age.”

  His eyes close and his brow lowers, his lips tighten and his nose wrinkles in a broken expression when he talks of not knowing about me. I decide I need to show him I don’t blame him. I want him to understand it’s not his fault.

  I crawl off Caleb’s lap, and before he tries to pull me back, I scoot over to my dad and hug him. It’s not an easy thing for me to initiate, but it feels right. “I will never blame you for that,” I whisper, ensuring only he hears me. “You rescued me, you’ve shown me more love and kindness than I’ve ever had before. I love you, Dad.”

  He sobs on my shoulder, and I freeze. I didn’t mean to make him cry, and I have no clue what to do with an adult breaking down. My gaze darts over his shoulder to Jaxon and Cassie, sending them a silent plea for help. They seem to understand right away because Jaxon comes over to whisper something in Dad’s other ear. Dad nods then squeezes me once more before getting up and disappearing into the downstairs bathroom. I glance around the room wondering if I’ve done something wrong.

  “Sorry, Sis.” Jaxon smirks. “Dad’s really emotional when it comes to you. Whatever you said to him, he’s just really touched about it. Trust me, you didn’t upset him. You just kind of took the guilt off him, I suppose.” He lets out a deep breath as he takes his seat again. “Anyway, I told him I would try to continue explaining things to you while he collects himself.”

  Waiting for my nod of understanding, he sits back and picks up where Dad left off. “So, as Dad was saying, when we master our element, our senses are enhanced, along with other things. We can sense other blessed elementals, which is how Dad knows your mom was only human. That’s why he never told you about us. Technically, humans aren’t allowed to know about elementals, meaning we couldn’t tell you when we thought you were only human. With me so far?”

  “Sort of,” I falter. He nods his head, encouraging me to continue. With his approval, I dive in with a few questions. “What does blessed mean? And what if my mom was an Elemental that wasn’t blessed? Would he still be able to sense her? Am I not blessed? Is that why you all didn’t know I was an Elemental? What are—”

  “Whoa, tiger! Slow down!” He chuckles as I blush and snap my mouth shut. “I know you have a lot of questions, and I promise we’ll answer all of them, but let’s take this slow, yeah? One thing at a time.”

  I nod and stay silent, allowing him to continue. “Good. Now, to answer your questions, I need to give you a little history on elementals.

  “When an Elemental turns five years old, the gods and goddesses bestow an affinity to control a specific element upon them. It’s always one of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, or Water. From five until the Elemental turns thirteen, they’re trained in how to control their element. We have special schools for elementals, but I’ll explain that later.”

  “So, when the Elemental turns thirteen, they’re tested. We have a council of fancy pants elementals—”

  Leanne gasps, stopping Jaxon’s explanation. “Jaxon, you cannot call our Council of Patriarchs fancy pants elementals!”

  “That’s what they are, mom,” Jaxon chuckles, dodging a pillow she throws at him. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. We call them the Council of Patriarchs, one elder council member for each element. It’s our own government, but without all the crazy politics. Every Elemental goes before the council to be tested. If you prove you can control your element, then the gods bless you. It’s an incredibly strange feeling. The council member who represents your element will hold hands with you and say something that’s sort of like a prayer, and you feel a jolt. Kind of like if you stick a fork in an outlet, but not painful. You also get a slight sting wherever your mark ends up.”

  “Mark? You mean an actual, physical marking? Do you all have them?” I search their arms and other visible areas, but don’t find any tattoos or other markings.

  Caleb answers for Jaxon. “We all have them, Babe. It’s kind of complicated, though. It’s just another thing we will have to go into more detail about later. I know it’s a ton of information to take in and if we start giving you the finer details it’ll probably overwhelm you more than you already are.”

  “We’ll get to it, Sis. Let’s get over the general details first, okay?” Jaxon waits for my slight nod, then picks up where he left off. “The whole process of getting your mark only lasts the length of the prayer, but afterward, you feel different. It’s hard to describe
. More in control of your element, I suppose. Anyway, you only get until you turn eighteen to pass the test. If you’re not blessed by then, you lose your affinity for your element and become a normal human. Any memory you have of the Elemental world is erased. You still have your memories, but they’re altered to a point where it’s like you’ve lived as a normal human your whole life. It doesn’t happen often, honestly.

  “That also answers your second question. Your mom couldn’t have been an Elemental because she was in her twenties when they met. We can’t sense you because you aren’t blessed yet. You’re only seventeen, though. You still have time to test.”

  He pauses and glances around at everyone, seemingly waiting for someone else to add more. By this time, Dad has made his way back into the room.

  “Unless I’m wrong and somehow missed that your mom was an Elemental,” Dad mutters, his gaze on the floor as he speaks. “I don’t see how, though. I would have known. It’s not easily missed.”

  No one responds to my dad, giving me a chance to speak up again. Jaxon’s explanation hasn’t exactly calmed me down. “But I haven’t been training since I was five years old like you said most elementals do. I didn’t even know anything about this, until today. I didn’t have an affinity until this last December! If we can even call it an affinity. It could very well be a total fluke. What am I supposed to do if I have to take a test, though? Why am I different?”

  “Baby, come here,” Caleb orders softly. His tone lets me know if I don’t listen he may drag me over to him.

  I scoot closer to him, but I guess he decides it isn’t close enough because he picks me up like I weigh nothing and plops me sideways on his lap. My position allows him to keep his gaze on my face.

  “We don’t have all of the answers for you. It shouldn’t even be possible for you to be an Elemental because your mom wasn’t an Elemental. We aren’t sure why you didn’t get your affinity until your seventeenth birthday. It could be because you didn’t grow up in our world. Maybe being around other elementals triggers it. We just don’t know. There’s a lot of research we need to do and maybe even talk to the council. As far as your training and testing go… Well, you happen to have the best Fire Elemental there is to train you. I think we can squeeze years of training into a few months.” He gives me a playful wink, which automatically sets me at ease.

  In that moment I make a mental note to speak to Cassie as soon as possible about my growing feelings for Caleb. No matter what the situation or where we might be, his presence always brings flutters to my stomach and warmth to my chest.

  “So”—I clear my throat, trying to change my train of thought—“for now, we work on teaching me how to set stuff on fire?”

  I don’t really mean it as a joke, but everyone laughs anyway.

  “Yeah, that’s what we do for now,” Caleb says with a chuckle.

  “Wait!” I yell, silencing the room and earning surprised looks. “Um… Well, Caleb said I have the best Fire Elemental to train me. Which one of you is the Fire Elemental?”

  There’s a long silence broken by Cassie’s loud titters, followed by Jaxon’s snort. Soon everyone has fallen into fits of giggles again, but I don’t understand why. I turn to Caleb, and he gives me a mocking glare.

  “Me, baby girl,” he explains over everyone. “I’m the best Fire Elemental there is.”

  ~

  “Try again. Concentrate on the paper. Don’t over think what you’re doing. You’ll feel it in your soul when you get it. It just completely consumes you. Your element is who you are. When you call it forward, when you manipulate it, it takes over completely. When you call fire, you need to call it from something. You can’t just make it out of nothing. It’s different than other elements. Air is all over, Earth is easy to come by, even Water is a lot more accessible than Fire.”

  Caleb has been trying to teach me to control my element for hours, and we’ve gotten nowhere. I’m convinced this is all some colossal misunderstanding. Caleb can control fire. I’ve seen it as he shows me what I’m supposed to do. But, I don’t believe I’m truly an Elemental. I can’t even make a spark.

  Maybe, I’m broken.

  “With fire, you have to concentrate harder,” he explains further, snapping his fingers and creating a small flame in the palm of his hand. Upon closer inspection the flame isn’t actually touching his skin, rather it floats just above his hand. “You’re finding something from almost nothing. When you put enough focus into it, you can find the fire in anything. All it takes is a small spark, a hot spot, a small bit of energy that can create fire. Feel the heat in the air or in the light bulbs around the area. Pull from the electricity around us.”

  Listening to Caleb talk about controlling his element is hypnotizing. It’s not easy to concentrate on lighting things on fire when he’s being this passionate about something. I only want to focus on him and his words.

  “Come on, baby girl.” His voice brings me from my Caleb haze. “Just once more, then we’ll take a break and eat some lunch.”

  I sigh heavily, but do as he says and focus on the piece of paper lying on the concrete by the pool in the backyard. Everyone thought this would be a good place in case I accidentally catch more than the paper on fire. Cassie sits close to us in case things turn catastrophic. Apparently, her affinity is water. She’s acting as our emergency fire extinguisher. Jaxon, Leanne, and Dad sit under the awning talking about what they should tell the council about me.

  My focus goes back to the task at hand, closing my eyes and picturing a bright orange flame engulfing the paper. I put all my energy into lighting it on fire. After I’m almost positive I’ve finally accomplished my goal, I open my eyes to find the same stupid piece of paper sitting in the exact same spot.

  I let out a frustrated groan and stomp my foot like a toddler. “This’ll never work!” I cry, rubbing my forehead.

  A light breeze ruffles my hair as I’m in the middle of my little breakdown. A fleeting thought passes through my mind. If I had the ability to control air, I would make the wind blow the evil paper away.

  My thoughts become consumed by the urge to send the stupid paper flying far away. The frustration and agitation overtake me. My attention snaps back to the present only to realize everyone went silent, conversations stopping mid-sentence as everyone’s eyes glue onto the paper now floating an inch off the ground.

  “Mark, this isn’t the time for joking around,” Leanne scolds my father.

  He shakes his head slowly for a few seconds before turning his eyes to me and muttering in awe, “It isn’t me.”

  I jerk my attention from the paper to everyone around me as they all jump up and parade toward me. As soon as my focus leaves the paper, it floats back to the ground. No one says a word for what seems like hours, but it’s likely only a few moments.

  Finally, Jaxon breaks the silence. “Holy hell. How’d you do that?”

  “Err…” I blink at him with wide eyes. “I’m not so sure I did do it. If it was me, though, I just thought about how I hated the paper, then I felt some wind and thought if I could control the wind instead of fire, I would blow the paper away.”

  He mulls this over for a few seconds then snaps his fingers and points to the paper. “Do it again, but this time think of it catching fire instead of blowing away.”

  “I tried that before,” I argue. “It didn’t do anything.”

  “Just try,” Jaxon begs. “This time put the passion behind it you had when you thought of how badly you wanted to control wind instead of fire.”

  “Okay,” I huff, not wanting to disappoint them.

  Turning back to the little rectangular devil paper, I glare at it and focus all my frustrations from the day on setting it ablaze. Before I know what’s happening, a slight shock goes through my body, then a small charred spot remains where the paper once sat. I turn my head to Caleb, and he beams proudly at me.

  I peek over at my dad. “What does this mean?”

  “I’m not sure, kiddo.” He si
ghs, rubbing a hand down his face in frustration. “I think, maybe we should pay a visit to the council sooner rather than later. They may have answers we don’t. I don’t think it’s something you need to worry about, though.”

  I try to relax, but the tension remains with everyone and makes me wonder if there’s more they haven’t told me. I decide to let it go for now and put it on my never-ending list of questions for later.

  “Lunch time!” Leanne yells, successfully distracting us all. “Come inside. I’ll make deli sandwiches.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  During lunch, the conversation focuses on when we should make a trip to visit the council.

  “The council is in Sacramento right now,” Dad explains between bites. “That’s about seven hours from us. It would make sense to just drive there.”

  Leanne nods her agreement. “Good plan. We can drive up Thursday and stay in a hotel.”

  “Dad.” Jaxon grabs our attention. “Don’t forget to make the appointment with them. If you don’t do it soon, they could be booked solid.”

  “Oh, right.” Dad pulls out his phone. “I’ll make it for Friday morning. That way, we have a night to settle into the hotel before we meet with them about Riley.”

  Cassie scoots her chair back and stands, grabbing her plate and glass. She heads for the kitchen, talking over her shoulder as she goes. “Let’s just make a trip of it. We could stay through Sunday and have a bit of fun while we’re there.”

  Leanne perks up at Cassie’s idea. “There are a few things in Sacramento that could make for a fun, long weekend.”

  “I’ll make some reservations at The Citizen Hotel.” Dad chuckles at their enthusiasm. “I assumed you two would want to turn it into a mini vacation.”

  He and Leanne spend a few minutes bent over his phone making reservations.

  Leanne sits back and claps her hands together. “Three rooms booked for Thursday through Sunday. Thank you, online reservations!”