My eyes fill with tears as different scenarios play out in my mind. Many of us won’t come back. Thousands of soldiers will leave, most never coming home again. At least not alive and breathing. How many families will lose their wives or husbands, their cousins and siblings, their children? This is the only thing that war is good for. There is nothing right in killing, nothing right in hurting another person, no matter the reason. Maddox should have found a way around this. He should have fought harder to not be a part of what Seraphina was planning.
“We leave in a week,” Ben says with a mouthful of food, which is also out of character for him. “With the size of our army, we expect it to take twice as long to get to the camp site as it should.”
“Seraphina left today as well. At least that’s what she said,” I add in.
Ben nods. “She’s bringing her soldiers to the meeting point. We’re making the base camp a few miles south of the settlement’s borders.” He takes a hefty swig of water, downing half the glass. “Most of the Healers will stay there.” He looks towards me. “As will the Alchemists. Maddox and a small contingent of soldiers will guard the area while the rest of us march on Aetheries.”
Damon stares at his plate, his face propped up in one hand and he moves the food around on the white dish. He hasn’t said a word. Hasn’t even looked up and acknowledged Ben’s words. This must be a worrying day for him.
“So Kaleb returned with information?” Tessa asks. “Why isn’t he with you?”
“He’s not back yet.”
The following silence is brief but feels like a lifetime. “He could be on his way back right now,” I say, trying to remain optimistic.
Ben’s blue eyes pierce into me. “He very well could be.” His words hold no hope in them.
“You think that Aetheries found him and killed him?” I ask.
Damon’s fork pings off the plate as he drops it and leans back in his chair. “It would take more than an entire clan of Aetheries members to take that man down.”
The confidence I saw in Kaleb’s eyes the day he left make me want to believe that Damon is right. Yet pictures flash behind my eyes of men coming at him from every angle, of elemental magic bombarding him and Roman. The clan could kill him. He’s not invisible, no matter what Kaleb wants people to believe.
“It’s too soon to draw those conclusions. Ben and you know it,” Tessa says as she walks between the dining room and the kitchen. When she returns she has a lukewarm apple pie in her hands.
“What about Lincoln and Violet? Any news?” I ask, digging for anything I can find about my sister.
Ben shakes his head. “The Watcher knows all, he’ll bring them back when the time is right.”
The last week in the settlement passes quickly. Too quick. Rows and rows of soldiers line up between the inner and outer gates of the walls surrounding this mountain city. Horses neigh and paw at the ground. Wagons creek with the weight of weapons and food and materials. Family members line each side of the seemingly endless line of soldiers preparing to leave. Children cry, fighting with one parent in order to get to the other one last time.
Ben guides his horse up and down, weaving between us, checking that everything and everyone is where it should be. Damon is somewhere in the lineup, having no choice but to stay with his unit. My fingers are laced with Ollie’s as we wait with the other Alchemists in the middle of the rows to march out.
Being as far back in the masses as I am, the only indication that we are moving is the thud of thousands of footsteps. Once outside of the exterior wall of the settlement, there’s nothing but miles and miles and miles of thick green landscape covering mountain after mountain. Two weeks, that is what Ben had said. Two weeks of marching and then we set up our camp outside of the Aetheries settlement and wait for Seraphina and her army to join us. Two weeks of walking, two weeks of tents and dried meats. Two weeks and I’ll see Violet again. Hopefully.
21
White walls. White furniture. White marble floor. It’s so clean inside of the Watcher’s house that I swear I can smell nothing but cleaning supplies and it reminds me of a hospital. That’s far from the truth. It smells of the sea, of the fresh, salty breeze that blows in on the winds from the ocean just outside. A minimalistic beach house, nestled between a sandy beach and a thick green moss covered forest. He won’t tell me where we are, which I can respect.
I could never live in such a place. Emmy is OCD about cleanliness, but nothing like the Watcher is. There are no knick-knacks or clutter. There’s nothing in this house that makes it feel lived in. Its beauty is from its simplicity but it doesn’t feel welcoming, not like my apartment back in Miami or like Tessa’s. It leaves a cold feel on my skin and I despise it. From an immortal God who spends so much of his time alone out here, I just expected more.
Every night for the last month, I’ve sat at this very table eating whatever has been laid out in front of me. The only sound is the constant chewing from the three of us and I’m too physically exhausted to utter a word to break the lingering silence. My body hurts, every bone and muscle and tendon screams from just my breathing. Lincoln had been hard on me for weeks before we came to this place. The Watcher is downright sadistic. From the moment I wake up until the moment I nearly collapse from exhaustion, we train.
Taking another nibble off of the ribs on my plate, I glance between them. Lincoln looks as tired as I am. The Watcher seems to be in his own head, oblivious to us. This is typical of the God. One minute he’s screaming at me to push harder and the next he is zoned out, lost in his own little world. Lincoln and I have both asked for information from home, but he ignores us, claiming that it will only distract us.
Lincoln’s elbows clank down on either side of his plate and his fingers splay through his hair as he sighs long and loud. He drags his calloused hands over his face, pressing hard enough to make his skin turn pale. There’s a scar on his neck that I’ve only seen a handful of times – typically he keeps it covered with a scarf that he tucks into the neckline of his jacket. During training he removes it, probably due to the humid and hot air mixed with constant physical exertion. I haven’t asked him about how he got the scar. It’s shaped like a hand and the skin is shriveled up like mine is. It’s a burn, a burn caused by someone. I don’t want to be questioned about mine and I’m sure that’s exactly why he covers his.
A loud squeal echoes off the walls and Lincoln falls to the floor, the chair scooting from under him.
“Lincoln!” My body screams as I force myself to the floor and crawl to him.
“He’s fine. Leave him alone,” the Watcher says in a bored tone.
Lincoln’s tall and muscular body jerks and jerks and I have to fight with myself to listen to the Watcher and not touch him. On and on the seizure goes. My teeth grind together out of sheer frustration. Then it hits me. I’ve seen this happen to him before. A thin stream of blood leaks out of his nostrils, meshing with the scruff lining the bottom half of his face. I lean back until my ass hits the marble floor. He’s reliving a memory. His own memory? The one attached to the scar on his neck?
When he wakes, anger and pain is all I see. He jumps up, tossing his chair out of his way and storms from the house towards the beach.
“Leave him alone,” the watcher says again before taking another bite of the juicy ribs on his plate then sucking the juices off of his fingers. “Sit down and finish your food.”
I do as he orders and sit back in the chair. “What happened to him?”
The Watcher’s dark eyes shift to me. “If he wanted you to know, he’d tell you. Eat.”
The bossiness from him has been never-ending. At first it pissed me off, now I’ve learned that it’s not natural for him to be so demanding. When he said he would train me, he meant it. He doesn’t care for silly rants or complaints. Despite how much it annoys me at times, I think he has the best intentions.
It started the moment he teleported the two of us here. There was no time to get settled before he started attacking me. As the Watch
er, he has all the powers of Strega, lightning included. It was that very first day that I learned what Seraphina meant about powers having weaknesses. Because the Watcher and I have the same ability, the weaker elemental’s powers are basically worthless. He’s a God and I’m not. His energy level far exceeds mine, because of this, he can hurt me with my own element. But I can’t hurt him. It’s a weakness of the elementals, one that only surfaces when you are facing someone with the exact same power. A raw fire elemental against someone like Stanley who can only burn with his hands, this weakness would not occur.
If Seraphina is right and lightning is extinct, than that weakness will never be an issue with me because no one other then the Watcher shares it. Of course, if the element being extinct had been true, than I wouldn’t have it to begin with. So I’m not exactly holding my breath that I will have that upper hand.
I look towards the front door, to Lincoln who I can barely make out. He’s sitting in the sand, letting the last of the sunlight hit him. He’s been using his time here to his benefit, training longer then I’m even forced to. During my duel he learned something from Elijah. Growing up in Pensatore as elemental meant that the three brothers had to teach themselves how to use their power. Apparently none of them were aware of what they really could do as raw elementals. Lincoln has water and has never tried to wield ice and steam before because he didn’t know he could. After watching Elijah shift between two different stages of water, he’s been working relentlessly at mastering the other two facets of his magic. The Watcher remarks and helps when necessary, but, for the most part, lets him practice in his own way.
One moment I’m sitting silently at the table with the Watcher, the next I’m walking ankle deep in the sand towards Lincoln. I don’t know why I feel so compelled to chase after him, but I do. I plop down next to him. I don’t know what to say to him, I don’t know the first thing about comforting another person.
“You never knew your parents, did you?” he asks so softly that I can barely understand him over the waves in front of us.
“No.”
“I did. I knew my mother anyway.” He grabs a handful of sand, letting the cool grains fall from his fingers and into the wind. “When I was 6 she took me with her outside of the walls. She was an Alchemist, a creator. Every year she would take the three of us a few miles out so that she could pick these flowers, claiming that it was for her research. Ben and Kaleb refused to go that year and it was only me and her. It was just like the years before it, from what I can remember anyway. A random man stumbled across our path. He was dirty, his clothes ripped and torn. He didn’t seem to be affected by the cold, not like a normal person would be. The whites of his eyes were swallowed up in black, his veins the same.
“He was a fire elemental, one who could control the heat of flames. The knee-deep snow melted, leaving the ground a wet mud. The heat become so intense that our skin began to boil. She was a pusher like Ben and used her powers to fling him against a tree. The heat continued until it felt like I was being melted alive. I pulled the water from the ground, using it to cool my tortured body. But I was only 6, I wasn’t strong enough then. I wanted to help her. I was crying and screaming for her and I tried. I could see her, see her skin starting to burn away and the ash flutter free in the wind. She was dying.
“She killed him. Ripped his arms from his body and left him to bleed to death right there against that tree. He didn’t even scream when it happened. He didn’t say one single word during the whole ordeal. I didn’t know it then but he was Aetheries.
“She died that day. She touched my neck, told me she loved me and then … died.”
“And left a magical marker behind.” My eyes slam closed at my words. I don’t know how to be sentimental, but I know that saying that to him isn’t even close.
He nods. “Yes. It should have faded after I touched it the first time and saw the memory again, just like yours did. But it didn’t. I keep it covered now to save myself the pain of remembering.”
He lowers down until he’s lying flat on his back in the damp sand. I do the same, allowing myself to stare at the colorful wisps overhead and the stars beyond. “I ran back to the settlement, telling the first guard I saw what had happened. Maddox kept it quiet, placing the three of us in the care of an elderly sage.”
“Where was your father?”
“Dead. He was a Rovente member and after I was born, his secret of fathering three children with a Pensatore witch got out and they killed him for it.” He turns to face me. “So I get it. I understand why you are the way you are. Why you’re so protective of your sister.”
I turn from him, focusing on the sky instead of my own memories. “The sage died a few years later. Ben was the oldest and took whatever odd job he could find to feed us. Kaleb became the protector, always willing to jump in head first to keep the other kids from picking on us. I trained with the guards, trying to learn more so that I was never defenseless again.”
“You were only a child, Lincoln.”
“It doesn’t matter how old I was,” he says solemnly. “If I had been stronger I could have kept her alive.”
The Watcher drilled the fundamentals of elementals into my head over the last few weeks. About how some elements help while others work against another. Water and earth are weaknesses for fire. Yet wind will only strengthen a fire elemental’s magic. Water is my strength because it is a conductor for my lightning while earth works as a ground for it which makes it my weakness. “You were only a child.”
Lincoln rolls onto his side, facing me. “So were you.”
My mouth goes dry and my chest constricts. “Yes.” I was forced to protect myself because no one else was there to do it. When Emmy came into the picture, I did the same for her. After turning 18, I had no choice but to work wherever I could so that we had a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. I became Ben and Kaleb so that Emmy could have not only a future but a good future. That’s all I had wanted and I didn’t care what I had to do to make sure it came true for her.
I never had to carry the weight of my parents’ deaths on my shoulders though. Not until recently. It’s not my fault she died any more than Lincoln’s mother’s death was his. But I’m left with a tendril of guilt because of it, just like him. It’s not my mother’s death that makes me sad, it’s what happened to Emmy because of that death. Had the woman remained in Strega, our lives would have been so much different. Of course, that’s not what happened and that is my fault.
“Whatever happened to you all those years ago,” Lincoln says as he tucks his hand under his face, “remember that you were only a child.”
I want to scream at him, scream at anything. I don’t like it when old wounds are ripped open, especially that one. Instead I don’t do anything. I don’t say anything. He’s right. My reasoning for him to not blame himself is true for me too.
A warm hand cups my cheek and I feel the length of his body pressing against my side. His blue eyes stare down at me. His lips touch mine, pressing down with a softness and tenderness that makes my body sink deeper into the sand. His fingers wrap around the back of my neck, pulling me into him as his lips press harder. My heart pounds so hard that I know the whole world can hear it. My hips tilt towards him, craving more contact that he is currently giving me. I loop my left leg over his, pulling at him.
He stops, releasing his hold on me. Looking over my head at something. Suddenly his warmth is gone and he’s on his feet. I follow him, not knowing what sparked such a reaction from him. Side by side we stare at a stranger walking along the surf. His pants are torn and wet below the knees from the rising tides and waves. He staggers as though drunken beyond the point of being able to stand up straight.
The familiar tingle in my fingertips starts as the stranger slowly turns to face us. With only the starlight to see by, it’s almost impossible to make out his features. He continues stumbling toward us, until he is only a few feet away. The man’s pale skin is visible through the rips in his shir
t, revealing a malnourished frame with jutting bones. When I see the blackness of his eyes and the spider web veins covering his skin, I know who and what he is. Aetheries.
“Go back to the house,” Lincoln orders me.
My power surges on its own until sparks fly from my fingertips. “No.”
I know that he’s not done trying to boss me around. I may take it from the Watcher, but not from him. I plant my feet in the sand, preparing for a battle with this stranger. Lincoln, for the first time since I’ve met him, doesn’t have a sword strapped to his back. My own axes hang from my waist simply because I was too tired to take them off before dinner. Lincoln’s hands start to freeze, his magic forming large bladelike icicles in his palms.
Lincoln steps in front of me, blocking me from the man’s sight. “Go!” he yells back at me.
His feet lift from the ground before I have time to refuse again. He’s launched across the beach, landing halfway between the surf and the house. I don’t wait. Thunder cracks overhead and electricity builds in my right hand. Flinging my arm in front of me, lightning sears through the air directly at the stranger. He flicks his fingertips, causing the lightning to go wide and slam into the surface of the water. The man points at me then curls his finger.
Enemy Of My Enemy (Price Of Power Book 1) Page 23
