Awakening Earth and Fire: Earth and Fire Trilogy Book 1

by Jacqueline Edie

  “Sage,” Raine remarked suddenly. “You didn’t mention what it was like in Earth Society.”

  “Oh.” She was right, I hadn’t. I sat there for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to describe it. “Well, I suppose it is pretty similar to how you would imagine. Our houses are made of wood, built from the trees we log. There are forests surrounding the town and in one area we keep the livestock that are raised for meat and dairy.”

  “Is that where you worked?” asked Raine curiously. “With the animals?”

  “No. I worked in the fields. Harvesting the crops.”

  Coral looked at me, a questioning expression on her face. Now with both sides of her hair woven into elaborate braids, her fingers drummed restlessly on her ample thighs. Cayenne stared at her with an odd expression, studying the plaited hair. Admiring, yes, but there was something else in her eyes. Almost wistfulness. I wondered vaguely at that, but Coral paid her no attention, still contemplating my response. “The fields. It sounds like…is that very demanding work?”

  My thoughts exactly. “Well, yes. Especially when the sun is out in full force at mid-day, it can get unbearably hot. And by the end of the day my back would ache from being hunched over for so long digging vegetables from the ground.” I pictured it in my mind. Though we’d only left a few days ago, it seemed like much longer. “But in the late summer,…when it was time for the fruit to ripen and I would be up in the trees collecting them, well, I enjoyed that a lot.”

  “Really,” remarked Raine with genuine interest.

  I smiled. “The wind would soar through the branches and…it smelled so wonderful, that fruit-scented breeze.” I paused, thinking back to the countless days I had spent in those trees. “And when I was up there, I could see all around. Well, all around Earth Society, that is.” There was no seeing past the wall.

  The others nodded, the understanding unspoken among us.

  There was a moment’s pause before Raine turned to Cayenne. “Okay, your turn.”

  Cayenne shot her a dirty look, but Raine pretended not to notice. Glancing around at the group of us, she somehow managed to look both annoyed and disinterested at the same time. Well, our homes aren’t built of wood, or rope, or sea glass,” Cayenne said sardonically, the edge of her lip curling. Raine gritted her teeth at the jab, but remained silent. “We live in houses built of rock, of stone. Some of the older homes are carved directly into the mountains. The area is surrounded by icy lakes and tall spruce trees, all intersected by black stone paths that slope up to the beautiful but rugged cliffs in the distance.” She went silent for a moment, as if picturing herself back there. “There are always fires burning, the woodsy scent crackling through the air. And at night the entire village glows with the beauty, the power of fire.” She almost smiled for a moment. That was until she remembered where she was. Instantly that cold, icy expression returned.

  Another moment of silence passed, then Raine spoke up again, almost a little too enthusiastically now. “So what did you do for work in Fire Society?”

  Cayenne glared at her, lips a thin line of annoyance. “Most of the Society members worked in metal production. Pots, pans, utensils, tools…” She paused for a moment, then with the slightest narrowing of her eyes, reluctantly said, “Weapons.”

  “Wow,” whispered Lark in awe. He looked genuinely interested. “How long did it take to make them?”

  “I don’t know,” she replied shortly.

  Lark looked confused for a moment. “How could you not know?”

  Her reply was crisp. “Because I didn’t work there”

  “Oh,” he paused, now perplexed. “Did you Cin…,” Lark started to ask, but was cut off immediately.

  “Neither of us worked there,” Cayenne snapped coldly, clearly not willing to elaborate any further. But somehow Lark didn’t catch on.

  “Where did you work then?” he pushed.

  Cayenne stared daggers at him. Cinder watched silently, his jaw clenched tightly. But before anyone could say another word, sharp clapping sounded from the front of the room.

  “All right everyone, the hour is up. I hope you learned a bit about each other from this. Now if you will return to your desks, please open your books to the section on Society production.” I rose and moved back to my usual seat next to Aurora, flipping through pages as everyone settled down. But as Eden began her lecture, going into very extensive detail about exactly what role each individual Society played in providing for Elemental, my mind drifted back to the conversation we’d just had. Why was Cayenne so closed off about Fire Society and the work she did there? Was something going on there too? Something the rest of us didn’t know anything about?

  Chapter 13

  That afternoon was the first Emotion training session. As we filed into the arena, I looked around for any sign of what it might entail. The other three training categories, Stealth, Combat, and Intellect, made sense. But I had no idea what the Emotion Challenge would entail.

  Flint stood in the middle of the large space, arms crossed in front of his chest, glaring around as usual. Not once had I seen the man crack an authentic smile. He probably didn’t even know how.

  Once the last few trainees filed in, Flint descended from the podium and motioned towards us. “Follow me!” he shouted, his voice echoing around the room as he continued forward, walking right out of the arena.

  Sharing a confused look with Aurora, we turned and followed him. Making our way down a cold, dingy hall, we kept twisting and turning until I was completely disoriented to our location. After a few more minutes, we made a final turn.

  In front of us stretched a long narrow hall with tall black doors on either side, leading all the way down. I tried to swallow, but my mouth had gone dry.

  Coming to a halt, Flint turned to face us. “Enter the door I point to. Only one person in each room. That’s all. No questions.”

  No questions. Typical.

  We walked down the hallway, single file. Reaching a door, Flint made eye contact with the first guy in line and indicated to the door, then walked on. He was one of those from Fire Society, tall, towering above most of us. His shoulder length blonde hair was tied back tightly into a long tail. Resting his hand on the knob, there was no hesitation as he opened it roughly and strode directly in. Hurrying a few steps forward, I tried to catch a glimpse of what was inside, but just as I got close enough to peer in, the door slammed shut.

  One by one, every trainee ahead of me disappeared into their assigned room until there was only one person remaining ahead of me. Cirrus. Flint pointed to a door on our right and Cirrus vanished through it.

  This was it. I saw the next door. My door.

  Though it was identical to all the others, this one somehow seemed darker, more imposing. And I was getting closer and closer.

  Out went Flint’s arm. And over to the door I went. Resting my hand on its metal knob, the coldness of it sinking into my fingertips, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. No questions. Don’t ask questions.

  Slowly pushing it open, I moved into the room, then shut the door quietly behind me. I opened my eyes and immediately shivered. The room was dark. Very dark.

  A loud noise sounded from behind, startling me. A bolt clicking into place.

  I was locked in.

  Turning around, I tried to make out what was in front of me, but the darkness was still impenetrable. Eventually, though, as my eyes adjusted, images began to appear before me.

  A single metal chair. A sturdy steel table in front of it. And opposite that a screen, large enough to take up the entire wall.

  Suddenly the room glowed brightly as two words appeared on the screen.

  Sit down.

  A shiver ran through me.

  Moving forward slowly, I made my way to the seat and did as ordered. The cold metal of the chair felt like ice, even through the fabric of my pants. My eyes flicked nervously to the table in front of me and I noticed a series of buttons embedded into its surface, numbered from
1-10.

  Light glowed again and I gazed back up towards the screen.

  Press one of the numbers, 1-10, 10 being the most, based on how threatened you feel.

  Threatened? Another chill ran through me. What kind of things were they going to be showing us?

  The screen changed and immediately I knew what they meant by threatened.

  An image of a figure, clothed entirely in black, filled the screen. The picture was darkened so I couldn’t see the face clearly. What I could see was the sharp, jagged knife the figure held. Aimed directly towards me.

  Gasping in a breath, I closed my eyes and shook my head. It wasn’t real. It wasn’t real.

  Without looking back at the screen, I moved my finger along the pad over to the 10 and pressed it.

  The image changed. A man stared back at me. His gnarly face was disfigured by scars and half of his bald head was covered with black inked symbols, several trailing down to his left cheek. He stared at me, his eyes full of contempt, a knife in his hand as well. Staring at the screen, it was hard to believe he wasn’t going to dive right through and come at me. My finger pressed down again, not straying from the 10.

  Again and again more images appeared across the screen. Horrific, terrifying images. But then they started to change.

  Less people with weapons aimed at me. Less people entirely clothed in black. More and more people that started to look normal. I started hitting the 7’s, then 6’s and 5’s as the ‘level of threat’ I felt dropped more and more.

  The image changed again. This time a girl stood there. She appeared about my age and wore a flowing light purple shirt and a white skirt dotted with flowers. A sweet smile curled along the bottom of her face.

  I moved my finger way down and hit the 1. This girl posed no threat. Why was she even included in these pictures?

  Another image appeared. A little boy in suspenders. His hair flopped into his face, and the freckles dotting his cheeks were barely visible underneath the smears of dirt there. He held a small bucket in one hand, a little trowel in the other.

  Again, I hit the 1.

  A few more pictures showed, the majority of them non-threatening as well. It seemed the only numbers I was selecting now were 1’s and 2’s. Finally, the last picture popped up.

  A big yellow dog with large brown eyes stared back at me, its’ head tilted as the tail was in mid-wag. It’s mouth opened in a wide grin, tongue lolling out the side. I actually wanted to reach through the screen this time and pet the adorable creature. A far cry from the initial images that had appeared.

  I hit 1 again and the entire screen went dark. The sound of the bolt sliding back reached my ears with the door popping open a moment later.

  A small slit of light from the outside hall filtered into the room. Cautiously I stood up, glancing at the screen one last time to make sure no other messages appeared. But it remained dark.

  I moved towards the door and leaned next to it, listening.

  Not a sound.

  Opening it slowly, I peered around its edge and looked to see if anyone was nearby.

  Not a soul.

  I slipped out into the hall. At the far end stood Flint with a growing number of trainees surrounding him. Just as I was about halfway towards the group, a door opened to my right suddenly, the person coming out almost running directly into me.

  “Sage,” Aurora breathed.

  “Hi,” I said, relieved to see a friendly face. Leaning over, I murmured, “What did you think of that?”

  “I don’t know what to think,” she whispered back. “All those pictures. Having to decide how threatened you felt. Did you know that one of my pictures was a little boy with freckles? What kind of threat is freckles?!”

  I chuckled. “I had the same picture. I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean though.” We had reached the other trainees by that point. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

  She nodded and we merged into the group, waiting for the last few trainees to join us.

  ✽✽✽

  I expected to back into the arena, but instead Flint led us in the opposite direction, down the hall past the classroom and library. Finally we stopped, Flint motioning us into another room.

  It was larger than the one I’d just left and completely empty except for the screen taking up an entire wall. We filed in. Almost at once I wrapped my arms around me. The chill in the air was palpable. Flint moved past us, heading to the front.

  “Each of you selected responses based on how threatened you felt from a series of images. And every single number on the scale of 1-10 was chosen multiple times by the group here. A significant amount of low numbers was chosen for the majority of the pictures, indicating you felt that the threat level was essentially non-existent.”

  Flint’s eyes narrowed and in the dim light they seemed to smolder with anger.

  “Well, I’m here to tell you that every single answer should have been a 10. You should have been suspicious of each, therefore making you feel threatened by each. Even though you may not experience fear, you should be ready to defend yourself because every one of the pictures you just saw portrayed someone evil.”

  I frowned, completely confused by his words. How could some of those images be a ten? Although there were a lot that I marked as 10 and justifiably so, there were also many that I felt were justifiably a 1.

  Without saying another word, he reached into his pocket and removed a small black device, clicking it. Instantly, one of the images we had just seen appeared on the screen. The girl my age in the flowing purple shirt and white skirt. Her smile was friendly and kind. And this time I noticed the small pink flowers weaved into her hair, the simple sandals tied to her feet. She was the epitome of innocence. How could Flint expect I put a threat level of a 10 for this young girl?

  He clicked again.

  It was the same girl, but she had transformed. Her face twisted into an evil glare, an arm now raised over her head. But it was what she held in that hand that made me jerk back in surprise. The sharp end of a dagger pointed directly at us.

  Again he clicked it. The sweet little boy in the suspenders, bucket and trowel in hand.

  Click.

  A devious, malicious sneer marked his face. The bucket was now on the floor beside him. And this time, instead of noticing the sweet freckles, my focus was on the sharp, twisted knife clutched in his hand.

  Click.

  The sweet yellow dog with the wagging tail.

  Click.

  A snarling monster leapt towards the screen, fangs barred. I could almost hear the furious growling inside my head, and recoiled in fear.

  Flint continued through every picture I previously considered to be a very low threat level. And each time, I was shocked by how it had transformed. Eventually he pressed another button and the screen went black once more.

  “The point of the emotion portion of your training is to stop the typical response of pity. Of empathy. Of compassion. Because while the individual you have come across may seem young or helpless or even friendly for that matter, what you won’t realize is that they have a weapon stashed somewhere on their body that they are preparing to launch at you. Or that they are distracting you while others are gathering, surrounding you, minimizing your chance of survival. And all of this is unbeknownst to you.”

  Complete silence as everyone contemplated his words.

  He looked at us coldly. “Let down your guard and the enemy gets the advantage. Let down your guard and you may not get another chance. So, don’t let down that guard. The only way to survive is to destroy those trying to destroy you.” I shuddered at his words, and I wasn’t the only one.

  “So perhaps now, instead of viewing a pretty girl or a cute dog as nothing, a non-threat, you’ll think twice and stop them before they get the chance to stop you.”

  “But how can we do that when they appear innocent?” a voice asked quietly. I glanced around. Raine. Impossible as it was, her face seemed even paler than usual, those bright
bluish-green eyes anxious.

  Flint glared at her for the interruption, but to my surprise answered calmly. “I thought I was clear on that. Not everyone who appears innocent actually is.”

  “So you want us to just kill everyone? People who aren’t holding a weapon? People who might be harmless? That’s what you’re saying? To kill everyone?”

  “No, I’m not,” he contested. “I’m saying to be prepared. I want you to be ready and willing to attack that individual who appears harmless, as you say. I want you not to underestimate their abilities based on how they appear. Because the people you think are innocent aren’t always so. They are ready and waiting to hurt you. So don’t let them.”

  And with that, he dismissed us for the day.

  Immediately Aurora turned to me. Her eyes were brighter than normal, her strawberry blonde bangs disheveled from her nervous tousling of them. “Guess we have our answer about why they showed us those pictures,” she mumbled quietly.

  I nodded numbly in agreement, still too shocked to speak.

  Chapter 14

  As we left, filtering out with the others, I suddenly stumbled forward. Glancing down, I realized my shoe had become untied. Sighing, I lowered myself into a crouch. “Aurora, you go ahead. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  “You sure?” she asked, hesitating a moment until I nodded back.

  “Okay. I’ll see you later,” she replied, then hurried forward to catch up to Cirrus. I watched as she reached him and after a few seconds took his hand. His body noticeably stiffened and a moment later he withdrew his fingers from hers, crossing his arms tightly across his chest. From the way her body retracted, her shoulders slumping, her still outstretched hand trembling, I nearly felt the hurt it cause her seep into my bones. Anger rose in me rose as they turned a corner, disappearing from my sight.

  Standing, I made a mental note to watch Cirrus more carefully. With each passing day, I grew more certain something was going on with him.