An "Oomph!" escaped him and Isadora said archly, "Such a child."
Perhaps it was childish, he clearly didn't know what he was doing. Didn't know who I even was. I sucked in a deep breath, trying not to inhale the dust motes and start a coughing fit, and helped Isadora manoeuvre Theo through the door. The passageway was thankfully clear and we made it down three more before we had to hide again.
Ten minutes, which felt like an hour, later we were stumbling through a tunnel, not the same tunnel Aktor and I had used to escape the Pyrgos, but one equally as tight and deserted and forgotten. Light began to blossom further ahead and at the sight of it my energy waned. So close to freedom, so close finally to drawing on the Earth, and I wasn't sure I could make it.
I hadn't asked Isadora how long we'd been there. How long the doctor had me to experiment on, how long it took them to erase me from Theo's memory. I wasn't sure I could afford that knowledge yet. I wasn't strong enough. I was barely remaining upright, and only managing that because I didn't trust Isadora at all. And now my heart was heavy as well, pulling me down, drowning me in sorrow, making it harder and harder to lift my feet and walk the few more steps needed to reach that light.
But the smell of the sea called to me. The scent of the ocean and wild flowers, Pohutukawa blooms and Toi-Toi seeds. The Earth sighed. Gi poured in, the ground beneath our feet shuddering.
"What are you doing?" Isadora demanded, halting in her tracks. Green reflected off her widened eyes, casting her skin an unusual shade of bronze and verdigris.
"Reuniting with my Stoicheio," I replied in a husky murmur.
"Pretty," Theo remarked from my side. My gaze swung to his, gold stared back. But his expression still lacked recognition. You can appreciate beauty, be attracted to it even, but still not need to be familiar.
"Thank you," I whispered, and received a pleasant smile for my efforts. His gaze returned to Dora's unamused face and brightened. Recognition and familiarity written all over him now.
I sighed. The Earth wept silently with me. And then I left Theo with Dora and walked toward the light.
My body was whole. My soul was whole. My heart was shattered and left in tiny pieces.
The closer I came to the opening of the tunnel the more I felt like something was off. I reassured myself that I was more than capable of holding my own now, fully fed, at least Elementally and that would tide me over until I could eat actual food. If this was a trap, I'd swallow the lot of them with the Earth and spit on their newly dug graves.
Rage still shimmered beneath the surface. Accompanied by bone weary sadness.
I slowed my pace down as the opening widened, the white capped waves of the ocean becoming more and more distinct. My last step brought me to the edge of a cliff and the realisation that the sensation of wrongness was the altitude we were at compared to the sea.
A Gi's strongest sense is that of smell. I'd first recognised the sea from the salty brine I could scent, followed by the seaside vegetation that grows around Auckland beaches. But without realising I'd subconsciously recognised that the scent was coming from below me; a position that initially made no sense.
Now as I stood at the opening of a cliff side cave, or the tunnel we'd just used to escape the Rigas' Pyrgos, I understood. We were forty to fifty feet above the rocks of Mellons Bay.
"How do you plan to get us down from here?" I asked Dora as she and Theo came to rest at my shoulder.
"Our help," she replied, pulling a cellphone from her slender trousers and swiping the screen. Theo watched on with complete concentration, as though she was the very air he needed to breathe.
Dora offered him a reassuring smile and took a step away to talk to whoever she'd dragged in to help.
"Do you remember me?" I asked, the words falling off my tongue before I could stop them.
Theo's confused gaze shifted to my face, he scanned it, impersonally, and then offered his signature Theo Peters smile. Beguiling, friendly. Detached.
"Should I?" he asked. "You're Gi."
Four words that said nothing at all, but also everything.
Theo didn't remember me, no matter how much I wanted that to be an aberration, something he'd snap out of if I pretended hard enough that it was temporary. He also hadn't registered, back in that dust filled room, that it was my Fire spreading up my arm, not Dora's. If he'd registered anything at all, that is. And if he didn't remember me and hadn't been in a fit state to register my use of Fire, then how would he know that I am also Pyrkagia, not just Gi?
"Yes, I'm Gi," I said softly.
"Are you an ambassador?" he asked. He was strengthening. I could see it. In the shape of his upright stance, in the way he held his shoulders back. In his voice. Power flowed through him, calling to the Thisavros in me.
He didn't answer my call.
"No, I'm not an ambassador." It would be a cold day in hell when I represented the Gi.
"Then you are a visiting dignitary," he surmised. "Princess," he concluded.
Every word out of his mouth hurt more and more. Every step down this path that was so alien and wrong sliced through me. What good was wielding two Stoicheio if you couldn't fix a memory lapse in the man who held your heart?
I felt useless. Ineffectual. And when Dora returned to our sides and Theo immediately brightened again, swinging his avid gaze back her way, I felt insignificant.
"He's on his way," she announced. "Did you two get reacquainted?"
"We've just met," Theo corrected.
Dora's eyes flicked to my face. I couldn't tell what she was thinking.
She looked back up at Theo. "You know Casey, Theodoros," she shocked me by saying. "You know her quite well."
"I do?" His gaze returned to me, trying desperately to recognise a feature. Clearly he failed. "I'm sorry," he said with a self-deprecating smile. "I don't remember."
"It's all right," I said, before Isadora could voice the next words on her tongue. This hurt too much. I needed it to stop. "You've been through a lot," I added and then turned back to look out over the sea.
I heard Isadora urge Theo to sit down, our help was a distance away. Perhaps this jailbreak had been unplanned. Dora had said it was the first time she'd been allowed to visit Theo, maybe she'd been trying for a while, and had to simply take advantage of the situation when it arose.
I blocked out their low whispered words, blocked out my mind's interpretation of how close they would have to be sitting to hear each other, and sucked in the fresh sea air.
Are you there? I asked the Earth.
Aether, we never left you.
I closed my eyes, willed the tears to retreat.
I couldn't feel you. In there, I meant, but the Earth understood me.
We could still feel you. And the tone of the whispered words in my mind matched the heartache I was feeling.
So many questions rushed through me. "Why?" being the most prevalent. But I couldn't organise my thoughts. The low hum of voices behind me felt like stabs of a sharp knife through my chest.
Can it be reversed? I finally asked.
We do not know, the Earth replied quietly.
I nodded. If anyone knew, the Earth would know. It was as old as time itself.
What happens now? I asked, because I needed someone to tell me.
The darkness comes, the winds blow, the trees burn, the rivers rage, the sky falls and the ground buckles.
My entire being stilled. The Earth could speak in riddles, but not quite to this extent. Sometimes it made me work for any answer I sought, but usually its ramblings were more pointed than this.
What does that mean? I asked, afraid to hear the answer. If it deemed me ready to hear it, that is.
Some call it the Apocalypse, the Earth whispered in my mind.
My body shuddered.
Some call it the End Of Days, it added.
My breaths started coming in short little huffs of chilled air.
Some call it the Reckoning.
What do you call it
? I asked, my knees feeling too weak to hold me upright. I reached for the rough hewn wall at my side to steady myself, vaguely aware Dora was asking me if I was all right.
I blocked out her words as well as her presence to my right and waited for Earth to reply.
It took a while. Dora had become more persistent, Theo had joined me on the other side. Concern and that ever present distance marring his strong jawline, high cheekbones and beautiful hazel eyes.
We call it the Genesis.
The Genesis, and I was sure that word required a capital G. Just what the hell was that supposed to be?
A sharp slap on my cheek had me flaring Pyrkagia, an instant and hardened reaction to being harmed again so soon after leaving the tender care of the Rigas' doctor. Heat filled the cave entrance, replacing the chill that had invaded my bones. I called it back before it could strike out at Isadora, but the damage had been done.
Theo grabbed Dora and thrust her behind his back, his gold eyes glaring at me as his own Pyrkagia swelled.
"Who are you?" he demanded, then sucked in a breath of air. "What are you?" he corrected.
I couldn't do this. It had been hard enough to deal with this new world with him at my side. But this? This was too cruel to even contemplate.
"Theodoros," Isadora started from behind him. He still had one hand keeping her in position, refusing to let her out again to face the threat he perceived me to be.
"Answer me!" he growled, the full force of his Stoicheio behind the command.
Theo's Fire had burned me in the past. Blistered my skin. But it had been a long time since then. And instead all I had known for months was his heated caress, his passion-filled touch, his Fire's lust for my body, my heart. Me.
The burns that appeared on the palms of my hands as I held them up before me hurt more than anything the doctor had done. Hurt more than anything anyone had ever done. I sucked in frantic hitched breaths of incongruous super-chilled air as Dora forced her way between us, yelling at Theo to stop.
It was too much to have him turn on me. Too much. I fell to my knees as pain consumed me. But not a single tear fell. I think I was all out of tears. I was too far past sorrow to find use in them. Where I was, tears would not follow. Where I was, only darkness dwelled.
The sound of a rope unfurling caught my attention, then a harness appeared in the opening of the cave.
"Right," Isadora said, as though trying to calm herself down as well. "Our rescue has arrived. Theo, you go first."
"No," he snarled, his eyes still boring into me. "I will not leave you with her." He practically spat the words. "You first, Dora. Then when you're all ready to contain her up there, the Gi imposter can follow. Lastly it will be me."
"Theo, you've been in a prison for four months." Four months. My eyes closed on invisible tears. "You need to get out of here first, or this was all a wasted effort."
"No." Implacable. Stoic. So brave.
It broke my heart further.
"All right," Dora replied reluctantly, positioning herself into the harness, with Theo's distracted help.
I'd wanted him to notice me. I certainly had his attention now.
Dora tugged on the rope and was pulled up out of sight, while Theo just stared. Minutes ticked past without either of us speaking. Me, because I was too disillusioned. Him, because I think he was still enraged.
I wanted to reach for him. The part of me that is his Thisavros pleaded to be reunited, skin on skin. But this was a one sided coupling now. Always to have half of me missing, ripped away, left raw.
The rope uncoiled again, the harness swinging at the opening.
Theo reached for it, his eyes never leaving my face, and with a lift of his chin he silently ordered me to approach.
For the first time ever I was scared of Theo Peters. We'd not always seen eye to eye, but even when I first came into my Gi powers I'd never feared him the way I feared the look in his eyes right now.
"Come," he snapped when I didn't move. My body jumped and his lips curled. "How old are you?" he growled.
He knew. At least, he used to. "Twenty-three," I whispered, stepping into the harness he held out.
He laughed, it was mirthless. "A baby. You wear your emotions on your sleeve, little one. I can feel your fear."
"Please stop talking," I begged. He'd regret this, when he remembered. If he remembered again.
He leaned in, his nose practically touching my cheek and whispered, "You play with Fire, little girl. I'm a prince of Pyrkagia, you are nothing to me."
He meant in terms of power level, but the words cut too close to the quick.
I shifted, to lift my foot into the other opening of the harness, just wanting this to be over now, and inadvertently brought myself close enough for his nose to touch my skin.
Electricity shot through me, pulling a gasp from my lips and a moan from Theo's.
A hot hand wrapped around my throat as he hauled me back against his chest.
"Stop now, or I will end you," he warned.
"I'm not doing anything." I wasn't, as far as I could tell. But something was happening. The touch of skin on skin awakening every sensation Theo had ever made me feel.
And if the panting of his harsh breaths were anything to go by, and the erection I could feel pressed into my back meant anything, he was feeling every single sensation I'd made him experience in the past as well.
"Witch," he husked. "What are you doing to me?"
"Thisavros," I managed to groan, writhing against his arousal as his free hand cupped my breast.
It was the only explanation I could think of. Our Thisavros connection trying to re-establish itself. Reminding us of what we were to each other. Desperately seeking the joining I longed for and Theo had forgotten.
"No!" he growled, thrusting me away from him. I stumbled, tried to right myself, and then promptly fell out of the opening of the cave and met only air.
For a second all I saw was the wild hunger on Theo's face, mixed with a type of abhorrence that shrivelled my soul.
And then the rope caught, the harness thankfully holding and I was hauled up the side of the cliff face, scraping skin, banging elbows and not feeling a thing but despair.
Could this get any worse?
Apparently it could. Because a hand wrapped around my upper arm and hauled me over the lip of the cliff, dumping me on wet grass as I stared up into tired and old hazel eyes that definitely recognised me.
And I recognised them.
"Miss Eden," he said. "It is so good to see you again."
Aktor. The son-of-a-bitch betrayer. I reached out with all my strength and landed a punch to his ancient looking nose.
Chapter 3
A Lot Has Happened, Miss Eden
"Casey!" another familiar voice rang out. "Don't hit him!"
"Wh..what?" I stammered, fear and anger and heartache mixing with shock and happiness and utter confusion. "What are you doing here?"
Sonya just smiled, wrapped an arm around a bemused Aktor and fussed over the blood that had already stopped falling from his nose.
Isadora was the one to help me to my feet and with her usual arched tone she advised, "A lot has happened while you've been lying back and daydreaming."
I suppressed the growl. For now.
"Let's get the master up, shall we?" Aktor advised, keeping a good distance between me and himself.
"Yes, let's," Sonya agreed, sounding unlike any Sonya I'd ever known.
I wondered if this was the dream, and I was really lying unconscious back in my cell after the doctor had played "Operation" on my insides.
I stayed well away from everyone, including my best friend. Who seemed more than a little comfortable with Aktor and not in the slightest concerned with the nearness of Isadora The Bitch. What had happened since I left New Zealand? How did she even know who these people were?
She knew Theo of course. Had met him several times in the deli. She'd heard me speak of Isadora and probably Aktor as well. But she didn
't know what he'd done. That was obviously it. She still thought Aktor was on our side, when in fact Aktor had betrayed us to Theo's father, handing us over to the Rigas, delivering the final blow.
Theo appeared over the edge of the cliff, clasping Aktor's hand and beaming up into the face of his old servant. My stomach rolled. I swallowed back the sickening sensation that Theo didn't remember the betrayal at all. I wanted to stay where I was and lick my wounds. Getting close to any of these people would hurt. But Theo was compromised right now. He couldn't remember, therefore he didn't understand the danger.
I couldn't let him get caught unprepared.
I walked towards them, where they were hugging and back slapping and generally behaving like this was a family reunion. I didn't make it more than a few feet before Theo growled.
An honest to God feral growl.
"You haven't contained her?" he asked, ominously. "Dora!" he called. "Find me some rope."
I lifted an eyebrow at him as Aktor started spluttering, Sonya told Theo to pull his head in - Yay, my best friend! - and Isadora tried to calm everyone down.
"Rope? Really? You think rope will hold me?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and cocking a hip.
Theo took two menacing steps toward me.
"My rope will," he replied with a cruel smile.
I waved my fingers at him, let Fire flare at their tips and said, "Pyrkagia, remember?"
"Exactly!" he snarled, closing the distance between us. "And not born that way, at a guess."
"No," I said, agreeing with him and then calling on the Earth to wrap vines around his ankles instead.
He swore and simply burned them to a crisp. I didn't have it in me to recall them. Singed plants leave me feeling bereft.
"In any case," he said stalking closer. "I'll use metal chains. You'll only burn yourself if you heat them up."
"Theodoros," Aktor said, and there was power in his tone I'd never heard before. "Enough."
We were standing chest to chest. I'm not sure how we'd gotten so close, my eyes had just been for the anger on his face, but here we were, barely a breath between us. He realised it at the same time as me and sprang back.
The Chilling Change Of Air (Elemental Awakening, Book 3) Page 3
