Elemental Betrayal

by Elle Middaugh

  Brad regrew the missing vines quickly and readjusted his footing.

  An Earth uprooted a large oak beside me. Thick rubbery tubers and thin hair-like roots dangled in the air with chunks of dirt clinging on for dear life. Then it was gone, flying through the air at a breakneck speed. I doubted it would hurt him much, but it was still a stunning sight.

  Brad punched a fist into the ground, causing shock waves to reverberate all around him like a ripple. Elementals were knocked to the ground, trees were felled, and by some miracle, my cart was overturned.

  I frantically searched the encasement for some new weakness, some point I could escape through, but there was nothing. The bars were still strong as ever.

  My new vantage point only allowed me to see legs below the knee and flying debris. I couldn’t see the actual players, but from my position at ground level, I at least had access to some natural materials.

  The cage was tricky. An Earth wouldn’t be able to create a rock and smash the lock because the cage wouldn’t allow it, but maybe I could grab a preexisting rock and bash the hell out of it. It just might work because there was no Elemental power involved.

  I was going to have to figure the damn things out eventually: the cages, the ropes, the gloves, and whatever else. There had to be some method to the strange rules that allowed the anti-magic to work.

  There were no overly large rocks in sight, but I was running out of time. I grabbed the closest one with the most weight and hammered the lock as hard as I could, over and over and over until teensy tiny dents formed in the metal, but no progress was made toward actually escaping.

  Snarling, I paused and listened to the sounds of the fighting beyond the cage: deep rumbles akin to thunder, sharp cuts of air as objects tore through, crackles of fire, and the howling of winds. I heard the stomping of feet, grunting and groaning and sometimes crying out, the slap of skin on skin, and growls of frustration. I had no idea how much longer it would last or who would come out on top in the end.

  Grabbing the bars, I desperately tried to pry them apart. Of course, they didn’t move. I pulled even harder, gritting my teeth against the pressure, feeling my face redden from the futility of it. Nothing worked.

  A loud boom rattled through the forest, vibrating the floor of my enclosure. I wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but when whole trees began raining from the sky, I had a feeling shit had hit the fan. They pierced the earth like giant javelins. There was no way anything in their trajectory would survive. I couldn’t see where they were coming from, so I waited apprehensively for any sign or signal to move.

  One minute, I was in an empty cage, then the next a tree had punched down through the roof. With a screech, it tore through the metal floor and lodged itself in the middle. It gave me a very small amount of room to work with, but I was beyond grateful it’d somehow managed to miss impaling me.

  My brain worked in overdrive.

  The cage resisted Elemental damage…anything created on the inside couldn’t escape to the outside…but what if something from the outside had been introduced to the inside? Say, I don’t know, a whole tree—could I incinerate it? And if so, could I escape through the hole in the roof it left behind?

  I relit my hands and upped my output until fire blazed into the trunk. It took several seconds, but soon the bark caught and started spreading up toward the branches and leaves.

  I didn’t have time to wait for it to burn naturally, though. Stretching my fingers wide, I willed more power into the blaze, making it hotter. Bluish white flames lit the cage in an ethereal glow. The trunk started crumbling into ash, and I prayed Brad was too busy to notice. Anyone who saw that light would probably know exactly what I was doing.

  A few moments later, the last bit of tree inside the cage crumbled. The rest of it, outside of the metal box, became unbalanced and fell to the ground. As it did, the hole in the roof was exposed, allowing me access to climb through. I found a spot where the metal wasn’t razor sharp and heaved myself out. Immediately, the sensation of power hit my senses. It was like my body knew instinctively that my elements could flow freely again.

  A Sect soldier noticed me before I could run, and before I could blink, a net was spiraling through the air in my direction. They badly wanted me contained but not dead, and I had to wonder why. If the balance was of utmost importance and I was directly contradicting that law, wouldn’t they simply want to eliminate me as quickly as possible? It was what I’d probably do if I were them.

  I hid behind the cage, and the net missed entrapping me by mere inches.

  When the soldier realized she’d missed the mark, she stormed over to me, turquoise eyes gleaming with malevolence.

  I hung my head for a brief second. Elise. It had to be her. She was determined and persistent, and she would stop at nothing to succeed at her job—even if it meant capturing her own cousin.

  I quickly formed an iceball in one hand and a fireball in the other.

  The closer she got, the slower she moved. Experience steered her motions rather than anger. I would have to be extremely mindful if I wanted to have any chance of escaping her in this mode. She was the one who’d taught me to fight. She knew everything I knew, and she knew it better than I did.

  We circled each other, focused only on the other person’s eyes. It didn’t matter that shit was exploding just a few of yards away, that it was raining daggers of ice, the earth was quaking constantly beneath our feet, and the wind was threatening to blow the very leaves off the remaining trees. It was just me and her.

  She reached for a stick and spun it around, reminding me of that time at the safe house the previous winter. She had been my opponent then, too, but ultimately still on my side.

  My, how things had changed.

  I inhaled slowly and exhaled even slower. All sound muted as I concentrated on my breath. She would strike at any moment. I had to be prepared.

  When she stopped spinning the stick, she aimed it at me. For a moment, neither of us moved. Then she unleashed the brunt of her skills. The earth whipped beneath my feet, knocking me off balance. I rolled to the side, but she cuffed me in the back with the stick and sent me sailing to the ground. I pushed myself up and launched an iceball at her. It hit her in the shoulder, and though she grimaced, it didn’t stop her assault. The ground rolled again, launching me into the air then dropping me down hard. A tree quickly bent to the side and attempted to crush me.

  Damn it. Not this again.

  I really didn’t want to have to torch the entire forest just to beat her, but I hadn’t been able to think of an alternative then, and I couldn’t now either. The fire in my palm roared to greater heights, taking on a life of its own. It relished the destruction, more so now than it ever had.

  I pushed my hand in her direction and fire spewed like a waterfall, drenching everything in flames. The grass beneath our feet immediately shriveled up and died, the leaves incinerated instantly.

  The show of power attracted other Sect soldiers who decided I was a greater threat than Brad. It quickly became half against him and half against me. I wouldn’t be able to hold them off for long, but I had no plans of seeing either Nicholai or Exis today.

  I continued spewing flames from my hand, spinning in a slow circle until everyone backed away except my fellow Fires. When they moved closer, I sent out a blast of snow and ice. The sparkling crystals glittered as they crashed into bodies and shattered on the forest floor.

  That was when I noticed a strange fog drifting through the trees. It hovered near the ground, apparently too heavy to float higher up, and soon surrounded everyone. I tried to ignore it, but it was seriously freaking me out.

  I pushed my palm out, expecting another wave of flames to erupt, but nothing happened. Frowning, I shoved it forward again. Still nothing.

  In fact, the earth had stopped rumbling, and the wind was no longer blowing. No ice flew through the air like spears, and no fire crackled and diminished the forest to ashes.

  What the hell w
as that fog doing to us?

  I glanced at Brad, who was too busy trying to force the earth the move to notice me.

  Then a woman appeared. The curves of her body were evident even through the glossy plastic suit she wore. She had a helmet on, so I couldn’t see so much as an inch of her eyes or skin. She got within a few feet of me and put her hand on her hip. With the other hand, she pointed right at me.

  It was suddenly obvious that my time was up.

  Panicked, I tensed my fingers with every inch of muscle I had. Still, no power came. It was like I was completely ordinary, like my powers had been nothing but a dream I’d just woken up from.

  Elise walked up to me and stared me down. I swallowed hard and glanced around. Everyone appeared to be waiting for something, but I had no idea what.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brad go down. If they’d taken him out, I was next, and without my power, I had no chance of defeating them. Instinctively, I darted for the trees, weaving in and out of the trunks and pushing my legs as fast as they could go.

  Adrenaline fueled my entire body, but it wasn’t enough.

  A net tore through the air and caught my foot, sending me skidding through the dirt as I fell. I scrambled to my feet, but another net enveloped me, and another.

  No, no no no! I cried inside. This could not possibly be happening. I’d never actually believed I’d get caught by the Shadow Sect, yet there I was, clawing at the ground with no chance of escape in sight.

  Elise stepped up to me again. She had a syringe in her hand and a look of determination in her eyes.

  My chin quivered, but I refused to let her see me cry. The last thing I remembered feeling as the needle jabbed into my neck was the utter hopelessness of defeat.

  19

  An antiseptic scent stung my nose, startling me into consciousness.

  Lights surrounded me, so bright I could barely open my eyes. Even the floor seemed to be lit up. Forcing my eyelids open, I squinted at my environment. I was in a small square room with glowing walls. Only one side of the box wasn’t lit up, and it had glass bars from floor to ceiling. Just beyond the bars was a wide hallway that looked like a giant cavern with glowing crystal stalactites hanging from the vaulted ceiling. Across the hall was another illuminated room that looked just like mine—beautiful, but strange and ominous.

  A man stood with his hands on the crystal bars, watching me.

  I scrambled to my feet and squinted harder, trying to adjust to the light. It made my head want to crack down the middle.

  “Hello?” I asked, unsure of what else to say. My voice was still gritty.

  “Hello,” the man replied, barely moving.

  “Where are we?” I asked, staggering over to my own set of bars.

  He swayed absently. “Shadow Sect Headquarters.”

  Great. Just…great.

  He eyed me curiously. “What’s your name?”

  I stared back with narrow eyes. “What’s yours?”

  “I’m in a cage, too, in case you missed that detail. You don’t need to be suspicious of me. My name is Paxton.”

  “Valerie,” I said, feeling dumb for worrying about something as stupid as a name. “Are you an Elemental?”

  He blew his dark bangs away from his eyes. They were blue, even paler than mine.

  “I don’t know. It’s been so long since I used my powers, I’m starting to think I imagined it all.”

  He was thin in a malnourished sort of way and had a mousey face. It made me wonder just how long he’d been trapped there. So, I asked as much.

  He sighed as he thought. “Three hundred years, maybe? Give or take a couple decades.”

  My jaw dropped.

  Paxton merely shrugged. “That’s nothing. There are people who’ve been here for thousands of years.”

  “Why do they keep us here instead of simply killing us?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not sure. I’d say it had something to do with using our power, but they would get it anyway if they killed us, so that doesn’t really make sense.”

  “Speaking of not making sense,” I said, patting the bars of my cage, “do you happen to know how all this element-proof stuff works?”

  He hesitated. “Not exactly, but I think it has something to do with mixing blood.”

  “Like a curse? Or blood magic?”

  “No, no. Like, by mixing the blood of the strongest Elementals of each element to create an antidote.”

  “Wait,” I said, putting up a hand to stop him as my brain worked it all out. “You mean, mixing the blood of an Earth, a Fire, a Water, and a Wind to essentially cancel out our power?”

  He nodded. “I think that’s why our ancestors insisted upon pure blood pairings. The purer the blood, the stronger the power. The more the blood mixes, the more it cancels out and the weaker the power becomes.”

  I tried to think it through logically. How, exactly, would combining all the bloodlines cancel out the power? Why wouldn’t it strengthen it, instead? I supposed it could have been like a double negative. God, I wished I’d paid just a bit more attention in science class.

  “So, you mean to tell me these element-proof bindings all have blood flowing through them? Like, real living beings?”

  Paxton hesitated. “I wouldn’t say they were alive, but they are made with blood. I’m almost sure of it.”

  I took a deep breath and branched off on another tangent. “Why do they let us talk to each other?”

  He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Overconfidence, maybe? These rooms seem to completely counteract any power we might have had. We wither away to skin and bone with no physical strength to use to break out. There’s no way to escape, so why not at least let us talk?”

  “They just don’t seem like the sympathetic type,” I said, trying to figure it all out. “Why not just keep us isolated and desperate?”

  Again, Paxton shrugged. “I’m sorry I don’t have more answers for you. I’ve been here for hundreds of years but still haven’t figured it out.”

  “Do they ever come down here?”

  “Who?”

  “The Shadow Sect soldiers.”

  “Oh, no. Sect soldiers operate strictly in the outside world. Sect scientists and alchemists do come around every once in a while, though. Sometimes they interrogate us, sometimes they draw blood—for tests, I imagine, or maybe more bindings and weaponry—but their visits are always short-lived.”

  My eyes widened and a light kicked on in my brain. “More bindings and weaponry! They need us alive so they can use our blood to create more weapons!”

  “Yeah, but they could use any Elemental for that.”

  “But we’re the strongest ones—that’s why we were captured, right?”

  His lips slowly spread into a smile. “That’s gotta be it.”

  I leaned my head against the bars and my hair spilled down around my face. “Now we just need to find a way out of here.”

  His response was barely a whisper. “We’re never getting out.”

  I peeked over at him through a few blonde strands. He looked defeated.

  “What do you mean?”

  Releasing the bars, he wandered away to the back corner of his room.

  “Paxton!” I called, but I was met with silence.

  It was no wonder his enthusiasm had died. He’d been there for years, hundreds of them. What were the odds a new girl would show up and suddenly change all that?

  With him emotionally shut off, I was left with only my own thoughts to entertain.

  Thankfully, my memory had completely returned, but with it came the pain of remorse and regret.

  Cade.

  Just thinking his name was like sinking a knife into my chest.

  The way our final moments had gone was sickening. Brad’s poison had infiltrated our systems, flooding our minds with hatred and anger, causing us to lash out and fight. I had no idea where Cade even was, but if that was the last time I’d ever see him, in the throes of a poison-induced argument, I
would never forgive myself.

  Had he been kidnapped and taken to the Sect, too? I doubted it, considering he hadn’t been there when Brad and I were attacked, and since Brad hadn’t caged him up, I had a feeling he wasn’t being taken to the Elitists, either.

  Surprisingly, that gave me a bit of hope. Maybe I was the only one they were after. Maybe once Cade’s poison wore off, he’d be free to find our fathers and rally our troops. Maybe he was on his way to rescue me right now.

  But…where the hell even was I?

  No one knew the location of Shadow Sect Headquarters. No one.

  I shook my head as sadness and hopelessness coursed through my body, making me numb. What I needed was to get the hell out of there. Wallowing in self-pity and waiting for someone to come help would get me nowhere.

  I tapped the glass bars, and a musical bell-like sound echoed off the walls. I patted myself down, and that was when I realized I wasn’t wearing the same clothes as before. I was in an all-white outfit of pants and long sleeves. I didn’t even have shoes. There was nothing on me that could double as a weapon or tool of any sort, nothing that could be used to shatter the crystal bars.

  I swallowed hard. I supposed that meant I’d be using my own hands. I clenched a fist and pulled back as far as I could, trying to solidify my resolve. This would probably break my fingers and do absolutely nothing to the bars. The doubtful thoughts made me falter, but I shook them from my mind.

  Just do it, I told myself. I had nothing left to lose. I needed to try everything I could to escape.

  With a quick forceful jab, I let my fist loose and immediately regretted it. A shrill scream tore past my lips and I clutched my fingers tightly. I’d been right. The bars hadn’t so much as cracked, but my hand was already red and swelling. From across the hall, Paxton shook his head but continued to remain silent.

  I cried out again, this time in frustration, kicking the bars with the balls of my feet.

  Again, the bars remained solid, and all I felt was pain.

  Maybe I needed to change tactics.