Underestimated Affinities

by Matthew Scarcella

  “I think it’s just something I ingrained in myself when I was younger. It’s been hard to shake off the thoughts — they’re automatic now.”

  “I see,” he sighs. “That’s unfortunate.” He runs his hand down the length of my arm, then entwines his fingers through mine. “But that’s something we’re going to work on — together. Alright?”

  My heart rate accelerates and my nerves are standing on edge, but strangely, I’m happy to know that someone else wants to be involved in my life in this way.

  “Okay,” I reply. I start to rest my head on top of his, but an eerie sensation washes over me: as if I’m being watched.

  I stop in my tracks for a fraction of a second before continuing my motion, not wanting to alert the interloper to my awareness. Piero picks up on the small hesitancy on my part and squeezes my hand to reassure me.

  “Is everything alright?” he asks.

  “Yes — no. Maybe,” I whisper. “I’m not quite sure, but be quiet for a moment. I think someone’s watching us.”

  “So?” he chuckles. “Let them watch. There’s not much to see right now.”

  “Shush,” I chastise him. “I’m serious. Give me a moment.”

  I glance around, apprehension washing over me. My concern right now isn’t someone watching me sitting with him. What’s worrying me is this sense of dread prickling across my wings and up the base of my spine, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Whoever’s watching me — I mean, us — their presence isn’t a friendly one.

  I don’t see anyone or anything startling in the immediate vicinity. I can’t exactly move my head around too much without drawing more attention to my cognizance of the situation, so I close my eyes and tap into my sensory abilities.

  The wind is stagnant, but with a slight mental push, I accumulate a small current and maintain a circulation about my wind wing. I extend my consciousness into the wind and spread it out across the field all around us. The air molecules spread out into a thin layer that allows me to feel any and every living being surrounding us.

  I calmly pass over the insects crawling over strands of grass and focus on a blurry area behind me and to the west. I sense a presence there, but for some reason, I can’t get a clear picture of what should otherwise be known.

  I pull the rest of the air back in around me and send a strong gust in the direction of the presence. Mentally, I feel as if I’ve hit a literal wall. The wind just got to a certain point and then rebounded.

  That’s when it clicks — the person watching us is also a wind wielder, and now they’re toying with me.

  I pull away from Piero, letting his fingers unravel from my own. I make my way around the base of the tree as Piero struggles to sit up, startled from my sudden movement.

  “I thought you were concerned someone was watching us,” he says slowly. “So why are you getting up and wandering around…?”

  “Doesn’t matter anymore. Whoever’s watching us is a wind wielder as well. They know I can sense them, and they’re playing with me.” The words come out of me like venom, and I hope that Piero doesn’t think I’m taking this tone in his presence on purpose, or that any of my anger is directed at him.

  I stare straight ahead into the field, toward a small mound of rocks and broken tree limbs littering the ground. The sensation in my wing intensifies. Whoever’s watching me is over that way. I have half a mind to go and confront them, but my intuition gets the better of me and I stay planted where I am.

  “I know you’re watching me!” I yell into the distance. “Who are you? What do you want?!”

  A strong gust of wind sails toward me, and before I can move out of the way, it hits me in the sternum, and I fall backward onto my ass. Piero pulls me to my feet abruptly, and in that instant, the figure’s made herself visible.

  Standing in the distance is a woman that, at first glance, appears to be ten or fifteen years older than me. Her long black hair falls in swirls behind her, coming to rest behind her wings at her hips. I do a double take as I notice them — her wings. A pair of lava wings rest closest to her head; her primary affinity. Beneath them reside her secondary earth wings, and below those, her final and tertiary set: wind. She watches in amusement as I take in her appearance, and then she continues to stare at me with her cold black eyes. Everything about her speaks malevolence, and I’m so repulsed I can’t help but want to crawl away from my own skin.

  Piero tenses beside me and grabs my hand, offering some form of mild support, or is it something else…. What at once started as a firm grip quickly begins to increase in pressure, to the point of him hurting me.

  The woman takes no notice of his movement, and her eyes don’t move from me. Her eyes glance at my wings and then she flicks them back to my own as if trying to peer into my soul.

  “Selvyn,” Piero whispers beside me, almost inaudibly. “There’s something familiar about this woman’s aura… I’ve felt it before.”

  I sense another presence in the distance, closing fast — this one much more familiar, and reassuring. My sister’s flying toward us from behind, and she’s closing in quickly.

  I stand my ground and yell at the woman in the distance once again. “What do you want?!”

  She raises her finger and points at my heart. A small red dot appears at the tip of her finger as she taps into her lava affinity, creating a small yet deadly projectile at her target: me.

  Piero acts immediately, sensing the imminent danger. He creates a thick layer of ice in front of us and starts to spread his shield from our torsos down to our feet and up above our heads.

  As the ice thickens around us and begins to obscure my vision, I see the woman mouth one word in my direction.

  “You.”

  CHAPTER XVI

  A THREAT ON THE HORIZON

  Just as the last of the ice shield forms in front of us, I look up and notice a large gathering of clouds overhead. Safeyya’s hold over her element intensifies, and the wind kicks up vigorously as a storm gathers in the sky while she touches down hard next to me.

  Piero starts to spread the shield out to cover her as well, but my sister isn’t having any of that at all. She marches forward — on a mission.

  Safeyya raises her hands to the sky and brings them back down in the direction of the woman. A series of lightning bolts strike out from the clouds and hit where I can only imagine the intruder was standing a mere second ago.

  Safeyya curses loudly from my side.

  Piero releases his hold on his affinity and I watch the ice melt in front of us. As the water droplets cascade down before me, I hear Safeyya yelling at the woman flying away.

  “Coward!” she screams vehemently.

  The woman turns around to look at us before disappearing into the distance, and the ice-cold feeling of terror courses through me once more.

  I sit on the grass, and while it takes me a few minutes to come back from the low that anxiety provides, I hear Safeyya questioning Piero a few meters away.

  “How long was she here? How did she get in? Do you know what she wanted? Why does my brother look like he’s about to have a convulsion?” She berates him without pause, not allowing him a chance to even offer one answer, let alone four or five.

  “Safeyya,” he says while holding his hands up defensively, “I have no idea of anything more than you do at this point. All I know is that Selvyn said he felt as if someone was watching us, and then next thing I know, this crazy weird chick is pointing a finger at his chest. She looked like she was about to fire a lava bullet, so I put up a shield. Honestly, I’m glad you came when you did; she looked very powerful. It’s quite unusual for someone with three different affinities to be so proficient in one of them. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure if my shield would have done much against such a compressed amount of lava like that. I mean, it would have slowed the bullet down enough for me to push Selvyn to the ground, but it would have melted after the first shot for sure.”

  She looks as if she doesn’t ex
actly believe him — she’s always been wary of strangers, and Piero hasn’t yet made it over to her good side.

  “He’s telling the truth, Safeyya,” I say, pulling myself to my knees and then pushing myself off the ground into a standing position. “We were just sitting on the other side of the shoardez over there,” I say while pointing. “One minute it was peaceful… and then the next I could feel her presence. Piero said he thinks he’s also felt her before.”

  Safeyya looks at me warily. She crosses her arms over her chest to stop herself from shaking, and she looks as if she may vomit.

  Something is strange about her demeanor. “What do you know that you’re not telling us?” I ask her, incredulously. I could always tell when my siblings weren’t exactly being truthful with me, and this is definitely one of those times.

  “I’m not… withholding anything, per se. I don’t remember her name. I just know that she’s not someone you want to mess with. There are some really horrifying things I’ve heard about someone matching her description and… I’m just alarmed she was here. In our city. In the same area as my brother. Looking for a fight. It… I just wonder what the hell has happened to our security measures….” Her train of thought comes to an end as she looks off into the distance, where the woman flew off.

  I wager Safeyya knows more than she is letting on, but this isn’t an issue I want to push right now. Especially considering she pretty much just saved our asses. Ice isn’t the best match against lava, so I’m not sure how well Piero would have fared, even being a Tune. Not that I feel useless anymore, but still.

  “Well… thanks for being here,” I say, walking over to hug her. She wraps her arms around me in response and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Of course, little brother. What else am I supposed to do if not rescue you at every turn?”

  I pry a little more, knowing that at least some questions are certainly safe to ask right now. “How did you even know where I was?”

  “Oh, I ran into Aethyr earlier,” she shrugs dismissively. “He told me you would be out here training, and I wanted to talk to you about something. Plus, as I got closer, I could sense Piero here, of course.” She waves her hand in the air as if this didn’t happen to be the biggest coincidence in the world. “I guess I simply have good timing.”

  “I’ll say,” Piero chimes in. “Saved our hides, you did. I haven’t had much fighting experience or training since gaining my tertiary set of wings.”

  “Well,” Safeyya grins wickedly, “Then you should probably change that. Soon.”

  “That’s true…” Piero says, eyeing my sister up and down, and then looking over the burn marks in the ground where the lightning struck. “But… maybe I could practice with someone that isn’t you. Are you always that accurate?”

  I chuckle in response. Safeyya grins broadly.

  “Not always. Even having a triple affinity toward lightning, it’s still difficult to manipulate at times. After all, it is subject to charged particles all around the immediate vicinity it’s simultaneously stemming from and targeting. In this particular instance, I targeted the ground instead of the woman. In layman’s terms, it’s more precise, and takes less energy on my part.”

  “What exactly do you mean?” Piero asks. “Why would targeting the ground make more sense?”

  “How do I explain in more detail…” Safeyya kneels before the charred patch of grass where the lightning struck and looks over at us as if we were expected to follow. After we get closer, she pinpoints the center of the circle where there is quite literally a large target mark burned into the ground.

  “As you can see, I’m able to create a target when I’m aiming at the ground. Lightning wielders are able to detect positive and negative charges in the environment, and in objects. When tapping into our affinity, we can sense negative imbalances in the lower parts of clouds, or create them when they aren’t present. Then we just find a positive charge in the ground or a stable object attached to the ground, and we can make an easy target by connecting the charges, and directing the negative bolt toward the positive object.” She points absentmindedly at the target area. “Creating crosshairs with the positive charges increases precision, at least for me, to nearly one hundred percent.

  “It becomes more difficult with people, especially when they are wielding different affinities because there are an abundance of charges that are constantly changing. Throw into the mix a moving target on the ground, or one that is flying… and that’s where accuracy and precision become difficult to ascertain.”

  “So,” Piero says, scratching his head, “Basically you’re saying it’s much easier to target the ground than it is a person or moving target. I get that, but how does targeting the ground allow you to damage an opponent?”

  “Aha!” Safeyya grins excitedly. “That’s an excellent question. The answer is mildly convoluted, but I will say that when the bolt hits its target on the ground, we still have control over it. Instead of allowing it to dissipate into the positive charges, we can direct it back up. In this instance, had that bitch still been standing here, she would have died for sure. I would have been able to direct the electrical current through her feet and right up to her heart. Unfortunately, I’ve only ever encountered two individuals that were stupid enough not to move.”

  I look uncomfortably over my shoulder, wondering where she flew off to, and where she even came from. I say the only thing that pops into my head: “Then it’s a sin she isn’t stupid.”

  “Yes.” Safeyya nods in agreement. “Regrettably, she is not. In addition, if she is who I think she is, then she has a… friend, shall we say, that is a lightning wielder. She is… very familiar with the ins and outs of my affinity. I did not anticipate what I had planned would have gone the way I wanted. But I scared her off, at least, so there’s that. I don’t necessarily think she was frightened of me, but more the thought that it would have been three versus one. The odds were certainly against her once I showed up.”

  “Hey!” Piero declares. “What’s that supposed to mean? You don’t think that Selvyn and I could have taken her?”

  Safeyya looks at him hesitantly, eyebrows raised. “You? Not even if you had been the Ice Tune for the past five or ten years, with all that education and training combined. She’s a very skilled lava wielder, and ice is weakest against lava and fire. Selvyn wouldn’t have been much of an assistance in his current state, either. He already looks exhausted. She’s also a wind wielder, and thus could go toe-to-toe with him on that affinity, and I don’t think he can do much damage with his water affinity… not that there happens to be any in the immediate vicinity.”

  “So…” I start, trying to change the subject so that Piero doesn’t feel any worse. “Thanks again, but what did you come here to talk to me about?”

  “Ah, yes,” she says, standing and brushing charred bits of soil from her palms. “Coincidentally, and now possibly ironically, I came here to talk to you about our little problem with rogue Zicarna. There have been more… incidents, shall we say, across the city. The issue is beginning to get out of hand, and the Council is suggesting that we intensify the training protocol to rigorous levels so that the army will be ready in the event of an attack.”

  “So,” Piero interjects, “Do you actually anticipate an attack on Belarin? I’ve been here a matter of minutes and you people are already causing trouble for me.”

  “It’s possible. I mean, anything is possible at any given time.” My sister flourishes her hand, brushing it off. “What I will say, is that the number of incidents in the surrounding area involving rogues has increased exponentially in the past few weeks. It started just before you got here, Piero.

  “We’ve always had stragglers. Every city has, of course, it’s not related to Belarin in any way. Usually, someone has an issue with the way things are being run in their city, and so they leave. They try to find solace in nature.

  “Quite frankly, if you weren’t the Ice Tune,” she says boldly, shrugging in Piero’
s direction, “Then you wouldn’t have been welcome here either. But I digress, the point is that it seems, to the Council, and myself at the very least, that a number of these rogues have bonded together and have been scavenging our resources, as well as causing moderate damage to the nearby terrain. Therefore, they have ordered a city-wide warning of caution, and suggest staying within the city limits when not assigned to a mission. Well, aside from you, Piero. You’re not supposed to leave at all just yet.

  “To sum up, my brother, whom I love beyond measure, has this fascinating habit of getting into trouble after doing exactly what I tell him not to. But I thought that if I told him the truth about it being a dangerous time, maybe he wouldn’t do anything stupid like leave Belarin unattended. The last thing I need right now is for him to leave the city and get attacked, or killed.” She stares at my face, wondering if I’ve absorbed anything she said.

  “Ah, don’t look at me like that, Safeyya,” I say reluctantly. “You know I hate that expression.”

  “And you know why it’s plastered on my face,” she says. She cocks her head to the side and sighs with exasperation. “Anyway, I’ve said what I came here to say. I should probably go alert the Council to that woman’s presence. I’ll say, some days I really do hate this job.”

  She walks over toward us and whispers in Piero’s ear. I don’t see her mouth moving, but I hear her voice on the wind drifting toward me: “Can you take his mind off this for a bit, please?”

  He nods in response, but I act as if I haven’t heard anything.

  “I’ll see you later, okay?” She sniffs the air around me. “You stink, by the way. Go take a shower.” She hugs me gingerly, maintaining the distance between us. “I love you, Selvyn.”

  “Love you too, sis,” I say to her retreating form.