Underestimated Affinities

by Matthew Scarcella

  “I’ve just been caught up in my own head like I usually am.” I caress his back, underneath his wings. “I was too concerned about the future to just enjoy the present. I’m sorry.”

  He pulls back and looks me in the eyes, pushing a stray strand of hair off my face. “It’s alright, I’ve been there before. I understand what you’re going through. I just want to spend time with you and get to know you better. That’s not so scary, is it?”

  “No…” I grin stupidly. “It doesn’t seem too scary when you put it that way, but I would like you to try to have a bit more patience with me. You’ve done this before… I haven’t.”

  “Of course,” he says, rubbing his thumb along my cheek. He uses his other hand to grasp my shirt and pull me closer to him. I feel my cheeks begin to burn as he kisses me with a passion I didn’t know existed.

  In the background I hear a loud zapping noise and a blaze of red illuminates my inner eyelids. I hear Aislynn yelling something inaudible, but I’m lost in his lips.

  Piero pulls back from me and looks at my sister, who’s pointing toward the east.

  The red returns in the distance as I see three long bursts of fire shoot up into the sky, followed by two short bursts. Not good — that’s the city’s defensive signal we use in the event of an attack. I hear the zapping noise again and look toward Safeyya, who confirms my suspicion.

  She drops all notions of being my loving sister and transforms into our Commander. “Everyone!” she yells in the direction of the crowd, “Bring your children inside. Now!”

  The parents scuttle around in a panic, trying to round up their children and bring them to a safer location.

  Safeyya turns to address the rest of us. “Aislynn — go alert the Council, then meet me at the southeast quadrant where you chastised me when you found me trying to eat bugs off the ground when I was four. Selvyn, go bring Piero to the bunker where you told me about Kryolen.” Aislynn’s flown off in a flash and left the four of us standing there, myself and Piero in shock at the speed at which things are escalating.

  “But —” I start to protest.

  “Do it now!” she yells. Then, more softly, “I’m sorry, Piero, but the Council doesn’t want you engaged in any fighting or warfare. I’ve been given strict orders. While I occasionally hate those idiots, I agree with them on this part. You haven’t been a Tune long enough to fully utilize your power, and I don’t want you getting in the way of us out there.” She turns around as if that’s that. “Aethyr, you’re with me on the front lines.”

  He steps up beside her and they prepare to take off. Safeyya turns to look at me one more time.

  “I said now, Selvyn. Pick up the Sais of Zulena and your belt and whatever else you wear with water in it, and meet us where I told Aislynn to meet us. If you don’t see us there, do not engage anyone by yourself. Find us immediately — I intend to start southeast and head north in a straight line if possible. If you see Alexyo or Celestra, stick with them as a last resort, but your priority is to be near one of us at all times. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I sigh, and she’s off less than a second later.

  I turn to face Piero, who has grabbed my hand and doesn’t seem to want to let go.

  “Come on,” I say.

  He sighs despondently but follows me as I lead him toward the bunker.

  CHAPTER XVIII

  UNEXPECTED TRANSFORMATION

  "Where are we going?” Piero shouts from behind me as we run under the cover of trees. There’s a loud, thunderous crack from the east, and I know that Safeyya’s already reached the front lines.

  “Didn’t you hear my sister?” I say. “I’m taking you to a hidden bunker we have. It’s just a bit further.”

  “Sure, but… why aren’t we flying there? We’d get there quicker, wouldn’t we?” I look back behind me and he shrugs calmly as if he’s dealing with an idiot.

  “I don’t want us to be targets over here. It’s all open space above us.” I stop running because my wind wing begins to tremble. There’s no sign of anyone, but I hear a rumble and feel a slight disturbance in the earth behind us.

  “Yeah, but the fighting’s back east.” He hears the noise also and starts to turn around. “We’ll be fine over here —”

  “Get down!” I yell.

  A large spiked rock the size of my torso soars over his head as he ducks, and it heads right toward me. I tap into my wind affinity and summon a strong gust of wind from behind me. I move my arm in a windmill motion and the wind spins over my head and then slices through the rock just in time. Using the recurring force, I’m able to propel either half of the earth away from me and they fall to the ground, each with a dull thud.

  “Okay then,” Piero says while still crouching on the ground. “We can do it your way.”

  An earth and fire wielder walks out from behind a distant tree to my left and starts running toward us.

  “Two o’clock,” I tell Piero. At my words, ice crystals start forming at his fingertips, and the environment around us turns chilly.

  “Your two o’clock, or my two o’clock?” he asks.

  “Yours,” I say more quietly. “Ground — not air.”

  “Duly noted.” He turns his head, just enough to judge the distance of the oncoming rogue, and then presses his hand firmly against the ground.

  “No!” A shout comes from the enemy. His foot is impaled on an ice spike Piero created, sticking out of the ground like a frozen stalagmite. “Shit!” He teeters back and forth for a moment, cursing under his breath. But it’s futile. Losing his balance, he falls backward onto a few more frigid ice spikes. A bloodcurdling scream emanates as they pierce his flesh. A few more seconds and he falls silent.

  Piero rolls his eyes in disgust. “So that one wasn’t so difficult, but I guess they’re not just mobilized on the east, then.”

  “Seems that way. Let’s keep going.”

  We arrive at the building with the upside-down tree without another incident, and I open the door and lead Piero in like last time with Safeyya. I turn the lights on and sit on the floor for a moment. When I leave here, I’m going to need to be mentally prepared for anything.

  Piero plops down beside me and rests his head on my shoulder.

  “Are you going to be alright out there?” he says.

  “You know — if I had been asked that a few months ago, I would have said no. But at this point in my life, I can say without a doubt that I’m going to be okay.”

  “I’m glad to hear that, but I still don’t want you to go out there.”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic,” I say, grabbing his hand. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”

  “Alright,” he says. “You go do what you have to do, and I’ll see you a bit later.”

  I lean against the wall by the entrance and look him over again before heading out. His dark hair glistens with ice particles after using his affinity, the dull lighting accentuating the individual strands falling across one another, creating a crystalline appearance. It makes the brilliant violet color of his eyes pop even more.

  “Alright,” I say, smiling. “I’ll be back soon.”

  Sticking low to the ground, it takes me less than five minutes to fly home and collect my supplies. By the time I’m headed east, the sky is alight with flashes of fighting: elements smashing into one another, causing chaos. There are a lot more people than I’m prepared to deal with, but I continue on regardless, avoiding everything I can.

  I skirt the edges of the fray, scanning the scene above for familiar faces. My siblings aren’t anywhere to be found, but I see Talon above me, his bulky form heading north with three rogues on his tail.

  I focus my attention on a point in front of him, and as soon as he passes it, I use my wind affinity to put up an invisible blockade, halting his trail in their tracks. I alter the direction of the wind and pull them toward me. By the time they realize what’s going on, I’ve already got one of them where I want him, and I plunge a Sai through one of his kidneys.<
br />
  He falls off my blade to the floor, writhing in agony. A large rock falls out of the sky and crushes him, as I turn to see Alexyo and Celestra touch down gracefully beside me.

  “Thought I would put him out of his misery,” Alexyo chuckles.

  “What took you so long?” Celestra says, brandishing two thorn whips by her side. “This is such a pain in the ass. I mean really, who do these idiots think they are?”

  “There’s a large gathering of rogues that came over the wall in the north after the initial distraction over here. Your siblings headed there a few minutes ago.” Alexyo lights his fists up in flames and turns to face the other two rogues I brought down. “You should go to them. We’ll take care of these two and be right behind you.”

  I turn to look at Celestra. She stares me down in response.

  “Um, hello? We’ve done this before and we’re better at it than you. At least for now.” She extends the length of one of the vines and curls it around the rogue standing on her right, yanking him to the ground violently. “See? Go.”

  Knowing that my friends could take care of themselves, I turn my attention to the north and leave them to deal with any stragglers.

  After running for a kilometer, I spot Melandria huddled over Klaryk, off to the side behind a building. From her demeanor, I think he may be hurt. I approach cautiously, presuming she’ll be on guard.

  “Hey Melandria,” I say. “Is Klaryk alright? And where did you get that weapon?”

  Melandria drops the handmade gun she had picked up after hearing my footsteps and acknowledges me quickly while tending to him. She resumes applying pressure to his wound.

  “Oh, this? I made it myself after I found something similar in a ruined city far away from Belarin. It looked interesting so I analyzed it and did my best to replicate and enhance it. As for him, I think he’s okay,” she sighs into his shirt. “The cut isn’t deep, and the bleeding has almost stopped.” She removes her bloody hands from his torso and then throws a piece of clothing used to staunch the bleeding off to the side. “Would you please take a look?”

  “Of course,” I say. Melandria shuffles out of my way as I kneel beside them. “Hmm, doesn’t look too bad.” I run my hands along the length of the cut and underneath his skin. I feel the sinew of muscles pulling themselves back together, mending the wound. “It’s mostly healed already.”

  “I know, but I think his lung was pierced. He was having difficulty breathing.” I rest my ear against his chest. There’s a noticeably odd sound emanating from his left lung.

  “Alright… give me a second.” I siphon the water out from one of my anklets and it settles over the cut on his chest before disappearing into his body via osmosis. My water moves over and around his lung until I spot the entryway that shouldn’t be there. “Found it. Can you restrain him? This isn’t going to be pleasant.”

  “Sorry about this, Klaryk.” She sits on the upper portion of his chest, holding his head in place with her hands, and a moment later a few sets of restraints appear around his elbows, wrists, thighs, and ankles, and a final one around his abdomen, securing him to the ground.

  “Get on with it, Selvyn,” Klaryk says, coughing afterward.

  “Alrighty then, here we go.” I encourage the water to enter his lung, and working quickly, I start mending the damaged lung tissue. His body convulses underneath us. “Nearly there, Klaryk. Just another minute.”

  After thirty seconds I’ve already repaired the damage to the major bronchus — a sharp piece of wood had to be plucked out. A rush of oxygen-rich blood to the area closes up the hole that was there a moment ago. I’m just tending to the remaining bronchioles that protrude downward toward the bottom half of the lung when the now common prickly sensation flows through my wind wing.

  “Incoming, Melandria.”

  “Where?” she says, looking around frantically.

  “I don’t know,” I respond impatiently. “I’m a little preoccupied — feels like somewhere to my back left, just figure it out.”

  She grunts, grabbing her gun in the process. Not moving from her straddled position over Klaryk’s neck, she arches her back and uses her body to uncomfortably flatten me further onto his chest. “Found her.”

  I hear three shots echo into my eardrum as I push the remaining water out through Klaryk’s mouth. He finishes coughing as a loud thud in the background signals that Melandria’s target fell to the ground.

  “Thank you, Selvyn,” Klaryk mumbles in an appreciative tone.

  “You’re welcome,” I reply, patting his chest awkwardly. I push my head up into Melandria’s back, motioning her to get off me. “Melandria, I’m starting to feel like the middle of a sandwich. Would you please remove yourself from my back?”

  “Right, right. Sorry.” She lifts herself up and off the two of us, undoing Klaryk’s restraints in the process.

  “I think I can hear a ringing in my ears,” I say.

  “Be grateful that I added a sound suppressor to the end of the gun, otherwise it would be a lot worse.” She looks at Klaryk and then back at me, scrunching her eyebrows and lips to make an expression that implies: ‘sorry, that just came out, but I know I’m the one that should be grateful.’

  I shrug it off. “I’m going to go find Aethyr and my sisters. He’ll be fine, just sit him upright for a few minutes.” A thought that occurred to me when I was healing Klaryk pops back into my head, and I convey it to the two of them.

  “We’re going to have to instruct some of the metal wielders on healing techniques one of these days…”

  “Huh?” they say in unison, looking at me quizzically.

  “You know… there’s iron in hemoglobin… blood. There’s only one atom of iron per molecule of hemoglobin, but the concentration in blood is so dense overall that metal wielders with at least a dual affinity should be able to manipulate pathways.”

  The staring intensifies, so I just continue speaking. “They… I mean you. You should be able to manipulate portions of blood into different areas of the body. It’s possible you can heal like I can, just in a different way. If you hone in on your affinity well enough, I think you can direct blood flow toward an injured area of the body. This can increase recovery time rapidly and enhance clotting factors dependent on concentrations. Maybe it’s more convoluted than I’m making it sound.”

  “Amazing,” Melandria says as she props Klaryk up against the building.

  “I’ve never thought about it like that,” Klaryk says hazily. “Brilliant, truly.”

  “Indeed,” she agrees. “Thanks again for helping, but we won’t take up any more of your time. He’ll be fine in a moment and we’ll both be good to go. I think Safeyya’s a bit northwest of us right now.”

  I look over in the direction Melandria is pointing, an ominous cloud looming over that portion of the battle. An earsplitting boom echoes from the distance and an assault of lightning bolts rains down upon the trees directly under the cloud. Some of them catch fire, and the prompt escalation of battle is quite noticeable as those flaming trees go soaring through the air at multiple targets.

  I leave the two of them to recuperate and fly into the fray, stabbing another two unfortunate souls in my way. At this point, the sensation in my wind wing is overwhelming.

  I dodge a blow from my right and turn to see Aethyr sending out a wave of flames at my attacker. The earth wielder’s wings are engulfed in a blaze and he falls to the ground as his feathers turn to ash.

  “Welcome to the party, bro.”

  “Where’s Aislynn?” I shout to him over the noise.

  “She’s a bit further up north. Safeyya’s moved a bit west with her protégé and a few of the guards. Bayleigh wanted her to make sure that no one got too close to the city center. I mean, the Council isn’t out here fighting themselves, but what else is new.” He lights his fists up in flames and signals for me to follow him toward Aislynn.

  We spot her just ahead, as she and Talon are surrounded by ten rogues, barely holding their ow
n. They’re both playing defense, alternating between earth shields and her use of wood and metal affinities to deflect incoming attacks. But from what I can see, they can’t manage to squeeze out any attacks.

  “Ugh,” Aislynn groans from afar. A fireball burned through her tree branch and hit her in the thigh.

  “Are you okay?” Talon shouts over the roar of battle. A throng of ice spikes hits his earth shield and starts to pierce through with several loud bangs.

  “Not for much longer!” Aislynn shouts back. A lava ball hits a square of metal she was holding off to her side to deflect attacks. The metal corrodes and drips to the earth below her.

  Talon circles around behind her so the two of them are back-to-back. They both draw up more earth from the ground and fashion them into new shields before the next round of attacks.

  “Shit,” Aethyr curses under his breath. He turns to me. “Quick — give me a speed boost.”

  I focus on sending a strong gust of wind behind him, serving to propel him forward. As an added bonus, my affinity enhances his and the strength of the flames on his hands get kicked up a notch, blazing an intense orange.

  We reach them just in time.

  Two of the rogues have their backs turned to us. Aethyr seizes the opportunity and tosses fire at the one to his right, and she screams in anguish upon contact. As she begins her languid descent, my brother makes contact with the other one and latches his legs around the man’s waist. With a quick flourish of his hands, Aethyr snaps the man’s neck and then propels himself backward, watching them both fall to the ground in unison.

  “There,” he says, laughing subtly. “Now these numbers make more sense.”

  The remaining eight shout to each other, encouraging themselves to end us, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen at this point — they look too inexperienced. They’re scattered far enough away to prove to our advantage now, as it will be easier to gang up on them.

  “Thanks,” Talon says as the two of us break their ranks and join him and my sister. He cracks his knuckles and a piece of rock breaks off his fist and falls to the ground. “Two each seems fair, yes?”