Underestimated Affinities

by Matthew Scarcella

  “Sounds good to me,” Aislynn says, nodding vigorously. “Let’s teach them a lesson about unfair numbers.”

  She and Talon head off toward their respective duos, and Aethyr picks two more, yelling at my sister as he flies off in the other direction.

  “A lesson isn’t going to help them when they’re about to die, sis!”

  The two remaining for me are a male ice and earth wielder, and a female fire and metal wielder.

  The two of them attack jointly, spraying a barrage of ice shards and metal nails in my direction. I deflect both attacks back toward them with a single gust of wind.

  They dodge the reflected attack, but the female accidentally flies into the path of some of the shards of ice. She uses her fire affinity to melt the ice particles before they hit her. She’s able to do so just before impact, but that proves to my advantage.

  I manipulate the resulting water into a small bubble around her head and start siphoning the oxygen out from inside. She gasps for air, struggling to remove the water about her head. Her hands punch through the surface repeatedly, but I’m able to maintain my process without hindrance.

  A blue tinge creeps across her face as she looks desperately to her ally for assistance. As her body directs all its energy on trying to intake fresh oxygen, her wings stop beating momentarily. She falls to the ground, rocking side-to-side as each set of wings starts to beat out of turn, trying to keep her afloat. Her hands clutch at her throat in a last attempt to save herself.

  The male curses at me and forms a rock in one hand, while pointing the other at his companion. Using his ice affinity, he refreezes the bubble and then throws the rock at her head. The ice shatters upon collision, and the pieces fall haphazardly around her.

  In freefall, she makes a guttural sound as she takes her first breath. She inhales rapidly, trying to expand her lungs to their previous capacity. She’s able to right herself just before crashing into the ground — damn it.

  I realize I’ve lost my focus on the male, and I turn back toward him, almost too late. I withdraw the water contents from my other anklet and create a faux shield as his earth-sheathed fist connects with my ribs. The blow is subdued enough to not break any bones, but the force itself spins me sideways, spiraling toward my sister.

  “You alright?” I look over at her and she’s now fighting hand-to-hand with another earth wielder. I don’t see her second target, so they’re presumably already dead.

  “Yes,” I say, nodding and rubbing the spot where his fist connected. “I’m fine.”

  I use the remaining water from the shield to heal the minor damage caused to the cells, and then regain focus on the situation at hand. The male has crafted two short ice daggers and looks ready to surge. His companion is still collecting her bearings down below. She looks like she’s almost ready to join back in the fight, so I need to take her out while I still have the opportunity.

  As the male soars toward me, I tap into my wind affinity and create a sequence of cross breezes that halts him in his tracks. I wrap them around him and create a vortex like I learned to do a few weeks ago at Makoro. As the seconds tick by, the wind speed intensifies and traps him inside.

  I partition my focus and fly quickly toward the female, keeping track of the cyclone above me. The male yells out something inaudible, probably his friend’s name, and he creates a thin film of ice above her head. But an ice shield as thin as this won’t make a difference.

  She leans back and looks up just as I smash through it. Her eyes widen in shock as the Sai pierces her abdomen. She hits the ground before the shards from the broken ice do the same.

  I throw my other Sai up toward the male and use my wind affinity to direct it toward his position. The Sai careens upward at an alarming rate, and sails through a small opening I made toward the bottom of the vortex. It’s a direct hit. The man falls to the ground lifelessly, and I retrieve both of my Sais from the corpses left behind.

  Aislynn, Talon, and Aethyr touch down to the ground beside me. Aislynn’s maintained her composure, but the other two have broken out in a sweat.

  Aislynn crouches beside the dead woman and examines her corpse.

  “Such a waste of life,” she exclaims. “When you look around at all this death… it makes you wonder. Why? What kind of lives could these people have had if things had been different?” She sighs dejectedly.

  “It’s depressing to think about,” Talon replies. He wraps his bulging arms around my sister and kisses her cheek softly. “But they brought it upon themselves.”

  “I know I’m just defending my family and friends,” she says, “But that doesn’t make killing them any easier.”

  “There’s no point staying here anymore.” Aethyr walks past the bodies and spreads his wings, preparing for flight. “Let’s go west now and catch up to Safeyya.”

  He takes off ahead of us, and the three of us follow suit. He’s halfway toward Safeyya’s position, flying recklessly into the fray, when five rogues ambush him. Two of them appear in his path and block the way ahead, and another three come out of nowhere and surround him, stopping him from retreating.

  Aethyr summons up a ball of lava and quickly dispatches one of the rouges in front of him, but the others begin their onslaught, and he goes on the defensive. His flames are able to burn through some vines heading toward him, and they also melt a spray of ice daggers, but an earth wielder rushes toward him and engages him in close combat.

  Aislynn and Talon hurry forward to assist him, and I work from the sidelines trying to help him dodge mid-range attacks with my wind affinity. Talon intercepts the wood wielder and breaks his neck swiftly, but he isn’t able to get to the others in time.

  I divert an attack aimed at Aethyr from the side, but the earth wielder pushes him back into an oncoming ice spear. I start to panic because it’s too quick for me to react and too quick for him to use his affinities.

  “Aethyr, behind you!” I shout.

  He turns his head in slow motion and realizes what’s about to happen. Watching it unfold before my eyes is like a nightmare. His wings are able to stop him from being propelled into the spear, but the ice itself doesn’t stop hurtling toward him.

  Just as the spear is about to connect, Aislynn flies up into the path and puts up a shoddy layer of earth and metal between her and the ice, and pushes Aethyr out of the way. Her barrier shatters immediately and the spear pierces her chest.

  “No!” Aethyr and I scream at the same time.

  Talon’s body turns at the sound of our anguish, and the look on his face is pure torment as he takes in the scene before him. He hurls the wood wielder’s lifeless body toward the ground, and races toward my sister and brother.

  As Aethyr charges toward the ice wielder responsible for the pain inflicted on my sister, Talon attacks the other two rogues. A quick bash to the head with his rock-encrusted fist is enough to silence them for good.

  Aislynn’s body begins to plummet to the ground, and I rush downward to catch her before she hits the earth. I hug her in my arms and avoid touching the spear that is still lodged through her body. Her pulse is weakening, but she’s still alive — barely.

  I look upward and see that Aethyr’s reached his target. His hands burn a dark crimson, as he’s tapped into his lava affinity. Before the ice wielder has time to react, my brother covers the woman’s face with both his hands. The woman screams in agony as her skin boils and the flesh begins to melt away.

  My mind goes into overdrive. I know that if we’re going to save her, we will need to act quickly and carefully.

  Talon touches down beside me and sits down, cradling Aislynn’s head in his hands. Above us, Aethyr lets the woman fall to the ground before him and he flies down next to us. His expression changes from pure rage to grief as he realizes how serious this situation is.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says, tears welling in his eyes. “Selvyn, I didn’t mean to rush ahead.”

  “Shut up,” I say, perhaps too harshly; but there is no time
for this. “We don’t have much time.” I have an idea — it’s something I haven’t done before, and it’s quite risky. But we can’t lose her, so I’m going to need confidence and calm surrounding me.

  There’s another loud crack in the distance as the sky is lit up, and I realize that Safeyya is a lot closer than I originally thought. Good — I’m going to need her assistance. It’s going to take all of us to save Aislynn.

  “Do you trust me?” I ask my brother.

  “Implicitly,” he answers.

  “Melt the spear on both ends, but leave the part impaled through her lung intact. Be careful.” Talon helps me lift her body up, allowing Aethyr access to both sides of the weapon.

  He grabs either end and starts melting them with his fire affinity. He scales back his power as his hands close in on our sister’s torso. I extract oxygen from the resultant water particles, and push them into my sister’s body, allowing them to circulate and flow normally through her veins. I work cautiously, and without looking up, address my brother.

  “Go get Safeyya and tell her that I need her. Right now.” My brother flies off and leaves me to my work.

  Talon rubs my sister’s head lovingly and leans down, whispering into her ear. “You can’t die on me, Aislynn. I love you. You made me a promise, and you’re going to keep it. You’re in good hands — your brother’s going to take care of you.” I fight back tears of my own, my doubts about my abilities pushed to the back of my mind as I concentrate on the next step.

  “Tilt her backward, Talon.”

  He obliges, resting my sister’s head upon his lap. He starts crying inaudibly; even though I’m not paying attention to him, I can sense the tears falling onto his cheeks.

  I empty the contents of my belt and bracelets and pray there’s enough water here for what I have in mind. I split it in half and keep one side by me, combining my affinities and injecting more oxygen into the water molecules. The other half I use immediately, moving it into the wound on her chest.

  I feel the water meet the resistance of the remaining chunk of ice, but it begins melting underneath the constant pressure of the incoming water. It gives me more water molecules to work with, which is extremely helpful — I use them to start healing the tissues in her damaged lung and the scraped muscle of her heart.

  This was a deadly hit. I think I knew when I saw it happen, but I didn’t want to believe it at first. Now that I’m faced with the reality before me, I work even harder to keep my sister alive.

  Her heartbeat weakening, I take the suspended oxygen-rich water and plunge that into her body too. Only her right lung is operational, so her body isn’t receiving the oxygen it needs to function. I surround her heart with the water and do my best to keep it beating, slowly trickling oxygen into it, making up for her damaged lung.

  At this point, the ice particles have completely melted, and I’m working as fast as I can to mend the remaining damaged tissue. I’m sweating profusely, as this is very difficult and intricate work.

  I muster up all the strength I can from my wind affinity, and send a rush of pure oxygen into her heart and her brain, making sure that both will be able to perform as usual when I’m finished. Her heart is pumping sluggishly with my aid. It’s not yet strong enough to work on its own.

  I sense the tissue in her lung has been mended, but I don’t allow it to intake oxygen, because I’m going to need it collapsed in order to do what I need to next.

  Aethyr lands next to me and starts to sob hysterically as Safeyya flies down behind him in a panic.

  “What’s going on?!” she yells. “Aethyr wasn’t able to get a sentence out, he just said that you needed me immediately.”

  She looks down and takes in the damage inflicted on Aislynn and curses, her demeanor changing. Aethyr leans over Aislynn and starts up again.

  “I’m so sorry,” he says to her. “It’s all my fault. It’s my fault you’re suffering.”

  “I need you to be quiet!” I shout at him.

  Safeyya kneels beside me and presses a hand consolingly against my back. “Is she going to be alright?”

  “I think so,” I answer my sister. “But I’m going to need your assistance in a moment.” I turn to Talon. “Lean her forward now. Slowly.”

  Her back is caked in dried blood that flowed out when the ice melted. She’s lost a lot. But she can’t die — I won’t let her.

  “Cut my arm,” I say to no one in particular. “We’re the same blood type.”

  Out of my periphery, I see Safeyya take a dagger out from inside her shirt and slash my forearm with it. I don’t even feel the pain due to the adrenaline coursing through my body, but I raise my arm over Aislynn’s back and let the blood flow into her chest cavity.

  I insert my other hand through the wound and past her collapsed left lung, grabbing onto the water I have surrounding her heart. I grip it securely and use my remaining water to heal the last bit of damaged tissue, and use the last of the oxygen to give her heart a final boost.

  “Safeyya. Now is when I need you.”

  “Anything,” she replies somberly. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Go around to her front and shock her heart when I tell you to.” I hear the words come out of my mouth, and a distant part of me wonders when I became this strong. I suddenly feel an uncanny chilling sensation run through my body, through both my wings, and down the length of my spine as it turns from cold to hot. However, I sense there’s no danger around us, so I ignore it.

  Safeyya reacts without questioning me and the tip of her index finger turns an intense violet color as she waits for my cue. I pump Aislynn’s heart a few times to get a rhythm going, then release my hand quickly as I yell, “Now!” at Safeyya.

  She touches the tip of her finger against Aislynn’s chest and sends a shock into our sister’s heart. As my one arm continues to bleed into my sister, I pull the other hand back and grab her lung, depleting the last of my wind resources to inflate it with oxygen before retreating from her body. As I pull my hand back into fresh air, I can tell she’s already in a much better state.

  I instinctively know we need to cauterize the wound, and a fire engulfs my hand as it rests on top of her skin; Aethyr must have been reading my mind. For some reason, the fire doesn’t feel like it’s burning my hand, but I guess that must be the adrenaline as well.

  Aislynn leans herself backward into my hand as her body begins to function on its own. I move with her and allow her to rest on Talon’s lap. He grunts in pain as the fire comes into contact with his legs. I give him an annoyed look and he stops whimpering.

  The wound closes after a minute and as I pull my hand back, I see newly formed ice crystals on her back. What the hell? Someone must have helped me numb her pain. I look up, thinking Piero must have left the bunker and found me, but I only see my brother and sister, along with Talon.

  The three of them stare at Aislynn with bated breath, waiting for a sign she’s going to be alright. They also sneak shocked glances in my direction as I silently heal the gash on my arm.

  Another minute passes by, and then Aislynn gulps down several immense breaths of air before her eyes flutter open. She chokes momentarily and then looks up at us, trying to keep her eyes focused.

  “That fucking hurt…” she rasps.

  “Holy shit,” Safeyya says. She looks from me to our sister and then back to me again. Her eyes seem to look past my face and focus on my back.

  Talon looks at me, jaw agape. “You did it. I can’t believe it… I mean, I wasn’t sure if you would be able to, but you saved her life. How? She was as good as dead.”

  “I don’t know how I did it, but I’m not going to question it. However, I will say that I am officially exhausted. I feel like I could sleep for days.” I scratch the back of my head as I lift it toward the sky, feeling the wetness of half-dried blood scrape across my scalp. I hear the distant sounds of people still fighting.

  “Well,” Safeyya says, sullenly, “There’s still work yet to be done
.”

  When I look back down, the three of them are still staring at me as if I have seven heads.

  “By the way, Aethyr, thanks for helping to cauterize the wound just at the right moment.” I look at him but his facial expression hasn’t changed. “Were you able to read my mind or something?”

  “I-I-I didn’t… I wish I had known and done something to help, but… I didn’t know what to do….” He closes his mouth and continues to look at me for a brief moment, dumbfounded. Then he points at my back. “I didn’t do anything. You did… everything.”

  CHAPTER XIX

  THE TIDE TURNS SWIFTLY

  "What are you talking about?” I look between Aethyr, Safeyya, and Talon anxiously.

  “Well,” Aethyr continues, “You’ve sort of… uh…” He looks down at Aislynn as she begins recovering from her grogginess.

  “Ugh,” she groans again, coughing as she looks up toward Talon and our siblings. “Hey everyone.” Her expression changes as she looks at me. “Um, when did Selvyn get upgraded?”

  “Upgraded?” I repeat, incredulously. “Will someone explain?”

  “I need to go,” Safeyya says. “I’m sorry I can’t explain in greater detail, but just look behind you and it’ll make a bit more sense. You gained your secondary set of wings while you were healing her.” Wait — what? “Thank you for that, by the way. You’re amazing and I love you, but the city needs my help now.” She gives me a quick hug and then flies off, tears stinging the corners of her eyes.

  As I turn my head to the left to watch her go, my eyes glide over a detail on my person that wasn’t there before. Underneath my wind wing is a second wing, the feathers light blue in color — an ice wing. I stare at it momentarily and then reach back and grab onto it to make sure that it’s real; it is indeed. I turn my head the other way and find another new development below my water wing, the feathers on this one bright scarlet — a fire wing.