Karena ripped herself away from the sight of him. She cried as she ran because she had to abandon him. She sprinted through the rock garden and over the sandy area, destroying the intricate designs that they had been admiring minutes prior. She sweated as the temperatures soared. Her feet barely touched the trembling ground. Shouts rang out behind her, but she didn’t look back.
Above her, wings flapped. Karena skidded to a stop and looked up to see Evelyn pacing her from the sky. Evelyn was acting like a tracker so that the others would be able to find her. Evelyn had made the grave mistake of not transforming into her halcyon form, and Karena was going to take full advantage of it.
Adrenaline mixed with a dangerous dose of anger pounded through her. Fly, fly, birdy fly. We are not of the air, but we are of the frozen lands, so beware her blood sang inside of her. Evelyn hovered above her, thinking herself safe from her wrath down below. Karena had practiced taking down aerial targets before by using ceramic disks. An airborne person would be far easier to hit.
Karena crouched down. Ninja stars made from ice formed on the back of her hands. They spun. Karena jumped up, and threw her hands skyward. She twisted, landed, and repeated the move to fire another round at Evelyn
Evelyn screeched and squawked like a bird in pain. Feathers fluttered down, having been cut like a razor from her ice stars. One of her ninja stars stuck out of Evelyn’s shoulder, leg, and wing joint. But Evelyn maintained her altitude. Before she could fly off, Karena shot a blast of ice at her. It hit Evelyn’s left wing. She tumbled out of the sky and fell hard onto the ground. She flailed her wings, but a look of pain crossed her face. Her left wing drooped. It was probably broken. Now confined to the ground, Evelyn stood up to face her. Evelyn struggled to transform into a halcyon, but her broken wing wouldn’t let her. Her nails grew and then shrunk, unable to make the transformation to defend herself.
Karena wanted to kill her for exposing her relationship with Asher. Now they would have to contend with the backlash that would stem from everyone learning that they had been dating each other, something forbidden between opposing elementals, especially Chaos elementals. Karena approached her.
Evelyn stumbled back, but became cornered by a large, curved boulder. She shivered like a shaking leaf in the wind. Her breath exhaled as quick puffs of white due to the frigid air swirling around Karena and the surrounding area.
But then Karena stilled. She remembered that she was Asher’s best friend, just like what Hadrian was to her. Asher hadn’t talked a lot about Evelyn, unlike Jinx, his other best friend. Asher and Evelyn had been childhood friends until the age of ten, which was when Evelyn had left with her family to travel around the Sundarin Nation. Karena clung onto these snippets of information to make the enemy before her more human, and less of an object to destroy. Karena wanted to kill her, she was that angry, but she held back for the sake of Asher.
Still livid, Karena withdrew from her, hating her with every ounce in her body. Evelyn had ruined everything. Karena sprinted away. Ice kicked up behind her as she fled through the garden and out the other entrance.
Her feet pounded the concrete sidewalk of the adjacent neighborhood. Her emotions heaved inside of her, rendering her weak and unfocused. She stopped running and walked into an alleyway. At the far side, she slumped onto a bench that was situated under an awning next to a store’s employee door.
Horns blared in the distance. Dogs barked. She began to cry. She had been forced to leave Asher. Everyone would now know of their relationship and would be furious about it and would try to keep them apart. It was uncertain when she would be able to see Asher again. It could be weeks or even months.
Lights lit up the sky as people searched for her, but she stayed where she was, wise to the fact that a moving person on the streets would more likely be seen than a stationary one sitting on a bench out of sight. Police sirens wailed, and one came cruising down the street. Through watery eyes, she watched it pass by. Ice crawled up the nearby walls and thickened. She couldn’t control her emotions. Even if she tried, it was destined to be a losing battle.
Chapter 9
The night deepened, and slowly the noise of commotion in the area died as people gave up on trying to hunt her down before she had a chance to escape the Fire district. She didn’t care about how lucky she was to remain undiscovered, all she cared about was being with Asher. Her heart wept. Her life had been ruined, as had his.
From the street, a big dog came into view. It sniffed the air, and padded over to her while panting. Though it looked like a big, dumb dog, Karena knew otherwise. It sat before, like a dog would, and woofed. Those that belonged to the Nightguard always unnerved her. From what she had been told by her dad, the most dangerous ones acted this way. They were thoughtful and friendly because they had mastered human compassion, but on the flipside, they had also mastered raw, wolf aggression.
“Yes, Nightguard?” she asked.
The dog transformed into a rugged, muscular man in a cloak. He drew the cloak around him, and sat cross-legged on the ground before her. His predatory eyes stared up at her, and he smiled. His canine teeth showed.
He said, “You hide well.”
“I wasn’t trying to hide.”
“Your shoes must’ve had a layer of ice on them, which melted in your wake and as you sat here. That might explain why your scent was so hard to pick up. The police have been out too, and they were using power-seeking spells that were calibrated to find a Chaos elemental.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“It would seem like luck favors you.”
“No, it doesn’t. Not tonight or any night after this one.”
“Luck is a fickle thing. Captain Dreadmore instructed us to find you before the Fires and Airs did. The police can be biased in matters concerning elementals, so we were hoping to find you first.”
“Well, you found me, congrats,” Karena said, wishing that he and the rest of the world would go away. He was very chatty for a Nightguard.
“You have discovered that fire doesn’t always burn, just as much as wolves don’t always bite. It intrigues me that your intelligence would be greater than the others.”
“You’re talking in riddles.”
“Elements are not isolated. They need each other.”
She looked at the scars that sliced across his long face and neck. His black hair fanned away from his temples and formed an unruly mane. Despite his wild appearance, she could tell that he was sincere.
With a grieved heaviness, Karena said, “All I know is that we shouldn’t have this stupid feud. We are all more similar than we are different, even though we may have different abilities and ways of doing things. Love can’t be restricted to a select few. It crosses borders and shatters stereotypes within a heartbeat because it’s free and all inclusive.”
“If love can do this, then it will find a way to keep people together no matter the problems that others present to it,” the Nightguard said.
She thought about this, and her spirits were raised a little. It gave her hope, even though her situation seemed hopeless. The feud was four hundred years old. Could love, only a month old, destroy it or even weaken it? She didn’t know. The Nightguard man shapeshifted back into his canine form, which looked more like a dopey dog than a wolf. He trotted away a short distance, threw back his head, and howled. Other howls broke out, some close, others far away. Chills slithered across her skin.
After a while, a car pulled up, and the Nightguard in his giant dog form grabbed her by the sleeve and dragged her over to it. She got in, and was taken out of the Fire district. The car stopped in front of her home. Cars and trucks choked the street and blocked driveways. She groaned. Her parents’ car was among them. Word had spread less like a wildfire, and more like a fire storm. She got out, and the driver drove away, probably thankful that he wouldn’t have to deal with what she would have to.
Despite the hour, people milled around on the sidewalk. When they saw her, they kept their distance,
as though she was some hideous monster. A reporter with a pad of paper came up to her and started rattling off questions, but Karena rudely blew cold air into his face to give him the hint that she wasn’t interested in talking.
“Traitor!” someone shouted.
Another spat in her direction. They all began muttering and whispering, and pointing in her direction.
In a daze, she walked up to the porch, knowing that the worst wasn’t over yet. She didn’t even try to open the door softly to avoid detection. Dashing to her room in order to hide wasn’t an option. In the living room, the sound of vexed voices died. Her dad and mom stopped their conversation to leap at her and give her a hug in the entryway.
“What did he do to you?” her dad demanded. His face was red.
Her mom looked close to fainting. “My poor baby,” her mom said.
From the armchair in the living room, her uncle, who was her mom’s brother, said, “He brainwashed you. Why didn’t you tell us about what was going on?”
In the corner of the room, Hadrian gave her a sympathetic glance. She knew that he hadn’t been able to keep them outside, otherwise he would’ve. Her relatives in the living room pounded her with questions, one after another, all of them suggesting that she had been the victim of Asher’s conniving ways. What could she say to them? They all wanted to believe their own opinions.
Her mom placed a hand on her arm. Her mom said, “Tell us what happened.”
Karena sighed, and did so, starting with the masquerade party and how she had met Asher. However, she made sure to leave out the more intimate details. When she was done, shock kept everyone’s mouths from moving.
“You’re moving right back in with us,” her dad said. “You’re going to quit your job, which I have always thought to be too dangerous, and you are going to rethink your life. I don’t believe for a second that you would see this horrid man out of your own free will. He has done something to you, and I will get to the bottom of this.”
Now it was her turn to feel shock. “I’m not moving back into my childhood room,” Karena said.
“You are too,” her dad said. The air around him crackled. He had that stern look on his face that she remembered all too well from when she had been a kid.
He was a sorcerer, and a powerful one at that. If he didn’t get his way, he would try to use other methods. Karena felt uneasy. She wasn’t about to let her dad force her to drink truth potions and whatever else to keep him informed and her under his watch. She felt as though she was just as much in enemy territory as she had been in the Fire district.
With a sticky-sweet voice, her mom said, “Sweetheart, no one goes and dates a Fire, especially a Chaos Fire elemental. You’re not right in the head.”
They were starting to sound like Tristan.
“He did something to her. This isn’t the Karena that I know and raised,” her dad said. He paced around the room and looked at her as though she was an imposter. There were murmurs of agreement.
“I’m going to bed,” Karena said. “We can talk about this some more in the morning. I’m exhausted from this whole ordeal.”
They regarded her with such pity that it made her sick to her stomach.
“You poor thing,” her aunt said, and hugged her. “Don’t worry, we’re here for you. We’ll get you sorted out and moving forward away from this. A Water shouldn’t be with those kinds of people. They’re awful people.”
“You really should stay for a while with your parents,” her uncle said. He stroked his moustache, as though trying to evoke a meditative, fatherly persona.
“What if Asher returns for you? Hadrian and Rose can’t protect you like your dad and mom can,” her aunt said.
Even when she had been a child, it had never seemed to get through to anyone that she was a Chaos elemental, and more powerful than two to four elementals combined. She could defend herself. However, if she came up against a wizard or witch, or sorcerer or sorceress, it was a toss-up, but they didn’t normally fight each other. A sorcerer like her dad could do more with his magical abilities than what she could with her elemental powers. But she had rawer power and could draw upon more energy banks than he could, and the devastation she could create was far bigger.
Karena crossed her arms. “I defeated Asher in that duel, if you remember,” she said.
“He could bring his friends with him,” her dad said and everyone nodded in consensus.
She held back a groan. Asher was one of the kindest people that she knew of. Asher’s friends were good people too, except for Evelyn; she could burn in hell in Karena’s opinion.
“It’s late,” Karena said, trying to remind them that she was tired. She wanted to be done with this.
Her mom asked, “Are you going to work tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Good girl,” her uncle said, and Karena bristled.
What they didn’t realize was that the reason behind that decision was because of Tristan’s behaviors, not Asher’s.
For the first time since she had arrived, Hadrian spoke up. He said, “I don’t think anyone has anything to worry about. There should be an extra patrol of Nightguards roaming around tonight in this area, as well as the Fire district, to keep an eye on things.”
Hadrian didn’t want her parents or relatives there as much as she did. His expression said it all.
“They’re only shapeshifters,” her dad dismissed.
“I can talk to Captain Dreadmore if you like,” Hadrian said. “Nothing is going to happen to Karena, especially with me being here.”
Her dad glanced at Hadrian, and Karena saw his jaw tense and the muscles in them bulge. He was holding back from putting Hadrian down as a regular Earth elemental who wasn’t capable of fighting or defending someone. Hadrian was a good fighter, but her dad didn’t want to acknowledge it.
“Nah, Karena is going with us,” her dad said and waved a hand at him. To her, he said, “Karena, pack your bags.”
She knew why her parents acted this way. Her dad was stuck in the past and unable to see beyond the murder of his brother. He was afraid that she would meet the same fate if he didn’t take action. Getting rid of him and her mom in order to keep living her life, which was sure to be miserable now, would be next to impossible.
Karena mentally prepared herself for a showdown. She didn’t want to ever return to her childhood room in their house because they would most likely treat her like a child, as they were doing now.
Before she could tell her dad “no”, there was a knock on the door. Without waiting for a response, that person let themselves in.
“Where’s Karena?” Captain Valmar’s voice called out.
He stepped into view, and came to stand in the living room’s entrance.
“It’s quite the gathering in here and outside,” Captain Valmar commented.
“No one invited you in. What are you here for?” her dad said. If he had had hackles, they would’ve been raised. Captain Valmar had more authority than he did, but he wasn’t going to act in accordance with that.
“I’m here to let all of you know that you need to disband.”
“Captain Dreadmore can tell us that.”
“He’s in the Fire district. I’m helping him out tonight.”
“Don’t you ever sleep?”
The wood in the walls popped, and the house creaked, but the energy disturbance hadn’t come from her dad, it had come from Captain Valmar.
“Karena, are you okay after tonight?” Captain Valmar asked, turning his attention to her.
“Yes. I just want to go to bed.”
“I figured as much. Do you feel unsafe here?”
“No.”
“Ok, then what’s the problem?” Captain Valmar asked her dad. He eyed the rest of them in there, causing them to shift uncomfortably.
Her dad said, “She’s not right in the head. My daughter would never willingly date Asher.”
“I disagree. She’s more than capable of dating anyone she wants. No
w be off with you. A patrol of Nightguards will be in the area tonight to make sure that there isn’t any escalation. We don’t want trouble, especially when there’s Chaos elementals involved, and a sorcerer who still can’t get over the past. If you want to relive your brother’s death, do it elsewhere and don’t drag your daughter into it. Now all of you, get out!”
“You can’t tell me what to do. Who are you to order me about? You’re not the police,” her dad seethed.
But Captain Valmar didn’t say anything. As one of the two leaders of the cryptid hunting department and an active advisor to other cities, Captain Valmar had as much authority as the chief of police did. Her dad shrunk a little under his severe stare. The rest of her family knew that they had to listen to Captain Valmar or else face steep consequences, and therefore, stood up to leave. They hugged her and wished her a goodnight on their way out the door. She felt relieved to see them leave. She felt crummy enough as it was. They only made her feel worse. Her dad was the last to go.
Captain Valmar waited until the door shut, and then he looked at her. But he didn’t appear angry or disappointed in her. There was an odd, curious glint in his eyes, as though he hadn’t seen anyone like her before.
“You’re not going to work,” he said, pointing at her, and then he pointed at Hadrian, “And thank the gods above, you’re not going to work either, not after this. Everyone knows that you’re her best friend. I’ll split up Tristan and Amarine, and put them into different teams for now.”
Karena nodded. Hadrian didn’t say anything.
“What should I do now?” Karena asked Captain Valmar.
“You should wait until everyone comes back to their senses, and then show them how stupid their hatred is of each other. You persevere and don’t you give a damn about what others think. That’s what you do. Someone has to be the first to do this, and you’re it.”
She felt a distinct, uplifting effect from his words. Karena said, “Thank you for intervening. They would’ve dragged me away and taken me back to their house.”
Gaze of Fire Page 7
