Queen of the Magnetland (The Elemental Phases Book 5)

by Cassandra Gannon

  Another instance where she should have rocked the boat.

  Unclipping the pen, Mara flipped to a blank section and scrawled three words in looping cursive letters. “Here.” She tore the page free and held it out to him.

  He slowly reached out his hand. His fingers shook and they very gently brushed against hers as he took hold of the paper.

  Mara felt a jolt shoot through her. Their energy was different now, but for some reason, the brief contact with his bare skin was far more distracting than it had ever been before. She sucked in a surprised breath, her whole hand tingling and her powers automatically tuning towards his.

  Chason flinched as if he felt it too and was still convinced he was crazy. He quickly turned his attention to the paper. “Mara is real.” He read aloud, his voice flat.

  “Yes.” She cleared her throat and tried to concentrate. “I’m real.”

  “I no longer see ‘reality’.” He said starkly.

  “I’m real, Chason. That note’s in my handwriting, not yours.” There was no way to mistake his neat copybook penmanship for her large free flowing script. “Whenever you start doubting if I exist, you can look at it and know I’m real. I mean, it says so right there in black and white.” She hesitated and looked down at her sparkly pen. “Well, lavender and white.”

  Chason didn’t say anything to that. He just stared down at the words and then swallowed hard.

  He needed her.

  Chason had never needed her before, but in that instant, he looked so lost that Mara’s heart turned in her chest. Whatever had happened to him over the past two years, Chason needed her, right now. How could she be so selfish? So focused on herself and her problems when her Match was broken?

  He didn’t recognize her because he no longer even recognized himself.

  “Chason?” Mara shoved the notepad into her pocket and moved closer to him. “Look at me.” Breaking the unwritten rules of their relationship, she lifted a palm to lay it against his unshaven cheek without any sort of permission being given prior to the touching. The energy arced again and she did her best to ignore it. “Do you remember our Phazing Day?”

  “Yes.” It was a whisper.

  Staring down at her, the angles of his face too sharp and his shadowed eyes damp, she realized that Chason had never been more attractive. It was sort of a shock. The man was a mess. Like someone had taken a blowtorch to his polished exterior, just burning it away. But, it made the rock hard unshakable core of him –The essential Chason-ness-- come through all the more.

  “We were dancing, remember? The fireworks were going off and the music was playing. It was magical, Chason. Like time had stopped.”

  He was listening to her, now. Really listening, possibly for the first time since this nightmare began.

  Mara took that as encouragement, her words coming faster. “That moment was the closest I’ve ever felt to anyone. We were like one person. I know you felt it, too.”

  For everyone, there were a few key events in life that they always went back to in their memories. The final, most lasting things they thought of before they left this world. For Mara, it was that dance with Chason under the stars. It had been… real. He had to remember it.

  “Please, try to feel me and know I’m the same person. I’m Mara. I’m your Match.”

  One tear rolled down Chason’s cheek.

  Mara’s lips parted. She’d never seen him cry before. Not ever. It broke her heart. “Chason…”

  “I can’t.” He backed away from her, headed for the connecting door to his own room. “I can’t do this. I can’t.” He stumbled out.

  “Chason!” Mara went to follow him, but the door was very firmly slammed behind him.

  She stopped, uncertainly staring at the wood. The world had descended in to hell in the two years she’d been gone and now she was standing in the middle of it.

  Alone.

  What should she do?

  For so long, she’d chosen her path based on responsibility and tradition. Mara had always tried to do what a Magnet Queen should. She hadn’t been born an aristocrat. She’d been drafted into the role, by virtue of being Chason’s Match. Mara had to work twice as hard as a real princess to fit into the role. She’d spent decades second guessing herself and striving to be what everyone expected.

  So what was the proper thing to do in this situation? Leave? Stay? Try and convince Chason she was real? Give him space? Cry? Sleep? Hide? Go to Job and demand to know what had happened to her Match? And to their home? And to their people? And to her life? What choice would a real Magnet Queen make?

  She didn’t know.

  Mara had never known how to be perfect. She didn’t even remember how to try. She didn’t want to try. That image of a flawless Queen of the Magnetland seemed utterly pointless, all of a sudden. Mara didn’t want to fight to be like that woman, anymore. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything but be Mara, now. In fact, looking around at the ruins of her old life, Mara was only certain of one sudden and important thing:

  Whatever else happened, she would never die in a room with this wallpaper, again.

  Chapter Four

  In each man, there exists an element which can be destructive or healing. This element I call destiny.

  Everyone makes their own destiny and destiny makes everyone.

  Ivan S. Turgenev-“A Correspondence”

  The Water Palace has been burned.

  Once the most beautiful building in the Elemental Realm, its hundreds of delicate balconies and magical turrets now stand in ruins. Black soot covers the mosaics of dolphins and seahorses that decorate the gently curved walls. For millennia, this castle has stood at the epicenter of Elemental culture, sheltering the greatest artists and intellectuals beneath its blue tiled roof. Now the roof is gone.

  Everything is gone.

  All that made this kingdom the Athens of the Elemental realm has been obliterated.

  Raiden, of the Radiation House looks around the decimated landscape in confusion and sorrow.

  The Water Phases have lost a war. That much is obvious. Raiden is an expert on the ravages of wars. His visions have shown him one battle after another, for as far back as he can remember. Human wars, Elemental wars, the wars of species he does not even know the names of, past, present and future.

  Visions consume his mind with nightmarish images of suffering and devastation. He sees what triggers the horror and its aftermath. The weeping and dying. The victors and tyrants. He sees endless loops of death in his mind, so he recognizes that this ruined landscape is the result of a staggering defeat.

  Why would anyone want to harm the Water Phases, though? Even if some of the other Elementals still blame Ty for triggering Parald’s wrath, this kind of destruction will impact everyone in the universe. The Water Phases’ Element is one of the cornerstones of life.

  There are already just three Water Phases left to hold all the oceans, ponds, and teardrops in the world, so attacking this kingdom will do nothing but risk all of existence. Only the most egomaniacal or suicidal would want to wipe them. The Water Phases’ deaths would consequently kill their attackers, too.

  But so little power sustains the Water Element, now.

  The crystalline waterfall that forever poured into the aqua sea below has dried to a trickle, so the polished rocks once hidden beneath its surface are visible. Deprived of the waterfall endlessly renewing the waves, the sea itself has died. The water level has dropped to a point where it would now be possible to walk across the textured sand straight to the Cold Kingdom, which lies on the opposite shore. Fragile sea life decomposes on the too wide beach, baking under the relentless sun.

  The sight and smell has Raiden turning away from the evaporating ocean and walking towards the burned out shell of the palace. It sits on the cliffs overlooking the shore, connected by a curving path. He glances up as he climbs, to the ruined building and the ruined sky beyond.

  The Water Kingdom’s heavens are no longer a perfect July blue every da
y of the year. The sun still shines, but is muted and the celestial color of the sky is… blackened. Worse, the entire expanse is cracked with lightning bolt shaped fissures that move like the interior of one of those glowing static balls children play with in science museums.

  This future will scar the sky itself.

  Raiden’s boots sink into the soft sand as he climbs towards the Water Palace. He moves faster as he nears the top. This is all wrong. Nobody else has walked this path in many years. In all his visions of the wars yet to come, he has never seen the Water Kingdom destroyed. Attacked, yes. But never burned. Never dry. Never empty.

  Yet, he sees no other people, hears nothing but the howl of the wind. At the summit, he beholds the horrible truth. What he’s already sensed, but hasn’t wanted to acknowledge:

  The entire Water Kingdom is now an abandoned expanse of desolate gravel.

  As far as he can see in all directions there is… nothing. The land of cool lakes and tropical seas has become a virtual desert. Horror grips him, though Raiden has long thought that he’d grown immune to the ravages of war.

  This is the wrong future.

  All that he has previously seen in his visions –All that was supposed to happen-- has been erased. All that should have come to pass is now transformed into this barren nightmare. For the first time since his childhood, the future stares backs at Raiden like a blank page.

  All his life, he has been able to see what others can’t. What they would never want to. Cursed and blessed. Touched and forsaken. At various times, Raiden has both hated his visions and seen them as a gift, but he has never questioned the accuracy of his predictions. He often dreads what he sees, but he always accepts that it will come to pass.

  Until now.

  For the first time in three hundred and fifty years, he looks around the future shown to him and feels lost. How can this be? It does not match anything that he’s seen before.

  Something has… changed.

  Something great and horrible.

  Raiden’s eyes snapped open, his heart hammering in his chest. “What the fuck is going on?” He demanded out loud, his ruined voice abrading over the words like sandpaper.

  “I was just asking myself the same question.” Sullivan agreed tiredly. He was slumped down in his desk chair, his elbow propped up on the arm of it, his chin resting in his palm. “You realize that you just sat there and stared at nothing for twenty minutes, right?”

  “No… I have seen something.” Raiden whispered starkly. “Another future has been born, overlapping the old.”

  “Uh-huh.” Sullivan rubbed his temple. “Tell me, Mr. ‘Geronimo’… Would you be willing to submit to a drug test?”

  Raiden ignored the human’s skepticism. He was used to being viewed as a freak.

  From the time he was a boy, he’d been an outcast in his House for his unholy abilities and visions of the future. Add in his massive size, shaved head, and the scar that sliced across his throat, and it wasn’t a surprise that everyone thought he was psycho. Whispers and frightened expressions followed him everywhere he went.

  Raiden no longer cared. He’d come to see that people were right to fear him. Sometimes he feared himself and what he might be capable of.

  What he’d allow to happen to ensure the future had a future.

  His only purpose was to try and keep existence afloat, despite the constant efforts of all the idiots in the universe. And whatever happened next –whatever was supposed to happen, anyway-- the Magnet King played a part. Raiden had always known that. Chason had a destiny. A vital role to play in this universe. Without him, the world would suffer.

  More importantly, if Chason died, Raiden’s Match would die, too.

  That’s why he’d invested two years of his life into keeping the boy safe, when Chason seemed so determined to kill himself. Chason’s heartbeat was inextricably linked with the only person in the world who Raiden loved. Nothing was more important than protecting the Magnet King, because his survival kept Fee safe.

  Only something had happened to the future.

  Which meant that Raiden would… fail. How could that be? In all his other visions, he’d seen his success. He’d seen the cost of his choices, but he’d also seen the future go on.

  Raiden wasn’t a man who panicked easily. His mother had tried to behead him and he hadn’t panicked. But the ramifications of his new vision were his worst nightmare come true.

  “Human, would you stop flirting with that crazy psychic douche and focus on what’s really important here?” A particularly unhelpful voice called out from across the room. “Me and my newest false arrest, for instance!”

  Sullivan briefly closed his eyes. “You’re being locked up for stalking me, Alder. And stop calling me ‘human.’ It’s annoying.”

  “I’m not stalking you!” Alder, of the Fire House insisted passionately. He was zip-tied to a chair and, protestations of innocence aside, he certainly had the looks of a criminal. And temperament. And an impressive list of crimes under his belt. He was a Fire Phase, after all. Law breaking was in their DNA. His dark hair sported a red streak at the temple and his eyes were a deep brown. “I’m looking after you. Teja told me to.”

  That didn’t surprise Raiden. He’d long known that Teja, of the Fire and Cold Houses was Sullivan’s Match. He’d also known that having a connection to Sullivan would frighten her. Teja didn’t do so well with emotions, these days. She was clearly avoiding Sullivan, but sending her family to watch over the human and make sure he was safe.

  Just as clearly, Sullivan was determined to flush her out of hiding. The boy’s grandfather had been a Wood Phase. They were a relentless breed.

  Sullivan smirked at Alder. “If Teja has something to say to me, she can show up and say it herself. Feel free to use your one phone call to dial her up.”

  Alder made an aggravated sound. “Believe me, I’ve told her that she should go back to watching you herself. But, I think you freak her out, so she ain’t listening.”

  Sullivan’s jaw ticked. “Maybe she’ll listen at your trial.”

  “Oh come on.” It was a whine. “This is between you and her, man. Just let me leave already. I wanna go home and watch TV.”

  “Tell me your actual name and I’ll see what I can do.” Sullivan said casually, his attention still on Raiden.

  “I already told you a hundred times, I’m ALDER, OF THE FIRE HOUSE!”

  “You’re not a fireman. I already checked that with the chief over there. Try again.”

  Alder launched into a stream of cursing that was probably audible from space. The Fire Phases weren’t a calm or rational group. Unlike most of the other Elementals, they also didn’t bother to get human paperwork before they visited Mayport Beach. Even Chason had human ID. Raiden had made sure of that, given the Magnet King’s increasing tendency to wander. Alder must not have bothered to bring even a fake drivers’ license.

  “This is fucking kidnapping!” The Fire Phase glowered over at Sullivan. “You have to let me go according to human law. I have rights under the Magna Carta or something.”

  Sullivan rolled his eyes. “Just shut-up before I pepper spray you.” He glanced back to Raiden. “Anyway, can we get back to why you’re here, swami? I got stuff to do.” He didn’t seem eager to be of assistance. “Christ, I gotta hire a secretary to deal with this crap.” He muttered under his breath.

  Raiden disregarded the human’s attitude, keeping his voice calm. He always kept his voice calm, even when his heart was pounding out of his chest. “I must find Chason, of the Magnet House. Immediately.”

  He’d been looking for Chason all day, ever since he’d woken up and discovered the Magnet Fortress was empty.

  At first, Raiden assumed that Chason had gone off looking for Mara’s body, again. But, then Ty tracked Raiden down and told him that Chason had been arrested by the humans. It was the last thing Raiden needed to hear. His time was growing shorter and his visions had been getting stronger. More confusing. Futures overl
apping and events he’d previously seen, fading away.

  And now all he saw was the empty space where life used to be.

  “Chason Hickok, you mean?” Sullivan’s eyebrows soared. “Dark hair, kinda crazy, thinks he’s in line for a throne?”

  “He’s not ‘kinda’ anything.” Alder apparently grew bored with ranting and switched to eavesdropping. “He is crazy. Back in World War One, I’d see that same blank look in the eyes of soldiers in the trenches… Right before a guy lost it and just ran out into no man’s land, hoping to be shot.”

  Sullivan squinted over at him. “Your grandfather wasn’t even old enough to fight in World War One, Alder.”

  “Shows what you know, my grandfather started World War One.” He frowned in deep concentration. “Or was it that Franco-Prussian dealy? Which one had the hats with the spikes on ‘em?”

  Raiden ignored the byplay. “Where is Chason?”

  Sullivan shrugged. “Gone.”

  “Gone?”

  “Dead.” Alder translated wisely.

  Raiden blinked at Sullivan, too astonished to even be angry. “You’ve… killed him?”

  “What? No!”

  “Chase probably hung himself.” Alder theorized. He began to absently decorate the miniature Christmas tree on the desk closest to him with stolen paperclips. “Like I said, it was just a matter of time for somebody that far gone. What does Chason have to live for now that Parald is dead and Lansing is running the Reprisal?” He frowned. “Hey, we can die from hanging, right?”

  Is that what the new vision meant? Had Chason killed himself? He knew the boy had considered it, but Raiden had put so much effort into keeping him alive. Besides, he’d seen Mara returned to Chason.

  Somehow.

  That vision had been the first of many changes he’d been sensing recently, but it had felt like something good. A positive change. Something that would help Chason heal. And it had been so clear. It had to come to pass, didn’t it? What if the future was already doomed, because he’d interpreted everything wrong and Chason was gone?