The Tantalising Taste Of Water (Elemental Awakening, Book 4)

by Nicola Claire

  “Theo,” I said, sounding scared.

  “I’m here,” he immediately replied, stepping to my side, and wrapping a hot palm around the back of my neck. “Just breathe,” he encouraged, making me bend over, head between knees, and suck in air.

  My line of sight shifted to the ground, and Earth offered up a sigh.

  What’s happening? I asked my Elements.

  You are Aether, Earth replied.

  The battle begins, Fire said.

  Nero runs through your veins now, Air added.

  It is time to dance, Water supplied.

  None of it made sense, but now I wasn’t looking at Isadora, I could hear she was breathing normally again.

  “It has been a long time,” Hip suddenly said from across the way, “since we have seen Nero in action.”

  “You brought a friend,” Nico announced with forced cheer.

  “Hippolytos of Aeras,” Theo provided, sounding tired. “Our guide.”

  “Guide?” Aktor asked.

  “Does no one care that Cassandra just tried to kill me?” Isadora shouted.

  “Calm down, Princess,” Mark drawled. “You’re immortal. Not afraid of a bit of water, are you?”

  That wasn’t the first time I’d heard Marcus laying into Isadora. Had they parted ways? Certainly, they weren’t all over each other anymore. I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  “Argh!” the woman in question growled, spinning on her heel and marching off quickly with a huffed breath.

  “Wow,” Mark said into the ensuing silence. “If I’d known a little water play would send her running, I would have tried it myself.”

  No one laughed.

  “I think we need to talk,” Theo said quietly. “Have you something to drink?” he asked Aktor.

  “When have I not?” his butler replied, turning on his heel and reentering his tent.

  “Casey?” Sonya said quietly at my side. “Are you OK?”

  She took a step closer, hand out as if to comfort me. But stepping closer brought her closer not only to myself but to Theo.

  I growled.

  “Sonya,” Mark said urgently. “Come over here, OK? Just walk, sweetheart. Just walk.”

  In a robotic type of gait, Sonya walked toward my brother. He wrapped an arm around her shaking shoulders as soon as she reached his side. Well away from Theo.

  “Better?” he said to me.

  “Ah,” I offered, not at all sure what was happening.

  “Nero,” Hip offered, moving to a spot beside the remains of a fire. “Before they went into hiding, they prized their Thisavros above all others.”

  I shook my head. “They don’t have Thisavros now.”

  “Hmm,” Hip said, warming his hands on a non-existent fire. Theo flicked his fingers towards the ashes, and flames rose up into the sky. “Thank you,” Hip offered politely.

  “What do they have, then?” Nico asked, moving toward the warmth, accepting Hip’s presence without comment, and sitting himself down beside the Aeras guide. Or maybe that was why he sat there; to better be able to contain him should he need it.

  Nico wasn’t a Scout like Theo had been. But he was equally as deadly as his cousin.

  “They have Pallakae and Hataera,” I said.

  “Aetheros, no!” Aktor hissed, as he appeared with a bottle of ouzo. How the butler managed to continue to provide them all with their preferred Greek libation was beyond me. Aktor was a miracle worker.

  “What are they?” Sonya asked.

  “Concubines and courtesans,” Mark offered, taking a seat at the fire nonchalantly.

  “You know about Pallakae and Hataera?” Nico asked, surprised.

  “Casey told me.”

  Nico flicked a glance toward me but spoke again to my brother. “And you didn’t think to mention it?”

  “We’ve been busy,” Mark argued.

  “Doing what?” Nico demanded, exasperated.

  “You know now,” Theo announced, putting an end to the sniping match. I was thinking they’d become a little stir crazy waiting for us to return from Aeras.

  I glanced out across the flat stone that made up their chosen camping site, gazing off towards the destruction of Cape Town. Like Auckland and Wellington, it hadn’t fared well during Genesis. There were signs of life, but the absence of fires in amongst the rubble was alarming. How many people had survived? Cape Town had been densely populated, hadn’t it? How much of the world’s population had Genesis wiped out?

  “It has been many millennia since Pallakae and Hataera walked this earth,” Aktor said darkly.

  “Since they have been forced to walk this earth,” Nico corrected, accepting a cup of ouzo.

  Theo lowered himself down beside me, cup already in hand, and wrapped an arm around my body, hauling me closer to his side. I noticed then that the rain had stopped where we sat, keeping off the flames of the fire, and those who gathered around it. I wondered, absently, if I was doing it or Mark was.

  Then, when I saw where Isadora was sitting alone on the far side of the flat space we were all on, the hood of her coat up to cover her from the rain she was under, I realised it was probably me and not my Alchemist brother.

  I looked down at my hands, twisting my fingers nervously. Theo reached over and tapped them with the cup of ouzo. “Drink,” he said softly. It wasn’t a command, but I took the offered cup and sipped anyway. Feeling infinitely better for it. “It has a way of settling one’s nerves,” Theo whispered in my ear, then offered a kiss to the lobe affectionately.

  “Why is this so strange?” Sonya asked into the crackle of the fire. “I mean,” she added, “concubines are kind of out of date, but you guys are like ancient. So what gives?”

  Nico snorted, Aktor huffed out a laugh, and Hip said, “Thisavros.” One word, but it covered so much.

  Sonya flicked wary eyes toward me. I offered her a smile, hoping she’d accept it as an apology. I had no idea what was wrong with me, but it obviously involved my Thisavros and any person who threatened my connection to him, even distantly. And it was more than likely it involved the part of me which was now all Nero.

  “If they no longer have Thisavros,” I said into the silence, “then why am I…?”

  “Acting all growly?” Mark offered.

  I huffed out a breath and glowered.

  “See,” he said, taking a sip of his drink casually. “Growly.”

  “I didn’t make a sound,” I pointed out.

  “Didn’t need to, Sis. The growl was implied.”

  “The Nero honoured their Thisavros the most in our society,” Aktor commented. “To them they were priceless.”

  “And they aren’t to you?” Mark asked.

  “Of course,” the old butler replied. “But we aren’t blinded by the connection. It enhances us as Athanatos. It does not rule us.”

  “They also suffered the most when the branches split,” Theo offered. Which was saying something, because the branches split due to Pyrkagia. Who had felt guilty at fuelling their Stoicheio through humans for so long, that they allowed the Alchemists in as reparation for their sins. The consequent Alchemist theft of all the Elements led to an outright civil war amongst the branches. It was Pyrkagia, therefore, who should have been suffering the most.

  Guilt had a way of making you feel.

  “How so?” I asked for clarification. The Athanatos around the fire all shifted uncomfortably. As if the topic pained them. Maybe that guilt was still riding them hard. They just hid their emotions better than the Nero.

  “Pyrkagia and Gi,” Theo started. “If we didn’t gravitate toward our own, we gravitated toward the Gi.” Well, that explained a lot about Theo and me.

  Hip picked up from where Theo had finished. “Aeras and Nero. Air and Water. They have long been thought the perfect companions.”

  “But did you suffer like the Nero when the branches split?” I pressed.

  He shook his head. “There is much that can be hidden in the clouds, Aether. Even loss
can be forgotten when the atmospheres blend.”

  “But not forgotten in the sea,” I mused.

  “Maybe it was,” Theo murmured. “Why else bring back Pallakae and Hataera? Something long since regarded as barbaric by Ekmettaleftis who live more in touch with their base sides than humans ever did. Passion, lust, excitement. We are more instinctual than humankind. That is not to say we do not think before we act, but our thinking is tempered with the Elements. Elemental in a way humans are not.”

  “That’s why Aetheros placed us in charge of balancing the world,” Nico said.

  “And look how you stuffed that up,” Mark added.

  “We had help, Alchemist,” Nico murmured. “Or had you forgotten your kind’s greed?”

  “Stop!” Theo ordered. “Have we not enough to contend with? Must we also fight with each other? We’re a family. Granted, a mixed one. But we’re the only family any of us have left now.”

  “Do you really believe that, Theodoros?” Aktor asked quietly. “That Pyrkagia is lost to us forever?”

  Theo stared at the flames for a long moment and then slowly shook his head. “Not lost,” he said. “But, for now, cut off from us.”

  “One day,” Aktor promised.

  “One day,” Nico repeated.

  One day they’d take Pyrkagia back. I realised then that Theo had placed his own desires on the back burner to support me. His own need to avenge my treatment at the hands of his father. His own desperate want to help his people emerge from under a tyrant.

  The world’s imbalance was important, no denying. But Theo’s wishes weren’t something to be overlooked either.

  I reached over and clasped his hand, offering a gentle squeeze. His eyes met mine; hazel, amber and gold glinting in the firelight, and then he raised my fingers to his lips and kissed me.

  “Can’t you two stop doing that?” Isadora, the bitch-cow, declared, announcing her appearance at the fire.

  Mark was up and standing in front of her in an instant, his eyes trained on me, his arms outstretched as if to catch any wayward Water I might throw at her.

  “You do realise,” I said conversationally, “that the body is made up of 60% water. I could do a lot with that.”

  Mark cocked his head and stared down at me. “You scare me sometimes, Case,” he said quietly. “You really do.”

  “Isadora,” Theo announced, ignoring my brother’s comments. “It would be wise if you contained your…”

  “Bitchiness?” both Mark and I said together.

  “Outbursts,” Theo corrected. “For the time being.”

  “Why? Because she’s unstable?” Dora demanded.

  Nico groaned. Sonya muttered, “What a freaking idiot.” And Aktor simply handed her a cup of ouzo.

  “Testing a Nero’s Thisavros connection,” Hip said softly off to the side, “is suicidal at best. Testing Aether’s? Hmmm,” he mused. “Not your best move yet.”

  Oh, he had Isadora’s number all right.

  “Who the hell are you, anyway?” Isadora snapped, taking Aktor’s cup and flouncing down on the ground, opposite Theo and myself, but still by the fire. Distance was good. The flames, however, would do nothing to protect her from Water.

  I smiled. Theo chuckled and then cleared his throat to hide it. But both were missed by our companions.

  No one answered Isadora’s question, though, which only added to the amusement factor. But Sonya finally piped up, asking, “What do you think happened to the Thisavros connections inside Atlantis when they started those Hataeras up?”

  “A good question, Miss Marin,” Aktor proclaimed. My friend preened under the old butler’s praise. “Did you happen to see any Thisavros in Nero, Cassandra?”

  “I saw a lot of people; dressed in white robes with seaweed in their hair,” I offered, while Sonya grimaced. “But I really only spoke to three. The Rigas, Aquarius and Gemini.”

  “Wow, dig the names,” Sonya exclaimed. “Someone’s mother liked Zodiac signs.” She snorted.

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  “What?” she blurted, rubbing her nose self-consciously.

  “Did you not see Nero’s creatures?” Nico asked.

  “Ah?” she managed.

  “When they attacked at Aetheros’ temple?” Aktor prompted.

  “I saw scary-arse shadows and a hell of a lot of rain and lightning.”

  “Of course,” Aktor surmised. “Human.”

  Isadora scoffed. “Why she’s here is anyone’s guess.” Those words were directed at Hippolytos. I noticed she’d sidled up closer to the Aeras and was offering come-hither smiles.

  My turn to snort.

  “Did you not hear Hip, Isadora?” I asked. “Aeras and Nero. Not Aeras and bitch-cows.”

  I slapped two hands over my mouth in mortification.

  Mark started laughing. Nico soon joined him. The rest of our group ranged in facial expressions from shocked to amused to outraged.

  Guess whose was the last?

  “Really, Theodoros,” Isadora snapped. “You’re allowing this?”

  “Erm,” Theo mumbled, completely out of character.

  And then he started laughing.

  “Fine!” Isadora exclaimed. “Have your little jokes. But when she gets you all killed, don’t expect me to save your arses.”

  She got up from the fire and stormed off into a nearby tent. As far as exits went, it was lacking.

  “Casey,” Theo said carefully.

  “I know,” I groaned, covering my whole face this time with my hands.

  “Well,” Hip said into the silence. “This has been fun.” He clapped his hands as if to emphasise the point. “But what happens now?”

  And just like that Table Mountain lost any levity and the heavy weight of what lay ahead settled around us.

  “Casey suggested the Gi,” Theo remarked quietly.

  “The Gi would be as good a place as any to start with,” Aktor supplied.

  “With the Basilissa gone, maybe they’ll be receptive,” my brother offered.

  “Or pissed off,” Sonya argued.

  “Either way, we have to try,” Theo finished.

  Silence.

  Then I shook my head, my eyes staring unseeing into the fire.

  “Nero,” I whispered.

  “Oraia?” Theo enquired.

  It had to be the Nero. I wasn’t exactly sure why, but their tale had touched me. The taste of sea salt permeated my palate. The call of sea creatures invaded my ears. And the delicate stroke of seaweed enticed.

  “Nero,” I said with more conviction. “It’s time to dance.”

  The Earth rumbled, the wind picked up, the flames in the fire leapt into the sky.

  And all around us the raindrops ducked and dived, and twirled and swirled, as Nero whispered in my ear, Aether, let’s dance.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I’ve Got A Date With Gramps

  It was decided we needed food and rest before we mounted an invasion into Nero. Of course, where the Nero were now was anyone’s guess. Had Atlantis sunk to the bottom of the ocean, destroyed? Or did it and they still sit on the surface of the Mediterranean Sea, damaged and hurting, but still alive?

  We needed to plan our attack; if you could call what we intended to do attacking. It’s not as though we wanted to rain down hell on the Nero; far from it. I wanted to reach out to them as one of their own. I wanted to bring them back into the fold like I’d wanted to do the Aeras.

  Of course, I had been Gi when Davos had tortured me. And I had been Pyrkagia when the mad-scientist had eviscerated me. So I knew being Nero now was not a free pass.

  Plus, there was the whole destroying their Pyrgos aspect to consider and the Nero Rigas’ promise of “finding me.”

  But I was Aether now, that had to count for something. It had with the Aeras to a degree. Would it with the Nero?

  I wandered across the campsite and sat down next to Hip, who had continued to warm himself beside the fire. I lifted chilled hands
to the flames, saying nothing for a moment, just letting my presence speak for itself.

  “What is it you wish to ask, Aether?” Hip finally said. There was no fooling this guy.

  “Did they really value their Thisavros?” I asked.

  “This, of all things, surprises you?”

  I nodded my head.

  “It is as your servant said,” he confirmed.

  “Aktor’s not my servant,” I immediately argued.

  “He’s of that class, is he not?”

  “He’s twenty-five thousand years old,” I announced indignantly. “An elder.”

  Hip shook his head. “But not of royal blood.”

  “Does it make a difference?” I asked. “When two out of four monarchs I’ve faced have been mad, one has a nefarious ulterior motive, and the last welcomed me only because of your grandfather.”

  Hip bit his lip and stared into the fire. “We are an old race,” he finally said. “Tradition is important to us.”

  “And yet you turned your back on your god.”

  His pale blue eyes slanted to look at me, a hint of white entering the edges. “Time makes fools of us all.”

  “Yes,” I said. “So maybe it’s time to change things around a bit.”

  “And make your butler a king instead?”

  I smiled. “Aktor would make a better king than some.”

  “But he wouldn’t want it,” Hip guessed.

  “No.” I shook my head. Aktor was humble and dedicated to Theo. Twenty-five thousand years as a butler was hard to shake off one’s back.

  “The Nero,” I said.

  “Are hurting,” Hip finished for me.

  “Why more so than the other branches? You explained the Aeras, but what about the Pyrkagia and the Gi.”

  “You should ask your Thisavros about the Pyrkagia,” he said. “As to the Gi. Well. They too have paid a price and suffered.”

  The rot. The loss of their Thisavros when the branches broke apart harmed them deeply. Deeply enough for bitterness to take root. It had clearly festered and was now the rot that appeared in their very midst.

  This was a mess. So much more so than I had realised. They all suffered. Not just one. But all of them. The Aeras had hidden themselves from the pain. The Pyrkagia had used their Stoicheio to mask their true passions, replacing them with manufactured lust. The Nero had created a new order within their ranks, a new caste that satisfied their sexual desires. And the Gi had simply stagnated and slowly decomposed until they were rotten.