Aira landed solidly on the ground, turning her attention fully on Solana. She made eye contact, pushing her will out. She knew persuasion was Solana’s weak spot—she didn’t have the ability, which made her more susceptible to it. Aira knew she had successfully used the talent on Alex and Dolores as well as on Aiden and Dylan, and pushed out with her mind, bringing her will to bear. “Stop casting spells,” she said brusquely, lashing out against the woman’s will, against her mind. She felt Solana attempt to resist, and reinforced her persuasion, pushing out as firmly as she could with her thoughts. “Stop,” she said again, holding the eye contact. Solana’s dark eyes clouded with confusion, and she looked away from Aira’s face, shaking her head slightly as the words stopped spilling from her lips. She tried to start again but couldn’t, as Aira caught her gaze and repeated the command one last time. She brought all of her will to bear on Solana, disrupting the woman’s thoughts with her persuasive ability until she was completely confused.
“Look out!” Asher called. Aira turned on her heel in time to see Aurion taking a pot shot at her. She brought up a gust of wind, deflecting the dart he had thrown her way. She heard it clatter to the floor; a thing so fully realized that it was almost substance. It began to dissolve the moment it hit the ground. Aira decided that, with Solana at least temporarily out of commission, she could turn her attention onto Aurion. For safety, she edged to the side so she could see the other woman in the corner of her vision while she began to form a bow with her hands, calling up the energy from inside of herself and focusing it into arrows. She had practiced this particular skill several times—with her grandmother and again with Aiden—and had acquired the ability to form the bow quickly. It didn’t need to be as fully realized as Aurion’s darts, or his sword; the arrows were trickier, needing to have some substance to them.
Aira kept her wind tunnel up with part of her mind, knowing she would have to change it once she was ready to begin shooting. She’d be partially vulnerable, but she knew if she moved quickly enough she could minimize the opening either man had. Her control over the wind itself was better than either of theirs, Aira knew that. She decided to take to the air again, to give herself the best vantage. She rose steadily, dodging the retreats of a few hawks and several mocking birds. Aira could see what Asher was doing, what his strategy was. He was using the smaller birds to create openings in Aurion’s defenses, distracting and harrying him, while the larger birds made dives meant to actually wound. Some had succeeded. Aurion bore scratches and bite marks on his arms, and his face wasn’t totally unscathed either.
“You already put Solana out of business?” Asher called up to her.
Aira glanced at him and shrugged.
“Well done!”
Aira thought that if he was going to betray her, it would be then. Her mind was moving a million miles per hour, trying to find the openings Asher’s birds were missing. She didn’t want to kill Aurion—only maim him sufficiently to take him out. Asher called the birds around himself, pulling back from Aurion. Aurion paused, noticing the change.
“We agreed that two on one was unfair,” he said, as the birds hovered protectively around him. “I’ll take winner.” Aira thought it shrewd in the other elemental; he would have the winner—who would be weakened by the other contender. “And keep an eye on Solana, too.” That at least was somewhat in keeping with their original agreement. Aira nodded shortly, drawing her bowstring.
Aurion began to fashion darts again, looking up at Aira within her vortex. He knew she would have to lower the wind directly in front of her in order to be able to shoot, Aira could tell. She would have to be very fast to get her shot. She smiled slowly to herself; she could up her odds a little bit—Aurion didn’t have her command of the wind, according to Dylan. She held her bowstring taught until the muscles in her arms began to tremble with the effort; in spite of the fact that it was made from energy, it provided resistance that couldn’t be matched by any actual bow in existence. She waited until she had her precise target. Changing the winds around her, Aira dropped the wind in front of her away, pulling it up through the vortex and using it to give more power to her shot as she let the arrow fly.
She brought the wind back up around her the moment the arrow cleared her vortex, deflecting Aurion’s attempt to shoot a dart at her at the last possible moment. Her arrow hit square in his shoulder. He shouted in pain and anger, faltering slightly. Aira took her second shot quickly, taking advantage of his brief distraction to fire it off, aiming for his thigh. It hit and Aurion shouted out again, staggering where he stood. He threw a dart at her ineffectually, the missile falling to the floor well short of the target. Aurion crumpled to the floor in pain, and Aira held herself back for a moment, waiting to see if he would rally.
When he didn’t, she wheeled around midair, turning to face Asher. The other elemental was still surrounded by birds; Solana was coming out of her persuaded trance. Aira brought the wind vortex that surrounded her down and shot cleanly at Solana, catching her in the back of the shoulder before she brought her wind-based shield back up once more.
“You had to figure this would be the outcome,” she said wryly.
Asher grinned. “I rather thought it would.”
Aira suddenly understood the play Asher had made. He had wanted to go for her all along, but knew she would be the more difficult opponent to take out. If he attacked her immediately, he would have still been left with Solana and Aurion. If he hung back and let her take care of the other two, he could hope to deplete her focus or her energy and have her vulnerable as well as not have to deal with either of the other opponents in a serious fashion. Aira wondered how much Asher knew about her. She let out a piercing whistle, a trill, and then a raucous cry, momentarily distracting the birds around her opponent. She couldn’t hold them completely—she knew that. Asher had the better control over them. But she could confuse them just enough to keep them from harrying her the way they had Aurion.
“You might be their bestie,” she called to Asher, “But I do speak their language.”
Asher chuckled.
“Come down then, and we’ll dispense with birds and arrows both.”
Aira wondered what the other elemental had up his sleeve. She knew from Aiden and Dylan that he had persuasive abilities. Was he counting on using them, the way she had used her own ability to compel Solana? Aira considered, as she slowly descended to the floor, that Asher might just be her match, at least when it came to strategy and intellectual ability. He had certainly gotten his way pretty squarely. She maintained the vortex around her but absorbed the energy of the bow back into her body, watching it disappear. Asher gave a series of calls, dismissing his birds—true to his word. Aira stood, fighting the urge to fidget, knowing he was playing a psychological game. He wanted her to be the one to make the first move. If she could cause him to attack first, she could see what other skills he might have, skills that Dylan and Aiden might not know about. She tried to think of what she might be able to do that would surprise the other elemental.
Slowly, Aira smiled to herself. The deep well of water energy within her gave her the answer. She couldn’t do the things her grandmother could do, but the energy flowing through her, her grandmother’s potent watery essence, was coming to the forefront. She glanced up at the ceiling. She wouldn’t be able to manage as potent a storm as she had made with Dylan, but it could give her an edge. She pushed out with her mind, calling up the watery energy reserve she had within her and combining it with the tumultuous, tempestuous air energy. A heavy, angry-looking cloud began to form above. She began to inhale and exhale, blowing a growing wind through the room. Aira watched the gale forming, the cloud beginning to become so heavy that it would have to expel its contents in rain. There was not enough energy in her, or water in the room, to create a truly magnificent storm, but in the next instant it began to rain, and Aira turned her attention back onto the wind.
She looked at Asher, meeting his gaze. She felt his will pressing ag
ainst her mind. She knew what he was going to do next—he would attempt to persuade her, to compel her using that facet of his abilities.
“We should call it off right now,” he said, projecting his will and his voice across the vaulting room. Aira clamped down on her mind, fighting the penetration of his presence. She remembered the feeling of Alex’s compulsions, the way he had wormed his way into her mind.
“We can’t do that,” she replied firmly. “They haven’t rung the bell. It’s not over.”
Asher made one last attempt, pressing his will against her mind, and Aira imagined her body as a gust of wind, immaterial, a force of nature that could not be moved by him, a self-willed unstoppable energy. She called up the wind more strongly, exhaling a steady gust that she directed with her hands. Asher was pushed back slowly but steadily, driven along the floor by the force of her gales. Aira shaped a vortex with her hands and pushed the full force of her energy into it, pulling it even out of the clouds and steadily pushing Asher away from her. He was pressed against the wall, trapped by the wind tunnel she had formed, and Aira held him there, not sure of what she should do to put an end to the fight, to conclusively win.
The bell rang through the air, overcoming even the howling of the wind, and Aira stopped immediately, bringing her hands down at her sides and inhaling sharply, calling the wind back into herself. She staggered, the energy flowing into her so quickly that she was overwhelmed by it. Asher slumped to the floor, his legs giving out without the push of the wind holding him up.
“The battle is over,” the elder in charge called out. Aira watched as one of the other elementals, an air elemental, used his abilities to push the storm cloud out, dissolving the energy that formed it and dispersing it through the room. “Solana and Aurion, you are out of contention,” another elder said. “Asher and Aira, you are still in the running to be the ruler of the element of air. You will face off separately against the other two contenders on another occasion.”
Aira felt tingling running up and down her limbs, the energy surge rushing through her body. She nodded, thinking she had to get out of the building before she lost her ability to control her own element and the wind began to respond to her without her conscious will directing it.
“You will both return for the next session.” The elders turned almost as one and left the gallery, and Aira slumped to the floor, feeling too weak and all too powerful all at once. She looked up and saw Dylan and Aiden smiling down at her, Dylan with a thumbs-up to indicate how well she had done. She gathered herself and made for the door she had entered from.
CHAPTER 8
DYLAN FELT AS THOUGH HE was continually waiting for the other shoe to drop. Preparing Aira for the first of her trials to become the ruler of her element had been relatively straightforward – he and Aiden had simply sparred with her and shared what they knew about the weaknesses and strengths of the elementals she would be up against. He had been impressed—not quite surprised—at the display of power Aira had shown in her first battle. Dylan knew his brother had been particularly pleased to see Aira handling herself so well. The way she had handled being attacked by two other elementals at once, and then strategizing until she was at the very end against Asher, boded very well for her indeed. He had been surprised by the display of pure power that came with the storm she had created in the middle of the arena. It reminded him more of her grandmother than something he would have thought she could do on her own. When he asked her about that particular trick, she had told him about her grandmother’s transfer of her vital energy and how it had come into play in that particular moment. Clearly, Lorene had anticipated it might come in handy, not just to steady her granddaughter, but also for her own survival.
In her second battle, against two other strong elementals, Aiden and Dylan had again insisted on going with her. Saoirse had been adamant against it—right up until Aiden produced a fire-blade in his hands and threatened her with it. Dylan had calmed the energetic, and slightly annoying, elemental’s energies with his own magic while Aira bent the woman’s mind to her will. He knew Aira felt ambivalent about that particular ability, but she was becoming more and more adept at it, more capable of getting the result she wanted without expending very much energy.
That was part of the reason Dylan was so concerned about her. It was more important than ever that he and Aiden maintain their ability to resist her persuasive capabilities. As Aira grew better at wielding the ability, it would become a greater temptation for her to use it regularly—a temptation that had brought many elementals to the brink of sanity, particularly those who possessed the ability as strongly as Aira. Dylan knew if a person could manipulate almost anyone—could bend them to their will with minimum effort—the power often went to their head, making them question their trust in any person or relationship. As it came more easily, it could become difficult to even be aware when they were using it and when they were not. By staying firmly un-persuadable, he and Aiden would be doing the best possible thing for keeping Aira rooted in reality.
There were other troubling signs of her increased instability as well. Dylan knew Lorene had transferred her vital energy into her granddaughter in part as an attempt to stabilize her, but water energy was not always constant. Being a mutable element, it was very easy under the wrong circumstances for water elementals, or those bearing water energy, to become very unstable. In his dreams, Dylan saw a possibility of Aira becoming worse under the influences of not only her own flighty, mercurial energy as she gained better control over it, but also the infusion of her grandmother’s energy. He saw Aira in the midst of a maelstrom, a raging tempest she couldn’t escape. He was troubled by the thoughts. There had to be something he could do to help her, but whenever he thought of Aira and her precarious position he didn’t know what that could be.
When Dylan had told his brother about his dream, Aiden had suggested that the only way Aira could possibly stabilize—and remain stable—would be with a mate. It was the solution Aira’s own grandmother had pointed out, and it certainly made sense in most cases. For elementals, part of the mating process involved combining and mingling energies. If Aira found a mate whose energy was more stable than hers and mingled her energy together with his, then she would receive a stabilizing influence, an anchor for her flightiness. But if she mingled her energies with a mate who was less stable—or at the very least no more stable—then it could spell disaster for her. It was part of the reason her grandmother had tried to convince Aira to submit to an arranged marriage. Lorene would have been able to select an appropriate mate whose energies would complement rather than reinforce Aira’s.
Dylan knew Aiden’s idea was sound, but the timing was wrong. There was no realistic way for Aira to find a mate in her current situation. Anyone remotely interested in her right now would very likely have ulterior motives and could be dangerous. If Aira had found a mate before her grandmother had died it might have been of benefit to her, but for the moment, the only thing he and Aiden could hope was that Aira would manage to hold herself together and remain sufficiently stable throughout the trials and testing, so that she could find a mate afterwards.
There would still be some danger of ulterior motives even if she became the ruler of her element, but she would at least have a wide variety of potential mates to choose from. There was a secondary reason for Aiden suggesting Aira find a mate, which Dylan would have understood even if his watery essence hadn’t gifted him with empathy – Aiden was still hung up on Aira, and he thought if she found a mate, he could move on from her more readily. Dylan was partially amused and partially concerned for both his brother and the woman who had been their charge and become his friend. He knew something about the two of them that he didn’t think either of them realized—but he couldn’t tell them. If he told them outright, neither of them would believe it.
Dylan’s concern had increased because of the way Aira had conducted herself in her second battle. She had been all power—not as much finesse, not as much strategy. H
e had watched her bowl over her other two opponents who had, as in the first battle, decided to both throw everything they had at her at the same time. Dylan had put a damper on Aiden’s energy as his older brother’s protective instincts began to take over. He began to heat up the atmosphere around him and they could not interfere with the battle going on in the arena. They were strictly observers, and not even official ones at that. But the show of power Aira had produced had been absolutely unequivocal. Using a wind vortex to shield herself, she had risen off of the floor in flight, hovering above the two combatants. She didn’t use her persuasive ability in the second battle the way she had in the first, instead sending volleys and gusts of wind at her opponents that knocked them down time and again. She knocked aside the spells they’d cast and the energy weapons they’d formed as easily as if they were toys; casting spells of her own, murmuring them while the wind guarded her in flight. She had even created a distracting and dangerous aurora borealis in the middle of the room, charged with energy that expanded to threaten both of her opponents.
The most concerning thing about the situation was not the display of sheer power, but the fact that, for a very brief moment, after the elders called for the end of the fight Aira had almost resisted their command. She had nearly continued fighting in spite of the rules, and in spite of the fact that Dylan knew she legitimately didn’t want to kill anyone she was fighting against. The aurora she had created would injure, and if the other combatants had become stuck inside of its charged confines it might have damaged them severely, but it wouldn’t have killed either of them. It was a spell that was mostly defensive, one Dylan had seen Lorene teaching her but had never truly seen in action until that moment. It had been a heart-stopping moment when Aira had hesitated at the instant the elders called a halt to the fight; he had seen the flicker across his friend’s face, the look of self-will, of determination—his heart had begun pounding even after he had seen Aira subside.
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