The Soothing Scent Of Earth (Elemental Awakening, Book 2)

by Claire, Nicola

  I had a feeling the Aeras thought very highly of themselves.

  Hip pushed the doors open and incense immediately wafted out to greet us; sweet, alluring, smoky trails spiralling up into the air from each corner of a dimly lit room. Candles flickered on various surfaces, a fire crackled in a round sided hearth, copious colourful cushions scattered all around its circumference.

  "Take a seat," Hip suggested. "I'll let my grandfather know you're here."

  He continued on to a curtain covered alcove, pushing through the drapes and disappearing from sight. There were no Guards here, no one standing watch at the door. Hip had closed it behind us, but not locked it. I could have easily turned around and headed back out, trying to find Theo. The desire to do so was so great I even took a step towards them, but that wouldn't get the answers we needed. I knew this, but it didn't make it any easier to deny myself the urge to rescue Theo, to seek comfort in his touch. My fingers curled in on themselves, and I forced my gaze back towards the fire and the rest of the room.

  Inca style artwork adorned the walls here, as opposed to the impressionist looking paintings of the mountains out in the halls. Golden faces surrounded by sun like rays; oranges, reds, turmerics and browns. Geometric designs, ceramic sculptures, even a silver jug with an unusual looking dog balancing on it. It was fascinating, and I was guessing real. These items should have been in a museum for all to see. But then, considering how long the Aeras had lived here, maybe the Incas had given them the items personally.

  By the time I'd made a visual assessment of the entire room there was nothing left to do but sit, as Hip had suggested. Just as I'd gotten myself comfortable on one of the cushions, the curtain at the back of the room parted and an old man shuffled out. It's difficult to tell an Athanatos' age, but this guy had to be ancient. He looked older than Aktor, whom I knew was twenty-five thousand years old. So....

  I let a slow breath of air out on that thought. He had wrinkles. Lots of them. And his once dark blond hair was all white, standing up in tufts of frizz like some mad scientist. His back was stooped and he used a carved cane in one hand for support, leaning onto the arm of Hip with the other, as he made excruciatingly slow progress into the room. I winced at the obvious difficulty he had moving, wondering if he was in pain, or just stiff jointed.

  When he came to rest next to the cushions I almost leapt up to help him myself, but with one unexpected supple movement he was sitting down, lotus style, on a pile in the next breath. My eyebrows rose up my forehead. Wow. Hip positioned himself halfway between the old guy and me, maybe as a buffer? Then when the guy lifted white lashed eyelids up to look directly at me, I got the distinct impression he did not need protection from anything.

  White; pure, blindingly bright white shone from his eyes and nothing else. I tensed, thinking he was about to attack, but nothing happened. No increase in static, or ozone smell on the air. No crack of thunder or bolt of lightning arcing through the space towards me. He just stared. For a good couple of minutes.

  My eyes flicked between the spooky old guy and Hip, then back again. Hip kept his gaze focused on the flames, but he surely knew I was unsettled.

  Finally someone caved to the silence, and it wasn't in any way that I had expected.

  "Ah, Aether comes at last to me," the shaman said in a crackly old voice; high pitched and weak sounding. I thought it might just have been an act. Power rolled off this decrepit man in waves of prickling tingles. "How fares our Aether, will she be?"

  "Grandfather," Hip said, still staring at the flames. "She has use of two Stoicheio already."

  My gaze flicked to Hip. He'd seen my Fire at the airport, I'd not been in touch with Gi since before we met. But then, maybe when you 'contain' someone's Element you get to see what's what.

  "Aether grounded in Earth stands strong," the shaman mused. "Against all that man does wrong. Aether wreathed in Fire burns bright. Lights the darkness of the night."

  Oookay. I sat back slightly on my cushion, unsure how to take this strange old man who spoke in riddles.

  "Does he always talk like this?" I found myself saying. I couldn't even manage to watch my manners, this was turning into the most surreal experience to date.

  "My grandfather has visions," Hip explained. "They come to him like this. For many centuries he's not been able to converse in any other fashion."

  "So, everything he says is a vision?" I asked, focusing on Hip's grandfather, who was eerily focusing back on me.

  "I believe so," Hip said, but it was hardly a resounding endorsement.

  Silence, but for the crackle of the flames. I shook my head, feeling a little out of it. I put it down to the weird moment, but it could have been the incense.

  "What happens now?" I asked.

  "You may ask your questions and grandfather will answer them as he sees fit."

  For a second I couldn't organise my thoughts. What was the most important thing I wanted to know? There were so many questions swilling around inside my head. So many from the first day I woke up in a pit of dirt. Some had been answered, more had appeared. And now I had my very own shaman in front of me. But I had no idea where to begin.

  My hand came up and pushed damp hair away from my face. Huh, I was sweating? I hadn't even realised. But there wasn't any ventilation that I could see in this room, and the fire was warm. I worked to focus on the questions in my head, but for some reason it was becoming harder. At least one kept jumping to the front of my mind. One that had been doggedly present from the beginning.

  "Why?" I managed to murmur, a little worried my voice sounded so far away.

  "Why are you Aether?" Hip clarified. I nodded, wanting nothing more than to lie down and sleep for a while. I pushed past the weariness and tried to focus on the old man across from me, but smoke made his image waver and distort on the air.

  Oh, this wasn't good, was it?

  "Aether comes when the need is great," the old man chimed in. Which didn't really offer too much in the way of answer. "But remaining here was never fate." Oh, God. Here we go. More questions than answers.

  "What does that mean?" I asked, my hand coming out to offer support, as my body had started to tilt slightly.

  "It means you are here for a purpose," Hip offered. "I am unsure of what that purpose is."

  "Does your grandfather know?" I asked, my hand slipping off the cushion it was resting on and making my body slide over sideways until my head rested on the floor. Oh, freaking hell.

  "He has never said, only that you are needed now," Hip answered, not in the least concerned or surprised that I was out flat on the shaman's floor, surrounded by dazzlingly bright cushions.

  "I feel drunk," I slurred.

  Silence. Just the crackle of the fire in the hearth and then...

  "So, this is Aether? I thought her grand. But she is just our god's right hand. Until all five have been woken, our Aether will remain near broken."

  Not good, I thought... and then blackness took over.

  Chapter 23

  I Needed To Remember That

  "Aether, Aether, Eternal Aether. Sharpen your sword here."

  The old shaman's voice reached me from down a very long tunnel. It took a monumental amount of effort to lift my head, but all I could see was a dizzying array of bright colours, entwining together, merging and twisting, floating away like smoke on the air.

  I licked my lips, tried to make a sound, and ended up just coughing more of that sweet, sickly incense in. I felt mired in it, trapped within it, held fast by smoky tendrils of sweet, sweet hell.

  "Let me go," I mumbled, rolling over onto my side and feeling the soft material of a cushion beneath my cheek.

  I opened my eyes and this time found myself alone with the shaman in his room. He looked several thousand years younger, but was definitely the same man. White hair and white blazing eyes, just not as many wrinkles and he sat without a stoop.

  I pushed myself up off the floor and glanced around. Hip was missing, so was the smoke of
the incense now. The room was clean and fresh like the mountain air.

  "Where are we?" I asked, but the shaman didn't deign to answer. I guess he didn't have a rhyme ready for that one.

  He just watched me, waiting for something. The right question, I think. I held his unnatural gaze, still feeling spooked by all that white in his eyes.

  "You're a little scary," I found myself admitting, but the shock of voicing that aloud simply didn't exist as it should have. I cocked my head and studied him further, he seemed quite capable of waiting me out. Comfortable on the cushions, made to sit cross legged like this for years.

  I sighed. What would be the question he wanted to hear? No, maybe that was the wrong approach. What was the question I needed to hear the most? Everything.

  I opened my mouth to ask the most important one on my mind, but what came out was entirely different.

  "I'm scared of what I'm becoming." Oh, and whoa! Was that my greatest fear? The answer I wanted most of all? Would I be OK?

  "Rest easy, Aether, breathe free," the shaman said, his voice steady and strong, like I was thinking the man was under all that disguise. "Fear not what you are unable to see."

  "Easy for you to say," I muttered and received a crooked toothed smile in return.

  OK, he didn't seem nearly as spooky when he smiled.

  I ran a hand through my hair, holding it up off my neck for a second, to try and calm myself down. This was obviously a personal audience with a magical Aeras elder. I needed to use it wisely.

  "Can you tell me what being an Aether means?" I asked.

  Silence.

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek for a moment and contemplated the next question.

  "OK, I have Gi and Pyrkagia. I'm guessing I'll get Aeras and Nero as well."

  Before I could go on, the shaman said, "Aether lifted on Air flies high. Facing those we fear with just a sigh. Aether doused in Water lives on. Another day to fight is gone."

  I paused, mouth hanging open. That sounded suspiciously close to what he had said about Earth and Fire earlier, when Hip was still here. And if I thought about it, it sounded very similar to what my own grandfather had told me when I was still young. Let the clean Air take away your fears. Let the cool Water revive you. That just left one more: Let Quintessence give you the courage to sacrifice your soul.

  "Quintessence," I said on a whisper.

  "Aether wrapped in Quintessence feels brave. Courage enough to do what's grave."

  "What does that mean?" I begged, my voice barely audible.

  Silence.

  Frustration welled up from deep inside, tears stinging my eyes futilely. This was hopeless. He knew about as much as me, only confirming my worst fears, not giving them any more meaning. This shaman was as blind as I was.

  "This is useless," I said on a sigh, wishing Hip would just come back and take me to Theo.

  "A gift is given that you bear," the old man whispered. "You need not think on it with fear. Time will pass and you will see, that being Aether was meant to be."

  I lifted heavy eyes to his, saw the sad smile on his lips, and knew he understood. He didn't have the answers, much less words of wisdom which would make this so much easier. He just had the confirmation that I was Aether, and that there was much more yet to come. Maybe that would be enough to face my future. But I doubted it, right now.

  "There's nothing else you can tell me?" I asked in one final effort to find reason where there was none.

  The old man tilted his head to the side and closed his eyes, as though waiting on a vision to suddenly guide us. When his eyes opened again they were the same bright white, no change whatsoever.

  He stared right at me and said, "Be strong. Be true. Be well. Be brave. Know this is not the sum of your days."

  Not exactly the enlightenment I was looking for.

  Smoke began to billow in from the corners of the room, reaching tendrils of wispy fingers out towards me.

  "I'm going to black out again, aren't I?" I said. The old man smiled.

  The scent of sweet incense reached me first, then the choking sensation of too little oxygen. I didn't fight it this time, just lay down and closed my eyes, letting darkness take over.

  I awoke back in my Aeras room on my bed, Theo sitting beside me. Only a small amount of dizziness made my head spin when I sat up, automatically reaching out to touch my Thisavros.

  "Are you all right?" I asked as he said, "Finally."

  "What did they do to you?" I demanded, searching with my fingers to see if he'd been hurt.

  "I'm fine, Oraia," he reassured me, pulling me across the small space on the bed and into his arms. "Are you?"

  "My head hurts a little," I admitted. "But other than feeling frustrated, I'm OK."

  "Frustrated?"

  I relayed as quickly as I could all that had transpired with the shaman, receiving a frown and pursed lips in response from Theo.

  "Kind of makes you wonder why we bothered to come here," I announced, drawing pictures on Theo's chest through his shirt where my hand rested.

  "No. It's all right," Theo said, not making any sense. "We needed to check on what we thought we knew. Aktor's and my knowledge was not foolproof. At least the Aeras have confirmed that Aether commands all five Stoicheio."

  I let a long breath of air out. "So, I've still got Air, Water and Quintessence Awakenings to go through. But we don't know what I'm meant to do when they appear. Plus, we still don't know who made me this way. So, we know what, but not why or how." I turned and looked into stunning hazel eyes. "That about it?"

  He smiled, not a crooked tooth in sight. "Yeah, that's about it."

  "What now?" I said on a sigh.

  Theo started to rub my arm, either to soothe me, or him, or just in preparation for my reaction to what he was about to say. "I have no idea."

  Freaking hell. Back at square one.

  "What are the Aeras going to do with us now?"

  "That I do know," Theo said, perking up. "We've been invited to a banquet dinner with their Rigas. And then, I gather, they'll escort us from their lands."

  "Don't want us muddying up their clean air?" I offered.

  "Yes. They are very protective of their kind."

  "Which reminds me, can you reach your Stoicheio yet?" I asked.

  Theo shook his head. "No, but Hippolytos assured me, they would be released back to us once they escort us from Urubamba."

  "That's pretty clever stuff they can manage," I said, staring out the window at Machu Picchu.

  "Yes, they always seemed to have their heads in the clouds," Theo said, looking out the same window. "Capable of more than the rest of us could perceive."

  "It's to do with the atmosphere," I explained. "And weather manipulation," I added.

  "Is that so?" Theo murmured, snuggling in closer, resting his chin on my shoulder so his nose could nestle in amongst my hair. "You managed to get a lot out of them in such a short amount of time. I think they trust you."

  I snorted. "If they trusted me, where's my Stoicheio?"

  "They can trust and still be cautious," Theo pointed out. "If I were not here, they would probably have returned your Elements to you. They believe you won't think clearly if you fear for your Thisavros."

  I huffed. But, it was true.

  We sat in silence for a few minutes.

  Then, "We have two hours before the banquet is due to begin," Theo remarked, casually. Too casually.

  I turned my head to look at him, mischief sparkled in his eyes. If he'd had access to Pyrkagia, I was sure they'd be flashing gold.

  "What did you have in mind, Mr Peters?" I asked, innocently.

  "Care to join me in the shower, Miss Eden?" he replied, adopting my tone and adding a wink.

  "Conserving water again?" I queried, remembering Theo's excuse for us showering together back in Auckland, and then promptly blushing at the memory of what we did in the shower that night.

  "Absolutely," he agreed, wholeheartedly. "I'm sure the Aeras are
conservationists at heart."

  He grasped my hand and pulled me up off the bed, wrapping an arm around my waist when I gained my balance.

  "They can't watch us, or barge in, can they?" I asked, a little nervously.

  Theo chuckled. "The door's locked from the inside, and I've gone over the rooms with a fine tooth comb. We are alone, Oraia. And as such, I intend to enjoy our isolation and confinement. Do you object?"

  Did I object? Was he mad?

  "Lead on!" I announced, giving him a playful shove in the direction of the attached bathroom. He laughed the entire way there, hand clasping mine tightly, and eagerness apparent on his face.

  He may not have been in touch with Pyrkagia, but Theo was all hot blooded male.

  He started the shower running and turned heavy lidded eyes to me, letting his gaze rake over my body. I was fully clothed, but felt entirely too under dressed, right then. Which was not an unfamiliar sensation when around Theo.

  "Do you want to strip yourself?" he asked. "Or would you prefer me to do it?"

  I blinked up at him. He was enjoying himself, almost carefree in his indulgence. For a second I couldn't get my head around our current situation and his playful attitude.

  "Shouldn't we be too worried about what's ahead to be doing this?" I asked, already regretting pointing out the obvious by the time the words left my lips.

  Theo smiled softly, understanding shining from his eyes.

  "I don't think things are going to get any easier, Casey," he murmured. "In fact, I think they will get worse, before they get better."

  "If they get better at all," I offered.

  He shook his head, and crossed the small space to stand before me, his hands coming up and cupping my cheeks, tilting my gaze to his. "They'll get better," he promised, although how he could make that promise, I don't know. "But in the meantime, we have to make do with what we have. And I have you. My Thisavros." His eyelids slowly closed and he took a deep breath of air in. Then when he looked at me again I could have sworn I saw gold, just a hint. But it was there. "I don't know what tomorrow will bring," he whispered. "But I know right now we are as safe as we can be, and together."