Elemental Heir (Ridley Kayne Chronicles Book 3)

by Rachel Morgan

  “And keep doing what you can to help us,” Ridley said quietly. “Our revolution attempt failed, but that doesn’t mean we won’t try again. At least, I hope that’s not what it means. I don’t want our world to stay the way it is.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Shen,” Mrs. Lin said, removing a pile of containers from the fridge. “Please organize some lunch for Ridley and yourself. You can use up these leftovers from last night. I’m going downstairs. Stay out of trouble.”

  Shen’s serious expression became a fraction less serious. “She says that every time now.”

  “For obvious reasons.” Mrs. Lin pinned her stern gaze on him. Then she moved it to Ridley. “And Ridley,” she added, “I know you’re worried about your father, but please don’t rush off on your own and do something silly. He wouldn’t want that.”

  Ridley nodded. The last proper meal she’d had was at Mrs. Adams’ place, and she couldn’t remember the last sleep she’d had that wasn’t drug-induced. She was feeling horrible enough that it didn’t take much convincing to be responsible instead of reckless.

  “Good,” Mrs. Lin said, patting Shen’s shoulder before she left the kitchen.

  “Are your brothers around?” Ridley asked Shen. Based on how quiet the apartment was, she guessed the answer would be no.

  “They’re at school,” Shen said. He opened one of the containers and investigated the contents.

  “Oh, right. I’m having difficulty keeping up with the days of the week.” Ridley lowered herself to the chair again. This was a little weird, she decided. Sitting in a kitchen having an everyday conversation with Shen, given everything that had happened recently and everything that was still unknown. Despite feeling crappy, there was definitely a part of her that wanted to race off and do … something. “Um, when did you get back?” she asked. “Have you seen Meera?”

  “Only a few days ago. And yes, I have seen Meera, although only from a distance. At the indoor rock wall, of all places.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “I went by the sports center yesterday. Just to kind of … watch from a distance. See who’s still there.” Shen removed two bowls from a cupboard. “Anyway, I saw Meera on the wall. Looks like she continued lessons without us.”

  “That’s … kind of funny,” Ridley said with a small smile. “I didn’t think she liked it that much.”

  “Yeah. I think … maybe she’s doing it because she misses us?”

  “Maybe.” Guilt added itself to the sick feeling in Ridley’s stomach. “So you didn’t speak to her?”

  “No. I haven’t figured out yet what to say.”

  “I, uh … I tried to tell her everything.”

  Shen looked around at her, eyebrows climbing. “Everything?”

  “Well, about me, at least. Although … I think I mentioned you at one point. I was blurting out a lot of stuff, and I think one of the things I said was that you had to leave because of people like me. And then I showed her my magic.”

  “You what?”

  “But she didn’t give me a chance to say much after that. She didn’t want to know any of it. Told me she wanted to stay out of it all, for her family’s safety. Which I understand. Looking back … I don’t know. I thought telling her the truth was the right thing to do, but maybe it was just selfish.”

  “Okay, that’s …” Shen leaned against the counter. “Now I really don’t know what to say to her.”

  Ridley pulled her shoulders up toward her ears, indicating she didn’t really know either. “Maybe just acknowledge that you have secrets and ask if she wants to know them?”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Shen continued dishing food into two bowls. Ridley leaned her elbows on the table and asked, “Hey, uh, do you have an old commscreen or commpad I can use? Just to see if my dad will reply if I send him a message. I know it’s unlikely, since he didn’t respond to your mom, but I just want to try.”

  “We have all your old devices, remember? I think we have at least one commscreen that hasn’t even been switched on since you gave it to us.”

  Ridley smiled. “Thank goodness for Wallace Academy and their insistence on handing out new devices every year to us poor scholarship students.”

  They ate lunch together, Ridley trying to keep the conversation topics light, and Shen following her lead. They didn’t mention the elemental man Shen had killed, or Lawrence Madson, or the Shadow Society, or Archer. They didn’t speak of justice and whether Shen should have remained imprisoned for what he’d done. Mostly, they reminisced about old times, because that was easier.

  Afterward, before Ridley fell asleep on the couch, she switched on the old commscreen Shen pulled out of a cupboard and sent a message to her father.

  * * *

  Dad, this is Ridley. Please let me know where you are.

  24

  Ridley barely stirred the entire afternoon. When she did wake up, the first thing she reached for was the commscreen. But there was no reply from her father.

  “Feeling any better?” Shen asked as he walked into the living room with a pair of shoes in one hand.

  “Much better. Thanks.” Except for the fact that she could now clearly feel that sense of urgency again. That quiet insistence that she should be doing something instead of just sitting here.

  “I’m heading out to do some food deliveries for my parents,” Shen said. He sat on the end of the couch and pulled his shoes on. “Mom said you can go downstairs and get some dinner there. My brothers are already down there, doing homework. Or you can wait for me to get back and we can down together?”

  “I’ll wait for you.” Ridley stood and stretched her arms up above her head. “I’m going out for a little bit too.”

  Shen paused while lacing one shoe and looked up with a frown. “You’re doing what my mother asked you not to do?”

  “No. I’m not rushing off to do something silly. I’m just going up into the air above your building to see if I can sense anyone. Dad or any other elementals. I think all the arxium in the city makes it difficult, but if someone’s nearby, I might be able to find them. If I can’t, then I’ll come straight back inside.”

  “And if you do sense someone? Like, captured or something? Will you do something silly then?”

  Ridley inhaled slowly before answering. “No. I’ll come back for help. Someone reminded me recently that I don’t have to do everything on my own. That I should trust others to help me.”

  “Sounds like a sensible someone.”

  “She is,” Ridley said, her heart squeezing painfully at the reminder that she had no idea where Saoirse was or if she was okay.

  “Okay, well I’ll see you a bit later then.” Shen gave her a casual wave before standing and moving to the door. It was such a familiar line, such a familiar gesture, that it felt for a moment as if the past few weeks had never happened. It was Shen’s smile though, before he turned away, that reminded Ridley of everything that had changed. It was tight, strained, not the easy grin he’d so often given her in the past.

  She pushed aside thoughts of Shen and the things he’d done to wipe away that easy grin. There was nothing she could do to change any of it. She looked down at her hands as her magic become visible beneath her skin, pulsing through her veins before drifting upward in wisps. I’m made of air, she thought, and then she was invisible.

  Within seconds, she was out of the window and soaring high above Shen’s building, watching the city lights wink on as evening approached. She wasn’t sure if it made much difference being up here as opposed to inside his apartment, but it felt different. She felt freer.

  Her thoughts bounced in quick succession from one person to the next. No Dad, no Saoirse, no—Wait. Was that Malachi? She whirled around in the direction she’d felt his presence. Nathan too. They’re coming, magic seemed to tell her. They sense you too.

  She drifted downward, hope expanding inside her as she returned to Shen’s living room. Nathan and Malachi were close enough now to follow. The
y would find her. It was safer in here than out on the roof where nosy neighbors or drones—or someone spying on Ridley’s home across the street—might see them.

  She resumed human form. She held her breath, looking around the room, hoping she hadn’t imagined that Nathan and Malachi were nearby. After another few heartbeats, they stepped out of the air.

  “Ridley!” Malachi embraced her immediately. Behind him, Nathan’s eyes took in the room before settling on Ridley.

  “Are we safe here? Is this your home? If Archer knows where you live, then the Shadow Society probably knows—”

  “This place belongs to friends. Trusted friends. They’ve known about elementals far longer than I have.” Ridley stepped out of Malachi’s embrace. “Where are the others? What happened out there?”

  “What happened to you?” Nathan asked, moving closer. Ridley was relieved he didn’t try to hug her as well. She didn’t feel they were quite on hugging terms.

  “I—it doesn’t matter now. I was caught and then freed, and then I tried burning the panels after you started the earthquakes, but I was caught again and now I’m free again. But what about you? Where’s everyone else? Please don’t tell me they’re all …”

  “Dead? Not all of them.” Nathan’s brow creased. “We started this with almost three dozen, and now eleven are missing. We don’t know for sure who’s dead or who … I don’t know, maybe got swept away and injured or something. The rest of us managed to sense one another and congregate further out. Then we traveled even further away. But Malachi and I decided to come back.” He scrubbed his hands through his hair. “We’re not done with this, even though everyone else is too scared. They don’t want to try again. They’re convinced we’ll fail. There was … I don’t know what to call it, Ridley. Something. Some strange magical force. It just … it didn’t make sense. Something I’ve never experienced before.”

  “Man-made elementals,” Ridley said. “I guess you wouldn’t have figured that out if you only felt the effects of their magic and didn’t see them change form.”

  For several moments, Nathan and Malachi simply started at her. Then Malachi said, “Wait … did you say man-made elementals?”

  Ridley told them everything she’d learned since waking up strapped to a hospital bed in a secret research facility. “So Alastair Davenport must have given this serum to a bunch of people and sent them out to find us and fight us off—”

  “Knowing they’d all die because of it,” Malachi muttered with a shake of his head. “I mean, it’s great that there are less of them now, but what kind of person does that?”

  “The kind of person who’s been killing our kind for years,” Nathan said quietly. He slowly lowered himself to the couch, his head in his hands. “This is crazy. He made his own elementals. I never would have thought it possible.”

  “He was hoping my blood would make a difference to the serum he’s concocted, since I’m supposed to be different and super-powered and all of that, but it didn’t really. It makes his man-made elementals last several days before dying instead of one day, that’s all.”

  Nathan rubbed his hands over his face. “I don’t know what this means for us. If we try again, will we fail in the same way? Surely he’s going to run out of people to send after us if they keep dying.”

  “He called them ‘willing volunteers,’” Ridley said. “If that’s true, then I’m sure he’s going to run out of them quickly.”

  Nathan nodded. “Yes. Hopefully. I don’t know. We just need to think. There has to be a way for us to do this and succeed. Magic isn’t bad, and it doesn’t want to be smothered and riled up. It’s on our side. I know we can do this.”

  “If it’s on our side,” Ridley said slowly, frowning as something occurred to her, “then why did it help them? They’re not real elementals. They don’t want to preserve magic or make the world a better place. Magic knows that. But they must have reached out with their thoughts in order to find all of you, right? And magic must have responded.”

  “I thought we could only do that with people we already know,” Malachi said. “Otherwise how do you communicate to the magic who you’re looking for? You said the person who found you is someone you already know, so that makes sense.”

  “So then … they couldn’t have asked magic where you were?”

  “They probably didn’t have to,” Nathan said. “We were attacking the wall and the ground just outside the wall. They already knew roughly where we were.”

  Ridley nodded. “Oh, I should have asked as soon as you got here: Is Saoirse with the group you left out in the wastelands?”

  Nathan looked up. “No. I thought she might be with you.”

  Ridley shook her head. “She was, but we separated before I went up to start burning the panels. She was planning to go into the city to find my dad—to tell him I was okay—and then she was going to join the rest of you outside.”

  Nathan’s expression grew troubled. “I haven’t seen her since she left us to go and find you.”

  They were all quiet for a moment as the possibility that Saoirse hadn’t made it sunk in.

  “And your dad?” Malachi asked quietly.

  Ridley shook her head again. “I don’t know where he is. Somewhere within the city, I think, but I can’t sense him. I’m, uh …” She swallowed. “Getting really worried.”

  “Planning to rush off on your own again to find him?” Nathan asked, a hard edge to his tone.

  Indignation burned immediately through Ridley’s veins. “Planning to forbid me again?”

  Silence filled the room for several moments. Malachi looked back and forth between the two of them. Then Nathan responded, his voice gentler now. “You can understand why I said that, can’t you? I knew how important you were—still are—to our cause. I didn’t want to lose you.”

  Ridley looked away, the heat of her anger vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “Yes. I guess so. But I can’t do nothing. Will you help me? Maybe we need to spread out across the city. Just … I don’t know, fly around until one of us gets close enough to sense him?”

  “We could try that,” Malachi said.

  “Still might not work if he’s being contained within arxium walls,” Nathan said, “but yeah, we can try.”

  “Does now work for you?” Ridley asked. She felt she was being remarkably diplomatic when what she really wanted to do was shout, Can we go right now PLEASE?

  Nathan stood. “It’s not as though I’ve figured out how we’re going to recruit a bunch more elementals to help us, so yes. Now works. Which part of the city—”

  The front door flew open midway through Nathan’s sentence. Shen stopped in the doorway, eyes widening at the sight of two strangers in his home. “They’re friends!” Ridley said hastily. “Elementals.”

  “Uh, okay.”

  “You weren’t gone very long,” Ridley added. “Is something wrong?”

  “Not wrong, exactly.” Shen shut the door and strode toward her, his commscreen in one hand. “I just wanted to make sure you saw this.” He thrust the device in front of her. On the screen, a video had been paused. She tapped to play it, watching the words scrolling on a red banner across the bottom of the screen: ‘Breaking News: Linevale city wall destroyed by magical earthquake and fire originating in wastelands.’

  “Holy freaking crap,” Ridley whispered, vaguely aware that Nathan and Malachi were standing behind her, peering over her shoulders. On the screen, shaky footage taken from inside a building right on the edge of a city showed great cracks splitting their way through a wall. The video shook again as the earth shuddered. The wall began to come apart. Flames raced across the giant pieces of the wall as they fell, eating through them. Smoke filled the sky.

  “This is Linevale,” Shen said. “It happened this morning. Looks like most of their wall is gone.”

  Nathan swore quietly. “Linevale,” Ridley repeated. It was one of the surviving cities on the west coast. She turned to face Nathan. “It’s happening. They’ve d
one it. They’ve got rid of their arxium.” The urgency that had been coursing through her since she woke up increased in intensity. Her magic felt restless, eager to act.

  “We need to try again,” Nathan said, voicing Ridley’s thoughts. “As soon as possible. Before the Shadow Society does something to make it even harder. We need to get everyone back here. Hopefully the fact that another city has succeeded will boost everyone’s confidence.”

  “You think?” Malachi said doubtfully. “They were pretty damn terrified by the time we all found each other and started counting the number of people we lost. They won’t easily change their minds. We’ll be lucky if a handful of them decide to come back with us.”

  “I can convince them,” Nathan insisted. “Show them that it’s possible. Last time, they didn’t know whether it could be done. And they didn’t know we had Ridley.” He gave Ridley an apologetic look. “I … I should have waited for Saoirse to return with you. I shouldn’t have given up on you. I was … too eager. I’m sorry.”

  Ridley’s eyebrows climbed. Was Nathan actually apologizing for something? She wasn’t sure what to say to that, except perhaps apologize for sneaking off to find Archer.

  “We have to try,” Nathan said to Malachi before Ridley could formulate any words. “We need as many people as we can get.”

  “Yeah, Lumina City is like double the size of Linevale,” Shen pointed out. “And you don’t know how many elementals they had, but it was probably more than three.”

  “If we leave now,” Nathan said, “we can probably be back here by morning. By that time, another city’s wall may have fallen. We need to join the revolution. That story we just saw …” He gestured at Shen’s commscreen. “They’re blaming this on the wild magic in the wastelands. But as we free more and more cities, it’ll become obvious that this isn’t a freak storm or a coincidence. Hopefully some small news channel will finally be brave enough to share the video I recorded and sent out.”