I did see the patchwork of fields along both sides of the highway I’d walked on. Surely Unmanifested workers had to leave the city to tame the fields. With my back pressed to stone, I waited. Hopefully, no one would pay attention to another person in rags.
The sky lightened by degrees until finally the gate opened. I shrank back as the door widened.
Footsteps sounded.
I slunk to the edge of the door.
No one glanced up.
I slipped toward the entrance. Just a few more feet….
“Hey!”
I jumped but kept moving. A man with arms the size of tree trunks strode toward me. “You there!”
Automatically, I dropped my gaze to the ground. The guard came closer. I kept moving toward the open street beyond the city wall.
He stepped. I stepped.
“Your shovel,” he said. He held something toward a man in line.
I ran the last few steps into the city and found refuge in the shadows along the wall.
This city was much more primitive than Crylon, and I knew instantly that it had to house only Unmanifested people. Elementals would never live in the conditions I saw before me.
The roads were dirt—okay, more like mud with the unrelenting weather—and the houses patched together with poles and leaves. People wore mismatched clothes; their hair and faces looked dirty and pinched.
I stared as the guards closed the gate and continued down the street. I watched as the few people who were out moved with purpose, accomplishing their tasks quickly and without commotion. They looked driven, but happy. I’d never heard of a city—okay, village—where only Unmanifested people lived. I wondered what the Supreme Elemental gained by letting them live apart from the rest of society.
Maybe they don’t, I thought, throwing a look over my shoulder as if I’d find a Firemaker there, his eyes blazing with angry flames. The alley lay empty, but I still speculated that the Supreme Elemental would never allow Unmanifested people to congregate and govern themselves.
While our current Supremist wasn’t as cruel as the first Firemaker, he still ruled the United Territories with fear and the promise of death if his laws weren’t obeyed. Yet these Unmanifested people didn’t appear afraid. I watched a mother lead her two children through the driest part of the road, a basket of apples tucked against her side. She smiled at one boy, and slipped her hand around the shoulders of the other. Poor, sure. Without powers, yes. But unafraid.
I stuck to the shadows as I crept along the alley. When I spied a trash bin, I rummaged inside and found some crusts of bread and half an apple. I tucked them into my coat pockets and darted behind a shack. A stand of trees stretched along this side of the village.
I walked under bare branches until I came to a small clearing. Trails etched patterns in the snow, creating crisscrossing paths across the open space. I paused, enjoying the cozy silence which allowed me to feel unafraid for the first time since I’d Manifested.
After eating my meager meal, I leaned against a tree and closed my eyes, intending to rest for just a minute.
I woke up when I heard bells ringing, a signal for the field workers to return to the city before the gate closed. I sat up and looked toward the sound. I rubbed my hands together, igniting them just long enough to feel the warmth.
The wind increased, and I pulled my hood over my hat to keep the air off my neck. But this was a different wind—not full of icy fury.
No, this wind felt Elemental.
I scanned the clearing, seeing no one. What if the Airmaster had seen me warming my hands? Flaming fingertips were hard to explain. I scooted around the tree trunk as the snow across from me crunched under heavy footsteps.
The intruder wore filthy black pants with a green jacket. He had the pinched, unhealthy look of someone who hadn’t eaten a decent meal in days. He swirled his hand, and the wind raced into the trees, sending down a shower of nuts.
My stomach roared with hunger, and it took all my willpower to stay still. Another Elemental. And he was eating.
The wind danced around him, tousling his sandy curls. He looked to be a few years older than me, maybe nineteen or twenty. His eyes darted around the clearing, almost as if he knew I was hiding there, watching him.
Then the wind surrounding him died. He flattened himself into a snow bank just as a chicken strutted toward an exposed patch of earth under a tree. A moment later, the guy shot to his feet, his hands held in front of him. The bird squawked once before the air flattened it to the ground. The animal suffocated in a few seconds, and the guy chose a meandering path toward it.
Holy hot infernos, I thought. Horrified—and a little awed—I stepped from behind the tree. The boy bent over to retrieve his kill. I moved into the open, scuffing my feet against the snow-packed ground.
The Airmaster spun, hiding the dead chicken behind his back. “Who are you?”
“I thought maybe we could share,” I said, sauntering down a path that ran parallel to him in what I hoped could pass for a masculine gait. “Considering how you killed that chicken, it’s only fair.”
With his secret revealed, his face paled. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“How were you planning to cook it?” My voice sounded too casual, and the boy’s eyes narrowed.
“Why? You know something I don’t?”
“Undoubtedly.” I stopped a few yards away from him. “How do you usually eat it?”
“Raw,” he said, his voice laced with warning. “Fire is hard to come by in villages like this.”
I considered his blue eyes. His sloping nose. How he stood feet shoulder-width apart without any tension in his neck. With him, I’d be on my way to a Council of my own. That sealed the deal.
“Not really.” I snapped my fingers. A flame erupted in my palm.
He took a step back, his eyes locking on mine.
“We can share.” I licked my lips, the taste of that chicken already in my mouth.
He moved forward, creating his own haphazard path in the snow, and pumped my unburning hand twice. “Deal. My name’s Adam. And you are…?”
I swallowed my girl name. “Gabe. You got someplace to crash? Or am I gonna have to melt a bunch of this snow to make a fire?”
He smiled, and by the looks of his teeth, he’d had a nice home at one time. “Got a cave a coupla miles to the east.”
“Great. Rocks hold heat for a long time.” I grinned back, hoping it didn’t look too girly.
He tromped off, and I extinguished the fire in my hand before following. I breathed a sigh of relief before catching up to Airmaster Adam.
He’d believed I was a boy.
Hunger clawed at my belly. I wasn’t sure I’d survive the two-mile walk to Adam’s cave. We emerged on the main road as the city gates cranked shut for the evening. Weary workers turned in their tools and shuffled into side streets. Some moved toward a single-story hut with a torch burning brightly above the door.
Relief filled my weary body when the gate closed all the way—it would be morning before the sentries could enter.
Adam and I made it to the end of the street before the bells rang. He turned back, frowning.
The gates slowly moved apart, and the hovercraft slipped in through the gap. The Tarpulin sentry jumped down, already scanning the townspeople frozen in the street. Patches joined him, wearing a white bandage on his forehead. I hadn’t killed him, and the relief flooding me weakened my knees.
But he still wanted to kill me, so I didn’t spend any time rejoicing.
Fighting the urge to run, I ducked between two buildings and then into the shadows behind a shed. I was surprised when Adam joined me.
“This is bad,” he breathed, his mouth not moving.
“No kidding.” I struggled to keep my voice masculine.
“Shh. Listen.”
The Tarpulin sentry had started talking. His booming voice easily carried to us. “…burned to the ground. Though Forrester is an Unmanifested village, i
f you see this girl—or any Elemental—we need to know.”
I sucked in a breath on the word girl. Next to me, Adam was practically hyperventilating.
“What’s happening?” I tried to peer around him, but he turned and shoved me away from the main street, toward the trees littering the landscape.
“We gotta go.” He ran past me into the grove. My mind had no complaints about leaving the sentries behind, so I followed. My feet, however, throbbed with pain, and I had a hard time keeping up.
Especially since Adam could literally fly. He wove through trees, doubled back, climbed a hill when we could’ve gone around. We definitely covered more than two miles with the winding route he took to the cave.
When we finally made it, I collapsed in the dirt, thoroughly lost, dizzy, and on the verge of passing out. Chest heaving from the thirty-minute sprint, I closed my eyes and ignored the painful clenching in my gut, the ache in my knee, and the bloody mess I’d find in my socks.
“Sorry,” Adam panted. “Didn’t…want to be…followed.”
“I could barely…keep up with you.”
Some scuffling sounded next to me and then Adam’s footsteps echoed off the walls.
I sat up, and my head started to spin again. I groaned. “See anything?”
He stood in the cave entrance, a silent silhouette. I ignited one hand.
“Put that out!” he hissed, dragging something in front of the opening. “Tornadoes, Gabe, are you stupid?”
I extinguished my hand before he finished pulling the lattice of branches and leaves into place, drenching the cave in darkness. A lump formed in my throat at the sudden rush of adrenaline I felt. He’d trapped me in this cave.
“Now light us up,” he said.
“You got firewood?” I asked, forcing down the panic and trying to act cool.
“Yeah, hang on a sec.”
He moved behind me, then dumped some kindling at my feet. He was so close, his body heat melted into mine. I itched to move away from his foreign warmth. Instead, I clapped once, sending droplets of fire splashing to the ground. I held one hand over the wood as it caught fire. Adam teased it with a playful breeze. Within minutes, the flames chased away the shadows and the chill of the stones.
Adam began plucking the chicken. I watched, memorizing his movements so I could copy him later. He piled the feathers neatly, then scooped them up and took them to the corner of the cave. He pulled out a sack half the size of a pillow and stuffed the feathers inside. When he came back, he held a stick that had been carved into a crude knife.
Everything he did happened in a calm manner, reminding me of Isaiah. Everything about Isaiah screamed cool! He’d invented a clever nickname for everyone he met. Mine was Gabbers. It made me feel important to him. Special.
Everyone thought they were something special to Isaiah. And maybe they were. He just had that oozing charisma that drew people to him.
Since Cat and I spent a fair amount of time together, Isaiah and I became great friends. He didn’t say much, but when he spoke, I listened. One time he said, “Don’t underestimate yourself, Gabbers.”
The end. Nothing more, nothing less. He didn’t drone on the way Educator Ostrund did. He didn’t appraise me with loathing the way the cook did. He wasn’t looking for me to do anything, say something, be someone.
And I loved him for it.
Along with that cool, charming side came strength. Power poured from his broad shoulders. He kept his head shaved almost completely bald, and with his dark skin and nearly black eyes, more than one girl followed his movements in the dining hall.
But he entered every room hand in hand with Cat. They’d leave the same way. Everyone knew whose he was.
His hands were large, nearly double mine, and when I came home from work broken, they held me as I sobbed into his shoulder. They rubbed the knots out of my back and erased the worry from my feet.
“Gabbers, you gotta get outta that place,” he’d say, adding water to his precious earth and making a mud treatment for my neck. “When are you gonna pick your track?”
Even with my body screaming for a release from the kitchens, I couldn’t choose. I didn’t tell Isaiah why.
But he knew: I was waiting for a Council.
Watching Adam work, I thought that a Council might just be possible for me. He moved a few feet away to a stained, flat stone and placed the chicken on it. When he looked at me, a hard look pulled at the corners of his eyes.
I almost laughed. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”
“Sometimes I can’t get the head off the first time.”
“You’re going to cut it with that stick? No way.” I suddenly understood why the steel had come into his eyes.
“You got a better idea?”
“Yeah, use this.” I pulled a knife from my belt and tossed it on the ground.
He slowly lowered his makeshift weapon and stared at the silver blade gleaming in the firelight. He didn’t pick it up. “Where’d you get that?”
I looked anywhere but at him. “Found it.”
A moment passed in silence. When I finally tore my eyes away from the dancing fire, Adam was staring at me. “I don’t believe you. That’s a sentry’s blade. They don’t get lost.” He crossed his arms. “Who are you, anyway? Where you from?”
I stood up and fingered the other two knives under my hoodie. “I’m Gabe Kilpatrick. I’m from Crylon.”
Adam straightened too. He had a couple of inches on me. “Crylon burned to the ground. You…you did that.”
“No, I didn’t,” I said. “Crylon was still standing when I left. Besides, that sentry said a girl did it.” There had been Watermaidens on the scene. I’d watched the fire die. How—and when?—had the whole city of Crylon burned to the ground? The sky had been clear when I walked down the highway, away from Crylon, away from the hair that made me Gabby, away from the only life I knew.
Adam’s jaw unclenched, and he crouched again. I dropped my hands, grateful I didn’t have to reveal the other two knives. He wouldn’t believe any story I invented for having three sentry knives. I didn’t even believe what had happened.
“Why’d you leave?” he asked. With the knife, the chicken’s head came off easily, and Adam skewered the bird and placed it over the fire. He wiped the blood from the knife and balanced it in his hand.
I swallowed, finding my throat too dry. Adam had experience with knives—just the way he held it testified of that.
“Well?” he asked. “Sit down, you’re making me nervous. Why’d you leave Crylon? I’ve been trying to get there for months.”
“Get there?”
“Yeah, the Elemental training facility. Didn’t you go to school?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Uh, I finished school, that’s why I left.”
“You finished?” He spun the knife over and around the back of his hand, catching the hilt at the last moment. He stared into the flames, but then he looked at me, a knowing glint in his eye.
I shrugged and looked away. See, no one “finishes” school in mid-March. And no one leaves their city unless they were being taken to Tarpulin for diplomacy training.
After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t believe you, you know. No one leaves their city without a Council. And since you’re a Firemaker, you’d be the Councilman, have your choice of Elementals. It’s pretty weird, you showing up on the same day as two sentries.”
“Just coincidence.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t care what you think, Airmaster.” I glared at him, ready to draw the other two knives despite the fact that I had no idea how to use them.
He shook his curls out of his face. “I think you’re the Firemaker who torched Crylon. So that means…you’re also a girl.”
He’d said the dirty word: Girl.
I jumped to my feet, a knife clenched in each hand. I backed away as he stood to face me. He gaped at the two knives. I wished my hands weren’t shaking. Even so, Adam looked petrified. r />
He held the knife in his right hand as the fear slid from his face. His knuckles weren’t white like mine. The blade shone with firelight—and it looked like it belonged in his palm. He made a tiny adjustment in his grip, turning the point toward my chin. “Am I right?” he asked, the sound barely louder than the crackling fire.
“N-no,” I stammered. “I didn’t burn Crylon.”
He cocked his head to one side. “But you are the Firemaker those sentries are after.”
“Maybe.” I swallowed against the nervous lurch in my gut. What would he do now? I was starving and exhausted, and I already knew I couldn’t use the knives. The image of Patches falling to the ground still haunted me.
Adam spun his knife at the same time he lunged at me. I cried out as he pinned my arms to my sides in one swift movement and we stumbled backward together. He righted me and stood behind me now, one arm wrapped around me and the other still spinning that blazing knife.
“What’s your real name?” His breath washed over my neck, causing me to flinch at his nearness.
“Gabriella Kilpatrick. Gabby.” I gritted my teeth, ready for the disgust to replace the mild interest in his voice.
Adam nodded slowly, the motion rocking my body slightly. “I’m Adam Gillman.” His words didn’t carry any disgust, but I couldn’t see his face to be sure.
“I didn’t burn Crylon.” I shifted my feet, hoping he’d release me.
“Drop the knives before you hurt yourself. I believe you.”
I did as he said, flinching with the clatter of steel on packed dirt. I didn’t move, even after Adam let me go and stabbed his knife in the soil as he sat down. Relief flooded me at the distance he put between us. I didn’t want him touching me again. He rotated the chicken, which had charred as we’d gone through our version of formal introductions.
“You got something else on your mind?” he asked, flicking his fingers against the burnt meat.
“You don’t care that I’m a…a girl?” I said it like it was a horrible thing to be.