But no flames were thrown. Nothing was said. Alex called the next Earthmover to the front of the room and interrogated him with identical questions. After the round ended, he dismissed all the Earthmovers except for three.
Isaiah was asked to stay.
We adjourned for lunch, and I wanted nothing more than to slide into a seat across from Isaiah and ask him what the tornadoes he’d been thinking. The Elementals ate with us in the Supremist’s dining hall, so I could’ve done it.
But one look from Felix, and I joined him at a table instead. “What will happen now?” I asked, pushing my food around on my plate. I couldn’t get my nerves to settle, and I couldn’t eat when worked up. Besides, the corn looked mushy, the beef overcooked. The only thing I even considered putting in my mouth was the pumpkin bread.
“Alex takes the chosen Elementals on field trials.” He shoveled food into his mouth, barely having time to taste and chew before swallowing.
I nodded, my airmaking Element coiling into a funnel inside. I couldn’t release it here. Or anywhere.
I ate my bread while I watched Isaiah. He sat with the other two Earthmovers, their heads bent close together. They looked like they were planning something, but at least thirty feet and thirty people sat between us. I couldn’t untangle his thoughts from those around us.
Still, their hushed conversation brought anxiety to my bloodstream. If they were planning something for the field trials, they’d die. Alex may have tolerated an act of defiance only because he believed Isaiah to be the best Earthmover in the Territories. But Alex would not allow Isaiah to defy him a second time.
When the bell sang, everyone in the room stood and made their way outside. The Supremist’s fortress sat right next to the Elemental Academy. I didn’t know where the field trials would take place, but the Elementals streamed toward the Academy, so I followed with the rest of the sentries.
Alex waited on the front steps of the Academy, his brilliant crimson robes almost blinding in the mid-day sun. He gestured to Felix, who silently assigned each sentry a guard station surrounding the remaining Elementals.
“Earthmovers,” Alex called, and the three candidates wove to the front of the crowd. Alex indicated the Academy behind him, nine stories of solid stone and cement, where he oversaw the education and training of all Elementals.
Each quarter, every city sent prospective Councils for advanced training at the Academy. Sometimes they trained together, and sometimes they were reorganized upon arrival. Immediately following my Manifestation, I’d snuck into the Academy several times. I wanted to see what the Airmasters did during their training. I hungered to know what they could do, how to control the jet streams, and anything else I could learn.
I hadn’t been privy to much. Most Airmaster training took place outside under the wide-open sky, and my presence would’ve been too suspicious. But Airmasters ate together with the other Elementals in the dining hall. They slept in the western barracks. And they talked to each other. So I eavesdropped on their conversations.
That was how I learned I could fill myself with air, eliminating my need to breathe for long periods of time. I overheard one guy tell his buddy that if you held the air in your hand like you would a rope, you could twist it more violently into coils. I’d done that while summoning the tornado in Cornish—and it had worked.
I’d learned precious little, but I held the Academy in high regard. I wanted the opportunity to explore every crevice of it, find out what the Watermaidens did on the fifth floor, which was entirely constructed of pools of water.
I yanked my attention back to Alex when he said, “Demolish the building.”
I then swung my gaze to Isaiah, the Earthmover he’d ordered to…destroy the Elemental Academy? I looked toward the door. It was bolted—odd for the middle of a school day.
The moments passed, and as they did, I realized that Alex was not only testing Isaiah’s power, he was ordering him to kill hundreds, maybe thousands, of Elementals as they trained inside the Academy.
Isaiah stood with his feet shoulder width apart, his arms folded. His dark skin beaded with sweat. He silently shook his head.
True fear gripped my gut. If he did not raze the building, he’d die. If he did, a lot more people would die.
I stared at Alex, trying to understand the man I’d pledged to serve and protect. I saw only a monster. The oath I’d spoken only a few months before began to dissolve. I could not honor his requests. He asked his servants, his sentries, and his Councilmen to murder innocent people.
And for what?
I searched for Felix and found him standing guard near the front, on the opposite side of me. He edged closer to Isaiah, though the Earthmover didn’t seem to notice.
Alex practically flew down the steps, stopping only inches from Isaiah’s face. “Do it,” he snarled, his voice low and furious, barely carrying to my ears.
“I won’t,” Isaiah said in a loud, clear voice that pierced the air. “Just like I would not kill the innocent Unmanifested officials in the city of Trenton, I will not be the instrument that murders the thirteen hundred Elementals currently inside the Academy.”
Alex straightened, his face a freaky mask of calm. He brushed the front of his robes like he was dusting debris from them. He turned slowly, gesturing to Felix as he slowly ascended the stairs.
I took several steps toward Isaiah, wanting to fly in front of him and protect him from whatever Alex had brewing in his head.
Without warning, Alex spun, his right hand raised. The earth shook, just a gentle swaying. I tore my eyes from Alex to watch the Earthmovers. The three of them linked arms, and Isaiah sang in his deep bass voice.
Alex screamed, a terrible, wrenching sound that chilled my blood. He brought both hands forward, and this time, the earth pitched violently. The Watermaiden candidates cried out.
Waves of earth rose above my head, and I lifted my arms to cover my face. The ground felt liquid as I tried to back up. I fell more than once, still trying to keep track of where Isaiah was.
When I spotted him again, he’d fallen to the ground, his hands pressing against his eyes. Blood seeped between his fingers, and his song became a roar that covered the escalating crashes, thunderings, and growls coming from the earth.
He threw his head back, thrusting his arms straight up. Soil shot into the sky, leaving a chute in the ground. Blind, with blood dripping from his chin and fingers, he leapt into the tunnel, disappearing into his mother earth.
I scrambled away from the scene, putting as much distance between myself and the Academy as possible. I wished I could block the horrific thoughts infiltrating my mind, but fear had overtaken me and my defenses were down.
My back hit solid rock, and I pulled my knees to my chest, intending to ride out this storm the way I’d ridden out the cyclone in Cornish.
On the steps of the Academy, Alex stood with Felix, pulling and pushing his hands as he filled the school with dirt, rocks, roots, and weeds. He groaned and grunted, shouted and wailed.
When he finished, the Academy lay buried underneath a mountain that flowed over the twenty-foot city wall. The silence that descended felt predatory. I didn’t dare move, or breathe, or think. I certainly didn’t know what to think.
Through it all, Felix stood at attention. Alex stumbled toward him, and he caught the Supremist and carefully assisted him as they moved back to the fortress together.
I stayed in the courtyard for a long time, hours maybe. I couldn’t serve a Supremist who killed Elementals out of rage. Or just to prove a point. Or at all. But I’d made an oath, said a pledge.
I found my airmaking ability lurking in the center of myself, and I realized I had another option.
I could run, defect from the sentry squad. I could find another city and enroll in Airmaster training.
I could become an outlaw.
I regained my senses enough to get back to my quarters. Nobody came to get me the next morning, and I decided not to leave. The walls caged me
, though I had three rooms to roam. For the first time, I picked up the deck of cards and shuffled through them.
I played a couple of games before growing bored. Poker was more of Felix’s thing, and he spent most evenings with a group of sentries winning and then losing his week’s wages.
By the time dawn arrived on the second day, I couldn’t stay in my room for another second. I dared to venture into the hall, only to find it silent and empty. Alex’s conference room was likewise barren.
The streets of Tarpulin usually teemed with vendors, shoppers, Elementals buying sticky buns for breakfast and pork buns for lunch. The square lay deserted. The only sign of life in the entire city was the lazy drifting of smoke from chimneys as the people stayed sequestered inside their homes and cooked their grits and sausages over the open flame.
I strode through the streets, uncaring about the noise my sentry boots caused. Once in the outer rings of housing, I moved quieter, hoping not to draw attention. I crept to the front door of a house where the shutters had been hastily locked. I leaned against the door and listened.
I couldn’t hear voices, but then I didn’t need people to talk to know what they were thinking. I could only hear one mind inside the shack, and it was a woman.
I don’t know how much longer I can survive without going to the market , she thought. Only one piece of bread this morning, one at lunch, and one at dinner. I can grind some of the corn in the cellar for cakes tomorrow if the square doesn’t reopen.
I wanted to knock and ask her what she knew, but I doubted I’d get the truth. I hadn’t received any messages from Alex, but I was sure the townspeople had. I wondered what lie he’d fed them, who’d had to die to make it believable.
As long as it isn’t you , I thought, then immediately wished I could recall it. Sentry training had focused on schooling emotions and remaining impassive about all things. I’d struggled with it, but with Felix’s constant reminders of It’s you or them, Adam, I’d made it through the courses.
The Supremist said three days to clean up , the woman thought. Surely the market will be open day after tomorrow at the latest.
With that information, I stole away from her house, wondering what exactly Alex needed to clean up.
That night, a noise from my balcony woke me. The sentry who lived inside me, who’d been sleeping for the past few days, was instantly alert. I sat up, quieting my breathing and straining to hear the slightest sound.
The night was mild, as usual in Tarpulin, but I slept with the balcony door open at night. The air soothed me. I slowly turned toward the door, where the screen shivered in the wind.
Suddenly, a shower of soil hissed against the glass. There one moment, gone the next. The noise it made was barely louder than a whisper, but it sounded like a shout.
I crept from bed, scanning the balcony as well as examining the dirt now littering the stones. For some reason, I didn’t feel like danger lay outside, but opportunity. Still, I approached with caution.
Once outside, I scanned the street below, but it lay in moonlit silence. Movement in my peripheral vision caused me to turn left. I watched the stream of soil as it arced out of the shadows and onto my balcony.
Only an Earthmover could make dirt obey so beautifully. Isaiah, was my first thought. Then I remembered the blood dripping from his chin as it streamed from his ruined eye sockets.
I didn’t care who it was. I craved the company of another human being, and an Earthmover was more welcome than a sentry at the moment.
I pulled my dark clothes on over my underwear and slipped into the hall. Because of the enforcements, I wasn’t expecting to encounter anyone, and I didn’t. I kept to the shadows as I left the fortress and took the long way around to where the soil had come from.
Ten minutes had passed before I arrived. I said nothing as I stepped under the eaves, and the Earthmover who’d summoned me kept quiet too. He continued down the street, away from the fortress, and edged his way closer to the city wall. I followed a few paces behind, impressed at how silently this huge man could move.
He wore clothes the same color as the dirt, and a hood kept his face concealed. I wasn’t sure why I trusted him, but my sentry radar hadn’t gone off.
He moved with sure steps, his stride never wavering. When we finally met the wall on the south side of the city, he gestured to a hole in the ground.
“I’m to go down there?” I asked. My lungs suddenly felt the need for more oxygen than they currently had.
“Isaiah Hawking requested I bring you to him,” the Earthmover said, his voice as soft as moss. “I can go first and bring you down on a soil step.”
I peered into the hole, unable to see the bottom of it. A soil step sounded dangerous, but much easier than stepping into an abyss. I glanced at the hooded man. “You go first and bring me down.”
The Earthmover stepped into the hole, his hood flapping back as the air rushed around him. I recognized him as one of the three Earthmovers Alex had asked to demonstrate during the field trials.
Seconds ticked by, and nothing happened. The sky was too open, too wide, and I felt exposed. I remained still, employing the sentry practice of wait and see. A grumble started below me. The hole filled itself until I only had to step down about two feet. I did so and the soil stair descended with me on it.
My stomach lurched, and I had no handholds. I flung my arms to the side, but the hole was barely wide enough to accommodate me, so my fingers raked into the dirt.
I seemed to be lowered forever, and the darkness caused panic to build. Finally a faint light brightened the darkness, and the soil settled into the ground around it.
“This way,” the Earthmover said and began walking down a carved corridor. I didn’t know which direction we were going, but I figured under the wall and out of the city.
We walked for a long time, and I wondered how Isaiah had made this journey with his injuries. I kept circling through what I’d witnessed and what I had worth staying for in Tarpulin. The only thing I could put on my list was Felix.
I would miss my brother if I abandoned my obligations here. And I knew I could never return. Not only to the city, but to Felix’s side. He would never forgive an act of rebellion.
The hallway opened up into an underground chamber, where Isaiah lay on an altar of earth, white bandages covering his eyes. He sat up as we entered. “Did you bring Adam Gillman?” he asked.
“As you requested. He came as easily as you said he would too.”
I quickly moved to Isaiah’s side. “What happened?”
“You saw what happened,” he said.
“Did I?” I asked. “Who hurt you?”
“Alex blinded me,” he said, lighting tracing the gauze on his face.
I frowned, trying to make the facts line up. “But, how? Alex was on the stairs. You weren’t.”
“I don’t know, but I didn’t get touched physically. I believe he ripped my power out through my eyes.”
“Ripped your power out?” I’d never heard of such a thing. What kind of Firemaker can rip out earthmoving power?
“I felt him in my mind, in my body. Then he pulled, and I couldn’t see, and I started bleeding.”
“Alex used your earthmoving power to bury the Academy.” My voice sounded haunted, afraid. I hated it. Sentries didn’t show fear. And I, Adam Gillman, didn’t allow myself to feel anything.
Yet over the course of the last several days, I’d been confronted with tasks and situations I didn’t know how to handle emotionally.
“While he was doing that, I felt something. I’m not sure if it’s true or not, and I thought you would be the best one to tell.” Isaiah stood up, groaning as he did. The other Earthmover stepped closer to assist him, but Isaiah waved away the effort.
“I think Alex is a woman,” he said.
I couldn’t sleep the next night. I hadn’t slept when I’d returned to my quarters, and I’d contained myself all day in my bedroom, only leaving it in favor of the balcony as the sun r
ose and when it set.
I couldn’t get Isaiah’s speculation out of my head. Announcing that the Supremist could reach inside someone’s being and steal their power was disturbing enough. But a woman?
Our society had morphed two centuries ago when the first man Manifested his firemaking Element. Since he was the first to Manifest, Firemakers became the leaders of their Councils. They led society. Only males Manifested as Firemakers, Airmakers, and Earthmovers, and only females Manifested as Watermaidens.
Elementals and humans had managed to find a balance between them by establishing the Council system.
I think Alex is a woman.
Isaiah’s voice haunted me while awake. I rose from bed and dressed, determined to either silence it or confirm it.
Thirty minutes later, I peered around the corner and into the hall leading to Alex’s chambers. I thought he’d have guards, but the corridor was empty. The door was locked, but even his bolts were nothing when up against my sentry training.
I slipped into his quarters in less than twenty seconds. It was darker here than in the lit hallway, and I took a few moments to let my eyes adjust. I took a deep breath, filling my body with air so I wouldn’t have to breathe.
I crept through the outer foyer, looking for anything I could use to validate or discredit Isaiah’s claim. I found nothing, not that I expected to. But sentries were nothing if not thorough, and I didn’t want to miss the slightest clue.
The Supremist didn’t have a kitchen, as he certainly never cooked his own meals. The next room was a formal living room, and it sported high ceilings, plush furniture, gold draperies, and stones that had been hand-polished. My boots made squeaking noises as I moved over the glossy surface to the next door.
I tried the knob and found it locked. Strange, I thought, to have a bedroom locked inside an already secured apartment. What could he be hiding? My anxiety rocketed, and I swallowed to remain calm.