Chapter Twenty Eight
“Sefarina…”
I heard the voice calling to me through the darkness. It sounded like Aura, but I wasn’t sure. It could have been anyone.
“Sefarina, wake up…”
I hadn’t even known I was asleep. I twisted and turned, trying to pull myself out of the swirling emptiness. Finally, I opened my eyes, and saw Aura looking down at me. Her eyes were light green, and I knew that mine must be too. For an instant I thought that I was still dreaming, but the feeling of her hand stroking my forehead made me realise otherwise.
I sat up straight, my head pulling away from the firm pillow. I was in a bright white hospital room, one which I had all to myself. I twisted my neck to the right, and saw a desk, a television, a few chairs and a door that was half way open to reveal a toilet. I guessed straight away that the Elementus Populas had been able to get me private treatment, for whatever it was I needed treating.
And then it suddenly hit me like an uppercut to my ribs. Niyol. He had been stabbed. The Inimicus were on the way to kidnap my father and grandparents. And who knows the amount of casualties the Elementus Populas army had suffered. I started to breathe heavily as my heart pumped faster. I looked back at Aura, who was now standing over me, her long brown hair falling against my cheeks. She was pushing against my shoulder gently with her firm hand, trying to bring me into the room with her. I blinked hard, understanding where I was, and why, but I didn’t care about myself. I could only think about my brother.
“Where’s Niyol?” I blubbered, beginning to weep as I thought about the possibility that he might not have made it.
“Turn around,” Aura consoled. I instantly turned to my left and noticed another bed, several feet away from my own, just underneath a window. In it was Niyol, who was lying on his back, smiling happily. He was ghostly pale, and his hair was matted and his features sunken, but at least he was alive.
“Oh Niyol!” I screamed, leaping out of the bed. As I clattered to my feet I got an instant head rush and everything began to swirl around me, but it didn’t stop me from rushing over to him and forcing my hands around his waist.
“OW!” he cried out. It took me a split second to remember that he was stabbed in the stomach, and I was pressing against his wound heavily with my entire body weight.
“I’m so sorry!” I gasped, bouncing away from him.
“You idiot!” Aura scolded. But Niyol grinned.
“It’s nice to know somebody cares about me,” he joked. Aura rolled her eyes, and stood next to me at his bedside. Even though Niyol was fine, I was still panicked.
“What about Dad? And Grandma and Grandpa?” I asked Aura urgently, “Are they okay?”
“They’re fine,” Aura replied, “As soon as Timothy and Captain Harris found me and Niyol, I got them to call the police and the Elementus Populas to tell them what was happening. They quickly picked up our family, and managed to catch some of the people preparing to kidnap them. The police also found all of the bombs Valeska had planted, and managed to defuse them, so Southampton is now safe. But this all happened after the helicopter came to pick us up and bring us here, of course.”
“We rode in another helicopter?” Niyol was stunned, and wide eyed.
“Yep. It was fun. At least one of us was awake for it.”
“And what about everybody else…?” I questioned.
“Let’s not go into that now,” Aura deflected, but I was having none of it.
“Just tell us what happened.”
She looked down at her feet, and her expression changed. When she locked onto my gaze, her face was hard and formal. “There were about 40 fatalities on our side. A lot more on the other. They weren’t sure how many because the bodies…”
“Go on!” I urged her, even though I really didn’t want to hear it.
“The bodies still haven’t all washed up on shore yet.”
Then I remembered the hurricane. And the anger. The white hot fury that had driven me to new levels of insanity. I grimaced thinking about it. The fact that I could do something so wicked made me feel terrible. I wished that I could trade places with anybody else in the entire world, so that I could start over, and not have so much blood on my hands. It was a heavy and horrible burden that I would have to live with for the rest of my life.
I snivelled sadly. Aura hugged me tightly.
“You did what you had to do, Sefarina. Don’t feel guilty. You saved our lives. You saved the lives of everybody in Southampton! You should be proud of yourself!”
“For being a murderer?” I sobbed.
“For being a hero.”
“Those people made their choice,” Niyol piped in, “they chose to try to kill us, and they knew that we would fight back. No one forced them to attack us.”
Even though I knew what Niyol was saying was true, I still felt a horrible churning pang of guilt in my belly.
“No one should have been hurt. No one.” I wept even harder into Aura’s bony shoulder.
There was a knock at the door.
“Should you even be out of bed Sefarina?” It was Dad. I looked up, across the room at the open door, and saw him. He was exactly the same as he always had been. I ran as fast as I could into his arms and he scooped me up and held me close.
“Dad!” I cried out as I wrapped my arms around him. He continued to walk into the room, carrying me along with him.
“Grandpa!” Niyol declared, followed by “Grandma!”
I let go of Dad and saw that behind them were my grandparents. Grandma held two big bouquets of flowers and Grandpa was holding an old silver book. I recognised it immediately. It was the Ventus book. He beamed up at me, holding it out towards me.
“You need to check and see if it says anything about hurricanes in here…”
I blushed in embarrassment. “You heard about that?”
“It made national news!” Grandma informed me, pushing a bunch of yellow flowers into my arms and kissing me on the forehead. I took the flowers and the book, and we all made our way over to Niyol. Grandma presented the other bunch of flowers to him, which were mainly purple.
“Flowers?” Niyol questioned, before adding, “Thank you, Grandma, they’re lovely.” He wasn’t particularly convincing, but Grandma was impressed by his gratitude, and kissed him on the cheek regardless.
Grandpa grabbed a plastic seat from across the room and dragged it over to Niyol’s bedside, offering it to Grandma. He then got one for himself, which scraped the floor loudly, and then sat down.
“So tell us everything!” He beamed.
“There’s too much to tell!” Aura answered modestly.
“We were on the news?” Niyol asked.
“Yep. And no. Well, you weren’t, because there has been a huge cover up of course, but the storm was. A hurricane isn’t exactly a regular occurrence in England now, is it?” Grandpa was somehow proud of this fact, but I wasn’t.
“Do they know… about us?” I pondered in worry.
Dad shook his head. “The government does, but the public don’t. Everyone just thinks that it was a weather storm that came across from France.”
“Any excuse to blame the French,” Niyol joked, and we all burst out laughing. Once the jovial mood had died down, the tone shifted to a more serious one.
“I’m so glad to see you all safe.” I told them sincerely, looking into each of their moist, smiling eyes.
“And we’re glad you’re safe too!” Dad responded, “You were out cold for two days! The doctor said that all of your iron was depleted, and you were dangerously anaemic!”
“My iron?” I spluttered.
“The iron in your blood. It was all gone, used up.” Aura informed. “When I‘ve used my powers before, I got dehydrated. It has something to do with water for me, and I guess earth for you.”
“Then what about Niyol?” I wondered.
“I’m fine.” He said smugly. “There’s nothing wrong with me except a hole in my belly.”
Au
ra rolled her eyes. “It’s because he’s the Primus. And because fire doesn’t exist in your body.”
“But wind does,” Grandpa added, and then let out a loud fart. Everybody was shocked, then horrified, and finally elated. We all broke into fits of hysterics.
“I’m just so happy to see you all safe,” I repeated as I walked over to Grandma and leant against her chair.
“It’s not over yet,” Niyol stated sadly. “The Inimicus are still out there, and they could still hurt anyone of us.”
“That’s why we have to stop them,” Aura said, defiantly.
“But we haven’t even started our jobs yet! I mean our real jobs, the ones that Sigwald and Grandpa told us about!” They all looked at me as if I was mad. “You know,” I continued, “the one where we keep the balance between humanity and nature?”
“It’s good to know you haven’t forgotten everything I taught you.”
We all turned towards the door to see Sigwald, accompanied by Captain Harris, and a bruised but belligerent looking Malik. Sigwald’s face was also pretty battered and his hair ruffled, but other than that he looked exactly the same. He even had the same silly grin.
“Sigwald!!” Niyol, Aura and I blared out simultaneously. He entered the room and walked awkwardly towards us, Captain Harris and Malik following closely behind.
“As you can see,” he began jubilantly, “they reinstated me. I have no idea why, since this is all my fault.”
We all shook our heads in disagreement. He looked directly at Aura.
“It seems that if I was not given my job back, the three of you would no longer work with the Elementus Populas. I wonder where Assistant Director Ayres got that idea?”
Aura shrugged, knowingly. “Don’t look at me.” Niyol and I glanced at one another and smirked. Aura always gets what she wants, but this time it was what we all wanted.
“Anyway,” Sigwald continued, “I was allowed back, but only under constant supervision.” Sigwalds nodded towards Captain Harris, who was as stoney faced as ever.
“Don’t worry about him,” I said, “I can handle him. He’s not that tough.” Aura and Niyol burst into laughter, but no one else got it. Except, of course, for Captain Harris who blushed ever so slightly.
“I’m so glad to see that you’re… alive,” Niyol said to Malik sincerely, changing the subject.
Malik shrugged. “I was never in any real danger,” he replied, “I’ve been through worse!”
“Niyol?” Aura questioned, a look of uncertainty on his face. I looked at Aura, and we both nodded to one another, then rushed over to Malik and gave him a big hug. He groaned as we enveloped him, and he didn’t hug us back, but as we let him go and stepped away from him, I’m pretty sure I caught a flicker of a smile flash across his face.
“I’m so glad that you’re okay,” Aura confirmed, and Malik grunted in appreciation.
“Where’s my hug?” Sigwald asked, and everyone in the room, except Captain Harris and Malik, burst out laughing. Aura and I hugged him lightly and then returned to Niyol’s bedside.
“I would hug you too…” Niyol began, “but, well, you know…”His eyes darted down to his bandaged waistline and he shrugged.
“Even if you could get up and hug them, you wouldn’t,” Dad exclaimed, and we all agreed, including Niyol.
Dad turned to Sigwald, a look of concern growing on his tired face. “What are you doing here?” he asked Sigwald directly.
“Well, I’m afraid to say that an Elemental’s work is never done. We have some new business to attend to. Real business. This time it has nothing to do with the Inimicus, as far as we can tell. Of course you both,” he looked at me and then to Niyol, “need to rest up and get your strength back, but, if you still want to work with the Ventus Cohors again, we need to start working at saving the planet.”
“Sounds… hard.” Dad admitted, and then turned to the three of us. “Are you sure you really want to continue doing this? It’s so dangerous! I don’t like the idea of my children…”
“Son!” Grandpa interrupted authoritatively. “It’s what they were born to do. Let them do their job. If they want to, that is.”
“But they still haven’t been trained properly!” Dad made a good point.
“Their training will never really end,” Sigwald cut in, “because their powers will continue to grow along with them, as they develop. And in life, you can’t really learn anything unless you experience things first hand. They proved that during this entire ordeal, because it forced them to prove that they are capable of working well together as a team. They are true Ventus, through and through. They have also shown that they are ready to start doing their real job, as long as they still want to.”
I didn’t want to do it, but I knew I had to. I might as well use my awful powers for something good, and worthwhile. Something decent and life changing. Otherwise who knew what terrible things could happen if I left my brother and sister to fend for themselves?
Niyol and Aura didn’t have to answer. I knew they both wanted to do it. Even though Niyol was in hospital for being brutally butchered by an undercover mole working for our mortal enemy, he still thought it was a good idea.
“Is that a yes?” Sigwald prompted. Niyol and Aura responded instantly, and because I didn’t everyone turned to face me. I immediately blushed and scrolled my eyes to the floor.
“Only if we don’t have to hurt anyone, and we aren’t in danger.”
“Sounds good to me,” Grandma agreed.
Niyol and Aura scoffed. “Who cares if we’re in danger?” Niyol argued, “You’re not going to get hurt anyway! You can just call a hurricane down and suck everybody up!”
“Or create a shield of air,” Aura chimed in.
“Or pick people up and throw them around,” Sigwald added.
I turned to him. “Whose side are you on?”
“Team Ventus.” He stated. “So is that a yes?”
The logical part of my brain told me to say no. But my gut, my instinct and even my heart all knew the answer that I had to give. I didn’t have a choice. It was my duty. I could help people. I could save them. I could make a difference. I’d always wanted to make the world a better place, and it was clear that this was my opportunity to do so.
“Fine,” I agreed.
“Good,” Sigwald said, as he pulled out some papers, most of which were maps and diagrams of a small island.
“In a few weeks or so, we’ll be heading to a small country on the west coast of Africa…”
“Africa?” Grandma exclaimed, “How exotic!”
“Yes,” Sigwald continued, “it’s really a very interesting place, and…”
“Wait a second,” Grandpa interjected. Everyone went silent and watched him closely. He pointed at me.
“You can create a hurricane, wind shields, and throw people around?” He paused, intently. “That’s amazing! Just for that, you’re my favourite grandchild!”
We all laughed, except of course Captain Harris, and Sigwald, who wanted to proceed with business, but chuckled politely anyway.
“What about my lightning?” Niyol suggested.
“And my rain?” offered Aura.
Grandpa thought carefully about how to answer. He put his hand under his chin, and stared off into the distance.
“Fine,” he gave in, “I love you all equally. No favourites. You’re Grandpa’s special Triplets, and I love you all very much. I couldn’t be any more proud of you. And even if you didn’t have super powers, I would still love you exactly the same.”
I wanted to cry out of pure joy, but I didn’t. Instead I walked over to him and gave him a big fat hug.
“Well put Dad,” my father added, “I couldn’t agree more.” We all smiled at one another, knowing that we were all lucky to still be alive. We might not all be together in one room ever again. Or this happy. So we made the most of each other’s company, until Sigwald butted in.
“I didn’t come here to see a family re
union,” he stated factually, “I came here for business.”
“Fine,” Aura exclaimed. “Get on with it then.”
“I will, because this trip will all begin with an incredibly important meeting,” Sigwald said, his voice rising with excitement. “In just a few weeks’ time, you will meet some other Elementals.”
Niyol, Aura and I gawped at one another eagerly.
“You’ll finally meet the Aqua Siblings.”
THE END OF PART ONE OF THE ELEMENTAL TETRALOGY
TO BE CONTINUED IN PART TWO OF THE ELEMENTAL TETRALOGY:
AQUA
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