Elemental (24 page)

Lastrini blinked twice, and then roared with
laughter with all his soldiers laughing along with him. My face
flushed and heated. His accent grew stronger with his sneer.
“Shadra
and
Auri? Where are your wings? Your spark-e-ly
dust?” He turned to Ranen. “Come, come, Master Orsili. You take me
for a fool. All mythical creatures aside, what would the Mamood
have to fear from this little girl?”

What indeed? I wished I could laugh along
with the Soltakians, but part of me also wished I could wipe their
smug little smiles off their faces. In fact, I would. A little
concentration on my part and they wouldn’t be smiling for much
longer.

I focused on my back, hoping and praying I
wouldn’t be as incapacitated as the last time. That wouldn’t be
helpful to the no laughing thing.

My wings burst out from my back, shimmering
with hints of color with each subtle movement. I smiled when the
laughing stopped quite suddenly.

Cailen released his hands from my arms and
stepped back. The electricity coursing through my blood was
staggering, but not nearly as bad as the first time. At least I was
able to stay on my feet.

Lastrini showed no emotion whatsoever. His
cool demeanor infuriated me.

“What have you to say, General?” I fumed. “I
am an Auri. Here are my wings.”

“I am not above being proven wrong, Little
Miss.” He shrugged. “The galaxy is vast. So the Auri exist. What
does that have to do with you being named Shadra?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but for
the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything quite right. What was
I supposed to say? Manoo’s afraid of me because I’m so badass? No.
The seven-foot tall Ladeshian would never buy it, and with his
demeaning glare that looked me up and down, I started to question
it myself. Quite sure I’d done the exact opposite of proving my
point, I pulled my wings back beneath the folds of flesh.

“That is a conversation best reserved for
the Emperor’s ears,” Ranen said. “I’d like to speak with him as
soon as possible.”

“He is about to meet with the Bre’ha, but I
am sure he would like you to be there as well.”

“The Bre’ha?” Ranen’s face turned a very
bright shade of red. If I didn’t think it was impossible, I would
swear his eyes were about to pop right out. “The Mosandarians are
here?”

“They’re coming.” Lastrini shrugged. “They
sent their leaders ahead of them.”

“If you are going to talk to the Emperor,”
Cailen said, “Malik and I will look for Meir.”

I twisted my head around to glare at him.
Cailen was crazy if he thought he was going anywhere without me.
Meir was my responsibility, not his.

Ranen nodded and started to walk away when
Lastrini stopped him.

“Who is this Meir?”

“A friend of ours,” Cailen said. “We were on
a shuttle when it was attacked. We were able to escape, but Meir
was left behind.”

“How did you escape?”

Cailen’s eyes went flat and hard. “My
wings.”

Lastrini raised his eyebrows. “You are an
Auri as well?”

Cailen nodded.

The Ladeshian and Auri glared at each other,
weighing each other’s strengths. Though Cailen was half a foot
shorter than Lastrini, he didn’t look the least bit
intimidated.

“Interesting galaxy we live in,” Lastrini
mumbled. “Well, if your friend was left on the shuttle, as you say,
then he is likely dead.”

I gasped. Dead? No, this man had to be
wrong. “I just received a report,” he continued. “The Mamood
evidently halted their attack to allow us a chance to gather
survivors. When the shuttles were on their way here, they attacked
again.” He glared at Malik. “Apparently, that is a common
tactic.”

Malik stayed motionless. “Apparently.”

Lastrini growled. “And even if there was a
chance your friend was alive, I wouldn’t allow any of you to leave.
We’re at war and the three of you,” he looked pointedly at Cailen,
Malik, and me, “are hereby detained in the Block until more
information is available.”

I shook my head and grabbed his arm. “No,
please! You have to let us look. Please!”

The General’s ice-blue eyes melted and he
gently released my hands. “I’m sending out a recon tonight to look
for survivors. Master Orsili will give me a description of this
Meir and I’ll order my men to look for him specifically. I can’t
promise any more than that.”

Relief washed through me. “
Thank
you.”

“Take me to the Emperor now.” Ranen looked
ready to tear someone in half. It would have been a terrifying
expression if it were on any other person. “I want to know what he
is planning to do.”

Lastrini motioned to a few of the soldiers
behind him. “Get these three some rooms—the boys can share—and post
guards.”

Both Malik and Cailen bristled. I wondered
what they found more offensive—being called boys or being
babysat.

I didn’t care. They could wrap chains around
my ankles—I wouldn’t notice. Nothing would matter until Meir was
back with me, safe.

Two soldiers walked ahead of us while three
walked behind with their weapons up and ready. We didn’t say
anything to each other, not as we traveled down one hallway after
the other, and not when I walked into my room. Cailen glanced my
way right before he was herded off to the room next to mine, and I
almost started to cry when I saw the look on his face. I don’t know
how I knew, but I was certain he thought Meir was dead.

I held it in until my door slid closed, and
then I threw myself onto the bed and sobbed. Every last tear my
body could produce was drained out onto the pillow long before I
was done. I cried until my eyes burned and my throat grew hoarse.
What little hope I’d clung to was ripped away every time I thought
of Cailen’s face.

Meir couldn’t have survived. No one could
have survived that kind of attack—no one, and certainly not Meir.
Of course not. I’d known I’d kill him. I’d known it all along. And
now my savior had been destroyed.

I didn’t have anyone to die for anymore; he
was already gone. I knew that now, and I realized I’d known it the
moment we’d transported to the Block and Meir wasn’t with us. I’d
been too stupid to accept it at the time. A part of me was still
deluded into thinking there was hope. But there was no hope, only
death. The one I’d wanted most to live was… gone.

An eternity passed long before that dreaded
knock pounded on my door. I’d prayed for death at least a hundred
times by then. It didn’t come.

I lifted my head off the pillow and wiped my
eyes, though they were already completely dry. My body just wasn’t
equipped to handle that depth of pain. “Come in,” I croaked.

A woman with dark hair drawn tight against
her head into a long ponytail came into my room. With her first
step, she was all business, but when her eyes grazed my face, she
faltered. I guessed I probably looked pretty bad.

She cleared her throat. “Commander General
Lastrini asked me to inform you that we found no survivors.”

“His body?” I really didn’t want to see it,
but some morbid part of me thought it would be better if I at least
knew there was
some
part of him still out there.

She shook her head. “The damage was pretty
severe. Most of it burned away.”

So the Mamood had left me nothing.
Nothing.

Nothing… nothing… nothing…

I curled my legs up and rocked back and
forth. Waves of darkness crashed in around me, and I drowned in
them.

Black… black… black… nothing… nothing…
nothing…

I didn’t see the woman leave. It was a long
time before I saw anything.

My eyes wouldn’t close, not even to blink,
but it didn’t matter. The shape and hue of the room, the texture of
the bed, all of it was meaningless. There was nothing there
anymore—nothing substantial.

I was somewhere real, but my mind drifted
somewhere between the real and the unreal—in no man’s land.
Thoughts eluded me. There was something important trying to dig its
way through my subconscious, but I didn’t know what it was. It
fluttered out of reach just when I tried to grab it.

No matter—it couldn’t be
that
important.

Not important, not in the land of
nothingness. Nothing… nothing… nothing…

Meir.

I gasped and the waves of darkness drained
out of me.

Meir… Cailen… Malik…

Meir. Cailen. Malik.

Meir’s last few moments played across my
mind as I remembered the red beam from the Mamood ship tearing
through the shuttle, me reaching for him as Cailen dragged me
away.

A cold chill passed through my veins as it
hit me. They’d done this to him. Both of them with their stupid
lies and secrets.

And then something so much more powerful
than grief ripped me out of the last wisps of haze. Rage. Every
last mistake ever made was perfectly clear in the forefront of my
mind. With perfect clarity, I knew who to blame and for once it
wasn’t me.

And the ones responsible were going to
pay.

I got up from my bed and walked to the door.
I decided to ask for permission to leave first, but a “no”
certainly wouldn’t stop me—it would just make it inconvenient. So I
knocked lightly to hide the overwhelming burn in the core of my
being, the need to crush and destroy. They’d be more inclined to
say yes if I didn’t look ready to kill.

The door slid open and three armed men faced
me with their weapons slung across their chests. I didn’t smile.
There was no point in overacting and I was sure they expected to
see me looking like a mess.

“May we help you, miss?” The one on my right
said.

“I’d like to talk to my friends, if you
don’t mind.” I sniffed back a sob. “I’d like some comfort right
now.”

The man who’d spoken looked to his fellow
soldiers for input. One of them looked wary, so I sniffled a little
bit more to nudge him in the right direction. He nodded and they
escorted me to the room down the hall. The guards at Malik’s and
Cailen’s room didn’t say anything—they already seemed to know—as
one of them waved his hand in front of the blue-lit screen to open
the door and let me in.

This time I thought a little smile might be
appropriate, so I peered up at the one closest to me and laid it on
thick, big doe eyes and all. One thing had become perfectly clear
since my escape: people tended to sympathize with tiny little me.
Well, sympathize away—the universe was going to burn tonight.

Cailen and Malik stood up when I came in.
They looked angry, like they’d been fighting with each other. I
didn’t care.

The door slid closed and the façade fell
away. The rush of my fury poured out of me in a thick cloud. I
could taste it on my tongue, bitter and tangy. So I turned on them,
my focus clearer than it’d ever been.

I’d come to a deeper understanding of how my
ability worked since Cailen had showed me how to release my wings.
When I’d been knocked off my feet that first time, I realized the
source of the tingling had always been my wings. Which meant that
now I knew how to call it at will.

Blue, green, and red points of light popped
into my vision, filling the air and illuminating the inside of
Malik’s body, Cailen’s body, everything. I commanded the blue
points of light to form and rush at Cailen. They swirled together
as he flew back against the wall, pinned there by the tempest.

Malik froze though I hadn’t done anything to
him… yet.

Cailen was the focus of my attention now.
“Why didn’t you transport us here from Ranen’s bunker? Why did you
wait?”

His eyes glazed over in concentration and I
knew he was trying to take command of the air trapping him against
the wall. He wouldn’t win; air obeyed
me
.

“Why?”

“The law.” He gasped. I knew the pressure I
was throwing at Cailen was crushing him. The blue points of light
wedged together, forming a solid, unbreakable wall. “We can’t
reveal—the Auri secret—except for—emergencies.”

“You said you couldn’t transport me without
my express permission, but you did it anyway.”

“I couldn’t—just let you die.”

“Liar!” The wind howled my sentiments,
twisting through his hair and loose clothes, ripping the ends. “You
don’t care about me!”

“That’s not true.” His voice was strained as
I squeezed the breath out of him. “I care for you—so much.”

“You’ve done nothing but lie and keep
secrets since you came here.”

“—protect you.”

I shook my head and eased up on the force of
wind. He was still pinned against the wall, but I needed him to be
able to breathe. “I want the truth. Every last bit of it.”

“Please, don’t. Not this way.”

“Tell me!” I was tired of the evasions and
in no mood to be crafty.

He pressed his lips together, contemplating.
“Fine. Just… let me down.”

I loosened the wall of air and let him slide
to the floor. It didn’t matter. I was still in control. “Now tell
me why every time I touch you, I practically get electrocuted and I
just want to be closer to you. And why you’ve been so distant. And
don’t tell me you don’t feel it too, because I know you do.”

He hung his head. “Yes,” he whispered, “I
feel it, too.” He looked up with wary eyes. “We’ve been bonded,
Ella.”

I waited.

He sighed. “The chemical in our
wings—drilium—is very,
very
potent, especially when we
release our wings for the first time. Do you remember what I said
about before the wars? About the survivors being mostly
children?”

I nodded.

“If a young one releases his wings for the
first time without another young one releasing her wings for the
first time as well, that young one’s drilium would suck the drilium
from every other present Auri.” His eyes flicked to Malik. “It
would be like sucking the blood out of a human being.”