Elemental (3 page)

“Ella? Ella!” Meir shook me and patted the
uninjured side of my face.

I looked around, forgetting where I was, and
sat up. Everything felt wrong. My body didn’t have the strength to
do what I’d done today and I knew I was close to crashing—maybe
even going crazy. If I didn’t get water fast, I was going to black
out.

Meir’s bowl sat in his hand just inches
away. I needed it so badly. I didn’t care that my blood swirled
around in it like red ribbons. With my eyes closed, I dropped my
face in and lapped the water into my mouth. Meir tried to pull the
bowl away from me. I grabbed it with both hands and plunged my face
deeper into the water to gulp it all down.

“Ella, stop! This is dirty. I can get you
clean water.”

I ignored him. It was almost gone and I
wanted every… last… drop.

When I lifted my soaked face, water dripping
down my hair, Meir stared back at me with his same old, sad
eyes.

“What did they do to you?”

I shrugged. What didn’t they do to me?

He shook his head and wiped my face dry.
“I’m so sorry.”

My breath caught. No Mamood had ever
apologized to me. Tears burned at the corners of my eyes. My lower
lip quivered. I would
not
cry in front of this man. I’d
sworn to myself long ago that my captors would never see me cry,
and Meir would be no exception. I needed to change the subject, and
fast.

“Meir, what’s a Shadra?”

All blood left his face, leaving his skin
like ash. “Why?”

I shrugged and turned away.
Stupid,
stupid Ella.
Why had that come out of my mouth? Had I lost all
self-control? That name had been haunting my nightmares since the
guards had spit it at me at the last feeding session, almost a week
ago. I didn’t know what it meant, but the sinking weight in my
stomach had led me to believe it was bad—very bad.

It didn’t help that Meir looked
horrified.

“It’s complicated,” he began slowly, not
taking his probing eyes off me. “Essentially, a Shadra is a person
sworn to Manoo as a human sacrifice.”

“Manoo…”

“The god of the Mamood.”

I chewed on my lip again and broke the skin.
“Why would someone be called this?”

His eyes narrowed before answering. “Only
someone Manoo sees as his enemy would be named Shadra. There is a
rumor—one that’s spanned thousands of years—that Manoo will be
destroyed by someone, someone sent by El. No one knows who this
person is.” He studied me for several more moments then leaned
closer so that his eyes were all I could see. “Now tell me why you
asked.”

I licked the blood off my lip and looked
away. Why
had
the guards called me that? I wasn’t anyone’s
enemy. I was nothing.

Someone pounded on the door outside. I
jumped up, sending the bowl to the floor where it crashed into a
dozen pieces.

“Open up, traitor!” The man outside pounded
on the door again. “Someone saw the Shadra come in here. Bring her
out!
Now
!”

Chapter Three
:

The Shakai

I looked down at the broken shards of glass
and felt all hope shattering to pieces around me. I hadn’t been off
the ship an hour and they’d already found me. Too close—I knew I’d
stayed too close. I cursed myself for listening to the voice that
had led me here. And now Meir knew everything. The polite—and maybe
even caring—front he’d put up would come crumbling down any
moment.

I wiped the sweat off my hands and
waited.

Meir grabbed my arm, dragged me through the
hall, and opened a door to another room. He did it so fast I
practically suffered whiplash. I ripped myself away from him and
planted my feet. “What are you doing?” I whispered.

He looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
“Getting you out of here.”

The man made no sense. Meir was a Mamood.
His allegiance rested with the guards outside his door, not with
me. He didn’t even know me. For all anyone but myself knew, I
totally deserved the title Shadra. He couldn’t possibly be such a
fool. Something else was going on. And then it hit me. Of course—he
was waiting for them to offer a reward. I should’ve known. I shook
my head and looked away from him. I didn’t want him to know I’d
figured it out. As soon as he knew I knew the truth, this show of
kindness and compassion would end. A Mamood’s true intentions
always came out eventually.

I waited until I’d wiped all knowledge from
my eyes before I turned back to him and gave a stiff nod. He paused
to close the door, and then led me around a large, four-poster bed
to the back wall of what must’ve been his bedroom.

We both jumped when we heard the front door
crash open and footsteps cross the threshold into Meir’s living
room. Oh crap. A small whine
might
have passed my
lips—certainly not anything worth noting. Okay, fine. I was
terrified. Meir let me go to run his hands along the wall.

I looked frantically behind me, expecting
the door to burst open any second and the guards to drag me back to
Sho’ful
. I wouldn’t go. I didn’t care what I had to do,
there was no way I’d let anyone close a cell door in my face
again.

The bedroom doorknob turned and I squared my
bony little shoulders—ready. Ready to do what, exactly, I didn’t
know. Maybe I’d do something to force their hand and they’d have to
kill me. Kick a few groins, punch a few jaws—whatever it took. I
closed my eyes to embrace the darkness… and waited.

An arm wrapped around my shoulder and yanked
me off the floor. I kicked my feet out and threw punches at the
air, hoping to make contact with flesh and cause some serious
damage. The thought was good and the attempt even valiant, but
before I knew it, I was falling. I opened my eyes wide to see Meir
glaring at me as I hit the floor hard and crumpled. Everything went
dark.

At first I thought I’d blacked out. But as
every single bone in my worthless little body screamed at me in
pain, I knew it was merely wishful thinking. Meir grabbed me and
hoisted me onto my feet.

I opened my mouth to yell at him, but he
gave me a severe look and pressed his hand across my mouth. Just
within my hearing range, muffled voices passed through the stone
wall behind Meir’s back. I realized we were in a tunnel just
outside his bedroom—a secret, cold, dark, and damp tunnel. I looked
at Meir as if seeing him for the first time.

My skin prickled in warning. I really needed
to get away from him. There was something… off… and not just in the
regular, evil Mamood way. Meir had secrets.

The muffled voices died away. Meir hooked
his fingers around my arm and pulled me deeper into the tunnel. I
thought about struggling against him—in fact, I should have—but I
had this sick need to find out what those secrets were. We were
both keeping secrets, and from the same people. Maybe that was
enough to trust him… and I wanted to trust him, wanted to believe
that someone might be on my side. One thing was for sure; there was
no longer any way I could leave him without getting some
answers.

The questions could come later, though.
Right then, I needed to focus. Meir dragged me through the tunnel
much faster than I had ever gone before and it was all I could do
to remember to breathe
and
put one foot in front of the
other. A stitch started growing in my side, burning my lungs and
making my muscles spasm.

“How much farther is it?” I coughed. Talking
only made it worse—much, much worse.

“It’s not too much farther, but we can’t
slow down. We have to get to Izbet before they have time to set up
a blockade. Hurry!” And he started going faster. I should’ve kept
my mouth shut.

After splashing through a few hundred yards
of puddles and scraping against the rough, stone walls more than
once, we stopped and Meir released my hand. I stumbled to the
floor, gasping for air. Hot flames burned my throat with each
breath. Despite the chill in the tunnel, sweat poured over my brow
and down my neck.

Meir opened another secret door on the
ceiling and sunlight poured in. I recoiled from the light—I would
have to force myself to get used to it. For now, though, I needed
to work on my endurance. That run had nearly killed me. Blood
rushed to my face, burning my cheeks and neck. The room spun around
me, making my stomach lurch. I heaved, though nothing came up. I
tried to breathe through my nose while I dry-vomited, but in my
panic, I forgot how. I started gasping and flailing my arms.

Meir wrapped his arms around me, forcing me
to stay still. I focused on his breaths and felt his chest rise and
fall as something like a memory tickled at my mind. It wasn’t a
real memory with remembered images, but it felt like one. His
strong, protective arms around me and his rough whiskers against my
cheek felt so familiar. The smell was wrong, though. He didn’t
smell like what my memory told me he was supposed to smell like.
But that was okay.

As I relaxed into his hold, I realized Meir
was like a father. And that was exactly what I needed right
then.

Then he let me drop to the floor and the
feeling was all but obliterated. I looked up to yell at him for
ruining the moment as he climbed into a rusting, bulbous vehicle
with a long, thin tail and an open top. Faded paint chips were
peeling away from the body, and a few had already scattered on the
ground. It did
not
look like something any smart person
would be willing to get into. He couldn’t possibly expect our
getaway to be in that.

“Get in.” Apparently he could.

I shrugged my shoulders and climbed in
beside him. It was a decision I soon regretted as the tiny speeder
sputtered and rocked, knocking me sideways.

“Come on, old girl.” He banged a fist on its
control panel.

As if wishing to please its master, the
vehicle leveled out and issued a soft hum as its electromagnet
slowly lifted us up and through the open door. I sighed and patted
my stomach to settle it down.

Gasping, I shielded my eyes from the bright,
setting sun. The sky was on fire with beautiful reds and oranges.
The dry, dead land stretched out before me, and it stopped the
breath in my lungs. Years of nothingness had made me forget what
beauty truly was.

Meir turned the vehicle and put the sun
behind us. A dark blue stretched like velvet across the sky. It was
cool and clean, and a comfort to my eyes. The air whipped past us
as we sped over the smooth ground, soft and pleasant after the
scorching heat of the day. I reclined back in my seat and breathed
a sigh of relief.

One hurdle—possibly the biggest one of
all—had been passed so far. Now all I had to do was hide out and
wait for an opportunity to leave the planet, to get as far away as
possible from the Mamood—simple enough compared to what I’d gone
through so far. Of course, there was another hurdle I’d been
avoiding, something that’d taken a back seat since the guards
started chasing me.

Meir knew I’d been named Shadra, and yet
he’d said nothing. For some reason, this annoyed me. He must’ve
been hoping for a pretty big reward. No doubt the Shadra would
fetch the biggest one of all if what he’d said about me being
Manoo’s enemy was true. Of course, he couldn’t be stupid enough to
think he still qualified for the reward. After aiding my escape,
the only thing waiting for him was a death sentence.

So what did he want? I looked at him out of
the corner of my eye, hoping to glean the truth of the mystery
behind Meir. He sat rigid as a stone, not giving me anything to go
on. Whatever his reasons for helping me out, he kept them to
himself. Too bad I had no intention of letting him.

I turned my body toward him, pushed my hair
out of my face, and cleared my throat. He didn’t move his eyes off
the landscape. This overwhelming urge to grab his face and make him
look at me popped into my mind and tightened my arms. I clenched my
jaw to keep the thought from turning into action. “Are you just
going to ignore the obvious?” I blurted.

“What’s that?”

“You heard what the guard said. I’m the
Shadra.”

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Yup, I heard him.”

“Gah!” I threw my hands into the air and
pulled my fingers through my hair.

“Are you angry?” He chuckled.

Apparently, he was amused. I was not.

“Yes, I’m angry. You make absolutely no
sense and it’s driving me crazy!”

“You’ve got a bit of a temper.” His smile
widened. “Besides, who says I’m not making sense? Just because you
don’t understand what I’m doing doesn’t mean I don’t.”

“Then please enlighten me.” I narrowed my
eyes and waited until he faced me. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving you.”

“Why?”

He turned his gaze to the front of the
speeder, and his jaw quivered before answering, “Manoo doesn’t
deserve my help.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. “But
aren’t you a Mamood?” I scanned his robes and facial hair again,
making sure I hadn’t imagined his Mamood traits.

“Yes and no.” He gave me a sideways glance.
“I am a Mamood by nationality, but I am a Praeori by faith.”

“What is that?”

Meir stiffened beside me and tightened his
grasp on the steering wheel. “A traitor.”

I watched him carefully as his suddenly wary
eyes flitted across the landscape. Every few seconds, he turned his
head to look at the setting sun.

We’d been flying over the smooth, tan ground
for a while now and when I looked behind me, I saw that the sun was
quickly falling below the horizon. It would be dark soon. With each
passing moment, the worry lines on Meir’s face deepened.