Elemental Release (2 page)

I hurried past my quarters and outside, thinking the fresh evening air would relieve some of the pent-up frustration I felt. As soon as the breeze met my face, I could breathe easier. But the release only lasted a moment, and then the crushing hopelessness crowded back into my lungs.

I didn’t know how to make Gabby understand why I’d done what I’d done. I could usually distract myself from my worries by training, exercise, or hunting. Since the only option I had at the moment was exercise, I took off at a dead sprint, hoping to outrun some of my problems.

Eight days later, Davison opened the Academy. Finally. He’d sent for Elemental mentors throughout the United Territories, and it had taken them a few days to get everything in order and arrive in Tarpulin. The diplomacy wing filled up as mentors and students continued to receive, accept, and carry out their assignments.

Elemental training was scheduled each morning, seven days a week. I’d overheard the inner workings of Davison’s mind, and he fretted about the loss of so many Elementals. Alex had buried over thirteen hundred here in Tarpulin alone, and those were people from all over the Territories who had already completed years of training. Their deaths had been a huge loss of talent, and most of the mentors had also perished in the attack.

The students arriving now were younger. I towered above most of the guys, and at nineteen years old, I knew I had a few years on most of them as well. Seeing them scurry through the Academy in pairs only served to remind me that Hanai wasn’t at my side. So I strode through the Academy alone, avoiding the fearful stares, hurrying to my new mentor’s office.

The door was ajar, so I pounded three times and leaned into the room. “Hello? Airmaster Rusk?”

A billowy man entered from the balcony. He stood at least six feet tall, maybe more, and his limbs were long and spindly.

“Adam Gillman,” he said, his voice as smooth as cream. He grinned, a gesture that matched the warmth in his tone. “Come in, come in.” He sent a chair toward me with a blast of air. I barely had time to catch it before it could nail me in the midsection. I gripped the fabric, wondering where this guy had come from.

He settled into another chair behind his desk, his attention wandering to the window again. I sat, waiting for further instructions.

In Gregorio, I’d spent my Elemental training in the orchards, learning how to harness the air currents and spin them into usable threads of power. As the minutes stretched, I wondered what this Airmaster would teach me.

“Airmaster Rusk?” I asked.

“Please, call me Peter,” he said, finally turning toward me.

“Okay,” I said. “Peter. Would you…I mean, should we get started?”

“We already have.” He smiled at me again, but this time I had the distinct impression that he was crazy, not welcoming.

“Um—”

“The air tells me you have had only a few months of training.”

“The air tells you that?”

“You think Mother Earth doesn’t know each of her Airmasters?” He shook his head. “I can see we will have to start at the beginning.”

The beginning sounded like a great place to start. “Okay,” I said again.

“I have also learned that though you have had very little formal training, you are quite skilled. You….” He cocked his head to the side as if listening to a secret. “Created a hurricane from only cold air currents?” He looked at me for confirmation, which I gave in the form of a nod.

I’d created that hurricane in Cornish, to save Cat. I wasn’t interested in talking about it with him—or anyone.

“You can create cushions for travel, tethers to transport others….” He nodded, painting that slightly disturbing smile on his face again. “You have considerable airmaking talent.” The windows behind him shook violently. He chuckled. “Okay, okay. You are one of the most talented Airmasters Tarpulin has ever seen. Or, at least, you will be when I’m finished with you.”

He stood before I could make sense of his words, or ask what that gust had told him by banging into the glass.

“Let’s go, Airmaster,” he said, moving onto the balcony. “We will practice on the beach, where the currents are strong enough to knock a man down.” He turned back and scanned me as I stood. “Well, a man of my stature. Perhaps you will be able to resist them.”

He laughed again as he launched his willowy frame into the air.

I landed next
to Airmaster Rusk, who had touched down where the surf met the sand. The wind coming off the ocean was indeed stiff. His robes flapped away from his body like the fabric on a flag. The rippling noise grated against my nerves.

“Airmaster!” he yelled into the gusting breeze. His eyes were closed, and he leaned his whole body into the wind. He flung his arms wide and grinned, like he was enjoying every moment of this oceanfront experience.

I didn’t know what to think of him. I turned toward the wide waters too, but didn’t have to lean nearly as much as him. I’d never felt like a huge person until this week. Now I felt like the muscles I’d developed during my sentry training were too bulging, and the width in my shoulders that I’d used to protect Gabby a hindrance.

After a few moments of the wind whistling past my face, I began to hear its voice. It rejoiced to be flowing over land again, and it was willing to do whatever I asked of it. I lifted one hand, but Airmaster Rusk motioned for me to drop it.

When I looked at him, I found him studying me. He turned his back into the squalls coming off the water and gestured me closer. “You need to quiet your mind,” he said, barely louder than the air rushing past us. “And your emotions. The air is perfectly willing to obey you, but only if you’re calm, quiet, and in complete control.”

“Okay,” I said, though I puzzled through what he meant. I felt calm. I was in complete control of myself. And I hadn’t said a word since flying the few miles to the beach.

“Very well then,” he said. “Meditation at night, meditation in the morning. Learn to contain the emotions you have.”

My sentry training had advocated meditation too. I could hold perfectly still for hours. I’d trained to do such things, both mentally and physically. Sentries didn’t make rash decisions, they didn’t rush into situations without a thorough assessment; if they did anything on an impulse, they died.

At least that was what I’d been taught. Having survived the past few weeks as I journeyed from Forrester to Gregorio and then Tarpulin, I had experienced dire conditions. Circumstances had constantly changed, and I’d had to adapt with them. I’d turned everything over in my head—again and again.

“Mr. Gillman?” Airmaster Rusk asked.

“Hmm?” I tore my thoughts from the events that had caused me to return to Tarpulin as a chartered Councilmember and not a prisoner.

“Clear your mind before our lessons. It will not serve you well to have lingering thoughts, doubts, emotions, or worries.” He gave me a small smile, but this time it looked like he was pitying me. “I am going to work you extremely hard, and you will not have energy for anything else.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, wondering how he could work me harder than the sentry instructors.

“Excellent,” he said. “Well, let’s begin.” He took a few steps up the beach, away from the water. “First, I would like you to pull the westerly jet stream from the atmosphere, divide it into smaller currents, and send them east.”

I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. I’d never touched a jet stream. I didn’t even know how to find one. I hadn’t taken any classes beyond government, history, and first aid. Every other course in the sentry program was about assassination, or survival, or mending weapons. I certainly hadn’t taken meteorology, or weather, or any type of science course. It was the
first day
of my training.

I hesitantly raised both arms into the sky, unsure of what else to do. I closed my eyes and listened to the air as it curled around me. The gust pulled at my hair, and for the first time, I agreed with my brother that I should cut it.

I groped my way through the atmosphere, sending away eddies and currents that I didn’t want. After what felt like a long time under the scrutinizing eye of Airmaster Rusk, I found a powerful current I’d never touched before.

I couldn’t grip it, didn’t have the strength to pull something so huge out of a sky so wide.

“What do I do now?” I yelled into the increasing wind.

“You must be in such control that the air willing obeys you.” Airmaster Rusk’s voice came soft as a whisper, only an inch from my ear. “You must make it trust you, because you are it’s master and know what’s best for it.” I felt him shift in the sand next to me, but I didn’t have the strength to turn my head and look at him, grappling as I was with the jet stream.

“How do I do that?” I asked, squeezing my eyes closed.

In the next moment, the wind died. The absence of the rushing, consuming noise left me breathless. I turned to my mentor. He flicked his wrist and coiled his spider-like fingers into claws.

A noise came from over the ocean. Soft at first, but gaining in strength and tempo. The sky darkened in an instant; lightning flashed. I braced myself for the hurricane-force winds, but they never touched me.

Airmaster Rusk funneled them around us, creating an eye of safety. He chuckled at the pure shock I allowed to show on my face.

“If you are calm, peaceful, and completely in control of yourself, the air will trust you. That is what you must do, Mr. Gillman.” He stepped back. “So, an assignment due tomorrow. Make a list of what’s keeping you from becoming an Airmaster. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

I returned to
the Academy, frustrated that my airmaking abilities relied so heavily on my emotional state. I hadn’t felt calm, peaceful, or completely in control of myself for a long time. If I ever had at all.

I hurried through the lunch line in the dining hall, hoping not to see anyone from my Council. I wanted to eat alone, brood alone, and reason through what my mentor had said. Alone. Thankfully, I made it back to my room with my roast beef sandwich. I braced myself to witness Isaiah and Cat entwined, and exhaled heavily when I found the apartment empty.

I settled into a hard corner of the balcony, where the air could reach me but I could still have privacy. I ate slowly, trying to sort through why I felt such a tornado inside myself so often.

I made my own choices, so I didn’t feel trapped the way Gabby did. I’d survived Alex and her harsh treatment pretty much unscathed, so I didn’t carry resentment the way Isaiah did. I needed to truly mourn Hanai’s death. I knew I wouldn’t be fully in control until I let myself grieve for him. I added that at my first item on the list for Airmaster Rusk.

I didn’t feel powerless the way Cat sometimes felt.
Or maybe you do
, I thought, crumpling up my napkin. I wanted to mend things with Gabby, and I felt powerless to do that. I wanted Felix to recognize my airmaking talent, and I felt powerless to make him do so.

“I can’t change everything,” I said aloud. “You can only change what you can control.” This was a sentry mantra, one that we learned as six-year-olds first entering the program. But after that, I’d been taught that if I knew enough first aid, if I learned how to use anything as a weapon, if I shut off all my emotions, I could change the circumstances I found myself in—usually to my advantage.