Mark of Four (30 page)

“Not much.” Alayne squirmed uncomfortably. She dropped down on the ground beside Jayme and drew circles on the rock with her finger. “As far as I know, the hate is still intact.”

Jayme ran a hand through his curls. “Then would you mind explaining what
that
was back there?”

Alayne shrugged helplessly. “I still haven’t figured out why Daymon’s helping. Maybe ... he grew a conscience or something over the last two days we’ve been here.”

Jayme went on. “Oh, and besides Daymon helping, there’s also the massively hard-to-ignore fact that there’s a man trying to kill you back there. Oh, oh, and
also
, you’re a Quadriweave? And you possess the Vale? And what, you’ve got a couple of mountain lion pets who just happen to be roaming around? What else haven’t you told me, Al?”

“I—I’m still figuring parts of this out, Jay. The mountain lion was hurt. I stumbled across it when I came to the woods for the final exam. I healed a wound on its haunch.” She ignored Jayme’s wild look. “I see lots of wild animals, I have all my life; this one was the first one I’ve ever had any interaction with. I guess we sort of had a mutual trust thing going on.” Alayne swallowed hard. “I hate like everything that Malachi killed it.”

Jayme shook his head. “He didn’t. I saw it get up about the same time we turned tail and ran. It was limping, but it was alive.” He paused. “And the Quadriweave?”

“I knew I was a Quadriweave since the beginning of the year. Dorner called me into his office that first day and told me about my test results. But he told me to keep it an absolute secret, because obviously, a Quadriweave’s powers are hugely coveted, so I was not to tell even my closest friends, not even my family, about it.”

“So not even Marysa knows?”

Alayne hung her head. “Well, she found out at Christmas while you were gone. She caught me playing with—with lightning.”

Jayme’s teeth snapped shut, and he looked over the moonlit falls.

“I’m sorry, Jay. I would have told you—I
should
have told you. I guess I never really found the right time.” She tentatively reached out, laying her hand on his knee. Her guilt immediately dissolved when he curled his fingers around hers and pulled her closer.

“I’ll get over it.” His brown eyes searched her face, and a corner of his mouth lifted. “So where
is
the Vale?”

Alayne shrugged. “I don’t know. If what he says is true, and a person is only a Quadriweave as a result of possessing the Vale, then I must have it somewhere. He seemed interested in talking to my parents, probably because he suspects that they have it, but then I don’t know why my mom wouldn’t have been a Quadriweave, too, unless—” Alayne broke off, but her thoughts suddenly sped up to a thousand miles an hour.

Malachi had killed Patience because she no longer had the Vale.

The last time she’d had the Vale, she’d come to visit Alayne’s parents.

Alayne’s mom had left her, baby Alayne, alone with Patience while she went to get David.

When her mom had walked in, Patience was soothing a horribly fussy Alayne.

It does have healing properties, I suppose because it transfers some of itself to whomever possesses it.
Wynn’s words took on a new poignancy. Suddenly, she yanked her shirt up and stared at the scar on her side, one inch in length; a scar that had been there for as far back as she could remember.

She brought her wide eyes up to meet Jayme’s, and she saw the doubt, the guesswork, the horror, the fear from her own face mirrored in his.

“It’s
in
me,” she whispered. The roar of the waterfall drowned out the sound. A few other facts began falling into place.

She’d never been sick, ever, that she could remember.

Her effortless detail work with water had amazed her parents, long before her training at Clayborne had even begun.

Skies, she’d
healed
the mountain lion. The cat had walked away with a barely noticeable scar after she’d touched the ragged wound.

She jerked her head up as Jayme gently grasped her chin with his fingers. “Hey, Al. It’s okay. We’ll figure this whole thing out.” He searched her gaze, and Alayne realized that she must have looked terrified. His eyes tried to reassure her.

Alayne slid her lids shut, nodding slowly, and took a deep breath. “Okay. We—”

A strange, wet sound slapped the night's stillness. Alayne snapped her eyes open. Jayme was gone. She lifted her anxious gaze out over the water. Two massive claws of water grasped Jayme and tossed him down into the surging currents below. The rapids pulled him bouncing from boulder to boulder closer to the falls.

“No!” Alayne shrieked. She leaped to her feet, catching a glimpse of Malachi in the moonlight, standing on the crest of the hill. He laughed as Alayne, through natural instinct, reached first for the water element. Malachi held it out of reach.

Alayne glanced desperately at Jayme. He had dragged himself to a standing position at the head of the falls, balancing himself against the current as he leaned on a boulder. Alayne yanked at the earth under Malachi’s feet, but he instantly froze the dirt into a solid block of ice.

Another second was all Alayne needed to think of the next move, but it wasn’t long enough. The knife was in Malachi’s hand before she could blink; he had hurled it before her eyelids were fully open again.

The knife glinted in the moonlight, faster than speed, slower than an age, whirling past Alayne, past the elements that she was too late to bend, and buried itself with a solid thud in the center of Jayme’s chest.

He looked down in shock, half-reaching to pull it back out, his face a mixture of disbelief, pain, and bewilderment. One knee buckled and then the other; the current came up to his chest, pushing, prodding.

Jayme fell backward into the rapids and tumbled with silent grace over the falls.

A
layne opened
her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. A numb buzzing stretched across her face and fingers and toes as she stared, horrified, at the empty rapids.

She stumbled stupidly down the hill, her knees buckling as she reached the water. Her fingers grasped at the water element.
Up, up, bring him back up.
The edge of the falls consumed her whole vision.

The water element eluded her grasp.

Malachi.

She reached, strained her whole being, but she couldn’t reach far enough. Her mental processes felt slow, sluggish. Jayme was gone. If she could just reach the edge of the falls.

Alayne stepped into the water, her shaking legs lifting and floating with the current. From the hill beside her, she sensed Malachi watching her, silent.

She reached the edge and clung to a rock, taking in the foaming spray, the long drop to the rocks at the bottom, the deep, deep black pool of water two hundred feet below.

Alayne shook her head, struggling to think. There was no way he would have survived the drop. He hadn’t twisted the elements when he fell, just as she hadn’t bent them when the knife had passed her face. Neither of them had expected a physical weapon; they’d both been so caught up in the elements that the knife had slipped through their defenses, and Jayme’s life was forfeit. Even if he
had
managed to bring a wind and escape the sharp rocks at the bottom, the dagger ... the dagger to the center of his chest...

He’s dead
, her heart whispered.
Dead, dead, dead
. She turned empty eyes up the hill to where Malachi slowly stepped down the slope toward her.

He was no longer a threat. No one mattered anymore, not the advancing killer, not Daymon, Clayborne, the Vale, her abilities, Kyle, Marysa, any of it. It was all a cruel joke, and she would wait for someone to laugh and explain that it was a mistake—that what had passed was simply a dream. She would wake up in her dorm room and head down to breakfast to meet Jayme, and he would laugh at her when she told him her nightmare. He’d pull her close and tell her once again that he wasn’t going anywhere.

From a long way away, Alayne felt Malachi’s huge hands grip her shoulders and turn her to him. She looked through him into nothing.

“Hey,” Malachi snapped his fingers in her face. “Hey, snap out of it, girl. Get yourself out of la la land; we gotta get moving. I still want to pay my respects to your parents.”

Alayne stared dully at him. A tiny portion of her brain clanged alarm bells, but they were muted behind the heavy weight that dragged at her thought processes.

Malachi pursed his lips as he eyed her. “I’d say you’re dead on your feet. Gone into shock or whatever it is they call it. Well, so much the better. There’ll be less tussle gettin’ you out of here.” He leaned over, sweeping her into his arms, one under the back of her knees and the other around her back. The blood that still seeped from the wound on his shoulder stopped immediately as he held her, though the lacerations didn’t noticeably change. He nodded with satisfaction. “Seems like you’re gonna be even more use than I had thought.” Instead of heading for dry ground, he gripped the water elements and yanked them into a powerful bend, allowing the water to lift him to its surface.

Alayne felt as if she were watching from outside herself. She could feel the element bend, but it was as if someone else took note of it, not her. She couldn’t seem to wake herself up.

They approached the head of the falls at a swift pace, faster and faster, until they’d reached the brink, and they shot out over it into the void. Instead of dropping as Jayme had done, they stayed straight, the water carrying them across the valley far below into the blackness of the night.

Alayne vaguely wondered how far the water would stretch, when Malachi would be tired of holding both their weights. She wondered if he’d drop her like so much baggage.

A streak of color shot through the air from the mountain. It came so fast, Alayne couldn’t decide what it was, but all at once, she was thrown out of Malachi’s arms. She tumbled toward the ground.

Alarm bells were really clanging now. Alayne glanced down as she fell. The smooth grass of the prairie swiftly approached. She reached for the air element, inwardly struggling against her sluggishness.

She didn’t reach fast enough. Suddenly, Daymon was there; he grabbed her around the waist, his face angry. “What are you trying to do? Kill yourself? If you haven’t noticed, I’m trying hard to keep you alive.” Alayne looked around, amazed. They were floating about a hundred feet above the valley. Behind them, the waterfall roared. Malachi hung on his pool of water a hundred feet above them. He was heading their way. “I’d appreciate a little help.”

“He’s coming,” Alayne whispered, watching Malachi over Daymon’s shoulder.

Daymon immediately dropped like an eagle that had spotted its prey, braking only when they were about ten feet above the ground. He let go, and Alayne tumbled the last few feet, knocking her teeth on her tongue when she landed. She tasted blood.

The adrenaline she had been lacking coursed through her veins all at once, and the fog lifted.
Jayme,
she silently screamed. Fury darkened her vision. Malachi hung above her, warily watching Daymon, who had notched himself comfortably in mid-air, directly between Malachi and Alayne.

“Come and get her, Malachi,” Daymon yelled. “I dare you.”

Malachi threw back his head and laughed. “Well, you do got cheek, boy. I’ll give you that. But this time, you’re in way over your head, and I ain’t givin’ up first. You sure you wanna take me on? I got the drop on you in age and experience. You run away now, and you might live to tell somebody ‘bout how you stood up to Simeon Malachi.”

“You sure do have an inflated view of yourself, old man.”

Alayne’s mouth twisted into a faint smile. He’d been very careful to emphasize
old
.

Malachi must have thought it was funny, too. He roared with laughter. “Bring it, kid. Let’s see what kinda stuff you’re made of.”

Behind Malachi, a strip of sod peeled off the valley floor as the wind shrieked into it. The long grass came loose and shot toward Malachi at lightning speed. It hit his face, shoulder, and back with so much force, it embedded itself into his skin. He looked like a porcupine. Thin trickles of blood ran from the tiny holes made by the grass. Malachi slapped at the stings, his expression changing from amused tolerance to snarling hatred in half an instant.

The next second, he dropped out of the sky, the water reaching the ground before him and creating a pool into which he could crash. A huge wave splattered the prairie grass. He leaped from the pool and twisted it into a spinning circle, lengthening it, shaping it until a cyclone of water towered fifty feet in the air.

Daymon dropped to the ground between the water cyclone and Alayne. Without looking at her, he snapped back over his shoulder, “Would you
please
get yourself into some shelter? For the love of all that’s holy, you are sitting out in the middle of this prairie like you’re ready for a midnight picnic.”

Alayne inched toward the incline behind her again, watching the water cyclone writhe toward Daymon, wishing she could help but knowing her presence distracted him. He looked impossibly small next to the towering maelstrom.

Suddenly, he shot twenty feet to the left. Without the element bend, his momentum would have tumbled him head over heels through the grass, but the wind that had pushed him also held him steady from his bend.

The water cyclone collapsed into a single horizontal sheet of ice, fifty feet across. It hovered atop the swirling leaves and then shot with lightning speed at Daymon.

Who just as quickly took to the air again.

It’s a game of cat and mouse,
Alayne thought.
Daymon’s good at dodging, but Malachi will get him in the end.

She shivered. Concentrating, she pulled together a whirling cloud of sand from the valley’s topsoil and blew it toward Malachi. He had expected something from her direction; the sheet of ice that had missed Daymon was instantly back in his control, and he covered himself inside a solid sphere of clear ice. The sand hurtled fruitlessly against the barrier.

Daymon sent a great whirling gray cloud hurtling into a tornado. It turned black as it picked up dust and blew right over the sphere of ice where Malachi hid, whirling there in place. Daymon’s face strained, and he kicked the ground in disgust. The tornado collapsed into nothing, raining rocks and debris all around.

Malachi’s ice cage stood fast.

Something cold latched itself to Alayne’s ankles. She glanced down, gasping in horror. Malachi still pulled the elements from inside his cage, while his ice remained impervious to attack. The water from the waterfall and river had left its bed and crept over the flat land to her feet. Now they were encased in a solid block of ice, and when she reached for the water element, she could not touch it.

Well, at least he can’t keep the other elements away from me.
She concentrated as she raised the temperature in her legs and feet. She increased the heat, and her skin turned a rosy red. She’d have burns after this—well, at least for a second or two until the Vale healed them.

The ice against her legs turned back into water, and her legs came free. She blasted the remains of the ice with a huge fire ball.

Daymon still pummeled Malachi’s ice cage with great gusts of turbulent wind, but nothing worked. Alayne motioned to him to wait. He stopped.

She filled her palm with fire, adding more and more until an inferno towered above her head. With all her strength, she hurled it toward Malachi’s ice cage. It wasn’t nearly far enough. She reached for the air element, but Daymon was there before her.

The wind shrieked, blowing the fire ball directly at Malachi’s ice.

As soon as the fire hit the cage, Alayne grabbed the element bend from Daymon and pulled it into a circle. Tongues of fire circled the cage, cinching tighter and tighter until flames licked the ice structure all around.

Alayne and Daymon watched with satisfaction as the ice began to melt. Through the blurry ice in the flickering brightness of the flames, Alayne could see the strain on Malachi’s face as he struggled to hold his element.

It did no good.

The fire burned hotter and hotter, and the wind circled continuously as the ice melted.

Suddenly, Malachi let go, and the element snapped back like a giant rubber band. The ice cage collapsed in a great wall of water on top of Malachi, and he dropped and rolled out from under the whirling fire. He sprinted up the foot of the mountain.

Alayne thought they’d won, but as Malachi ran, he threw spears of jagged ice from the river behind him. They sped toward Daymon and Alayne like streaks of white light. Alayne dodged three of them, but they kept coming. Malachi ducked between trees, his form less and less visible as they swallowed him.

She had to follow him. She leaped into a sprint, but she heard a grunt behind her. She whirled around.

A spear had caught Daymon in the thigh. Blood soaked his shorts, and he buckled. “Don’t go after him, Alayne,” he yelled through his gritted teeth.

“He is
not
getting away with this,” Alayne snapped. Ignoring his frustrated yell, she sprinted toward the mountain.

Malachi’s flannel shirt remained barely visible as he leaped up the hill. She reached the sharp incline, but Malachi had disappeared over the ridge.

Alayne closed her eyes, her steps stuttering to a stop. “I’m sorry, Jayme.” She’d failed him, failed him utterly. Now the only thing to do was to make sure that the man who had killed him paid for it with his life.

She reached for the element beneath the mountain and strained. The ground began to shake. Alayne pulled harder, gasping with exertion. The rocks shifted underneath the mountain, and Alayne almost lost her grip on the element. Gritting her teeth with determination, she pulled with all the strength she had and more that she didn’t know she had.

With a terrific grinding, screeching creak, the earth opened below the mountain.

Alayne watched in awe as the mountain slowly collapsed. Rocks fell first; the waterfall where Jayme had disappeared tipped sideways, tumbling in slow motion. The boulders and dirt buried the water as it fell. Trees tilted and turned root-side up. With a great shifting and grumbling, the mountain settled into a huge, spread-out pile of dirt, rock, and debris. A cloud of dust wafted upward in the dark, blotting out the moon overhead. Then the only sound was the leftover pebbles that hadn’t yet found a home, trickling through the loose dirt.

“Eh, you weren’t too bad.” Daymon’s voice behind Alayne was filled with grudging admiration. She turned to him. He stared at the gap in the mountain range. The top of Clayborne’s spire stood in the distance.

Alayne didn’t answer. After a long moment, she reached for the bloody gap in Daymon’s jeans where the ice-javelin had impaled him. He’d ripped it out, and blood had plastered the jeans to his leg in a glistening sheath. Her fingers parted the material, and she softly touched the jagged wound, sliding her skin gently over his leg from the top of the cut to the bottom. His flesh sealed together seamlessly, and soon the only evidence of a wound was the blood that still saturated his clothes.

Alayne’s knees trembled. Tears filled her eyes; Daymon was a blur on a watery canvas. She turned her back on the school and began walking. She didn’t stop until the sun crested the peaks, shooting its brilliant rays across the shallow dips and swells of the land. She suddenly sat down amid the prairie grasses and curled into a fetal position.

Daymon woke her at midday and carried her on the wind back to Clayborne.