Elemental Hunger (8 page)

But he knew: I was waiting for a Council.

Watching Adam work, I thought that a Council might just be possible for me. He moved a few feet away to a stained, flat stone and placed the chicken on it. When he looked at me, a hard look pulled at the corners of his eyes.

I almost laughed. “You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Sometimes I can’t get the head off the first time.”

“You’re going to cut it with that stick? No way.” I suddenly understood why the steel had come into his eyes.

“You got a better idea?”

“Yeah, use this.” I pulled a knife from my belt and tossed it on the ground.

He slowly lowered his makeshift weapon and stared at the silver blade gleaming in the firelight. He didn’t pick it up. “Where’d you get that?”

I looked anywhere but at him. “Found it.”

A moment passed in silence. When I finally tore my eyes away from the dancing fire, Adam was staring at me. “I don’t believe you. That’s a sentry’s blade. They don’t get lost.” He crossed his arms. “Who are you, anyway? Where you from?”

I stood up and fingered the other two knives under my hoodie. “I’m Gabe Kilpatrick. I’m from Crylon.”

Adam straightened too. He had a couple of inches on me. “Crylon burned to the ground. You…
you
did that.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “Crylon was still standing when I left. Besides, that sentry said a girl did it.” There had been Watermaidens on the scene. I’d watched the fire die. How—and when?—had the whole city of Crylon burned to the ground? The sky had been clear when I walked down the highway, away from Crylon, away from the hair that made me Gabby, away from the only life I knew.

Adam’s jaw unclenched, and he crouched again. I dropped my hands, grateful I didn’t have to reveal the other two knives. He wouldn’t believe any story I invented for having three sentry knives. I didn’t even believe what had happened.

“Why’d you leave?” he asked. With the knife, the chicken’s head came off easily, and Adam skewered the bird and placed it over the fire. He wiped the blood from the knife and balanced it in his hand.

I swallowed, finding my throat too dry. Adam had experience with knives—just the way he held it testified of that.

“Well?” he asked. “Sit down, you’re making me nervous. Why’d you leave Crylon? I’ve been trying to get there for months.”

“Get there?”

“Yeah, the Elemental training facility. Didn’t you go to school?”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Uh, I finished school, that’s why I left.”

“You finished?” He spun the knife over and around the back of his hand, catching the hilt at the last moment. He stared into the flames, but then he looked at me, a knowing glint in his eye.

I shrugged and looked away. See, no one “finishes” school in mid-March. And no one leaves their city unless they were being taken to Tarpulin for diplomacy training.

After a few minutes, he said, “I don’t believe you, you know. No one leaves their city without a Council. And since you’re a Firemaker, you’d be the Councilman, have your choice of Elementals. It’s pretty weird, you showing up on the same day as two sentries.”

“Just coincidence.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I don’t care what you think, Airmaster.” I glared at him, ready to draw the other two knives despite the fact that I had no idea how to use them.

He shook his curls out of his face. “I think you’re the Firemaker who torched Crylon. So that means…you’re also a girl.”

He’d said the dirty word:
Girl.

I jumped to my feet, a knife clenched in each hand. I backed away as he stood to face me. He gaped at the two knives. I wished my hands weren’t shaking. Even so, Adam looked petrified.

He held the knife in his right hand as the fear slid from his face. His knuckles weren’t white like mine. The blade shone with firelight—and it looked like it belonged in his palm. He made a tiny adjustment in his grip, turning the point toward my chin. “Am I right?” he asked, the sound barely louder than the crackling fire.

“N-no,” I stammered. “I didn’t burn Crylon.”

He cocked his head to one side. “But you are the Firemaker those sentries are after.”

“Maybe.” I swallowed against the nervous lurch in my gut. What would he do now? I was starving and exhausted, and I already knew I couldn’t use the knives. The image of Patches falling to the ground still haunted me.

Adam spun his knife at the same time he lunged at me. I cried out as he pinned my arms to my sides in one swift movement and we stumbled backward together. He righted me and stood behind me now, one arm wrapped around me and the other still spinning that blazing knife.

“What’s your real name?” His breath washed over my neck, causing me to flinch at his nearness.

“Gabriella Kilpatrick. Gabby.” I gritted my teeth, ready for the disgust to replace the mild interest in his voice.

Adam nodded slowly, the motion rocking my body slightly. “I’m Adam Gillman.” His words didn’t carry any disgust, but I couldn’t see his face to be sure.

“I didn’t burn Crylon.” I shifted my feet, hoping he’d release me.

“Drop the knives before you hurt yourself. I believe you.”

I did as he said, flinching with the clatter of steel on packed dirt. I didn’t move, even after Adam let me go and stabbed his knife in the soil as he sat down. Relief flooded me at the distance he put between us. I didn’t want him touching me again. He rotated the chicken, which had charred as we’d gone through our version of formal introductions.

“You got something else on your mind?” he asked, flicking his fingers against the burnt meat.

“You don’t care that I’m a…a girl?” I said it like it was a horrible thing to be.

He rotated the chicken again, carefully avoiding my gaze. “What I care about,” he said, standing again, “is that you’re honest with me.”

The fire popped as the fat from the chicken dripped. I noticed that he didn’t answer my question. I narrowed my eyes, the smell of food clouding my ability to think. He stood there, unwavering.

“Okay,” I said. “Honesty policy.”

Adam didn’t smile. I bristled at his demeaning glare. “The policy works both ways. You totally care that I’m a girl. Have you ever met a female Firemaker before?”

His eyes traveled from my feet to the top of my head. “You don’t look like a girl.”

Again, he didn’t answer my question. I opened my mouth to tell him where to go, but he said, “Look, I’ll just say it. I need you to survive. Together, we might be able to charter a Council. I’m no saint, I’ll admit, but the last thing I want is to go back to Tarpulin.”

“So that’s why you ran,” I said. “You recognized that sentry. He’s wearing—”

“The Tarpulin seal, yeah. I know him. That’s Alex’s personal sentry, Felix Gillman. He’s my mentor—and my brother.”

The silence stretched
as I struggled to make sense of his words. “Mentor? As in…you were training to be a sentry? Isn’t there an Elemental school in Tarpulin?”

“Not anymore,” Adam said, his voice flat. “Alex buried the Academy under a mountain a year ago. That’s why I left. All the schools in the southern regions have been destroyed. I’m only alive because Alex doesn’t know I’m Elemental. I’d been on the sentry track for twelve years.”

My thoughts went straight to Cat and Isaiah. If the school in Tarpulin was buried, where had they been for the past year? Were they all right?

“All the schools in the Southern region?” I asked.

“Yup. I’ve been hopping from school to school, managing to escape before the flood or the earthquake. Crylon was the last school in the whole Union—and now it’s burned.”

“I didn’t do it,” I said automatically.

“I know. Felix did. How do you think he got here so fast? All the way from Tarpulin?”

I didn’t know how far Tarpulin was, but I kept that to myself. “But he’s not Elemental.”

“He can strike a match.”

“But why?”

He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t know much about Alex, do you?”

Anger burned through my veins. And why did he keep calling the Supremist by his first name? Talk about disrespectful.

“I didn’t get to attend Firemaker lessons. In case you haven’t figured it out, no one knew I was Elemental either. But I know who Supremist Pederson is. Everyone in the United Territories is afraid of him. He’s quick to punish the littlest offense.”

“He’s also a girl,” Adam said, staring at me fully now.

I couldn’t get enough air. My heart squeezed, squeezed. “Wh—What?”

“Alex is a woman.” Adam enunciated each word carefully. “And she possesses all four Elements.”

I stared at him as he peeled the blackened skin off the chicken.
All four Elements?
No one could control all four Elements—they couldn’t be learned, and Jarvis said they couldn’t be taken. “No way.”

“Way, man…uh, I mean….” He stuffed some burnt chicken in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to finish that sentence.

“I don’t believe you.” I
couldn’t
believe him. I mean, had she pretended to be a man her whole blazing life? Would I have to do that?

“You can believe whatever you want. It’s the truth. I served her for six months. And girls have some…telling parts.” He passed me some meat, and the silence settled thick and heavy as we ate. But even ash tasted better with protein.

“So if you know the Supreme Elemental is a woman, how come I didn’t know?”

“You’re only told what your Councilman wants you to know.” He scanned my shorn hair. “Besides, she wears her hair like you and has a specially made vest to…cover herself. If you saw her in Crylon, she’d look like a man.”

My fire roared in my head. Smoke trickled from my fingertips, and I inhaled it deeply, letting it curl in my lungs, soothe my rising fear. The Manifestation happened a couple hundred years ago, and a new Supremist was appointed every fifteen years. Our current leader was only five years into his—oops,
her
—appointment. Men ruled everything. Men were sentries. Men were Firemakers, Airmasters, Earthmovers. Most Councilmen chose men as their Unmanifested as well, because of the nature of the position. The Unmanifested had to ensure the Councilman’s orders were carried out, whether that was a punishment they enforced personally, or if they decided to send sentries to resolve a problem.

Women served Elementals, or taught, or carried babies. The only societal position of power was that of Watermaiden, but even that was tamed by marriage to another Councilmember. If anyone, anywhere, found out Supremist Pederson was a woman, chaos would descend.

“So she hides her gender,” I mused, more to myself than to Adam. “Because she doesn’t want a—”

“Revolution.”

I sucked in a breath, desperate for the smoke to calm my nerves as it usually did. It only served to make my thoughts race faster. I reflected back on a time when Jarvis and I walked side-by-side. I wouldn’t Manifest my Element for another two months, and the silence hung easily in the late summer air.

“Rumor has it the Supremist journeyed clear up to Newton.” He didn’t look up from the ground. His mouth had barely moved.

As Elemental royalty, he always heard news faster than I did. “Really? Why? And where’s Newton?”

“It’s one of the smaller cities north of us. There was an uprising,” he’d whispered. “Crylon took in three new Firemakers, one Watermaiden and two Airmasters.”

“No Earthmovers?”

“All dead.”

A twig snapped, and Jarvis spun, one hand cocked back as if to throw something.

The trees fluttered with a gentle breeze. No one could be seen. He lowered his hand, glanced at me, and nodded me off the path. Once we’d made it deeper into the woods, he sat against a large oak tree.

“Did the Supremist close the school?” I asked.

“Burned it.” Jarvis plucked at a bit of bark. “Rumor is he said he didn’t want any of their ‘traitorous blood’ in the gene pool. The new Firemaker in my year hasn’t spoken a word. Won’t come out of his dorm.”

I settled next to him, cross-legged, and listened to the wind whisper secrets to the leaves. I’d always known the Supremist was cruel, but burning an Elemental school?

I couldn’t fathom the Supremist executing Elementals. “Sounds like a major uprising,” I said, my voice a tight fit in my throat.

“That’s just it,” Jarvis said. “The Airmaster said it was just a misunderstanding between the Councilman and one of the female Educators.”

I’d thought of Educator Graham. Of our discussions.

“You need to be careful, Gabby.” Jarvis placed his hand—shockingly hot at the time—over mine. “Isn’t your Educator a woman?”

“Yeah.” And I loved her, but she would never do anything that would remotely resemble a misunderstanding.

Jarvis had squeezed my fingers and let go. He hadn’t said anything else.

But now that conversation mingled with the one about the female Firemaker that had been accused of stealing another’s power. It couldn’t be the Supremist, but if exposed, she would lose her control over the United Territories. She would definitely end up dead. And she had clearly done everything required to make sure no one discovered her secret. She’d killed Elementals, buried schools. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, or anyone else, if that meant she could keep pretending to be a male Firemaker.