Elemental Hunger (9 page)

I glanced at Adam as he ate and gazed into the fire. I didn’t trust him. What kind of guy lunges at a girl and pins her arms to her sides? He hadn’t quite held the knife to my neck, but almost.

“For the record, I don’t think female Elementals are all that different than males,” Adam said, turning toward me. “But the laws stem from the Manifestation.” He sounded sincere, even with that distinct edge of steel in his voice.

“Hard to overcome two centuries of time,” I murmured, still trying to sort through my conversations with Jarvis and what a female Supremist meant for me.

Adam left me next to the fire, thinking through what a revolution would do to the United Territories. Where I would end up when everything settled.

His long silence caught my attention, and I turned around. He stood with his back to me, revealing a large black tattoo—a swirling mass of intricate lines arcing around an orange circle—sweeping between his shoulder blades. His muscles were tight and developed, and I stared much too long.

I’d only seen a mark like that one other time. On Patches’s back last fall, two weeks before I’d Manifested my Element. His tears of pain were still bleeding over his face when he’d dragged himself into my dorm room.

He’d lain on his stomach while I tended to the angry flesh between his shoulder blades. The coiling lines and orange rotating disc had looked remarkably sinister in the candlelight. “Patches…what?” I’d asked. “Is this electronic?”

“The orange eye is,” he’d said. “It collects data and transmits information. Our individual assignments are uploaded to our personal eye.”

I’d pressed my lips into a thin line. “Can it be removed?”

“The mark of a sentry never goes away,” he’d wept.

We didn’t leave the room for three days. Liz brought medication and food. Patches spoke only eleven more words. And they were, “I can’t see you anymore, Gabby. You know, sentries and girls….”

The weight on my chest increased, pushing, pushing the air out of my life. I’d nodded, a hole widening inside. After he’d gone, I filled it with anger. With resentment. Those things never abandoned me. Never said I wasn’t good enough. Never wanted me to be more or less than what I already was.

Adam pulled a T-shirt over his sentry mark, and I ducked my head. I tossed our chicken bones in the glowing embers and super-heated them. He dragged his bedroll across the cave and sat next to me. Close enough to be friendly, but not so close as to get stabbed.

I reminded myself that
he’s spent twelve years training to kill people
.

I remembered a lecture about sentries and Councilmen from Educator Graham. Her wizened face had held extra lines that day. “Gabriella, you question too much.”

“But if we have a Councilman who can control fire, why does he need sentries?” I’d been thinking about Patches. About his tattoo.

“Sentries are appointed as bodyguards.”

I noted the way her mouth drooped when she’d said it. Her sign of a lie. “They kill people,” I said.

Educator Graham closed her book, sighing. “Yes. Because their Councilman tells them to. The Councilman is the public figure, Gabriella. It’s his face everyone knows. It’s his charm that wins him cities, followers. He cannot simply burn everything to the ground when he’s displeased.”

I considered her words. “So they send sentries to let the people know their…displeasure?”

“Yes. Besides the Unmanifested member of a Council, sentries are the highest rank of the Unmanifested.” She placed one wrinkled hand over mine. “Your friend is fortunate to have been marked so early.”

Fortunate
rattled in my head. That tattoo with its winking electronic eye hadn’t looked fortunate.

“The sentry system is another way Supremist Pederson keeps the Unmanifested from revolting.” Her words had tickled my curiosity, as she knew they would. She spoke them in a voice barely heard over the thrum of my pulse, but they ignited loud questions.

“How?”

Educator Graham let a bitter smile skate over her face. “He sends one Unmanifested to kill another. That way it’s not Elemental against Unmanifested, is it?”

“Is that why girls can’t be sentries?”

She shook her head. “Girls cannot be sentries because the Supremist has declared them unfit.”

“He’s declared them unfit for everything,” I’d complained.

Educator Graham cast a glance toward the locked door. “Women control the water. There has never been a male Watermaiden.”

I laughed then, the sound real and carefree, as I imagined a man wearing a ruffled dress and singing soprano. “I’d like to see that.”

She’d chuckled with me before the silence settled again. She always let me think until I had another question. But she spoke first this time.

“Besides, Gabriella, most women are content with their lives.”

Cat’s face flashed through my mind. She’d been so scared she wouldn’t get selected for a Council. Not only because she loved Isaiah, but because she knew what would happen if she didn’t get chosen at all. She didn’t mind being a wife, though that didn’t make Educator Graham’s words any less cutting.

“Really?” I asked. “They’re satisfied being breeders? Or wives first and Watermaidens second? That’s if they get chosen to be Councilmembers at all. Otherwise they become servants, or are banished to die on the plains.”

Educator Graham stood, her eyes focused on the door. My voice had increased in both pitch and volume. She switched her gaze to me, and I saw something truly frightening in her eyes.

Fear.

“Watermaidens use their power to serve their Councilmen.” Her voice did not waver.

“But they can control
water,
” I argued, thinking of Cat and how I’d seen her call the moisture from the ground with a single note. “Why settle?”

I didn’t remember what Educator Graham’s answer was. I only remember she did not show up for class the following day.

My new Educator became Educator Ostrund. He had slick black hair and olive skin. His first rule: “Ask no questions.”

And I knew. Just as Jarvis had hinted, Councilman Ferguson had sent his sentry to take care of Educator Graham. Unmanifested against Unmanifested.

And I was alone again. With my endless guilt. My widening anger.

“I don’t have anything for you to sleep on,” Adam said, interrupting the increasing wave of resentment. His tattoo screamed at me not to trust him. I reminded myself of Patches. We’d been best friends, roommates. He’d come to me when they marked him, then he’d cut me out of his life as completely as if I didn’t exist. He threw knives at me. Well, I didn’t need him either.

I didn’t need anybody.

“It doesn’t matter,” I answered. “This cave should hold the heat well enough.” The blackness swallowed the ceiling, leaving me to wonder how far it stretched.

“We’ll have to leave in the morning,” he said. “Head south again. It’s too bad. Nobody in Forrester misses a chicken here and there. Tornadoes, I hate being hungry.”

I glanced at him as he poked around in the coals with a stick. I hesitated. His shirt hid the incriminating tattoo, but not the fact that he hadn’t answered any of my questions.

“I have some stuff,” I finally said.

I unloaded my pockets and laid the three crunchy bars and the last can of soup on the ground. My gloves, the T-shirts, the coat, and the stocking cap joined the pile. “We can share. I…I—well, honesty policy. I need you too.”

He rifled through my stuff before looking at me. “Your shoes look good, you’ve already got layers on. Gloves will be useful…where’re those knives?”

I didn’t tell him about the pitiful condition of my feet, despite how good my shoes looked. I reached to my waistband. “You promise?”

Adam didn’t blink or smile. He cleared his throat a couple of times. He could’ve been blushing, but he suddenly had something fascinating to watch in the fire, which painted his cheeks with a red glow. “You’re my Councilman, my Firemaker. From now on, I go where you go.”

He didn’t look at me, and the cave filled with awkward silence. Making a decision I hoped I wouldn’t regret, I placed both knives in the pile. “Okay, Airmaster. You think you can take directions from a girl?”

His gaze raked over my hair, his eyes locked on mine. “All I see is a Firemaker.”

I held his gaze, waiting for something that wasn’t a non-answer. I wanted to trust Adam, but it would be foolish. I mean, he was a trained sentry—already marked.

“Besides,” he said, pushing around some coals. “Your hair looks nothing like girls I’ve seen.”

I raised my eyebrows. A moment later he laughed, deep and clear. He would never listen to me, even if I did become a Councilman. “Really classy,” I said.

The happiness in his gaze faded. “I’ve already pledged to serve on your Elemental Council, what else do you need?”

“I saw your tattoo,” I blurted out. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, the way Patches’s had under those electric lights. Emotionless. Unyielding.

He blinked, and when his eyes opened again, they held sadness. “I won’t hurt you. We’ll keep pretending you’re a boy. That’s the best way to survive until we charter our Council.”

Another answer-that-wasn’t-really-an-answer, but I decided I didn’t care. With him, I was one step closer to the magical bond of chartering. “Sure, okay.”

A smile brushed his lips. He picked up the knife and ran his thumb along the hilt. “We’ll head to Gregorio in the morning. I’ve heard rumors of an Unmanifested revolution there. Their Councilman doesn’t like Alex’s new educational policies very much, and he’s actually encouraging his Unmanifested to fight.”

“You think he’ll charter my—our—Council?”

He straightened his blanket before lying down and folding the denim over himself. “I don’t know. He’s unconventional, so he’s our best bet. We’ll talk strategy in the morning. Night…Gabe.”

“Yeah, night,” I said, preoccupied with my own thoughts. Adam seemed willing to accept me as his Firemaker—his Councilman even—but I didn’t truly believe anyone else would.

I sighed and spread my coat on the ground directly across from Adam. Before closing my eyes, I gave the fire a final blast of flame. I slept facing Adam. I dreamt of sentries, their spiraling tattoos, and raging tornadoes.

And a world where women could be blazing talented Firemakers.

Rough hands shook my shoulders, much the same way the cook in Crylon used to. “Get up. The sentries are here. We have to go out the top.” Adam’s urgent voice chased away any thoughts of my past service in the kitchens.

I scrambled to my feet, pulled on the coat, and covered my head with my hood. Panicked, I patted the ground for the rest of my gear. Gone. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted Adam. I shouldn’t have unloaded everything I’d found, shouldn’t have shared, shouldn’t have fallen asleep at all.

The guy was a trained sentry. He’d physically assaulted me once, and now he’d left me abandoned in a cave in the middle of an Unmanifested village—with his sentry brother on my tail. Anger clawed through me with the desperation as I turned uselessly in a circle, trying to see something in the absolute darkness.

“Come on!” Adam hissed, sending a river of relief through my veins.

I sprinted in the direction of his voice, my tired muscles groaning and my injured feet bursting with pain. I hadn’t had the time or the means to dress them properly before falling asleep.

Adam pushed me in front of him. “Climb.”

Easier said than done. See, I didn’t dare light my fingertips, and I didn’t think darkness could be this, well, dark. The stone had small divots in it, a far cry from stairs. I had to balance on tiny footholds and dig my fingertips into the unyielding rock.

Adam never spoke, but his breath came hot and close. Every step felt like needles in my feet. My fingers flinched with each touch against rock. I moved too slow, like I was underwater, but the thought of plummeting to my death forced me to check and double-check each hold before I leaned my body weight into it. The chill in the cavern pulsed against my exposed face and made the pain in my fingertips more pronounced.

Eventually the passage narrowed, and I stopped, unable to continue. “What now?” I adjusted my feet to hold my weight and shook the stiffness out of my hands.

“Here, let me go first. Hold this.” The rough canvas of a pack met my frozen fingers as he shoved it at me. I grunted under the weight, then sucked in a breath as Adam put both hands on my waist and somehow squeezed past me using invisible footholds. He released me quickly, apologizing, and took the pack again.

I heard him brush his hand across the rock. He mumbled something to himself. He finally released the breath he’d been holding. “There it is. Step here,” he whispered, fumbling for my hand and placing it on a ledge in the stone. “Feel with your feet, it’s like a ladder.”

“Step where?” The rock felt slippery, with no ridges for even so much as a fingertip.

“Hold on with your hands. There’re rungs carved in the stone for your feet.”

Shouts echoed below me, but I didn’t look down. Adam and I cursed at the same time, and then he stepped, climbing straight up.

He moved above me, but I never touched his shoes, never caught up to him. He used a blast of wind to blow open a hole, and a beam of moonlight brightened the passage.