Knowledge: The Fifth Division Saga: Book 1 (13 page)

I shook her hand, “Hi. And it’s actually Daily.” She pumped our arms up and down once before gruffly releasing.

She squinted at me, “Your Caspian’s sister? You hardly look anything alike.”

“We get that a lot.”

“But you are twins?”

“Yup.”

“Odd.”

She glanced over at Ash again and then huffed away towards her produce stand, leaving puffs of dust in her wake. Ash led me through the rest of the market, weaving around the various vendors and stands that overflowed with many brightly colored fruits and vegetables, many of which I had never seen before. As we strolled along the narrow dirt path through the market, I felt the weight of multiple stares latch on and follow us. Ash, either unknowing or uncaring, remained jovial throughout the excursion and happily pointed out the different people and what they sold.  Nobody greeted us as we passed their carts.

As we reached the end of the dirt market path and stepped back onto the main cobblestone road of the village, Ash looked down at me with a great big grin plastered on his face and said, “The market is a lovely place is it not?”

“Beautiful. So is Laurel like your girlfriend or something?”

His feet skidded to a sudden stop, “Excuse me?”

“Laurel, Erion’s sister? I just thought she seemed a little put out when she saw us together.” I thought of her scrunched up face and the intimidating glare flaring in her eyes. Put out was not the right term, quite the opposite in fact, she was downright fired up.

“Well you thought wrong.” His voice was nonchalant but he pulled at his collar uncomfortably. “Anyways, we should keep moving.”

We traveled through the rest of the village, the stares and glares more and more physically wearing the longer we walked along the cobblestone path. Not only were they directed at Ash, but at me as well. I could practically hear their thoughts, What is that on her back? Unnatural. As we trudged along, I studiously observed the copper colored stones that made up the road. I felt like Dorothy skipping along the yellow brick road, immersed in a faraway and magical land, just wishing to be back home. Distantly I wondered if I just clicked my heels together and whispered the words “there is no place like home” I would be sent back to normalcy and reality. I glanced over at my own personal version of the Tin Man and pondered whether he was truly all metal and no soul or if a warm beating heart dwelt beneath his shiny exterior.

In the silence that blanketed our walk, I started to really ponder what it was that I truly wanted. A huge part of me, most of me actually, yearned to be back in Lincoln City, snuggled in the comfort of my own life and house. But the smaller and quieter portion of my soul, the steadily expanding part, fought to remain in Nostos. Something here drew me in and called to me, creating the sense that I should stay. That staying was the right thing to do.

My mind switched to an alternative route at the sight of the unimpressive hill that now loomed above us, the same grassy mound that we stumbled onto when I first arrived in Nostos. I looked up and raised my eyebrows, “You brought me to the overconfident pile of dirt. Cool.”

“Now, now, no need to be rude.” Without looking back, he strode past me and climbed up the hill. With an impatient sigh I followed. It took a total of fifteen seconds to reach the top, but once again, surprise struck my heart at the view from the peak of the hill. I spun in a full circle, taking in the view of the four very different sections of land. I gazed in wonder at the ominous place where it still seemed the nighttime ruled supreme, the glistening wonderland of sparkling stars that floated through the air, and the forever stormy skies of the last land. I looked back at the area where I stayed last night, the place where the Elementals roamed, a realm brilliantly lit by the noonday sun that shone over flowering fields and sprouting gardens.

“What is this place?”

I saw a smile quirk up the sides of Ash’s mouth, “This is Center Hill, the place where the four Kingdoms of Nostos branch out into equal parts and, as you saw last night, the home of the Nostosian Court.”

“Four Kingdoms?” I repeated. I once again took in the fantastic view.

“Yes, each Kingdom plays a different role in the ruling of Nostos.” Ash replied, he pointed at the shadowy land, “That is the Shade Kingdom, they make up the majority of our joint army.”

“I thought you and Erion were part of the army.”

He nodded, “We are. But we are some of the very few Elementals in the Legion. Shades are typically better at fighting for…certain reasons.” A scrunched expression came across his face that I did not question. He shook it off and gestured to the sparkling kingdom, “That is the Seer Kingdom, they mainly make up the government.”

“Why?”

“They are very gifted in predicting what our country should do politically.”

I pondered these vague answers before nodding to the Kingdom with the lightning strikes and storm clouds, “What about that Kingdom?”

A look of repulsion spread across his features, “The Wielder Kingdom. A bunch of arrogant, Latin speaking, show offs.”

I couldn’t help but smirk, “I take it you don’t like them much?”

“You’re quite observant.” He muttered, digging his toe into the grass until he uprooted a small patch of green. I chose to refrain from asking more about the Shades, Seers, and especially the Wielders, despite my interest in them. I would just have to ask someone else about it later.

“So what do the Elementals do for Nostos?”

His face lightened slightly, “We provide almost all of the food. We’re very gifted with nature you see. Our Knowledges allow us to become one with a certain part of nature that helps us make the world more beautiful, usable, and friendly.” His words were kind and earnest but I sensed bitterness lurking beneath them, like this was a speech he had been told to memorize and recite to new members.

“How many different Knowledges are there?” I asked.

“Eight.” He held up eight fingers and listed them off, “The king and queen of the Elementals are always Sun and Moon Knowledges, one of each. They are considered to be the most respectable Knowledges and there are only a few alive at any given time. The most common are Plant and Animal Elementals, they work mainly in the village at different markets and shops.” I pictured Laurel’s bright green eyes and thought that perhaps she was a Plant Knowledge. “Then the actual element Knowledges: Sky, Earth, and Water are less common than Plant and Animal but you see them often enough. Erion is a Sky Knowledge for instance. They usually take up the higher paying jobs in the palace.”

I counted them in my head, “You’re forgetting one.”

He looked away from me, “No I’m not.”

I checked over the list and realized that I had always thought there to be four elements not three, “What about fire?”

His back faced me and I watched his dark hair waver in the wind, “What about it?”

“Well, that’s an element too, right? Earth, water, air, and fire.”

“Yes.”

I hesitated before responding, “Isn’t that you’re Knowledge? Fire, I mean?”

He turned back to face me, suspicion emanating from him, “How do you reckon?”

“Well first off, I’m not an idiot. And second, when I tried to throw that apple at you last night in the house, it seemed like you made it catch fire. You’re eyes went all…weird.” I faded out when I caught his expression of deadly calm, but with a big breath continued, “And this morning I know I saw you with fire in your hands, and it didn’t burn you. I guess I just put two and two together.”

He looked at me a moment longer before once again turning away, “Well, you’re not dim, I’ll give you that.” He held out his hand, palm up, and a small flame lept from the center of his hand, hovering just above his flesh. He let the fire dance to his fingertips where he began to fiddle with the orange flame. I watched in wonder as he created a small show of dancing fire in the palm of his hand. He curled his hand into a fist, vanquishing the light. When he opened his hand again, the fire was gone. He tilted his head back to look at me with his dark eyes that were now tinged with a defensive spirit.

I gazed back in awe, “That was…”

“Frightening? Destructive? Evil? All of the above?” His voiced spiked with spite.

“Beautiful.”

He spun all of the way around to look at me, surprise lighting up his features, “
Beautiful?
” He scoffed, “Just wait, soon enough the rumors will reach your innocent ears and you’ll be avoiding me at all costs.”

“What rumors? I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Nothing.” He muttered, “Let’s just get on with the tour.”

I trailed behind him, back through town, my eyes absorbing every sight they could manage. Once again, I observed the surrounding Elementals and noticed something that warranted disrupting Ash’s grumpy silence.

“Why are the Knowledges on guys feathered and the ones on girls aren’t?”

He lifted his hand to his chin wonderingly, “Human girls wear makeup while human boys do not, correct?” I nodded and he continued, “Which genders’ Knowledge do you think to be more beautiful?”

I glanced at a couple passing by, observing both the woman’s iridescent sky colored wings and the man’s earthy feathers, “The girls.”

“Now, whose do you find more
attractive
?”

I couldn’t stop my eyes from flickering to Ash’s coal colored feathery Knowledge that hovered regally above his shoulders like a dark angel. “Guys.”

“Right. So women have a more lovely style of Knowledge sort of like how human girls wear makeup: it differentiates the genders. The girls have the more delicate and shimmering butterfly-style Knowledges while the boys receive the more masculine style with the broadness and the feathers.”

We reached the bridge that led back to the enormous castle doors. He held up the bright purple fruit that he purchased back at the market. “Try this, we call it Sweet Violet. I promise its edible.”

I hesitantly reached for the fruit, wondering if it was a trick. But something about the way the sunlight glistened in his dark eyes told me he was being earnest. I brought the Sweet Violet to my mouth and inhaled the pleasantly sugary aroma, reminding me of honey and a type of candy I could not quite name. I took a big juicy bite of the wonderful syrupy flavored treat. I pictured the nectar and ambrosia that I always read about when studying Greek myths and figured that Sweet Violets were as close to the food of the gods as you could possibly get.

“You like it?” Ash’s voice brought me back down to earth, or wherever Nostos was.

“Now
that’s
an understatement. This is amazing, it’s so…so…”

“Sweet?” he chuckled and I rolled my eyes. The look he wore made me squirm awkwardly where I stood, “I thought you might like it, I noticed that you put a lot of syrup on your pancakes this morning and saved your fruit for last. So I figured you liked sweet things.”

I stared at him, taken completely by surprise, “You were studying my eating habits?”

“What? Too much?”

“A little creepy, but it was a nice gesture.”

He grinned devilishly, “Well, don’t go getting the wrong idea about me now. You mustn’t forget that I am a tricky, mischievous fiend that will stop at nothing to annoy and pester you.”

“Oh, don’t worry. In my eyes you are still terribly evil. And it doesn’t matter how many delicious fruits you pass my way.”

I met his fiery gaze with confidence and saw myself reflected back at me in his dark eyes. My heart thumped uncomfortably in my chest in an unfamiliar way. He broke the hold on me by shifting his eyes away and clearing his throat. Suddenly in a hurry, he charged forward to the palace and did not look back.

Chapter 6

The rest of the week passed by in a blur of vibrant colors and pure craziness.

When Ash and I first returned to the palace we immediately encountered Erion and Caspian who had apparently just arrived from a tour of their own. It turned out that Caspian was a water Knowledge, to nobody’s surprise considering his eternal love for the sea and his bright blue-green eyes. His Knowledge shimmered with watery blue feather’s that rippled like disturbed water. He seemed none too concerned about my lack of identifiable Knowledge, saying that in a land full of magic it couldn’t be that weird that something odd occurred. But the looks on Erion and Ash’s faces as he said this to me led me to think otherwise.

My mom and Bram traveled back to Lincoln City a couple of days after my arrival in Nostos. My mother tried to give another explanation for keeping the secret all those years but I simply could not hear her out. Maybe this makes me immature, but I didn’t care. They left without a word from me, I truly cannot say I regret that decision.

Every morning, Ash came in with my gourmet breakfast (now with an extra large syrup saucer and additional fruit tray) and chatted about the goings on in Nostos, assuring that it paid off to be up to date, even though he lost me as soon as he mentioned the uneasy peace treaty or how the occasional Shade broke the law and ate a human. From what I heard, Shades were the least pleasant of the Nostosian residents and I made a pact from the first day to try and avoid them.

Not only did he bring breakfast but lunch and dinner as well. He reminded me constantly that I was welcome to join everyone at the daily palace meals and that Caspian took advantage of this opportunity, but I enjoyed sitting in solitude, listening to Ash talk about Nostos and the current events. It was equivalent to reading a new bedtime story during every meal, full of magic and conflict and intrigue. Only this was real life and I was living it. In between meals I explored the castle, which was so large and vast that I never ran out of places to investigate.

On Friday morning after breakfast, I prepared to venture down one of the corridors I had not yet explored when a sharp rap sounded from my door. I smoothed down the blue silk dress that I wore and answered, “Yes?”

Ash’s black hair, followed by his strikingly handsome face, peeped through the crack in the door, “Miss Mirabelle? You have a visitor, shall they be permitted?” A small smile played at his lips, confusing me further.

“Uh, can I know who…?”

But I never finished my sentence.

“Mira! Can you
believe
this place?” A high-pitched familiar voice bubbled from the opening in the door, spilling childlike excitement into the room. At the first sound of the bell-like voice, my heart leaped with joy and bafflement. I hurried towards the door, not wanting to waste another moment. Ash pushed the door open further, grinning widely now, to reveal a delicate young girl with fierce lavender eyes and long sandy hair that swayed behind her as she bounced up and down.

“Iris?!”

She beamed up at me and rushed into my open arms, embracing me tightly and nuzzling her chin into the crook of my neck. I squeezed her back, so full of happiness and shock at the sight of her that words weren’t coming to me. I finally managed to reluctantly release my death grip on her. I had so many questions to ask. How did she get here? Did Bram and my mom know she was here? I opened my mouth to start listing off my inquiries, but she beat me to the punch.

“You’re a
faerie
?” She goggled at my Knowledge with round, awestruck eyes. “Mira,
you
should be playing Tinker Bell!”

Ash snorted from behind her, “Faerie? Now that’s just plain offensive.”

Iris now stared over at Ash, his looming black feathers rustling uncomfortably, “Are you an angel?”

“Why yes I am! How in the world did you know?”

“Ash, don’t…” I started.

“It’s okay Miss Mirabelle, she should know the truth. And yes,” he grinned at Iris, winking in that way that would even charm the socks off Hitler, “falling from Heaven really bruised my tailbone.”

I shot him a dark glare before turning back to my little sister, “We’re called Elementals. You’re one too, you’re just not old enough for your Knowledge yet.” I pinched part of my silky Knowledge in my hand as a gesture.

“Wow.” She stared at it as if seeing civilization after being stuck in the wilderness for a month.

“Gorgeous isn’t it?” Ash remarked from his place leaning against the wall. “Not every Knowledge is as pretty as your sister’s, you know.”

I felt a rush of hot blood flood my cheeks.

“I believe it,” she breathed and then, totally unfazed by my discomfort, as if without really thinking about it, she said, “she’s the most beautiful girl in the whole world.”

Ash muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t hear but my heart beat faster under his intense stare.

Ash left the two of us to catch up, stating that he would be right back. I showed her around my room, displaying my wardrobe and enormous bathroom to her immense enjoyment. She babbled on and on about who did what in her class back home and how all of the girls had been jealous of her part in the school play. I brushed her hair with the comb on my vanity as she fired off question after question concerning Nostos: where it was, who lived here, and did I know any magic.

“I don’t know. Magical people, I guess. And not yet.” I glanced back at my Knowledge and wondered for about the millionth time what my powers were and why nobody I had encountered could figure out what the indistinct Knowledge meant. I ran my fingers through her hip length hair, marveling at the smoothness of it. I didn’t have to take a peek in the mirror to know that my own mane of bright red hair was a mess of spiral curls and knots. I felt a dull pang of jealousy. “Anything else?”

A devious smile spread across her face and her lovely eyes took on a mischievous glint, “Who was that boy that brought me here?”

“Who? Ash? Oh, he’s a…” Friend? Protector? Constant pain in the butt? How could I even begin to explain Ash to Iris when I truly did not know myself?

“That’s what I thought. He’s cute.” Her tinkling laugh filled the room.

Before I could even open my mouth to refute her, my door creaked open without a knock and Caspian’s black hair and brilliant aquamarine eyes poked into my room, his expression grim. “Hey Rissy. I thought I might find you two in here.”

Iris dashed towards Caspian and hugged him, “Yeah, Mira’s friend brought me.”

Something suddenly clicked in my mind, “Wait, Ash brought you to Nostos? Like, from the human world?”

She rolled her eyes in clear annoyance, “Duh, I’ve said that like a trillion times.”

Caspian and I shared a look before returning our attention to our little sister. Ash had brought her to Nostos? Why would he do that? Did he even think to ask my mom and Bram first? Iris gazed up at us in admiration, her large innocent eyes full of love. When I looked back at her, it was difficult to be upset that she was not safe at home or that Ash had brought her here possibly without permission. I decided to worry about these factors later and focus on Iris for now. Iris peered over Caspian’s shoulder, her eyes obviously searching.

He lifted the shimmering blue-green wings that had been folded down onto his back. Unlike mine, which resembled the wings of a faerie, his looked like they had been taken from a predatory bird, large and much more masculine then I could have ever imagined a Knowledge to be. Not dainty or lovely as many people had commented on mine, but strong and beautiful in its own right. Iris stared with her mouth open and reached to touch his Knowledge.

“You guys are so
cool
!”

I snorted and patted her head while Caspian rolled his shoulders and maneuvered his Knowledge in such a way that they folded in against his back. I distantly thought of Ash and Erion and the way they always kept their Knowledges up for everyone to see. Like they were proud of them. It felt so right to be sitting there with them, like we were back home just hanging out like nothing had changed.

Only everything had changed.

I looked at Caspian and sighed. Iris’s head had slumped onto his lap and her breathing steadied, indicating she had fallen asleep. “Cas, why do you think he brought her here?”

“I dunno. But I don’t trust him.”

Caspian was right. For whatever reason, Ash brought Iris here from the human world and we had no clue as to why. After the Rezza and Wiley fiasco and the fact that my mother had been keeping a huge secret from me since birth, I wasn’t too keen on trusting people. But there was something in me that hoped I could trust Ash and Erion. They were the ones who broke me out of the farmhouse and Ash had shown me around Nostos. I knew they were still keeping things from me, but at least they had shared
some
information.

“Maybe the Council forced him?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. I crossed paths with him on my way up, you didn’t see his face.”

“His face?”

Caspian was solemn as he spoke, “He looked worried, like
really
worried.”

I combed Iris’s hair mechanically, my mind wandering elsewhere, unsure of what this meant. Then again, I wasn’t sure of what anything meant nowadays. Caspian’s blue eyes were steely and distant, so I figured he was doing the same thing I was: trying to figure everything out.

Another quandary passed through my mind, “Cas, why doesn’t anybody know what I am?”

“Because you’re a crazy redhead with anger issues? Not many people can handle that, you know.”

“I’m serious!”

He sighed and shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t know, Mira. This whole thing is so weird. I don’t even know what to think anymore.”

“I just want to know what’s wrong with me.”

He reached over and laid his arm across my shoulders comfortingly, “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

I wanted to believe him. But I knew he was just as lost in this situation as me. I closed my eyes, my hand still massaging Iris’s thick locks, and drifted off into a blissful sleep.