Forgotten Elements

Alora

I was slow to look at her, my focus blurring as I fought the sensation. I had to rapidly blink for my eyes to focus, and I found a woman sprawled out in the chair beside me, looking like she’d been there for a while even though I knew that wasn’t the case. A sly grin tipped her lips as her dark eyes watched me, and she twirled her auburn hair around a finger.

“Please tell me you didn’t drink the water.”

My gaze slowly drifted to my water as realization filtered through my foggy brain.

“Oh good, there’s your friends. I was worried they wouldn’t make it in time.” Humor laced her tone and had me looking back at her. “I wouldn’t finish that spell if I were you. I can kill them in half the time it’ll take you to draw a line.”

My eyes were having a difficult time focusing, but I eventually made out Ander and Starling slowly approaching the table across from us. A hint of apprehension and horror broke through Starling’s blank expression. Her hand twitched at her side, probably wanting to send a blast of fire at the woman beside me. Ander’s emotions were better hidden, a skill he, Ari, and Koa excelled at. Blood dripped down his left forearm underneath a few incomplete sigils.

“What have you done to them?” Ander’s rumbling voice was measured, as were his steps.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Her tone still held notes of amusement. Whoever she was, she didn’t fear Ander or Starling.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Starling asked as her hand twitched at her side again. With her spirit animal shielded, the woman had no chance of knowing she was a dragon summoner. Maybe if her focus remained on Ander, Starling could take her down. It wasn’t much of a plan, but it was better than nothing.

As the woman rested her elbows on the table, I distantly noticed the crystal pendant of my necklace buzzing against my chest. I couldn’t focus on it for too long, not with my vision swimming again and my head pounding. I gritted my teeth as I fought the effects, not wanting to be at a disadvantage like Gemini, even though I knew it would eventually happen.

My hearing wasn’t as strong as it usually was. One moment, the sounds were clear, but the next, they were muffled. But even with my inconsistent hearing, I could still make out Gemini’s heartbeats, albeit a little slower than was normal.

“How accurate is your fire, hmm? Good enough not to hit your friend?” She waved her ring-adorned hand in my direction, dashing my hopes that she hadn’t known. From the quick perusal of her energy that I could manage, she was a sorceress, but there was something off. It wasn’t the same as a Mythic. It was close, but it was more. Ancient. Familiar, but with my head swimming and fog trying to invade my mind, I had no hopes of figuring it out.

“What do you want from us?” Ander asked, his frozen glare watching the woman’s every breath.

Ander and Starling shared a brief look when she didn’t answer right away. “Luckily for you, all I want is for you to make a choice. And if I were you, I’d make it quick. As you can see from your friend here, she doesn’t have much time before she succumbs. It’s quite impressive how she’s fighting it. Her tolerance is impressive but she still doesn’t have long. And your other friend, well…” The woman trailed off, letting out a low whistle.

My stomach swirled and clenched, but I couldn’t be too sure if it was from the poison or my own fears. Starling’s fear made a brief appearance before she hid her emotions a moment later.

“What’s the choice?” Ander asked, his voice warbling in and out as he crossed his arms, tapping his fingers on his biceps.

“Choose your friends.” She held up two glass vials filled with a dark yellow liquid. “But just know that over two thousand human lives will be lost. Such an easy choice in my opinion. Who cares about the humans? Their lives are short and fleeting. It’s not like you even know them, not like your friends here.”

“You’re a bitch,” I slurred, but I couldn’t be too sure if she could hear or understand me. Even so, it was a bad idea to mouth off to the woman who held my life in her hands, but I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. Two thousand lives lost just for whatever this was, spoke of how little she cared about others.

I swayed to the side as my head throbbed, and I shook my head to try to clear my vision and the fog filling my brain.

“Ticktock, she’s not looking so good.”

“Why are you doing this?” I slurred again, hoping she could understand me.

“You’re the ones that were sent after me, not the other way around,” she said, her voice warbling in and out.

Oh no.

“Are you willing to let your friends down so you can play hero to the humans? For all you know, they could be murderers and rapists? You want to watch your friends succumb to my potion for your ego?”

“What’s our guarantee that stuff is real and they won’t just die anyway?” Starling crossed her arms as she shifted closer.

“This stuff will help your friends; I give you my word. But you don’t have the time to be doubting me. Make a choice.”

Starling stepped to the side from where she’d been partially standing in front of Ander, allowing me to see him press his bleeding hand to his forearm. I hadn’t noticed him finishing the sigils. My focus had been on Starling, a seamless move done by the couple.

A wave of magic headed toward the woman, but before it could hit her, she put up a translucent barrier with just a wave of her hand. She didn’t seem surprised by the move, proving she’d known what they were up to and let it take its course. It was a power move to show she could counter anything they threw at her.

Ander and Starling shared a brief and loaded stare before Ander’s focus returned to the woman who was still at ease despite Ander’s failed attack. “You know what we’re choosing.”

“I want to hear you say the words.”

At this point, it was growing more difficult to fight off the effects, and I was struggling to keep up with the conversation as my eyelids grew heavier. Gemini’s pulse was still going, but it had slowed even more.

“Our friends, we choose to save our friends,” Ander said with a resigned sigh.

The woman’s lips tipped into a slow grin. “Right answer.”

What?

“The vials,” Starling said impatiently, holding out her hand.

The woman set them on the table instead. “They won’t need them until after they wake up.”

My brain must’ve been too slow to process her words because it sounded like she said we’d wake up, but that wasn’t possible without the antidote. Before I could attempt to make sense of it, she tapped my arm, and it was like a shot of pure energy was injected into my veins. The weariness and headache were still there, but the fog of sleep had lessened, and I was no longer slumping on the table.

“It won’t last long, the sleeping draught will still go into effect: it’s what it was designed to do, and there’s no stopping it,” she said with a shrug as she relaxed back into her seat. “But this way, you can hear my whole spiel. I have a feeling you’ll be more receptive than your friends.”

“Sleeping draught?” Starling asked, looking as baffled as I felt. That’s why it had felt so familiar. I’d had many sleeping drafts over the years, and as the woman said, I’d built up a bit of a tolerance for them. Although hers was the strongest I’d ever experienced.

“My own personal blend: slows the heart down enough to make you think they’re dying,” she said, sounding way too proud of herself. “Leaves the drinker with a nasty headache”—she tapped the bottles on the table—“hence why they’ll need these.”

“You played us,” I whispered.

“Did you also kill those humans, or was that another lie of yours?” Starling placed a hand on Ander’s arm. His entire body was riddled with tension as he stared at the woman, looking like he wanted nothing more than to rip off her head.

She shook her head, still unaffected as she smiled. “I never lied. I never said they were poisoned or would die. You made an assumption and treated it as fact. Just like I never said I would kill those humans. Over two thousand humans are dying as we speak, but that’s due to a volcanic eruption. And no, it wasn’t caused by an elemental. They were always going to die no matter what you chose.”

“Then why make us go through all of this? Why give them that horrible choice?” I asked.

“To prove a point to all of you, that you aren’t heroes or good guys. Push comes to shove you’ll let thousands die to protect your friends.” All traces of laid-back amusement had vanished from her tone and expression as she sat up and tapped a finger on the table. “I want you to understand the drive to do anything to keep those you love safe. Remember this in the coming months when you begin making judgments about what others might do for those they love.”

“I never claimed to be a hero,” Ander said, his tone laced with ice, matching his expression.

“Good. Heroes are overrated and weighed down by what’s right and wrong. Morals like that have no place in our worlds.”

“Who the hell are you?” Starling asked again, looking up from where she knelt beside Gemini.

The woman let out a short laugh as she shook her head. “Wow, you must really trust whoever sent you here if you came without knowing who you were after. A foolish move that could’ve easily gotten you all killed.”

My hand moved up to where the key still faintly buzzed against my chest, and now that my brain was no longer as clouded, I realized why. “You’re her: Gabsrielle. The one to create the sorceress key.”

That’s why her magic seemed familiar to me. I’d felt it every day for nearly three years.

“That’s not all,” Starling whispered in shocked horror. “She’s also a cursed sister.”

Even though my head had somewhat cleared, my body struggled to respond to my commands as I tried moving away.

“Don’t worry, I have no intention of taking back the key. And if I wanted you dead, I would’ve killed you when you arrived before you knew what hit you. Lucky for you, I have a soft spot for fools who have no idea what mess they just walked into.

“Why did you choose Alora and Gemini?” Starling asked, her forehead scrunched as she frowned. She placed her hands on the table as she stood from her kneeling position. “If you wanted to prove how far Ander was willing to go, why not choose me? I doubt you don’t know we’re mates.”

Ander grabbed her arm and pulled her behind him, muttering how she wouldn’t be able to sit for an hour when he got through with her for even suggesting such a thing. My cheeks warmed with a blush as I looked away from them.

Gabsrielle’s lips twitched in amusement at the exchange. “I may be a bitch and a whole lot of other things, but I’m not a monster. With my family’s history of pregnancy… issues, I would never risk a mother-to-be. Even if it is just a sleeping potion. I do have a few lines I won’t cross.”

“Wait, what?” Starling asked as she tried and failed to sidestep Ander.

“Oh, I thought I was being clear. You’re pregnant.”

Starling’s mouth gaped open as she stared at Gabsrielle around Ander. “That’s not possible: my fertility period was several months ago.” Even so, her hand still dropped to her stomach as if she would find a baby bump there.

“We all know it’s possible to have two in one year.”

Ander appeared to be chiseled from stone with how still his body was for several long moments. Finally, his body thawed enough for him to turn to face Starling, cupping her face as he quietly spoke to her.

“Is this another trick of yours?” I asked, confident I hadn’t smelled it on her or sensed it in her energy.

“I know things,” she said, almost like she knew the direction of my thoughts. “Just as I know it’s happened recently—within the past week.”

As Starling and Ander began having a low argument—with him trying to get her to leave and her insisting on remaining where he was—Gabsrielle turned her focus to me and spoke in a low voice. “The one who sent you to find me knows who I am, and yet, they still sent you anyway.”

I took a moment to let that sink in. “You’re saying they didn’t care about the risk to us? That they wanted you dead so badly, they’d take the risk that we might fail and die,” I said slowly as I considered her words.

She shook her head and pursed her lips. “I’m saying, maybe they hoped I’d kill you.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I might be wrong, but one thing I do know for certain: whoever sent you to find me isn’t your friend,” she said as she pushed back her chair and stood up. Her steps were silent as she slipped away without Starling or Ander noticing.

While I hadn’t been told who sent us, I had a good idea who it was. It was the same man that had given me an off and unsettled feeling since the moment I met him all those months ago. He reminded me of many of the men in the Necromancer’s region.

As I considered her words and whether or not he was capable of betraying us in such a way—despite all he’d done to help us—my eyes once again became heavy. This time, I wasn’t able to keep them open as my head lowered to the table, and unconsciousness pulled me under.