Chapter 1
CHAPTER 1:
The slices of a juicy mandarin, sunset orange with a texture so fresh that it was almost sweeter than a drink freshly squeezed. I peeled away each white sponge used as connective tissue under the orange peel of the mandarin in the dormitory at 8:33 pm, on the cold night of the first evening in the High Elemental Court. It’s considered connective tissue because of its functions in supporting the mandarin, it maintains its structure like veins digging into the crevices of each orange piece curve in the shape of a circle.
I studied it for so long because it was better than teleporting into the chandeliers or shadows of the Elemental ball going on in the main castle. Students, professors, faculty members, high nobles, royals across each season who came here to greet old friends and face old enemies.
Plus, seeing Creed Legion–I mean, Emberflame, was not on my top priority list.
Serenity and Genevieve left over an hour ago to enjoy dinner and the ball. Both had dressed up in black and red colours to represent Nocturne nations. Though, if anything, I would’ve believed the colours should’ve been black and purple. Purple being the typical colour for poison and black, of complete darkness. I roll my fingers over the connective tissue, eyes moving to the dark nightly view with a lit up city of paradise. I could hear the drums just as well as I could see the crowd of people forming in front of the castle, not needing to be greeted by the king just yet.
I hymned to the sound of the drums and something much stronger, something played by earth elementals. I closed my eyes and felt the distant brush of a cold breeze. I narrowed my eyes and turned to face whatever it was, but the door was closed, the room was empty besides me and then I understood.
Alastair Fawn was here too. I sharpen my eyes and move to the bed, lowering onto my back at the sound of a woman’s voice from the castle, singing a song of pure melody. I contemplated crashing the party, but I knew it was better to wait, to refrain from standing in the spotlight like I owned it. This wasn’t the werewolf council, this wasn’t the high-ranked werewolf trials for so-called mated pairs and if I strutted in there, I’d first slap Creed in the face, then punch Rowan in the dick, and strangle the answers out of Athena.
If that didn’t make my mood clearer, I needed to calm the fires in my blood first and foremost.
Forging the flames between my fingers, the mandarin ripples in protest at the torture while the connective tissue dissolves under my thumb, but it ruins my mandarin. It spreads out the watery substance of orange and yellow and I dissolve it with a sheet of fire underneath it. I rub my thumb and index finger together in tune to my deep breathing skills.
The realisation that the ice king was present didn’t scare me like it did before. So, instead of lying like dust on the bed, I roam the room a little longer and pull out the blueprints I’d copied onto my iPad, and I open up my high-tech drones. Opening the window, I accessed three of them to fly out and begin scanning the city like it really was a game. Heading straight for the castle first, not a noise nor type of detection could be recognised.
I swished my fingers to the fireplace in a circular, floral motion and watched the flames rise without wood. The heat rolled over me in waves and tickled the tips of my toes first before I checked the cameras on one drone and leaned my head back on the edge of my bed. There he was.
Creed Emberflame. Royal blood in his veins, the same veins that looked tense as he studied the large crowd in the ballroom. His Father, King Ignatius Emberflame. Ember-eyed the colour of autumn leaves and fires in golden mines while the man was handsome for his old age. Tanned over years of sun, unless he was merely born with it. Massive arms of a warrior, he was an older version of Creed. With hair of a deep brown, next to him, Athena was tensely searching for someone too. Rowan stood behind the…the Master of combat. His masked form covered his hair, eyes, face, every inch of skin I couldn’t see.
“Announcing King Alastair Fawn of Winter…” The guard’s announcement shaped the crowd in the middle. Ignatius stood with a low smile, a hint of violence if need be. I got it all on video and I watched Creed form a fist at his throne seat.
“Welcome, my esteemed nobles, my welcomed guests and students of our annual elemental tournaments!” Ignatius’s voice was a booming sound that boisterously ricocheted across the castle walls of light beige stone and vines in the form of connective tissue on the interior wall. An impressive line of structure, of capability in the elemental world.
Alastair’s grinning face doesn’t elicit a reaction in the crowd as the air, earth and fire elementals standing in their designated colours. Air was pure white. Red for fire. Earth was dark green. Water was a mix of blues and turquoise attires for the older generations. Alastair bows mockingly before moving to the water nation now looking stronger in his presence while he eyes Creed for a long moment and proceeds to look through the crowd.
Credence is the first of the Legion crew to step down and walk down a long set of stairs to move into the crowd and speak with Genevieve first. She shook her head and looked to the entrance while I caught on camera where Creed was watching the exchange. Serenity looks to the entrance too. The seniors of Nocturne were busy eyeing the crowd from Melian and Luthien. I watched Pearl too, she looked beautiful in her dark purple gown.
I raised my fingers towards the fire and that anger unfurls as the chains are create rotate out of the fireplace, at the exact same time the fire in the castle, on the walls, in the lights beaming around the crowd flickers for a moment before I close my fist and the cameras all close in darkness before one light in the middle beams and standing underneath that light is feet. They form first while I colour the body in flames and manufacture it under the fire.
Alastair stood slowly while I moved that body of fire that flickered with the flames I formed from the ball of fire that looked like a raging sun above them. Faceless. Nameless. But you could smell her the way you could smell boiling, burning skin. The way it rippled before I solidified the faceless form and Alastair stood there in front of her.
His icy eyes walk around her, “Impressive. Where are you, little wolf?” He asks it as the crowd watches in shock, stunned to silent statues while Creed stood up, but Rowan moved swiftly and stopped him. King Ignatius looked to Athena, who stood as well. The lights shut off and my brain fuzzed as it drained my power and in the blink of an eye, the cameras switched back on, so did the lights.
I blink my eyes open.
I’m here, you son of a bitch.
*****
I’ve never been one to sit quietly. I feigned sleep when Serenity and Genevieve returned to the room. With my eyes closed at their midnight return, they were quiet and I wondered if they wanted to ask. To confirm, was it me in that room? Did I form an image just to get a message across?
I know you’re here. I know who you truly are and my target is you.
The colour of anger resembled the combination of white, yellow, orange and red. White is blinding anger, the kind that suffocates you, surrounding and pulling at air. Yellow is the beginning of a pale temper, not orange, not in the need to slow down as of yet. It’s the yellow lines on the side of a road, meant to demonstrate no parking aloud. No anger too fiery was allowed. Orange, sometimes passionate and slow and burning just a little, passionate anger was a clear message in that nothing was stopping true revenge, it was only at a pace of strategy and concise facts put together for the big, red BOOM.
The next morning, I couldn’t escape the faces of other students. Of students from the other schools and of the royal’s students requested to be in the games. Alastair didn’t come empty handed. Drums levelled into the atmosphere and danced off the crowd and the walls of the training arena. Royal academy students sat in the arena seats where the High King of this court, Ignatius stood watching. I slid my fingers into the pockets of the coat I wore over my uniform. Genevieve was next to me, the rest of Elrond’s team was before us while the seniors led us out. Melian students and Luthien locked eyes on our head senior.
I looked around, the music in the background clicked with a deep voice singing in a tune that sounded seductive in a way. There were thousands of people in the crowd, all watching to merely calculate who to cheer on. I watch the dragons land on the edges over the spherical arena, watching too and Rakon stood there behind the section that led to Creed.
Like gargoyle monsters on stone edges.
“The juniors first.” A voice echoes in the speakers. Elrond tenses and looks to Genevieve. She nods to him and he and Taylor move first. With Serenity and Genevieve next. I move in last and make myself appear small. The whooshing of cold wind flutters around us before the circular floor moves and in the shocking change of clicking metal and water running underneath, I’m pushed in the front and I see eight other girls, the smallest ones and the youngest ones only some of the schools are forced forward too. I catch Elrond and the others step back in line with Nocturne seniors.
The sound of melodic piano surfaces, sad and lonely music. It got faster with the sound of the violin and more. Louder and prouder, until one of the girls steps into the middle and moves her hands in a swirl of magic. Crystalline water flows up out of the circle with hesitance and flickering strength. Before she swirls it like a bullet up in the air. Another girl does similarly with earth and vines, blooming flowers around the green and brown string. One by one, air, water, earth and fire were demonstrated in delicate patterns. Everything was soft and made to look pretty.
When it was my turn, I walked up to the middle and turned my back on the royals, only to find my face on camera. They had two massive screens showing my expression, my body, everything was up close. It was made to look delicate. Flames of fire didn’t flicker or stutter, it grew in rings around me and I closed my eyes before imagining the shape of bears, bees, sheep, horses, lions, giraffes. The shapes opened up in each ring that I expanded, the rings opened up and dispersed outside of the middle of the circle I stood in. That only lasted a few minutes, when each student was in here for at least fifteen minutes. To match the piano music, I grew the keys from fire and rolled them up around me, before creating images on top of them and I couldn’t help myself from what each image showed.
Killing.
Strangulation.
Suffocation.
Drowning from the inside out.
Getting sliced and cut apart.
A heart being ripped out of a chest.
A man slapping a woman while she protects her child.
Each key had a story. Of pain.
Before intertwining my fingers and the keys sung above me in the shape of a sun, the sunrays were hair flowing down to me, before it picked up my hair the way status electricity does and slowly, a hand made of fire creeps around my neck to cover my mouth.
Symbolism.
The first most important image that gets a message across.
Some of the crowd gasped as the hand looked as though it was suffocating me, the veins of a forearm like the veins of the connective tissue on a mandarin. Then in a whoosh of red air, I make the hands and sun shape into a thousand butterflies and the light goes green to release me for the next girl to go.
No one moves while I’m watched by the crowd. I took the same amount of time. Used no new techniques, but it was all about what you imagined. What you see in your head and how you can project it out. The girl who was next to me, whose turn was yet to ask her to go forth and show her talent, stopped short.
Drums echoed and two guards from the walls stepped forward, before I was directed onto a new platform. I tensed as I stood in the middle of a rectangular platform with water in the middle, and floated up.
The camera on the platform moved in front of me.
I stared into the lens, “State your name.” Ignatius’s voice silenced the murmuring crowd.
“Celestine Colton.”
My voice echoed through the stadium the way a ball bounces through a railway station, as if it never ended at all, "Your primary power is fire?" He voiced next, it was deep and enriched with melted velvet and hot chocolate on a beach while you sunbathed with calm serenity. or that's how he wanted everyone to hear it as.
I heard blood gurgling. I had poison sinking into a stomach and settling there as it eats someone from the inside out. I felt my skin crawl with ice made of stone. I saw ember eyes looking for answers and willing to kill to get them.
"Primarily, yes."
I felt as though I was in court.
The platform I was floating on suddenly moved with a jolt. The distance between myself and the Royal King closed considerably and right there, it stops just metres from his line of nobles, of royals, of the Master who didn't move an inch and watched me like I watched him. I didn't stare at the master of combat for long, instead I faced Ignatius Emberflame head on. Athena sat with her pale fingers on the armrests of her throne chair. Her silver eyes were penetrating my form.
"A very intriguing performance, may I ask how you thought of it? The pain and suffering of different types of fighting techniques after the rings of animals, your choices of demonstration was impressive. As impressive as last night's performance, Miss Colton." He gestured to me, ember eyes burning through mine, searching.
My face was on screen, so when I stare at him, I imagined I looked plain and utterly neutral, but in truth, I felt the screaming of my heart against my eardrums, begging me to burn everything in sight, "I didn't attend, you have the wrong girl, your majesty." I told him, on camera, over a microphone.
I felt the grasp of a hand on my shoulder. It wasn't a real hand, but the ghost of one. My lips twitch up at the corners while I turn to face whatever or whoever was there, "I do believe meeting a spirit for the first time is on my bucket list. I have to ask, when you died, did you see a black void or a white one?" I asked turning back to King Ignatius, who had stood when I spoke to the spirit.
Rowan's eyes were cut to stilts.
Ignatius tilted his head at me, his gaze so intense.
I smirk. The ghost's hand runs to my neck. I tilted it to the side as my hair moved, before I looked down and froze when my jacket was being pulled over my shoulders and dropped to the floor. The spirits had the ability to move objects.
I tensed before my fingers flickered and volts of electricity so intense and potent made Ignatius clench his fists as he watched with eyes of harsh fluidity when I knew the ghost had to dissolve from me. I raised both brows at the king, "Dude, have you not seen ghostbusters?" I asked him.
Athena chokes on her own saliva.
Safe to say I didn’t keep under the radar when the platform aligned with the stone he stood on. The High King studied me acutely, with that enriched aura. I moved one foot forward and looked up to his ember eyes. I faced him head on without fear in my expression, it gripped my shoulders behind me. As if one move gone wrong would equate a struggle. He held his hand out, “King Ignatius Emberflame, I wish we could have met last night at the compulsory Elemental Ball. I believe we have a few things to discuss.” He offered.
I eyed his hand, wondering whether he’d stab me for what I do next. I grinned up at him with a childish, puppy look before I hugged him.
That caused stunned surprise to level the crowd, “An honour to meet you, Ignatius. Cool name, by the way, you can’t get it on a key ring. Makes you rare, like your five elemental line. The pentagon of abilities as the ancients once called it. It matches your crown. Five sharp edges of gems atop. Colours of the elemental districts, bloody awesome.” I looked up at it while he paused in a stone statue. I jumped off his mountain of a form and tilted my head as the master of combat stood behind him with an arrow aimed at my head.
I tilted my head at the Master before Ignatius raised a hand to him, the arrow lowered slowly as the combat fighter stepped in closer. Ignatius studied me closely to see if I feared the master of death. I didn’t, I wanted that challenge and as he moved forward, the cameras captured everything.
“This is a Master at the Royal Academy.” Ignatius introduced.
Fever in the air closes in, I sniffed the air and felt my eyes locked onto his mask that blocked everything. I eyed the muscles underneath gear similar in the shape of mine, “He looks like a guy who should have wings. Avenging angel style, not white ones. Far too pure for the Master of Combat at the academy. Have you been able to defeat him, my King?” I wondered, looking to ember eyes while I ignored my connection to Creed. Creed, who eyed me from his seat, begging to meet his intense, indecipherable gaze, but I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.
King Ignatius eyed me curiously, “Once, and I am the only one who could, that was many years ago, child. Do you wish to return to your year of students?” He offered. I sniffed the air around the master once more, penetrating the suit in a way only a werewolf would understand and he reacted then, surging forward with a dagger. Likely to test my fear. So, the moment the silver touched my chin. I eyed the man in the mask, waiting.
Ignatius narrowed his eyes, “You did not even flinch.” He said slowly.
I never let my gaze stray from the master, “Look down,” I told the masked man. Both of his daggers were in my hands and aimed at his balls.
Ignatius folded his massive arms, eyeing us both as I leaned in with a slow smirk in my reflection, before I slid his daggers back in the front of his gear and pressed my forehead to the mask. Skin shaped over a mask that was big enough to cover his entire head. He didn’t have a scent because of the mask. Each time I sniffed the air around him and in his direction, it’s as if he were invisible. He didn’t flinch, he allowed it and that’s what made Rowan even tense. Athena hitched a breath. Ignatius leaned in closer just to see if what was happening was in fact happening. The Master didn’t push against me, didn’t move a single muscle. I opened my green eyes up as if I was staring into a soul, one I couldn’t see.
He did nothing, so I spoke with my breath brushing the mask, “Nice to finally meet you, perhaps next time I can keep one of those daggers. As a prize, you know.” I winked as I leaned back.
His dagger shaped a small knick of blood against my chin, but I reached out with a gloved hand and removed it from his dagger point. He didn’t move it away from me or stop me from removing it.
Ignatius tilted his head with a cold aura around him now, but I was being watched by his royals, his nobles, his prized guests and colleagues and they were intrigued. They were entertained. I felt the brush of membranes in my head, a possessive hand stroking the electrical synapses in the brain. Reminding me of something and urging me to look at Creed.
The silver shined while I burned off the essence of blood. Before I turned my back on him, on them and back on the platform. I picked up my coat and faced the camera, before I bow at the hip and roll my hand out, “Your majesties, your highnesses, professors, masters and esteemed colleagues, crowd and killer students all with ulterior motives, I’m so bloody happy to meet you all. I’m with you, as we all are.” I announced into the microphone before using my own invisible drones to force the water contained nano-bots to take me down before Ignatius could allow it.
But he didn’t know what hit him.
And neither did I.
