A Radiant Sky (14 page)

“Asher.”

“How do you know about Asher?”

“Cassie told me,” she said casually.

“Of course she did.”

“No, really,” Earth said, turning to me. She was excited now. “Let me help you. I’m good at this. When Mom and Dad used to fight, I always helped them meditate.”

“I think you mean mediate.”

“That’s what I said.” She grinned. “Dad says I have a gift for making people feel better. It’s like a special power.”

A power.
It sounded like Earth had inherited some powers from her father’s half-Rebel blood after all. But what kind of power was making people feel better? Was that something the Rebels had control over?

“Well,” I said finally, trying to figure out how best to phrase this. “Asher and I have to fight for different sides. And he promised that when this is all over, we’d find a way to be together. He seemed so certain.”

Earth frowned at me. “But you’re not sure,” she said, her eyes glazing over. “And you think there’s something wrong with you that you’re not as certain as he is.”

I looked at her in surprise. “Did Cassie tell you that?”

“No,” she said. Her eyes had a faraway look in them. “I just knew.”

“It’s just that I know how people are. They say one thing and do another. And I know that love can change the outcome of a war. But also . . . I think war can change the outcome of love, too. What if Asher thought he loved me, but it turns out he believes in his cause more than he believes in us?”

“Are you saying that because you think that’s how he
feels?” Earth asked. “Or because you’re secretly scared that’s going to happen to you?”

“Uh . . .” I gaped at her. “Man, you’re good.”

“I know.” She smiled hazily. She was sitting there with me, but her mind was somewhere else entirely. “So am I right?”

I sighed. “My parents were so in love that they gave up everything to be together. They didn’t have to question how they felt. How come I can’t be that sure? How come Asher can?”

“You’re both kind of stubborn,” said Earth, wrinkling her nose. “My dad says I am, too. Also, you’re proud.”

“But what if I never know a hundred percent if he’s worth fighting for?”

Earth shrugged.

“That’s it? That’s your advice?”

She went back to drawing. “Hello, you’re never going to just
know
,” she said with exasperation. “You have to take a risk.”

I paused. “And if I make a huge mistake?”

She put down her colored pencil and looked at me seriously. “You have to trust yourself.”

“Are you sure you’re only seven?”

“I get that a lot.”

And that was it. I’d been schooled by a seven-year-old.

I felt tiny arms wrap around my waist, and looked down to see a messy light brown set of pigtails nestling into the crook of my arm.

“I’m glad we’re here,” she said softly.

“Me too,” I whispered. “Me too.”

That night at dinner, I watched Aunt Jo and Aaron carefully. If all this ended well—if the Uprising worked—would Aaron and Earth go back to Rocky Pines? Or would they stay here with us, for good? Was Earth right—were they going to get married? Maybe what I’d always wanted was on the verge of coming true. Maybe I was going to have a complete family again. They could never be a replacement for my parents. But Aunt Jo and I wouldn’t be lonely anymore. And that was a start.

Raven excused herself to stalk the perimeters of our property, keeping an eye out for danger. Aaron and Aunt Jo went to assess the damage from the fire at Into the Woods. Earth helped me clear the dishes, trailing behind me with a stack taller than her head.

“Don’t drop those,” I said over my shoulder.

“I have impeccable balance,” she piped back. We rinsed
the dishes and loaded them into the dishwasher.

“Hey, Earth,” I said, turning around to face her. “This, um,
power
of yours.” I thought for a minute. “Want to see if there’s anything else you can do?”

Earth grinned up at me mischievously.

13

I
t was an idea I’d been brewing for a while.

Earth was an astonishing child, a “special kid” as Aaron had said. There was something almost wise about her, a maturity that was surprising, out of proportion with the number of years she had lived. She had the remarkable ability to understand emotions much more complex than she should. Part of this could have been that she had experienced more in those seven years of life than anyone should have to. But I had another idea.

I had a feeling there was something magical about Earth. And that I was the one who’d be able to bring it out in her.

I slid the door to the deck open onto a clear, warm night. Earth slipped her hand into mine as she followed. We stood, facing the mountains. Fireflies blinked on and off
in the space between us, illuminating Earth’s face in a soft yellow glow.

“Mountains make me feel so small,” she said.

“You
are
small.” I knelt down next to her. “Earth, I think you came into my life for a reason. Obviously, you’re the smartest kid I know”—at this, Earth grinned—“but you can do things, too. Special things. Things maybe you don’t get to do that often because it freaks out your dad—right?”

Instead of answering my question, she looked up.

“Do you think they can really touch the sky, or is it only an optical illusion?”

“I don’t think anything can really touch the sky.”

“You can,” she said simply.

“Oh,” I said. “You’re right. I guess I can when I’m flying.”

“I can too.”

“You? Have you been hiding wings from me all this time?”

She rolled her eyes as if that was the dumbest question ever. “
No
. I can touch it with my mind.”

“Earth,” I said, my heart beating faster. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I can hear it. Shh,” she said. “Watch.”

I looked up at the wide, endless sky, inky blue and scattered with stars, and let this strange kid guide me.

“It’s kind of like a Ouija board,” she whispered.

Before I could ask what she meant, the sky tilted violently. I lost my balance and fell to the deck.

“Ow,” I said. “What—?” But I stopped short. It wasn’t the sky that had moved—it was the stars. The whole dome had shifted like the ceiling of a planetarium. And then, individual stars began to swerve toward one another. Earth was concentrating hard, her eyes trained on the sky and her hands balled into fists. The stars were forming a pattern. A word.

SAVE

My heart was beating out of my chest. Earth’s face and neck had broken out in a sweat, and she was struggling for breath. Still, she focused on the stars even harder as they arranged and rearranged, and another word began to take shape.

HIM

“Huh?” I said out loud.

The sound of my voice seemed to break the spell. Earth collapsed, exhausted, and the stars scattered into the night. I rushed to her and scooped her up in my arms. She was shaking.

“Hey,” I said gently. “Hey, shhh. It’s okay. You’re okay.”
I smoothed her hair back and kissed the top of her head. “Earth,” I whispered. “Say something.”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“That . . .” she panted, “was . . . so . . .
cool
!” Earth looked up at me excitedly. “Did you
see
that?”

“I couldn’t look away. It was amazing.” I thought for a minute. “What do you think it means?”

Earth scrunched her face up thoughtfully. Then she shrugged.

“You got me,” she said. “I’ve only been able to do it, like, one other time.”

“What did it say the last time?”

She gave me a small, sly smile.

“
Help Skye
,” she answered.

As I stood there, I could feel the power rolling off Earth in waves. The fireflies glowed brighter, larger, unblinking in the night. And then they were so bright that they eclipsed everything else, and Earth, the mountains, the deck—it all disappeared.

I squinted my eyes against the sudden, jarring light of day. The sun was shining down on me, but as I stood there, dark clouds rolled in faster than I could count seconds: big, churning storm clouds that threatened to burst at any moment.

Thunder clapped, and lightning backlit the clouds.

A hard rain soaked me before I had a chance to run for cover. But where was there cover? Where was I? Rain ran down my hair in rivulets, into my eyes and mouth. The ground beneath my feet felt wet and spongy, and when I looked down, I saw that I wasn’t on the deck anymore—I was on the bank of the river that ran through Foster’s Woods.

“Dan!” Cassie’s voice cried out from somewhere below me. “It’s rising too fast!”

“Hold on to my hand!” Dan yelled back.

“I can’t breathe!” she screamed.

“Guys!” I shouted. “Cassie! I’m coming!” I scrambled down the steep side of the bank, trying not to let my footing slip in the rising mud and water. I had to get to my friends in time. I had to save them.

Lightning zigzagged through the trees, and I heard a massive crack, and somebody screamed.

“Skye.” Earth tugged on my hand, bringing me back from my vision. I had to blink a few times before the deck and the starry night came into focus. “What did you see?”

What had I seen?

“I saw a flood,” I said, still dazed. First a fire, now a flood. Elemental forces at work against the people I loved. “I saw the future.”

“Does the future talk to you the way the sky talks to me?”

I nodded.

“Maybe we can make them work together,” she said. “We can tell each other what they say.”

“It’s a deal, Earth,” I said. Because I would need all the help I could get to figure out when that flood was going to happen. Another attack was coming. The Rebellion was plotting again. But this time, I refused to be caught off-guard. This time, I would be ready for it.

Suddenly, I got the feeling that being outside at night wasn’t very safe.

“Let’s go in.”

Earth nodded. “I’m scared, too,” she said. She took my hand and the two of us slipped through the sliding screen door and into the cozy house.

It had been alive with noise and chatter during dinner, but now it was still. I squeezed Earth’s hand tightly. This house had been still for so long. I couldn’t let anything stand in the way of it feeling full again.

Earth scampered up the stairs to get ready for bed, but I hung back. Something drew me to the wide window that looked out on our field, the dark sky, the mountains beyond, and I struggled to understand the message from the stars.

Save him.

I waited for the answer to come.

As I lay in bed that night, watching Earth squirm around in her sleeping bag like a burrowing animal, I thought about her strange, quirky powers—intuiting my emotions, “listening to the sky.” It had told her to help me.

Suddenly I sat bolt upright.

Was it possible that Earth was the
fourth Rogue
?

Immediately, I rejected this idea. It couldn’t be—and more than that, I couldn’t
let it.
I couldn’t knowingly put Earth in danger like that. She was only a kid. A complicated one, sure. But she had already seen enough violence, enough tragedy in her lifetime. I couldn’t let her also go into battle.

But if she was the fourth, and I denied it, then my group would never succeed. We would never win, and the balance of power between the Order and the Rebellion would come crashing down. And I would continue to be the thing I feared I was: a weapon one side could use against the other. Nothing more.

Was there a way to find out? I had been able to make myself have a vision on the roof of the school, when I’d found Aaron. Could I do it again? Could I make myself see if Earth was the one I’d been looking for?

I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to decide anything just then.

But maybe it was better to know, and protect her—than to not know, and risk putting her in even greater danger.

I closed my eyes, and I let the room fall away and the Sight overtake me.

The familiar fog rolled in off the ocean. Thick and white, making it hard for me to see more than a foot in front of me. I had been here before—in my visions, at least. As my eyes adjusted, I realized I was on a huge black-sand beach. The fog misted out with the ocean tide, lapping against the shore. Breathing in. Breathing out.