The Chilling Change Of Air (Elemental Awakening, Book 3) (24 page)

"We're all pretty much in the dark. We just know an
Aether
comes along at a time of great need. We've figured out that it's in a time of Elemental imbalance."

Mark looked at the destruction evident just in our little piece of the world. "You could say that," he agreed. "Have they told you about any
Aether
from the past?"

"No. Just that there had been. One chosen from an
Ekmetalleftis
already born."

Mark nodded, but I don't think it was in agreement. It just didn't have that type of conviction to it. Seemed more a movement for the sake of moving and nothing else.

"What do you know?" I asked, when he didn't say anything.

"Well," he said, lifting his face to the raindrops again, as though he couldn't help himself. "I know that an Alchemist has been one before."

My mouth fell open.

"No way!" I breathed out.

"Yes way," came his typical reply. "A very long time ago when Alchemists and
Athanatos
worked together."

"They didn't work with the
Athanatos
, they took whatever knowledge they could get and then abused it."

"Some did, yeah," Mark conceded. "And then things kind of went downhill. But at one stage the Alchemists worshipped
Aetheros
."

"That's bullshit," I exclaimed. "They worshipped the power they could get from the Elements. Furthering their own kind at the detriment of the
Ekmetalleftis
."

"Look," Mark said, breaking into my tirade. "There are two sides to every story, right? Mistakes were made by everyone concerned, but what I do know, is that at some time in the past we were all one happy family. The
Athanatos
: The children of
Aetheros
. The Alchemists: The followers of
Aetheros'
religion."

"How do you know it's true? It could all be Alchemist propaganda."

"How do you know what the
Athanatos
think is not a form of brainwashing by their elders?" he shot back.

And oh, there was a ring of truth to those words. Hadn't Aktor said, when we first learned that I was an
Aether
, that their education was incomplete? Potentially done on purpose by the council members.

I stared out into the rain and let that thought sink in. I didn't like the feel of it.

"So, what you're saying is... what exactly?" I finally asked.

Mark held his hand out and started catching raindrops in his cupped palm.

"What I'm saying, Case, is there was a time when Alchemists served the
Athanatos
because they believed them to be the children of a god."

"They are the children of a god," I whispered, as the water started to dance in his hand. I couldn't tell if that was just the force with which it fell, or if he was attempting to reach the
Stoicheio
he normally could tap into
.

"Yes," he replied steadily. "Just like the Alchemists were once followers of
Aetheros
. And part of their role was to record history, preserve it, and when it repeated itself be there to guide the
Athanatos
to the other side."

"Alchemists are some sort of religious guides?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Without which the
Ekmetalleftis
will not be able to ride out this storm, this new Genesis and whatever else comes," Mark concluded.

Then his eyes flashed briefly ice blue, immediately paling, as he collapsed to the ground, frothing at the mouth and gurgling through a torrent of water as it poured out between his bluing lips.

I screamed. It was instinctive. A loud, high-pitched, frightened call for help. And then my body kicked into gear. Turning Mark onto his side, slapping his back in an effort to get the water that was drowning him out of his lungs. It poured out over the dirt between the raised roots, pooling in an ominous puddle before his slack mouth.

"What happened?" Theo shouted as he ran from the new front door towards where I worked on Mark. Nico hot on his trail.

My eyes flicked back to the limp form before me, not bothering to waste time answering Theo. The water had stopped flowing, but my brother wasn't breathing.

Unlike an
Athanatos
an Alchemist is still human, just a little hardier, a little longer lived, and able to steal Elements from time to time. I was sure without breathing, though, he would die.

I checked for a pulse, thankfully finding a thready one in his neck, and leaned down to offer mouth-to-mouth.

"Bloody hell," Theo exclaimed when he saw what I was doing and realised what exactly was going on. He fell to his knees opposite as Nico stood above us and watched on.

"Check his chest," Nico suggested after several fraught moments.

I pulled back and waited to see if Mark's chest inflated. It took only a second, but it felt like a lifetime. A shallow indrawn breath.

"Thank God," I said, falling back on my butt utterly shaken.

"Let's get him inside," Theo suggested, moving to take his shoulders as Nico gripped Mark's legs. "And you had better be ready to explain yourselves," he shot at me over Mark's still unconscious body, determination and anger mixing with disappointment and concern.

It was a strange combination of emotions to see across his handsome face, because although the anger should have been the one I most hated, it was the disappointment that really made me feel like crap.

I followed behind them, past a frantic Sonya and worried looking Aktor, towards the room Isadora had just vacated. I watched from the far side of the space as Theo and Nico placed my brother down on the mattress, and then Nico escaped out of the door without making any eye contact.

Leaving me alone with an irate
Athanatos
.

"OK," Theo said softly, deadly softly. "Explain."

My eyes stayed glued to Mark's chest, watching it rise and fall rhythmically, deeper now than before. I couldn't look Theo in the face. I hadn't broken my promise. I hadn't. But somehow I'd scared him half to death anyway.

"Mark wanted to reach Water," I said in a whisper, my voice cracking slightly at the thought of my brother drowning.

My knees suddenly gave out and I only just made it a chair in the corner of the room before collapsing. Theo remained where he stood, watching impassively from beside Mark's silent form. There'd be no brotherly intervention to protect me from Theo's rage this time.

I hadn't realised how normal that had felt. Mark and me against the world, like it had been growing up.

"It almost killed him," I said through trembling lips. "A
Stoicheio
he'd used before turned against him." I couldn't get my head around it.

"Do you realise now why I didn't want you doing this?" Theo asked quietly.

I nodded, unable to voice a reply.

Theo sighed but still didn't approach. "Cassandra, I understand your desire to reconnect, we all feel it. But the consequences are too grave."

"I know that now," I mumbled.

"But it had to take your brother being harmed for that to happen. You couldn't see what had transpired with Isadora and leave it there. You had to keep pushing."

"I get it," I offered, numbly.

"You're an intelligent woman," Theo went on, and I realised he might be on a rant himself. I leaned back in the chair and closed my eyes, but I could only see Mark drowning behind my lids. "I can't comprehend why you insist on being so stubborn. Any other sane person would have taken one look at Isadora and realised the futility of what you and Mark just did."

"I realise it now," I murmured, feeling lost and alone and impotent.

"You insist on doing things your own way," Theo continued, ignoring my utter capitulation in this. "You forget we have far more experience, have lived far longer, and therefore, more often than not, have seen it all before. Yet you refuse to take our direction."

"Have you seen this?" I asked. He wasn't listening.

"I have a right mind to tie you to our bed," - and he wasn't talking in a kinky way here - "keep you safe and away from danger, but you'd probably try to set the binds on fire or get a tree root to bust you out of prison."

I groaned. He ignored that too.

"But you know what really upsets me?" he said, voice whisper quiet all of a sudden.

My eyes opened to see where he was, the volume had made it difficult to tell if he had moved closer or not. He hadn't, he was looking down at my still out of it brother, a contemplative and resigned look on his face.

"I actually admire your spirit," he added. "I feel drawn to your resolve. I am inexplicably curious to see what you'll do next. You make me feel so very young again. And it's an addiction I know I have already succumbed to. But at the same time I have never been so frightened in all my vast years to be attracted to a woman before. This need, it is beyond normal, it is definitely not what I would call healthy. I can't explain it, I just know that I would die if you did. And I would lay down my life to save yours."

His eyes finally came up to hold my gaze, intense hazel stared back at me. The look one I would have normally expected to see in gold. His hunger as potent as when he could reach Fire.

"I may not remember our past," he whispered in an emotion-laden rough voice. "I may not remember making you my
Thisavros
. But there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that you are. What I feel is so foreign, yet so right. And it is a part of me, deep down, that even memory loss cannot erase. You are mine, Casey Eden. Before
Pyrkagia.
During
Pyrkagia.
And now after
Pyrkagia
, you still remain mine."

I saw the truth, right there, on his stoic face, in his pleading eyes, resounding in every rasped word he spoke. Just as our
Stoicheio
were still there, but somehow cut off to us, our
Thisavros
connection was still there as well. Just cut off to us. I didn't have an answer on how to reach either, I just knew that we hadn't lost them. They hadn't been stolen or given away. They still existed.

Isadora's efforts were proof of that.

We just had to believe we'd reach them and we would.

"Do you have nothing to say?" Theo asked, his entire frame held rigid.

I looked from his tense waiting face to my brother's relaxed unconscious one, and knew no matter what, I'd be trying again. Maybe not quite so recklessly, I'd have to think of something to soften the throwback of attempting to reach a
Stoicheio
, but I
would
do it again.

Theo had got one thing very, very right. I was resolved to fix this.

But he'd also hit the nail on the head of another valid point. No matter what had happened, or would happen, we were
Thisavros
, even when we weren't.

I let a long breath of air out and pushed up from my chair, relieved my legs held my weight. Theo kept his eyes on mine as I slowly approached, looking a little like a man about to be punched in the stomach. I could tell he was holding himself taut, muscles flexed but tightly controlled, breaths all but disappeared. I think he might have even started sweating, but I was too busy drowning in the hazel that should have been gold.

I stopped just before him, head tipped back so I could look him in the face, my chest rising and falling steadily, even though it felt like I was sucking in desperate gulps of air.

"I have loved you since the moment you walked into my store," I said softly, my voice only slightly warbling. "I loved you still when you threatened to take my head." His lips twitched. "I loved you when your father held a knife to my throat and you risked your life in more ways than one to fight him for me." The lips turned down in a frown. "I loved you," I had to take a breath then, before I could go on, "when I thought you'd died trying to keep me from the
Gi
."

Pain flared in his eyes, mirroring mine.

"I continued to love you when you were thought dead," I pushed on. "It was all that got me through the
Gi
torture. I kept loving you when we were on the run from the
Basilissa
. I loved you more when we faced the
Aeras
shaman and found out just what might be in store. I loved you, completely, utterly, when we faced your father and thought Aktor had betrayed us, and you stayed so strong. I loved you throughout my time on that table in the
Rigas'
lab."

"Casey," he whispered, voice broken.

"I loved you then. I love you still. And even when you couldn't remember me, you no longer loved
me
, I loved you enough for both of us."