Elemental Hunger Read online

  He rotated the chicken again, carefully avoiding my gaze. “What I care about,” he said, standing again, “is that you’re honest with me.”

  The fire popped as the fat from the chicken dripped. I noticed that he didn’t answer my question. I narrowed my eyes, the smell of food clouding my ability to think. He stood there, unwavering.

  “Okay,” I said. “Honesty policy.”

  Adam didn’t smile. I bristled at his demeaning glare. “The policy works both ways. You totally care that I’m a girl. Have you ever met a female Firemaker before?”

  His eyes traveled from my feet to the top of my head. “You don’t look like a girl.”

  Again, he didn’t answer my question. I opened my mouth to tell him where to go, but he said, “Look, I’ll just say it. I need you to survive. Together, we might be able to charter a Council. I’m no saint, I’ll admit, but the last thing I want is to go back to Tarpulin.”

  “So that’s why you ran,” I said. “You recognized that sentry. He’s wearing—”

  “The Tarpulin seal, yeah. I know him. That’s Alex’s personal sentry, Felix Gillman. He’s my mentor—and my brother.”

  The silence stretched as I struggled to make sense of his words. “Mentor? As in…you were training to be a sentry? Isn’t there an Elemental school in Tarpulin?”

  “Not anymore,” Adam said, his voice flat. “Alex buried the Academy under a mountain a year ago. That’s why I left. All the schools in the southern regions have been destroyed. I’m only alive because Alex doesn’t know I’m Elemental. I’d been on the sentry track for twelve years.”

  My thoughts went straight to Cat and Isaiah. If the school in Tarpulin was buried, where had they been for the past year? Were they all right?

  “All the schools in the Southern region?” I asked.

  “Yup. I’ve been hopping from school to school, managing to escape before the flood or the earthquake. Crylon was the last school in the whole Union—and now it’s burned.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I said automatically.

  “I know. Felix did. How do you think he got here so fast? All the way from Tarpulin?”

  I didn’t know how far Tarpulin was, but I kept that to myself. “But he’s not Elemental.”

  “He can strike a match.”

  “But why?”

  He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t know much about Alex, do you?”

  Anger burned through my veins. And why did he keep calling the Supremist by his first name? Talk about disrespectful.

  “I didn’t get to attend Firemaker lessons. In case you haven’t figured it out, no one knew I was Elemental either. But I know who Supremist Pederson is. Everyone in the United Territories is afraid of him. He’s quick to punish the littlest offense.”

  “He’s also a girl,” Adam said, staring at me fully now.

  I couldn’t get enough air. My heart squeezed, squeezed. “Wh—What?”

  “Alex is a woman.” Adam enunciated each word carefully. “And she possesses all four Elements.”

  I stared at him as he peeled the blackened skin off the chicken. All four Elements? No one could control all four Elements—they couldn’t be learned, and Jarvis said they couldn’t be taken. “No way.”

  “Way, man…uh, I mean….” He stuffed some burnt chicken in his mouth so he wouldn’t have to finish that sentence.

  “I don’t believe you.” I couldn’t believe him. I mean, had she pretended to be a man her whole blazing life? Would I have to do that?

  “You can believe whatever you want. It’s the truth. I served her for six months. And girls have some…telling parts.” He passed me some meat, and the silence settled thick and heavy as we ate. But even ash tasted better with protein.

  “So if you know the Supreme Elemental is a woman, how come I didn’t know?”

  “You’re only told what your Councilman wants you to know.” He scanned my shorn hair. “Besides, she wears her hair like you and has a specially made vest to…cover herself. If you saw her in Crylon, she’d look like a man.”

  My fire roared in my head. Smoke trickled from my fingertips, and I inhaled it deeply, letting it curl in my lungs, soothe my rising fear. The Manifestation happened a couple hundred years ago, and a new Supremist was appointed every fifteen years. Our current leader was only five years into his—oops, her—appointment. Men ruled everything. Men were sentries. Men were Firemakers, Airmasters, Earthmovers. Most Councilmen chose men as their Unmanifested as well, because of the nature of the position. The Unmanifested had to ensure the Councilman’s orders were carried out, whether that was a punishment they enforced personally, or if they decided to send sentries to resolve a problem.

  Women served Elementals, or taught, or carried babies. The only societal position of power was that of Watermaiden, but even that was tamed by marriage to another Councilmember. If anyone, anywhere, found out Supremist Pederson was a woman, chaos would descend.

  “So she hides her gender,” I mused, more to myself than to Adam. “Because she doesn’t want a—”

  “Revolution.”

  I sucked in a breath, desperate for the smoke to calm my nerves as it usually did. It only served to make my thoughts race faster. I reflected back on a time when Jarvis and I walked side-by-side. I wouldn’t Manifest my Element for another two months, and the silence hung easily in the late summer air.

  “Rumor has it the Supremist journeyed clear up to Newton.” He didn’t look up from the ground. His mouth had barely moved.

  As Elemental royalty, he always heard news faster than I did. “Really? Why? And where’s Newton?”

  “It’s one of the smaller cities north of us. There was an uprising,” he’d whispered. “Crylon took in three new Firemakers, one Watermaiden and two Airmasters.”

  “No Earthmovers?”

  “All dead.”

  A twig snapped, and Jarvis spun, one hand cocked back as if to throw something.

  The trees fluttered with a gentle breeze. No one could be seen. He lowered his hand, glanced at me, and nodded me off the path. Once we’d made it deeper into the woods, he sat against a large oak tree.

  “Did the Supremist close the school?” I asked.

  “Burned it.” Jarvis plucked at a bit of bark. “Rumor is he said he didn’t want any of their ‘traitorous blood’ in the gene pool. The new Firemaker in my year hasn’t spoken a word. Won’t come out of his dorm.”

  I settled next to him, cross-legged, and listened to the wind whisper secrets to the leaves. I’d always known the Supremist was cruel, but burning an Elemental school?

  I couldn’t fathom the Supremist executing Elementals. “Sounds like a major uprising,” I said, my voice a tight fit in my throat.

  “That’s just it,” Jarvis said. “The Airmaster said it was just a misunderstanding between the Councilman and one of the female Educators.”

  I’d thought of Educator Graham. Of our discussions.

  “You need to be careful, Gabby.” Jarvis placed his hand—shockingly hot at the time—over mine. “Isn’t your Educator a woman?”

  “Yeah.” And I loved her, but she would never do anything that would remotely resemble a misunderstanding.

  Jarvis had squeezed my fingers and let go. He hadn’t said anything else.

  But now that conversation mingled with the one about the female Firemaker that had been accused of stealing another’s power. It couldn’t be the Supremist, but if exposed, she would lose her control over the United Territories. She would definitely end up dead. And she had clearly done everything required to make sure no one discovered her secret. She’d killed Elementals, buried schools. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill me, or anyone else, if that meant she could keep pretending to be a male Firemaker.

  I glanced at Adam as he ate and gazed into the fire. I didn’t trust him. What kind of guy lunges at a girl and pins her arms to her sides? He hadn’t quite held the knife to my neck, but almost.

  “For the record, I don’t
think female Elementals are all that different than males,” Adam said, turning toward me. “But the laws stem from the Manifestation.” He sounded sincere, even with that distinct edge of steel in his voice.

  “Hard to overcome two centuries of time,” I murmured, still trying to sort through my conversations with Jarvis and what a female Supremist meant for me.

  Adam left me next to the fire, thinking through what a revolution would do to the United Territories. Where I would end up when everything settled.

  His long silence caught my attention, and I turned around. He stood with his back to me, revealing a large black tattoo—a swirling mass of intricate lines arcing around an orange circle—sweeping between his shoulder blades. His muscles were tight and developed, and I stared much too long.

  I’d only seen a mark like that one other time. On Patches’s back last fall, two weeks before I’d Manifested my Element. His tears of pain were still bleeding over his face when he’d dragged himself into my dorm room.

  He’d lain on his stomach while I tended to the angry flesh between his shoulder blades. The coiling lines and orange rotating disc had looked remarkably sinister in the candlelight. “Patches…what?” I’d asked. “Is this electronic?”

  “The orange eye is,” he’d said. “It collects data and transmits information. Our individual assignments are uploaded to our personal eye.”

  I’d pressed my lips into a thin line. “Can it be removed?”

  “The mark of a sentry never goes away,” he’d wept.

  We didn’t leave the room for three days. Liz brought medication and food. Patches spoke only eleven more words. And they were, “I can’t see you anymore, Gabby. You know, sentries and girls….”

  The weight on my chest increased, pushing, pushing the air out of my life. I’d nodded, a hole widening inside. After he’d gone, I filled it with anger. With resentment. Those things never abandoned me. Never said I wasn’t good enough. Never wanted me to be more or less than what I already was.

  Adam pulled a T-shirt over his sentry mark, and I ducked my head. I tossed our chicken bones in the glowing embers and super-heated them. He dragged his bedroll across the cave and sat next to me. Close enough to be friendly, but not so close as to get stabbed.

  I reminded myself that he’s spent twelve years training to kill people.

  I remembered a lecture about sentries and Councilmen from Educator Graham. Her wizened face had held extra lines that day. “Gabriella, you question too much.”

  “But if we have a Councilman who can control fire, why does he need sentries?” I’d been thinking about Patches. About his tattoo.

  “Sentries are appointed as bodyguards.”

  I noted the way her mouth drooped when she’d said it. Her sign of a lie. “They kill people,” I said.

  Educator Graham closed her book, sighing. “Yes. Because their Councilman tells them to. The Councilman is the public figure, Gabriella. It’s his face everyone knows. It’s his charm that wins him cities, followers. He cannot simply burn everything to the ground when he’s displeased.”

  I considered her words. “So they send sentries to let the people know their…displeasure?”

  “Yes. Besides the Unmanifested member of a Council, sentries are the highest rank of the Unmanifested.” She placed one wrinkled hand over mine. “Your friend is fortunate to have been marked so early.”

  Fortunate rattled in my head. That tattoo with its winking electronic eye hadn’t looked fortunate.

  “The sentry system is another way Supremist Pederson keeps the Unmanifested from revolting.” Her words had tickled my curiosity, as she knew they would. She spoke them in a voice barely heard over the thrum of my pulse, but they ignited loud questions.

  “How?”

  Educator Graham let a bitter smile skate over her face. “He sends one Unmanifested to kill another. That way it’s not Elemental against Unmanifested, is it?”

  “Is that why girls can’t be sentries?”

  She shook her head. “Girls cannot be sentries because the Supremist has declared them unfit.”

  “He’s declared them unfit for everything,” I’d complained.

  Educator Graham cast a glance toward the locked door. “Women control the water. There has never been a male Watermaiden.”

  I laughed then, the sound real and carefree, as I imagined a man wearing a ruffled dress and singing soprano. “I’d like to see that.”

  She’d chuckled with me before the silence settled again. She always let me think until I had another question. But she spoke first this time.

  “Besides, Gabriella, most women are content with their lives.”

  Cat’s face flashed through my mind. She’d been so scared she wouldn’t get selected for a Council. Not only because she loved Isaiah, but because she knew what would happen if she didn’t get chosen at all. She didn’t mind being a wife, though that didn’t make Educator Graham’s words any less cutting.

  “Really?” I asked. “They’re satisfied being breeders? Or wives first and Watermaidens second? That’s if they get chosen to be Councilmembers at all. Otherwise they become servants, or are banished to die on the plains.”

  Educator Graham stood, her eyes focused on the door. My voice had increased in both pitch and volume. She switched her gaze to me, and I saw something truly frightening in her eyes.

  Fear.

  “Watermaidens use their power to serve their Councilmen.” Her voice did not waver.

  “But they can control water,” I argued, thinking of Cat and how I’d seen her call the moisture from the ground with a single note. “Why settle?”

  I didn’t remember what Educator Graham’s answer was. I only remember she did not show up for class the following day.

  My new Educator became Educator Ostrund. He had slick black hair and olive skin. His first rule: “Ask no questions.”

  And I knew. Just as Jarvis had hinted, Councilman Ferguson had sent his sentry to take care of Educator Graham. Unmanifested against Unmanifested.

  And I was alone again. With my endless guilt. My widening anger.

  “I don’t have anything for you to sleep on,” Adam said, interrupting the increasing wave of resentment. His tattoo screamed at me not to trust him. I reminded myself of Patches. We’d been best friends, roommates. He’d come to me when they marked him, then he’d cut me out of his life as completely as if I didn’t exist. He threw knives at me. Well, I didn’t need him either.

  I didn’t need anybody.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I answered. “This cave should hold the heat well enough.” The blackness swallowed the ceiling, leaving me to wonder how far it stretched.

  “We’ll have to leave in the morning,” he said. “Head south again. It’s too bad. Nobody in Forrester misses a chicken here and there. Tornadoes, I hate being hungry.”

  I glanced at him as he poked around in the coals with a stick. I hesitated. His shirt hid the incriminating tattoo, but not the fact that he hadn’t answered any of my questions.

  “I have some stuff,” I finally said.

  I unloaded my pockets and laid the three crunchy bars and the last can of soup on the ground. My gloves, the T-shirts, the coat, and the stocking cap joined the pile. “We can share. I…I—well, honesty policy. I need you too.”

  He rifled through my stuff before looking at me. “Your shoes look good, you’ve already got layers on. Gloves will be useful…where’re those knives?”

  I didn’t tell him about the pitiful condition of my feet, despite how good my shoes looked. I reached to my waistband. “You promise?”

  Adam didn’t blink or smile. He cleared his throat a couple of times. He could’ve been blushing, but he suddenly had something fascinating to watch in the fire, which painted his cheeks with a red glow. “You’re my Councilman, my Firemaker. From now on, I go where you go.”

  He didn’t look at me, and the cave filled with awkward silence. Making a decision I hoped I wouldn’t regret, I placed both knives in the
pile. “Okay, Airmaster. You think you can take directions from a girl?”

  His gaze raked over my hair, his eyes locked on mine. “All I see is a Firemaker.”

  I held his gaze, waiting for something that wasn’t a non-answer. I wanted to trust Adam, but it would be foolish. I mean, he was a trained sentry—already marked.

  “Besides,” he said, pushing around some coals. “Your hair looks nothing like girls I’ve seen.”

  I raised my eyebrows. A moment later he laughed, deep and clear. He would never listen to me, even if I did become a Councilman. “Really classy,” I said.

  The happiness in his gaze faded. “I’ve already pledged to serve on your Elemental Council, what else do you need?”

  “I saw your tattoo,” I blurted out. His eyes gleamed in the firelight, the way Patches’s had under those electric lights. Emotionless. Unyielding.

  He blinked, and when his eyes opened again, they held sadness. “I won’t hurt you. We’ll keep pretending you’re a boy. That’s the best way to survive until we charter our Council.”

  Another answer-that-wasn’t-really-an-answer, but I decided I didn’t care. With him, I was one step closer to the magical bond of chartering. “Sure, okay.”

  A smile brushed his lips. He picked up the knife and ran his thumb along the hilt. “We’ll head to Gregorio in the morning. I’ve heard rumors of an Unmanifested revolution there. Their Councilman doesn’t like Alex’s new educational policies very much, and he’s actually encouraging his Unmanifested to fight.”

  “You think he’ll charter my—our—Council?”

  He straightened his blanket before lying down and folding the denim over himself. “I don’t know. He’s unconventional, so he’s our best bet. We’ll talk strategy in the morning. Night…Gabe.”

  “Yeah, night,” I said, preoccupied with my own thoughts. Adam seemed willing to accept me as his Firemaker—his Councilman even—but I didn’t truly believe anyone else would.

  I sighed and spread my coat on the ground directly across from Adam. Before closing my eyes, I gave the fire a final blast of flame. I slept facing Adam. I dreamt of sentries, their spiraling tattoos, and raging tornadoes.