gutted by the fire, the skeletal remains charred and smoldering. So many memories. So many stories. I closed my eyes and felt for Cressida, not surprised when she didn’t come to me.

I walked down the cement path that bisected the main lawn and led to the grassy round where Cressida’s statue stood proudly in the center. At least they hadn’t destroyed it. Placing my hand on the bronze robes, I waited for her warmth to envelope me, her presence to calm me. The surface remained cold, and my heart pinched as I slumped against the statue. My hand slowly slid from the robes as reality sank in.

Cressida Clearwater, the founder of the academy and original prophecy, was gone.

I swallowed over and over as my breathing grew shallow. That’s it. It’s over. I can’t do this without her.

No, dammit. I refused to go down that path, give in to my fear and sorrow. I’d come too far to give up. I needed to let that shit go. I didn’t have time to mourn my friend, mentor, and surrogate mother, but I would once this all ended. I couldn’t let my despair over losing her distract me from what I needed to do. I needed to channel my anger, transform my grief into fury. My focus shifted to finding Alec von Leer and making him regret ever crossing me.

And he would.

I continued to search the grounds for any sign of life. The four dorms remained standing. For now. Ventus, the large air elemental house with a yellow stripe like a ribbon. Ignis, the fire elemental castle with a red stripe resembling a ring of fire blown by a dragon around the structure. Aquae’s blue stripe still looked like it held the water elemental house together, as if without it, the building would somehow melt away and escape to the nearest body of water.

And just as I’d felt the first time seeing them, none of them held a candle to Terrae.

It still looked like an old inn that time had forgotten. The vines crawling up the outside were constantly shifting, every so often sprouting a new leaf to cover a part of the earth elemental house not already choked out by the foliage.

As I passed by Aquae, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. A very distinctive head of luscious brunette locks swayed back and forth as the owner quickly ushered a large group of magically enhanced elementals into the house through the back. Vanessa’s involuntary entourage had grown. Unbelievable. She had enough of what Alec called elemental sidekicks now to start her own uprising. Selfish bitch.

I stormed over and snuck in behind them, following them through Aquae’s common room. I never thought I’d step foot back inside this house and hated everything about it, from the boring common room to the dorm room that’d been my first home here at the academy. I was just about to remove my crystal to make sure she saw me before I beat the snot out of her for thinking she had the right to treat MEs like they were second-class citizens when she said something that froze me in my tracks.

“You guys stay quiet. If any Council members hear you, you’ll be back in Carcerem with the rest of the MEs, and I’ll be right there with you.”

“Why are you doing this?” Anna, one of the elementals I’d followed the last time I was here, spoke up.

“Yeah,” Jacob, her buddy, added. “You’ve never been nice to us.”

“Because you shouldn’t be forced to wait on pures, and you don’t deserve to be locked away for standing up for yourselves, to want to live free.”

“You made me do your homework,” Jacob pointed out.

Vanessa fluffed her hair as she regarded him. “I made you do a paper on the history of the school. Did you know anything about Cressida Clearwater before that?”

He closed his mouth and shook his head.

“What about me?” Anna spoke up. “You made me do your laundry.”

To this, Vanessa simply shrugged and said nothing. So the ice queen hadn’t gone completely Mother Teresa. She still had a streak of selfishness in her.

“Which of you are air elementals?” Several hands went up. “Can you teleport? Good. Those who can’t, partner up with someone who can. We have to find another way out now that they have the tunnels blocked.”

Tunnels? What tunnels? Clearwater had tunnels? How did I not know this?

“Once we get away from the academy, I’ll take you to Katy Reed.”

The crowd gasped. A tall skinny girl with square glasses thrust out her chin. “It’s illegal to say her name.”

Vanessa regarded her with, dare I say, kindness in her eyes. I barely recognized the gesture coming from someone known as the ice queen. “It’s also illegal to take a stand against the Council. You want to know why? Because they’re scared. Katy doesn’t deserve to be an elemental enemy just because she won’t back down. She’s done nothing but protect this world, and what has the Council done to thank her? They tried to lock her up, to silence her so everyone will fall back in line. I, for one, won’t allow their fear to rule me, not anymore. Katy wouldn’t let their fear rule her from the first day she arrived in our world.”

Holy fartnarker. Did Vanessa Graves just defend me? Will wonders never cease?

“Is it true the Council found Sentry?” a fire elemental asked. I remembered him from his first tribunal, the one where Stace had incorrectly declared his primary.

“I heard they not only found them, but they killed everyone, including her.”

“If they killed her and destroyed her army, where will we go?”

“Without Sentry, we’re doomed.”

The rest of them began spouting panic-induced paranoia. Vanessa brought up her hands to silence them. “Stop. Let’s just get away from the academy and go from there. Okay? I told you I’d get you to safety. That’s what I’m going to do. If Sentry really is gone, we’ll figure out something else.”

That wasn’t what

Вы читаете Fury of Earth
Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату