1
Magic fueled the storm that raged across the land. Ridley Kayne, wrapped in her own magic and invisible as air, looked out across the bare landscape beneath the swirling mass of clouds and imagined a city as she mentally ran through every step of the plan.
We’re going to return magic to society.
It had been two weeks since Nathan first uttered those words to Ridley, but the idea still sent adrenaline racing through her. They were simple words, yet their meaning was staggering. World-changing. Thrilling and terrifying. And Ridley was one hundred percent on board.
The earth shuddered around her. Cracks split the ground, zigzagging away in all directions. This was step one: Break apart the arxium machines buried in the wastelands around the city. Elementals in their earth form were now charging through the ground, causing the earth to tremble and heave. All that arxium gas from the broken machines would end up in the air, and until it dissipated, magic would rampage in response. Hence the wild storm roaring above.
Step two: the fractures splitting their way through the earth raced toward a single point. They would converge upon the city. The arxium-reinforced wall would tremble and crack. It would begin to come apart.
Step three: Burn, burn, burn. Ridley watched as elementals morphed from the earth into racing, leaping flames. Another thrill of excitement rushed through her at the memory of the conversation she’d had with Nathan the night he explained his plan. “Arxium repels magic,” Ridley had argued. “Even if we throw all the magic we have at the walls and panels, the arxium will just throw it right back at us.”
Nathan had given her a bemused smile. “Ridley, you burned through a Shadow Society base outside of Lumina City. A building full of arxium. You destroyed that place. I thought you would have realized.”
“Realized what?”
“Ordinary fire doesn’t burn arxium. Even magical fire created by an ordinary person pulling magic from the environment can’t burn through arxium. But we can. In our elemental fire form, we can burn through arxium.”
We can burn through arxium.
Ridley watched as the blazing elemental flames raced toward one another, meeting up to form a giant circle. This circle would burn through the broken pieces of the city wall. The fire was captivating, mesmerizing. But Ridley didn’t have long to appreciate the beauty of the flames because the storm calming above her meant that step four was about to begin. The step where she played a part.
There was a dome-like shield of arxium panels above the city, protecting everything and everyone from the magic that often raged overhead. Like the wall, those panels had to go. Ridley raced across the ground, morphed into flames, and shot into the sky as a ball of fire. Nearby, other elementals did the same.
Since there were no real arxium panels out here, several people down below used conjurations to hurl branches high into the air. Ridley’s fireball self struck the nearest branch, then leaped to the next and the next and the next, setting as many ablaze as she could. Around her, other elementals did the same, until the air was filled with burning branches tumbling back toward the earth. It wasn’t a competition, she knew, but when she saw that her fire form leaped faster from branch to branch than any of the others, it spurred her on to try even harder.
No, not to try. That had always been the problem. This wasn’t about control, it was about trust. Trusting the elements to know how she wanted to direct them without having to consciously exert her will. She simply had to let go.
Ridley imagined a deep, long exhale of breath as she released all control. She let her elemental form drift apart while holding a single thought in her mind: Burn.
Her fire self blazed outward in an explosion of flames, catching on almost every remaining branch that was yet to be lit. Someone else ignited the remaining few branches, and that was it. Step four complete.
The branches continued to burn as they struck the ground far below, but the arxium panels would be consumed by elemental fire. If all went according to plan, the end result would be this: No wall. No hovering panels. Sun shining through the scattering storm clouds because the arxium gas would have been dispersed by the raging wind, leaving the city safe. Exactly the way it was before the Cataclysm.
Ridley shifted to air and swooped down. She released her elemental form and became human shaped, feeling the grassy ground beneath her shoes. “Well done!” someone called from behind her. As other elementals stepped from the air and morphed out of the earth, Ridley turned to face Saoirse. She clutched her gray-streaked auburn hair in one hand as the last of the wind died down. “We’re getting better,” she said, smiling at Ridley. “You’re getting better. I think we could actually pull this off.”
“Except for the fact that we need to do this on about ten times the scale,” Ridley reminded her. “Maybe more? I don’t know. And the fact that Nathan wants it to be one big synchronized event for every city across the whole world, and he first has to get everyone to agree on that.”
“It’ll happen eventually,” Saoirse said. “Some people just need a little more time to see that the life we have now isn’t enough. And you know there are plenty more of us here at the reserve who will join in when we do this for real. Our target city—Lumina City—is big, but I think we can handle it.”
“I know, I know. Bria said she’s practiced this a dozen times, and so have many of the others. I understand they’re not interested in running through it all again just because Malachi and I are new to the whole plan. But … even with most elementals from our community joining in, do you think we’ll have enough power?”
Saoirse seemed unconcerned, her gaze never wavering from Ridley’s. “I believe we’ll have enough power.”
Ridley bit her lip. Part of her didn’t want to get her hopes up, especially when she knew some people were vehemently opposed to Nathan’s plan. They didn’t think it was worth the risk when they were happy with the life they’d fashioned for themselves out here in the wastelands. But Saoirse knew this community and its people far better than Ridley did. If she thought some of them just needed a little more time to come around, she was probably right.
Ridley’s gaze slid past Saoirse to the jagged mountain peak that rose behind her. Beyond it lay her new home, a place simply referred to by its occupants as the reserve. The area had once been part of an enormous national park before the Cataclysm destroyed much of the world. In a way, the piece of land served the same function it had served in pre-Cataclysm days, but instead of preserving a section of the countryside and its wildlife, it now preserved a group of people. “Shall we head back with the others?” she asked.
“Let’s walk for a bit,” Saoirse suggested. She strode a few paces away and bent to retrieve her knitted, rainbow-striped sweater from where she’d secured it beneath a rock. Like Ridley’s favorite hooded jacket—which she’d lost inside the Shadow Society building she’d burned to the ground—this sweater seemed to be the only one Saoirse ever wore. If she lived in a city instead of out here where it was safe, Ridley would have told her to choose a different favorite sweater. This one was far too easy to spot from a distance.
“Are we having another lesson?” Ridley asked. A few days after her arrival at the reserve, Saoirse had offered to help her with her magic. Dad must have mentioned that she hadn’t fully embraced her power until recently, and that using it for an extended period often resulted in horrendous headaches. Fortunately, the latter no longer happened, which probably had something to do with her being able to transform without guilt or fear and the subconscious stress that accompanied those emotions.