Element Rebirth

17. Falling into Place

“I don’t normally snitch on slaves but you looked really suspicious and all the slaves were supposed to be in their huts after the explosion.”

“Are you some goody-two-shoes or something?” Nellie blurted out, staring wide-eyed at the fair-headed boy. “Why would you sell us out? You’re the only ones who saw us.”

“Whatever you were doing in that hole, if it happened to affect the rest of us then I should just hand you in before we all suffer,” he threatened, narrowing his eyes. “You look too young to remember that time when some slaves tried to escape and everybody got whipped - and I was five at the time. I’m not letting that happen to me because of some stupid slaves.”

“Stupid?” I hissed, unable to help myself. “Are you kidding me?”

“Stupid,” he confirmed, lifting an eyebrow. “So give me one good reason why -”

“Do you want to suffer forever or for all of this to end?” Nellie inquired, butting in before I had the chance to let out a single sound from my mouth.

I gave her a sharp stare, making sure she caught onto the curtest shake of my head.

Zane didn’t seem to notice but he gave Nellie a dubious look. “What are you on about?”

“Don’t you want all of this to end?” she repeated, making odd gestures with her hands. “The slavery, the torture, the fear.”

His jaw hardened. I watched his green eyes darken slightly, a slight contortion in the contours of his face yet before I could properly register it, he snapped back to the suspicious expression he wore and narrowed his eyes. “It’s not just me.”

“Of course,” Nellie reassured him, a determined look in her eyes.

I angled myself towards her so that Zane couldn’t see me but my friend fully well could. I begged her with wide, pleading eyes to look at me and make sure that she wasn’t about to blow our cover when -

“What if there was a chance that all this suffering could end?” she countered, lowering her voice and let her eyes dart around to make sure the coast was fully clear.

We were in some sort of little hut surrounded by the raw stench of cleaning detergent and equipment not to mention numerous sacks that released a putrid smell. I don’t know how but miraculously enough, I found the will not to retch.

“It can’t.”

“It can,” Nellie argued softly, letting her hands fall to her sides and gave Zane a deadpanned look. “What if I told you -”

“Nell!”

“- that the Element Guardians still existed? That there was still a chance?” She didn’t once look at me and that was when I decided to shuffle towards the door.

“Nellie we’re leaving. Look Zane, I’m sorry for -”

“The Guardians,” he breathed silencing me. I froze, watching his every move very carefully. His green eyes darted towards me then back to Nellie questioningly. “You believe they’re real?”

“Of course -”

“Enough!” Nellie was trusted with this secret, our sneaky plan and she was practically spilling our secret weapon to some guy we didn’t even know. “Nellie we are leaving.”

“Can’t you tell, Terra? I can feel the magic in this shed right now.” Nellie turned to give me a reassuring smile which I refused to return, narrowing my eyes at her. What on earth was she talking about? “It’s okay. We know and you don’t have to hide it from us.”

Zane stared at her like she was insane but slowly, that mask of disbelief he wore peeled away, revealing a relieved and almost desperate expression. “You know.”

“Know what?” I demanded, very darn confused. “What’s going on? Nell? Is he some long-lost brother?”

“No, Terra, look.”

I didn’t know where or what to look at but instantly my eyes were drawn to a flickering beam of silver, a sore sight to see in the dimly lit shed. My eyes bulged out of their sockets as my legs carried me almost automatically towards the guy. “You - you - how -”

“Just like Kate, we had no idea where it was and neither did Kyle,” Nellie muttered, seemingly more to herself than aloud but what she said was right.

“Maybe she just wanted us to do some stuff on our own,” I murmured thoughtfully. After all, she would be breaking too many of these unknown ‘rules’ if she aided us every single step of the way, wouldn’t she?

“It’s complete.”

“Eh?”

“Complete,” Nellie stressed the word out with a slight smile on her face. “All the Guardians are found, all the Crystals. All there’s left to do is -”

“Practise,” I finished for her with a growing smile on our face, despite that the dragons weren’t that far from where we hid. “Zane, welcome to -”

“Hold on, what’s going on? I know there’s something up with you two.”

“If we told you who the other Guardians are, would that keep you from turning us in?” I asked carefully, eyeing his reaction.

“Yeah of course, but why does it seem so important to you? Why is it important to any of us?”

“The Elements are the core powers of our realm,” I explained, happy that Nellie no longer had any more information to offer him, in case Zane may still be a threat to us though it looked like he wouldn’t be. “And the Hunters need it to get out of this place.”

His brow furrowed as he ran a hand through his fair, grabbing a fistful of it and exhaled sharply. “Why not give it to them? Since it sounds like you have the rest of the elements, why not give them up? They’ll leave us alone at last.”

“No, they’ll just terrorise other realms probably just as innocent as ours,” I argued before Nellie could steal my line. “We can’t let that happen. We should stop them right here, right now on earth and free everybody as well.”

“That’s a death wish -”

“If they get their hands on these they’ll be even more powerful, they’ll kill us and all that would have been for nothing.”

Oddly enough, Zane remained quiet. He didn’t even bother talk back and by the look on his face, he was thinking about my little punch line, something that had been difficult to drill into Kate’s head and morals.

After several long, silent agonising moments, he spoke with words that rang like music to my ears, “I’ve been having dreams lately, weird ones. Some woman keeps coming to me and telling me that I should be prepared. I don’t know how or why - don’t even ask me - but I feel like . . . like this is what I’m supposed to be ready for.”

He met Nellie’s dark eyes then gave me a questioning look. “You’re one, aren’t you?” With a curt nod, he turned to my friend. “And what about you?”

“Oh, I’m so not qualified for the element business,” she joked weakly, patting down her unruly curls and twiddled her thumbs agitatedly. “Now that we’ve established a little treaty, can we get out of here? Need I remind you of the dragons?”

No, she didn’t. Like a single voice had rang through our minds, we’d zipped our lips and Zane had led the way.

My head was still spinning at the fact that we’d found the fourth elemental guardian by pure chance and that all the pieces were falling into place. I just hoped that within the next month or so, everything would be set in the right place at the right time.