Amelia Atwater-Rhodes - Promises to Keep

“Shantel!” Xeke called, striding forward. “This is a foolish battle.”

The elemental turned to him, and the felines moved closer, snarling, until the rumble of the earth threw Jay and Brina to the ground. Only as he fell did Jay realize that Xeke’s form was shimmering, as overwhelming to behold as the possessed sakkri herself.

One of Xeke’s progenitors has a bond to an earth elemental called Leshan , Rikai had said. I was able to partially block Xeke’s connection to Leona and tighten his bond to Leshan .

By bringing Xeke into this place, they had allowed more than just a vampire to breach the Shantel’s defenses.

“Leshan,” Shantel demanded. “Why have you ridden your bond into my territory?”

“Shantel,” Xeke replied, his voice deeper now, his form changing to the golden and green of summer trees. “This bond’s body is fading. I can preserve him for a time, but not the way Leona could. He will die. In that way, you have killed many of my bonds. Did you expect me not to respond?”

“I have meddled with no one not tainted by the fire,” Shantel replied. The cats near her raised their hackles.

“We have had a truce with Leona for millennia,” Xeke—or Leshan now—said. “You know this!”

“Truce?” The day became darker as the forest canopy inexplicably thickened, covering the Shantel courtyard. “That truce ended when my sakkri was destroyed by those bound to Leona—and you, Leshan, among others. Jeshickah’s trainers fed many of you, didn’t they? Fed you in the flesh and blood of my people!”

Out of the forests came serpents with bodies of sand and jaguars whose heavy footfalls left behind smoldering ash. From the canopy came birds made of vibrating light, brilliant against the darkening night sky, their wings making a crystalline ringing sound as they struck the air. Looking at them made Jay’s eyes water and his body ache. When he finally forced himself to turn away, he saw that Rikai too had changed in the last few minutes. Jay wasn’t certain what power had ridden her into this place, but it made every hair on the back of his neck rise. Earth, air, fire, and water were neutral elemental powers. The one Rikai had brought was mad and dark and hungry.

Her oil-slick eyes had become vortexes. In a voice like nothing he had ever heard, she said to him, “You want to run now.”

Jay grabbed Brina’s hand and called to Lynx, and they nearly flew over the wall. Behind them, he felt heat and concussion as the immortal powers collided. He could hear the hiss of snow vaporizing and—

Brina screamed as they stumbled into a solid mass of branches.

Can’t go that way , he thought to her.

They turned, but they both knew the truth; the forest was trying to hold them here.

“Shantel has bonded itself to you,” a voice on the wind said. One of the other elementals had diverted its attention enough to speak to them. “When it keeps you close, it is stronger. You must get out so we can contain it. Get far away—back to your home, if you can. From neutral ground, you can summon Shantel. You are not strong enough to bind it to your will, but if you call to us as well, we will assist you.”

How?

There was a long hesitation, and a mournful cry.

“Betrayal to tell you this,” the voice said, “but there is no other choice.”

What followed was not words but an expression of power. Within the power was a name—one that mortal vocal cords could never utter aloud, for it was the true name of one of the immortals. With this name, the immortal could be commanded if one’s will was strong enough. And then came knowledge of the ritual they needed to perform.

“Why would you help us?” Jay gasped as he ran, wary of making yet more deals with immortal beings. No, that wasn’t the right question. “Why do you need us to help you fight? We’re just mortal.”

“Shantel has crippled us all through its sly feeding all these years, and now it would destroy us in its mad quest for impossible vengeance,” the elemental replied. “ We are too weak to overpower it unless it is summoned and bound.”

“But—”

“I do not know what this will do to you,” the power warned. “Such binding is unpredictable. The ritual could drain the power from every creature in your circle, or grant them immortal life … or grant them immortal hunger. There is no way of knowing until it is done. But it must be done. Now go!”

The wind shoved hard at their backs, blowing shards of stone and earth at them and nearly knocking Jay off his feet.

This way! Lynx yowled at them. No, no, not there. Close your eyes, humans , Lynx howled. Ignore these illusions. Follow me. Trust me .

Jay closed his eyes without hesitation. Brina, too, shut hers and threw her senses into the lynx.

Blindly, they ran. Cold and exhausted, they forced their bodies to move, and keep moving.

At times they fell, and their bodies slept deeply. Lynx commanded Jay’s power to keep them from freezing.

When at last they stumbled out of the woods, they could do nothing more than climb into the car. Too exhausted to drive, Jay dialed his phone with trembling hands and begged someone from the closest SingleEarth to pick them up and arrange for the fastest transport possible back to Haven #2.

Then they slept, but could not rest, because their dreams were still twined with the elementals’ thoughts, and they both dreamed of the ongoing battle.

They wept as they saw what was happening to the world around them. An off-season hurricane. Abrupt, unexpected blizzards, dropping snow and sleet and hail and freezing rain. In another area, wildfire. A volcano came to life, rumbling out of its centuries of sleep. As the earth shook, buildings tumbled.

These poor creatures , Brina thought. So helpless, so frightened .

Jay needed to hold her. She let him, and they continued to sleep.

“WE’RE AT NUMBER Two,” an exhausted human voice said, rousing Brina, who was still wrapped in Jay’s arms. She hadn’t wanted to let go of him as they had stumbled, semiconscious, from a car to a plane to another car, with people asking desperate questions but finally just accepting Jay’s often-repeated statement that they had to get back to Haven #2.

What Brina had seen in her nocturnal visions swept over her and dragged a sob from her throat. Thousands—no, hundreds of thousands—of humans must have died in the last twenty-four hours. Those who believed called to their gods for explanations and help.

The humans were not alone.

Some of Leona’s bonds had succumbed to the siphoning away of their power, or to human ailments such as pneumonia, or to physical frailties such as heart attack and stroke. Some of the other elementals that had come to fight Shantel were trying to support Leona’s damaged bonds, but they could do only so much.

Jay stirred with a moan, and then pushed himself up, groping for the car door handle so groggily that they both nearly fell when it opened.

“We need a blade,” Brina said. She remembered everything the powers in the forest had told them, and she did not intend to hesitate.

She saw Jay seeking out specific faces in the crowd, but neither delayed their task. They both snapped commands to nurses and secretaries. Shouting over the protests, they had the ill in the gymnasium moved, until the group could form a rough circle around the outside of the room.

“Take hands,” Jay said to those surrounding him—sick and well, human, witch, and shapeshifter alike. “If the person you are next to cannot grip, then hold on to them as tightly as you can. We cannot break the circle. Is that understood?”