Flame Touch

Chapter 26-Sunny

By the time we got to the containment cells, my feet were aching.

At first I had stared in awe of the earthen cell in the surrounding snow. Long stone pillars rose from the floor to support a long dirt roof and more stone pillars acted as bars like a cage. Semba explained that since Capricorn was a Terra colony, he could kinda do cool things like that.

Now all I wanted to do was get out of the prison. A prison. That’s what it was.

For what might have been the fiftieth time, I glanced at Capricorn. No, not because I was goggling at him, but because of his aura. When I looked at him with my “vision” I saw a dark light around his right wrist and an odd white that was tinged with the yellow around the other. I had only seen this effect in people who belonged to the Libra colony, so naturally I was curious. He was wearing a black woolen sweatshirt with khaki dress pants and his short hair swept up at the front and-

Ok, ok. Maybe I might have been goggling a few times. But you can’t blame me!

Anyway, after what might have been an eternity (or five minutes, who knows?) Caprin finally walked up to us. He let out a puff of air and held out his hands, “Ok, which one of you is it?” he said in a bit of a condescending tone, and he was met with two confused faces and one face that looked like it wanted to punch someone’s teeth out.

That was Knox, by the way.

He took a look at our expressions and sighed, “Which one of you is it?” he repeated, “Which one of you can read,” he pulled out a piece of old parchment, “this?” he asked, his tone even more condescending now.

We continued to stare at him.

“Oh please don’t tell me you came all the way to Mount Everest to get a piece of paper without even knowing how to read it!”

I think we confirmed that with our first couple of confused stares so he started talking in a very slow voice, “Alright. Let me e x p l a i n. One of you,” he pointed slowly to each of us, “has got complete balance with their elements and only they can read the paper. So, which. One. Of. You. Is. It?”

Knox. I thought desperately. It’s got to be Knox. I kept my face in what I hoped would be a confused expression, but then Caprin directed his gaze towards me.

“You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?” he whispered grinning, “I can see it in your eyes.” He broke eye contact and I swear that if he didn’t do so a second earlier, Knox would have put an arrow through him, bow or no bow. “Well, it’s too bad that it doesn’t matter whether you want to tell me or not, because I can just find out myself.” His green eyes started glowing a pale yellow and he looked at each of us before finally pointing at Knox.

“Found you.”

I couldn’t help but stare. He was using the vision. The Libra’s vision. I was so deep in my thoughts that I didn’t see Knox being dragged out of the room and two girls standing over her laughing.

He’s Libra? But that doesn’t make any sense if he’s Capricorn because Capricorn is from a Terra colony. But then it makes perfect sense because that would explain the yellow light in his aura. But then it doesn’t make any-argh! This is difficult!

I finally snapped back to reality when I heard a whoop of triumph. I looked out of the cell and saw Knox on the ground grinning at two girls. One had bouncy blond pig tails and the other had sleek black hair. They looked completely opposite, but the same. I knew that if I used my vision, their aura would be similar. Caprin raised an eyebrow at Knox’s laughter.

“You lose bleach hair! These girls you have here aren’t your friends! They’re mine. Stella! Stella! Thank goodness you found us, can you get us out of here by putting your hand on fire or something? And who’s that next to you your sister, Lunar? Great! The more the merrier!”

But the girl Knox was talking to did not move and kept a ridiculously creepy smile plastered on her face.

“Er, Stella? You in there?” Knox asked tentatively as Stella walked towards Knox without changing her expression and then looked straight at her as her expression changed.

“We’re not your friends.” She whispered and the movement of her hand was so quick that I barely saw it in the dimly lit space, but I heard the sickening crunch as her flesh met Knox’s face. I Semba yell her name as cold, ringing laughter came from the girl Knox had called Stella.

“Stupid girl,” the girl continued to whisper, “Don’t you know who I am?” The other girl, her twin sister perhaps, started talking at the same time as they said in unison, “I am Gemini, the constellation of unity and power and we serve none but our own cause. Now get up scum, and read to us the words of Libra!” another crunch followed and through the bars of the cage, I saw Caprin holding a blank sheet of old parchment as he stood over Knox’s kneeling figure and Knox gave him the middle finger salute as she received another kick to the stomach.

My thoughts were going into overboard, I looked at Semba and saw the same hopeless expression staring back at me. I doubled back when the whole cave lit up in an orange glow and a terrible scream followed. What I saw made me lose my breath.

The Stella girl was on one side and Lunar was on the other as fire and ice hit Knox from two sides from the neck down. The wind picked up from the temperature difference and Caprin was shoving that stupid paper in front of Knox’s face and she was screaming, screaming, screaming…

I felt someone grab my hand and was about to lash out when I saw who it was.

“What do we do?” I asked Semba desperately and for the first time since we found the boy in the ice, he smiled.

“We’re getting out of here.”