Change [Book 1 of The Elemental Marks]

Chapter 10

Back inside the Institute for Benders, Brother Hirah looked about ready to leave, feeling he served his purpose. Lina felt otherwise, as she really hadn't been asked about anything but her Mark. The topic of faeries hadn't come up at all, meaning there must've been nothing to tell there. Or maybe nothing they wanted to tell. Neither was good in Lina's eyes.

"What should we do until you get more information?" Damian asked the brother.

Perhaps start on Lina's training, so that she can bend without any coaching, he suggested. Lina wasn't sure Silent Brothers were capable of being sassy, but Hirah was certainly close.

"Will do," Damian agreed, still fully serious. He showed the Brother out while the benders stayed behind. For some reason, Lina half expected this to be the point where the crazy initiations started, marking her as a real bender. She had done everything to prove it, right?

That was not what happened. Instead, the four sat in a relative silence, no one saying much of anything.

"I feel like I didn't get any of the answers I expected," Lina finally said.

No one tried to argue this, like she expected. "They'll get around to it eventually. It'll probably take time," Wyatt explained.

Alia rolled her eyes, sliding onto the couch. "Time isn't the issue."

Carson, ignoring both of them, looked only at Lina and asked, "Were at least some of them answered? Maybe I can help with the gaps in between."

Lina was pleasantly surprised by this offer. Carson, the near master, was volunteering to tell her things, so she was going to jump at that chance. She felt like she needed to pull out a list.

"I'll give you some easy ones," she offered. "How about bending, could you tell me how it works?"

Carson grinned in a teasing way. "You call that easy?" He took a moment before answering, the smile morphing into a more thoughtful look. "I think I might need to show you."

A smile to match crept on Lina's mouth. "Come with me outside?"

The moment of silence between her question and his response was just long enough to make her wonder if he knew what she was referencing, if he saw the intenseness in her eyes was meant to mimic his own upon their first meeting.

But then he smiled, wide, and asked, "Who do you steal your pickup lines from?"

Lina started out the door, wondering whether she should deny that it was a pickup line or not. She stepped into the training room, then said, "Only the best."

Carson chose to set himself up in one of the matted corners of the room. Lina followed, leaning against the wall attached to the house so he had plenty of space for his demonstration.

He took a deep breath, glanced quickly at Lina, and then focused forward again. "I've already told you the basics," he said as his feet shifted into position. "You need to move your body like the element would move. A waterbender needs to be graceful and fluid."

"And what about you, Airbender?" she questioned, watching at he shifted his arms around, moving them in slow, windmill circles. She could almost see the air starting to react at the movements, following him.

"I need to act like the wind is carrying me, not the other way around." Carson shifted his footing, and the air followed as he adjusted his body. Swoops of air blew around his arms, his feet, his hair. It made him look about as dramatic as a model posing in front of a fan.

Whatever he was doing now, it wasn't any sort of attack. Nothing in the room stirred or threatened to break. "In one of the early books, someone gave key words for each of the elements, as a sort of reminder of how we control them. The word for air is freedom."