Elemental Rush

Chapter Three

Six months later

Chapter Three:

            I still woke before the sun, though I didn’t need to, which was saying something because in the summer, it almost felt like the sun never went down. And if it did, it certainly didn’t stay dark long enough.

            But I couldn’t re-train my body to sleep past four a.m. I’d gotten up at the ungodly hour for almost twelve years, and old habits were hard to break.

            Now that I was an active and assigned sentry, I had more privileges, one of which was that I didn’t have to workout for an hour every morning. In fact, I didn’t have to report to the Supremist until eight o’clock. Felix made sure he and I got the coveted morning shift so we could spend the afternoons filing paperwork and sparring. That was the preferred method of staying fit—fighting other sentries. We all worked five-hour shifts, with the rest of our time devoted to meetings, councils, paperwork, and sparring.

            I slipped out of bed, noting that I had slept a little later than I normally did. The first rays of light were starting to make the blackness gray. I dropped to the stone floor and put in fifty pushups before the dawn spread through my bedroom.

            Another old habit I couldn’t break. Not that I wanted to. A sentry needed to be in peak physical condition at all times, and sparring didn’t always provide the needed workout.

            I’d gotten used to the monotony of my life. Most of the time I stood outside the Supremist’s chambers. I’d been sent to Gregorio once when Supremist Pederson heard of a rebellion there among the Unmanifested.

            It turned out to be nothing. Certainly not anything the Councilman in Gregorio—a man by the name of Michael Davison—couldn’t handle himself. By the time I’d arrived with three additional sentries, he had everything under control. There’d been no evidence that a rebellion had even happened.

            I’d accompanied a newly apprenticed Council to the city-state of Hesterton, a city on the western edge of the United Territories. The Firemaker had talked, and talked, and talked. As a sentry, I’d been trained to nod and grunt, except when reporting to my boss.

            That didn’t work with this guy. He was worried about his apprenticeship in Hesterton, and it tortured me to listen to him fret about how much he had to learn in the next decade. I’d wanted to smother him with my air just to get him to stop speaking. Even when he did, his voice was so ingrained in my head that I couldn’t block his thoughts as easily as I could others.

            By the time we dropped them off at the fortress, I was glad he was finally the Councilman’s problem.

            I liked staying in Tarpulin the best. When on a mission, I had to sleep with the company, and that meant I couldn’t exercise my airmaking Element. I couldn’t get up early, put in my pushups and stand on my balcony as the sun rose. I didn’t have a single second to myself. And I’d grown used to the long hours alone in my sentry studio.

            I lived in the fortress now, with a room dedicated entirely to sleeping. My bathroom was easily as big as my former studio, and I had a living area complete with a supply of board games and cards. I’d never used them, couldn’t figure out why I’d want to entertain myself with games.

            Sentries did not have time for such things.

            At least that’s what Felix thought—and I knew, because I’d heard him think it.