The Elementals

Chapter One

Fire.

It was all I saw as I fought to keep the soldiers from invading my one and only home. It pillared high into the night as the villagers screamed for their homes, their families, their lives. Soldiers carried them off one by one: women and children, the fathers beaten senseless to the ground as their loved ones were ripped from their arms. It was a nightmare. One which I was unable to awaken from.

I felt a hand grab my forearm, their icy fingers sending goosebumps along my skin. Cold was never something that bothered me in any fashion; however, this cold the soldier possessed was nothing of a natural state. It came from within his body, within his blood. Fighting through the haze I jerked my arm, rounding back and bringing my fist down to meet his jaw. It connected with a power that I had never felt before in my 18 years of existing. Violence was never something that I prided myself on, or was it my first go to when in a dangerous situation. I was a man of honor, of peace—something that these soldiers would not listen to even if it were for their own families for they served the Queen. She alone was the governing voice within their heads; and only she could tell them to fall back.

I tried my hardest to escape the group of soldiers that seemed to get closer with each passing second; their auras cold as the last I fought. They advanced, their hands reaching out as if they were targeting me and me alone. I turned and ran, my bare feet hitting the hard earth pushing me forward with a power I had never felt before. Power surged through my body as my heart raced within my chest, my breathing becoming more shallow with each yard I gained. Whatever this power was, it was amazing; and wherever it came from, I was thanking Xalei.

The soldiers were gaining, their armored bodies slower than mine but still gaining faster than I had hoped.

Keeping forward I couldn't help but notice the ground beginning to shake beneath my feet, warmth radiating from the soles of my feet to my calves. It was strange. Not as strange as the cold that the soldiers manifested, but still strange altogether. I brushed it from my mind, focusing on nothing but getting as far away as I could without the soldiers doing anymore damage to the village. They were after me, that I knew for certain. The clanking of their armor rang within earshot as one of them finally caught up with me, his metal clad hand gripping tight around my wrist. It was pointless, they were never going to stop— so I gave in. I came to a staggering halt, the soldier slamming into me as I threw him off guard by surrender.

"I'm tired of running." I whispered, breathing catching with each word.

The soldier gave his comrades a look of confusion, but ultimately turned and looked back at me.

"Aaron Carmichael, you are to appear before the Queen for unlawful use of Kineticism; and as such will be sent to trial once we've arrived back safely at the castle." His voice was deep and raspy, his breathing much more erratic than mine.

I couldn't quite grasp it... why were they after me? Why destroy my village just to look for an innocent peasant boy who, according to them had powers, didn't have what they were after.

The queen was known for her ruthless antics, such as what had just occurred, but she would never destroy an entire village just for one measly little human. Unless I wasn't her only target.

Thinking back on it, there was another who they had gone after. A woman, no older than I was who was fighting to keep soldiers out of her small shed-like home. Thinking harder, the soldiers that were after me was only a small faction of their entire group. Whereas only six were surrounding me, there was a rough estimate of around twenty that I recalled pillaging the village. So many soldiers, so many lives lost, women and children taken.

My heart ached at the thought, the air around me heating as my thoughts lit a fire of anger within. The soldiers were keen to the change of temperature; their gloved hands quickly letting loose its own icy breeze. I was all but calmed, their power greater than the small inkling which I possessed; but it wasn't that which shook me to the core. It was what I felt. A hand colder than ice shoved hard against my chest, the metal digging in to the thin fabric which my mother had fashioned into a shirt. I grew colder as the soldier let loose a wave of power, his hand slowly rising from the frostbitten area where it one rested.

"Under threat of a surge, you are being put to sleep for your own protection." It was the last thing I heard before my entire world went black, the air around cradling me as if to keep me from falling fast.