Alexander dragged Eletheria towards the door. Ele stumbled in the dark but Lex helped keep her from falling. Ele was relieved when she felt the outside door pressing against her. Lex tried to push her to the side so he could open the door but Ele couldn’t move because something was pushing her from the side. She felt the shape and hoped it was Sal. With a push that was partially powered by quan helping lift her up she was able to move the weight and herself away from the door.

Daylight flooded the entranceway as Lex opened the door. A few guards from the gate appeared to be moving towards the house. Ele saw that it was indeed Sal that was stumbling. He had one hand covering his eyes and was moving sluggishly. Ele wondered if the expenditure of quan back there had drained him completely. Her mind started listing the stories she had heard about people burning themselves out by pushing too much through them, stories of people killing themselves by burning out their insides. In the daylight, she looked over Sal and saw nothing wrong with him. A greenish smudge was by his eyes, as if he had bled out a little through there, but it had stopped. She half-carried and half-dragged Sal towards the stables, again using quan to help push herself upwards. She looked around and was thankful that Gabriel didn’t accumulate many things as generating a field with quan was dangerous if you had a stray knife that could be pulled into the field.

As the guards from the gate got within shouting distance, Lex shouted at them.

“Quick, you must protect my father!” Lex yelled and pointed towards the door. The guards started running towards them. Ele paused momentarily to catch her breath as Lex directed everyone into the building. He shut the door behind the last guard while maintaining a sense of urgency. Once they were all in, Lex pulled on the door handle to hold it shut. “Run and I’ll hold the door closed.”

“I won’t leave you behind,” Ele shouted back at Lex. She gently placed Sal down on the ground and searched him for a knife. Finding none, she looked at Lex, who had his family sword still strapped to his waist. “Do you have a knife or something we can use to weld the door shut?” Ele quickly asked, not taking her attention off Lex’s sword. Lex quickly saw where her gaze was and shook his head.

“Not my family sword.” Lex then quickly patted his belt with one hand and sighed, finding no dagger. His eyes opened wide as he appeared to have gotten an idea and removed his belt. Ele was going to make a joke but quickly focused on using the belt buckle as material to weld the door closed. She couldn’t do as much as Sal did earlier and part of the buckle that wasn’t used as weld was also wedged into the crack of the door. She took a moment to examine her handiwork and turned towards Sal.

“We have to get moving,” Sal said as he struggled. He had recovered at least enough strength to walk by himself. “To the stables!” He said, trying to hurry in that direction.

“No, someone will recognize the markings on the horses,” Ele said as she joined them in running toward the stables. “Lex, can you carry Sal?”

“It depends on how big of a breakfast he had,” Lex joked as he ran awkwardly, one hand holding his pants up.

“Luckily… for you…, I skipped… breakfast… this morning,” Sal replied while gasping for breath. They all made it to the stables, without having to carry Sal, but he was a good ten pace behind everyone else.

Ele quickly laid out her plan. “You two hide, and I’ll take the carriage through the city and meet up with you two at the Black Sheep Inn.”

“What about me?” Tony asked from within the stables.

“Tony, I cannot ask you to risk your life,” Ele informed him.

“I want to help.” Tony stood up as he said this, presenting the bravest face he could.

“Stay here and watch out for my sister…” Ele started to say and wondered if her sister would be okay. Would her father be okay? Was her father in the circle of people who knew what was happening? The thought of her father plotting to kill people who were “untouched” made her sick and seemed counter to his personality. “We must go to my house and tell Pappa.”

“Ma’am, Ve went to your family estate,” Tony said.

“Tony, you stay. Lex, you and Sal hide. I’ll meet you at the inn at dark,” Ele restated, and everyone appeared to accept her command for the moment. Perhaps she thought none had a better idea to counter her horrible one. Luckily, none of them knew the rest of her plan, as she needed to go and save her sister and father.

A few moments later, Eletheria was strapped in and driving the carriage towards the gates of the Spiritus estate. As she whipped the horses to go faster and faster, she worried the guards would fire at her. As she got closer to the gates, she saw there weren’t many guards along the tops of the walls. They must have been the ones trapped inside the manor. She yelled at them to open the gates, but they did not appear to be moving. Sensing that her options were getting limited, she made her decision quickly. With the horses running at full speed towards the wooden gate Ele tucked the reins under her legs so both hands could be free. Suddenly aware of how little power she had compared to Ve, Sal, or even Lex, she gathered up as much quan as she could. The hairs on her arms were raised, and she was certain the guards could feel it, too, as they were moving away from the charging carriage.

A crackling bolt of lightning leaped out of Ele’s outspread hands. She wished she had put her goggles on as the bolt left an after-image upon her eyes. As her vision cleared, she was thankful that she was sitting and strapped in as nausea and a feeling of faintness threatened to overtake her. The lightning did not destroy the gate but damaged the bar, holding it closed and pushing it open. Ele squinted a little as there was still some ghosting from the lightning bolt in her vision. Excited that she had created a lightning bolt, she cheered as the horses ran through the gate. A brief panic filled her as she looked around for the reins before remembering she was sitting upon them. Picking them up, she directed the horses towards the Zephyr estate.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Eletheria had to leave the horses and carriage in an alleyway about four blocks from the Spiritus estate. People had filled the streets as the afternoon grew late, and people moved about to get last-minute items for dinner or headed off to various social functions. It only took a few close encounters of almost killing someone. She realized she wasn’t going to cross the town quickly in a carriage. She directed the horses into an empty alley and left them there. Then she channeled a little bit of quan to increase her running stride. A little lift pulsed in time, and her steps went a long way. She wanted to try flying but lacked something to control the flight beyond up or down.

Once she got near her family house, she slowed down and approached it from an adjacent property. Going through the front gates would do her no good, and she imagined the guards were already looking out for Lex and her. Hopefully, Lex and Sal were okay; she had not looked back to see if they had hidden themselves as per the plan but knew they were resourceful. Ele focused on her home and pondered how to get inside quietly. She knew her Aunt Ve could be here, so she needed a way to get into Germana’s room and warn her without being noticed. She couldn’t think of a way to convince her father but decided she would try if she found him.

Ele pulled her goggles out of her pouch and put them on. The left one was almost opaque and her right one was only slightly tinted. It was always a bit disorientating momentarily as each eye had a different filter level. She tried goggles that included two sets, and you could switch between them easily in the past, but they had issues of their own. Changing out the set took time and a free hand. With different eyepieces, she could close or squint that eye to focus. Once they were secure, she started walking towards her family’s land, hoping the neighbors did not notice her walking through their lawn.

Twenty paces away from the property line, she started jogging towards the fence. She didn’t want to draw a lot of attention, so she only channeled quan when she was at her last step before the wall. Though she cleared the wall higher than she wanted to, it wasn’t so high that someone would easily see her as she flew over it. She also used minimal quan because people nearby could feel it. She wondered why her hair tended to raise or get frizzy when quan was used nearby, but the impact of landing on the ground interrupted her thoughts. As she landed, she dropped to the ground and looked around to see if anyone was running or moving in her direction.

The pause while lying down also gave her a moment to rest. Although she hadn’t used much quan, her insides were a bit queasy after the gate at the Spiritus estate. Seeing no one approaching her, Ele looked at her family home. Germana’s and Ele’s rooms were on the other side of the building. A servant’s entrance was near this side, but any of the servants could raise an alarm. For a brief moment, she regretted not bringing Tony along. Perhaps, she thought she could pass as a member of the staff. She thought about the’ female staff in the house. None of the servants had the G’Aeris skin color or were near Ele’s height except for Dee, but age had stooped her height. Dee! Ele realized that if she could locate Dee, she could give a message to her father as Ele went after her sister.

Ele got up and walked towards the house, hoping at a distance people would guess her to be a servant. As she got closer to the house, she glanced towards the gates and saw no guards watching in her direction. She didn’t see any guards at all. The hair on her arms started to rise, and fearing the worst, she ran into the house using the rear kitchen entrance.

The delicious smells of what probably would be the evening meal filled Ele’s nose as she entered the kitchen. Her stomach even grumbled a little despite her queasy feeling from using a lot of quan. She smells and can almost taste sweet kwit fruit that must have been cooking in the oven. The lack of sounds from the kitchen worried her, though. There were no footsteps or clanking of pots as people busied themselves preparing food. The kitchen was usually busy at all hours, from making bread for the next day to the meals during the day. Cautiously, Ele entered the kitchen further and looked around. There was not a soul there and a feeling of despair started rising up within her.

Ele saw some carving and cooking knives on a table so she took two and placed the smaller one in her boot sheath. As she started towards the door to the hallway that led to the bedrooms, her stomach grumbled again. She turned around and grabbed a roll, and stuffed it in her mouth. While chewing, she procured some kwit fruit, put one in her leg pouch, and held onto the other. Quietly she opened the door and peered down the hallway towards the bedrooms. She lifted the door a little once it was halfway open to avoid the squeak that had developed over the past ten years. Quite a few nights of sneaking out of bed to get a late-night snack had taught her how to walk from her bedroom to the kitchen silently. The door from the hallway that split up and led to the foyer was closed. There wasn’t any way to open that door without making some noise, so she avoided it.

The door to her sister’s room was open. Ele glanced in and did not see her sister. The odd silence gave the impression the manor was empty. It was never completely quiet, especially during the day, she thought. Slowly, she crept to her door, which was still closed as she had left it. That was never any indication that the house staff would come and go as they pleased, regardless of whether the door was open or closed. Ele approached her room and gently pushed the door open. There was no sound as she always kept it oiled. Once the door was open, she was able to see into her room, the sight catching her breath.

Ele’s room looked just how she had left it, even to the detail of some of her clothing still lying on the floor. Sitting on her bed, causing her heart and lungs to freeze, was her aunt. Ele couldn’t remember any time her aunt ever being in her room. Ele quickly recovered from her shock and remembered this was the lady who ordered Acanthio to be killed.

“Ventus Praestes, where is my sister?” Ele asked Ve.

“My dear Ele, you can call me auntie,” Ve replied and stood up from the bed.

“Where is my family?”

“I arranged for them not to be here while we talked.”

“Why, why did you…” Ele tried to ask, and tears started coming out. She maintained control and watched her Aunt for sudden movement.

“Do you know we used to be worshiped as Gods?”

“I don’t care about history, why did you have Thio killed?”

“Our downfall was when Maximus fell for a slave girl, and since then, we have fought to keep what little we have.” Ve looked at the mirror almost as if she didn’t care if Ele was still in the room. Being treated like a child just made Ele even angrier. The tears faded and were being replaced with rage.

“Why did you have Thio killed!” Ele yelled at Ve.

“Insolent girl, you do not know what it was like growing up in slavery. Nor do you know how hard we had to fight for this rock.” Ve finally looked at Ele, a fury within her that matched Ele’s. Ele could feel the hair on her arms starting to lift. Little bolts of electricity would appear on Ve and leap out to objects around her. “I saved our people, not because I was chosen or fated. I saved our people because I was willing to do anything to free us. I will do everything possible to ensure we are never enslaved again.”

“Ve, we are free, and we are at peace. There is no war. Thio was not trying to harm us.” Ele’s rage was slowly replaced with fear as she felt her skin prickle.

“We are at war! Acanthio is the worst weapon they could throw at us—a weapon that makes us complacent,” Ve said as her eyes changed from their normal dark green to something lighter. Ele could almost swear she could see sparks within those eyes.

“What about Sal and me? Are we at war with you?” Ele asked, carefully placing a hand on her hip so it would be near a knife.

“You two are misguided and wrong. I will not sacrifice our people so you may have a fairy tale ending.” Ve took a step towards Ele. Ele’s room wasn’t very large, so Ve now stood two paces from Ele.

“So, you know the future, and that is why you can kill whoever you want?” Ele said, taking half a step backwards, so she was now standing outside the room.

“Silly child, you cannot tame the wind, nor can you change the world,” Ve replied but didn’t take a step forward. Ele wondered why Ve hadn’t attacked as, from her previous actions, Ele was certain Ve would try to kill her on the spot.

“The world has changed, but you have not,” Ele said, and she felt something nagging at her in the back of her mind, saying this was a trap. Ele channeled quan to power her coil strapped to her corset. This generated a magnetic field around her. Instead of pushing away from the ground, she pulled towards the ground. The field, though, also pulled all metallic objects towards her. There weren’t many within the hallway, just things like hinges and door knobs. The door knob is what she wanted, though, as she was able to close the door to her room quickly. While a wooden barrier wouldn’t stop her aunt, it gave Ele a head start.