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I swallow the lump wedged in my throat. “Why the increase in corruption everywhere?”
The air grows so still I can hear the beating of my own heart.
“In Elemental, it’s because all the gods and goddesses died. Well, except for one,” Foster says, tightening his grip on the wheel. “The god of darkness is still alive, so his power has become more prominent.”
A shiver crawls over my body. “Really?”
He nods, his knuckles whitening. “He’s also the god responsible for my grandparents’ deaths.” He shifts the car and decelerates as we reach the trees. “It’s been the god of darkness’s mission to eliminate all the elemental enchanters in our world because, if there were more of us, we could potentially overthrow him and rid the darkness plaguing our world, which he put there. Of course our kind can’t solve the problem of our world dying since only gods and goddesses can feed energy to it.”
“How did they die?” I whisper, tears pooling in my eyes for some bizarre reason. “I mean, the other gods and goddesses.”
“No one knows for sure, but some have speculated that the god of darkness killed them so he could rule on his own.” Foster glances at me, a frown tugging at his lips. Then he reaches across the console and brushes his fingers across my cheek. “Sky, don’t cry. I promise nothing will happen to you. You’re safe with us.”
As he grazes my cheekbones with his knuckles, I realize tears are dripping down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m crying.” Mortified, I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
“It’s perfectly fine.” He brushes strands of hair out of my face. “You’re handling this better than most.”
“I doubt that.” I rub my eyes, my heart feeling strange, as if a piece has fallen out. “I wish there was something that could help Elemental. It’d be nice to see it one day.”
“It was beautiful once.” He steers down the road with one hand, resting his other on my cheek. “My parents work for the elemental protector organization, and they’ve been working on finding a new source to feed our world ever since the gods and goddesses died. They’ve had a couple of findings, mostly in books and folklore told amongst our kind that suggests that, before the gods and goddesses died, they hid power sources that contained each of their own powers. But, so far, there hasn’t been any proof, so it’s mostly just an urban legend.”
“You and I both know it’s probably just stories.” Easton slides forward and crosses his arms on top of the center console. “If the gods and goddesses left their power sources behind, someone would’ve found them by now.”
“You never know. We used to believe there weren’t any other elemental enchanters, so …” He shrugs, looking ahead.
I track his gaze, and my eyes widen.
Just in front of us, the trees open up to a flat, flowery field that stretches as far as the eye can see. And smack dab in the middle of it is a towering, gothic-like building, three stories high with turrets and everything.
“Is that the academy?” I gape at the building in astonishment.
Foster nods. “Yep, that’s your new school.”
The corners of my lips twitch upward. “It’s actually really awesome looking.”
Smiling, he steers through the iron-gated entrance. “Just wait until you see the inside.”
My smile enlarges until we turn into the parking lot. Then my mood nosedives.
“There’re so many people here,” I note, peering around at all the cars and trucks and the people wandering around. But, are they even people?
“This is the elemental protectors’ section.” Foster parks in the first open spot available, silences the engine, and then points to the left at a smaller building in the distance that has a domed roof and an arched entryway. “That’s where the humans attend and where you’ll go for your human-related classes, like math and English.”
“Our building is better,” I remark, unfastening my seatbelt.
The smile that consumes his face is a combination of amusement and elation.
“What’s that smile for?” I slip my bag over my shoulder and reach for the door handle.
“It’s nothing.” He collects his car keys and shoves open the door. “You just referred to it as our school, like you’ve accepted you’re part of it.”
Wow, he’s right. I hadn’t even noticed.
Unsure of what to make of that—that I’m beginning to accept this new life of mine and so quickly—I decide not to make anything of it, just let it be, and hop out of the car.
The instant my feet touch the asphalt, the gawking starts. Everyone within a fifty-foot radius glances in my direction with curious eyes.
