AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Except for Ales.
“We go through the ocean,” Ales answered casually.
“We can sail to your home?” I said.
“No, that is not the way,” Ales said.
Dread started to build in the back of my mind. I couldn’t forget my nightmares where he dragged me into the darkness of the sea.
“You mean we drown under the ocean.”
“It’s not drowning. We can’t die like mortals,” Ales said.
Cri now joined the conversation. “Under the ocean is the aether, forged from pure energy. It is the fifth element you feel inside you.” He stared at me. “You are part of this energy. It is what makes you heal so fast. It is a part of you, always connected to you, to us.” He gestured to the circle. “It is also the only way to leave this world.”
“Can’t wait. Sounds like fun,” I said, swiping stray hairs from my face but the wind continued to whip them into a tangle.
Leaving was the only way to protect my world. Five days until my father would become suspicious, worried, frantic to find me. How could I leave him?
It was obvious I wasn’t going to change Ales’ mind anytime soon.
What am I going to do?
I looked up at the sky. It burnt like fire as the sun sank into the horizon. A few stars poked out of the eastern corner of the sky.
“People have spent thousands of years looking up at the night sky, wondering if there was life beyond, and the whole time, they were looking in the wrong direction,” Danny whispered, following my stare.
“Has it always been here, the aether, in the depths of the ocean?” I asked.
“No, energy ebbs and flows. The aether, this aether, was created by you. I assume it has been there since your awakening, but I can’t be certain.” Ales looked at the swirls of pink and purple left after the sinking sun.
I was startled by his response. “I created it? My energy created it?”
Ales and Cri nodded in unison. “And you will destroy it when we leave.”
I was too stunned to speak.
If I had destroyed our only way back here, then there would be no returning. There would be no going back home, and I didn’t know where we were going.
Oh, Dad, oh poor Dad. He wouldn’t understand. All of his worrying, his fears of leaving me alone would come to fruition for him. He will never accept this. What will he think—that I abandoned him? That I left because I was too weak to handle life without Jason? I’d sworn to myself I’d never disappoint him. But even if I found a way to tell him, he’d never believe me.
Leo put his arm around me. “It’s okay, baby bird, you can create and destroy equally. But you have to extinguish this aether. Nothing else can come through. The Raiders will continue to be drawn to it, to you. It makes your world vulnerable, and your world has remained relatively untouched by the war. You want it to stay that way.” His booming voice tried to soothe me while his arm squeezed my shoulder.
I clasped his hand back. He seemed more empathetic than the other men and was quickly becoming my favorite.
Logan announced the fish was ready.
I tried to imagine the place these men called home. I thought of a cold tundra covered in frozen ice and shivered at the thought of frost covering the ground. I hated the cold.
Logan set a plate overflowing with fish on my lap.
My stomach twisted in knots. I was going to elect to drown in the dark ocean. My dreams had been traumatic and violent. I didn’t want them to come true like Ales had.
“Eat your food,” Ales commanded then sat in front of me.
All of the men were digging into the steaming food except Ales, who stared me down.
Danny cocked his head to the side with a mouth full of fish. “When was the last time you ate?”
