Elemental Shadowed by Helen Scott

17

Tessa

The silver blood rushed over my hands like a tap suddenly being turned on. The creature reared back and roared. It was furious and in pain, and the sheer volume of the sound shook my brain around inside my skull, as well as the walls of the cave. Even through my blurry vision I saw the dust and rocks falling from the ceiling that was still so far above us.

Blood was seeping under my hands, loosening my grip on the daggers. In a last-ditch effort, I released the whip from around my chest and launched, wrapping it around the thing's neck.

The thick woven leather slid against the icy, rocky hide of the creature, and I was barely able to catch it as I whipped the end toward my free hand, passing it in front of the creature's neck. If my hands had been anymore covered in blood I probably wouldn't have been able to grip it at all.

Griff and Finn had evidently been able to get their swords out while I was working because all of a sudden the beast reared back, and I felt like I was riding a bucking bronco as they stabbed it once more. I felt a fleeting moment of guilt for the thing but reminded myself that it had tried to kill us.

As I crossed the ends of the whip over one another I cinched it tight around the creature's neck. I would be happy just knocking it out. We didn't have to kill it. Seeing the injuries we had inflicted on it, I had no doubt that its death was near no matter what I did with the whip. Nothing could lose that much blood and survive.

I pulled tighter and tighter, hoping that it would just give up, but it didn't. The beast fought till the very end. When it slumped and fell to the floor my heart broke a little.

I'd never killed anything like that before. Mosquitos, spiders, ants, sure, but this was a more sentient being, maybe the last one of its kind, and I'd just taken its life.

Nausea rolled in my gut as I tumbled from where I'd been holding the whip and fell off the beast's back. I didn't even feel this bad when Brok had burned out in front of me. Maybe it was because this thing had seemed trapped?

"Tessa!" One of the guys called my name, but I couldn't move.

My body was unresponsive as I lay there, the numbness spreading all over me. Griff appeared above me and so did Finn a second later. "Numb," I muttered before I completely lost control of my mouth.

"What?" Finn asked, his brows pinched in concern.

"My body is numb," I said, or at least tried to. My words were starting to sound slurred.

"What the fuck is this?" Griff asked as he looked over at Finn.

"I don't know! I didn't even know this place existed, or what the hell that was!" He gestured to the creature. "Look, we need to sit her up, so she doesn't choke on her own tongue or something, don't we?"

"Sounds like something we should do," Griff agreed, and they scooted me over to a pillar and propped me up so my back was resting against it.

The two of them were beyond awkward at that moment as they both just stood there and looked around as though they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. Meanwhile, I was wondering how many damn shoes there were because it felt like I'd been through more than one pair in the last twenty-four hours. After a moment they both cleaned off their swords and went off in separate directions in search of something, but I wasn't sure what.

When Finn returned with a basketball-sized orb of water floating above his hand I wanted to be impressed, but I wasn't sure what the point of it was. I couldn't ask anymore because my mouth had gone completely numb, and it was only when he let it fall over me that I realized he was trying to clean me up, albeit in a weird way.

The silvery blood from the creature formed little rivulets as it ran down my exposed skin. My leaves that had given me a small amount of protection were long gone, and I was stuck in my undies once more, and now they were soaked. Again.

While the liquid ran off me I could slowly feel sensation returning. "How did you know to do that?" I asked once my mouth was working again.

"I didn't. It was just a guess since we were fine and you weren't, but you were the only one covered in its blood," Finn said with a shrug.

My gaze slid back to the beast on the floor. Its glassy, dead eyes stared sightlessly ahead of it, and I had to swallow the need to vomit. I blinked slowly and moved my line of sight to Finn and Griff.

"Let's find a way out of here. What do you say, dove?" Griff asked as he leaned down to pick me up.

"We should wait until she can walk by herself. The numbness is clearly wearing off, and we don't know what else we might run into," Finn said as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Are you saying I can't fight and protect Tessa?" Griff spoke slowly, his voice as deadly as the sword in his hand.

"No, I just think she would appreciate being able to move on her own. Wouldn't you?" Finn turned to me expectantly.

"Not that I appreciate being pulled into whatever spat you two are having, but of course I want to move myself. I also want to get the hell out of here. We have no idea how long my numbness will last and if we wait it could get dark or something and we could get stuck. I vote we go, and you guys can play rock paper scissors to find out who gets to carry me if that's what you're worried about because I certainly don't have a preference."

Griff extended his fist with one hand cupping the bottom, clearly ready to play.

Finn sighed and shook his head. "If you want to leave so badly then you can carry her," he muttered before walking away.

The strong, warm hands that I'd come to associate with my fire warrior scooped me up as he held me close to his chest. The warmth that I was used to coming from him was muted over most of my body, leaving me feeling cold and hating this weird numbness.

"If you're a vampire, how come you're not cold?" I asked, wondering what was true and was was false from the legends.

He chuckled, and the sound rumbled through my chest like an engine starting. "Because humans twist stories. A few of my kind were caught, and having been away from El Dorado for so long, they were having trouble regulating their body temperatures, something that's common when we used to travel with complete freedom to the origin realm. No one expected the different temperatures or the differences between realms. It was only after Kai's people worked some of their engineering magic that we were able to wear something to help us with that."

The wall that the weapon rack rested against looked different, and when Finn ducked out of sight ahead of us my heart froze in my chest. With two quick strides we were there through and found that the wall had pushed away slightly revealing a stairway swirling upward. Just looking at it I knew there wouldn't be enough space for Griff to carry me up them.

"You can put me down. I can do it on my own," I said before giving him a kiss on the cheek. I couldn't lie that my heart was warming to him all over again, especially because I knew deep in my soul that he hadn't planned what happened between us. The whole mate and vampire thing was definitely something we needed to talk about, but I knew there was nothing malicious about it.

"No, you can't."

"I can, look." I wiggled my toes. "See, I have feeling again."

"That doesn't mean you’re stable enough to go up or down stairs."

"If you walk behind me then you can catch me if I fall, okay?" The question seemed to have a double meaning to it that I hadn't intended, but it was too late to take it back now.

"Would you two quit flirting and hurry up, I don't want to get stuck down here again," Finn called from the top of the stairs. His head just peeked around the stone column that was in the middle while he spoke, before disappearing again for a second. Just as I started making what was turning out to be a decidedly wobbly climb, his head appeared again. "You definitely don't want to miss this!" He was grinning like a kid right before the opened a present.

I tried to move faster but ended up almost face planting onto the stairs in front of me as one of my legs gave out. It was only Griff's arms around my waist that saved me. He hauled me back against his chest and all but ran up the last flight, or would that be curve, of the stairs.

When we emerged my breath stilled in my chest. Aqua colored shells lined the walls while cream stones covered the floor. Intricate patterns decorated the walls in various shades of blue making it look like light being reflected off the bottom of a pool or something similar.

It was all beautiful but the piece de resistance was the throne. Large pieces of coral were put together to form a grand throne. It even had a cushion on it. A dusty cushion, but it was still intact, which was saying something.

As I wriggled free from Griff's arms and edged closer, albeit stumbling a couple times, I could see more clearly that it wasn't multiple pieces of coral, but one enormous piece that had been carved into the throne shape. My jaw was slack from the beauty of it all.

Waves upon waves of the red stone fanned out and around forming a straight back with curved armrests that flowed to the floor atop a thick root that was about the same size around as I was. The tree-like structure was fascinating as branches went this way and that making it look like the thickest of trees.

If we were anywhere other than Atlantis, I would have questioned whether it was real, but I knew if it was here in this place of honor then it definitely wasn't fake. I'd seen the giant turtles and the shadow of whatever that thing was that the turtle was scared of. I knew Atlantis held secrets and beings older than I could imagine.

Smaller benches were positioned on each side of the throne, clearly for the monarch's guests, maybe other members of the royal family or friends. I turned to look at what they were facing and found a window of sorts out into the arena. A large area of the wall was missing creating a railing to the area below while being open to the elements.

It truly was like a gladiatorial stadium. I wondered if whoever had watched the games would have given us a thumbs up or a thumbs down. On second thought, that kind of thing was probably something Hollywood made up.

When I turned back my attention was fixed on the throne once more. As I stepped closer, I realized that what I had thought was a button on the cushion was much more rounded than I would have expected.

Once I reached for it the guys suddenly seemed to become aware of it too. It was small and the same aqua blue as the walls, but it had white lines running through it, making it look as though the blue was showing through from the center.

The stone was cold to the touch, as though the white marks on it were ice even though I knew they weren't. My skin began feeling wet and clammy where it was connected to the rock. The sensation of water was stronger than I could understand as it crawled up my arm. I tried to release it, to drop it, but my hand stubbornly refused to obey and remained closed around the stone.

"Uh, guys... A little help, please?" I asked, my voice tight with fear.

The cool, wet sensation was rushing up my arm and across my chest spreading over my whole body. As if that wasn't enough time seemed to have slowed down. It was only as I began panicking and gasping for air that I realized whatever was causing this, whatever magic was happening, Griff and Finn weren't included. For all intents and purposes, they were frozen. Which explained why they hadn't responded when I asked for help.

Apparently, this magic was just on me. Literally. My only question was how the hell did I get it off?