Forgotten Elements

Wyatt led the way toward the center of the island. When we asked him several times where we were going, he vaguely told us something happened there. Parker remained at my side as I adjusted to the lack of magic coming from the nearly dead ground, which was jarring and an awful sensation.

“What the fuck can cause the land the die like this?” Jade asked, the silence finally getting to her.

“A spell gone horribly wrong,” Parker said as he warily looked around.

Wyatt called out Parker’s name, signaling for him to join him over twenty feet ahead of us. Parker hesitated, glancing down at me, and my chest fluttered at how he was hesitant to leave my side. “I’ll be fine.”

He dropped a kiss on the top of my head that had my pulse racing before going to join Wyatt. Jade slowed her steps to join me at the back of the group, despite how I knew she preferred to be in the middle of the group.

She linked her arm through mine, a smug smile in place, and I just knew she was about to give me shit. “Having sex with a man you’ve always claimed is ‘an obnoxious asshole’ while in unknown territory, you little slut.”

All I could do was gape at her, unable to find words for several moments. “Says the girl who screwed Koa in the haunted hotel.”

Jade scoffed and rolled her eyes. “We didn’t have sex there. He finger-banged me, there’s a difference.”

Koa was the closest to us, with only five feet between us, and he had no problem listening in on us—a human could’ve heard Jade. He didn’t bother to hide his chuckle at his mate’s bluntness. Reed at least tried covering up his laugh with a cough.

“Ander and Starling screwed several times and in a dangerous dimension no less,” I argued, throwing them under the bus to pull attention away from me. This wasn’t the kind of conversation I wanted to have with an audience present.

“Yeah, but those two are into—”

“I’d rather not hear about what my little sister is into,” Koa said, glancing at us over his shoulder. A hint of distress showed in his expression at the thought of hearing about his little sister’s sex life.

“Then stop eavesdropping,” Jade shot back, her lips fighting a smile.

“It’s not eavesdropping when you talk so loud,” Wyatt called back to us, making Jade lose her battle and laugh.

“I hate you,” I muttered to Jade as her chuckles faded, slowing my steps so we were even further away. It was so quiet on the island that I doubted they wouldn’t be able to hear us if they wanted to, but it gave me the illusion of privacy.

“I didn’t even know there was anything going on between the two of you,” Jade said, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Well, other than the tension between the two of you. Seriously, you can cut it with a knife, that’s how thick it is.”

A frown pulled at my face as I gave Jade a puzzled look for several moments. “Oh, wrong sister.” It’s happened many times over the past three years. I would talk to one sister about something and then talk to the other, forgetting they weren’t the one to know about it. It wasn’t like I mixed them up. While they both were blonde, their shades were different, with Jade’s more honey-shaded like her dad’s, and Ari’s nearly white blonde. In all honesty, Jade and Aidan were the ones that showed familial resemblances.

Jade made a sound of indignation as she whipped her head around to face me. “You told Ari but not me?”

I was saved from having to respond when Parker called out, “We found something.”

“Saved by your fated mate,” Jade muttered before pointing at me. “We’re not done with this conversation.”

Rolling my eyes, I tugged on Jade’s arm as I picked up my pace. The men stood around a giant crater that was nearly fifty feet in diameter and depth. The ground was blackened and was filled with remnants of a failed spell and death.

Around the circle were gouges and blackened circles, and I realized there was a pattern to it. I counted the number of charred spots evenly spaced around the crater. Once I finished counting, I counted again.

“No fucking way,” I whispered.

“Ten spots. Where ten Mythics once stood,” Parker confirmed, coming to stand beside me.

While everyone else was confused, Reed and I shared a knowing look. “It’s real.”

“What’s real?” Jade asked as she came to stand on my other side and squinted at the charred grass.

“It’s a legend elementals tell to scare each other,” Reed said with a sigh as he ran a hand through his messy red hair.

“Nearly a thousand years ago, an elemental began killing the others on the retreat with him,” I added.

“When I was a kid, I was told he killed everyone before vanishing, never to be seen again,” Reed said with a chuckle as he rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Scared the shit out of me back then and made me not want to go on the retreat.”

“Same here.” I fought a shiver as I remembered how afraid that story made me when I was younger. It was childish and stupid, but I’d always feared he would show back up when I’d one day go to my retreat and kill everyone once again. He was basically the boogeyman for elemental children, the monster we all feared would kill us. “I didn’t hear the other version until I was fifteen.”

“And what’s the other version?” Wyatt asked, brushing his fingers over a scorched circle.

“He killed all but ten elementals. The remaining came together, cornering himself here on this island, and attempted to create a rift to send him to another realm. One that he couldn’t find his way back from or harm any more of our kind.”

“But they had never created a rift before, and his magic clashed against theirs, causing an explosion that killed everyone,” Reed added, waving his hand at the crater that hadn’t recovered or grown anything in the past thousand years.

“Why would they try to send him to another realm and not just kill him,” Koa asked as he crossed his arms.

“Because he wasn’t just killing the others: he stole their magic,” Magnus said from behind us. He was only twenty feet away and quickly closed the distance between us. I’d been too wrapped up in the legend to hear him approaching, and based on the other’s reactions, they hadn’t either.

“Where the fuck did you come from?” Jade asked, dramatically clutching her chest as Koa came to stand beside her.

Magnus answer her question, his focus solely on the crater. “This used to be a lake full of elemental water, with a small island in the center, where elemental fire burned at all times. He stood on the island when they cast him from the realm.”

“You mean they succeeded in creating a rift to another realm?” Reed asked, scrubbing the back of his neck.

Magnus lost the far-off look in his eyes and shook his head. “No, the spell failed and backfired. They sent him from the realm, but they weren’t able to connect with another realm.” Magnus took a deep breath as he pulled his focus from the former lake. There was something about his expression and his reaction to this scene that I couldn’t put my finger on.

“You’re saying he was tossed out into the empty space,” Wyatt said, looking up from the small crater he’d been examining—the place where an elemental had died. The grass in the three-foot crater was gone, unable to grow back, and the dirt was black instead of brown.

The idea of this guy ending up in the empty space between the realms was a better-case scenario than him ending up in another realm. There was no way he survived out there with how there wasn’t oxygen in the empty space, and the pressure between the realms would’ve torn him apart. Well, that was what we theorized to happen since there was no way for us to test the theory.

“I believe so.”

“So he was tossed into the empty space, and the elementals that sent him there died in the explosion,” I summarized.

“Not all of them died.”

“What?” I asked, staring at Magnus dumbfounded.

“Two of them survived”—Magnus pointed at two charred spots, the craters noticeably smaller and less blackened—“barely, but they survived. They realized the spell was backfiring and pulled away from the connection. I got here right after the spell exploded.” Magnus let out a long breath and wiped his hands down his face. “It took multiple healers and blood mages to stabilize them. We made sure the legends never mentioned them surviving.”

“Why were you even there?” Jade asked, planting her hands on her hips as she cocked her head to the side.

“The retreat had ended, and they should’ve been waiting for the rift to appear, but none of them were there. I entered the realm, looking for them, and found the bodies.” He shook his head and scrubbed his face again. I was a little bit shocked to see him displaying this much emotion. He usually was more reserved and a bit stoic. Finding their bodies had left a lasting impression on him. “Which is why after that, we implemented the changes and began tracking them more closely.”

“Were the bodies also desiccated?” Koa asked, trying to find a connection between this incident and the last.

Magnus shook his head again, pursing his lips. “No, they still had trace amounts of magic clinging to their bodies—it was how I recognized them. He took his time with the rituals of stealing their magic. This wasn’t a crazed attack like the stories make it out to be. According to the survivors, as he stole magic from each victim, he began changing. Gaining power by stealing what doesn’t belong to you always exacts a price.” There was something in his grave expression that almost reminded me of grief, and I wondered who he had lost in this tragedy.

His words made me think of what Thea, Damon, and Atlas had said about evolving. It was a big fucking coincidence for this realm to have two different groups of elementals have their magic drained. The methods and results might be different, but I couldn’t shake this feeling. “Are we sure he died when he was sent out into the empty space?” I felt ridiculous asking the question, but I needed confirmation. Damon had mentioned a black void of energy, and that was sort of how the empty space was theorized to be.

“What are you suggesting, Harm?” Reed asked, his tone incredulous as he raised his eyebrows. “Are you seriously suggesting he not only managed to survive but found his way back for revenge?”

I shrugged, not confident in my theory, but I wasn’t ready to give up on it so soon. “He consumed enough energy that ten elementals were so afraid of him that they were willing to risk creating a rift. Magnus said stealing their magic changed him, which tracks with what we heard in the other realm. Maybe it allowed him to survive out there. It would make sense why he’s chosen this realm and his targets.”

“I know we’ve seen a lot of weird shit lately, but this is crazy, even for us,” Reed said with a sigh as he bit his lip.

“It is crazy,” Magnus confirmed, running a hand over his short, curly hair, “but she’s right. It’s him.”

“Wait, really?” Even though I suggested it, I hadn’t thought he or anyone would agree with me.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jade muttered, rubbing her forehead while Koa rubbed her shoulders. She wasn’t the only one to appear distressed by the news. The prospect of someone not only surviving out in the empty space but coming back powerful enough to drain all of our magic was terrifying.

“I checked the bodies, and while his energy signature is almost non-existent and a sucking void, I’d know his essence anywhere. He’s managed the impossible to find his way back here, and he’s not stopping until he gets his revenge.”

“Where the fuck do the creatures and the abductions fit in?” Jade asked, throwing her hands in the air.

“Abductions?” Magnus asked, zeroing in on that rather than on the creatures. “How many?”

With his question and the worry in his expression, the pieces suddenly fell into place, and I gasped before anyone could answer. “The survivors still live in this realm.” If I had been thrown into the empty space—surviving out there for centuries—and I found out there were survivors, I’d want revenge on them for putting me through that shit.

The worry in Magnus’s features deepened as he nodded and rubbed the back of his neck.

“Did one of them happen to live in the southernmost village?” Koa asked before Magnus could say anything, cocking his head to the side.

Magnus nodded again, this time in resignation. “And the other lives in the north.”

“Fuck,” Reed muttered with a groan, dropping his face in his hands, mirroring the dread I felt.

“That’s where we just came from,” Wyatt said, his expression grave. “He’s working with the creatures and Neven and now has both of them.”