I peered into the cloying black and spied eyes staring back at me. A shiver of dread rushed down my back.
“Welcome recruits!” Zeus held out his arms toward us. “Today, you will be working with five different elements. Water, fire, earth, shadow, and of course, lightning.” White sparks emitted from his fingertips.
Shadow? My gaze tracked over to that area. Now, a man with long, black hair and pale eyes stood there. He dressed like a Victorian vampire. When he spotted me looking at him, he grinned. Goose bumps popped out all over my arms.
“Break out into five groups, eight or nine in each group.”
Of course, Jasmine, Georgina, and I melded together. Mia and Ren joined our group. I locked gazes with Lucian. For a brief moment, I thought he was going to walk over to join our group, and I held my breath. But the moment passed, and he gathered with Diego, Revana, and Isobel, along with some others whose names I didn’t know. Eventually, Jasmine’s roommate, Hella, and her friends Marek and Quinn, asked to join with us.
Zeus assigned every group an element to start with. We got water.
Ren was bouncing on his toes when we gathered around the pool. He looked like a kid at Christmas.
“Water is life.” Poseidon gestured to the pool. “Our bodies are made of it, seventy percent of the world is covered by it, and without it food would not grow.” With his hand hovering over the water, slowly it began to swirl like the tide pool we’d used to come to the academy. Then it spouted out of the pool and touched the palm of his hand. There he held it, this swirling column of water.
“But not only can it give life, it can take it away.” With a flick of his hand, the narrow waterspout quickly surged into a huge cyclone that towered over us threateningly. “The oceans and seas could rise with five hundred foot waves and drown cities in a matter of minutes.” He made a fist, and the water sloshed back into the pool, surging over the edge and splashing our legs. “To control the water is to control life.”
He looked at each of us. “Who would like to try first?”
Ren’s hand shot up like a rocket. “I would, sir.”
For the next half hour, we each tried to manipulate the water with our hands. The only two who got it immediately were Ren and Marek. They both were able to produce tiny cyclones. I could barely make the water ripple.
Next, we moved onto the fire station.
“I’m not going to regale you with some soppy story about how powerful fire is,” Hephaistos grumbled. “It speaks for itself.” He snapped his fingers over the fire pit, and flames jumped to life.
I immediately stepped closer to it, so I could dry off the bottoms of my pants and shoes.
“If you can control fire, you can raze cities to the ground. You can burn your enemies to ash.” The light from the flames glowed in his eyes as he walked around behind us.
Jasmine’s eyes widened, and it looked like she was shaking.
“But you can also provide warmth and comfort and even healing.” He set his hand on her shoulder, and she immediately relaxed and even smiled. “First, you will learn to control the fire, then I will teach you how to create it. Put your hand up to the flames and call it to you.”
I raised my hand toward the fire. The heat from it instantly warmed my palm. It reminded me a little of the sensation I’d received from touching the Shadowbox. Concentrating on the flames, I watched them dance. Smiling, I thought about dancing with them.
“Mel,” Jasmine said beside me. “Good Gods.”
Frowning, I turned to look at her. “What?”
“Your hand!”
I looked at my hand. Flames had completely encompassed it. My heart leapt into my throat. Holy shit, I’m burning. But I didn’t feel like I was burning. There wasn’t any discomfort, just a warm, soothing heat hovering above my skin. I noticed my pants and shoes were no longer wet.
“Whoa!” I moved my hand back and forth, and the flames flowed with me. It was pretty cool.
I glanced at Hephaistos, and he gave me a quick nod.
I figured it was the most praise I was going to get from him. I’d take it.
When we reached the garden, I thought I was going to have to restrain Georgina; she was so excited.
“Controlling the earth is really cool.” Demeter climbed off the rock and sat cross-legged on the patch of grass we stood on. She gestured for all of us to sit like she did. “You can grow food and literally move mountains. During war, you can manipulate the plants around you to do whatever you want.” She placed her hand flat to the ground, closing her eyes. A vine pushed out of the ground through the grass. It looped around in the air and then wrapped around one of Georgina’s arms.
Her eyes widened. She went slack and slumped to the ground.
Demeter frowned. “Shit, man, did I just kill her?”
“No, I think she passed out.” I shook Georgina awake.
She sat back up, with a huge smile on her face. “That was awesome.”
Everyone laughed.
Demeter chuckled. “What’s your name?”
“Georgina,” she murmured.
“Well, Georgina, I think you’re going to be my fave student.”
She nearly passed out again, and I had to hold her up.
Throughout the class, Demeter had us touching the dirt and grass, to really feel it, to think about its construction, and to picture it growing and moving. By the end of the class, Jasmine and Quinn were able to roll a rock without touching it, and Georgina, to the delight of Demeter and everyone else, had grown a flower in her hand. There was no doubt which clan Georgina belonged in.
My group’s next stop was at the shadow station. The moment I stepped into the darkness shrouding the area, my body started to vibrate. It was a strange sensation, as if I was a human tuning fork.
“I’m Erebus.” From the darkest part of the room, a form stepped into view. Up close, he looked even more like a vampire, especially with those pale, almost translucent eyes. The longer I stared at him, though, the more ethereal he seemed. In fact, his body didn’t stay solid. It undulated back and forth. He was part of the shadows.
“Here you will learn how to manipulate light and darkness. When you master it, you will be able to disappear.” He faded into the shadows. “And reappear in a different place.” His voice came from behind me, and I jumped and whipped around, coming face to face with him. Another rush of dread washed over me.
“I’m going to teach you how to refract light, to bend it around your body. It is a form of disguise, so you can move around without being seen.” He put his arms up, slicing them through the air. He did it again and again until they disappeared. “The key is to move quickly. Everyone try it.”
As I walked around in a circle, I moved my arms back and forth in front of me, karate chopping the air. I whipped my arms up and down as fast as I could, so focused I almost didn’t see Ren as he nearly walked into me.
“Whoa, watch where you’re going.”
Ren froze. “Melany?”
“Ah, yeah, who else do you think I am?”
His head turned right then left, as if searching for me. “Where are you?”
My brow knitted together. “Right here. In front of you.”
He swung around toward me, his eyes darting everywhere, but not on my face. “I can’t see you.”
Damn. I’d manipulated the light.
“You know, you’re quite beautiful.”
I whipped around to see Erebus standing behind me, his hands folded in front of him. “Excuse me? That’s a bit creepy, don’t you think?”
He took a step closer, his gaze scrutinizing me. I didn’t like it. It made me feel vulnerable and exposed.
“You have shadows inside you.” He put his hand up and moved it around in front of me. His flesh came apart and then flowed back together. It was like watching an object being refracted into pixels. “I can feel them. It’s why you were able to manipulate the light so easily.”
“How do I become visible again?”
“Stop moving.”
“I’m not moving. I’m just standing here.”