When Eight reappears with the dummy, Nine is standing with the tip of his staff pressed against the side of my neck.
“Good job,” he says to Eight. “Now you’ve got a wounded friend and a dead healer.”
I’ve never trained like this before, so Nine coming right at me felt really intimidating. I have to get over that feeling. I know Six wouldn’t have just let Nine put that staff up to her throat. I need to prove to these boys that even though I don’t have the offensive firepower they do, I can still fight back.
With Nine distracted by Eight, I slap the point of his staff away from my neck.
“Not dead yet,” I say, as I lunge forward and punch him in the mouth. Immediately, a flare of pain courses through my hand and wrist.
Nine staggers back a step as Eight whoops with happy surprise. Nine whips his head back around to look at me, blood lining his teeth as he grins.
“Good!” he shouts, delighted. “You’re getting it!”
“I think I broke my thumb,” I reply, looking down at my swollen knuckles.
“Next time, keep your thumb outside your fingers when you punch,” Eight says, balling up his fist to demonstrate.
I nod, feeling sort of dumb that I’d make such a basic mistake, but also a little thrilled that I just socked Nine right in the face. He seems to have appreciated it too, looking at me with a newfound respect as he wipes the blood off his face. I touch my hand, again feeling the icy sensation of my Legacy, intensified this time as it passes into my own hand.
Nine has picked up the dummy and dumped it back on the other side of the room. “Ready to try again?”
Eight and I huddle up for a second time. “Maybe I should introduce him to our old friend Narasimha?”
“Which one is that?”
“Lots of arms, lots of claws.”
“Sounds perfect,” I say. “Keep him busy and I’ll flank him.”
We break our huddle and Eight immediately transforms into one of his massive avatars. His handsome features melt away, replaced by the snarling face and golden mane of a lion. He grows to about twelve feet, ten arms sprouting out of his sides, each of them tipped with razor-sharp claws. Nine whistles through his teeth.
“Now we’re talking,” Nine says. “One of your parents must’ve been a Chimæra. Probably your mom.”
“Funny,” replies Eight, his voice a gravelly roar while in this shape.
I stay behind Eight as he stalks towards Nine, waiting for an opening to make a break for the dummy. Eight lunges forward, slashing at Nine with all his arms, forcing Nine to duck and weave away, parrying some of the blows with his staff. Nine prods at Eight with his staff, trying to keep him at bay, looking for an opening of his own.
As Nine twirls his staff for a counterattack, focused on Eight, I see a chance to make a difference. I reach out with my telekinesis and yank Nine’s staff out of his hands. He’s not expecting it, so the force sends him off balance, right into the waiting claws of Eight. Nine is slashed across the chest, his shirt torn to ribbons, the skin beneath cut open in gashes wide enough to need stitches. Both Eight and I hesitate at the sight of those wounds.
“I didn’t mean to get you that bad,” says Eight, the sympathy not really coming through his lion-head rumble.
Nine’s eyes have lit up, though. “It’s nothing!” he shouts. “Keep going!”
I’ve never seen anyone so excited by the sight of his own blood.
Just like that, Nine is on the run. Eight gives chase, but he’s lumbering in this form and Nine is freakishly quick with his super-speed Legacy. Nine races up the nearest wall and flips over the charging Eight. He manages to land right on Eight’s back, with one of his arms hooked around his neck. Being so large, it’s nearly impossible for Eight to reach around and get at Nine, which must’ve been exactly what Nine had planned. With his free hand, Nine starts punching Eight, aiming for the pointy ears that poke through the tufts of his mane.
Eight roars in pain and then reverts to his normal shape. He crumples beneath Nine’s weight.
Meanwhile, with Nine distracted, I make a run for the dummy.
“Watch out, Marina!” Eight shouts.
I hear Nine’s pounding footsteps behind me. Behind me and above me. I roll to the side just as Nine dives off the ceiling, trying that same jump-kick move he used to surprise Eight. Missing me, Nine rolls, putting himself between me and the dummy.
Nine’s staff is just a few feet away. As he starts advancing towards me, I grab it with my telekinesis and send it flying at his head.
The blow smacks Nine in the back of the head, making him stagger, and giving me an opening to sprint past him. He shakes it off quickly, though, and is right back on my tail.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eight has gotten unsteadily back to his feet.
“Slide!” he shouts.
Not thinking, just acting, I do as Eight says. I slide to the ground like a baseball player would. I see Eight start to throw a punch at thin air, but in the middle of the motion he teleports. He reappears right in front of me. I go sliding between his legs and his punch goes sailing over my head, right into Nine’s jaw. Running full speed and suddenly stopped by a right cross, Nine is flipped head over heels.
I scramble to my feet and reach the dummy. I place my hands over an imaginary wound and shout, “Healed!”
There’s a moment where the room is totally silent except for the three of us breathing heavily. Eight sits down hard, gently rubbing the side of his face. I notice that his ear is swollen closed and his neck is puffy with fresh abrasions from where Nine was punching him, so the damage he endures in his other forms must be carried over to his regular one.
Nine lies on his back, groaning. His chest is shredded from where Eight slashed him, he’s got a fresh black eye, and I think I notice a trickle of blood from where I struck him with his staff. Suddenly, his groans turn to laughter.
“That was awesome!” Nine hollers.
Psychotic as his love of violence might seem, I find myself smiling and agreeing with Nine. That was actually a really good workout. It felt amazing to be able to push myself like that in an environment that wasn’t life or death.
“Man,” says Nine, picking himself up from the ground. “I had no way to dodge that last punch. Good move, dude.”
Eight turns his bruised face up towards Nine. “Yeah. I owed you one. Or, like, ten.”
I kneel down next to Eight and start healing his injuries. The icy feeling isn’t so startling anymore; in fact, it’s starting to feel more and more natural.
“Why’d you shape shift back?” Nine asks, picking at the gashes on his chest. “That lion dude bullshit was giving me fits.”
“I have to really concentrate to keep the form,” explains Eight. “Getting my head bashed in was definitely not helping my focus.”
“Okay,” says Nine, thinking this over. “Sandor’s got some nonlethal weaponry stashed somewhere. You should let me shoot stuff at you, and we’ll work on keeping your concentration.”
“Yeah,” Eight says dryly, “sounds like a blast.”
With Eight’s face returned to its far more appealing not-bruised state, I start to work on Nine’s wounds. “You know,” I tell him, “you’re actually really good at this.”
“Fighting? Uh, yeah, I know.”
“Not just fighting. I guess, um, thinking about fighting.”
“Strategizing,” puts in Eight. “She’s right. I don’t think I would’ve come up with that teleport punch if you hadn’t pushed me. And awful as getting shot at sounds, I actually think that practicing might be a good idea.”
Nine puffs up, even more than usual. “Well, you’re welcome.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I say, watching the last cut on his chest slowly knit closed beneath my fingertips.
I glance up at Nine to find him looking past me, towards the doorway of the Lecture Hall. “Hey Ella,” he says, “did we wake you up?”
I turn around to see Ella standing in the doorway. She’s dressed in street clothes, the first time I’ve seen her out of pajamas or one of Nine’s baggy flannels in days. I’d think her getting dressed was progress, except her eyes are red-rimmed from crying. Ella doesn’t look at any of us, her eyes pinned to the floor.
“What’s wrong, Ella?” I ask, taking a few steps towards her.
“I—I just wanted to say good-bye,” Ella replies. “I’m leaving.”
“Like hell,” says Nine. “No more field trips today.”
Ella shakes her head, her hair whipping around her face. “No. I have to. And I’m not coming back.”
“What’s gotten into you?” I ask. And that’s when I notice it. Clutched tightly in Ella’s hands, practically crumpled from the way she keeps wringing it, is a piece of paper. Crayton’s letter.
“I’m not one of you,” Ella whispers, fresh tears streaking down her cheeks.
CHAPTER TEN
My dearest Ella,
If you are reading this, then I dread the worst has already happened. Please know that I loved you as if you were my own daughter. I was never meant to be your Cêpan. The role was thrust upon me the night our planet fell, and it was not something I was prepared or trained for. All the same, I would not trade away these years with you for anything on Lorien or Earth. I hope I have done enough for you. I know you are destined for great things.
I hope that one day you can understand the things that I’ve done, the lies that I’ve told you, and find it within your heart to forgive me.
When you were small, I told you a lie. Soon, that one lie became many lies, and those lies became our life. I am sorry, Ella. I am a coward.
You are ten, in that only ten Garde survived the attack on Lorien, but you are not the Tenth. You were not a part of the Elders’ plan to preserve the Loric race, which is why you were not sent to Earth with the others. This is why you do not bear the same scars as Marina and Six. You were never under the protection of the Loric Charm.
The Elders did not select you. Your father did.
You hail from one of Lorien’s oldest and proudest families. Your great-grandfather was one of the ten Elders that used to govern our world. This was in the time before our home planet reached its full potential, before our people unlocked the power of Lorien and, by living in harmony with the planet, were gifted with Legacies. Our young planet was at a crossroads, caught between a desire for rapid development and a need to protect what is natural and life-sustaining.
It was a time of death, a time still shrouded in mystery even to our greatest historians. During these dark ages, war raged amongst our people. Many perished in needless conflict, but eventually the forces of peace prevailed. A new age dawned on Lorien—the golden time that you were born into, and that the Mogadorians so brutally ended.
Your great-grandfather was one of the casualties of the Secret Wars, the conflict between the Mogadorians and the Loric that was covered up by our government to preserve the illusions of a Lorien utopia.
As a young man, your father, Raylan, became obsessed with this war. You see, after the war, when the surviving Elders reconvened, they limited their number to nine rather than the original ten. Your father believed that the vacant place amongst the Elders belonged to your family. Our Elders had never been chosen by ancestry or heredity, yet your father still believed that your family’s house had somehow been wronged by history.