Earthen Shadow Page 5

of water flew straight at my face. I threw up my hands, acting on instinct instead of conscious use of my gift. The arc of water froze inches away from my palms before it quivered and splashed harmlessly to the ground. I scrambled to my feet and tried to make sense of the tangle of arms and legs rolling about a few feet away. Liam hadn’t been joking.

  It was a tangled mass of Twilight students—all Knights, from the uniform colors that I could see—and the lone Titan that had to be Terrance. A frustrated Nathan was caught up in the mix as he tried to separate them to no avail. His element, for all of its beauty, was little use against two very determined Knights and one very experienced Titan, fueling master elements by pure emotion.

  Gavin's booming orders to break it up only seemed to make the fight worse. When he reached out to grab one arm, he dropped it with a hiss, as the arm became covered in flame. His arm phased into a solid limb of rough grey rock, the fire petering out to nothing, before the rock phased back into freckled skin.

  I scoffed inwardly at the slip-up. Gavin tended to operate with a ‘hit first and apologize later’ mentality that would one day result in more trouble than he’d know what to do with. I’d stopped enough fights in my own time to know that charging into something like this wasn’t very smart.

  From the sounds of things, they weren’t quite killing each other, just reinforcing their point of view in a very physical way. At a glance, I could make out the water type and Terrance, a metal type, with the third being the fire type that had seared Gavin’s hand.

  I squinted at the bundle of arms and legs until I caught the glint of silver that I'd been looking for. My former sponsored student was indeed tangled up with the other two Twilights in his full shimmering glory and I knew how to stop Terrance, at least, Gavin and Nathan could handle the other two—I hoped.

  "Grab their arms and keep away from their heads," I warned my fellow Guardians. I steeled myself for potential backlash, before diving into the fray. It took almost an entire minute to wrestle Terrance up and away from the other two and by then, Nathan and Gavin were able to step in and pull the duo apart.

  Burns on my arms and neck started a chain reaction of itchy, squirmy feelings that were only aggravated by the occasional splotch of wetness from the water element knight. My element stirred sleepily and I stubbornly pushed it down. It would be too easy to let it out and I didn’t want to imagine the havoc it could cause.

  I tightened my grip on a rage-quivering Terrance as he fought viciously against the hold. It wasn’t the first time I’d dragged him out of a fistfight and I didn’t bother to hope that it would be the last. He spouted off a savage stream of words in his native tongue, a less than flattering monologue.

  If I wasn’t holding him back, I would have clocked him one for the language alone. “Terrance, settle down!” I hissed in his ear. “Now or else!”

  His entire figure had turned to something of not-quite-liquid metal, a fluid, flexible silver-white state that gave a nod to his element, while adding some semblance of beauty to it. It simply looked as if the gifted individual had been dunked in shimmering silver and left as is. The result of that was that their expressions were just as clear as if their element was off. A look of pure outrage was clearly broadcast on his face.

  His light, slippery metal body grew heavy enough to throw me off-balance as he gave a final jerked and twist, in an effort to gain enough leverage to break free. I reluctantly pulled on my own element to counter his trick and pin him back. It worked. Terrance stopped fighting He turned suspiciously to see who had caught him.

  I offered my gravest smile. The one that usually had him running for the nearest exit—when I wasn't forcefully restraining him, that is—and the effect was rather nice. His face cycled from shock, to worry, to horror before he settled on guilt-tinged embarrassment.

  "Enough!" Gavin's angry roar startled everyone into silence. The water knight in Gavin’s grasp twisted once more, before he settled into an angry sulk, dark blue eyes glittering madly at Terrance.

  "That goes for you too," Nathan scolded his own captive. He eased the chokehold he'd used and the fiery knight lurched forward, seeking freedom that was not yet granted.

  "Terrance." I spoke, when he seemed to have forgotten what had been going on just moments before. "Anything you'd care to share?"

  He blinked at me, silver-white eyes darting around, looking anywhere but at my face. His metal form turned a bit more white than silver as he held his silence.

  “Terrance,” I prompted. “Nothing at all?” He was a Titan of few words and when he spoke, I’d learned to listen for what he didn’t say as well as what he did. There was something else that had happened here and I could almost feel it.

  He muttered something in Urukou and I strained to hear it. The words that I could make out, didn’t make any sense at all. I looked to the other two participants and tried to remember something about them.

  Nothing came to mind.

  I looked back to Terrance. “You’re sure?” I had to verify.

  The look of earnestness on his face vanished at once as all emotion erased itself from his expression, becoming to a blank mask. He twisted in my grip once more, a scowl beginning to form at the edges. He mumbled something that I didn’t catch and finally stilled. I usually took him at his word—I’d never settled for anything but the truth from him, but something in my face must have given me away.

  “Sorry, I just wanted to be sure,” I muttered, but the damage had been done.

  He refused to look me in the eye, pride wounded, head turned to the side.

  I bit back a sigh and looked to my fellow Guardians, waiting for one to them say something. Speaking up in Terrance’s defense right now was likely to turn this into a mess, if I wasn’t careful. Gavin and Nathan didn’t particularly dislike me, but they weren’t exactly friendly either.

  I didn’t have much of a reputation to worry about, mostly because I kept it very simple and absolutely spotless. Terrance was a different story, a fight would not look good on his record when he was preparing to shift ranks from Titan to Shirron.

  Nathan frowned in disapproval. "What do you two have to say?” he gave his captive a little shake. "Alven? Cameron?"

  "He started it!" Alven burst out, squirming again. "Lemme go, Nate! He deserved it, the little city gutter rat—he tried to!"

  "Hey!" I threw one of my best glares at him. "No name-calling."

  Terrance was most definitely not a city kid, much less a gutter-rat of any kind. He’d been one of the thousands of Urukou refugees during their realm-wide exodus due to environmental warfare. Amerinth housed a significant number of them while their planet regenerated over time, but their harsh lifestyle was not something easily understood.

  Gavin snorted. "You baby that kid too much, Lathmore. I’m sure his ears aren’t as innocent as you think they are."

  “They’re knights who ought to know enough to speak plainly without resorting to childish insults. Set a good example,” I snapped. I eased my grip on Terrance so he could stand on his own. From the look of things, neither of them spoke Urukou and I would have to prompt Terrance to repeat his story in Plain Basic. I was not looking forward to it. “Terrance, would you please tell us what happened?”

  He trembled in my grasp and the uncertainty in his eyes flickered to a genuine expression of guilt, then shame, before embarrassment colored his cheeks with a healthy red as his silvery form melted away to show his natural features. "Your sponsored student started it!" He glared at Gavin. "If you knew what he said, you wouldn’t be standing there as if-"

  "What I said hardly counts," Cameron smirked. "How about what you did? You started it first and it wasn’t enough to just pound him into the ground, was it? You had to start with your freaky skull-crushing-”

  Terrance twisted violently, struggling to lunge forward. His eyes flared from silver to pitch black. One elbow clipped me in the chin as pulled back against his weight. He was taller, but I had more experience.
I flipped him around to face the wall and drew on my element to effectively freeze him in place, pressing him to the wall. He could alter his weight with his metal gift, but my earth element would root him to the ground until I decided otherwise. "Terrance," I warned. “Stop that. He’s baiting you. Control yourself.”

  He fought the elemental pull, his black eyes fathomless. "People like him shouldn’t be in the Twilight,” he said, hoarsely. “You didn’t hear what he said."

  "No, but I am willing to listen and hear everyone's side of the story."

  "They're liars!" he growled. “Nothing but liars—they won’t tell you what happened, not now. It’ll just be pinned on me because I’m the most convenient scapegoat.”

  "Do you have proof of that?” I leaned to the side and met his gaze squarely. “There are three sides to every story," I reminded him. "I'd like to hear all three of them."

  Terrance scowled and looked away. "You'd be wasting your time then."

  "You don’t know that." I eased the gravitational pull on him when he began to slump towards the ground. “Besides, what are you doing out here anyway? Shouldn't you be in class? I thought you still had three pretests to complete."

  Terrance jerked around to stare at me, his tinted eyebrows narrowed into neat points. "Since when did I tell you that?"

  I stared at him for a moment, not quite understanding