The Sankari Legends Book One: The Scars We Hide

A little before midnight, I tapped Alec’s shoulder to wake him up. He bolted awake, but didn’t say anything.

“It’s your watch,” I whispered, fully aware that Megan and Sabin were asleep close by and not wanting to wake them up.

Alec nodded slowly. I could tell he wasn’t quite awake yet.

“Here,” I said, handing him my water canteen. “You need help waking up.”

“Just give me a couple of seconds,” he muttered, taking the canteen. “I haven’t had to sleep on the ground like this in a couple of years. It takes some adjusting.”

“Did you sleep on the ground often?” I asked, confused by what he was saying.

“Yeah, kinda. As part of my earth-elementest training, I stayed outside a lot. And sometimes, while I was traveling, I couldn’t always find a place to stay inside.”

“Oh,” I said. I didn’t really know how to react to this. Alec had told me a lot about his life in Einoth last night at Zig’s, but it hadn’t been about stuff like this. Mostly, he’d told me about all the cool places he’d visited in his travels and how he really didn’t get along with Dad’s family.

Alec chuckled softly. “It’s okay, sis. You don’t need to feel sorry for me. Not all of us are privileged enough to grow up with beach front property.”

I punched him in the shoulder. “Shut up,” I muttered.

He took a sip from the canteen.

“Mm, not going to happen. But you should go get some sleep. We had a long day today, and tomorrow probably won’t be any better.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” I said. “That’s the most riding I’ve ever done in one day. I honestly don’t think my ass can take much more of that.”

Even though it was dark, I could see Alec smirk.

“Yeah, same here. But seriously, get some sleep. I’ve got the watch.”

I muttered some sort of agreement and settled down into my place around the dead campfire. I closed my eyes, thinking through everything that had happened in the past couple of days before I finally felt myself fall into the clutches of sleep.

I honestly couldn’t have been asleep more than a couple of minutes before I woke up to every single one of my senses screaming about an unseen danger. I bolted to a sitting position, catching the attention and a strange look from Alec, who was still on watch duty.

He looked like he was about to say something, but I held up my hand to keep him quiet. Then I did something a little odd. I closed my eyes and reached out with my telekinesis, sensing the world around me and trying to figure out what the threat was. My other senses were still going crazy, and I knew that something was definitely not okay.

Sensing things with my telekinesis was a trick I’d learned at Edil, but truth be told it was just one of the many things I’d developed from mimicking the water and air elementests in Valta. I liked to call this ability telekisenses (clever, right?). I’d gotten the idea behind it from the air elementest ability to sense densities in the air or places where solid things blocked the airflow. I figured that if they could do that, then surely I could use my telekinesis to sense my surroundings. Telekinesis after all (or at least the way I used it) was about extending yourself out into the air or space and understanding the space and lack of space in your environment and… actually never mind. That’s too complicated to try and explain.

The point is, I can sense what’s around me up to a certain distance (I hadn’t yet figured out my limit). Right now I was trying to sense whatever or whoever was lurking in the woods.

Despite the fact I knew Alec was giving me a weird look, I extended my right hand outward. I didn’t need to use my hand with my telekinesis since it's an entirely mental power, but I’d learned that extending the power through my hand gave me better control of what I was doing. It was the same for my telekisenses. I didn’t have to use my hand, but I could use it to better feel out my surroundings.

“Alia?” Alec asked timidly.

“Shh!” I hissed. “There’s someone in the woods. And I doubt they’re very friendly.”

“What?” Alia asked, sounding alarmed. “Should I wake the others?”

“Don’t bother,” I said. “I want to find out who this person is myself.”

I opened my eyes and jumped to my feet.

“Alia, are you insane?!” Alec asked.

“Probably, but that’s an argument for another day,” I said. I glanced in the direction I could sense the person in. “Question is, oh beautiful brother of mine, are you coming with me?”

“Geez Als,” I could feel him roll his eyes at me, “you don’t really give me much of a choice. Someone has to keep your idiot butt from getting killed. But I really think we should wake up Sabin and Megan.”

“I am not bringing along those two killjoys to help deal with something we can easily handle ourselves. Besides, just one of us alone is more powerful than the two of them combined. They would just get in the way.”

Alec gave resigned sigh.

“Even so,” he said. “I don’t really want to see their reaction if they wake up and find us gone.”

I lifted my hands, giving up on persuading him to follow along with me.

“Whatever Alec,” I said. “You sit here and babysit the sleeping killjoys, while I go find something to beat up.”

I started walking in the direction of the woods, only to have Alec reach up and grab my arm.

“Alia, please,” he said.

“Alec, I’m done discussing this with you,” I said, pulling my arm away. “I’m going. You can come along if you want, but you aren’t convincing me to stay here.”

Alec frowned, staring at the place where the fire had been. Then, with another sigh, he stood up.

“Just to keep you from getting yourself in trouble,” he said.

I grinned at him, then led the way into the woods.

As we walked through the woods, both of us kept our senses on high alert. I used my telekisenses as best as I could, but I hadn’t yet master the ability of multitasking while using it, so I wasn’t relying on that as much as my usual senses.

I wondered if Alec was using the air elementest version of my telekisenses. I thought back to how I’d come up with the idea for telekisenses from watching the air elementests back in Valta. The village I’d lived in had been comprised of mostly water elementests, but there were a few air elementests there as well. Actually, my cousin Waren air elementest. It was from watching them I’d come up with the idea for my own telekisenses.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that for a moment I neglected to pay attention to what I was doing. And that moment turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes I had ever made.

They surprised me, and that’s not something that is easily done. Alec and I were within a few miles of the konna camp before I felt a surge of energy around us, one several times larger than the trace we’d been following. Automatically Alec and I went back-to-back, both of us slipping into fighting stances.

“Hey,” I heard a harsh gravelly voice bark from above, “look like it’s going to be easy hunting tonight, guys.” A tremor ran through the ground, I felt and heard thuds as several pairs of feet impacted heavily with the packed dirt of the forest floor.

“They just came right to us,” a higher pitched, nasally voice said snidely.

We watched as four figures emerged from the dark woods. Three guys and one girl. Even though it was dark, I recognized one of the guys as the runner we’d faced earlier. I glanced between the other three and took in as many details as I could about them, but it was difficult with the lack of light.

“Hey, you’re that guy!” Alec exclaimed, pointing at one of the guys. This one, from what I could see in the dim moonlight, was muscular with dark ebony skin. “The one who knocked me out earlier.”

“Glad you figured that out,” the guy said. He turned to the three others with him, the girl and the runner were both slight in stance, while the other guy was tall and beefy. “Surround them,” he grunted.

His team answered instantaneously, encircling my brother and I on all sides. But just as they moved into position, so did we.

Alec and I moved in a slow rotation, keeping the four attackers in our vision, completely in sync with each other’s movement. I thought back to the academy, back to a lesson I’d received in partner combat training. The trainer had told us about a level of fighting that surpassed what could be learned; of something that was a type of taboo in the world of fighting, yet was something that happened on the rarest of occasions. What he spoke of was an innate connection the linked two fighters, his words being, “When they move it looks like a dance, like a secret language that only the two of them know.” I rolled my eyes at the thought that anything as poetic and graceful could ever be applied to my dopey brother and my klutzy self, yet at the same time, there was a little thought in the back of my mind, that maybe that might just be what Alec and I were doing right now. Despite never having been in a combat situation with Alec, I just knew. I knew his patterns, the way he was moving and breathing, the weight he had resting on the balls of his feet, the tenseness of his muscles. Everything. It was surreal, and I wondered if he could feel it too.

I shook my head, clearing out the thoughts and gearing up for what we were about to face.

“Easy hunting?” I smirked, taking stock of our opponents as I talked, trying to assess what we were up against. I cocked my head and put on a mask of innocent confusion, or at least I hoped it did. “I don’t see any of that around here.”

A grin crept out from the corner of my mouth as I turned to the guy who’d attacked Alec. I tried to remember his name. Alec had told us, but not matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall it. “Unless you’re referring to yourself, that is.”

I could barely make out his face, but his voice betrayed the reaction that I’d hoped for.

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with.” His voice tight and filled with anger.

“Really?” I retorted. “Because right now it doesn’t look like much.” My grin broadened when I heard a low guttural growl escape his lips.

“She’s mine,” he ground out. Then to the others: “You take him. Use sedation if you need to. Remember she wants them alive.”

“Well isn’t that encouraging,” I heard Alec grumbled under his breath.

I laughed. At Alec’s whit, at this situation, at the fact that I was internally freaking out about the phrase wants them alive, and, us sedation if you need to. What kind of sedation? Nothing that I’d like, that’s for sure.

“This is getting old,” I sighed. “Let’s dance, pretty boy.”

And with that the fight began.

I have to admit, as much as this situation royally sucked, there was also a part of me that loved it. Reveled in it. There was nothing in this world like the feeling of coming alive during a fight. The electricity running down my spine, heat rushing into my arms and filling my fingertips as my powers woke up with my adrenaline.

My feet were light on the ground as I ran at him. My heart pounding in my ears.

I felt it before I heard it. On the edge of what I could feel with my telekisenses. It was dark, swirling, and powerful. More powerful than anything I’d ever felt in my whole life.

With a flash the forest lit up with a harsh light. Blues and purples, a lightning flash of darkness. He had his hand outstretched, much like I held mine when using my powers. The bolt of darkness shot towards me like a bullet out of a gun. If it wasn’t for my telekisenses, I would’ve died then and there. I dodged the bolt, jumping up in the air and rolling as it passed underneath me. As soon as my feet touched down another one came hurtling towards me. I dove and rolled behind the nearest tree. Covering my head, expecting the blast to obliterate the tree into a million splinters. Instead I felt sick to my stomach. I gagged as I turned around, still crouched behind the tree, or what was left of the tree. I looked up and down, bewildered at what I saw. The tree had not been torn to pieces as I expected it would be. Instead It was decaying, as if it had absorbed the blast and it was sucking every bit of life out of the tree. Like the tree was sick. I could feel it happening, too. It made me want to wretch and let go of everything I’d eaten that day. The tree, every little piece of it that I could sense, was dying. The life being sucked out so fast that it made my head spin.

What the hell is happening? I fought to control my breathing, knowing I would have to move soon. I can’t let him hit anyone. Get it together Alia.

I ran in a crouch, coming out from behind the now withered tree.

“Hey!” I shouted at Mr. Tall Dark and Life-Sucking. “That’s a pretty cool trick you have there!”

The air lit up behind me, his bolts striking mere inches behind me as I continued running, trying to circle back to the clearing we started in.

I could feel exactly where he was, where everything was around me. So I knew when he stopped, when the energy ceased to crackle, smoking at his fingertips.

I kept running, wondering at the same time why he’d stopped. A few more bounding steps and I was back into the clearing. I could still sense him, and knew that he was standing, unmoving, in the same position he was a few heartbeats ago. I skidded to a stop, my heels digging into the earth. The voice of my drill instructor range loud and clear in my ears, “Stop moving, Alia. Stop, Breathe, and Listen. In battle you don’t have time to think, so when you have a chance to analyze, take it.”

So I did just that.

Inhale. I smelled the forest, blood, and sweat…all mingling together. Exhale. I strained my ears. I heard the breathing of my opponent, fast and shallow. Harsh from chasing me. There’s something else too, on the edge of my senses.

Alec.

I sharpened my senses, zoomed them in. I closed my eyes and took another breath. He was still fighting. Two of his attackers were down, and he and the last one, the girl with the nasally voice I think, were circling each other.

I took off in his direction. They’ll have to try harder than that if they want to separate us. As I approached them I slowed my pace, stepped lighter, and breathed softer.

“I bet Tyrone has already finished off your sister,” a female voice sneered.

Tyrone? That was his name, right. I could still sense him standing in the clearing where I’d left him.

Which was totally weird, I thought. Why did he just stop fighting like that?

“You don’t know anything about us,” Alec snarled. “Alia’s probably already finished him off and is on her way here now.”

Well, he wasn’t completely wrong.

Why wasn’t she attacking him? I could see her better now that clouds have moved and allowed the moonlight to filter through the trees. She was a head shorter than me, two shorter than Alec. She had auburn hair, and as she moved I saw the muscles in her legs and arms protruding, coiled in preparation to attack.

But still she talked.

“You know nothing, Parker.” She spat out our last name like it was poison. “Once we capture the two of you it’s just the beginning.”

“The beginning of what?” Alec growled, his voice low.

“Like that’s any of your business!”

As she said that I saw movement behind Alec. The other two goons he’d taken care of earlier were starting to wake up.

She’s stalling, I realized.

The tall beefy one got to his feet, but Alec didn’t. Panic threatened to take control of me, but I pushed it back. I would have to time my move perfectly if it was going to work. I watch Beef-boy shake his head, then, as he raised his foot to walk towards Alec I shoot. The ball sized rock I hurled at him hits him square in the chest, I heard several cracks as his ribs break and he falls back on the ground unmoving.

The girl swiveled her head around, a wild look in her eyes as she looks to see where the boulder came from.

Alec closed his eyes, relaxed his shoulders. Then with a wicked grin he blasted a gust of wind that knocked her backwards fifty feet and smacked her into a tree. He jogged over to her, then crouches where she lay unconscious.

“Told you so.” I saw him straighten and he looked at where I was, still in the tree line.

“Hey Als, pretty good timing you have there.” I jogged over to meet him halfway.

“I was just giving you a second to catch your breath. Besides, I can’t let them have all the fun.” I grinned and jerked my head towards the other two unconscious attackers. “Anyway, that’s enough excitement for one night. Let’s get the hell out of here.”

“Not so fast,” a deep voice growled behind us. Tyrone had caught up to us.

I spun to face him, Alec doing the same. I was tired of running, and it was time for this to end0.

Without saying a word Alec and I went at him, a wordless understanding of each other flowing from my body to his.

Alec ran straight towards him, fire on his fingertips, lighting up the trees around us. Tyrone engaged, throwing blasts of his dark-energy-stuff at Alec as he ran towards him.

I used Alec’s attack to run back into the tree line, circling behind Tyrone. As I ran I unhooked a circle of wire from my belt, something I always carried with me. As I came up behind Tyrone I threw the wire in the air, unraveling it and stretching it in front of me. I held the wire about ten feet in front, and above me. Alec still had Tyrone engaged in combat. I burst out of the trees, not bothering to be quiet, and yelled:

“Hey Tyrone!”

He didn’t turn, but I sensed a break in his movements. That was all Alec needed. The ground underneath Tyrone shook, then exploded upwards, shooting him straight up into the air. I thrust out my hands, the wire moving with them, as Tyrone flailed his way back to the earth my wire shot out, wrapping first around his arms, pinning them to his sides, then wrapped down from there, seizing his entire body. Just as he was about to impact on the forest floor I jerked my chin, catching him and holding him there with my telekinesis. I reached out with my telekisenses, pushing my powers to their full extent. I felt Tyrone’s body. His chest heaving, sweat pouring off his muscular frame. I pulled the weapons off of his body, able to sense where they were by feeling the difference between hot skin and cold feel of metal.

Two knives, a dagger, and a capped syringe fell to the ground with muted thumps. I held Tyrone where he was.

“Huh, let’s see what we have here?”

I flicked my hand and the weapons on the ground flew to stand at attention in front of me. I ran my fingers over the dagger, tested the grips on the hilts of the knives.

“This is some high class stuff you have here, Tyrone.” I snatched the dagger and twirled it between my fingers. “Oh and look! This one has an inscription!”

The dagger was lying flat on my palm as I squinted at the inscription, trying to make out the words with the moonlight that trickled through the treetops. It was useless, I couldn’t read what the dagger said. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, letting the feel of the dagger, the rough edges, the cool bite of the metal, everything about it fill my mind. I felt along the tip of it and worked my way down to the base of the blade, where the inscription was.

There.

I felt the start of the inscription, the dip in the metal, the worn grooves and edges. It read,

UNTIL THE END.

I let the dagger drop from my hand, making it fly, end over end, till the hard point of it was a millimeter away from Tyrone’s forehead.

He didn’t flinch.

“What’s so great about this dagger?” I said, my voice mocking. “Was it a present from a special someone?” I emphasized the last two words. “What’s with the fancy inscription?”

At this Tyrone smirked at my, a wry twist of his lips, yet still said nothing.

“Alia, we need to go back,” Alec said, his voice firm. “It’s going to be light soon, and honestly I don’t really want to get on Megan and Sabin’s bad sides. We’re going to be in enough trouble when they find out we ditched out on watch duty.”

“Yeah?” I said. “And what about them?” I nodded my head towards Tyrone and his unconscious friends.

“They won’t be waking up for a while, so don’t worry about them,” Alec allowed a small smile. “And as for this one, we’ll take him with us. I’m sure Megan would love to interrogate him about that weird power he has.”

“Whatever you say, little brother.” I smirked and started towards Alec, Tyrone trailing ten feet in the air up and behind me. We walked to the edge of the clearing, side by side. Alec turned his head towards me and said:

“Oh and another thing I meant to--”

He cut off with a small cry of pain. He clutched his neck, then his eyes rolled back in his head and he dropped to the ground like a rock.

“Alec!” I screamed, dropping to my knees beside him. I grabbed at his neck, trying to see what was wrong.

“Alec, wake up!” I shook his shoulders. A thud sounded behind me, and it registered in my panicked mind that it was Tyrone. No time to worry about him, he was tied up. I had to figure out what was wrong with Alec.

A throaty chuckle sounded behind me. I whirled around.

“Didn’t they teach you anything at your academy?” I heard a voice sneer. A girl, it was a girl’s voice. My head whipped around, but I didn’t see anyone except for Tyrone lying immobile on the ground in front of me. I moved to stand in front of my unconscious brother.

“Who are you?!” I shouted at the woods. I reached out my power fanning out over the clearing. There. She was standing twenty feet away to my right. My eyes ravaged the area, yet my eyes saw nothing to confirm the person I felt moving and stalking towards me. She’s invisible.

I let my eyes rove in the other direction, my heart pounding in my ears. I couldn’t let her know that I knew where she was. I realized that this was probably the same invisible person that had been with this group yesterday when we were attacked. I hadn’t sensed her there until it was too late, but now I was positive that it was her.

“Who am I?” Her voice was sickly sweet. “Oh no one really, what matters is who you are. You and your dear brother, that is.”

Keep her talking, make a plan.

“What do you want with my brother and me?” I did my best to push my fear away, while still hiding the fact that I knew where she was.

“If you think you can hurt us…” I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat as I forced myself to sound like I wasn’t absolutely panicking right now. Alec was unconscious, I could sense that easily. But I couldn’t tell what had made him lose consciousness. Fortunately, hiding my fear and most other emotions was something I was good at. It was something I’d been doing for a long time, ever since…

Now’s not the time for reminiscing, Alia. I scolded myself. Focus. You have to get Alec out of here.

She laughed, loud, deep, and clear. “So this is the great, Alia Parker! I honestly was expecting more.”

I closed my eyes. They were no good against an invisible opponent anyways.

“You disgust me,” she spat. “However, I know more about you than you think.”

My eyes flew open.

“Oh that’s right,” she laughed, “I know all about you little telekisenses.” Sarcasm dripped like honey from her tongue. “What an idiotic name.”

How the hell did she know about my telekisenses? More importantly, what gave her the right to call the name I’d so cleverly thought up for it idiotic?

“What exactly is your point?” I demanded, dropping the fearful facade, “Because honestly, I’m getting rather tired of standing here being lectured to.”

“I’m going to be taking you and your brother to our compound where you will tell us every military secret you know and betray your leaders.” I could feel her grin.

“Over my dead body,” I snarled, tensing to attack her.

“Oh there’ll be plenty of time for that later! Right now though, you’re going to come with me.” She said this all in such a pleasant tone, it made me want to vomit.

“Like hell I am.” I flew at her, Tyrone’s blades gripped in my hands, the dagger in my belt.

Her formed stayed motionless as she said, “Unless you want your brother to die within the next hour you will stop and you will come with me.”

I stopped dead in my tracks, growling, “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing that can’t be reversed,” she paused, “As long as you do exactly what I say.” The glee in her voice repulsed me, but I snarled back,

“You’re lying.”

I looked back at Alec’s unmoving silhouette; crumpled on the ground, doubt creeping its way into my heart.

“I assure you I am not.” She took a step forward, I didn’t move. I kept my senses locked on her, to make sure she wouldn’t surprise me, since she obviously had no desire to make herself visible anytime soon.

She turned and started walking in a circle around me.

“What your brother is currently dying of is a highly concentrated dose of Tyrone’s energy burning through his veins and dissolving his very essence. Normally, one of his blasts is enough to kill an average powered person. For someone like you,” she nodded her head towards Alec, “or him, it takes something a little more strong.”

She stopped behind my right shoulder, I could feel her breathing on my back. “We found out that his power flows in his veins. It’s extraordinary really. A power that has, in the history of Sankruus, never before occurred. He’s a bit like you, actually.” She smirked. “An anomaly, rare, and powerful beyond imagining. Too bad he’s going to outlive you.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh well, these things must happen.”

She stalked back around to stand in front of me. “And you, Alia Parker, are going to come with me because it is the only way that your precious brother is going to live.” She took a step closer, inches from my face, and breathed the words: “And we both know that you’ll do anything for you family, isn’t that right?”

She sneered at the end, letting the words sink into the deep recesses of my mind, knocking up against memories that i’d long since buried.

I closed my eyes as the memories fought against their walls, attacking me with a barrage of pain and stabbing light.

I screwed my eyes open, forcing the memories back into submission, back where they couldn’t touch me.

“Do you swear he will live?” My voice was wound as tight as my body.

“Of course!” she said happily. “Why else do you think we’d be going through all this trouble to capture you two? We need you alive.”

She spun around and started walking out of the clearing. She stopped halfway across when she realized that I wasn’t moving.

“Well let’s go!” Her voice was edging on impatient. “Do you want him to die or not?”

I blinked once, slowly. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t go with her.

You have to or Alec will die.

We’d just found each other. I wasn’t going to let him die.

I turned on my heel and walked back to where Alec was lying. His breath was shallow, I laid my ear against his chest. His heart was beating faintly, slowly. I leaned by his ear, breathing the words I knew he couldn’t hear,

“I’m sorry, Alec.” My voice caught in my throat, damn emotions. There was a good reason I always hid them, because when I didn’t they got in the way. I rested my head against the side of his, “But I can’t let you die here. I’m so sorry.”

With that I got on my knees, kneeling beside him. I grabbed one of his arms and pulled it over my shoulder, then the other. He was draped limply across my shoulders, arms dangling on one side and legs off the other. It was a struggle to stand, but I didn’t care that he outweighed me, I’d carried heavier on my back in training. Also, I couldn’t bring myself to use my powers on him, to let him trail along limply in the air beside me like I’d been carrying Tyrone mere minutes ago. I needed to know that he was still breathing, to be able to feel his heart beating. I was not going to lose him. Not when he was the only family I had left.

I stood as tall as my brother’s weight allowed me and looked her dead in the eyes, not needing to see them to know where they were.

“I’m ready. Let’s go.”