Elemental Rush (Elemental 0.5) by Elana Johnson Page B

wanted. I didn’t know half of what he’d done to protect me on the plains, or throughout the years of my life. I just knew he’d done everything he could to make sure I had what I needed, that I was the most comfortable I could be.
    I only hoped I could make him proud.

 
    The next morning a knock came on my door before I’d risen. Shocked someone was up before me, I padded barefoot across the stone floor to my bolted door. I listened first, something sentries were taught on the first day of training. A knock is never a knock , I heard in my trainer’s voice. A knock could kill you.
    So I hovered out of arm’s reach of the door, waiting, listening with my ears and my mind. Nothing stirred in the hall, and I cocked my head, accessing my airmaking Element to use the air to amplify sounds. I could eavesdrop on conversations this way, or send messages through the air. My Element did much more than simply make wind.
    All was still. I couldn’t even hear anyone’s thoughts.
    I opened the door and found an envelope of parchment on the cobbles. I hastily scooped it up and closed the door, re-bolting it as I peered at the ivory paper.
    My name was scrawled in crimson ink, and I suddenly knew what the envelope contained.
    My assignment.
    I retreated to my bed to open it, partly because the floor in my room held the winter’s chill, and partly because I wanted to open it near the window so I could read the assignment better.
    I counted myself lucky that I knew how to read and write. Besides Elementals, sentries were only one of two tiers of society that learned how. Teachers obviously had to know how to read and write, but nobody else got the chance.
    I slid my finger under the envelope’s flap and ripped it open. A single sheet sat inside, and I pulled it out. I held my breath as I read.
     
    Adam Gillman,
    You have been summoned to serve Firemaker, Councilman, and Supreme Elemental Alexander Pederson with your skills and abilities, as a sentry-guard, with loyalty and honesty. If you can accept this assignment, please report to the Supremist’s Council chambers with your squadron leader, Felix Gillman, at nine o’clock a.m. on the fifth day of the second month.
    Best,

Alexander Pederson
     
    My heart clogged my throat, and even the air from my Element didn’t make it easier to breathe. I had done it. I’d made it onto the elite squad of sentries that would serve and protect the Supremist.
    I fell back against my pillow, a low laugh escalating through my throat.

 
    Six months later
     
    I still woke before the sun, though I didn’t need to, which was saying something, because in the summer, it almost felt like the sun never went down. And if it did, it certainly didn’t stay dark long enough.
    But I couldn’t re-train my body to sleep past four a.m. I’d gotten up at the ungodly hour for almost twelve years, and old habits were hard to break.
    Now that I was an active and assigned sentry, I had more privileges, one of which was that I didn’t have to work out for an hour every morning. In fact, I didn’t have to report to the Supremist until eight o’clock. Felix made sure he and I got the coveted morning shift so we could spend the afternoons filing paperwork and sparring. That was the preferred method of staying fit—fighting other sentries. We all worked five-hour shifts, with the rest of our time devoted to meetings, councils, paperwork, and sparring.
    I slipped out of bed, noting that I had slept a little later than I normally did. The first rays of light were starting to make the blackness gray. I dropped to the stone floor and put in fifty pushups before the dawn spread through my bedroom.
    Another old habit I couldn’t break. Not that I wanted to. A sentry needed to be in peak physical condition at all times, and sparring didn’t always provide the needed workout.
    I’d gotten used to the monotony of my life. Most of the time I stood outside the Supremist’s chambers. I’d been sent to Gregorio