Elemental Hunger

Chapter One

My feet itched to be outside, to be running through the forest with nothing but wind and silence as companions. With Jarvis at my side, as we'd done so many times before.

But we might never do that again. See, he and his newly-selected Council would be too busy for anyone or anything but learning about the powers they each possessed, and how those had been enhanced through the chartering. In four months, they'd travel south to Tarpulin—the capital city of the United Territories—for diplomacy training. Four measly months, and he'd leave me the same way Cat and Isaiah had.

Would Jarvis write? I had thought Cat would, but no. I hadn't heard from her or Isaiah in a very long time. I definitely wouldn't get a letter from Jarvis.

Unless he picks you as his Unmanifested.

My pulse quickened at the thought. The exquisitely tuxedoed guys in the Earthmover and Airmaster rows joked as if they didn't have a care in the world. They probably didn't. If they didn't get chosen tonight, there was always next term, another selection ceremony. And if they never got chosen, they were still treated as royalty. They'd join the training center staff and groom future Earthmovers and Airmasters.

I swallowed hard. If I didn't get chosen tonight, I would return to my confined life of say this, don't say that, do this, don't do that, serve him, move faster, fetch more wood, get out of the way.

I'd felt this level of nervousness at several of the previous selection ceremonies. I'd seen the desperate Unmanifested candidates go unnoticed in ceremony after ceremony. I'd heard their muffled sobs no matter how they tried to hide them. With every ceremony where I got passed over, my anxiety grew and pulsed upward, choking me.

After each ceremony, my friend Cat had waited for me in my dorm. She'd comfort me and braid my hair, weaving magical stories of the Council I'd be a part of with the threads of hair.

She'd taught me a few tricks to get my hair to ripple smoothly down my back. "Gabby, honey, put tea tree oil in your bathwater," she'd always said. With a friend like Cat, I never wanted for a hot, scented bath after a hard night in the kitchens.

Her heart belonged to Isaiah, but I liked to think she'd carved a place for me too. Even with her Elemental status, she never looked down at me, never sought friends with more power or rank.

"You'll have to learn to read," she said a few weeks before she left for diplomacy training. "Because I'm going to write to you every day."

I'd stood behind her, brushing out her hair into ribbons of black silk. "You won't have time to write every day," I said, but inside I was secretly pleased. Maybe she'd miss me as much as I was going to miss her. I wasn't sure how I'd endure the selection ceremonies without her to help me afterward. I hadn't coped well, that much I knew.

"Every chance I get," she'd insisted. "Promise me you'll learn to read." She turned, and I found an odd sense of urgency in her face.

"As soon as I get the approval," I said.

Her full lips curved up, and she stood. "Your turn."

I took her place in the chair and let her comb through my hair. She hadn't done four strokes before she said, "Gabby, honey, I have an oil you should try," just like she always did.

I wrenched my thoughts away from Cat. I hadn't received a single letter in the year since she'd left for Tarpulin and her Council training. I swallowed back my disappointment, still lost in my memories of the numerous selection ceremonies I'd witnessed.

I'd seen one Unmanifested break down, first crying and then screaming for another chance. She'd worked on the grounds crew, and I used to see her on the way to my first class every day.