“Did you see it?” Jason looked at Sinastar first before turning to her with a wide smile. “My zai. It was right here –”

“Of course, I saw it,” she muttered.

The flash of white had been a scathing wink at her inability to manifest zai. A witness to the stream of things she had been failing at recently.

“So did I,” said Sinastar. His words drew her friend's gaze to himself. “Well done. You managed it faster than I thought.”

“Really?” Tremulous pride sprinkled red glitter across Jason's expression and concealed his wavering distrust of the other guy.

“Of course.” Sinastar nodded and held out his fist. He smiled when Jason's knuckles touched his and spoke again as though he needed to balance out the sudden explosion of energy. “What were you thinking about when it showed up?”

“Uh –” The younger of the two flushed faintly and scratched the back of his head.

“Did you empty your mind?” asked Satara quietly as she swept her pride out of the way with a reluctant, irritable hand.

“Kinda –?” He held out a fist to her too and his dark green eyes gleamed. “How the heck did I end up beating you, Tara?”

“I don't know.” She shook her head and tried to smile for his sake, tapping her fist against his. “I must've lost focus or something.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can do better than that.” His hand slid past hers and he pressed his knuckles to her collarbone, squeezing one eye shut. “Come on. I'll wait for ya.”

“You better not,” she muttered. Her tone lightened as some of the confidence dripped from his expression. “I don't want you to fall too far behind when I overtake you again.”

“Ooooh.” He lifted his other fist and drew the first back, holding both in front of his face like a boxer. “Fight me.”

“I intend to,” she growled and settled back into a comfortable position as Sinastar intervened.

“I think you should train a bit more before trying anything like that.” He turned to Jason and indicated he return to his original position too. “Your zai. It was white, wasn't it?”

“Yup.”

“Try to focus on the though or memory that helped you unleash it the first time.” He shifted a little until his body was angled towards Jason. “I want to see it properly this time.”

Why can't I draw it out? She closed her eyes again and ran through the mental checklist she kept to prepare for her nightly meditation. I'm the one who's used to this kind of stuff. How did he do it before me?

She inhaled deeply but the air seemed thinner than it had been on the roof of the derelict building. She shoved her unkind thoughts out of her mind but memories replaced them and filled up the spaces left behind.

She watched her sister practise self taught combos. Her limbs made fluid patterns against the back drop of an early morning sky. Her blade sliced through the air at a safe distance and glinted in the weak sunlight like the waves beyond the edge of the cliff. She struggled to lift her sister's other sword when she wasn't looking and dropped it. Her cries dragged Saytarnia swiftly from the world of stealth and skill she had been dancing in on her own.

<><><><><>

“... Some try to wake the ability in themselves by force.”

“How do they do it by force?” She pressed him with the question Jason clearly wasn't comfortable enough to ask.

“They steal zai from others,” he said quietly. A shameful secret. “To get familiar with the feel of a particular element and encourage their own bodies to mimic the same energy. Of course, taking another's zai without their consent isn't allowed even during a real battle. Though it can be a form of attack, most don't have the ability to control their own zai well enough to manipulate someone else's at the same time.”

<><><><><>

“Is that why you disappear for hours with your sister? Because you're cheating and taking her zai?” His gaze shifted to Satara behind the gate and she swallowed but refused to slam it shut against his attention. “It's why you keep her close all the time, isn't it? So she'll never be as good as you.”

Back then, was that guy right? Is that why I can't –? The heat seemed to be clogged somewhere along her arms, filling her heart like numerous blood clots. If those really are memories and Sinastar's telling the truth about everything, then this is all her fault. Again. The pain in her back flared and her ribs crumpled like paper beneath the weight of her latest realisation. She didn't just kill my family and leave me to die in a crime scene. She even stole my zai and ruined me. That damn –

“Satara …!” Sinastar's low voice sharpened around her name.

Its urgency tore her eyes open. She wondered why he had both palms pointed at her, what had caused Jason's mouth to hang open like that, and followed their gaze down to her hands.

“Oh …” She froze. An unarmed hunter in the presence of a threatened tiger.

A swirling black mass encompassed her hands, dense enough to conceal them completely, and the intense burning she had experienced over the past few days radiated from her in waves. Something flashed white in the depths of the ball of zai and she held her arms out to keep it away from her face. Her stomach flipped as it continued to grow, crackling and buzzing non-stop. A storm of her own making. Why isn't it stopping? It's too close. How do I make it stop before it kills –

“Oi, Tara!” yelled Jason.

He was standing closer to her zai than she wanted him to be and his cry slapped her across the face. At some point, Sinastar had moved to kneel on her other side. His hand hovered over her shoulder and lowered to latch onto her only when she looked straight at him.

“It's okay, Satara,” he breathed. His touch reached past her skin and landed around her wild thoughts like a lifebuoy ring in turbulent waters. “That's your power. Yours. You don't have to fear it. It's only as strong and as controlled as you are.”

My power? She grabbed onto his words and turned back to the roaring darkness in front of her. Another flash reminded her of Saytarnia's eyes, glinting under the light of the moon, and the mass started to grow faster. It's real. It's all real. Is this what I feel right now? Is that why it looks like this?

“Focus on your breathing,” murmured Sinastar. “It's too fast. Once you calm down, so will your zai. I promise.”

“Okay.” She nodded and closed her eyes as if she were meditating. Visualised the pulsing heat along her arms as negative thoughts and slowly picked them out from beneath her skin, casting each patch of blackened flesh aside.

Sinastar's fingers remained on her shoulder, spanning the gap between her collar bone and the top of her shoulder easily, and Jason's concern fluttered around her head like an oversized moth. The zai stopped growing then shrank away from her face. By the time she opened her eyes again, she could encompass its was swaying and hovering form between her palms.

“That's good. You're doing well,” said Sinastar as he reached for the downsized mass with his free hand. “Can I check its element?”

“Is that … safe?” She willed the zai to stay in place despite its familiar flickering. It reminded of her of an unwilling cat during a check up at the vet.

“It will be, if you're okay with it.” He was fearless, slipping his fingers into the side of her zai, and she held her breath. He didn't wince even when it hissed against his skin and closed his eyes for a moment before withdrawing his hand. “That's enough. You can let it return now.”

“How?” Even as she asked, her zai retreated into her fingers and palms, absorbed by her bare flesh like water into a sponge. She released the air trapped inside her the second it vanished and hesitated before she pressed her hands against her folded legs to stop herself from keeling over.

“Three words for ya, Tara,” said Jason, his eyes wide. “What. The. Hell?”

“I wish I knew.” She wiped her face and traces of sweat remained on the back of her hand.

“Are you okay?” Sinastar's hand hadn't moved from her shoulder and removing it didn't seem to be at the top of his list of priorities.

Oddly enough, it wasn't at the top of hers either.

“You said zai reflects our personality and thoughts, right?” She tried to laugh but the mild alarm on their faces told her the sound hadn't come out quite how she meant it to. “Based on what just happened, should I be worried?”

She smiled and for some reason it made the back of her throat hurt. Is it because Saytarnia hasn't broken me yet? Because now I can fight back if I want to?

“We can work on that,” said Sinastar with a decisive nod. He patted her shoulder and finally drew back his hand. Or is it because the longer I stay around him, the more I remember and the less I doubt him? He looked up at Jason then back at her. “I'll have to see it properly but I'm fairly sure you have Black Fire with White Lightning.”

“What?” Her question melded with Jason's.

“I felt two different kinds of heat. And both Fire and Lightning run in our family.” Sinastar stood up and scanned the dark sky. “It's getting late. We should –”

“– Wait, wait, wait!” Jason held up his hands as though they were stop signs. “Are we not gonna talk about the fact that Tara's got two elements? Doesn't that mean she's one of those people who're born with two?”

Sinastar kept his gaze on the night sky for a second longer before he answered. “It seems like it.”

“You don't seem surprised,” she said, scraping suspicion off each word before she spoke it. Jason still glanced at her the way he did when he thought she was being unintentionally rude.

“I am surprised.” Sinastar picked up his jacket and folded it over one arm. “But now that I think about it, it's not entirely unexpected.”

“Why –?” She stopped. The answer was obvious. “Saytarnia uses more than one too, doesn't she?”

“I believe so.” He adjusted his coat needless along his arm. “But I didn't get the chance to confirm it.” He turned to Jason before she could ask anything else and pointed to the tent closest to the entrance of the small clearing. “We'll use that one. I hope you don't mind sharing your space with me?”

“It's your space. You're the one who bought it, right?” Jason also seemed to have more questions.

“Hey, did you work out your zai yet?” she asked, getting up and dusting grass off her clothes.

“Yeah. He said it's White Air. Right before you –” He cut himself off and shook his head with a low chuckle. “Hell, Tara. I know I said I'd wait for ya but two? Remind me never to say that again.”

Though his tone remained weightless and friendly, a shadow she had never seen before crossed his gaze.

“I told you not to, didn't I?” she said, edging towards the other tent. Away from the misplaced darkness. “You can't say I didn't warn you.”

“I guess so. How did you keep it there for so long?” He moved to keep her in sight and snapped his fingers. “Mine went just like that.”

“I don't know.” She knelt and unzipped the outer and inner flaps of her tent. It probably isn't a good idea to tell him I didn't have much of a choice.

“Anger can be one of the strongest emotions on the spectrum,” said Sinastar. He was kneeling by their tent doing the same thing. “Amongst others.”

How did he know I was – She remembered how she had recoiled from her own zai. The way it hissed at both her and Sinastar. Of course he knows what that thing was made of. It couldn't have been more obvious.

“What others?” asked Jason.

“It always depends on the individual experiencing it, of course.” The lack of self consciousness in his voice was both admirable and embarrassing. “But love – genuine love – has the potential to fuel the strongest expression of zai.”

“So if someone draws out zai based on their feel – on their thoughts about someone else and their zai is weak –” Jason spoke slowly, looking at the remains of the fire. “– does it mean they don't really care about that person?”

Wow, Jayce. That question's so shallow even I can see through it. She stood up and her insides twinged at the sudden movement. Who was it? Who helped your zai appear? If it bothers you that much, you should've just stayed with her. Who knows when you'll get to see her again if you stick with me?

“No.” Sinastar rummaged around his backpack and brought out three frozen fish pie containers from a cooler bag. “Not necessarily.”

He arranged them on a structure of sticks arranged like separated Jenga blocks and glanced up at Jason who made a semi-questioning, semi-cautionary noise.

“You've gotta microwave those –” The younger of the two stopped mid mumble as he swept his hand in a circular motion and encompassed all three boxes in an oven of Blue Fire. “– oh yeah. 'Course you don't.”

“Sometimes it could mean the memory isn't as strong as the person thinks it is. Maybe it happened a long time ago or maybe it didn't have as much of an effect on the person as they believe it did.” Sinastar settled down beside the flames and held his hands over them until the colour lightened a little. “Or maybe something happened that changed the relationship between them and the other person since that memory. There are many reasons.”

“Oh okay.” Jason laughed shortly and sat down beside the fire as well. “Cool.”

“I'm going to wait in here.” Satara pointed at the interior of the tent.

“The food won't take long,” said Sinastar without looking up.

“I know.” She waited for him to dissuade her.

“Okay.” He lifted his gaze from his zai only long enough to smile faintly at her. “I'll bring you your sleeping bag in a second.”

Betrayal lifted Jason's eyebrows but she pretended not to see it. He had left her in the flat with a stranger for half an hour. She was sure he could manage several minutes without her unimpressed presence.

“Oh. Thanks.” She slipped off her shoes, one at a time, and the nylon floor of the tent crunched beneath her feet and then her knees. He's not going to ask why? Is it because he' wants to win my trust? Or because he knows why?

She smoothed out the plastic-like fabric. The ground beneath it was bumpy yet not overly uncomfortable beneath her palms. She half zipped the inner flap of the tent and lay on her back, taking deep breaths. An abrupt sensation of foolishness seeped out from her body and into the earth. Her ribs strained but didn't hurt as much as before. Her eyelids drifted shut and she breathed in the oxygen that seemed to have been missing since Saytarnia injured her. As if summoned by the thought of her sister, the previous memory flooded her brain and continued on from where it had left off like an video that had been paused in the middle.

“I told you –” snarled Saytarnia, raising a hand clad in Blue Lightning. “– to go home.”

Satara started to open the gate again but paused as the blue glow intensified in both colour and sound. The boy had definitely seen her sister's zai but he kept talking. Which meant he either felt safe or he had some kind of death wish.

“What? Don't you like hearing the truth?” His gaze flicked to the blue sparks crackling around her straightened fingers then back to her face. “Just admit it. You're a cheater.”

A taut silence bridged the space between his accusation and Saytarnia's response to it. Several of the other children had backed away as soon as her Blue Lightning appeared, including the boy who had tried to dissuade his friend from extending the confrontation. Terror trickled from their features in barely visible beads of sweat and tightened their muscles as they prepared to run. Saytarnia's zai suddenly vanished and she turned her back on them, her eyes already shut.

“I don't owe anyone the truth,” she said in a tone as flat as still water. “Let alone someone who only wishes to hear lies.”

“Do you really think anyone believes that power is yours?” said the boy. “The Lightlings only want to believe we have someone as strong as you in our clan. Why won't you just admit it?”

“Yeah!” piped up one of the others from the back of the group, clearly encouraged by Saytarnia's lack of immediate violence. “Admit it!”

Within seconds, more words flew across the gap between them like arrows and landed clumsily against her sister's exposed back as though shot by amateur archers. Satara no longer wanted to run out and protect the other children. Saytarnia's mask shook like her clenched fists and her lips parted as she drew patience from the air. Satara wished she knew how to manifest her own zai as she watched her sister stand against their verbal onslaught in silence. The empty space around her darkened a little more with each allegation.

“No one is that powerful!”

“You're just a child like us.”

“Just because the adults favour you, it doesn't mean you're telling the truth.”

“How can you be so strong when the rest of your family's so wea-”Saytarnia's fist crashed into the ringleader's face and cut off the rest of his question, knocking him back into his friend.

Satara blinked and her sister vanished again. She reappeared several times beside each child that had spoken and laid them out flat with swift punches and kicks, moving faster than any of their eyes could. Faster than time itself.

One of the girls crumpled to the ground with a groan, holding her stomach. A boy tried to duck the blow aimed at him and land a punch of his own. He cried out and held onto his outstretched arm as if it had been twisted the wrong way. Another boy attacked the moment she reappeared again and flew backwards as Saytarnia balanced herself with one hand and launched a backward kick into his chest. She straightened up amidst the hisses and grunts of pain and turned to the one who approached her first.

“No one is this powerful?” Her eyes blazed a livid electric blue behind the black, dishevelled strands of her hair as she glanced at the boy who had said it. He moaned and crawled backwards away from her, cradling his arm to his heaving chest. “Do you still think you're right?”

Satara's fingers tightened around the edge of the gate, breathing as hard as the children who had experienced barely a taste of her sister's true power. Saytarnia had been annoyed by certain words and had lashed out to protect someone but Satara had never seen her so openly angry before.

“Weak, witless fools,” The steadily building thunder beneath Saytarnia's voice loudened as she continued. “You don't know anything about strength. Or the curse that comes with real power. You know only the shallow insecurities born from your minds and the selfish wishes that weigh down your hearts. Nothing beyond that. That's all that matters to you.”

“You'll pay for this,” gasped the leader of the children as he got back up at a distance he must have thought was safe. “Our parents will tell the Lightlings what you did to us and they won't let you get away with any of it.”

“The Lightlings?” Saytarnia tilted her head with a humourless, wolf smile. “Their sight has become even more clouded than yours –”

“Saytarnia!”

Satara jumped as their mother's authoritative voice lashed them like the whip that hung in a coil at her side. Sunlight drew out the red streaks in her flowing hair like heated metal on a blacksmith's forge. Saytarnia looked sharply at their mother, who was accompanied by several other people wearing black headbands and belts … and an older man dressed entirely in white.

“What happened here?” Their mother's forbidding dark eyes, almost identical to her sister's, roved the fallen children then returned to her daughter. “Have you been fighting?”

“I wouldn't call it a fight,” said Saytarnia.

Her expression froze slowly, the way it usually did in their mother's presence. The leading boy bristled but kept his mouth shut, looking from the girl who had attacked him to her equally intimidating mother.

“What would you call this then?” Their mother stepped forward and, though her hand hadn't moved towards her whip, Saytarnia's head lowered as if it had and she subtly widened her stance.

“Self-defence.”

“Why would you need to defend yourself?”

“They attacked my honour. And the virtue of our clan.”

“Oh? So you bravely defended yourself against a group of children for our clan?” Their mother smiled and her lips were thin enough to leave grass cuts. “Do you think that makes it okay?”

“None of this is okay,” murmured Saytarnia.

“Perhaps you've been away from the clan for too long. You seem to have forgotten how we live with each other.” Their mother's eyes flitted towards Satara and she flinched behind the gate. “You've been alone or on your special missions a lot recently, I know. But I'm starting to doubt whether the time you spend away is for the Tribe or for your own good –”

A bolt of electricity cut their mother's sentence short and scorched the dirt by her feet. A blackened Chinese krait writhed on the burnt ground.

“Don't doubt my intentions,” said Saytarnia softly as their mother's gaze lifted from the dying snake to her face. She lowered her hand and the vivid blue patch on her palm faded unlike the dangerous luminosity of her eyes. “Nor my sight. The blind are led by the blind in this Tribe.”

Thought they had jerked backwards in response to the Blue Lightning strike, the warriors standing around their mother and the Lightling stepped forward again.

“How dare you –” began one, reaching for his sword, but their mother raised a hand and he paused.

“You would accuse the Lightlings of short-sightedness yet insult them in their presence?” she asked, her tone blade-like.

Satara's stomach turned into a void she thought would swallow her from the inside out. Nothing good would come from the amount of quiet fury building up outside their home. Their father seemed to think so too. He stepped out from behind one of the warriors and approached his wife.

“Lacinya, let's go inside,” he said, bowing apologetically as the Lightling looked at him. “Forgive me for interrupting but we shouldn't disturb everyone else out here.”

Some of their neighbours peered out from beyond the safety of their windows, their attention drawn by the crowd gathered in the wide street that separated their house from the rest of the village. Their aunt and uncle watched from the steps of their own segregated home as if they were about to step in and help, holding onto their cousin who looked like he had already tried to pull away from them and run over.

Their mother turned to their father and scanned the faces around them.

After a long moment, she faced her daughter again. “Saytarnia –”

“I once saw a future like no other for this Tribe,” said her sister. Her low voice somehow reached them despite the distance. “I saw all we could achieve and all we could create. But then I also saw the reality everyone else refuses to look at. The one the Tribe will hide as they pretend to keep us all safe.”

“Saytar-” Their father moved towards her and dismay dripped like sweat down his brow as he glanced at the Lightling's slightly alarmed expression.

“My eyes have opened and I refuse to watch this Tribe destroy everything it could be.” Blue Lightning flickered around her sister's hands and head, bringing out the colour in her eyes. “I don't care who or what I have to face to save it. Why should I? When I've awoken a force great enough to bring an entire empire to its knees –”

“Tarya!” Satara dragged the gate open and stepped out, shouting as loud as she could before the conversation exploded like a zai-bomb. “Stop!”

Saytarnia fell silent at once and her shoulders hunched as if Satara's voice had been a punch to the stomach –

“Satara?”

Satara jumped and pushed herself up onto her elbows. Sinastar hesitated outside her tent with one hand tangled in the flap of her tent to keep it out of his way. A steaming rectangle of fish pie rested on the palm of his other hand, outlined by a presumably protective layer of zai.

“I'm sorry. I didn't realise you were sleeping,” he said, averting his gaze.

“I wasn't sleeping,” she replied quickly, wincing at the breathless croak of her voice. “I was just –”

– remembering how dysfunctional my real family was.

“Jason said you'd like eat alone.” He nodded in the direction of their tent.

“Oh. Yeah. I wouldn't mind.” She moved into a more dignified sitting position. “If that's okay?”

“Of course. Can I come in for a minute?” He waited until she shook her head and edged carefully into the tent. It suddenly didn't seem as spacious as it had a second ago.

He withdrew a couple of napkins from his pocket and used them like coasters as he set down the fish pie on the tent floor between them. He placed a plastic fork across the top of its container then dragged the sleeping bag she had used before into the tent followed by a simple black satin backpack with silver zips. He pushed the first to one side and offered the second to her with both hands.

“I prepared this in advance. If there's anything else you need, I can get it for you or –” He produced a black card from inside his trouser pocket and handed it to her. “– you can get it for yourself. Just let me know.”

“A credit card?” Satara blinked at the word on the right hand side of the card. “I can't use this.”

“Why not?”

“I'm fifteen. I don't even have a bank account.” And why would I use a stranger's money?

The corner of his mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile but decided not to purely for her sake. “I can teach you how to use it, if you want. You should probably take the money out from a cash machine first though. Just for now.”

“But how much money – how much can I use?” The question was a placeholder. Her fingers dug into the satin of her new backpack.

“As much as you need.” He nodded as her eyes rose back up to his. “It's yours. Just try not to buy a house with it.”

“You're giving a fifteen year old you barely know a credit card with lots of money on it.” She smiled despite everything. “Are you sure that's a good idea?”

“I won't know until I try.” He gestured towards the fish pie and the floor of the tent crunched beneath him. “You should probably eat before it goes cold. I'll see you in the morning, Satara.”

“Sinastar?” His name leapt from her lips before the right question had fully formulated in her head. She tucked the card into one of the bag's smaller outer pockets as he paused. “Uh – thanks. For the food.”

“You're welcome.”

“And for helping us. After Saytarnia left. And with the devil thing.” She pushed the bag aside and held a hand over the steaming food. Gratitude left a strange taste at the back of her throat and she tried not to grimace. “We would've had issues if you hadn't.”

“I know.” He looked away briefly. The rekindled firelight outside highlighted the movement of his neck as he swallowed. “And I believe I know you too. Even if you don't remember that yet.”

“I think I'm starting to,” she admitted, adding quickly. “Not everything. Just some things.”

“I see.” He nodded, his gaze neither happy nor sad yet fixed on her face. “If any of your memories become too heavy, you can always come to me. No matter what time it is or where we are. Okay?”

“Okay. Is it – do you have a nickname?” The atmosphere touched her cheeks with unbearably warm fingers even before he tilted his head. “Sinastar's a long name and I don't like talking. Can we call you something else?”

“Of course. I don't mind.” He half lifted a hand and froze in the act as he had several times previously. “Our Tribe did this during meetings and partings. Do you mind if I –?”

She nodded and stiffened as his hand headed towards her already heated face. 'The hell is he going to do? His fingers parted her hair and slid gently across her scalp until his palm connected firmly with her forehead. Intimate enough to disrupt her thoughts. Familiar enough to settle her heart beat.

“Two can surpass one.” He laughed quietly to himself. “Normally you'd say –”

“– But one can stand alone.” She stilled under his hand and resisted the impulse to knock it away. Why the hell did I say that?

Sinastar pulled back and his eyes glimmered but only for half a second. “You remember?”

“I guess so.” She rubbed the warmth of his touch from her forehead. “Not really, to be honest.”

His mouth moved but then he pressed his lips together and nodded, pressing two fingers to the inner corners of his eyes. He shuffled backwards out of the tent and paused mid crouch.

“Sleep well, Satara. I'll see you tomorrow.”

“You too … Sin.” She cleared the awkwardness from her throat and tried to read his face through the mesh but he lowered his head in a quick bow.

His hair covered his eyes as he zipped the inside flap completely and did the same to the outer flap. Seconds after his silhouette rose outside her tent, she noticed a folded piece of paper stuck to the bottom of the new backpack. Is this for me? She picked it off the fabric and opened it up, frowning at the words written across its wrinkled, red stained surface.

What the hell is this?