Makatza, Nilsa, and Vanya should be back from their patrol shift soon, so I skip the stairs and mist into the lower levels. One step and I go from my room to smelling broth and roasted chicken. The mess hall is one of the bigger caves in the mountain, holding three long tables in its center. The dusk sunlight streams in from the long horizontal crevice on one side of the room, lanterns line the walls, and candles sit on the tables in preparation for dinner. It's dim and always makes me sleepy when night falls, but with my sisters being gone from the entirety of the day, this is the first place they'll mist into.

Right on time, three forms appear out of thin air in front of the table with the night's soup. The others in the room are used to us misting that they don't give more than a quick glance at them. I'm half tempted to mist right beside one of them just to see them jump, but I bite down on the rising power in my veins and walk to the cloaked forms.

Mak's red-orange hair is tied up in her usual high ponytail, the length of her hair falling just below her shoulder blades. She could easily change the color and length with her shapeshifting abilities, but she's always kept to her amber eyes, bright hair, and light skin. She says that shifting sometimes causes her to forget who or what she's become, and her birth form isn't one she wants to forget.

Vanya's eyes are the same shade as Mak's hair, and I've always thought she looks more phoenix than any bird Mak could shift into. Her dirty blonde hair just makes those eyes pop out even more. Men have been known to walk right into brick walks because she looked at them. It only gets worse when she duplicates, and then there are ten pairs of those eyes pulling you into a stupor. If she's in the room, we often find ourselves talking to one of her duplicates instead of the actual Vanya. I've since learned to sense the differences, but it's still unsettling.

"You look like you could use a trip to Histra's inns," Nilsa says as I approach them. Her dark eyes scan me up and down, likely scanning for where I'm the tensest. She doesn't have the bright characteristics of the rest of us, but she's the most dangerous of us all. Her name means champion, and there's no better name than that to describe her. Trained by a military father, she can take anyone on and stay true to her name.

"We all do," Vanya chimes. She plops a large spoonful of chicken into her bowl before heading off to the nearest open spot.

"Updates-"

"Uggghhhh! Can't we eat before you start peppering us with questions and orders?" Mak takes her bowl that's filled to the brim and drops down on the bench. "I'm hungry."

I fall the seat across from her, Nilsa gently placing herself beside me. "How about you tell me while you eat."

"Fine, but don't yell at me if I end up spitting broth all over your leathers."  

"I won't. I'll just make you wash them."

"Witch."

"Updates. Now." I let them sit and eat for a few minutes, knowing that they'll likely cut off my head out of their hunger. I would.

"Everyone in the cabin is still alive and scaring away the creatures with their squeals and loud whining that never ends," Nilsa reports, letting the other two get a chance to drink more soup. She's basically the big sister of our group. Always giving us more rations, more advice, and the shoulder we don't want but need to cry on. I may be the Lady One, but I find myself more than once a day following her rather than the opposite.

"I don't know why we're still monitoring them," she complains. Again. "If the creatures don't scare a passersby, then the screaming ought to do the trick." The other two grunt their agreements. If only they were there when I was telling Willa all of this two days ago.

Nilsa was in charge of monitoring the royal family of Vandaria today. We've been keeping an eye on them for nine cycles after we felt the elements awaken. For eleven years they've been slumbering with no elementals to keep them maintained and thriving, and then out of nowhere, they just...exploded. It was like being hit in the gut by a charging horse running at full speed. The air was knocked from our lungs, and we were grappling for air for the few minutes that the surge lasted. We knew enough to know that the elementals had been chosen and that we now had to find them before someone more idiotic did, but we couldn't trace it. One second the path was clear and then it was gone as if washed away by a flood.

We searched for days in search of the source of the surge, but there was nothing. We went back to biting our nails and pulling our hair. Two cycles after the first pulse, another was let out. It wasn't as big as the former, nor did it bind us to the elemental's own power, but it went right through us instead. Like a ghost. It was as if someone dropped a pebble in the water, causing the water to ripple. We followed it back to Fernweh and misted onto a roof outside the castle, only to find it already in chaos. Servants and guards were being ushered out by water wolves – which was of little surprise, but still startling – but no fire was raging, nor alarm sounding.

I sensed where the power was coming from and began giving orders to my sisters about getting into the castle, but Dee grabbed my shoulder and misted us both back into Willa's office before I could finish. The others followed, and she went straight into explaining the future she saw. "We can't interfere, or else we'll bring more destruction than settlement," she said when I pushed to go back.

In the end, we agreed to stay back, but that didn't mean we weren't going to keep an eye on everyone. We didn't know what had happened to the elementals, and Dee couldn't see where they were. That's when the third pulse came. One far more powerful than the previous, but only because of the raging in the elemental's head. This time we found ourselves instantly gripping a nearby tree so we wouldn't be pulled into what whirlwind storm we misted into. We fell back far enough to not be taken but the air element, and when we looked up and saw Prince Darius of Vandaria hovering over the trees, arms wide and fire reaching up towards him, I didn't have words.

We left before he or his companions who were screaming his name could see us, but I had shifts put into place so that two of us were always watching the cabin. Three days later, the Prince – who's now technically our King, the Pater Princeps – an assassin, and twelve other men set out heading north. Since then we've split the shifts into one person watching the cabin, and the other trailing Darius and his strange entourage.

With our King found, we needed to know where the Mater Natura was. Serephina and I set about looking for her. It didn't take as long as I thought, but Darius has since avoided the place, and it's been driving us crazy. So now we have three shifts, each a day long, and the updates always come back the same. But I still ask.

"The Mater Natura isn't doing well," Mak states next, "But for what she's being put through, I'd say there's not really much more she could give. If he doesn't find her in the next four – maybe five cycles..." Mak drifts off, her spoon stopping over her bowl.

"It won't come to that. She'll be eighteen soon enough, and we'll be ready," I declare confidently.

Every second that passes, counting down to the very last second until then makes me antsy, and the days seem to be dragging on longer and longer which doesn't help. My right hand instantly goes to scratch at my left inner wrist beneath my sleeve where our vow stains our skin and puts leashes around our necks. No matter how much I try to pull or scratch the ink from my wrist, it doesn't budge.

We drift into silence, a thousand thoughts running within us. Our Queen is being tortured every day and we can do nothing about it unless we wish for this world to fall into ruin. The days are going by too slowly, and Darius isn't making much progress toward her and he's falling apart himself. I noticed something was off when he and the others left the Dearg Forest and started traveling into the complete opposite direction of where they should be heading. The elementals share the elemental bond, able to connect the two in ways that they only can. Their powers call to each other when they're apart, begging to be closer. When used, the elements would naturally drift toward one another. They're kind of like children - the elements. They want to play and dance and live near one another, never liking separation. That's why it was weird to see Darius show no signs of feeling the bond.

He should've been hearing voices from both wind and fire and following them right back toward her. The elements never quiet to be reunited, and they always know where the others are. I misted Willa and Inna with me on my shift as soon as I noticed so they could see for themselves what I feared had happened. Inna said that she could feel his power bucking this way and that within him as it should, but she couldn't feel anything more nor could she tell what it was the elements were trying to pull toward. A sign that the elements are just feeding off of his emotions, not their own desires which is entirely abnormal.

When Willa looked, her face went pale and she misted before I could ask her about it. Inna went back, but I was on shift so I stayed. When I got back, all she said was that the bond had been severed. It explains why he can't feel her, but it doesn't help when we watch him practicing to control his powers late into the night and still not being able to have the bond.

His control is getting better, but he's still being driven by the wrong emotions. Anger, fear, and sadness. He burns down fields wherever he goes, and we're forced to wait until he leaves to wipe the local's minds and fix the mess. He hasn't noticed, and that's the way it's going to stay. People need to trust him, not fear him. It'd be easier if he tried a little bit harder to be careful.

"And what of Darius?" I ask Vanya. She's already halfway done with her meal, though she doesn't slow down.

"Still heading south. He'll reach Fredal by nightfall tomorrow. They're still quiet, and when they are talking it's more spoken distant thoughts. It's kind of sad." She makes a face down at her soup, suddenly looking at it like it's the one depressed and in need of a hug.

"We still don't know anything about the Queen aside from her name," Nilsa points out ever so generously.

I scratch at my wrist again. "No, but if we go searching for it then people will begin to question who we are and the Prince is currently looking for people who are asking questions about her. Dee made it clear we are to do nothing but watch from the shadows. Nothing else."

"And what of the child? No one in the cabin seems to realize what she is. Her or the other one." The spoon starts to slightly bend within her tightened grip. I roll my eyes.

"Nilsa, we don't even know what the child is. For all we know it's no more than a spark like the rest of the idiots under this mountain has." There's a snicker from the group behind me, but they knew long ago that I dislike picking up their shit. I'm not their mother and the mountain isn't their damn room. They're old enough to understand that.

"But it's not," Mak argues. "We know what sparks feel like – heathens, they're not even palpable unless you go looking for it. It's different with her."

"It's stronger, yes. But what can we do? Cage her? Put her into a coma?"

"That's not what they meant, Ro. You know that."

"Doesn't change the fact that we can't do anything while everything else is in play," I tell Vanya. "Not to mention that we need to know what she is before we go poking at her like some kind of experiment. She's young, and the rest of them have enough on their shoulders as is. Until we have them safe and clear-headed, we do as we've been doing."

Vanya looks as if she wants to argue further, but there's no winning this one. Even if Dearbháil didn't see a future where us getting involved would bring about bad consequences, we couldn't go against the tattoo on our wrists even if we tried. Not without forfeiting our own lives, and we're no use to the elementals dead.

They go back to eating, the sound of their spoons scraping the bowl for the last bits of their dinner the only sound filling the room. Those nosey pricks always go quiet when we start talking. Seeing as they can't go outside the wards without one of us trailing them, they result in eavesdropping on our conversations for gossip. I remember being a teenage girl, always sneaking out of the barracks at Camp Daleka to meet up with a boy or sneak some sweets from the kitchens. I know what it feels like to be kept behind walls and want nothing more than a little excitement, but I also know why the sentinels and instructors hated our guts so much. We cause a lot of chaos and make their nights longer every passing day.

I nod to my sisters once they've finished. The next breath they're gone, a thin cloud of black mist already dispersing where they once sat. I always thought that "misting" was a rather bland name for the teleportation power we have, but when you look at it, there's really no other name to call it.

By now they're gathering the rest of my sisters on the southern side of the mountain, each misting about the training hall to find an advantage point before I arrive. We do this after every shift that ends. I let those just returning from their shifts have a small break, and then we go to the non-magical clearing that Willa so graciously gifted to us, and train. The Wards Willa drew cancel out our powers entirely, so we have nothing but our bodies and weapons to fight with. It keeps us both in shape and in a semi-friendly manner for the rest of the night. This is normally when the adventure seekers go out and sneak into someone's bed or do something stupidly reckless, which means that we're left on trash duty until sunrise.

"If you have half a brain you won't go out tonight," I say to the people still quiet behind me. "Because when I return, I won't be in the brightest of moods."

Slowly I raise the power from my gut, letting the mist thicken and darken around me before letting it snap like a whip, and I find myself standing at the edge of the clearing, my two skims already drawn and angled for the attack Dee and Inna instantly launched into.