The Elementalist: Sky City (Book One)

Chapter Three: Destiny

"Ben!" Wade shook his friend's shoulders, trying to get his attention. "Ben, snap out of it!"

Turning his head slowly, Ben's eyes did their best to focus on the blur in front of him that was Wade. Taking in a deep breath, Ben sighed carefully. Everything seemed so extravagant to him, as though the air itself was buzzing with electricity and vibrating all around. It was a feeling so strange yet oddly familiar.

"How did... what did... I mean you—" was all Wade could manage to mutter. He stepped away from Ben, pacing back and forth as he held his hands atop his short hair, a look of amazement on his face, directed at his childhood friend. "I mean... What was that? You flew! You actually flew. Like in the air... Well, a hover more than anything, but still!"

Ben smiled his familiar, deep smile. There was a radiant happiness lost in his blue eyes. Holding his breath, he closed his eyes, attempting to fly once again, to recapture the moment and feeling of before. He was not sure what to focus on in order to compel his body off the ground, so he tried his best to remember the last time, to live again in the moment. If only he could relive that moment...

After a few, strained seconds, Ben opened his eyes, hopeful to be midair once again. To his disappointment, he found no sky below him, but only the disappointed and confused face of Wade.

"Can't do it again, huh?"

"I'm trying," Ben muttered, closing his eyes again.

"Maybe it's the fear. We were both scared back there. Maybe you can only do it when you're scared."

"Maybe..."

Ben doubted it. He'd read so many tales of Sky City and the Sky Kingdom that he knew fear wasn't what drove them. It was something far nobler... a feeling of pride and freedom. If anything, it's the exact opposite of fear. It's... something that Ben could never convey in words, only in the beating of his hopeful heart.

If it wasn't for Wade, Ben would have stayed on the exact spot for hours, if not days. The boys were only a few blocks from the safety of their homes, and the danger of confused and angry city guards was still a real danger. But ask Ben in that moment and he'd convey a look that would show that he'd forgotten all about his life, which now felt like another's.

Wade, being full of sarcasm and wit, but also caution and security, felt on edge and quickly decided to direct his friend home, regardless of the wonder that kept him frozen in place.

"C'mon," he said softly to Ben. "Let's get home before those guards find us again."

"Huh?"

"Home, Ben. Let's go home."

Opening his eyes, Ben looked over the rooftops to a specific patch of smoke drifting into the sky among the many others. It was barely visible in the blackened night, but the torchlight of the street let it be seen just enough to discern. That smoke, a smoke of a blacksmith's chimney, had always been a beacon home on long and tiresome adventures in his youth. Ben's father worked tirelessly making his living burning and molding metals with that fire. The cloud that rose from the distance was not only a symbol of home but of his father's strong words and his mother's sweet, worried gaze at his return. It never burns out.

It occurred to Ben as they stumbled along the remaining dark alleyways that if he had his powers, then other Sky Kingdom citizens should have theirs as well. The day might have finally come when Sky Kingdom citizens could reclaim their birthright and take to the air. The thought of sharing this gift with others was almost more exciting than the power itself.

At a half run, Ben and Wade made it back to Ben's house. Normally they'd be nervous, knowing well the strong words of reprimanding that would come from Ben's father, but now their minds were far too clouded to mind. Matters of childhood youth then seemed unimportant, and without hesitation, they burst into the Harris' household.