Chapter One

The forest was always quietest in the evenings. Everything was bedding down, getting ready for the night to come. The only things out were a few birds and random little animals scurrying around so they could begin their own version of daytime. The sun hid behind the trees, keeping my skin safe from its harmful rays.
​            I really hated evaporating.
​            Somewhere in the distance I could hear our guardian, Ambrosia, calling us in. The night was the best time for me to be out. Without the warm summer sun, I could walk around with no fear of becoming a cloud until the next rain. It really was such an inconvenience.
​            Still Ambrosia’s voice drew nearer to the creek I sat alongside, the tips of my silver-blue toes dipped into the cool water that matched my natural temperature perfectly. Looking down at my hand, I took in the blue tinge my skin had to it, something that none of our guardians had ever had. I was the only one out of our entire family with bluish skin and light blue lips, but we all looked different from each other and the humans who entered our domain.
​            A heavy breeze blew in and I lifted my head, a small smile playing on my face at the sight of my brother, Gale. He stood with his hands on his hips, the sleeves of his black jacket pushed up to his elbows to show his white skin. Like always, his white hair stood up on its ends, fluffing at all angles like a spiky cloud, the longer part in the back clamped into a ponytail that settled over one of his shoulders in a thick, silken rope, curling around his throat, the very ends stopping just shy of his collarbone. ​
            With a smile in return to my own, he offered me his hand. “Ambrosia calls,” he said, jerking his head in the direction of her voice.
​            “I don’t want to go back yet, Gale,” I said honestly, pleading with my eyes that he would understand. He sighed, the action causing a little gust of wind to drift by us. Without a word, he perched next to me on the boulder, his eyes resting on the calm water before us.
​            Our reflections shimmered back, the fading light catching on my dark silver-blue hair and tossing a strange double reflection off the strands. They tinkled together like broken shards of glass with every movement I made.
​            Gale let out a yawn, the next breeze rustling both of us. My eyes moved around the clearing. A doe stood a little ways away, facing us. She was beautiful, with wide, brown eyes and tawny fur. Animals were always so pretty when they meandered through our world. Only selected humans were allowed in. There wasn’t a real name for it, it was just our forest, but I’d heard Ambrosia call it Eden before. She’d told me it was just a human expression or something like that.
​            Humans certainly were strange.
​            A huffing breath that didn’t stir the air around me caught my attention and I turned my head to see a very angry Ambrosia looking at me from behind her glasses. She had to be at least a century old before she came into our realm, with folds and wrinkles in her face and eyes hidden behind thick glass meant to aid her poor vision. Her hair was a white mass atop her head, barely tamed by the brush she ran through it every morning.
​            “I called you,” she scolded, her brow crinkling as she glared at me from behind those round frames.
​            Cocking my head in confusion, I asked, “Why do I have to come in when I nearly evaporate every day?”
​            With another irritated huff, she put her hands on her hips and opened her mouth to speak. Something seemed to stop her and instead she decided to ignore my question with a shake of her head. It wasn’t unusual, they all ignored my questions sometimes, everyone but Gale. He always answered me unless he didn’t know either.
​            “Come to bed,” Ambrosia demanded. Sighing, I stood up, leaving the creek behind and following our guardian to the cabin we slept in. It was just big enough for the six of us and was always too hot because we all shared the same space, which meant being in an enclosed area with Blaze. On more than one occasion we had asked for our own cabins, but no guardian ever trusted us to be alone for very long.
​            Leaning against Gale’s side as I tried to disguise my sleepiness as affection, I looked down at Ambrosia. She was very short compared to most of the guardians we had in the past. I could clearly remember when she first came to live in our forest. She looked exactly the same. She claimed to have stopped aging the moment she left the human world, but it was hard to believe with how deep her wrinkles were. It must have been three centuries ago that she came to take care of us. It was the longest any human had stayed with us. Even guardians came and went periodically.
​            My feet carried me slowly over the ground behind the older woman. Gale’s arm draped around my waist, his body heat �" as always �" matching with the temperature of the air. He was slim and wiry. If I hadn’t seen a human boy, I wouldn’t know that people come in different shapes and sizes. Our last guardian was a man with big muscles. He didn’t last long after he hurt Spectra. Whoever watched over us �" aside from our assigned guardian �" banished him in that instant. The next thing any of us knew, Ambrosia was here and the rules got a lot stricter.
​            The cabin came into view and I hurried forward, pulling out of Gale’s grip only to lace my fingers with his as I took off running. I knew he was faster than me. Wind can outrun water any day, but as we raced across the ground, he didn’t make any moves to overtake me in our rush to get home. We ran side by side, my twin and I. We were the only elements who were ever paired, the rest were born separately…if born was really the proper word for how we were created and left here.
​            Touching the door simultaneously, we laughed softly, pushing against the wood to enter the cabin after turning the brass knob. Behind us, Ambrosia grumbled about our sudden eagerness.
​            Walking inside, I looked around the large dining room. There was an extra chair sitting around the dining table. Curious, I walked over to it, touching the back like it was a mirage. It wasn’t. It was big and black just like the one Ambrosia sat in; completely the opposite of our own light oak chairs that matched the pale wood of our dining table. She once told us about guests, but I didn’t think that she could have them in our forest. There were rules about it that were put into place from before I could remember to keep us safe.
​            My sisters giggled in the living room as a deep voice drifted to my ears. My head turned in Ambrosia’s direction and she smiled at me. I was so startled by the action that I nearly missed when she told us to follow her into the living room like it wasn’t our house as well.
​            Sitting in the only armchair in the room was a man. He had skin the same color as the doe’s hide and eyes that were just as brown and soulful, if not a few shades darker. He was smiling at my sisters as they sat as close to him as possible, giggling about something that I hadn’t heard but wanted him to repeat so that I could understand why they found it so incredibly amusing.
​            When he went to push back his dark brown hair, I saw an awful gash running from his temple to his sharp jaw line that had obviously only healed recently, perhaps just months ago. At that same moment, he seemed to spot us as we entered the room completely. Ambrosia had once told me it was rude to stare, but the man didn’t seem to mind my inquisitive gaze as he offered up a straight, white smile that was almost blinding in its intensity…Or maybe that was just his aura. Spectra claimed that they were really bright, but I hadn’t ever seen one personally. If I had, I bet it would look like him, though.
​            Taking a seat on one of the couch cushions cautiously, I watched the newcomer with bated breath, waiting for him to hurt one of us the way the last man did. My fingers squeezed Gale’s so hard he let out a hiss and jerked his hand from my grasp, staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
​            “Who are you?” I asked the man suspiciously, my eyes scanning over him and taking in the odd black symbols etched into the skin of his arms. He ran a hand through his hair again, only smiling halfway as he looked at me this time. He seemed to stop breathing as he stared at me for a moment too long.
​            Quickly, I looked away, not wanting to see the disgust I knew would be on his face the moment he realized that I actually looked like this all the time. On the opposite couch, my sisters gave me an encouraging smile, but they would never understand, they were all so beautiful. Spectra was so bright with her pure gold locks that flowed down her back like the glitter Ambrosia once gave us as a gift. It was the only time because of the awful mess we made with it…
​            Spectra’s eyes matched her hair, bright and shining, unlike my own reflective, liquid silver pools. The gown that covered her shimmering, tan skin matched as well, showing how pure and bright her element really was. Spirit was strong. It kept everyone and everything alive. Her tall, willowy form was beautiful and graceful, but that was something we all shared. The only thing we had in common.
​            Beside her, Blaze sat with her hair shimmering red, orange and blue like a crackling fire even when she was sitting still in her humanoid form. Her blue eyes looked at me, the orange flecks catching the light and tossing it back like an animal’s.
​            Then there was Terra, the one with the appearance closer to that of a human as compared to the rest of us. Her hair was brown and green since it was summer. Her green-brown eyes looked soft as she took everything in. The calm sister. The one who took things as they came.
​            In this family, I wasn’t anything special at all when compared to my sisters in both strength and beauty.
​            “Alexon.” His voice pulled me away from my sad musings and my eyes darted to him. “My name is Alexon Zeno.”
​            He was still smiling, making me feel bad for not smiling back automatically. When I did, he sucked in a surprised breath and I let it fall from my face. “My name is River,” I replied, knowing my voice sounded similar to the slow trickle of a creek. “And this is our brother, Gale.” Next to me, Gale inclined his head stiffly, his pale grey, nearly white, eyes focused on the man who called himself Alexon suspiciously. He was worried about the nature of this visit as well, but he wasn’t allowing his insecurities get in the way of his investigation...if he even had any to begin with, that is.
​            “Why are you here?” he asked roughly, leaning forward and glaring at the newcomer. His elbows rested on his knees, wrists limp like he was trying to tell the human man that he was not afraid of him. In my mind, that went without being said…or shown.
​            Alexon didn’t squirm under the intense scrutiny, instead he sat calmly, still looking like he wasn’t in the midst of the strangest creatures he had ever seen. I could tell by the look on his face that living elements were a bit much for him to wrap his mind around, but he was taking it all very well despite that fact. I wondered if that was a normal thing for humans or if the ones sent here were just special. I liked to think they were, especially since they never aged, just like us.
​            His brown eyes moved to Ambrosia before he looked back at us. “It isn’t my place to tell you.” Confusion knitted my brow, but he asked us a question before we could continue to pry. “When were you born?”
​            “What do you mean?” I asked before any of my siblings could get the jump on me.
​            He looked at me strangely and said, “You know, the date you were brought into this world?”
​            Terribly confused, I did what I always did in moments of great distress; I turned to Gale and tugged his sleeve until he looked at me. “What is a date?” I asked quietly, brows furrowing as I tried to understand what Alexon was getting at with his question. Even Gale looked uncomfortable, his eyes darting around like he was expecting the answer to be written on one of the cabin’s walls. My eyes moved to where my sisters were sitting, but they seemed just as confused as I was, looking at each other like one of them might know something.
​            Ambrosia gave a soft smile to the man, replying with a gentle, “The elements have always been, and so have their living personifications.” It wasn’t entirely true, but it was easy to guess where she was going with the explanation. We were very old. Older than humanity, one of our other guardians once told us. That was why our first guardians were strong looking men with wide wings spans. They often left us saying they wanted to spend time with the women on the human plains. They never came back.
​            Alexon looked utterly baffled, his eyes moving over each of us, scanning us in confusion. “None of them look like they’re even in their late twenties, let alone millions of years old!” He exclaimed, suddenly moving a little away from my sisters as they reached out to comfort him.
​            Standing, I made my way toward to entrance to the kitchen, glad it was my day to cook even if I didn’t have to eat very much. As I turned the corner, I could have sworn I heard Alexon’s voice claim, “She sounds like a rain stick.”
​            Having no idea what a rain stick was, I continued walking until I was in the kitchen, my eyes burning into the new chair that sat around our dining table with unbridled resentment.
​            What was he even doing here?