Exile in the Water Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 3) (29 page)

To find
the universal elements enough; to find the air and the water exhilarating;

to be
refreshed by a morning walk or an evening saunter... these are some of the

rewards of
the simple life.

John
Burroughs- ‘Leaf and Tendril’

“So,
once we get rid of all those houses there,” Gion pointed out over the edge of
the porch to the empty town beyond, “we open up our line of sight.  You see? 
No one will be able to use the buildings as cover, if they try to get into the
palace.”

Brokk
followed Gion’s gaze and then looked down at the map of the Water Kingdom
spread out over the wrought iron picnic table.  “Your father was a Wood Phase?”

Gion
frowned at the question.  “Yes.”

“I
can tell.”  Brokk stepped back from the table.  “You are very skilled at
security.”

Gion
didn’t know what to make of that.  No one in the Air House gave compliments for
simply doing an adequate job.

Behind
them, the balcony doors stood open.  Someone was playing Guns N’ Roses’
Welcome
to the Jungle
inside the palace.  The sound of it blasted out amid the
gently billowing curtains.  Anywhere else, rock music and pastel castles would
have seemed strange.  Since he’d come to the Water Kingdom, though, Gion had
become immune to odd.

“It’s
good that you’re here.”  Brokk allowed.  “I can’t conceive of the many defensive
measures for the House that you can.”  He shook his head.  “It takes so much
tedious planning.  That’s difficult for me.  I am more… direct.”

“You
helped protect Ty.”  To Gion, that was all that mattered.

“I
try
to protect Ty.  She makes it very difficult.”

Gion
certainly couldn’t dispute that.  “You just keep doing what you’re doing and
I’ll do the rest.”

“Agreed. 
I’ll continue installing more of the plastic windows, while you do this boring
paperwork, then.”  Brokk smiled.  “It’s a pleasure to have you working for me,
Gion.”  He gave a thumbs-up sign and headed back into the palace.

Working
for
him?

Gion
scowled.

Like
hell.

Muttering
to himself, Gion went back to his “tedious planning.”  Using a ruler, he
ruthlessly crossed out half the buildings on the map.  With three Water Phases
left in the universe, the deserted town was a liability.  The music switched to
I Will Survive
and Gion rolled his eyes.  Disco.  Of course.  Muttering
to himself, he marked through all the obsolete structures with thick, black
strokes of his marker.

“That’s
the church you just obliterated.”  Ty said from beside him in a dry voice.

Gion’s
head jerked around to stare at her in surprise.  This tiny woman was the only
creature in the universe who could sneak up on him.  “You’re supposed to be in
bed.”  He’d left Ty sleeping in her room.  Well, first he’d held her for an hour,
just watching her sleep.  Then, he’d forced himself to get back to work.

Gion
had never taken a break in the afternoon before, but he didn’t regret the lapse
in duty one little bit.  Seeing Ty stretched open on her bed like that, crying
out his name as the Air powers rocked her to completion had been the greatest
moment of his life.

“Are
you busy?”  She asked nervously.  “I mean, if I’m interrupting...”

“No,
you’re not interrupting.  But, Freya said not supposed to get up for the rest
of the day.  You have a head injury, Ty.”

Ty
murmured something he didn’t quite catch.

“I
beg your pardon? 
What’s
your wonderful excuse for ignoring doctor’s
orders to stay in safely horizontal?”

“I
said, I missed you.”

Gion’s
brows soared.  No one had ever said that to him before.

Turquoise
eyes flicked up to him and then away.

The
girl was a mass of contradictions.

It
amazed Gion that Ty could’ve been so bold in the bedroom and so shy out of it. 
Before, naked and smiling, she’d been talking Gion through a personalized
sexual fantasy and now she wasn’t meeting his gaze.

Gion
had spent the past few months reading everything he could on psychology.  He’d
been researching the best ways to help Ty with her panic attacks, but he’d also
learned quite a bit about how people thought.

Ty’s
self-confidence was shot and she constantly second guessed herself.  Her
insecurities made her pull back, for fear of rejection.

Gion
could relate to that.  He used cold sarcasm to keep people away, because they
never accepted him.  Ty used her shyness to keep people away because her
self-esteem was so damaged.  It amounted to the same thing.  But, he’d be
damned if he let Ty hide in her shell.  If Gion was working to be less
autocratic and cold, then
she
had to keep talking and moving forward,
towards him.

It
was only fair.

“I
missed you, too.”  Gion said truthfully.  And not just today, either.  Gion had
missed Ty desperately every day since Clea’s recital eleven years before.  Ty
had been too young to approach, then.  Not even Gion would break that law. 
But, walking away when he
knew
Ty was his had just about killed him. 
“You’re supposed to stay in bed, though.”  He wanted her resting and healing.

The
block with her energy worried him.

A
lot.

Ty
didn’t respond to that, but she edged closer to him.  She’d changed back into
her clothes, but she hadn’t put her shoes on.  Even her toenails were feminine,
decorated with peppermint colored polish.  The woman must stay up nights, thinking
of ways to torture him.

“How
do you feel, angel?”

“Fine.”

“Do
you want to see what I’m doing?”  Gion suggested, pulling out a patio chair for
her.  Whenever he saw Ty, Gion’s had the overpowering instinct to lure her
closer.

Plus,
maybe this way he could get her to sit down.  Whatever was going on her with
her powers scared the hell out of him.  He needed to talk with Freya himself
and, until then, Gion considered Ty more delicate than spun glass.

Ty
slipped past him, taking the seat.  She studied the map.  “You want to raze my
kingdom, huh?”

“It’ll
all be in my report.”  Gion couldn’t stop himself from running a hand over the
streak at her temple.  “You sure you’re alright?”

“Yes. 
I’m just tired of being in bed.”  She leaned into his palm and Gion’s heart
melted.

“Alright.” 
He relented.  At least, here he could keep an eye on her.  He took the chair
next to her and began explaining his intentions to control-burn half the houses
in the Water Kingdom.

Ty
clearly wasn’t convinced.  “Most of these buildings are millennia old.  The
Elemental historians will hate you if you tear them down.”

“They
all hate me, anyway.”

“But,
these buildings are part of our heritage.  They’re art.”

“Well,
they’re artistically blocking my line of sight.”

“We
can’t destroy art, Gion.”  The sun shone off her hair, making the color an indescribable
shade of golden fire.  “Not even for security.”

“The
houses will probably be destroyed, anyway, if the kingdom’s invaded.  Which is
what
my
plan will help prevent.”

“Maybe,
but the ends don’t always justify the means.”

Gion
absolutely didn’t believe that.  And he wasn’t giving up on his perfectly
reasonable plan to improve the Water House defenses.  “No one even lives in
those buildings, Ty.”

“Not
right now, but I have high hopes that more Air Phases will come here for
amnesty.  We could fix those houses and…”

“More
Air Phases?”  Gion didn’t like the sound of that.  “Who?”

“I
don’t know all their names.  Tharsis is handling their emails.”

“No
one comes here without me clearing them.”  Gion added a note of that on his
clipboard.  “Anyway, those houses will need a lot of work before anyone can
live in them.  It would be easier to tear them down and start over, at this
point.”

“Easier
isn’t necessarily better.  The buildings are special.  They were here before us
and they have a right to exist.”

God,
she was sentimental little thing.  Gion leaned forward and gestured with the
marker, tapping it against the map.  “Look, you get to keep all this over
here.”

Ty
frowned.  “Those buildings weren’t built by my ancestors, three thousand years
ago.  Burn
them
down, if you want to remodel so badly.  Let me have
these,” she gestured to the neat row of  X-ed out Elemental landmarks, “and you
can destroy all the newer buildings over there.”

“The
newer ones aren’t in my line of sight, though.  That won’t do me any good.”

“Well,
leave
all
of them alone, then.”

Gion
eyed her in exasperation.  “The novelty of having you argue with me is wearing
off.”

Ty
blinked, obviously unsure whether he was serious or not.

“I’m
teasing you, angel.”  Gion’s mouth curved.

“Oh.” 
She relaxed.  “Good.  Because, I won’t just let you have your way all the
time.”

“Most
of the time?”

She
laughed.  It was a beautiful sound.  “Not about torching my historic
architecture.  No.”  Ty looked out over the deserted kingdom for a moment and
shook her head.  “My parents would never forgive me.  They treasured our
commitment to art and culture.  This used to be such a beautiful land.”

“It
still is.”

“I
know, but it used to be alive.  It’s hard to see it so quiet, now, instead of
vital and energetic.  The baby will help bring some of that back.”  Ty smiled
at him.  “Thank you, for watching over Nia at the Home Depot, by the way.  I
knew that I could trust you to protect my family.”

Gion
lifted a shoulder in a shrug, embarrassed by the praise.  He still needed to go
kill Chason, but he didn’t want to spoil the mood by bringing that up.  He
wouldn’t leave Ty alone until he was sure she was well, so it could wait. 
Every time the girl wandered out of his sight, she got into trouble.

“It’s
not
all
quiet.”  He pointed out.  The song inside the palace had changed
to
Kiss the Girl
from
The Little Mermaid
.  Never let it be said
that the Water Phases didn’t have eclectic tastes.

Nia
was probably playing DJ.  Gion had checked on her earlier and she’d been
painting a room upstairs a shocking shade of Barbie’s Acid-Trip Pink.  Nia
wanted him dead, but Gion didn’t let that stop him from doing his job.  Ty
asked him to watch out for her family, so once an hour they all got head-counted,
whether they liked it or not.

“Well,
compared to what it was like once, the silence is like a tomb sometime.”  Ty
endeavored to look innocent.  “You know, we could hold concerts here, again. 
Live music would liven things up and you could play…”

“No.”

“But,
you have such a gift…”

“No.” 
Gion would eat razor blades for the woman, but he wasn’t going to do that.  No
way in hell.

Ty
made an exasperated face.  “Fine.  Be a jerk.  Anyway, I’m not going to rip
down huge chucks of my niece’s kingdom, before she even gets here, so….”  The
fountain in the courtyard was visible from the patio and it seemed to catch
Ty’s attention.

It
was the fountain that she’d almost died in front of.

Gion
glanced at her from the corner of his eye, his heartbeat speeding up.  He
wasn’t sure what Ty remembered about the mob attacking her during the Fall, but
she clearly didn’t recall
his
presence.

Gion
was sort of relieved by that.

He
didn’t really want Ty to know he’d been there.  At one time, he’d thought that
she might remember and realize that he wasn’t entirely bad.  But, now that Ty
seemed comfortable with him, Gion didn’t want to bring up any memories that
might rock the boat.  The way she just stared at the cascading water broke his
heart.

“Ty.” 
He said quietly.

She
jolted, her head whipping around to face him.  “I’m sorry, what?”

“I
can get rid of that fountain for you, too.”  He’d blow the damn thing into dust
if it bothered her.

Silence
for a beat and then, “I was almost decapitated next to the fountain.  I thought
it would be the last thing I’d ever see in this world.”  Ty sounded far away. 
“It was night, and water was pouring down, and I thought, ‘I used to play in
that fountain when I was little girl.’  I wish those were still the memories I
had when I looked at it.  Nia and I playing in the water.”

Gion
jaw tightened, wanting to kill those fucking rioters, all over again.  About
fifty mental health textbooks agreed that discussing traumatic memories was the
best way to deal with them, though, so Gion took her suddenly willingness to
share with him as a very positive sign.  He tried to give her an even bigger
opening.  “What happened to you during the Fall was…”