“Bookworm, Elex, remember?”
“Even so young?”
“Yes.” I nodded firmly. “Why do you think I’m an acolyte at the temple? My parents saw I wasn’t an athlete at a very young age and let me read. Which is what I should have insisted on doing instead of getting tripped with a cheater’s stick!”
The truth was I wasn’t mad. It had been fun, but I really wasn’t a very good athlete. Books were everything to me. I loved reading and learning, and for eighty years, I had been doing just that in the temple.
As we all walked toward the mountain, I realized I didn’t have to make up my mind about my position at the temple. I wanted to remain an acolyte. I wasn’t interested in forsaking the company of my friends—especially Elex—and I certainly wasn’t willing to have the temple be my only existence. So many of the wise teachers in my books had said, education is not just learning. Doing, and being, and seeing and witnessing—all of it was part of life.
I wanted that.
And perhaps, someday, a mate and children. I was entirely too young for that, though.
Finding seats in the amphitheater, the esalhukhi teams had started their on-field battle.
Even as I tried to pay attention, something…
…something plucked at me.
The amphitheater faded into the background, even as the game became more intense. A surge in my power, an odd rush in my ears.
Something tried to pull me away.
A tickle.
An itch.
A burning desire to turn around and stare up at the massive, airless peak of the mountain.
Stronger and stronger as I sat there, the feeling drove through me, permeating every nook of my mind, and eventually, I couldn’t resist it.
I looked to Elex. “Do you feel that?”
Startled, Elex glanced at the crowd and stadia around us. “Feel…what? An earthquake?”
My eyes landed back on the tall, now-threatening peak behind us. “The mountain. It’s…”
Startled, and a touch frightened, he craned his neck around. He studied Mount S’Tisk, as a trained geologist would, eventually turning back to me. “There’s nothing there, Kimber. It’s the same it’s always been.”
I tipped my head back to try to see the peak, but as usual, it was impossible from so close to the base. Still, the itch grew. Ignoring it without success for another few minutes, it increased to a pull I needed to answer.
With a gentle touch, I got Elex’s attention long enough to tell him I was leaving. “No, something is going on, Elex. I’ll be back.”
Standing, I climbed over him and two others. The aisle was clear, and I scampered out of the amphitheater toward the mountain.
“Kimber!”
Elex caught up before I made it very far. “What in the world are you doing? There’s nothing there. The mountain hasn’t moved in millennia, save for a small tremor here or there.”
“There’s something, Elex. It’s pulling me toward it, trying to tell me something.”
“Oh, for… You’ve been in that temple too long.”
I stared at him, hard. “You don’t believe me.”
“I think your dinner is sitting wrong, and you’re applying mysticism to indigestion.”
Rolling my eyes, I marched toward the mountain.
