Shoes and socks discarded, I dip my feet into a bucket of warm water she’s prepared for me. Elara hovers, her discomfort palpable in the way she chews her lip. She’s never been one to handle Soul Wraiths well, and she’s perpetually concerned about my potentially tracking negative energies into the cottage after a job, even though we both know that’s not how our Emo talents work.
“How can I not worry?” she persists, pointing her wooden spoon at me. “Especially when you’re back this late.”
I press my back against the cool wall. “Sorry, El, but you know I like to clear my head by walking.”
Her eyes narrow. “Then why do you reek of voidroot smoke?”
Avoiding her gaze, I finish drying my feet and slide on my slippers. Elara returns to her cupcakes, and I hope that’s the end of our discussion. I wouldn’t want to spend the night after her birthday bickering over the same old thing we always do. Especially since I haven’t even given her my gifts yet.
I watch quietly as Elara works her Emo talents. Her fingers twist delicately, drawing thin, gleaming threads of positive energies from the air – warmth and joy and whatever else she can sense that I can’t.
The energy swirls gently around her hands before she rubs her fingers together, and it drifts like glitter on to the cupcakes, soaking into them. Now, anyone who eats one should experience those same positive energies.
“I’m serious, Talia,” she says after a moment. “You’re my big sister, and I look up to you. I hate seeing you waste your talents. You’re so good at what you do. Why settle for a minimum-wage job clearing demons out of people’s attics for a living?”
“Even if I wanted to enrol somewhere like Nexus Academy, we can’t afford the tuition,” I say, rising from the stool and walking to the four-seat dining table. I grip the back of the chair. “Besides, there’s no way I’d make the cut for admission. I can’t sense positive energies, remember?”
“You used to.” Elara’s voice is gentle. She pauses a few seconds before adding, “Before Mum and Dad died.”
I gulp hard, feeling it tear into my heart.
Memories of our parents flicker before me. My mother’s freckled face, her laugh, the way my father used to carry me through the village on his shoulders…
Elara and I were both so young when our parents died that most of what we know about them as people was learned by way of second-hand accounts. They were historical consultants at an excavation site in the southern principality of Wrisha, using their Emo talents to monitor energies at a lost temple.
One day, the temple collapsed, leaving only a handful of survivors, and our parents weren’t among them. That was the day I became half an Emo, only left with my negative-sensing abilities, and also, in some ways, a mother.
Since then, I can hardly recall what it’s like to conjure positive energies – unlike my sister, whose talents blossomed even in grief. She chose hope, whereas I found myself clinging to the past. To the shattered dreams of what our family could’ve been.
At school, the scholars didn’t understand my inability to sense positivity. They chalked it up to incompetence, but I knew that wasn’t the case. I spent hours in the village library poring over every book imaginable on the subject.
Studies have shown that an Emo’s talents mirror their deepest emotions. It’s all about one’s state of mind. Those who can only tap into negative energies have usually gone through some serious trauma or life-shattering event, which sounds about right in my case.
I’m not worried about it, though. I’ve been doing finethe way I am. But I hate that it bothers Elara more than it bothers me.
“What about you?” I ask, sitting down at the table. “Why haven’t you tried enrolling in Nexus Academy? You’ve got the potential.”
Elara piles spoonfuls of pastel-pink icing into a piping bag to decorate the cupcakes. The icing comes out in glistening swirls. “Like you said, we can’t afford the tuition.”
It’s a pragmatic answer, but there’s a deeper truth lurking beneath her words. She hasn’t gone to school because she doesn’t want to.
Where most elementals in the Triumstellar Accord are more than willing to play the game of societal advancement, Elara’s always been more of a dreamer, keen to follow her heart rather than chase money.
That’s where the two of us differ. I work hard so that Elara can dream. She doesn’t know it, and I would never tell her, but I’ve tried applying to Nexus Academy.
It didn’t matter that I could snuff out the most elusive Soul Wraith or identify any negative energy by scent alone. As soon as the board discovered my inability to sense or conjure thepreferablepositive energies, they dismissed me – to no one’s surprise, really. The Principal Academies have always been … selective.
There are ten academies dotted across the three principalities, all grand institutions with rigorous entry requirements. Nexus Academy specializes in Emotergy,and it’s situated just outside our village. We frequently see students visiting on their days off.
When an elemental graduates from a Principal Academy, they’re expected to choose from a handful of predefined career paths specific to their talent. The options for Emos have always been limited. There’s the path of historical consultancy, like our parents’ work; the path of emotional healing, helping individuals grapple with past traumas; the path of emotional architecture, designing spaces to elicit desired emotions; and the path of conflict mediation, arguably the most challenging of all, which involves influencing emotions during stately negotiations to promote empathy and understanding between opposing parties.
I wouldn’t mind taking up a career in emotional healing, as it can’t be too different to what I’m doing now. But in any case, it’s out of my grasp now.
“Our home power unit is running low,” Elara says, as though I hadn’t noticed, mixing more icing in a bowl. “I had to turn the oven’s temperature on max before it started warming up.”
I stare at the old tinny oven behind her. I suppose it’s been a while since we made a trip to the Principal Grid to recharge. The last time, it was so expensive we had to beg our landlord, Huck, for an extension on the rent. He wasn’t overly keen on the idea, so I’m not sure it’s a viable option.
“I’ll see what I can scrape together. Maybe we can go this weekend,” I say. I can use some of the money I got for the rings tonight. Or perhaps I can take our home powerunit to be recharged at the Night Market. It’s most certainly cheaper, but I’ve always been hesitant. Elara already asks too many suspicious questions as it is.
