Keepers of Elements: Chapter Three

Chapter 3

In the span of two hours, the Highest had arrived in Addie’s village, unveiled her glowing face, and now prepared for departure. Addie felt more at ease, especially after Vailea brought her family to Neviah’s house to spend time with her, allowing them all to say farewell. Thaba and the village elders announced Addie’s departure to the other villagers, declaring that Addie’s identity as a Chosen Keeper had been kept a secret for divine reasons, even though those reasons were still unclear. Yet, now that she was at the age where her gifting came alive inside of her on their own, she would take her rightful place among the others of the Chosen. Nothing else concerning the in-statement ceremony for the Sun Keeper was discussed, something that Addie still felt confused about.
Addie stood, without a veil, embracing her friends and neighbors with smiles and tears marking each of their faces. Beside her was the horse Caedmon had acquired for her from Adam, the chief village elder. The horse was a mare named Sophie. She was a seasoned riding horse with good temperament. Addie’s small bundle of belongings was securely tied behind her saddle.
Finally, her family members were the last ones standing before her, taking advantage of one last goodbye. Her brothers offered quick hugs and both her mother and father offered words of wisdom and love to impart to their daughter. Her mother embraced her tightly, pressing a package into her hand. She smiled as she wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“Addie, I made this not long after you were born. It was symbolic of your true name and I wanted to give it to you when the time was right. Open it after you have left this village, a reminder that you are beginning a new life with a new identity.” She hugged Addie once more. “Think of us often, Daughter, and never forget how much we love you.” She backed away, stepping into the security of her husband’s arms. Jirin, her father, blew her a kiss with a slight wave, sadness marking his strong features.
Addie took a deep breath and squared her shoulders, preparing herself for this journey, whatever it may hold for her and her future. She blew a kiss back to her family, then turned and lifted herself onto Sophie’s saddle. She was relieved that she and her family were parting on loving and understanding terms and that her neighbors were aware of her departure and the reason behind it. She had not known what to expect, truly, once the Highest arrived in her village. She supposed she had expected to be spirited away secretly into the night; though what caused that line of thought, she had no idea. She would be better prepared, leaving everything she knew, under these circumstances to face her newly discovered destiny.
Addie watched as the front and rear guard of the Highest took up their positions and Celesta and the others mounted their own horses. Instead of forming a straight line as the Highest had done before, Vailea and Celesta rode beside each other in the front as Thaba and Caedmon took positions on either side of her and Sophie. The narrow roadways would probably make traveling in this fashion much easier.
The only time that Addie had ever traveled outside of her village had been to go to market week in Parma, the largest city in the province. Her family would go to trade and barter goods in preparation for winter. The journey was two days in length just in road travel, but Addie genuinely enjoyed the trip, spending that time with her family.
Neviah approached the gathering of travelers and raised her hand in the official gesture of farewell. “We wish you all safe travel and passage as you leave our humble village, honored members of the Highest. We thank you for the time you have spent among us and have been honored by your presence. May the Creator bless and protect each of you.”
Celesta turned in her saddle toward Neviah and offered the same farewell stating, “Thank you for your love and hospitality, village of Adara. We have been equally honored by your reception of us. May the Creator keep each of you in good health and spirits as he continues to bless the workings of your hands.” With those last words, cheers erupted from the villagers as the entourage that Addie found herself a part of moved forward, leaving her friends, family, and her dear Adara behind. With that last thought of what she was losing, she resolved herself to not look back, hoping that what she was gaining in her new life would prove to be just as precious.


The company traveled for several hours in silence before coming to a stop. The travelers were on borrowed time, as they had explained many times already, but now Addie understood; their minds were focused on the journey and returning to the citadels as quickly as possible. The day was only half over and still Addie felt relieved. Not only was she hungry, but she was certain she was going to be very sore from riding for so long. She had never ridden horseback for more than an hour at one time. There had been no need.
As the other riders dismounted easily, she braced herself against Sophie’s saddle, ready to throw her weight to one side in order to dismount herself. As she went to lift her leg over Sophie’s back, stiffness seemed to take over, freezing her in place. She gritted her teeth and groaned, leaning her head forward against Sophie’s neck. She just needed a moment was all.
A hand rested on her arm. “Allow me to help you, Addie.” She raised her head and found Caedmon standing by Sophie’s side looking at her. She hesitated, feeling embarrassed by the fact she was practically hanging from one side of her horse. She considered trying once more to dismount on her own, but as she moved her leg even an inch, she knew that she would end up falling unceremoniously into the dirt and possibly causing herself undue injury. She smiled slightly as she swallowed her pride and nodded.
“Yes, please do, sir.” She held onto the saddle horn as Caedmon passed in front of Sophie in order to get to the side she was hanging from and wrapped his arm around her waist, taking on her weight.
“Go ahead and let go of the saddle, Addie. I’ve got you.”
She let go, feeling relief flood through her limbs as she was freed from the unforgiving position of the saddle. She wanted to cry as she felt her muscles begin to quiver from the exertion of the ride. Caedmon gently set her feet to the ground, slowly releasing her. She held onto his arms as she fought to gain her bearings.
“Are you alright?”
“I will be,” she replied. “Please forgive me. I have not ridden beyond an hour before.”
“You do not need to ask forgiveness. We have ridden hard. You are not used to such travel. We should be the ones begging forgiveness.” Caedmon’s voice was ragged and deep. Addie wondered then what he had been through to make him so sorrowful. Those seemed to be the tones she heard when he spoke: sorrow, sadness…even regret.
Celesta approached them from the front of the guard. “Is everything alright?”
Addie blushed from embarrassment once again. “Yes, madam. Forgive me, I just need a few moments to rest from the ride.”
Caedmon chuckled. “She is experiencing riding cramps in her muscles, Celesta. I recommend a prolonged respite from travel.”
“I was going to suggest the same, actually. We would not have stopped at all except I thought a rest would be welcome. We still have to meet up with Chozorka. She and the others are still at least a good four hours from our present location.” Celesta turned to Addie. “Please forgive our haste, dear. I did not think ahead for rest periods. I realize now I should have. You can barely stand on your own. Rest assured, for Thaba is preparing a place for us to rest and have our noon rations. We may even try to sleep a little while before continuing.”
“Thank you, madam. You are all very kind. May I assist with anything?” Addie was not an idler and refused to be one, letting everyone else do the work while she watched.
“No, dear. There is not much that needs to be done. You need to rest. Come now, I will walk with you to the clearing.” Celesta held out her hand to Addie. Addie took a step toward Celesta, ready to take her hand, and as she did her legs buckled beneath her. Caedmon and Celesta both caught her before she could fall to the ground. She felt the tears slip down her cheeks.
“I am so sorry. I do not mean to be such a bother. Oh, dear.” She wanted to just run and hide from these two and the others that were traveling with her. She was with the Highest and not proving to be very self-sufficient. She swallowed back the torrent of tears that seemed to want to burst forth like from a dam. She smiled instead. “Thank you for helping me though.”
“Bless your heart, dearest.” Celesta rubbed her hand down Addie’s back, trying to soothe her. “Please do not fret so. This can happen to anybody. Lucky we were near enough to keep you from falling. The Creator always watches out for us. Come now, we will help you.” She slipped her arm under Addie’s shoulders, supporting her. “Are you able to walk with our assistance?”
Caedmon supported the small of her back with his right hand and held onto her hand with his other.
Addie took a tentative step forward with her right foot. She set it upon the ground, closing her eyes, praying to the Creator that she would be able to do that much on her own. After planting her left foot beside the right, she felt a surge of liberation. She could still be somewhat independent! She nodded in answer to Celesta’s question.
“Yes, I think I will be alright with your help. Thank you, again.”
The three of them made their way to a hidden clearing, where Thaba and Vailea stood waiting. As they saw Celesta and Caedmon practically carrying Addie, they also tried to step in to help.
“What happened?” Thaba questioned, worry etched in his tone and on his face.
“Fear not, Thaba,” Celesta replied evenly. “Addie is suffering from riding cramps at the moment. She needs only to rest.” She and Caedmon lowered Addie to a sitting position and Vailea knelt next to her.
“Addie, dear, do you mind if I wash the tears and dirt from your face?” Vailea reached up and brushed Addie’s hair out of her face.
“Vailea, be cautious,” Thaba warned. He stood with a raised eyebrow, watching as Vailea turned to look at him.
“Thaba, you know well that I am one of the few who can safely touch her. I will not be harmed.”
Addie raised her own eyebrows in confusion. “I am still glowing? Oh dear, I had almost forgotten.”
Celesta chuckled. “Yes, Addie, your face still glows. I will tell you that it will continue to do so for at least another day or so. After that point, there will be times that it will flare up. You will have control over it soon enough, however.” She looked at Vailea. “I think that she would appreciate your assistance, Vailea.”
Vailea turned again to Addie. “May I?”
Addie nodded, expecting a wet cloth to be pressed against her face. Instead, Vailea pressed her bare hand against Addie’s face and Addie could feel drops of cool water against her skin. The woman rubbed as though she were holding a cloth, trying to cleanse away dirt and grime, but her touch was more gentle. Water did not drip and just as quickly as she had felt the drops touch her cheeks, her skin was as dry as it had been before Vailea’s touch.
“Much better,” said the woman with the smiling blue eyes.
Addie sat speechless for a moment before words came to her. She looked at Vailea with wide eyes. “You are a water keeper.”
Vailea smiled, her eyes brightening, “Yes, I am.” She glanced around at her comrades and added, “Each of us is a keeper, but we represent different elements.”
“Yes. She may be a water keeper, but I am a keeper of the earth,” Thaba explained quietly yet proudly, bowing his head and closing his eyes. Suddenly, the trees behind him began shaking violently, their limbs swaying together as they literally parted away from each other in two different directions. Addie had to remind herself to breathe as she stared at a pathway that led almost fifty feet out of the clearing, a pathway that had not been there before. The trees had moved! She could hardly believe it.
Celesta sat on the ground next to Addie, taking her hand. “My abilities are not as easy to display as an earth or water keeper’s are. I am a night keeper. This means that I am attuned to the elements you see in the night sky: the moon, the stars, and even the darkness that makes the night so distinct.” Celesta cupped her hands together for several seconds before slowly revealing a glowing orb that she slowly released into the air. The orb floated almost like a feather and was the color of starlight, emitting a pale luminescence that created shadows around the group gathered in the clearing.
“A star,” Addie gasped. Even as wonder and awe had taken hold of her, she still had the strongest compulsion to reach out and touch it. Raising her hand as though to do so, she caught herself opening her palm instead, much as Celesta had done when presenting the heavenly ember. The orb stopped its ascent to the sky and floated back down to hover over Addie’s open hand. She studied the orb for several seconds before she herself was shooting from the ground and through the sky towards the heavens. The sky grew darker the higher she went and she entered the night sky, stars glowing in the dark backdrop. Almost as soon as she registered this, a star to her right twinkled brightly and she knew it was trying to get her attention. She looked at it and smiled. Instantly, she knew everything there was to know about that particular star: that it was a ball of fire much smaller than the sun that lit up the morning sky, how high the temperatures of the fires were, that it was the closest star to her home after the sun which was also a star. The star even told her the name the Creator had given to it: Zephyr. Each star in the night sky apparently had one and the knowledge delighted her, causing her to smile and laugh.
Her eyes opened and she was surprised to find herself still sitting on the ground of the clearing; then she looked to each keeper and found them watching her intently. Remembering how she had begun her journey through the stars, she looked down at the glowing essence, a part of Zephyr, floating above her palm. She smiled and released it, bidding it farewell.
The grin widened on her face. “I’ve been to the stars and back. I am so amazed at what the Creator has allowed me to see. And that star has a name! Every star has a name!” She laughed out of sheer joy. “Have you seen these things as well, being keepers?”
Celesta’s face shone brightly as she smiled widely, “Yes! It is amazing, is it not? That the heavens can be ordered so? I am grateful to the Creator for this truth.”
The others nodded their agreement and Vailea spoke, “Every Keeper I have ever met shares this same exhilaration in discovering the smallest details of the universe. For each element, there are many different truths to be discovered and relished. We do not take these gifts for granted by any means.” She paused, reverence entering her voice. “I could not imagine doing so.” As her words faded into the air, silence surrounded them.
“If Vailea is a water keeper, Thaba is an earth keeper, and Celesta is a night keeper…” Addie turned her gaze to Caedmon thoughtfully and asked, “What kind of keeper are you, Caedmon?” Truly, she could not begin to guess, for if she did she knew she would be mistaken.
Caedmon, who had been standing against a nearby tree with his arms crossed, looked to the other keepers with a raised brow before answering. Apparently, satisfied with their unspoken agreement, he shifted his emerald eyes to Addie. “I am a peace keeper of the Sun Citadel.”
Addie knew her eyebrows furrowed for she had heard snatches of stories of peace keepers. Yet despite the very real existence of such individuals, their roles were legends. Peace Keepers were Chosen Keepers just like the others but there was one difference. These particularly gifted individuals not only had the ability to commune with their specific element, but they also had the abilities of warriors. She did not know much more than that once seeded out by the Highest, they were assigned as protectors in the Citadels to keep those who were not skilled as they, safe. Safe from what she had never known, for never had she heard of an uprising or of a violent act against the Keepers or even the general population of Kydina.
At that moment, a member of the guard approached the group, stopping in stride beside Caedmon and whispering in his ear. Caedmon simply nodded and said, “Excuse me. I'll return shortly.” Before anyone could respond, both Caedmon and the guard had disappeared into the trees and surrounding fauna.
There was a moment of silence before Celesta grasped Addie's hand and turned to Thaba. “I believe now would be a good time for sheltering from the earth. I think it necessary for us to sleep before continuing to meet Chozorka. Once we are rested, we must make haste.”
Thaba nodded solemnly. He walked a little ways down the path he had created between the trees only minutes before, and stooped to his haunches, placing his hand in the newly soft soil. The three women watched him intently even as the ground around them began to tremble. The tree branches above them shook with the vibration, but Addie hardly noticed as the sight before her unfolded. The ground in front of Thaba began to move, soil and loose rocks shifting to and fro before giving way to the ever growing mound appearing from the earth. Within moments, the mound had formed to just above Thaba's head, and an opening appeared in the side of it creating a doorway that anyone could easily enter into to hide in the vast darkness of the earth.
Had Thaba just created a cave?
“Thaba does not create,” Celesta explained, her intense focus now on Addie. “He asks the earth to shift and the earth responds. This that you see can also be shifted away. Thaba's relationship with the Creator and the earth must be hand in hand or he is no longer a keeper. It is impossible to have one without the other. He would simply be, with another purpose. Do you understand this?”
Addie met Celesta's golden gaze, her eyes conveying many messages: an urgency for understanding, a fierce knowledge, and a broken trust. Addie didn't even begin to understand why Celesta's tone and gaze were so wrought with meaning, but she did understand what Celesta hoped she would take away from this moment. “Yes, I understand that a keeper is not such unless they are connected to the Creator and their element in the same way. Otherwise, their gifting is corrupt. Meaning that our gifting is from the Creator and it is only in Him that we can hope to use it as it is purposed to be used.”
Celesta smiled, relief and hope washing over her features. “I would say that you understand, yes.”
Thaba turned back to them, “The cave is ready, Celesta.”
Celesta helped Addie to her feet. “Come, Addie. You must eat and then rest. The cave will provide us protection while we sleep.”
Within minutes, they had all settled their saddle packs and blankets in the cave and begun to eat from the dried meat and cheeses they had in ration. Caedmon returned without a word and hunched down against the wall at the cave entrance. Thaba closed his eyes and Addie felt the ground shake again.
“That should keep us hidden while we sleep.”
“May I ask what will?” Addie inquired curiously.
Thaba chuckled, “The trees now surround this cave completely, hiding it from plain view. Only those who know we are here can find us.”
“Why are we hiding?” Truly, Addie understood the concept in child's play, but why here? These were the Highest and Kydina was safe. This was what she had always believed, but she was beginning to wonder if maybe her beliefs were about to be shaken.
“I know it is difficult to fathom, but the roads of Kydina are not always safe for keepers to travel along. Not the way they have been in the past,” Vailea explained cautiously, gently.
Addie's eyebrows furrowed again. “Surely that is not true...” She looked from one keeper to the next, seeing nothing but the truth of wariness written in their expressions. “I did not realize...”
“Most do not, Addie,” Celesta replied softly. “We do not understand it fully ourselves, but we do know more in the way of the reasoning of those who would do us harm. Yet, it is only keepers that find themselves in such a quandary. The rest of the peoples of Kydina have not met with any harm while traveling the roadways. I promise that you will know more soon enough.”
Addie sat in silence, taking in everything that was being said.
Caedmon shifted and cleared his throat. “I believe we should get some sleep. We should not tarry here for more than a few hours. We must meet Chozorka sooner rather than later, as you have said, Celesta. The guard is standing watch and we are hidden from view.”
Celesta sighed. “You are right, Caedmon. Let us all sleep and rest.”
Everyone snuggled to the ground quietly, some a little more painfully than others, with sleep coming quickly to the traveling Keepers.