“Leave her alone!” I shouted. “Without her, you’d be dead. You call yourself a Guardian, but what have you been guarding the past two days? Apart from the locked hold of a pirate ship.”
“We tried to resist the pirates, but we were outnumbered.”
“We still are now. And nothing we have is a match for those weapons. But then, you know that already, don’t you? Just as you know that Roanoke Island is perfectly safe for us. All those years you told us to stay away from it, and it turns out you used to live there.”
I threw a quick glance at Ananias and Eleanor to make sure they were listening. They’d been lied to as well. Now they deserved to know the truth.
Kyte gritted his teeth. “Yes, there was a time we lived on Roanoke Island. Most of us were born there. Eighteen years ago, when everyone else evacuated during the Exodus, we decided to stay. When we heard about the Plague decimating the country, we knew we’d done the right thing. But sixteen years ago, the pirates paid us a visit and destroyed everything. After that, the colony was unsustainable, so we moved to Hatteras.”
“Why not rebuild?” I asked.
“We had neither the materials nor the means to repair anything—buildings, windows, roads, bridges. A town that can’t be kept alive is dead—a Skeleton Town, nothing more.”
“What about the water tower? The boats? The clothes?”
“What about them?” Kyte sounded bored, as though my questions were irrelevant, instead of getting to the very heart of who we were. “They were just reminders of what used to be. Historical artifacts. Why would we show you things you couldn’t build or repair? It would’ve been cruelty to tease you with seemingly magical objects that would never work again.”
“So hiding everything . . . spreading lies . . . it was all for us, then?”
“Open your eyes, Thomas. The only people you’ve ever seen are clan folk trapped on floating cities, or pirates who pillage other colonies to survive. We alone built a sustainable colony.”
“It was built on a lie,” I shouted.
Alice’s mother, Tarn, raised a hand. She was tall like her daughter, and normally as defiant. Now she stooped forward, hugging her knees. “Come on, Kyte,” she said. “After everything they’ve been through, they deserve to know the truth.”
Kyte turned on her. “The truth? The whole truth, Tarn? Every little detail?”
Tarn reddened. As Kyte stared her down, she lowered her hand, bullied into submission.
Kyte grasped the ship’s wheel and pulled himself upright. He wanted to be eye-to-eye with me, never mind the pain. “Our colony was a place to live and grow. A place where we could nurture and protect you.”
“Protect?” I wanted to laugh, but I was too angry. “The pirates burned it to the ground. Look around you, Kyte. Is this your idea of protection?”
“We did our best. We counted on our elements to help us survive.”
I let him recognize the hypocrisy for himself before spelling it out. “Except mine, you mean.”
Kyte flinched, but recovered with a deep breath. He took a faltering step toward me, fists clenched at his sides. “Your element is a mistake. An anomaly. So is Griffin’s ability to see the future. A generation ago you’d have been banished, sent far away where you’d be spared from knowing your true nature.”
I stepped forward to meet him. “How do you get to decide what’s an element and what’s not?”
“It’s been that way ever since the beginning of the New World.” His voice was fading, but the hollow words still erupted from him. Spittle flew out of his mouth. “Earth, water, wind, and fire. Four boys. Four elements. One lost—”
He stopped speaking at the same moment that I heard a faint popping sound. Immediately, his fierce expression turned to one of surprise. His eyes grew wide. And then, quite suddenly, he dropped to his knees.
Rose jumped forward, but she couldn’t catch him before his legs buckled and he hit the deck. Eyes blank, he clasped his hand against his chest.
Blood glistened vivid red against his filthy tunic.
CHAPTER 3
Down!” screamed Alice.
I threw myself onto the deck. Blood had already pooled around Kyte’s left side. Rose cupped his head in her hands, pleading with him to stay alive.
“What happened?” cried Eleanor, sliding over. She looked around the deck as though the culprit might be one of us.
“It must be the pirates,” I said. “But how can their guns reach so far?”
I rolled to the edge of the ship and peered over the lowest rail. In the distance, a group of men were launching a cutter—a rowboat. This time they wouldn’t have to fight wind and waves to get to us.
“They’re coming,” I shouted.
There was another group behind them. I tried to count the pirates, to know what we were up against, but they ran along the shore, paths crisscrossing. I still didn’t understand how they had been able to hit Kyte from so far away. As I raised my head to get a better look, I saw something that reflected the sun. Instinctively I dropped down. A moment later, the wood beside my hand splintered.
“Pirates on the shore! Two hundred yards. They have guns.”
Alice appeared beside me. She grabbed a piece of my tunic and tugged it so that I’d face her. “I saw how close that was,” she whispered fiercely. “You could’ve gotten yourself killed!”
I couldn’t think about that. Rose and Eleanor were dragging Kyte’s body toward the stairs, trying to get him below deck. Dennis struggled to support their mother as she followed the trail of blood. Everything was chaos.
“We have to get out of here,” I yelled.
Ananias crawled toward us. “What about our elements? You heard what Kyte said: They’ll fade away if we leave.”
“Can you stop those weapons with your element?”
He still seemed unsure. He clung to his precious element as though it was all he had to offer.
“Listen,” I snapped. “Unless you can take on a cutter full of pirates, as well as shooters, we better move.”
Finally he gave a sharp nod, and signaled for Griffin to join him at the stern anchor.
Alice was already heading for the bow so that she could raise the anchor there. I was right behind her. Side by side we pushed the anchor winch.
“We need to lower the foresail,” she said.
“How? If you stand up, they’ll fire at you.”
“What other choice do we have? We need to start moving.”
Once the anchor was up and secured, we worked the sail winch. Little by little, the sail began to show.
Straightaway, there was another popping sound—the telltale sound of gunfire. I scanned the deck, heart in my mouth, but all of us were keeping low. “What are they firing at?” I yelled.
Before anyone could reply, the sail caught the wind and billowed, pushing the canvas taut. But then there was more popping and a new sound filled the air: tearing cloth. They were firing at the sail.
Alice raised her head just enough to see the shore. “They’re a hundred and sixty yards away. And still firing.”
While Griffin took up position beside the wheel, Ananias joined us. “We can’t afford to lose the sails,” he shouted. “But how are we going to get out of here otherwise?”
“Wait!” cried Alice. “The tide is going out. Maybe the current will carry us.”
“Not fast enough. We have to lower the mainsails.”
“What if we lose them?”
I glanced over the rail. The pirates in the cutter were gaining on us, but the shooting had stopped. “Maybe we’re too far away for the guns to reach us,” I said.
Alice stared up at the torn foresail. “Then let’s lower the mainsail and take our chances.”