Nathaniel:

I flew out of town and into the deep dark forest, behind my house, where I could hide myself and sort all this out.

I remembered the first time I wandered into these woods. This is where I meet Azun for the first time. Well, I always knew he was my brother, but this was where we bonded and became more then brothers. I had a lot of memories with him in these trees, but this would be the first I would make one by myself.

I put on my coat to hide my wings and looked around at the black and brown soil. Where should I begin? What do I do? The trees were thin and white covered in black spots like eyes watching me, about to judge me on my abilities.

I decided to start with Azun's power, see if I'd got anything there. I raised my hand and stared at the dirt. Nothing happened. Azun made it look so easy sometimes.

I tried again, still nothing. I easily give up on everything, like painting and piano, which I quit after the first week.

Luke's power was time control. I could try that, I had seen the way he moved, almost like a dancer, as he changed reality. I shut my eyes. My arms tried to mimic his movements. I felt like I was doing yoga, or swimming in water without water. My wrists moved softly in curves around me; my legs followed in a similar motion.

I opened my eyes to see a butterfly flying backward in front of my eyes. I stopped the movement and it began to fly forward again. It was the middle of the day.

I had moved back time.

I had done something useful for once in my life!

As I released my breath, a bright light hit me, and time fast forwarded back to night. My head rang, sounds echoing through my ears. This must be a side effect. Stupid migraines.

I couldn't remember how Luke had mastered time. I was five when he received his power. When I was six he tried to push me to be exactly like him. Then I became friends with Azun, who taught me to fight for what I wanted and go with the flow.

I tried to do the movement again, but nothing happened. Did I lose the power? I didn't even know if I could do that. Maybe time control was only for Luke - too complicated for me to learn.

Ames had the power of light. Light is one of the more simpler things in life. More simple than time, that is. How did he move? I hadn't seen a lot of my older brother since he went to military school, last I saw him was when he was playing on his phone at my coronation.

I did remember that he shot out light, like throwing a ball or an object. I clenched my left fist and threw it, letting go of the air. A string of light flashed from my hand and flew, dancing around trees and into the grass.

"I did it!" I gasped.

I released another trail of sunlight into the woods. I pointed my finger and wrote my name in cursive into the air, I held out my hand and spun around me, the light spiraling upward into the branches above. Each speck of light was golden, glimmering in the darkness. I experimented the ways I could move the light around me for what felt like an eternity.

"Now onto the next one." I smiled. "Teleportation."

Mike was the eldest of everyone, he didn't have to try at anything, he never failed. He always made dad proud. Like I never could.

Mike would hold his hands together, or the hands of anyone else, as he teleported to different places. I held my hands against one another. It was a small distance from the tree ten feet away from me. I pictured where I wanted to go in my mind. Feeling the air move around me, I opened my eyes.

I had moved ten feet.

"I can do two of them!" I squealed. "I can do two powers! Water, I'll try that."

Dustan had water control for his gift. I never got to know him that well. He left to explore his element on a ship, he hasn't returned since then. Lucky for him. I only get to read letters from him and occasionally STAR him, and all that is usually addressed to Azun or the rebels.

I held my hands together and thought of a stream, I pictured the cold, clear water, the sound it made, the way it felt. I felt myself teleport. My feet landed in the river, the cold water soaked up in the edge of my pants and bottom of my coat, freezing the cloth to my skin.

I explored ways to move my arms and body, trying to get the water to bend to my will. Nothing happened, I couldn't get the water to do anything. I stomped my foot down into the water. Why wasn't it working? I stormed out of the cold river. I didn't watch my foot placement and slipped on a rock and fell into the river. Now my whole body was wet and cold. Great!

Vestry's power was healing, which he has never used. With the advanced doctors and medics on Malison, healing has never really been needed. This was the last power I have ever come to known about. If Vestry were to use it, how would he use it?

I sat down on the cold dirt and crossed my legs. I noticed I had a cut from my fall on my calf, below my shorts. The ruby blood flowed from the cut across my leg and dripped onto the ground.

I held my hands on my cut, begging for it to be healed. I released my leg, nothing happened.

"Why won't you heal?" I yelled, I waved my hands over my leg. "Just heal!"

A string of gold cane from my hand, binding the cut together like stitches. I still could feel the cold air pressing into the cut however.

"Ok, so waving my hand and saying: heal, can heal this, but it's not gonna stay like that, I got to seal the cut with a scar." I waved my hand over the cut again. "Seal."

The cut sealed over, a long scar laid where the cut used to be.

"Maintain." I whispered, waving my hand over again.

That ought to keep the new cells in function. I don't want to get cancer from this, that's a painful process to go through, even with the advanced medication we have.

Cancer has caused the most death on our planet ever since we advanced more than any other planet in the universe. To this day it's the second leading cause of death, just after duels. Sometimes the operations to heal cuts and other diseases don't work completely and cells can't function correctly, and even a simple paper cut can lead to cancer when healed by machines.

Azun went through that a few years ago. They cut out the cancerous cells from his lungs. He actually had cancer, the doctor's don't know how he got it. He stayed in his locked room crying for weeks after the hospital. They didn't even knock him out for the surgery. I heard him screaming from outside the operation room.

I remember waiting at his side till he got better and stopped crying from the pain. Azun always took care of me, it was my duty to take care of him. I wouldn't be able to do that if I died in this war.

The crickets chirped.

I had to get home before someone sent a search party for me. I dusted off the dirt from my wet clothes as I stood up.

I had tried half of the powers, I could try the rest tomorrow. My hands tied my coat around my waist and my wings took off into the air. This was the first time I had flown in the darkness of midnight, so it was kind of hard to see. I was able to find my house, yet it took a bit longer then expected.

"Azun!" I landed on my brother's balcony.

"Thaniel!" My brother ran to me. "Where have you been? I have been worried sick."

"Dad is making me go to war." I explained.

"What?!"

"In two days."

"WHAT?!!"

"Don't worry, Vestry has helped me with everything."

"Thaniel, whatever Vestry did, whatever he gave you, don't use it, most of his stuff is to double cross people into giving him money."

"I know, but this is different."

"Stay here, I need to have a word with dad."

"Azun-"

My brother had already left out the door. I was alone, in his room. I went across the hallway to my own bedroom, lined with everything I liked, from books filled with medical terms, to my collection of rocks.

I took off my coat and laid in my bed, dwelling on the thought of what the other powers could be. Fire, telekinesis, speed? It could be anything.

I sat up, my hands pulled on my wings and feathers.

"Owe!" I yelled.

I would never get used to living with a pair of wings. It seemed that no matter what position I laid them in, I just couldn't sleep. I either had feathers in my mouth or my wings beneath me, pulling at my back. It was so uncomfortable!

I couldn't sleep. I dragged out a shoe box from under my bed, containing my tenth birthday's present that I still played with today.

Azun got me a doctor kit, complete with a coat, stethoscope, light, and bandages. I always liked to listen to my heart beat, I could listen for hours. Every heart beat different, I discovered, each one had its own story to tell. I wish Azun were here to talk to, I hated being alone.

Azun never returned that night, I worried about what happened to him and I didn't get any sleep. I had one more day to master this power before I would use them in my father's bidding.

No matter how hard I would fight, he would send me. I might as well be prepared.