Free Felling Kingdoms (Book 5) by Jenna Van Vleet

Gabriel stumbled to his side dazed but scrambled to his regain his balance between Lace and his attacker.
    “Pike,” he hissed.
    Pike Bronwen stood looking bored in a long green coat. A hand casually rested in his pocket while the other twirled a green pattern. “You took your time.”
    Gabriel stepped back and reached out to quietly gasping Lace. All he needed was to make contact, and he could shift them back to Jaden, but Pike was watching. The man was a Class ten in Earth, Spirit, and Void and must have known Gabriel’s intent. Suddenly his bored brown eyes became white and angry. In a blink Gabriel was thrown against the far wall, and the tall man rushed, driving his fist into Gabriel’s ribcage sharply.
    Gabriel flung him back with brute force and reached for kinetic energy. People milled about within the mansion, unaware of the danger in the bright sitting room. Gabriel snapped a cord-pattern from his wrist that lashed around Pike’s leg. The man teetered but vanished along with the cord that fell uselessly to the ground.
    Gabriel rushed for Lace again, but Pike appeared before him and grabbed his throat. A sense of loss went through Gabriel as the black pattern slipped into his chest, and the all-too-familiar sensation of his Elements vanishing gripped him. Pike smiled handsomely as Gabriel gasped, and laid a pierce-pinch against his chest. Pain rocketed through him as his nerves enflamed, and he staggered backwards, but Pike held him steady.
    He looked to Lace whose glistening face painted terror, and he knew what he had to do. He broke from Pike’s grip and made a break for the second-story window, counting the seconds. The pause-pattern kept the Elements at bay for thirty seconds, and with great luck, he could save himself in time.
    Glass flew around him as he fell through the spring air. Gabriel rotated his back to the ground as it rushed up, awaiting the Elements. They appeared a moment before he hit, and it was enough to let him bend the earth to soften his fall. The impact still forced air from his lungs.
    Servants in the yard scattered and screamed, suddenly aware of the danger present. Gabriel rose as Pike appeared, severing his connection with Void.
    “I have been waiting for this moment for awhile,” Pike sneered. “You got the best of me last time. Let me see if I can return the favor.”
    Pike moved so quickly Gabriel almost missed the motion, but he felt the repercussions a moment later. Pain shot through his left thigh. He stepped off the leg and realized it was rooted to the ground, pierced through with a spear of jagged stone eight inches through the thigh.
    “I am not the man I was when you last fought me,” Gabriel replied and sank green strings into the ground.
    “Older and wiser, are you?” Pike chuckled. “Your lady is bleeding t’ death, as will you if you move. Older, yes. Wiser, not quite yet.”
    Gabriel smiled.
    Sofiya, the Element of Water, had given him a great treasure: pages detailing patterns not seen in Ages. Earth Mages of this Age had not been able to manipulate metal past locating it in the ground, but Gabriel was created to be great.
    Metal was everywhere. In the ground, in the water, tiny flecks blowing in the air, and with a tremendous force, he pulled with every ounce of strength he had as Pike melded a green pattern. Pike paused when he saw the glinting flecks, some of gray, black, silver, even gold, and he frowned bewildered.
    Gabriel slammed his palms together and pushed the flecks towards Pike, enveloping him in the span of a heartbeat. He twisted the pattern as he folded his hands, and the glinting flecks instantly melted to one solid glimmering piece of moveable metal. Any blacksmith would swear metal had to be heated to become malleable, but no one controlled Earth like Gabriel.
    “What under the—” Pike gasped as the metal clamped around him, and he tried to raise his hands from the tar-textured mire. Gabriel altered the pattern and made it solid as