Flame Caller Read Online Free

forward and
rested it on his grandfather’s arm. He squeezed his eyes shut
tightly as a tear rolled off his eyelashes and fell to the
floor.
    “ You guys keep saying
that,” he muttered. “I’m not special. I’m just a kid trying not to
lose the only family member he has left.”
    He didn’t hear Alicia move from the
far side of the bed but she placed a compassionate hand on his
back.
    “ You are special, Xander.
There’s a reason you were chosen to be a Wind Warrior when it
seemed like our time was done. Even if you don’t believe in
yourself, you’ve ignited something in the rest of us that we all
thought had died. You’ve given us hope for the future, not just our
own but all of humanity’s.”
    Xander lifted his head and turned it
toward his aunt. “You may believe that but the rest of them are
still ready to lie down and die.”
    “ Give them time,” she
replied. “They’ll come around.”
    “ We don’t have time. The
Fire Warriors are coming for us.”
    Alicia sighed and retrieved a second
chair. She placed it next to his and sat down so they were eye
level with one another.
    “ Xander, dear, you have to
remember that we’re old and stubborn. We’ve been Wind Warriors for
decades now. We became warriors back in a time where there were
literally hundreds of us living on this island alone, and we were
only one clan of many throughout the world. Over the years, we’ve
watched our loved ones, our friends, and our fellow warriors die of
old age. We’ve seen so many of our kind simply fly back to their
homes to live out their days alone. And all because we knew our
time was coming to an end. We spent so much time being Wind
Warriors that we never stopped to consider starting families. And
those of us who did start families never had our children
activate.”
    Xander was surprised to see her reach
up and wipe away a tear. He’d been so saddened by his own loss that
he had trouble remembering how painful this must be for everyone
else.
    “ We all knew the signs,”
she continued. “Our time was coming to an end. That was probably
the most painful thing of all. We knew what it meant when we were
gone. It meant that nature had decided humanity wasn’t a good fit
for the Earth any longer. It meant that… that it was time to wipe
the slate clean and start again.”
    Xander sat in silence, letting the
weight of that realization sink in. He remembered how surprised he
had been when he found out what would happen when the Fire Warriors
rose to power. He couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to
have that realization while actively a Wind Warrior; to realize
that the world had suddenly decided you were obsolete.
    “ Then why didn’t you fight
back?” he asked. “Why didn’t you do everything you could to stop
the Fire Warriors?”
    Alicia laughed softly. “Oh child, you
sound so much like your grandfather. That’s exactly why he became
our leader.”
    Xander frowned at the implication. “So
you did fight back? But it didn’t work, did it?”
    “ Humanity had progressed
too far beyond our help. We were its spiritual guides but humanity
no longer had a need for spirituality. The world prayed to
technology and cared less and less about its impact on the world
around it.”
    She stood and moved her chair back
against the wall. “You have to appreciate that we’ve had years to
realize that we were going to die and no Wind Warriors would take
our place. I guess, eventually, we just gave up trying. That’s why
you’re getting so much resistance from the others. They were
content thinking that this was the end for them. They were resolved
in the thought that they were going to die and there wasn’t
anything they could do to change the world for the
better.
    “ And then you came along.
You’re giving them hope, but that hope has to break through some
pretty resistant barriers.”
    She slipped her hand under his arm and
helped him to his feet. “Just don’t stop trying, okay? Give us