The Key Read Online Free Page B

light, the rescue workers and Ms Burgess stare as if we have each grown three heads.
    â€˜Are you all right over there? The five of you were sucked into the air,’ one of the firemen calls out. He shakes his head. ‘This is turning into one hell of a day.’
    Ethan nods to reassure them, though he still looks dazed. But it’s Isabel who looks the strangest; her stare is odd and vacant. I try to single out her thoughts from the others bombarding my brain. For a moment I can, but there’s way too much power in her head right now. I get a strange buzz like an electric shock and pull away.
    Suddenly the boulder crushing Mr Carter’s legs lifts. And as the medical team moves in to shift Mr Carter to a stretcher, I understand what’s going on. The gasps of awe from the medical crew are the first signs. They’re saying now how the earth beneath Mr Carter’s legs must have collapsed with the impact, creating some sort of cushioning effect. Another medic says it’s just a miracle and that he should be dead, or even paralysed. But Mr Carter is neither dead nor paralysed. He’s not even burned, even though his pants are ashen shreds. He’s just shaken up. And if it didn’t attract too much attention I’m sure he would simply stand up and walk, but he knows better than that. Isabel has healed him. Whatever that golden light did to me, it also had an effect on her, and by the looks of Ethan, on him too. Even Neriah looks strange, kind of vague.
    Ms Burgess runs to Mr Carter’s side. Just before she gets to him, he nods once at Isabel, and his look is filled with awe and gratitude.
    She smiles at him with glassy eyes. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she mouths.
    Isabel healed Mr Carter without so much as laying one finger on him. She healed him from a distance! A short distance, but a distance all the same.
    Ethan comes over and takes my hands, turning them over gently. I look down and see them for the first time. They make me gasp.
    â€˜Do they hurt?’ he asks.
    I’m lost for words. I can’t stop staring at my hands. Streaks of vivid colours are running across them like little electric currents. ‘They tingle. What happened to them? Do you think it’s permanent?’
    He shrugs. ‘One thing’s for sure, they’re going to attract attention.’
    He’s right. I pull them away and shove them into my coat pockets. ‘What’s happening to us?’
    â€˜I have no idea.’
    â€˜How have you changed?’
    Softly Ethan says, ‘Those rescue workers didn’t have a hope of lifting that boulder even with all their equipment. Whatever it’s composed of, it’s heavier than any rock or mineral found on this earth.’
    â€˜
You
lifted it?’
    He nods. ‘When that light came down on us I got a sense of … I don’t know, it felt like a thrust of power surged through me. I felt stronger. So I tried to use my skill of animating objects, and it worked.’
    â€˜Luckily for Mr Carter.’
    Matt hears us talking, and his mouth hangs open.
    â€˜Anything happen with you?’ Ethan asks him hopefully. Everyone knows how desperate Matt is to gain his powers. According to the Prophecy, Matt is supposed to lead the Named into the Final Battle against Lathenia and her Order of Chaos.
It will come to pass that a king shall rule, but not before a leader pure of heart awakens
. But so far Matt can’t even lead himself. And his doubts are destroying his confidence.
    Matt’s eyes flick to the sky, where the meteorite shower has slowed to a trickle of shooting stars in the distance, then jerks his shoulders.
    â€˜Nothing, of course.’

Chapter Two
Matt
    The Prophecy is wrong. I’m not the one who’s supposed to lead the Named. I doubt I was ever
named
in the first place. The Tribunal, or whoever it is who decides these things, are wrong.
    We’re on our way to Arkarian’s chambers now.