I looked in the direction she stared. A small figure darted along the wall, paralleling us. Dressed in black from head to toe, it probably stood as high as my shoulder, at most. “Smoke . . .”
She stopped, glanced quickly at the figure and then away, a light shiver running through her. “They have been seen, two cloaked figures darting about the caves and where they go, disaster follows any who interact with them. Avert your eyes, Terraling. You do not want her to notice you.”
Smoke put a hand on my arm and tugged me in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t help but stare over my shoulder. The dark figure paused at an entranceway and turned back. A low laugh rumbled as the silhouette lifted a hand to me with a jaunty wave.
If it weren’t for the heat of the cavern, the cold chill that hit me would have been overwhelming. Something about the way the figure waved, the tilt of the head . . . there was a dark familiarity about them. “Let me guess, that is part of the problem Brand spoke of.”
“No, the ghosts have come and gone for years.” Smoke directed me toward a set of stairs that took us down to a lower plateau in the cavern. “They are problematic and they bring trouble wherever they go. But they cannot be caught, because they aren’t tangible, so there is nothing we can do about them.”
Which told me the Salamanders had in fact tried to catch the ghosts and failed. Pride was a funny thing with fire elementals, and I wasn’t about to argue that the “ghosts” were probably not ghosts at all. The figure had been too solid, too real to be anything as intangible as a specter.
The farther away we got from the main lava flow, the easier the air was to breathe, the less my sweat dried and the cooler I became. Steam rose ahead of us, and the sound of a burbling river pooled in my ears. A sound that almost felt like home.
“Terraling, traitors are in our midst,” Smoke said softly, her words barely loud enough to be heard over the water and I realized why she brought me here. Even side-by-side, our words were drowned in the sloshing of water over rocks and the bubble of steam.
Smoke led me to the edge of the river and dropped to her knees. I did the same, so our legs pressed hard against each other. The sand below me cushioned my knees and it was then I noted it wasn’t sand but a pale gray ash. Handing Smoke some of the clothes, I took one of the shirts and dunked it in the water, using the rocks and ash to get it clean. A task I’d done a thousand times in my life already, and I fell into it with ease.
“They are trying to bring down our queen. Brand believes it is one of the Enders who is setting this up.”
Rolling the cloth in my hands, I pressed it between my knuckles and scrubbed at the stain I’d seen. The water was hot to the point of turning my skin bright pink, and I dunked the shirt into it several times. The memory I’d seen as we Traveled to the Pit was fresh in my mind. But I couldn’t just spit out I’d seen the traitor in action.
“I think he’s probably right. It would make sense from the angle of getting close to her. Who would benefit from her being killed? Her oldest son?” The answer was obvious to me, Fiametta’s son, Flint, would be the heir, no doubt. With her out of the way, he would rule. Open and shut case, why did they need me?
Smoke shook her head. “While he might try to rule, our family has always been led by a test of strength. Fiametta was an Ender when the old queen died. A series of games and challenges were set up by the old queen, and those who wanted to rule had to survive. Fiametta was the last one standing.” She paused and splashed the shirt she was washing deep into the water, swirling the ash out of it. “Her son is weak in his power, and in his head. He is too caught up in his own vanity to be of any use to anyone. He knows he will never rule.”
She offered me one of the flat rocks and I used it to pound a pair of pants.
There was still something I didn’t understand. “What has happened to make you think there is a traitor, though?”
Smoke’s head lowered. “The lava flows. They are doing strange things, burning people when they shouldn’t. Nothing serious, but you have to understand, Terraling, we don’t burn. The lava, fire, it is our element. It is our home. And it is turning on us. Fiametta says she has it under control, but Brand has seen her battle the lava. Seen her buckled under its power and close off whole sections of the Pit because she can’t stem the flow. And again, there are strange burns. Always it happens around the Pit, as though that is the epicenter.”
Peta sat in the now empty basket, her eye peering at me over the edge. “There is more. Something with the night bells has shifted. People are sleeping longer, and are harder to wake up. I have seen that, too.”
I opened my mouth to ask her what she meant by that. What did bells have to do with sleep?
Without warning, the ground under my knees heaved upward, throwing me forward, head first into the steaming river. The water tumbled me like the clothes we’d been cleaning, driving me to the bottom of the river where the water was cooler and I wished I had my hooked earring that allowed me to breathe water as if it were air. But I’d lost that in the Deep.
Slowly I was pushed downstream, the rocks at the bottom seemed to hold me to the streambed. No, that was what was happening. The rocks were piling on my legs and torso, keeping me under the water; drowning me even as the water shoved me closer to the intersection where the lava flow met the river.
Worm shit didn’t begin to describe the trouble I was in. I clawed at the river bottom, digging my heels in to stop my forward momentum. Rocks flipped up and crashed onto me, smashing me in the head, chest and stomach, knocking the wind out of me. I fought not to breathe in the water, to hold what was left of my air as my lungs burned.
I flailed, fighting with everything I had, but the more I fought, the more the earth itself tried to kill me.
Wait. The earth wasn’t trying to kill me. A Terraling was. Anger snapped through me, allowing me to grab hold of the power of the earth. I pushed it through the rocks, breaking them into sand. With the weight removed, the water slung my body toward the lava flow. Around me, the water heated with each second. I swam hard against the current as I pushed off the bottom.
Breaking through the surface, I gasped in a breath and dared a look behind me. The steady glow of lava and the steaming hiss of the river as it met its brother were far too close.
In the distance, Smoke ran toward me, but she wouldn’t make it in time, and I would burn up in a matter of seconds. Would Fiametta let Ash go when I died? I hoped so.
“Dirt Girl, swim to the edge and don’t dawdle.” Peta snapped me out of my state of near death musing.
I swam toward the shoreline, and was losing more ground to the river, but I knew Peta was right. This was my only chance. She was in her snow leopard form, keeping pace with me on the edge of the riverbank, her round ears pinned back and her eyes narrowed against the steam. The water temperature approached the boiling point. I was slowly cooking, my skin tingling with the near scalding water. I slipped below the water. Peta’s green eyes locked on mine.
“I’m sorry,” she said. I was dying and she felt bad. Bet I was her shortest lived charge. I wanted to tell her it was okay, that I wasn’t really hurting. As a way to die, apparently boiling alive wasn’t all that bad. I might have said something along those lines to her, but I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t feel much of anything.
A fierce, sharp pain sliced into my right hand and a tugging sensation pulled on me. Someone hoisted me out of the water. The pain in my hand eased and then replaced by an even deeper pain in the same place. Like blunted knives driven between the bones in my hand while crunching down on them with a tremendous force.
I screamed then realized Peta had dragged me out of the water at the last second, first with her claws, and then her teeth. I lay on my back staring at the cavern ceiling, noticing all the light tubes pointed at us, making it daylight deep with the mountain.
“Dirt Girl. If you decide to go swimming, perhaps a less dangerous place would be good, eh?” Peta snapped at me as she paced by my head. “Is
it not enough everyone thinks I’m bad luck? To lose you on the first day I’m assigned to you would be the end of my reputation completely. How could I ever show my face again?”
I reached to her with my good hand. “Thanks for saving me. That’s three times now. You must like me.”
She snorted. “Why did you dive in?”
Easing myself into a sitting position, I put a hand to my head. “I didn’t. Someone pushed me.”
“No one pushed you. I was right there,” she snapped at me again with her words and her teeth.
“A Terraling pushed me, using the ground to unbalance me.” I backed away from the river, not wanting a repeat. “And they tried to hold me to the bottom of the river.”
Peta stopped pacing. “One of your own?”
I nodded. “You aren’t the only bad luck around here, Peta. I’m not well liked within my own family or the Pit.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered, her body shimmering lightly as she shifted to her housecat form.
My whole body tingled from the heated water, but slowly the discomfort faded, and my skin went from a brilliant shade of pink to its natural tones. Healing as an elemental was usually fast, but I didn’t think this was all on me, not when my hand that Peta had bitten was stitching itself back together.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m letting you draw on me. That is what elementals do; they allow their charges to be stronger, faster, and heal at a speed that keeps them alive. Or is supposed to, anyway.”
I frowned. “Well, stop it. I don’t want to draw from you.”
She frowned at me. “Too good to draw from a cat?”
There wasn’t a chance to answer her as Smoke reached us, out of breath. “Why in the world did you jump into the river?”
Peta shook her head slightly and I lowered mine as I cradled my clawed and bitten hand. “I didn’t mean to, I stood and then stumbled forward. I’m a klutz, always tripping on things.”
I dared a look up. Smoke wasn’t buying it, as she placed her hands on her hips. “Did you make eye contact with her?”
I blinked several times as I tried to process who she meant. “Her?”
“The smaller specter. Did you make eye contact with her?”
Shivering, my body cold after being in the superheated water, I nodded. “I did.”
“Well, that explains it, then.” Smoke held a hand out to me as if the conversation and what had happened was all over. And maybe for her it was.
For me though, her words started a chain reaction in my head. The specter seemed familiar to me, and then a Terraling tried to kill me. Cassava was still in hiding after her failed attempt at taking the throne at the Rim, but could she be here, looking for revenge? Or maybe looking for a way to convince Fiametta to help her? They were friends, I knew that, so Cassava being in the Pit in hiding was more than plausible.
Standing, I followed Smoke to the laundry and helped her pile it into the basket.
“That is enough excitement for one day,” Smoke said.
Peta snorted. “It’s not over yet.”
Smoke’s body stiffened. “Ah, mother goddess, this is not good.”
I looked over her to several women who strode toward us. The one in the lead was very pregnant and had dried tear tracks streaking her cheeks.
My familiar leapt to my shoulder. “That is the wife of one of the Enders you killed.”
Heart sinking to my feet, I lowered the basket. I’d caused this pain, no matter the reason behind it.
I let out a slow breath. “Whatever comes of this, I will take.”
CHAPTER 5
moke tried to stop them, but was pushed aside by the woman in front. “Out of our way, half-breed freak.” Smoke stumbled, going to her knees in the soft ash at the edge of the bank, but she wasn’t hurt.
I held my ground as the pregnant woman reached me. Her eyes were bloodshot with tears, the pale yellow irises that of a weak flame. It looked as though she’d shorn her hair herself, and I vaguely recalled something Salamanders did when they were grieving.
“You are the Terraling who stabbed my mate?” The words bubbled out of her alongside more tears.
I nodded. “I am.”
Her slap was hard, and snapped my head to the side. A second and third slap followed close on its heels, my still aching skin screaming to back away. But I didn’t move. She collapsed forward, surprising me. I caught her and lowered her to the ground as her sobs shook her unwieldy frame. Her hands dug into my arms as she clung to me, her grief overtaking her.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, the memory of my own losses allowing me to understand how deep the pain would go. How it burrowed into your bones and stole a piece of you that you didn’t even know existed. A piece that once gone could never be replaced, but only seen from a distance as other people lived their lives without fear of loss because they’d never experienced it.
“I hate you,” she whispered, an echo of my words so many years ago to Cassava.
“I know,” I said. Her eyes lifted to mine, spilling with tears and her friends drew her away, their eyes as condemning as any executioners. They helped her stand as she babbled, her words sounding as if she’d said them hundreds of times.
“I saw him in the healer’s rooms, I saw him, and he smiled at me and he was fine. They stitched him up, the wound in his side wasn’t all that bad. They said he’d be fine, out in the morning. Ready to come home.” Her breath hitched and her friends cooed that it was all right. They knew all she said was true. “But they were wrong, the healers were wrong. He wasn’t all right. In the morning, he was dead, his wound open as if he’d been stabbed again, the stitches ripped, blood everywhere. Goddess, the blood!” She would have fallen if her friends hadn’t had their hands on her.
I ran around, getting in front of the woman. “Wait, stop. You said he was fine. That the wound was healing?”
Her eyes found mine slowly. “Yes. I held his hand, he touched my belly. Said he didn’t want to be an Ender anymore, not if he had to take orders like that again. He wanted to see our baby grow, not always fear that he would be taken from us. And he was.”
Smoke moved up beside me. “Lana, what do you mean take orders like that?”
Lana’s eyes flicked to Smoke. “That he was to kill the Enders from the Rim. He said it was wrong, but he didn’t have a choice. He was fine, just fine in the healer’s rooms. But you came back, didn’t you?” Her glare found me and held me tightly. “You came back and finished the job you started, you hateful bitch.” She launched herself at me and I again caught her, despite the lines of power racing up her arms. I didn’t want her to fall, didn’t want to hurt the child in her any more than I already had by taking its father away.
Catching her around the waist as she stumbled and spun, her back pressed to my front, and my hands ended up on her belly. Spirit roared forth within me and slid through us both. I saw her baby, saw his spirit and the beat of his heart. He would follow in his father’s footsteps, be a warrior, if he survived his birth. The cord connecting him to his mother was wrapped three times around his neck.
“You’re going to have a boy,” I said, holding her lightly. She relaxed in my arms, placing her hands on my mine.
“How do you know—”
“The birth will be easy. You won’t feel much pain, but the cord is around his neck. Three times. The midwife will know what to do.”
I helped her stand on her own feet, the words flowing out my mouth. “He will be an Ender, like his father. A good man.”
The images left me, and I put a hand to my head. Lana took my wounded hand, frowning at it as if looking for an answer. “You didn’t mean to hurt him, did you?”
“No, I only wanted to get out alive,” I said.
She nodded. “As do we all.” With a flick of her wrist, she dropped my hand and walked away, her friends following. But not before each of them stopped in front of me and spit at my feet.
Peta, I’d almost forgotten she was on my
shoulder, grunted. “That little gesture means they wouldn’t spit on you even if you were on fire.”
“Nice.”
Beside me, Smoke let out a long breath. “That could have been worse.”
“The Enders, were they all healing that first night?” I asked and Smoke looked away.
“I am forbidden to say,” she whispered.
“Forbidden? Or bound?” I asked as I scooped up the overturned laundry basket. There was ash on the clothes, but I wasn’t about to stick my hands back into the river.
“Both.”
“So I have to figure this out myself? That’s what you’re telling me?”
The tip of Peta’s tail flicked along my neck, and I reached up to touch her, finding comfort in her presence. Smoke, though, said nothing, and I assumed that was my answer.
We headed back the way we’d come, climbing the steps into the higher parts of the cavern, the air drying my skin, hair and clothes in a matter of minutes.
“Perhaps I should take you to your friend, Cactus,” Smoke said. “You can do work for him, help him clean his bachelor home.”
I nodded. “Smoke, what about our ambassador here? Could he not stand for Ash in some way?”
She shook her head slowly. “The queen had all ambassadors sent home when things started to go poorly with the lava flows. She did not want to be responsible for them.”
Damn, there would be no help from that quarter then.
Smoke walked with me across the high arched bridge to the far side of the cavern where the singles lived. I wondered why they kept them apart from the families, and Peta must have picked up on my curiosity.
“The men when not bound to a wife can be out of control with their tempers and wild ways. No one wants that near their family,” Peta said, filling me in as we walked.
“How old are they when they move here?” I asked, thinking of Brand and Smoke’s son Stryker. He couldn’t be that far from an age where he was considered an adult.
“Eighteen,” Smoke said.
“And your son, how old is he?”
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