A tiny flash of movement, the soft muttering of words I felt I should understand; a language I’d heard maybe when I was a child. Narrowing my eyes, I shifted another inch and then went still. My hair swept out around my head, dangling a good foot lower. Whoever was down there was bound to see it. I should have tied it up but it was too late now.
Pale white scales flickered up at me, and two pairs of eyes the color of amethyst blinked several times. The firewyrms were small, maybe the length of my legs at most and curled around each other. They looked like wingless, sinewy dragons. Their mouths had row upon row of needle sharp teeth I had no doubt would rip through armor, rock, and maybe even hardened steel.
The one in front had a scar down its left side, the scales missing in a long, jagged line. Scar stepped closer to me and let out a long, low hiss that ended in a gurgle.
“Cactus,” I said, keeping my voice as even and smooth as possible. “Tell me about firewyrms.”
“Oh shit, those bastards are causing problems. Nesting where they shouldn’t and then attacking when people—wait, why would you ask me that now?” His hands tightened on my ankles and he started to pull me up but I grabbed onto the rock. Scar’s eyes, they held a world of hurt and fear. A child lost.
I couldn’t help myself.
Jerking my feet out of Cactus’s hands, I swung my legs over and into the shallow notched space. Peta let out a squawk and her tiny body tightened as we landed in a crouch. The firewyrms scuttled backward, mouths open as they threatened, but no fire erupted, no flames came our way.
Peta bit my ear, her sharp teeth piercing the cartilage. “You idiot, I said I didn’t want you to die, and you drop into a wyrm nest? What’s wrong with you?”
Heart pounding, I didn’t move, didn’t even stand. “Hey, you two, I heard you talking.” On my shoulder, Peta went still. “You shouldn’t be able to understand them, Dirt Girl.”
I held a hand out to them. “Who hurt you?”
Scar looked over his shoulder, quickly to his sibling then stretched his neck forward. He squinted one eye as a long forked tongue flicked toward me. His scales were more than white, they were opalescent with rainbow colors dancing on them, as they caught a bit of light. With each step he took toward me, his clawed feet clacked on the stone.
His headgear was six long antelope-like antlers that arched back over his neck away from his long muzzle. The same pale white horns spiked from his elbows and the bend in his hind legs. With a whip-like tail that was barbed at the end, I had no doubt he could lash out for a distance. Topping it off were his claws. Five on each foot, and at least twelve inches long, they seemed oversized for his body.
Yet fear still didn’t touch me.
My heart pounded and the blood roared in my ears, like an oncoming storm that would be amazing. Or terrifying. Or both.
That long tongue flicked over my fingers and then he scuttled backward, his lips curling upward. Peta clung to me, breathing so hard she panted in my ear. “Dirt Girl, we need to go. He will fry us both.”
I put a hand on her in an attempt to ease her trembling. “Scar, what happened to you?”
He rolled his head so he looked at me upside down. “Vy do you care?”
His voice was pitched low enough that I knew now why I’d struggled to understand. He had an accent.
“I don’t like any of the mother goddess’s creatures to suffer,” I said, holding my hand out to him again. A show of trust, and faith that he wouldn’t fry us, as Peta said.
Peta meowed and buried her head against my neck, her whole body shaking. Scar slid forward and pressed his nose against the palm of my hand.
A quiet sigh slipped out of him. “You smell nice.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes flicked to his sibling and then back to me. “Vy are you being nice to us?”
I stayed crouched so I was at eye level with him. “I’m hoping you can tell me about your people.”
His head wove back and forth several times. “My people are dying out. The fire queen hunts and kills us. Ve don’t mean to attack, but ve can’t help it. The pink light fills our minds and ve must obey.”
His words couldn’t have shocked me more. “Pink light?” As in the light I saw when elementals were controlled by Spirit. Was that what was happening?
Behind me was a thump of feet hitting the ground and Scar scuttled backward, hissing and snarling. “Hunter!”
I glanced over my shoulder, thinking I would see Cactus. But it was someone I didn’t recognize. An Ender in black leathers and gloves was all I registered before he grabbed me and jerked me behind him. “Get back, idiot, you don’t know what they are capable of.”
I hit the ground, stumbling under the force of his throw, sliding to the edge unable to stop my momentum. I scrabbled at the rock, crying out as my body slipped into open space. Peta screeched, as the world turned upside down as I rolled in the air.
A flash of white scales and the world righted itself, or at least, stopped moving. I hung upside down and Peta clung to the front of my vest, her tail bristled out like a cotton puff.
“Peta, who grabbed us?”
“Your new friend,” she whispered.
I managed to lean up and look past her. Scar clung to the cliff face, holding onto my leg with his long tail, the barb hooking over his own flesh to lock around my limb. His claws were buried into the stone and he slowly began to climb sideways.
Above us in the tiny cave came shouting and the sound of flesh being hit. “Hurry, Scar. Get me back up there.”
He shook his head. “We can’t save her. The Hunter will take her.”
The mother goddess’s words suddenly made sense. Lives to save . . . she didn’t send me to save Ash.
She sent me to save the firewyrms.
“Scar, get me up there. Now!” Anger coursed through my veins; an anger born of understanding. To be treated as though you were worthless and should be wiped out . . . that I knew too well. I reached to the earth as Scar climbed swiftly up the rock, the power humming under my skin, filling me with its strength. A flick of his tail and I launched into the air and over the edge.
The other firewyrm lay unmoving, the Ender standing over her. He had one foot on her tail and his club dripped with blood.
“Get away from her.” I whipped my hand out, calling the earth upward and throwing the Ender backward. He slammed into the far wall, his head snapping hard against the rock. Eyes rolled back, he slid to the ground in a slump.
I ran forward and dropped to my knees in front of the firewyrm. “Scar, does she have a name?”
“No, ve don’t have names. Ve just are. You are the first to name one of us in a long time.” His head pushed under my arm as I laid my hands on the white, still scales. No breath and her heartbeat was gone.
Peta let out a sigh. “Spirit can heal, Dirt Girl. I don’t know how, but I know it can. If it isn’t too late.”
I didn’t hesitate; if I were to lose a piece of my soul for saving another, then so be it.
Grappling with the other side of my bloodline, I brought Spirit forward. Like an unruly horse, it bucked and pulled from me, making me sweat as I tried to direct it. Why now? Before when I’d called on it, there had been no fight. But I’d not tried to heal anyone before, so maybe that was it.
I tried to be gentle as I pushed Spirit into the firewyrm, directing it to flow through her muscles, into her heart, across her bones. Sweat dripping from my face, I gritted my teeth as I tried to bring her back.
Peta licked my cheek. “You can’t save her, Dirt Girl. She’s gone too long. That is why Spirit fights you, I believe. I think she was already beyond your reach.”
I let go of Spirit and hung my head, tears dripping along with the sweat. “Then what is the point of being able to have Spirit if I can do nothing with it?”
Scar stuck his head onto my lap. “You tried. That is more than any others have done.”
Wrapping my arm around his neck, I hugged him tightly to me before le
tting him go. “You’d better get out of here, the Ender will wake soon. Take your sister with you.” I stood and Scar scuttled forward, scooping his sister onto his back.
“Be careful,” he said, then disappeared over the side of the ledge once more. I followed, watching him slither down the vertical wall as if it were nothing to him. Glancing up, I realized that Cactus had been suspiciously absent.
“Cactus?”
Nothing.
I reached up and grabbed the handholds I’d made on my way down and pulled myself up. Peta leapt from my shoulders onto the top of the ledge.
“He’s here, but . . . you aren’t going to like this,” she said. The tone in her voice made me scramble faster. I swung my legs up and over, scooting forward on my belly for a few feet before pushing to my knees.
Cactus was flat on his back, a large goose egg budding over his left eye. I ran one finger over it and brought Spirit forward again. It didn’t fight me as I wove its strength through Cactus’s body. I didn’t really know what I was doing, letting Spirit do as it would.
The bump shrank until there was nothing, not even a bruise on his skin. He blinked and sat up. “What the hell just happened? I was calling to you and then something slammed into my head and nothing until right now.”
I gave him a weak grin. “What do you get when you find a firewyrm, fight an Ender, and fall off a cliff?”
“Shit.” He stood and pulled me to my feet. “Where is the Ender?”
“Still in the cave down there.”
“Tell me you didn’t kill him,” Cactus said, reaching for me. I frowned at him.
“I’m not an idiot. I just knocked him out.”
Peta gave a full body shiver. “We must hide the fact that you attacked him, Dirt Girl. With Cactus’s injury gone, we will all say we have no idea what that Ender is talking about when he accuses you. Do you understand?”
I nodded, but I wasn’t sure it would work. Especially not when we turned to see we were not alone.
Fiametta stood behind us, her eyebrows arched high over her brilliant blue eyes, and her black leathers glistening in the flickering light around us. She seemed backlit by a pale pink light. My heart clenched. Was someone manipulating her even now?
But who?
“What does the Terraling not understand, Peta?”
CHAPTER 9
dropped to one knee and pressed my hands into the rock, feeling the essence of the earth under my skin as Spirit still rode high through my veins. I could feel the beating heart of everyone within fifty feet, including the queen and the Ender below us.
Brand stared at me from a few steps behind the queen. “Terraling, you are supposed to be helping my wife.”
Letting out a slow breath I nodded and stood, the instinct to connect to the earth something I’d not expected. “She sent me with Cactus, since I fell into the river helping her with the laundry.”
Cactus tugged at my arm; I knew what he wanted. We hadn’t addressed Fiametta yet. Faux pas number one.
“Your Majesty,” I said.
“Terraling, I see you are getting the grand tour while your friend awaits his punishment. How lovely for you.” Fiametta’s voice cracked like a whip through the air and the men flinched. Peta clung to my shoulders, shaking once more. Behind the queen stood her black panther, Jag. His eyes were full of sorrow as he looked at me and then away. But he said nothing. No doubt the queen would just ignore him anyway. I watched as he turned and walked away, leaving his charge on her own.
So it was as Peta had said. The queen didn’t use her familiar at all.
A scramble of rocks behind us stopped all conversation as the Ender who’d attacked me and Cactus pulled himself over the ledge.
The queen went to him. From where I stood, her movements softened as she held a hand to him. He kissed her offered hand, his lips lingering on her skin and I saw a quick flash of his tongue as it darted out.
Worm shit and green sticks, of course it would be her lover.
The epiphany hit me like a dozen redwoods crashing to the forest floor. If he was her lover, he was also the traitor. Son of a bitch, he couldn’t have made it easier on us. If in fact, he was one and the same.
Eyes that were dark as night locked with mine as the Ender looked past his queen. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced, you wyrm lover.” There it was, that same voice I’d heard in the memories.
Peta whispered in my ear. “He will not go down easy. Be wary.”
Fiametta turned so she faced me. “Wyrm lover? Coal, what is going on?”
Coal. Of course, his name would be the same as my ex-lover. Seemed fitting since I was about to ruin his life too. He stepped around her, a sly smile on his lips as he pointed a finger at me.
“She attacked me when I was trying to kill a pair of hatchlings.”
I laughed, feeling the weight of the moment laying on me. If I didn’t play this right, we would all be dead. I was not a consummate actress, but I had to try. “Please, why would I attack you? And what is this about a hatchling?”
He frowned and pointed to the back of his head. “I have a wound. And so does the prick. He tried to stop me and I clubbed him. Proof of my words.”
The furrowed brows on Fiametta’s face would have made me stop talking, but Coal kept on. She strode to Cactus who held very still, murmuring only a simple, “My queen.”
Her hands roved his face and head, looking for an injury. “I see nothing here, Coal.”
“Impossible. I heard his skull crack,” he said and then seemed to swallow his words as Fiametta turned toward him.
Fiametta’s eyes held flames. “You would attack my best defender, Ender? He is the first who stands between me and the firewyrms. That you would even admit this tells me how little you care for our safety. “
“Spitfire—”
I flinched as he used an obvious pet name for her. Her face paled and two bright red spots appeared high on her cheekbones. Coal swallowed whatever else he was going to say. Which was maybe his best decision of the day.
She raised her left hand and held it palm out toward him. “You are hereby stripped of your ranks, and all privileges. I see no wounds on Cactus, but he is a favored Salamander in our eyes and that you would even attack him leaves me questioning your loyalty.”
Confidence soaring, I had to fight the smile that wanted to creep over my lips. This really was too easy. “He has a scar on his hand, does he not? Hidden under his glove.”
Coal’s whole body jerked as if I’d jammed my knee into his family jewels. Fiametta looked from him to me. “Ender, do you know this Terraling?”
“No, my queen.” Interesting that his story was suddenly changing. Anything to keep on the queen’s good side.
“Oh, sure you do,” I said, feeling the weight of the situation as if a boulder lay across my shoulders and not a ten-pound house cat.
“I’ve never met her, my queen.” He was sweating, and I didn’t think it was heat. I glanced from him to Fiametta only to find her blue eyes staring at me.
I forced a smile to my lips as my mind raced. Think like Belladonna, that was all I could think. “Do you trust your Ender? Trust that he wouldn’t lie to you? Oh, what am I saying, he did lie to you just now. Right to your face.”
Her blue eyes narrowed to mere slits. “Terraling, you walk a fine line. Do remember that while you are here, you must abide by my rules until you leave. Or you will find yourself next to your friend making a last, short walk into the Pit together.”
Damn, a fine line indeed. I lifted both hands, palms up and shrugged. “If you wish to bed a viper and think his bite is not venomous, then be my guest. I will say no more, per your wishes.” Turning, I beckoned to Cactus whose face was slack as if I’d punched him in the mouth. “Cactus, you said you would show me the Pit as close as I could get?”
“Stop.” Fiametta said, her voice icy cold, but power rumbled under it and the lava below us picked up in noise, as though fountains spurted with the wicked fire. The
re was no emotion in Fiametta’s voice. I had her attention now. I turned expecting her command to be for me. It wasn’t.
The Ender—her lover and traitor—was attempting to sprint away. Cactus stepped beside me, lifted his hand and the doorway that the Ender would have run through crumbled, most effectively stopping him.
He spun and lifted his club, pointing it at Fiametta. The fear on him was so thick it seemed to fill the air.
“You bitch, you have ruined this family!”
I was the closest one to him and I acted without truly considering what I was doing.
Pulling Peta from my shoulder I pushed her behind me as I sprinted forward, putting myself between the Ender and Fiametta—of course, I had no weapon.
The Ender laughed. “You think to protect her? She doesn’t deserve your protection.”
I settled into a fight stance. “Leave that to me to decide.”
“Lark, here, you could need this.” Brand called out as the sound of metal and wood scraped along the smooth granite. Rolling to a stop at my feet was my spear, the curved blade, and wooden handle once held by my mother. I scooped it up, and spun it toward the Ender as he raced toward me with his club. The blade caught on the dark stone as we twisted our weapons against one another. My muscles strained and my shoulder protested but I held him back, if only just barely.
“Coal, stop this,” Fiametta said and for just a second I wanted to glance around for the dark hair and green eyes of my previous lover. But of course, this Coal was the Salamander in front of me. And I had no doubt he would kill me if I let my guard down for an instant.
“The last Coal I faced lost his hand,” I said as I thrust my spear toward his belly, turning the move into a downward slash and catching his knee. The tip of my blade cut through his leathers and the side of his knee. He went down but swept his club in front of him keeping me away. His black eyes glittered with hate, and I read the understanding in them that he was going to die.
I took a step back, spinning my spear loosely in front of my body.
Fiametta stepped forward so we stood side by side, but her eyes were all for her lover. “You would kill me?”
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