“Peta, help the cat!” I pointed as I slid to a stop beside Pamela. From the corner of my eye, I could see Peta in her snow leopard form slam into the tangled bodies, barely saving the tiger from having her throat crushed by the massive wolf.
Pamela looked up at me, her hands gripped hard on the sword. Her huge blue eyes were full of tears, both shed and unshed. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“I’m not.”
Rylee gasped and when she moved to come at us, I flicked a hand at her as I called up the earth. The ground swallowed her all the way to her knees, holding her firmly.
“LARK! Don’t do this! She’s letting the demons out!” Rylee screamed, and I could feel the rage and shock in her words slide over me. I shook my head, turned, and beckoned the ground up around the wolf’s legs, tying him in place too.
“I’m sorry, Rylee,” I said. “Time for Pamela to come with me.”
Rylee fought hard to get out of the rock I’d sealed around her, and I knew we wouldn’t have much time. She was strong and she was determined. And I didn’t want to fight her.
I hoped it would never come to that.
I slid an arm around Pamela’s waist. “Leave the sword.”
“The Veil will close,” she said. “I can’t let it.”
I stared into the swirling that was the Veil. I saw the one she was calling forward.
Peta and the tiger limped away from the wolf.
Time was ticking.
“He will either make it or he won’t; there is nothing any of us can do now,” Talan said from several feet away. His voice wavered through my ears, almost a warble. “We all must go. Lark, bring her to me at the top of the waterfall.” An image flickered through my mind and nothing in me could stop the command.
The asshole had just manipulated me with Spirit once more.
Shit.
“It will be done, asshat.” I spoke even though a part of me knew I was falling under his spell again. How was he doing it? I didn’t understand. I was strong enough to throw off the chains during other times Spirit had been used against me.
How was he so much stronger?
Pamela let go of the sword, her fingers sliding off the hilt one by one as she stared into the opening of the Veil. “I… I need to give him time.”
The rock around Rylee cracked and her eyes shot to the Veil, softening as she saw the one Pamela retrieved.
“There is no time,” I said. In that, Talan was right. Either he would make it out of the Veil or he wouldn’t.
I spun with my arm still around her waist. Shazer swept down between us and Rylee, and I caught his mane, pulling my captive and me onto his back with ease. The snow leopard and tiger shifted as they leapt, both housecats landing lightly on Shazer’s rump. The orange cat bled from a few wounds, but that didn’t slow her.
Interesting. I thought that was a gift only of Peta’s to be both a large cat and a small one.
“Oka!” Pamela called out as we were yanked into the sky.
“I’m here.” The now-miniscule orange cat grappled over my back to get to Pamela. She was barely half the size of Peta, even though she was bigger as a tiger. Peta climbed onto my shoulder and dug her claws into my leather vest.
I held the young witch in front of me, then leaned over the side and peered at the scene below.
I could see Rylee as she got herself out of the ground. Talan was there and then gone in a blur of pink lines that coursed over his body.
I doubted that meant I was done with him. Already there was a pull on my body and mind to follow the Spirit Walker to the north. Damn him.
I kept my legs tightly on Shazer’s sides, holding onto him in midair. “Wait.” I wanted to see if the one Pamela had called through the Veil made it or not. I wasn’t sure it mattered, but a growing suspicion told me this moment might be important to our future, even if I couldn’t pinpoint why exactly.
Pamela curled around her cat, and I kept one arm around them both. Shazer glanced back at me. “I have to take you where he wants. He’s got a hold on my body.”
I knew he meant Talan, and my anger spiked. “Mine, too. Do it. I will deal with him there.”
Shazer gave a laugh. “I look forward to that.”
Peta put her mouth to my ear.
“You realize what we’ve allowed to happen?”
I shook my head slowly. “It could have been worse, Peta. No demons came through the Veil.”
“They won’t,” Pamela said softly.
“How can you be sure?” Peta asked.
With a shudder, Pamela turned to look me in the eye, her shoulders straightening slowly as she pulled herself together. “Because I was not opening the Veil to them. I was breaking it entirely.”
CHAPTER 2
Breaking the Veil.
While Shazer flew higher, I kept my eyes on Pamela as I let the words sink in. The reverberation from the earth that I’d felt in my bones, the power and pain of the world crying out—I’d known nothing good could have come from that. But breaking the Veil? Was it even possible?
“Raven set you up to this.” The words slid from my lips before I could even fully process them.
Pamela’s blue eyes hardened. “I chose to do it, knowing the consequences.”
Worm shit. I looked over her head, between the Pegasus’s ears. There was more to this story than Pamela just breaking the Veil. I was sure of it.
“Shazer, how long before we reach the waterfall where Talan wants us?” I asked.
He flicked his ears a couple of times. “I think maybe a few hours at most.”
“Then, Pamela, you have time to explain to me why you did what you did.” I tried my best to keep my words even, and nonjudgmental.
She was quiet a moment, struggling to find the words. “I… the mother goddess told me to.”
Of course, the mother goddess—the true mother goddess—had spoken to me, too.
“Any idea why?”
Pamela shook her head. “No. I went with Raven on my own. He taught me how to use my powers, taught me to weave them together. But when it came down to it, I wasn’t sure I should open the Veil. The mother goddess told me to go ahead, that I had to break the Veil.”
“And then she told me to save you,” I said softly. “So for whatever reason, this had to happen. I believe you.”
A tiny sob slipped from her. I tightened my hold around her.
“Did he hurt you?”
“What?” She turned confused eyes on me. “Who?”
“Raven.”
“No, he… he saved me from the Guardian that came through the Veil. It was coming for me because I was the one to open it.” She shook her head. “He would never hurt me.”
She said it with such sincerity that it was obvious she believed her own words.
The idea of Talan getting his hands on the young witch was enough to make me hesitate. Obviously, he had a thing for power, or he wouldn’t have tried to take me as he did. I couldn’t risk him getting his hooks into her too. I just didn’t trust him.
“Pamela, is there somewhere you can go? Somewhere away from here? I think Rylee will need some time to come to grips with what happened.”
She hunched her back further. “You don’t want me to stay with you?”
I drew a breath and let it out slowly, knowing the prickly footing that came with teenagers all too well. “I want you to be safe. The man with me with the dark hair, did you see him?”
“The one with the violet eyes?” She nodded. “I saw him.”
“He’s a Spirit Walker, an elemental who can control others through their minds. I don’t know what he would do if he got his hands on you. You are very powerful, and witches with great power are feared by some elementals.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I can’t be controlled by Spirit. It is one of the reasons Raven was willing to teach me.”
My turn to frown. “You could keep yourself free from Spirit when Raven tried to manipulate you?”
She nodded. “
While he was surprised, I think maybe he wasn’t at the same time. It was strange.”
The frown did not leave my face. How could a child, a witch who had power in all five elements, be stronger at resisting Spirit’s call than me who had power in the true element itself? There was no jealousy on my part, just true confusion.
Peta cleared her throat. “Sometimes, one using Spirit finds it’s a struggle to control those within their bloodline.”
Pamela stiffened. “Perhaps that is the case.” From her arms came a soft purrp from the orange cat.
“Tell her, Pamela.”
Peta leaned over. “Tell us what?”
“Oka,” Pamela said softly. “I don’t know if that is a good idea—”
“Tell her.” Oka peered up at her charge with large pale blue eyes, then they widened as she took in me and Peta. She swallowed hard, almost like she was tongue-tied. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and then again, she swallowed and spoke quietly. “I may not be the familiar that Peta is, but,” her words slowly grew in confidence, “Lark is your friend. She is the Destroyer. She needs to know.”
Chills swept through my body and my skin tingled with apprehension. “Tell me what?”
Pamela drew a breath. “I… Raven and I are related.”
If she’d turned and slapped me, I would not have been more surprised. “Related? How?”
She lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye, and while I could see she was being brave, I could also see the fear.
“He’s my father.”
It took all my strength not to tell her she was being an idiot, that he was lying to her. But the longer I looked at her, the longer I stared at the shape of her face, the distinct color of her eyes… “Smile,” I said softly.
She let her lips curl upward, and the smile didn’t touch her eyes. Shit, give her blue-black hair and she was a softer image of him indeed.
“The similarity is there,” Peta said. “Enough that I would believe it.”
I frowned.
“And he offered to train you because of your connection to him?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Asking nothing in return?”
It was her turn to frown. “He wanted the sword… but he left it behind back there.”
That didn’t make sense. I knew Raven wanted the sword. He’d tried to get it from me at the Battle of the Veil.
“You believe me about Raven being my father?” Her question caught me off guard.
“I do.”
“And you don’t hate me for it?”
I laughed softly. “Ah, Pamela. Family is complicated. And you are family. I don’t hold your parentage against you. I only worry he will use your obvious care for him against you.”
We were silent a moment. I shook my head. “No matter our connection, you still can’t come with me to Talan. Raven is strong in Spirit, you’re right about that. But Talan has more strength with Spirit than any other elemental I’ve ever met.”
“Even you?” She lifted an eyebrow back at me, and again, I was struck that she really did look like Raven. I’d just never been looking for the similarities before.
I nodded. “Even me. Right now, he is drawing both me and Shazer to him with Spirit. I have no say over it.”
To be fair, I wasn’t fighting the pull to him either. I wanted to face him head on with my eyes open and my strength intact. And when I was done with him, I would go back to the Rim and protect my family. As was my calling in this life.
Her eyes widened. “You can’t break his hold on you?”
I shrugged. “I’m not trying, right now. But I believe he is stronger than me, so it will be a full-on fight when I do attempt to throw his hold.”
Pamela’s eyebrows dropped, so far they nearly touched between her eyes. “I can Ride Spirit away from here. But I can only take one other person besides Oka.”
Confusion slid through me again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” She blinked up at me. “Riding Spirit, it’s a way to travel to any place. Or any person. You just,” she waved a hand around in a circular motion, “ride it.”
Irritation flowed through me but I schooled my face so she did not see it. That didn’t mean Peta didn’t pick up on it through our bond.
Peta cleared her throat. “Can you be more specific than that, Pamela?”
The young witch shook her head. “You just take hold of Spirit and feed it into your body and then think of where you want to go. Or who you want to go to.”
Around us the wind shifted, stopping our conversation. The sudden gust blew from the east and snapped our hair around us, tangling the ends. Shazer fought the wind, his wings beating hard to keep us from going off course.
“Shit, this is not natural.” He spit the words out the side of his mouth.
“I didn’t think so.” I twisted around, doing my best to get a bead on who was controlling the wind. A Sylph, no doubt.
But why would a Sylph be here, of all places, and why were they coming after me?
“They’re here for me,” Pamela said. “I helped Raven escape them. I helped him…”
“Escape me,” I breathed out, remembering him disappearing at my feet on the floor of the Eyrie. I’d had him right there, and then he was gone before I could drive home the final blow. I didn’t have to ask why she’d saved him.
Raven was her father, and Pamela had a heart that loved too deeply. She had saved him from me.
A sob caught in her throat. “I have to go. If I’m gone, they’ll follow me. If you need me, look to the north.”
She tightened her hold on her familiar, and lines of pink flowed over her body, bending and twisting in on her, and then she was gone before I could say anything, before I could even grasp what she’d done. It was the exact trick Raven and Talan used to move around.
A gift of Spirit.
But there was no time to take it in. At that moment, I had bigger problems to deal with than figuring out how to jump using Spirit.
“Lark, they’re still coming,” Shazer called out.
“Of course they are. They don’t know she’s gone.” I slid forward, readjusting my seat on his back. The pull to Talan was intensifying, drawing me even though I knew it was going to be a fight.
“Can you stop?” I asked him.
“I’m going to try. Talan’s pull is strong.” He grunted as he slowed his wings so we were treading air.
“I’m going to chat with them, see if I can talk them down,” I said.
Peta snorted. “Like that’s going to work. They’ll think you’re with Pamela and Raven.”
I sighed, knowing she was probably right. Sylphs were not known for their ability to forgive, or recognize that there were more points in a story than their own. Even so, I would try.
The Sylphs were sweeping in behind the battering ram of the wind that pushed and shoved at us. “Lark, I have to land, or they’re going to break my wings,” Shazer yelled over the blast of air.
“Do it!”
He tucked his wings in tightly and we dropped from the sky like the horse-sized stone we were. Peta screeched. “Some warning would be nice, nag!”
Her claws dug in hard to the leather shoulders of my vest, but I reached up and put a hand over her back anyway. I could hold on with my legs well enough for myself, but I knew the Sylphs would not save Peta if she fell.
The ground swept up toward us for the second time that day and I held my breath, waiting for that last second lurch that would be Shazer’s wings snapping out and catching us.
It never came.
The wind hammered down on us from above.
“They’ve pinned my wings!” Shazer screamed.
The ground was closer, closer. I reached out to it, softening it, hoping it would be enough. The image in my mind was all too clear.
Shazer hitting the ground, all four legs snapping, his body being crushed under its own weight as it hit the unforgiving stone. I couldn’t let that happen.
I put all I had in
to the earth, calling it, easing it until it was near liquid.
It was the best I could do.
I could only hope it would be enough. “Hang on, this is going to be a rough one,” I yelled over the wind, my words sweeping away from me.
The split seconds stretched and the ground reared up. Shazer tucked his legs to minimize the impact.
And then we hit and the world turned inside out.
CHAPTER 3
Shazer slammed into the ground and he sunk into the surface, enveloped by the soil and rocks I’d softened.
My efforts were not enough. The snap of bones, of Shazer’s legs being crushed beneath him, his cry of pain. Above us the Sylphs said nothing, and I knew why.
Shazer was a legend to them, the horse that could fly.
And they’d just broken him, sending him to the ground in a heap of broken bones and wings.
I leapt from his back and crouched by his head. “I can heal you.”
His eyes were glazed with pain and furious anger. “I know. But kick their asses first, would you?”
I kissed him on the nose. “Done. Peta, stay with him.”
She bobbed her head, but I was already turning from them to face the Sylphs. Talan’s pull on me had not lessened; if anything, it was stronger.
But my anger was enough to dampen it so I could deal with them. I hoped.
I faced them, anchoring my feet into the earth. “You want to explain this?” I gestured at Shazer. “Or should I just kill you both and be done with it?”
“Destroyer, you are harboring an enemy of the queen. A witch child who plotted with Raven to kill our beloved leader.” The first Sylph was one I knew. His long white hair and frosty blue eyes marked him clearly, even if I hadn’t known him. I’d met him when I’d last been to the Eyrie. Ryk floated down until he was ten feet above the ground. Not only a Sylph, but an Ender for his people. His white leathers were immaculate, almost shining in the light.
To be fair, though, his attitude was a better marker of who he was and what family he came from than anything else. A sneer rippled over his lips as he literally stared down his nose at us.
“There is no one here besides myself and my two familiars. So, you have attacked without provocation,” I crossed my arms, “which is enough to piss me off and reply in kind, sending you and your friend into the bowels of the earth.”
elemental 07 - destroyer Page 2
