elemental 07 - destroyer

by Mayer, Shannon

  Training with Talan now… a part of me had thought I was done with that time of my life. My training as an Ender had been hard, but I had loved it. For the first time in my life, I’d been useful and had been learning and working toward a goal. I wanted nothing more than to protect my family, to keep those who remained safe. That had not changed.

  This training felt more like it was holding me back. That I would do better if I was out in the world seeking out those original elementals and finding a way to free them.

  Thoughts swirled around and around, one chasing the other. Sleep took me slowly, and with such small increments that at first I didn’t realize I was asleep and dreaming. For a moment, it was if I stood in the Rim, in real life and not in a dream. But as I stood there, my feet in the soft dirt, the smells of the forest filling me, I knew it for what it was.

  Not a dream.

  A vision.

  My jaw tightened. The only person who’d come to me like this was Viv in the guise of the mother goddess to instruct and guide me in the past. True to form, a white and floating mist rolled toward me from the base of the trees inch by inch before it coalesced into my mother. Her long blond hair swirled around her face that was so like mine, but her eyes were not those I knew. They were a deep dark brown and they were thick with hatred.

  “So, Lark. You have the stones.” I didn’t answer her as she strode toward me, her one hand outstretched. “Give them to me.”

  “No.”

  Did she truly think I would just hand them over?

  Her hand trembled. “I am here to save our world.”

  “Bullshit. You want control. And I’m going to stop you, bitch.”

  “That’s what Talan has said, yes?” She smirked at me. “He’s an adept liar, don’t you think?”

  I arched an eyebrow, though a part of me knew I could be in serious trouble. Visions were strange; they could reflect the real world, and could even cause things to happen that were then reflected in the waking world. “Takes one to know one.”

  Her eyes narrowed and the image of my mother wavered until I saw not the face of my beloved mama, but a woman who looked very much like a Terraling, the same woman I’d seen in the past Talan had shown me. Her dark hair and dark eyes, dusky skin and short stature labeled her as surely as the red hair on my friend Cactus marked him as a Salamander.

  Her face, though, was not smooth like it had been before, but scarred and pitted from the blast that had hammered her when the curse rebounded. She’d thought she held the true five stones in her hands. She’d thought her curse was broken and she had attacked me. The curse Talan had put on her activated and she was blasted into what I’d hoped was tiny little pieces. But here she was, injured but still alive. She was obviously stronger than even he realized.

  I wasn’t quite sure what she thought she could accomplish by bringing me into a vision like this. I folded my arms over my chest. “We can’t hurt each other, so you brought me here to talk? To have some girl time?”

  I doubted that was the case, but it was as good a place as any to start. She smiled at me and the motion pulled at several of her scars, giving her a lopsided face.

  I pointed at her with one finger. “You’re crooked, you might want to fix that.”

  Her face flushed bright red and her image softened, and the scars smoothed away. I nodded. “That’s much easier to look at, thanks.”

  I watched as she seemed to struggle with herself, her hands clenching and unclenching, her eyes narrowing further and further. “Can’t hurt me, can you?”

  “She can’t, but I can.”

  I spun around as something was yanked from my side. Not something.

  The pouch with the stones.

  Everything happened so fast. Cassava was there, her lips etched with a sneer, though her eyes didn’t have a drop of hatred in them. No. Her eyes were full of sorrow and pain.

  And then the pouch with the stones was gone from my side and as I reached for it, the dream shattered.

  I sat up, gasping, which sent Peta sprawling across the bed. She blinked up at me, her body tense. “What is it?”

  My hand shot to my side, frantically feeling for the leather pouch. Nothing. I leapt out of the bed and searched the covers, my hands moving faster and faster. “The stones, Peta. The stones!”

  But they were gone, the leather strap still dangling from my waist a testament to what I’d lost in a vision that should not have happened. I slowly went to my knees. “Mother goddess.” The words slipped out of me and a shudder rumbled through the earth.

  Child of mine, granddaughter, not all is lost. The voice was the same as the one who’d called to me from the Eyrie. The same as the one who’d shown me the true mother goddess was not Viv, but someone far less tangible.

  “The stones were taken.” I bent forward and put my head on the rock floor as if I could sink through and bury myself in the earth.

  Your time to regain them will come. She must take the stones to where the power originates. It is the only way for her to take all their power. She must kill them and they are at her mercy as they languish in their oubliettes.

  “They are your children. Can you not stop her?” The words were wrenched out of me.

  No. Interference to that level is what has brought this on us. We must stand back and let you battle for us. You are our champion, Lark. You can stop her; you can save us all if you can find the hidden strength within, a way to blend all the elements. Find my children, they will show you the way.

  The voice went silent.

  Peta looked at me and I looked back.

  “You heard the mother goddess?” I asked.

  “Yes. Any idea on how to blend the elements?”

  I shook my head. “No, but it probably has to do with working with the other Originals. Maybe combining our power against Viv?”

  But while I sat there, I began to see a pattern in my mind. A course of action I needed to take if we were going to stop Viv. “Viv wants to kill the original elementals, Peta, that’s what the mother goddess said. But no one can possibly find them in time to save them from her. No one knows where they are except Vivica. The mother goddess herself has said I need to find them.”

  I turned to stare at my familiar. Her green eyes stared back, wide and wondering. “And Viv now has the stones.”

  My belly rolled with fear. “She has their power in hand, all she needs is the final stone and then she will be free of the curse. That’s why she hasn’t tried to kill them before.”

  I was on my feet and running from the room. Maybe I should tell Talan… no. I skidded to a stop halfway to the main cavern. “Peta, which way is Raven, can you smell him?”

  She leapt out in front of me and took off down a branch of tunnels leading in the opposite direction as the circular room. Left, left, and left. We curled down deeper into the rock until the ever-present sound of water faded to a distant rumble.

  A doorway beckoned, and beyond it a single candle burned on a table beside a simple framed bed. Raven was asleep, fully dressed and wrapped in his black cloak. He looked younger than I’d seen him in years. I didn’t knock, just walked in and grabbed his arm, and gave him a shake. “Raven, is Cassava working with you and Talan?”

  He sat up and took a swing at me. I blocked him easily and he slowly came around. “Your reflexes stink,” Peta muttered at him.

  He cleared his throat as his eyes un-fogged from sleep. “What?”

  “Is Cassava working with you and Talan?” I repeated the words slower this time.

  Pushing himself to the edge of the bed, he shook his head. “She was. I’m not sure now. Spirit has warped her because it is not truly her element. Why do you ask? In the middle of the night, no less.” He rubbed a hand over his face, his eyes finally opening wide.

  “Viv pulled me into a vision, and Cassava took the stones.” I waved my hand at my hip. “The false mother goddess believes she must kill the original elementals to truly harness their power. But that is not what’s going to h
appen.” In my mind, an image sprang out of nowhere. A huge tree with multiple root systems, and Vivica at the base, chopping at the roots. Above her head, the different branches of the tree curled in on themselves and died. “I think the elemental families will be wiped out if she kills the Original Terralings.”

  Raven bolted to his feet and he grabbed my arms. “Are you sure?”

  I opened my eyes, not realizing I’d even closed them. I swayed where I was, but I felt in my bones that the words I’d spoken were, while not truth, a distinct possibility. I answered in the way that would help my cause the most. “Yes. I’m sure.”

  Raven pushed past me and I followed, stumbled a little and paused.

  “Peta, what happened?”

  “Spirit can bring on understandings like that. Leaps of logic that you might not have otherwise put together. It happened with the false mother goddess before. Lark, you knew Viv was the creator of the rings when there were such small hints that no one else had figured it out. You knew Talan for who he is with as little.” She sat beside me as I struggled to get hold of myself.

  I nodded, knowing she was right. That didn’t make it any easier. I forced my feet to move and before long we were in the top cavern.

  Raven and Talan were having quite the argument. I was glad for once it wasn’t me in the middle of things.

  “We have to go now! We can follow her and find your siblings because if we don’t, the elemental families, all we’ve been trying to save, will be wiped out!” Raven snapped, motioning with his hand to what I assumed was the outside world.

  “No, Larkspur is not trained and that must come first. She is too far behind the rest of us in training, and there will be no chance later.” Talan’s face was tight as though the words themselves pained him. “You must be able to stand with us—” I knew he meant him and his siblings, “and you cannot do that without help. Another tried to take her on without proper training, and he died for it.”

  “Who?” I frowned. “Who has gone after her?”

  Talan snapped his head around, surprised I was there. “No one,” he said and walked toward the exit tunnel.

  “Talan,” I shouted, my blood racing, though not knowing why the answer to my question meant so much. He stopped in his tracks, quietly stared at the ground for a moment.

  “It doesn’t matter any longer,” he said softly. “He thought he was strong enough because he knew, as you now know, there was a blood connection stronger in him to the mother goddess than anyone except her five original children. He failed, Lark. He failed because he didn’t know what he was doing. He was untrained.”

  My heart pounded, but something wasn’t right. “How young was he?”

  “Sixteen.”

  Who was Talan speaking of? What teenager had a strong connection to the mother goddess? The answer knocked me upside the head: The real mother goddess’s grandchild. Talan’s son. Talan said he bargained with the false goddess for his son’s life. That must’ve been how Viv got her claws on his son in the first place. I lifted my eyes to Talan.

  “I’ve survived and learned a great deal in my time, and not being trained has never stopped me before,” I pointed out as I stepped farther into the room. “Why not train me as we follow her? I mean, it’s not like we’re trying to keep the stones safe from her now; she has them.”

  Talan rounded on me. “You want to try and stop her from killing one of my siblings? What happens then? She’ll know we are following her. We will only be able to save one of them. One family saved, but only for a little while. Do you think Viv won’t come back to try and finish the job?”

  A mean streak slid down my back and I didn’t hold back. “Wouldn’t they offer themselves to die to save the others? Why not save one or two and allow the others to die for their siblings?” I didn’t want that. I didn’t want any of the elemental families to die out, but Talan was not the one being told to give up those he loved.

  The words slid through the air cutting through whatever speech may have been brewing in Talan.

  Peta grunted. “He can dish it out, but he can’t take it.”

  My thoughts exactly.

  CHAPTER 11

  Tucked away under a waterfall deep within a mountain, held somewhat captive for training by a man who was an uncle, along with a brother who’d betrayed me more than once, you’d think I would hate them both equally.

  Wrong.

  Raven burst out laughing, and it was not a nice laugh. “I agree, Talan. Why not sacrifice some of your family since we’ve lost most of ours? It’s only fair, don’t you think?”

  Talan didn’t move and yet everything about him changed. As if the easygoing Spirit Walker let us glimpse a side of him he’d kept hidden. “You think I’ve not lost my family? You think my children weren’t hunted into near extinction? That every love I’ve ever had wasn’t killed? You think that losing my mother to a spell of Vivica’s wasn’t enough? You think I haven’t given enough to this world and that you should now be spared a small amount? You know nothing.”

  He spoke softly, but there was a deadly tone to his words, and for the first time, I was afraid of him, of what he could make us do if he so chose. Yet even with that fear humming under the edge of my skin, I couldn’t back down. I couldn’t allow him to use what was left of my family for his gains.

  “I will not apologize,” I said out of sheer stubbornness. “Besides, your mother isn’t lost. I hear her.”

  Talan startled as if I’d slapped him. “What did you say?”

  “She said,” Peta enunciated each word slowly, “she…hears…your…mo…ther.” She sniffed. “I’ve heard her too.”

  He paled and slowly went to his knees. “There is no doubt then.” He covered his face with his hands and, horror of horrors, a sob slipped from him. I froze where I stood, not sure what was going on. The shift in emotions was so fast, it caught me off guard.

  I shot a glance at Raven who just shrugged. Peta seemed to have no such worry about what to do. She hurried forward and put her paws on Talan’s thighs, then pushed her nose against his hands as they covered his face.

  “Talan, I doubt it means she loves you any less.”

  “Oh, Peta, if that was only the reason for my heart pain,” he whispered, but the words caught and echoed in the chamber. “If my mother is awake and speaking to Lark, then… it will happen. The world will break. I had hoped I was wrong, that we were years yet from this moment. I’d hoped it would never come to be truth. I’d hoped that by freeing my siblings, perhaps it would be enough to cow Viv.”

  Raven cleared his throat. “The mother goddess has been speaking to my daughter as well.”

  I frowned. “Daughter?”

  He flashed me a quick smile. “Yes. Daughter.”

  I wanted him to tell me it was Pamela, but he didn’t. He kept her name to himself and there was a flash of understanding in me. He was protecting her as best he could.

  Talan lifted his face, his eyes still glittering with tears. “That is not a surprise. If Mother is speaking to Lark, she needs to also choose a witch to do her bidding. Which I believe has been done?”

  Talan’s eyes flicked to mine for the briefest of seconds. Of course, he’d been there when I scooped up Pamela.

  He already knew she was the one—he’d seen her break the Veil.

  Raven paled and I felt a pang for him. Though I’d never had a child, I’d dreamt of one. A golden-haired little boy with Ash’s features and my smile with my mother’s eyes. The pang deepened into a wound of the heart I found myself fighting off as though it were a physical injury. I’d thought I’d given up on that dream long ago. For it to hurt now was a surprise.

  Talan stood, and it was as if there had been no breakdown, no moment of weakness.

  I waved a hand at him as I pulled myself together. “Okay, right now the fact that your mother is speaking to some of us doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Viv stole the stones and is going to kill your siblings. We have a chance, and we need to take i
t. Is there any other way we could find where she’s hidden the original elementals?”

  Talan shook his head as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “No. I tried a Tracker years ago, but she was unable to help.”

  I suspected there was one Tracker who could have done it. Rylee could do what no other Tracker could, but she’d lost her abilities at the Battle of the Veil.

  “Then we have this one chance. We follow Viv,” I said, the decision already cast in stone as far as I was concerned.

  Raven nodded. “I agree. Talan, you can train Lark as we go.”

  Talan put both hands to his head. “This is not how things were supposed to go.”

  Peta laughed softly, but there wasn’t a single mean note in it. “Ah, Talan, still trying to control everything? You may be older than me, but it is a lesson you have yet to learn. The world will bring you trouble in all forms. And you cannot always predict it.”

  He ran a hand over her back and a sigh slid from him. “Damn it. Why are you always right?”

  She grinned over her shoulder at him as she trotted back to me. “I’m a cat.”

  I held out my hand and she leapt into my arms and from there moved to my shoulder. “What are we waiting for?”

  Raven cleared his throat. “We might have a direction, but we still have to find Viv.”

  “Oh, that’s easy. She’s with your mother, Raven. Cassava helped her. We find Cassava and we find Viv.” I locked eyes with him, daring him to deny that Cassava was working against him. She was mad, and it was obvious she was not playing with a full deck of cards.

  Raven stared back at me. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Lark. Even if Cassava could be found, she is not herself.”

  My jaw tightened. “So you think we should just stay here, too, safe and tucked away while the original elementals are killed? What happens when that happens? The elemental bloodlines fail and we will die. I will not die like a rat hiding in a cave.”