elemental 07 - destroyer

by Mayer, Shannon

  Meghan shook her head. “Tough one. Talan, do you be sure?”

  “Do it, witch.”

  Shazer grunted and I kept my eyes locked on his as I frantically pulled at the threads of Spirit around me, but it was like fighting air.

  “You hurt him, and I will kill you, Talan!” I screamed the words, panic and rage fueling them and my efforts. I focused on the threads on my mind and body.

  I told myself a lie I was determined to believe. The bonds were nothing to me. The power of Spirit could not touch me as long as I held tightly to the earth.

  A soft voice whispered through me from the ground, the voice of the true mother goddess.

  Your mother’s unique gift was her ability to see the lines of power. See them on yourself, Lark. See where you can cover them with other lines of power and your connection to me.

  Something clicked inside my head as the words opened understanding in me.

  The lines of pink that held me touched the earth in places.

  Like a brilliant flash of light, I understood how I could circumvent Talan’s hold on me. The lines of power from the earth were there, just waiting on me. I slid them up and over the lines that held me down, and the power of Earth flowed through me, even when I was blocked as I was right then. I funneled it through my body and smothered the lines of pink that kept me from moving.

  Released, I shot to my feet and ran at them.

  Meghan barked at me, “Move now and he’ll die for sure. There be a chance yet!”

  I froze where I was mid-step. “What?”

  “We can’t stop the spell or he will surely die,” she breathed out. “We must finish now.”

  Shazer grunted, sweat rolling down his face, his flanks trembling.

  Talan stared at me, his eyes wide. “How did you free yourself?”

  “He dies and I will kill you.” The words were hot and fueled by more anger than I’d ever felt in my life.

  My son… he is trying to help you, Lark. Even if he is going about it the wrong way.

  “Then your own connection to Spirit will be lost.” He smirked at me. Fucking well smirked.

  I smiled back. “Then so be it.”

  He paled.

  Power hummed around us, yet I could feel none of it.

  “Meghan, if I add my power, will that help?”

  She shook her head. “No. Be quiet.”

  Biting my lower lip, I watched as Shazer’s skin thinned and his body began to shift, his wings drooped and the feathers sloughed off one by one. Tears slipped down my cheeks. They were literally pulling him apart, a piece at a time.

  “Please, Meghan,” I whispered. Caught between rage and fear, I still had hope that Shazer was strong enough to pull out of this.

  “I’m trying,” she bit back. “This don’t be easy, Elemental.”

  I clamped my mouth shut and just watched.

  Raven cleared his throat. “Little help?”

  I didn’t look back at him. “Earth dampens the lines.”

  He gasped and in seconds was at my side. “Shit. How did you figure that out?”

  I didn’t look at him. I kept my eyes on Shazer even when Peta pressed against my legs. She, too, carried ability with the earth.

  And now all three of us were immune to Talan’s and Viv’s machinations.

  Shazer’s body shrank and shifted, bones cracked, and then the Pegasus I knew was gone, and a man lay in the sand at our feet. Meghan stumbled away from me and I dropped to my knees to cradle Shazer’s upper body, his long white hair spilling over my arm.

  A Sylph, Shazer had been a Sylph.

  I put my hand to the side of his neck. “Shazer, talk to me.”

  “Magnus,” he whispered. “My name was Magnus and Viv cursed me because I sided with those who banded against her. I led the rebellion, and now I leave it in your hands to stop her.” He opened his eyes, soft gray eyes like the underbelly of a storm cloud. He lifted a hand to my cheek. “Lark… you are the one we’ve waited for.”

  His hand slipped down and I caught it, clutching his fingers. “Magnus, don’t you dare!” I pushed a pulse of Spirit into him to heal whatever was wrong, but I could find nothing. “Raven, help me!”

  There was a flurry of movement and then Raven was there on the other side of Magnus. Raven put his hands on the Sylph’s chest. “His heart isn’t beating.”

  “Get it started again.” I barked the order even though I knew in my own heart… I knew what I was seeing. Shazer was gone, his life snuffed out by attempting to give him his real form.

  Peta wrapped a big paw around me and tugged me away. “You can’t bring him back, Lark.”

  A sob slipped from me and I put my hands over my face. I cried for Shazer. I cried for his willingness to be the test subject and I cried for what it meant. “I knew it. I knew this would happen.” Why hadn’t I stopped this when my instincts screamed there was no way it would work? Something had told me, and I’d not listened. I’d wanted to know it was possible.

  “Lark,” Raven said, “Talan is gone.”

  I jerked my head up.

  Both Talan and Meghan were indeed gone. “A coward always runs when they finally realize they are out-powered.”

  Raven nodded. “He knows he can no longer hold you down. He won’t come at you again.”

  Shaking from head to toe, I wasn’t so sure Talan was done with us.

  “This was another lesson,” I whispered. “One that cost us a dear friend. Talan will not stop. I just think we won’t see him coming.”

  “He did something, though. He saved Ash’s life,” Raven said.

  I blinked up at him. “What are you saying?”

  He swallowed hard. “Ash as he was—a man—is lost to you. And I don’t think you would have believed it if you hadn’t seen Shazer die.”

  I closed my eyes and leaned over Shazer’s—Magnus’s—body. Tears slid from my face and onto his. “Goddess, please…do not leave me now.”

  There was silence for a few beats and then the presence of the mother of us all surrounded me, spilling upward from the earth.

  Child, you have a long road yet ahead of you. There will be many losses; this is only the first. Though I wish I could spare you this pain.

  Still on my knees, I called the earth to slide open and take Shazer’s body—Magnus, I should say—into his final resting place.

  “Goodbye, my friend.” The words were bitter on my tongue, salted with my tears and grief.

  I closed my eyes, still able to see the fear in Shazer’s eyes as we’d shared one last look. He’d known, too, death was coming for him.

  “What do I do next? How do I find Viv?”

  I will guide you as much as I can, Lark, in other matters. But I cannot tell you where she is, for she hides from me. But remember Magnus was not the only one bound to her.

  Peta pressed her body against the side of my thigh. “What does she mean by that?”

  I looked up at Raven. “Who else is bound to Viv?”

  Cassava. The name was not spoken, yet we all knew it. Once again, it came back to if we could find Cassava, we could find Viv.

  Maybe.

  “She always goes home, to the Rim,” Raven said quietly. “She goes to the cemetery.”

  “To be with my mother,” I whispered. “Then we will go there next. We will find her and she will help.”

  Raven lifted his eyebrows high. “You would force her?”

  I gave him a tight nod. “If I must. We are at war, Raven. There is no choice now but to do what we must.”

  I could almost hear Shazer laughing at me for sounding far tougher than he’d ever thought I was.

  I clenched my teeth against the flood of tears that threatened at the back of my eyes, and forced words through my throat.

  “Raven, are you going to teach me how to Ride Spirit now?”

  He hesitated but only for a split second. “Yes.” He was at my side in an instant. “In fact, I think we should go now. Talan could come back, and honestly, I
don’t want to pit myself against him just yet.”

  Raven grabbed my hand, I scooped up Peta, and the beach was gone between a single blink and the next. A part of my brain tried to tell me it wasn’t possible, but I could see the threads of power Raven used to move us through space to Ride Spirit. It wasn’t just Spirit, though that was the dominant color. All five elements blended together to bend the world to his will, to allow the movement from one part of the world to another.

  I stared at his hand, not bothering to look around. “Like the Traveling bands, Peta is a part of me so she doesn’t count as an extra person?”

  “Correct,” he said.

  I nodded to myself. “Do it again.”

  “No instruction?” The surprise in his voice didn’t bother me.

  I shook my head. “No, just do it again. I want to watch it done.”

  He took us to another place, and another and another, and each time the pattern became more visible. The places varied, but I barely noticed them. I wasn’t being stubborn about him not giving me instruction. The fascination with the colors and what the elements could do when they were blended was what had me totally wrapped up, and I’d always learned by seeing. And… it allowed me to forget about losing Shazer for a space of time, to help push away that grief. Another time, I would say my real goodbyes, but not now. Too much was at stake. I had to learn. I had to be ready for what was coming.

  I had to be ready to face Viv in all her terrible glory.

  It wasn’t until Raven went to his knees that the hypnotized feeling left me and I looked up from his hands. “How long were we Riding Spirit?”

  “Maybe twenty minutes. I’ve never done that many movements one after the other.” He was breathing hard. “You think you’ve got it?”

  I nodded. “Yes, I do. I’m going back to the beach where Talan was, Raven. Are you coming with me?”

  He slumped further. “You want to fight him now? Lark, that time will come. Let’s find Cassava first.”

  “I don’t trust him. He’s lied too many times, and I don’t care how often I am told that he’s done it for my good. For all you or I know, he’s been working with Viv,” I said softly. Peta came to me.

  “It will be a fight to the death,” Raven said. “And we have bigger things on the plate. Remember?”

  I didn’t want him to be right. “Damn it. Then we will go to Cassava.”

  “You mean the Rim,” Raven said.

  “No, I mean Cassava.”

  I held my other hand out to Raven. He sighed. “You can’t travel to a person, only a place.”

  “That’s what you think,” I said.

  He opened his mouth, but it was too late. I was already weaving Spirit around my hands, calling up Earth and blending it and then carefully reaching for the other elements. They weren’t mine to beckon, not really, but if I understood what I’d seen with Raven, Pamela, and Talan as they’d used it, Spirit could offer me a small connection with the other elements. I didn’t question what I was doing, just gently asked the other elements to aid me, to give me their strength so I could travel through the world. Raven sucked in a sharp breath and we were gone from wherever it was he’d taken me to a place that was not the beach. Somewhere else further flung than that.

  I’d locked onto Cassava, the image of her, and let Spirit take me right to her feet.

  Which would have been good if she’d not been in the middle of talking to Talan.

  CHAPTER 18

  To say that Raven, Peta, and I showing up right behind Talan’s back while he spoke with Cassava was a bit of a shock was more than an understatement. It blew my damn mind.

  “She’s not letting me guide her, and killing her Pegasus isn’t going to help!” Talan ran a hand over his head. “How can I train her? I have tried everything from being her friend, to being her mentor, to her enemy now!” He sounded truly upset and I didn’t like that. I wanted him to be painted in black and white, not gray.

  Cassava looked past him and her eyes locked on mine. “You don’t train her. That’s what Raven has been trying to tell us.”

  Talan whipped around. I didn’t move. Couldn’t at first. Cassava, the bane of my existence, the one who’d hated and treated me like worm shit my entire life, and yet when I’d seen that memory of her with my mother, I’d seen a woman who’d put everything on the line to save more people, even if it meant that she lost her best friend. Even if she was hated by those she was trying to protect.

  “You have two seconds to leave, Talan.” I bit the words out. “And then I will kill you.”

  He shook his head, but left.

  She arched an eyebrow. “You’ve learned a new trick then, Planter girl?”

  I took a step and then another, pushed Raven to one side, and stared at Cassava. “Do you hate me?”

  Her eyes widened. “You ask that after all this time?”

  I drew a breath before speaking so I could gain some control over my emotions, in large part, because seeing Talan and hearing his words had thrown me.

  “I saw you with my mother. I saw your love for her and that she asked you to end her life. She asked you to protect me at any cost, to make me hate you. So, my question is, do you hate me now because I cost you so much?”

  A tremor rippled through her body as though a miniature earthquake had started in her center. “You are very like her, Lark. It pains me to look at you.”

  “Do you hate me?”

  Her lips trembled and she slowly shook her head. “I have never hated you, though there were times I wanted to. It would have been far easier to do what I did if there had been true hatred in my heart.”

  “You stole the damn stones from me!” The words erupted from me as I shoved her hard, forcing her back from me. “If you didn’t hate me, why would you do that? Why would you give them to Viv?”

  Peta let out a hiss but kept herself silent; otherwise, her own emotions only strengthened mine.

  Cassava shook her head slowly. “It is a deep game that has been played, Lark. And I know that better than anyone. I did what I had to do for the next step. To keep you safe a little longer. With the stones in hand, Viv thinks of you as less of a threat now. She is wrong, of course, but her belief is what matters.”

  Raven grunted, but we both ignored him.

  She went on. “We have all lost ones we loved in an effort to find the person who would stop Viv.” That husky voice of hers dropped from the sneering quality that had always been present when I was around to one that sounded truly… pained. “I knew the moment I met Viv that she was not who she said she was, that Ulani had been right about her. Still I found the Spirit stone for her, and protected it from her, because she could not force me to give it to her. I could hide in the madness she believed me to have. We need to find the original elementals; we need them to be free so together they can stop her. That has been the plan all along. Once they are free, then you will stand with them.”

  “The prophecy in Olivisha’s book, it said I was to reign freely. So, that matters not now?” I was as confused as a tangle of ivy vines wrapped around a climbing clematis flower.

  She shrugged but didn’t look away from me. “What does your heart tell you? You’ve never been one to believe lies easily, not even when Spirit was used on you.”

  I frowned. “We find the original elementals and I help them stop Viv.”

  “And the only way to find them was to give Viv a reason to go after them. I planted the idea in her head that she needed to check on them. To ensure they weren’t stirring before she made her last big move to take their power.” Cassava frowned and a heavy sigh slid from her. “Only she took it a step further and decided that if they were dead, then the power in the stones would be solely hers. That there would be no turning back for them then. Which would be true.”

  “Can you find her?” The question flew from my mouth. “Are you bound to her still?”

  I could feel Peta and Raven stiffen behind me. Cassava gave a tired smile. “I am bound to her, yes
.”

  Raven pushed past me and Cassava went to her knees, her head bowed. Brilliant lines of pink rushed up and down his arms as he put Cassava into a deep sleep. “Shit. I knew she was playing both sides, but for her to have a connection to Viv… that is very bad indeed.”

  My mind clicked several times, almost like one of the human machines as they hummed and worked. Raven spoke to me, but his words filtered through in bits and pieces because I could not stop thinking.

  Cassava not being loyal. What to do with her. Where was the Spirit stone? That last question brought me out of my own thoughts.

  I took a step to one side and held my hand out to Peta. She leapt up into my arms. A dangerous idea had begun to form, but also a truth I’d not considered.

  Both Raven and Talan could train me with Spirit, but Raven had pointed out I was better learning things on my own, to not be constrained by things I was told were possible or impossible.

  Both had told me the only person who might be able to guide me in how to connect Spirit to the other elements was Cassava, as she was the only one besides Viv who’d done so and was still alive.

  I sent a thought to Peta, or more truthfully, a memory. Before my time with her, I’d gone into the springs below the Spiral, the seat of power in my family’s home deep in the redwood forest. I’d gone into the water as the last test of my Ender training. But in doing so, I’d bound myself to Viv who at the time I’d thought was the mother goddess. I was bound to her.

  She could find me anywhere.

  And that meant I could find her.

  Peta sucked in a sharp breath and a single image came back to me. We could grab Cassava and go, leaving Raven behind. Raven… I didn’t truly want to leave him.

  I looked at Raven and caught his eye. “Brother, do you trust me?”

  “Always,” Raven answered.

  Peta tightened her hold on my vest and I didn’t take another moment to consider what I was going to do. I stepped up to Cassava, and put my hand on her arm.

  “We’re going for a ride.”

  I pulled both Cassava and Spirit close and thought of the one place I’d always call my home, even in my darkest hours.

  The Rim. More specifically, the cemetery on the outskirts of the Rim where my mother’s body lay.