I opened myself to Spirit first as I thought about all the elementals in the world, all of them family, blood in some way or another.
The mother goddess was silent as I sent the power of Spirit out like a net, high into the air and then shooting out in rays, searching for every elemental.
They pinged inside my head one at a time while I counted them. Two thousand elementals left in the entire world. But they were not the only ones I reached. Elemental blood ran hot through the supernatural world, and Spirit carried my voice to those human children of our people. There were many more, thousands of their kind, and that gave me a small hope. I could pick out Rylee, Liam, Pamela and others… They paused and closed their eyes in unison as I began to speak.
“My family,” I spoke and my words were carried to them, “the world is in a dire state. The mother goddess has called on me to correct it. The only way is to break the world. That will disrupt not only the humans and their deadly weapons, it will allow us all a chance to survive.” I paused, struggling to find the right words. “Many will die. Not only the humans, but the world of magic, too. Do your best to be safe. Do your best to help those around you.”
Rylee seemed to look right through me. “Lark, we are here. We stand with you. We are family.”
Her words undid the tears in my eyes. “Thank you.”
She grinned and winked through her own tears. “You got this, Larkspur. Cousin.”
She faded from sight, but I could feel her strength as I could feel the strength of all the elementals and supernaturals hovering just out of sight. Ready to be used if needed.
I let go of Spirit, but felt no fatigue from using it.
I looked to my sister. Bella’s face was covered with tears. “I’m afraid, Lark, for what is to come.”
“So am I,” I answered her honestly. “But I trust in what must be done. I will trust in the mother goddess.”
“When?” River asked. “When are you going to do it?”
I stared at my hands as the five elements danced in a spiral of color that only I could see. “There is no reason to wait. There is nothing that must be done first. Go to the Rim and the Spiral. Even burned out, I think it will protect you.” That was what the old king had said. A place of protection. Goddess, let it still be that.
Bella hugged me tightly and kissed me on either cheek. “You can do this, Lark. You can.”
River even hugged me. I kissed her on the forehead. “Look after your mother.”
Her eyes flashed. “Always.”
Then it was just Raven, Peta, and me. I looked him over. “Where is your son, the son you had with Samara?” I didn’t know if I should tell him his son was a child of Matarrah, that he’d bedded the very first air elemental. Would it matter? Probably not.
“He is with Cassava,” he said. “She will look after him, and then take him to Pamela when he is older.”
“You say that like you won’t be around to raise him.”
His eyes were on mine. “I’m not sure I will be. This thing the mother goddess asks of you is power beyond power.”
Peta shivered across my shoulders. “I feel it too, Lark. This is an end to end everything as we know it.”
I sighed. “Nothing truly ever ends, not without a hope for some new beginning.”
I paused. “I would see her one more time, before I do this. Will you come with me?”
Raven nodded, and I took him by the hand and let Spirit take us to Cassava.
She sat in a rocking chair, holding a small bundle as she soothed the snuffling child. Cassava didn’t even look up as we appeared in the room.
“Is Viv gone then?” she asked.
“She is.”
“And you are here, why?” She lifted her head then and arched an eyebrow at me. My nemesis for my whole life, and yet she hadn’t ever been my true enemy but the dearest friend of my mother’s.
“I am sorry, Cass,” I said softly. “For all you suffered to bring this day around. I wish it could have been different.”
Her eyes widened and her lips trembled. “You… I would do it all again to make this world a safe place.” She glanced at the child in her arms. “The half-bloods will rise up now without Viv’s interference. As it always should have been, the world will no longer be broken into pure bloods, but instead, ruled by those who carry more than one power.”
I nodded. “Less division.”
“Yes.”
The words halted between us and I didn’t know what else to say. “Keep safe, then.”
She smiled. “I heard your words, Lark. You did not need to come here to tell them to me in person.”
“Are you not mad now?” I knew I was stalling, and perhaps she did, too. I could admit I was more than a little afraid of what had been asked of me.
Cassava stood and walked to me, the child now sleeping in the crook of her arm. “The mother goddess removed the madness for all that I have tried to do to help your cause. But I will not go back to the Rim. Too many will not be able to forget my part in the breaking of our lives.”
Cassava watched me. “His mother has given him much strength, more than any other Sylph could have.”
My eyes snapped to hers, and she smiled and tipped her head ever so slightly. So she knew who the baby’s mother truly was… somehow I was not surprised.
A sigh slid out of me. “Please watch over Bella, as best you can. Please.”
Her eyes locked with mine and I saw that she understood what I could not say out loud. That I didn’t believe I would survive this, not even with the guidance of the original elementals.
She leaned in and pulled my head down to kiss me on the forehead. “Your mother was right about you, Larkspur. She believed that all the pain, all the suffering would teach you as nothing else could to have a soft heart. She knew you, even then.”
I touched the child on the head, brushing the mixture of dark and white hair over with my hand.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped back. No goodbye, I just wrapped Raven and me in Spirit and took us back to the cemetery at the Rim. I let go of his hand and took a few steps away, setting myself once more between my mother’s body and where Ash had lain.
“No more stalling,” I said to Peta.
Her hold on me was gentle and firm. “Saying goodbye is not stalling.” She butted her head against mine.
I opened myself as fully as I could to the five elements I held and looked at Raven. “I will do what I can to keep the destruction down.”
Raven had the audacity to laugh. “Please.”
I managed a smile and held my hand out to him. “Here we go, brother.”
“I always was your favorite.” He winked even though there were tears in his eyes.
I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to speak around the lump in my throat. “Yeah, I guess you were.”
Peta tightened her hold on me. “I am here, Lark. You are not alone.” Her love was a balm to my aching soul, and I held onto it for all I was worth. Through everything I’d suffered, Peta had been my light. She’d been my soul sister in more ways than one.
Air slid out of me and I sent all five elements curling from my center, driving them deep into the earth, searching down, down, down to find the core of the land we stood on. The forest trembled and the trees groaned as if they knew their deaths were coming.
Pain, this would hurt so many, yet… I was going to do it anyway. The animals around us fled, running ahead of a danger they could sense but did not understand.
At the center of the planet, the five elements hovered, and I could see the crack that would send out a rippling shudder that would reshape the world.
Love, fear, pain, horror at what I was doing, the emotions welled in me and Raven tightened his hold on my hand. “Release the power, Lark. Just release it. The elements know what to do.”
I was afraid it would not be that easy. This was no small task, but for the first time in years, I trusted my brother.
I released the five element
s, let them run through me and into the earth unchecked.
The eruption in my soul felt as though the elements were tearing chunks of me away as they began to pour into the earth. A scream bubbled up through me as I shook, my arms outstretched. Every muscle, tendon, bone, particle of skin, every piece of me felt as though it were being pulled along with the elements, impossibly stretching me.
The power cascading through me was anything but kind as each of the elements reveled in their freedom, of being cast out to the world unchecked.
Hang on, Lark. You must control them to a degree. Talan’s voice was the strongest now. They are yours now, use them, not the other way around.
With painstaking effort, I did as he told me, for the first time listening to his advice. His laughter was clear. At least now when you need me the most, you are listening.
Another time I would have smiled. As it was, I was busy bringing the elements back under my control. Sort of.
Under my feet the ground heaved, the air around us whipped up and the clouds that formed opened on us a torrential downpour in a matter of seconds. Fire cut through the trees as though they had been deliberately lit and the only element that did not hurt me was Spirit.
But that wasn’t true either.
I opened my eyes to a soft, hazy fog and saw those around me who had gone on before. Those who had given their lives that I might be brought to this point. I was between the realms of the living and the dead. They walked into the cemetery through the arched entrance, one at a time, and stood in a circle around me, supporting me.
Shazer, standing on two feet, giving me a wink. Basileus. Cactus. Keeda. Vetch. Persimmon. Red. Scar. Aria. Bramley. I cried out for my little brother, my hand outstretched, but he just smiled and shook his head. He looked to be about sixteen, his face and coloring just like mine, only still soft under the last of the baby fat he never had the chance to lose.
Fiametta came next and then Finley. Both queens smiled. Both seemed… lighter than they ever had in life. The bonds Viv had placed on them were finally gone, and I could see them for who they were.
Talan, Frost, Olivisha, Realm, and Matarrah who I’d known as Samara. The five original elementals raised their hands to me in solid support. Next to Talan stood my mother, and she smiled and put a hand to her heart.
Yet the pain was not complete until I saw him walk toward me. The others let him pass. Ash stepped between those who’d died.
“Lark,” his voice undid me and I slumped to my knees. “This could not be avoided, my death was assured the minute I stood with you against Viv.”
A shuddering breath slid from me and the world around me heaved, the elements wild in their barely checked power. Distantly, Raven was screaming my name. The world breaking even as I knelt on the ground. Peta wrapped herself tighter around my neck, her head tucked in closely to mine, her breath hot against my skin.
“Lark,” Ash held his hand to me, “you were the only one who could have opened the elements like this, to do this. Not even Raven could have broken the world. You are the granddaughter of the mother goddess, Lark. You are the daughter of her favored child.”
I moved to put my hand in his and Peta stuck me with her claws. “Don’t, he will take you from me!”
Ash grinned. “Peta, I will not harm her.”
“And if you kill her?”
“It is not me killing her, cat,” he said gently. “It is the power of the elements pulling her apart, no different than how she released Finley’s body, or mine. No one body could ever contain this much power and then survive its unleashing. Because Lark isn’t trying to hold them, she is releasing them back into the world so our people will not die.”
Peta shuddered. “No, no, I will not lose her! Of all of those I care for, I cannot survive this loss!”
I closed my eyes, listening to my body. Ash was right, my heart was slowing, the blood in my veins was cooling. Was that why Raven shouted? Did he see me dying too?
I tried to look over my shoulder but couldn’t find the strength to turn my head. “I don’t want to leave Peta, or you, Ash.”
He crouched in front of me. “Then you can both come with me. Peta is the closest thing I had to a familiar and I don’t want to leave her behind either. I love you both.”
Peta gripped me hard, her energy pouring into me as she fought to keep me alive. It was a losing battle; we both knew it.
“Peta.”
“Lark,” she whispered. “I am with you. You don’t have to ask.”
“Then… we go. We go with Ash and the three of us will be together.” I spoke softly, which seemed so strange when around us the continents shattered their holds and spun out into the ocean. New mountains were formed. Old mountains were crushed. The world was recast in an image that only the mother goddess knew. Rivers changed direction, oceans shrunk and grew, the waters rose and the deserts flooded. I could see it all happening inside my mind, Spirit showing me the devastation… and the hope.
Yet, I could see the survivors helping one another already as the breaking eased. Had it been that long already?
“Days,” Ash said. “You have been here four days while the world has been remade. You were the conduit for the power, my love, you can shut it down now. The world and all in it have a chance to start again, to find a better balance than before.”
I closed myself to the elements and there was nothing left, no noise, no sensation.
I breathed out my last the same second Peta did and yet there was no pain, no sharp stab of failure or loss.
We just… shifted.
CHAPTER 28
Ash caught me in his arms and planted a kiss on my lips. A real kiss, one that was deep and full of all the things we could not say right now because there were no words. How could this be when we were dead?
I didn’t care how it was, only that this was real now.
I held onto him and Peta held onto us both, butting her head against my face and then his, purring so much that…
“You’re drooling, Peta,” I said.
She snorted, which sent a spray of moisture across my face. “How can this be death when I feel so much? Not that I’m complaining, but I am unsure how to take this.”
Ash kept his arm around me and turned me slowly. There, only a few feet behind us was my body. Raven held me in his arms, his face buried against mine, sobbing as though his heart was truly broken.
“Ah, Lark, I never told you.” He whispered those words and yet I heard them clearly.
Peta was curled on my chest as though she were sleeping and I had a hand wrapped around her, even in death… I looked away, my throat so tight, I wasn’t sure I could breathe past it.
The sight of our bodies in death was too much even for me, the sight of Raven’s pain as hard to bear as if I were again at Ash’s body, saying goodbye.
No matter that I didn’t feel dead, it was clear to me that I was. And that I had caused pain by leaving.
“Child, the soul never truly dies.”
I whipped around. The woman who approached us did so slowly, with a slight hunch in her back despite the fact she looked like she was tall. She was wrapped in a gray material that flowed around her body. Around her flew a fluttering cloud of butterflies. But otherwise, there was nothing outstanding about her.
She had grandmotherly features, her hair a mixture of brown and white curls that fell to her shoulders, and blue eyes that were watery with age. Her body was frail but still moving. She raised a shaking hand, palm up, fingers outstretched, and a butterfly landed in the middle of it. “I always thought butterflies one of my most beautiful creations, and I often send them to those who have lost loved ones. To remind them the soul carries on after death.”
A butterfly with one blue wing and one green flew to where Raven held onto my body. It lit softly on his hand, wings fanning back and forth. He lifted his head. “Ah, Lark. Even now, you are here.”
I couldn’t watch. I didn’t want to see his pain. It was worse even than my own.
>
The mother goddess continued to hold her hand out to me. “I want you to see what has been wrought in this world. I want you to see what good you have brought.”
Her hand settled on my forearm and I was no longer on two feet, but stretched out my wings, climbing into the sky. To one side of me flew Ash as a golden eagle, and to the other was Peta, if the green eyes and spotted feathers were any indication. Her eyes were a tad on the wide side, and that made me smile. Assuming a bird could smile. The mother goddess was a large snowy white owl, her wings spreading above us.
We flew through the Rim first. Bella was there, organizing our family, gathering them together. Leading them as the queen she was. They would be okay. I could see the strength in them.
I cried out once and Bella lifted her head. Her eyes were on mine and I think… I think she knew me. She put her fingers to her lips as her eyes filled with tears and she mouthed my name. Larkspur.
I banked away, running from her pain as I’d run from Raven’s.
Higher we flew until we were above what was left of the redwoods and we could see the landscape better. The Rim was no longer a part of the continent, but was its own island in the water, separated by a swath of ocean. We headed over the water to the east, not having to go far until we found the Pit. What had been in the Ring of Fire was now a new continent, long and narrow through the middle of the old Pacific Ocean.
Flint was there, alive, injured, but leading his people, and I could see their hearts and determination to rebuild.
Next, we went to the Deep where Dolph was leading the Undines and they were helping the humans closest to them. A better start already.
And finally we flew to the Eyrie. What was left of it, anyway. There were only a half dozen Sylphs, broken, bruised, but alive. From what I could see, Samara—Mattie—had sent them away to protect them from Viv.
Now, they were huddled around a thin fire and the Yeti were with them. Not a drop of snow was left, and the mountains were barely rolling hills.
They would take the longest to rebuild. I could see the devastation in their hearts as clearly as if they had been mapped out. But they would rebuild, and they would grow strong again.
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