I’d never come down this far, and I couldn’t help but stare. The room was built in imitation of the entire earth. I stepped fully into the room, my jaw dropping. The floor, walls, and ceiling were curved so that we were inside the globe looking out. I took another step, a splash making me shake my head. Lifting a foot, salt water dripped from my boot. I stood in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The sense of awe kept me moving, unable to see enough. Of course, my awe didn’t last.
“What are you doing here?” Ash grabbed my arm and started to shove me backward. I dug my heels in, water sloshing up and over the edge of my boot.
“Granite sent me to help you.” I glared at him, made myself look into his eyes.
His jaw twitched. “You have no help to give. And even if you did, I wouldn’t want it. You’ll just get in the way, Seeder, and end up dead.”
I noticed the band on his upper arm. Smooth and made of red cedar, it glowed against his skin, the etchings carved in it those of our people. Dominating it was a tree, from root to tip curled around the band, a redwood with all its tiny needles spread wide. Wreathed in fog near the middle of the tree, with water droplets painstakingly carved in careful details, and a fire burning hot between the treetop and the roots. It was a masterpiece done in miniature.
A symbol for each of the families.
A band worn to travel between the homes of the four families. That much I knew.
I clamped a hand over it.
“You go, I go. That’s how it’s to be.”
He tried to jerk out of my hand, and I dug in hard. “I will not stand here and do nothing while my father and siblings lay on their death beds. I’m coming with you.”
With a snarl, he reached over his head with his free hand. “Fine. But the Pit is no place for the weak-minded.”
Granite’s admonition to keep my eye on Ash stuck in my head. “Tell me how it works. I need to know in case we get separated.”
His jaw ticked. “The arm band is simple. Put it on, a counter clockwise twist will bring you back here. Forward twist will take you to the last place it was used to travel to. New place, you have to be standing in a Traveling room and pick a spot, like this.” His eyes flicked over to the chest where he’d pulled the armband.
“What?”
His voice was soft. “There should be three bands, there are only two.”
“Could it have been taken?”
His eyes came back to mine. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t have time to search for it.”
I nodded, understanding. There were more important things than dealing with a missing armband. I watched his hand move, as if in slow motion, he opened up his hand and then pinched his fingers together, as if picking something up. The movement slowly drew the room, and the section of the globe we looked at, closer to us. The globe around us shifted, tightening, the details coming with more clarity. He did the same thing twice more until we were looking at the base of a mountain, cherry blossoms blowing in the wind, the scent of the flowering buds heavy on the air.
“Hold onto me, and no matter what happens, don’t let go,” Ash said.
I reached out and grabbed the thick belt around his waist.
“No, there has to be skin contact.” He grabbed my hand with his free one, but never actually looked at me. That didn’t mean I stopped watching what he did. I took note of everything, each move he made. His hand attached to the arm with the cedar band on it, lifted and he touched his index finger to a spot between two cherry trees on the over-magnified globe.
The world seemed to implode, the air around us gone in an instant, and my first thought was that Ash had finally found a way to get rid of me. But one look at his face, narrowed eyes, and the heavy pulse in his throat told me otherwise. I tightened my grip on him as we spun, our bodies seeming to come apart at the seams.
I closed my eyes and let my mind relax. Whatever happened would happen, there was nothing I could do but wait. And hope Ash wasn’t trying to kill me.
If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. No question there. Traitor.
I didn’t move my lips, but I answered him. “You’re the traitor. Not me.”
And then I saw a memory that wasn’t my own, and felt Ash try to pull me away from it. Get out of my head!
“I can’t . . . I’m trying!” I didn’t know what was happening, only that this was not how Traveling worked. Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to. Up to three people could travel at a time, safely. Their minds didn’t meld together, though, and they didn’t suddenly see each other’s memories.
I was seeing through Ash’s eyes, a memory I knew from my own head, but not from that angle.
He was an Ender, but he was watching me as a child. The day my mother was killed.
The day Bramley was killed. Cactus and I were playing hide-and-seek, and Ash was bored out of his mind. My heart thumped hard against my chest, as if to escape what I knew was coming.
I fought against the memory. ‘”No, I don’t want to see this!”
But I had no choice. I was seeing it whether or not I wanted to.
Chapter 14
A waste of talent, sending him to keep an eye on the brats. A smile flashed across his face, though he had to admit, it was easy enough. And the two kids were entertaining as hell, playing hide and seek, using their innate abilities to cheat. Especially little Lark. She was a natural when it came to tapping into her power. One day she would be a force to be reckoned with. He only hoped she would be more like her mother and less like her older sisters. He gave a shudder. That Belladonna was a wretch, and he avoided her whenever he could. Lately, though, she seemed to be able to sniff him out like a bloodhound.
Ash walked in tandem with Lark and Cactus, but they didn’t see him. He kept to the shadows of the trees, kept an eye on them with ease. They thought they’d left the world behind, but her father would never leave her without protection.
“Hello, Ash,” a soft voice beckoned and he spun. Belladonna stood behind him, her top open down to the middle of her ample bosom. At sixteen, she was just coming into her own, looking more like her mother every day and less like a child. She wore a deep red dress that barely hung onto the curve of her breasts and hips. So much so that he easily saw she wore nothing under it. Shit. His eyes widened, but he responded as best he could.
“Princess, I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Are you done watching the little bastard yet?” She ran a hand down his arm and grabbed his ass. He stepped back, away from her. She made a moue with her lips, pouting as if that would draw him in.
He gritted his teeth. Damn this girl, she thought to get him into her bed at every turn. But she was such a little bitch. Another part of her just like her mother.
“No, I have the shift for a few hours yet.” He turned his back on her and her arms slid around his waist, and down to his belt buckle.
“A few minutes wouldn’t go amiss, would they? Surely you have time for a princess who wants your attention.” Her fingers were deft and she had the belt off in seconds.
Goddess, he wanted to slap her. He pulled her hands away, and took the belt back from her, using more patience than he realized he had. “I thank you for the offer, but I am an Ender. I cannot be distracted, not even by a beauty such as you.” The words were false, but she fluttered her eyelashes appreciatively. He thought she would go away, and leave him be then. No, she took it up a notch.
“If you don’t, I will tell my parents you tried to rape me and they will have you banished.”
He spun to stare at her. “What did you say?”
She shrugged and slid out of her clothes with just a twitch of her hips, the material sliding down to pool in a ruby puddle at her feet. “You heard me. Pleasure me. And yes, that is a command, Ender.”
He was young enough to be afraid of her still. So new to being an Ender. What could he do? He didn’t want the princess, didn’t even like her. Her beauty was overshadowed by her nature, cold and hard and unkind
. He had to think quickly.
“At another time, I promise to take you wherever you would go, the peaks of pleasure if that is your wish.” With a deft move, he leaned in and kissed her softly. That would have to hold her. He started to back away from her, yet again.
She arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh no. That is not near enough.” A flick of her wrist and the vines around them reached up, attached themselves to his clothing, and ripped them off.
What happened next, I managed to skip over. The last thing I wanted was to see my sister knock boots with Ash.
I closed my eyes and the images faded. But when I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t out of his head. Not yet.
He stood over my slumped form, Cassava in front of him.
“They will never believe you, Ender. My husband will only know that they died, from a disease. That is all the world will know.”
He dropped to his knees, and scooped the small version of me up with one arm. The queen had killed the kids? How could she? And then a breath under his arm, the girl was alive. “You let her live?”
“Yes.”
A choking cry echoed in his chest as he crushed Lark to him, and pulled his medieval sword with the other, pointing it at Cassava. “You killed her brother and mother. By rights, I can kill you.”
Cassava tipped his chin up with a single finger. “Who will believe you, Ender? No one. Not even the girl. I took her memories. I took her friend’s memories. But I will leave yours. Yes, I think that would give me pleasure to see you suffer.”
The tip of his sword didn’t waver as it rested just above her left breast. “I could kill you.” But he hesitated and it was enough for her to do . . . whatever it was she did.
A flashing glow of pink surrounded her like a strange Aurora Borealis. “You can’t kill me.”
His arms shook and he lowered my body. “I can’t kill you.”
The queen leaned forward, pushing the blade away with disgust. “I own you.”
He lowered his head, shame and guilt flooding him. He’d failed as an Ender. He’d let his charges die while he was rutting with a bitch in heat. Did it matter that he could see now that Belladonna had likely been acting on her mother’s orders? No, it didn’t. What mattered was that he was a failure, that he’d allowed those he had been trained to protect die.
“You own me.”
I jerked out of the memories and lay there, hands wrapped around Ash’s biceps, the cherry blossoms swirling around us in a vortex of color and scents that stole my breath.
We lay on our sides, facing each other. Ash’s face was slack with sleep, the lines that normally curved downward between his eyes smooth. It made him look younger than he was and a wash of pity rushed through me. On impulse, I reached forward and brushed a hand over his cheek. “I’m sorry she hurt you too.” His eyelids fluttered and I pulled back before he knew I’d touched him.
“I think we’re here.” I released his other bicep, sat up, and looked around us, choosing not to discuss the invasion of privacy. Maybe if we didn’t talk about it, we could act like it hadn’t happened.
We were at the base of a mountain, cherry trees planted in precise rows. “This doesn’t seem like a place they’d call the Pit.”
With a grunt, Ash got to his feet. “The Pit is inside the mountain, Seeder.” He didn’t say “idiot,” but I heard the unspoken word. I glared at him, pity gone. Maybe he didn’t know what I’d seen in his mind. Maybe it was best that way.
“Yeah, we haven’t got to that lesson yet. Care to fill me in?”
Rolling his eyes heavenward, his lips moving in what I had no doubt was prayer, he then motioned for me to follow him. “The Pit is in the center of the mountain and goes all the way to the core of the earth, to where Fire is created. The rest of the Salamanders’ home is pretty standard. Not so unlike ours in some ways, completely opposite in others.”
“Cryptic,” I muttered.
“You’ll see soon enough what I mean.”
I was beside him as we walked, and I fiddled with the knife at my belt. “You think they can help?”
“They have to.”
Except that I knew that wasn’t the truth and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that.
“They’ll think we’re contagious, won’t they?” I whispered and Ash’s jaw tightened.
“Let’s hope not.”
We approached a large slab of black rock embedded in the mountain, smooth and shiny in the sun. Flames were carved into it along with powerful symbols. Fire and death, fire and life. Symbols for all four of the families. I ran a finger down the smooth surface, amazed at how warm it was.
Ash pushed my hand off the slab. “Don’t touch if you don’t know what you’re doing.”
I glared at him, but was curious. He put a hand to the slab, over the etching of a redwood and his fingers pulsed green, three times. Then he stepped back. “Now we wait.”
And wait we did. Hours passed. Hope faded. The cherry blossoms continued to swirl around us.
They were blooming out of season, the heat from the mountain under them giving them a false spring year round. At least, that was what Ash said.
“Can we force our way in?” I asked, standing to look at the black slab for what was probably the hundredth time.
He snorted. “And how would you like to do that? You are useless, and even I know my limits. I can’t force their hands.”
“I am not useless.” I put a hand over the redwood tree etched in the stone and thought about the green glow. I closed my eyes. My father would die if we didn’t get him the help he needed. Swallowing hard, I let out a slow breath and carefully reached for my link to the power of the earth.
The pain was intense, driving through my brain, but I didn’t stop trying. Spasms wracked my body, and it was all I had to keep my hands pressed into the etching, to force whatever power I could grasp at it. Pain and power, they were wrapped in a tight bundle inside me. I couldn’t have one without the other. Moisture slid down my cheeks as I fought to reach the power, fought to find the words. “Please, my father is dying, please help us!”
A sonic thump slammed into my chest, throwing me back from the doorway and into Ash. He caught me with ease, held me up. His hands around my waist tightened.
“What did you do?”
“I . . . .” I put a hand to my head, feeling as if there should have been a crack wide open through my skull. “I don’t know.”
“I think they’re going to answer you,” he said, not letting me go. I forced myself to my feet, though it took me three tries, and my legs barely held me up.
In front of us, the black slab shimmered; the images engraved turning a bright molten lava. Even from fifteen feet away, the heat scorched, making me turn my face to the side.
The black rock continued to heat until the entire thing was a bright, vibrant red. Melting away, the doorway opened deep into the heart of the mountain. Expecting a dark, dingy hole that smelled like sulfur and death, I couldn’t believe the truth of what I saw. The walls were lined with gemstones, glittering and brilliant, and they picked up the light from outside, illuminating our path. Cherry blossoms blew through the doorway, bringing the smell of the clean spring air with them.
Ash gave me a mocking bow. “After you, Princess.”
An image of Belladonna demanding him to pleasure her rose up in my mind. “Don’t call me that. Not ever.”
He raised his eyebrows at me as we stepped into the glittering entranceway. “But, aren’t you a princess? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to prove, that you aren’t just a bastard?”
I shook my head, hair swirling in the breeze, a cherry blossom catching in the ends, “No, I’m an Ender now.”
I thought he’d smile, but he just nodded. “Ender Larkspur, after you.”
We moved in tandem, side by side, falling into step together. We didn’t get very far when a pair of fire elementals barred our way. They wore heavy black masks that went with their black Ender leathers. I thought maybe I
saw a glimpse of red curls peeking out of one helmet, but I couldn’t be sure.
“Maggie? Is that you?”
“Hello, Lark.”
I let out a relieved breath. Maggie would help us. She knew we weren’t here for trouble. But then beside me, Ash tensed even more, body tight with anticipation. The two Enders loosely held four-foot long, blunt ended clubs that looked to be made of the same stone as the doorway.
“We need the healers to come with us. The lung burrowers have gone rampant. Or we can speak with them and they can send the cleansing fire,” Ash said, shifting his weight so he was . . . in a fighting stance? Oh, this was not good. I mimicked him, hoping I was wrong. We weren’t really going to fight, were we? Surely the Salamanders wouldn’t try to hurt us.
Elementals stuck together, that’s what I’d always been taught. They worked with one another, unlike the humans who were always starting wars and wiping each other out. We were different, above that kind of pettiness. We were better than the humans.
I was taught wrong.
Chapter 15
The two fire elementals didn’t waste time. They attacked, forcing us back a few steps. They spun their long clubs, almost like you would whirl a spear, the black material turning into a blur. “Maggie, don’t do this!” I yelled, yanking my spear out and around, barely blocking the blow from her partner.
“You must leave. It isn’t our decision, but we have to uphold it.”
“This isn’t asking nicely,” Ash spoke from my other side.
Not much comfort, but I wouldn’t stop trying. “Please, my father is sick, dying! You have to help. Your healers are our only hope.”
I was paying too much attention to Maggie and not enough to the Ender I faced. A blow to my right knee sent me to the ground, the twist of bones and tendons tore under the blunt club like peeling bark from a tree. I bit my tongue as I went down, fighting the black spots that scattered across my vision.
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