Ash stepped in front of me, his wicked sword slashing through the air, cutting the club in half as it swept toward my head. I closed my eyes and ducked. The clash of metal on solid rock was a screech that dug into my ears.
Stop it, just stop it. I wanted nothing more than help for my father, for all those who didn’t deserve to die. Like Granite and Mal, Blossom, and even my siblings. Most especially Raven and Briar, they weren’t like the others. Just stop this madness, there are too many lives at stake.
Silence, sweet and heady in its quiet breaths, met my ears, and I lifted my head slowly. Ash stood in front of me, protecting me. Blood dripped from his left arm where a shard of the club had slashed through him and partially embedded in his muscle.
“What happened?” I tugged at Ash’s leg. He spared me a glance.
“I don’t know. They just . . . stopped.”
Using the wall, I pulled myself to my feet and hobbled forward to touch Maggie’s arm, despite Ash hissing at me. I ignored him. “Maggie?” I gently pulled her helmet off. Her strange orange eyes stared past me, seeing nothing.
“We stopped,” she whispered, and I stumbled back, into Ash who caught me before I could fall to the ground for the second time.
Her words, they had nothing to do with me. Did they? I swallowed hard. “Well, we can go in now, I guess.”
Ash looked at me and I stared back. “What?”
“We need to go in to speak to the healers. Right? No one will know we’re here for a bit.”
He pulled the shard of rock from his arm, dropping it to the floor. “Maggie and Match aren’t the only Enders here, Lark. There are more, and they will hunt us down for coming in aggressively.”
I couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“We have to help them. My father could die. And while you might like the idea of Cassava as a queen, I do not. So come with me, or give me the armband and I’ll go myself to find the healers.” I limped forward, using the wall as a support. Each step sent a spasm of fire down my right leg. This was going to be a long haul to heal.
Ash jogged to my side and slid an arm around my waist, lifting me a little and taking the pressure off my knee. “Here, if you insist on going, at least let me help you.”
“Why the sudden change of heart?”
“You’re like your mother, I think.” He paused, and we slowed. “I heard she exchanged memories with people when she used the armbands with others. Which means you saw my memory of the day your mother died, didn’t you?” There was a raw edge to his voice, a mixture of grief and pain. I knew that combination well.
“Yes. I didn’t want to say anything. It wasn’t my place to see it.”
“And you believe what you saw?” His eyes were wide, the disbelief in them as clear as a sky in mid-summer. A feeling I knew all too well. To know something in your heart was true, but to be unable to speak of it, to tell others what you knew.
“No one would believe me, either, Ash. And I convinced myself it was just a dream, one I lived over and over.”
His arm loosened on me, just a little.
“Then you know I was assigned to keep you safe.” I nodded and he continued. “I failed you once. I won’t fail you again . . . Larkspur.”
I blinked away a wash of gratitude, which was closely followed by a shot of anger. “Then why the hell have you treated me like worm shit during my training?” The words snapped out and Ash gave me a lopsided grin.
“Best way to keep you safe was making sure you didn’t become an Ender. To think you couldn’t do it. This is not a job for the long-lived and uninjured, if you haven’t noticed.”
My jaw dropped and I spluttered. “You were trying to get me to quit?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you were being such a bastard?”
His chuckle reverberated through to me, our ribs pressed against one another. “Who’s calling who a bastard?”
Ouch. I flinched away from him. “I think I’ll use the wall.”
He didn’t apologize and I realized he was still trying to get me to give up. To make me turn back from this course of action, of becoming an Ender. And somehow, that made me like him more. He might be an ass, but in his own way, he was looking out for me. Even after all these years.
We wove our way slowly through the passages until voices brought us to a standstill. “Is that who I think it is?” I whispered.
Ash frowned. “I sure as hell hope not.”
With her high-pitched soprano tones, Belladonna was a hard one to confuse with anyone else. She laughed at something, and then Ash was pushing and shoving me into a tiny crevice with him, our bodies jammed so tight we could have been sardines in those tin cans the humans liked so much. He drew his cloak over us except for our eyes. Now the cloak made sense, a perfect camouflage in the darkness.
From the shadows, we watched Belladonna draw close. “So you see, your Highness, my mother thinks it’s best if this”—she waved her hand in the air, flickering her fingers several times, light glinting off rings that didn’t look like anything she’d previously worn—“illness runs its own course, without the intervention of healers. She wants to see our portion of the family strengthened.”
We both stiffened under the confines of the cloak. Anger burned up my guts and it took everything I had not to lurch out, hobbling on one leg, to bash Belladonna until she told us everything.
“Steady,” Ash said, his voice low and surprisingly calming.
The man with Belladonna, I could easily guess who he was. Queen Fiametta, a rather calculating lady, ruled the Pit. Okay, she was a total bitch from what I understood. No doubt this was her crown prince, Flint. He had bright red hair like many of the Salamanders did, but he also had a streak of black running down the middle of it, like a charred log in the middle of burning flame. A signature that ran in the royal bloodline here.
The odd couple drew close enough that I could see the orange light flickering in Flint’s eyes. He reached out and touched a finger to Belladonna’s chin. “It’s a shame the families don’t recognize half-breeds. We would have amazingly beautiful babies.”
My mouth dropped open and Ash slid his hand over it. He pressed his lips to my ear. “Shhhh.”
If I’d wanted to, I could have reached out and grabbed my half-sister by the ear, jerking her around to face me. Belladonna laughed, oblivious to how close we stood. “My mother would rather see me dead than give birth to a half-breed, no matter how beautiful it was, cousin.”
They continued on their way, flirting back and forth, voices slowly receding. Ash unwrapped us from his cloak and we stepped out of the crevice. “I hope he knocks her up,” I said, my voice low.
“Me too.”
I shot a look at Ash. He was watching their receding forms, a full body shudder taking him. No, he didn’t like her any more than I did. And he had far more reason to hate her.
“We need a way down to the healers’ quarters. I know roughly where it is, but we need someone to help us get by all the checkpoints.”
I couldn’t help but wonder if my friend was still here, and if he was, was he still the boy I knew or had he changed too much to help an old friend? “I think I might be able to help there.”
Ash shot me a sharp look. “Then do it.”
Letting out a slow breath, I placed my hand on the wall we stood closest too. It was an old trick, one that every elemental knew. Those you were close to, if you weren’t far apart, you could call them through the earth. Every elemental had a tie to the mother goddess, and like the human technology we could make a call of sorts. But that would mean tapping into the earth and the power there. Fear grabbed me around the throat, strangling me with an ease that left me gasping. I shook my head, sweat dripping down my face, nausea rolling through me. “I can’t, the pain will be too much. You’ll have to call him, Ash.”
He put his hand on the wall, not questioning me. “Who and how?”
“Cactus. Tell him you want
to play hide-and-seek in the forest.” I was surprised Ash didn’t balk at the seeming silly request, but also at how much I wanted to see Cactus. He’d been taken away, not long after my family had been killed. We hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. I leaned against the wall, breathing slowly, rubbing carefully at my knee.
“We’ll get the healers to help you with that too.” Ash pointed at my leg. “And when we get back and things settle down, we are going to deal with your block.”
My eyes snapped to his. “You think you can help me?”
“I’ve seen the results of your power, Lark.” His eyes were distant. “You don’t need to be an Ender to be a part of this family, but you need to find the key that will unlock your abilities. Or it won’t matter what place you have in the family.”
“Why would you help me?” I didn’t understand him, or his motivation. All I kept seeing in my head was Granite’s words scrawled on the paper. Cassava owns him.
Ash lifted a hand and I clamped my mouth shut. The sound of running footsteps, heavy breathing, and a soft voice I knew too well.
“Lark?”
I stepped around Ash.
“Cactus.”
A glimpse of green eyes and deep auburn hair were all I saw before he swept me into his arms, spinning me around. “Goddess have mercy, Lark, I thought I’d never see you again.”
I hugged him hard, and he set me down. He stood only a little shorter than me, tall for both sides of his family. “Cactus, we need to get to the healers.”
His eyes looked from me to Ash and then back to me as if seeing me for the first time. “You’re an . . . Ender?”
A grin flickered over my lips. “Kinda. Can you help? Please, there are so many lives on the line.”
His mouth twitched. “Does this mean we’re about to get into trouble again?”
A laugh bubbled up, but I kept it in, my words as solemn as I could keep them. “Yeah, I think so.”
He grinned wide, his eyes lighting up. “It’s about time.”
Chapter 16
It appeared that Cactus had kept up with his troublemaking ways once he was shipped off to the Pit for training. “Come on, I’ve got some stuff stashed that’ll work to hide you.”
In his room, he pulled out two cloaks made of shimmering black that could only be Ender cloaks.
“Just happened to have them?” Ash asked as he traded his cloak for the black one.
Cactus shrugged. “Never know when they might come in handy.”
We slipped them on, and then Ash scooped me into his arms as if I weren’t six feet tall and a solid eleven stones—one hundred and fifty pounds.
“I can walk.” I twisted in a vain attempt to get him to put me down, embarrassment coursing through me. “I’m not a feeble girl.”
Cactus stopped me. “We can move faster and if it looks like you’re hurt, we can get you in with ease to see the healers.”
Begrudgingly I stopped wrestling with Ash. I didn’t want to give him any more reasons to believe I couldn’t be an Ender. That I couldn’t do it. Because I knew that even if we managed to unblock my power, I still wanted to be an Ender.
I fit in the barracks, like I’d fit nowhere else.
Cactus led us through the Pit, which was a damn good thing. The fire sanctuary was set up like a beehive, the hallways and doors branching off each section. The number of intersections and entranceways we passed were mind-bogglingly numerous. “Are there that many Salamanders?” I tightened one arm around Ash’s neck as we started down yet another set of stairs.
Cactus didn’t turn around. “No, it’s a safety measure. Hard to find the queen if you can’t even find your way out. And some of the doors open into things you’d really rather not deal with.”
“Like what?”
“Drops straight into the heart of the Pit. Fire demons. Netting that will drop on your head and burn through your skin to pin your bones to the floor. The usual stuff.”
I glanced at Ash who gave a slight shrug. “The reason why I wanted a guide to the healers. One wrong turn and the rest of our family would have no one to take them the cure.”
“The cure? For what?” Cactus asked and I opened my mouth to answer, then slowly closed it, rethinking my words. If he knew the lung burrowers were rampant, even though he was my friend, he might not help us.
“The healers will know, they are the ones who will be able to figure this out.”
Ash tightened his arms around me, a nod of approval of sorts. Cactus half-turned, trotting down the stairs sideways. “Ender secrets?”
“Something like that.” I gave him what felt like a weak grin.
He shrugged. “That’s okay, I’m used to being left out of the loop. That’s the way it is here, especially for the half-breeds.”
Minutes passed, more turns, more twists, and twice we had to backtrack because of other elementals coming our way. I was breathing harder than Ash, who seemed to be no worse for the wear packing me around, despite the wound in his arm.
“Almost there,” Cactus whispered, peeking around a corner.
We crept forward, eyes and ears peeled for any sound that we’d been found out. I knew we didn’t have a lot of time left, there was no way Maggie and the other Ender would stay frozen forever. And when they woke up . . . a shudder rippled through me. I didn’t want to be close enough for Maggie to get her hands on me. The image of Mal in the training pool as it began to bubble was all too clear in my head. She was ruthless when training; coming after us when she had a reason . . . I could only imagine how bad it would be.
The door in front of us was blood red, the edges marked in gold slashes. In the center of the door, a snake wrapped around a single rod was etched deeply into the door. Cactus gave a sweeping bow. “The rod of Asclepius, Princess. The healers await.”
Cactus swung the door open.
Ash didn’t move. “You first.”
The implication was clear and Cactus was no dumbass to miss it. His eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put Lark in danger.”
“Still, you go first.” Ash didn’t put me down, nor did he step forward. I squirmed.
“I trust him, Ash.”
“I don’t. I remember him too, and I clearly remember the queen stole his memories. We don’t know what she put there instead.” Ash’s honey eyes met mine. “She said she would have use for him.”
A chill swept through me, and I turned my head to see the confusion written clearly on Cactus’s face. His eyes drawn, a furrow in his brow, lips down turned. “What are you two talking about?”
“Cactus,” I said. “Please, go in first.”
His eyes widened, hurt hovering at the edges. “You don’t trust me?”
My throat tightened and I shook my head. “I don’t trust Cassava.”
He frowned hard at me. “You aren’t making any sense.”
“Please, Cactus, go in.”
He shrugged and stepped through the doorway, muttering under his breath. “Fine. Crazy earth brats.”
He disappeared into the shadows of the room and then called out. “Satisfied?”
Neither of us answered. Ash stepped forward through the gilt edged doorway. The darkness was an aspect of the doorway, as we stepped through, the room lit up as if ten thousand candles had been set out. I blinked, my eyes watering in the sudden light after the dim corridors.
Around us was a room not unlike our own healers’ rooms in our own barracks. Well lit, clean, beds laid out in rows. Shelves of bottles and fresh wrappings. The scent of herbs cleared the air of all aspects of sulfur. If I were stuck in the Pit, I wouldn’t wander far from the healers’ rooms.
The only difference between here and the rooms back in the forest was here, the beds were empty.
A healer, his top white, his pants jet black, strode toward us. “Put her on a bed.”
Ash did as told, setting me on the bed closest to us.
“My name is Smit. What have you done to yourself, little lady?” He gave me a soft smile as he prodde
d my knee.
I winced. “Oh, the usual.”
Ash crouched beside me. “Smit, we come from the Redwoods.”
“Oh, I know that very well. Can smell the cedar on your skin clearly enough.”
Ash put a hand on Smit’s arm. “The lung burrowers are back. We need the cleansing fire, or our family is lost.”
Smit rocked back on his heels, his eyes taking us both in. “This is a request that needs to come through our queen. I can’t just give out the cleansing fire to anyone.”
I leaned forward, putting a hand on his arm, willing him to help. “Please, our people are dying. We would have come through the proper channels if we’d been able to. Our king is waylaid with the disease too.”
Smit looked at me, then Ash and back again. “Let’s get your leg dealt with first. That much I can do without repercussions.”
The healer walked over to a side table against the wall. “A quick serum if I know you Enders well. Something that heals fast, even if it hurts all the way to the core of your bones.”
The blood drained from me. I swear I felt it sliding down the veins in my neck, but I nodded. “Yes, fast is best, I think.” The pain couldn’t be worse than what I faced when I tried to reach the power of the earth.
Smit hummed to himself as he mixed and stirred, singing under his breath. Cactus sat on a stool, spinning around and around, his head bowed. Like a kid bored with all the adult talk.
“You never had to grow up, did you?” My question stopped him in his spinning.
His eyes glittered with unspoken laughter. “Not really. They don’t mind half-breeds so much here and that’s worked out well for me. I come and go as I please, and don’t really have much to do.”
“Nothing but find trouble, you mean,” Smit said, a smile tipping his lips. The smile faded as he looked at me. “Okay, you two are going to want to hold her down for this.” Smit stepped in front of me, a crystal vial in his hand. Smoke trickled out the top of the vial, and the scent of sulfur filed my nostrils. I wrinkled up my nose. “No one has to hold me down.”
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