“You have to stop her.” His eyes met mine, clear of the pink glow. “You’re the only one who can stand against her.”
I dropped my hands and the glowing pink haze returned to his eyes. He backhanded me, snapping my head so hard I thought he might break my jaw. Reaching down, he grabbed my ankles, the same as Coal had done, and dragged me to the Ender barracks.
“I think it’s time you did some penance for your disobedience. Time you learned your place, Useless. I think we will wait to kill you, to show you the devastation after we are done.” He jerked me hard and my head hit a protruding rock, stunning me.
In the Ender barracks, he pulled me across the training floor and I scrabbled at the dirt, twisting and flipping my body around. Trying to break free. But even sick, Ash was too strong, and I had lost all my weapons. He took me down to the lower levels where the brig was, a dingy hole full of dust and rust. More of an object lesson than anything, it hadn’t been used since before my father’s time. Hadn’t needed to be. The cells were cut out from the world, an oubliette of sorts that made it so you couldn’t touch the earth, and you couldn’t be drawn out of the cell through the earth. The cells were a place of non-existence. Where a criminal could be tossed and forgotten about for years.
He heaved me into the first cell and I grabbed at the doorframe, screaming, “Ash, snap out of it! Please!”
“He can’t. She’s holding him in thrall to her. Rather tightly at the moment,” a voice I knew all too well said. A voice that gave me hope. I wasn’t alone in this; Granite would help me.
The shock made me lose my grip on the cell’s edge and Ash threw me in. I hit the far wall hard. Granite strode in, his body straight and strong, no sign of the lung burrowers in him. “Granite, you have to stop her,” I said, pulling myself to my feet as the door behind us clanged. I let out a groan. Now we were both trapped.
“Lark, do you know why she wants to kill you, do you understand what’s going on?” He crouched in front of me, his eyes full of compassion.
I shook my head. “Ash just said she couldn’t compel me, like she could everyone else.”
He gave a wry twist of his lips, hardly even a grin. “Well, that is part of it.” From his waist he pulled a few items and placed them on the floor in front of him. Motioning to me to come closer, I did, wondering what he was doing.
He laid a small, dusty red, hollowed out bowl, a pouch, and a flask. He mixed the ingredients from the pouch with that from the flask together, slowly, as he spoke. “You are one of the last, Lark. You are one of the only ones in the elemental world who can control not one, but two elements in equal portions. You are a half-breed, but not like your friend Cactus. He can barely touch his power with the earth, I doubt he could even make a seedling sprout.”
I nodded. I knew that. Knew that was why it was discouraged to have relations with someone from another family. It diluted the blood and what you could reach in terms of power was pretty much nullified. Cactus, for a half-breed, was strong, his ability with the earth was only marginally better than mine. That was what passed for strong in the half-breed world.
Granite stirred the powder and liquid together slowly. “You can reach both, and that makes you very dangerous. It’s why the queen blocked your power.”
“You . . . know?”
He nodded. “Yes, I was trying to see if I could get you to break through the block she put on you. But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I pushed your training.”
“You tried, that’s more than a lot of people would have done.” I let out a shuddering breath. “But I still have to find a way to stop her. She’s going to kill my father.”
He gave me a gentle smile. “Hold still.”
I did as he asked. He dipped two fingers into the shallow bowl and spread the paste across my forehead. The mixture was warm, and seemed to soak through my skin and into my skull. My mouth went dry as he took his hand from my head. “What’s this for?”
“To make sure you don’t break through the block she put on you.”
I slapped a hand to my forehead, but felt nothing. The mixture had soaked in completely. “Granite, why?”
He shrugged and stood. “Because your mother loved me, too. But your father convinced her he was better for her. And it got her killed. I promised myself I wouldn’t let you suffer when the time came. I had the queen keep you away while the worms invaded, but that was all I could do. This is the only way, Lark.”
Suddenly my three-day hiatus with Coal made sense. The queen had done that too. “You were never sick, were you?”
He shook his head.
Tears stung my eyes. “Ash wasn’t the one owned by her. It was you. You are her pet.”
He turned his back, and rapped his knuckles on the bars. “Ash, let me out.”
The door creaked open and I sat there staring at where Granite had been. “I trusted you! You were my friend!”
He glanced over his shoulder. “And that’s where you went wrong, Lark. You shouldn’t trust anyone in this world. They will use you, just like the king used your mother. Perhaps you’ll learn this lesson better than she did. If you do, you might survive. But I doubt it.”
A slam of the cell door and I dropped my head, thoughts reeling. Granite was helping Cassava. He’d set me up to mistrust Ash. Why?
Maybe because Ash was the only one I should trust. The only one like me who understood the evil that lay within the queen.
I stumbled forward, pressing my face to the bars. There was Ash, sitting quite close to the bars. Sliding down, I reached through the bars to him, thinking about before. When I’d touched his bare shoulders. If I had both sides of my bloodline, then I could control Spirit too. If I could get through the blocks put on me. When I’d touched him before, the pink glow had faded from his eyes and he’d been himself. Worm shit and goblin piss, could it be that easy? Would it even work now that Granite had put that crap on my forehead?
“Ash, please, you have to listen to me. I need your help. I know you don’t want her in your head. I saw your memories. I saw your hate for her. You have to fight her, I know you can, you’re strong enough.” I put my hand on his knee and squeezed. He jerked his leg away from me. Not the reaction I was looking for. But then he grabbed my fingers, tight enough to make my knuckles pop. The second our skin touched, the pink glow faded.
Mother goddess, maybe this would work. His body slumped, and if the heat in his hand was any indication of the fever coursing through him, he was in trouble. With agonizing slowness, he lifted his eyes to mine.
“Lark, how can you block her from me?”
“I think it’s when we touch, something about that keeps her out of your head. As long as I don’t let her power roll over me, I can keep her free of you,” I whispered, tightening my grip on him. My head began to thrum, the pressure of a storm building from the inside of my skull. The scent of cinnamon filled my nose, and I shook my head, instantly regretting it.
“The mixture Granite put on you, you have to fight it, you have to break through it.” Ash coughed, but didn’t let go of me.
I swayed, my head hitting the bars. “How?” The lines drawn on my head seemed to be pulling together, pulling and pinching my skin even as the pain reverberated outward from the center of my brain. A groan slid out of me and Ash’s hand tightened on me.
“Not sure. But you should be able to push it out with your abilities. That’s all I know.”
Some help he was. But it was something. I focused on the pain, easy enough. My body shook with the spasms in my head and the idea of pushing the block out formed into a solid image: me in the planting field, digging at an invasive weed that would choke the life out of the seedlings. In my mind’s eye I could see the edges of the mixture wrapping around me just like that weed. I worked around it, then put my fingers to my forehead where Granite had spread the thick paste.
“Out.” I whispered, pushing it with everything I had in me. Sweat popped out along my forehead, and with that sweat, the scent of cinnam
on filled the air again as I coaxed the mixture out, wiping it off as it slid from my pores.
“Here, wipe it with this,” Ash handed me something, and my fingers grasped a wet cloth. I slopped it across my face, taking the last of the thick paste from me. I panted as if I’d been running, but the pain was gone, and so was the smell of cinnamon. I forced myself to sit up, my one hand still clutched in Ash’s.
“Ash, let me out, we have to get to Cassava. We have to stop her.”
He shook his head. “No, I need to be in the cell. If she tries to call me through the earth to her, she’ll not be able to get to me then. In there, she can’t touch me.” He pulled out the ring of keys with his free hand and opened the cell door. He coughed, the spasm wracking his body and jerking his hand from mine. I pushed my way out and shoved him down into his chair, my hands on his face. Skin to skin.
“I wish I could heal you,” I whispered. “But you haven’t been sick long. I’ll release the cleansing fire, and you’ll be okay.”
He nodded, his skin feverish and dry. I helped him stand, keeping my skin in contact with his and then helped him into the cell. I laid him down and he stayed there, breathing hard. If he was this bad, this fast, how much worse would my father be?
“Lark. The ring. Get the ring off her hand and you’ll clear everyone’s minds.”
I nodded, but there were no words left.
I tried not to think about all that could be as I left Ash behind and stumbled through the hallways. I paused in the testing room. On the far side, was the folded uniform of an Ender. The brown leather was thick enough to take a hit from a weapon, the brass buckles and rivets holding it together burnished to a high gleam. I may never have another chance to wear it.
“What the hell.” I ran across the room, shucking my clothes as I went. If I was going to die, which, if I was being honest with myself, was a pretty high possibility, then I might as well go out in style. No, the truth of it was, I knew it was my time to be an Ender. And they would give me far more protection than my training gear. The leathers were cool against my bare skin as I slid them on, lined with dark green silk to keep the chaffing to a minimum. Cinching the buckles, I felt better already. More prepared.
I tightened the belt, and on it slid an array of weapons. Blades mostly. But it was my own spear I wanted. My mother’s spear. If I got a chance at taking out Cassava, I wanted it to be with my mother’s spear.
I went to my room and pulled it from under the bed. The wood was blackened, as if it had been through a fire and then polished to a high gleam. I turned the weapon in the light, the blade catching and sending flickers of color off the razor edge.
“Be with me, Mama, Bram. Help me fight her. Help me put your memories to rest.” I leaned the shaft against my forehead, and then rolled it in my hand. With a decisive sweep I sliced it through the air, for once in my life knowing I was the only one who could save our family. I was the only one who could stop this madness. But it wasn’t really for them, and as much as I loved my father and would be devastated if he was killed, this moment had more weight to it than even that.
I pointed the spear, stood straight, and stepped out the doorway. I was going to kill the queen, for so many reasons, but only one mattered.
“This is for you, Mom. You and Bramley.”
Chapter 21
Weaving my way through the Rim was my plan, dodging those who would mob me. But as I peered out of the Ender barracks I knew that wasn’t going to be the case.
“I’m going to end up worm food,” I muttered to myself. Everyone who was able bodied walked through the main thoroughfare, their eyes lit with a seriously unhealthy pink glow, like a wicked case of pink eye run rampant. If only it was that simple.
There was no backdoor out of the barracks, which meant if they saw me in the doorway I really was screwed. And then it hit me. They were looking for me, my long blonde hair making me stand out. I ran back inside, grabbed a helmet, and tucked my hair up into it, then wrapped the lower part of my face with a piece of dark brown material from one of my tops, leaving only my eyes visible. If someone looked close enough, they would see it was me, being the only person around with one eye gold, the other green. But I didn’t think they’d look close enough. Or at least, I was hoping they wouldn’t.
Moving swiftly, I strode out of the barracks with as much confidence as I could muster, brushing past the first few people with no problem. They never even turned their heads my way. Not even a blink. My heart raced, like a herd of wild horses spooked by a thunderstorm, yet I kept my pace even.
“Who the hell are you?”
I knew it was Snap, knew I didn’t have a choice. I swung toward him in a blind slash, spear outstretched, and slammed it through his neck. His head rolled to the side, eyes and mouth blinking at me as the light went out in him.
Around me, the people turned as a unit.
“Hello, little Larkspur.” They all spoke, but not clearly together making it seem like a strange echo of one voice. I couldn’t kill them all, nor did I want to; this wasn’t their doing. I had a simple choice. I could try and fight my way out, which I wasn’t willing to do. Or I could give Cassava what she wanted.
“I’m coming to you, bitch. You still in the gathering field?”
The people all threw their heads back, laughter spilling out of their tortured bodies, worms spilling from lips and blood trickling down their faces. Tears prickled my eyes. These were our people, our family. How could she do this to them?
The laughter abruptly stopped and every single head snapped my way. “Come then, little Larkspur. Let me see you. . . . see you . . . you.”
Planting the butt of the spear in the ground, I moved out. The walk to the gathering field was strange and anxiety curled through me. Flanked on all sides, there was no way I could run now. Why didn’t Cassava just have them mob me?
I knew the answer, she was an attention whore, and wanted me to see whatever her master plan was, no doubt.
How the hell was I going to do this? Cassava had Granite and Wicker with her. At least. What if she had other elementals? What about my siblings, would they fight with her, or against her?
My step faltered as I imagined facing a Salamander. Like Maggie. Mouth dry, I stepped onto the edge of the gathering field, our people behind me. I chose to believe they were there to support me, pretending they would cheer me on.
Cassava sat in a makeshift throne on the raised mound at the head of the field. Granite on her right, Wicker on her left. At Wicker’s feet lay a clay pot, about the size of a large pumpkin. I had no doubt that was what held the cleansing fire.
“Unleash the fire, Cassava. I know you have it,” I shouted across the green space.
She tipped a finger at me, beckoning me forward. “What have you done with my Ash? I can’t sense him anymore.”
“Can you sense Snapdragon?” I held my ground.
Her eyes narrowed. “No, I can’t.”
“I killed them both.”
She laughed, and the mob laughed with her as they formed a firm line, locking their arms together, and began to push me forward. Worms crawled off them and onto me, but when they touched my skin they fell off, writhing.
Thank you, Griffin.
If Cassava wanted me closer, then that worked for what I wanted too. I stepped away from the pushing hands and strode across the grassy field.
“Oh, look at her. First she thinks I will believe she was able to kill not one, but two Enders, and now she comes at me like she could hurt me. Silly girl. Granite, take care of her.”
My steps faltered. “Don’t. Don’t do this, Granite. You aren’t under her power, I can see it in your face.”
In fact, there was no glow about him as he slid his dual swords from the sheaths at his sides. “No, I am not under her power, as you say. But I do this of a free will. Our king is weak; Cassava is the queen we need. The one who will save our people from being the doormat the other elementals believe us to be.”
His eyes wer
e hard, and he swung his blades in a whirling arc toward me. I ducked and slid the pole of my spear through his legs, making him stumble. I followed with a hard thrust of the butt end to his chest, knocking him onto his ass.
“I don’t want to hurt you, Granite. You are my mentor, my friend. You saved my life!”
“Then it is mine to take, isn’t it?” he growled as he leapt toward me.
I blocked his blows, barely, dodging his fist as he swung at me. “Even now, you’re trying not to hurt me.”
He slowed and his eyes filled with a sorrow that was palpable on the air. “You aren’t strong enough to be here, Ulani. You have to leave.”
Cassava snarled. “She is not Ulani. She is Larkspur, and you will kill her or I will make you kill her!”
Granite’s body tensed and I fought to keep my hands still, and my weapon lowered. “If you loved her, then you would want to kill the one who killed her. It wasn’t lung burrowers, Granite. It was Cassava. She killed my mother and brother.”
Granite shook his head. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”
I pointed with my spear to Cassava. “Ask her. Before you kill me, ask her for the truth.”
Before he could turn, Cassava began to laugh. “Oh goddess, this is so much fun. Granite, I killed Ulani and her bastard boy, smiling as they died. Now, you have sworn oaths to me, the unbreakable Oath. So do as I command and kill Ulani’s last child. Wipe her from the face of the mother goddess.”
Granite’s face lost color at an alarming speed. “You . . . .” He went to his knees, shaking his head. “But I remember, Ulani and the worms.”
Cassava snorted, and a pink glow suffused her right hand and the ring on it before she snapped her fingers. “There, have your foolish memories back. All of them. All those you asked me to take away so you wouldn’t feel the pain anymore.”
As if a boulder had been dropped on him, Granite fell to the ground, his body twitching. I ran past him and up the incline of the raised mound.
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