Peta closed her eyes, a frown on her cat lips. I sat beside her and scratched the back of her neck. She leaned into me and I waited on her to speak.
“There were things I read in the libraries, things that didn’t make sense, but if what you are saying is true, perhaps . . .”
“Do you mean like the notes in the Deep? Did you actually get a chance to read them?” I asked.
Her eyes flew open. “Shit clumping kitty litter, I forgot about those! Yes, I did read them. They actually . . . they actually make what we are seeing here make more sense.”
“And?”
Her face twisted like she’d eaten something sour.
“Peta, how bad could it be?”
“Well, it just—”
I stopped scratching her neck. “Spit it out.”
She took a breath and then spoke faster than I’d ever heard her. “Basically, the papers said there was an elemental who caused all sorts of problems thousands of years ago. Chaos and trouble followed this elemental everywhere. And he or she, there was never a gender given, didn’t care. They reveled in it, and as they grew in strength, he or she started to lay things out. Made the stones. Created monsters. Divided the families as they are now.”
I leaned back on the log. “And this elemental is dead?”
Peta shook her head. “I don’t know. It didn’t say. If they weren’t dead, they would be the oldest living elemental out there. Which falls into line with what Shazer has said about his creator.”
My thoughts went to Talan. Peta didn’t know him the way she thought she did.
I glanced at her and she was still frowning. “Okay, that’s obviously not the worst of it, so what else did it say?”
Her eyes flicked to mine and away. “The elemental was the most powerful the world had ever seen. A half-breed.”
A chill swept through me and I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from her. “What was he?”
“He or she was a Terraling Spirit walker. Just like you.”
Just like me. One of the Tracker’s more colorful phrases rolled off my tongue before I could catch it.
“Fan-fucking-tastic.”
Peta’s eyes popped open. “Lark, you never—”
“Sorry, slipped out. Too much time with Rylee.” I opened my mouth to ask her if there was anything else pertinent. Any clue to what this elemental, who was just like me, might have done.
The rumble of thunder brought my head up. The sky darkened at a rate that could only mean one thing.
Shazer had been spotted. I ran to the center of the clearing to get a better look. Against the dark clouds, his white hide glimmered and shined.
“Get down here!” I yelled. He dropped like a stone as lightning snapped and cracked around him. A bolt landed at my feet, throwing me backward. I hit the ground and rolled, breathing hard. Peta shifted, and I held a hand out. “You can’t stop lightning. We have to dodge it.” The plan I’d had was thrown out and a new one grew at a rapid pace. “Let them capture us.”
“What?”
“They’ll take us to Samara for judgment.”
“Oh, goddess, this will turn all my black spots gray.”
I grinned at her. “Probably.”
Shazer landed, and I flapped my hands at him as he drew close. “Stay back, I’m going to let them capture me.”
He shook his head. “Bad idea.”
“Only idea.” I shoved at him and he let me push him away as another bolt hit the ground. I opened myself to Spirit and Earth and wove them together, deliberately using them as one. They blended perfectly and didn’t fight me.
Understanding hit me and I stood there like a fool. A bolt of lightning slammed into the ground on my left, waking me. Balance, this was what Talan had meant. Instead of using the elements always separately, I should be using them together.
But how was that going to help me now? Above me, three Enders floated on the air currents, their white leathers and hair swirling around them as they shifted and moved. Three Sylphs, that was more than I could handle on my own when all three were trained as Enders.
I was so screwed if I didn’t get them to ‘capture’ me and instead decided to just kill me and take Samara my body.
That would seriously derail my plans.
The one on the left, Lefty, dropped lower until he was only twenty feet over my head. He swung a long shimmering silver rod at me, the end tipped in a sharp barb, not unlike the tips of the tridents in the Deep.
“Take their air!” Peta yelled.
Powering my muscles with the strength of the earth, and thinking of Peta with the fireflies, I leapt into the air to meet him, twisting to dodge the barbed point. His eyes widened and he tried to avoid me but I crashed into him. I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed.
“Nighty night.”
He scrabbled at me, all training gone. There was no way to make yourself breathe, even as a Sylph, when your windpipe was cut off. His fellow Enders swept in as we crashed to the ground. I landed on him, felt the electricity in the air, and rolled as the lightning bolt slammed home. The buzz dissipated over Lefty, and I shoved him off me.
Two Enders left.
And I only needed one to make this work. I sprinted toward the taller of the two Enders. His legs dangling a few inches lower than the first had. I leapt from the ground, and snagged one foot.
“What the hell? Is she a shifter?” yelled his friend. It was only then I realized I’d easily leapt thirty feet into the air. There would be time to think about that later. I hung from his foot and lifted my own legs to wrap around his waist. I squeezed with all I had, compressing his belly, blocking his lungs from taking in air. Peta was right, the best way to stop them was to take away their air. They didn’t know how to deal with it.
We dropped to the ground as he passed out, and the final Ender floated forty feet above me. “What the hell are you?”
“I am the Destroyer.” The words hung between us, and he blanched so that his face matched his white leathers. His lips curled.
“Then let us see you survive a kiss of lightning.”
Lines of power whipped around his arms, faster than I could track. I grabbed hold of Spirit and Earth and wove them tightly around each other, driving them deep into the earth, anchoring me. I waited with my head bowed, fear racing along my spine. “Let me be right about this.”
“Lark, run!” Peta screamed. I held a hand out to stop her as a bolt of lightning hit me square in the chest.
I didn’t fight it, didn’t try to send it away.
I held it to me, cradling it in the power. It snapped and sizzled along my body, sending every tiny hair on my skin into orbit. Slowly, I raised my head, and held up one hand. The lightning pooled in my palm, writhing and twisting in on itself. But what the hell did I do with it? It wouldn’t hurt the Ender, it was his element.
Cactus had been the protector of the Pit because he’d been able to weave stones into the flames he’d created, making a deadly mix even to those who carried fire as an element.
I lifted my other hand, and with it, called up three large stones. I pulled them to me and imbued them with the lightning bolt.
“Not possible, that is not possible,” the Ender whispered, the wind bringing me the words as clearly as if he stood by my side.
“Anything is possible,” I whispered back. With a flick of my fingers, I sent it flying at the Ender. He dodged the first two crackling stones but the third caught him in the side of the head.
It exploded in a shower of shrapnel and light, like the humans’ fireworks. He dropped from the sky, hit the ground and was still.
I let go of the elements in me, but the feeling of the lightning hovered there still, making me shiver. Peta ran to the three downed Enders, sniffing them.
“All three are alive.”
I walked toward them, not even breathing hard. As I passed the first one, he groaned and his eyelids fluttered. I snapped my fingers over him. “Stay.” Vines burst from the groun
d, holding him down.
Another groan, but he didn’t otherwise try to fight me. The other two Enders I sunk deep into the mountain. Being buried alive sucked, but it wouldn’t kill them. They’d get out eventually.
Maybe.
I shook my head and made myself slow down. The adrenaline was pumping fast enough that I knew I was spoiling for another fight. I crouched beside Lefty. “Do you have a name?”
“Ryk.”
“Well, Ryk, you are going to help me get an audience with the queen.”
“She’ll kill you.” He squinted up at me. “She hates you.”
I shrugged. “Be that as it may, you are going to take me to her. As your captive.”
He frowned, his white eyebrows dipping low over washed-out blue eyes. “Why?”
“You think she cares if you live or die? You think she gives a shit about one lowly Ender?”
He rolled his head from side to side. “She was an Ender. She trains with us still.” Brave words, but the fear was heavy in them. He wasn’t sure, and I needed to use that to my advantage.
Maybe every Terraling Spirit walker was an asshole. That would explain a lot.
I smiled, knowing it was far from nice. “Please. She’s a queen. There’s plenty more Enders where you came from. Now. You will help me.”
I flicked my fingers at the vines, loosening them. He sat up and rubbed at the back of his neck. He was so new to being an Ender, I could almost see the moisture behind his ears.
“I could steal your air right now.” His hand dropped to hover over a dagger at his waist.
I didn’t waste time. I pounced on him, pinning him back to the ground even as I snagged the dagger from his waist and pressed it against his throat. “No, you couldn’t.”
“Your reflexes are improving, Lark,” Peta said. “What changed?”
“I stopped doubting. I stopped hesitating.” I blinked several times and realized the words were truer than even I knew until I said them.
Peta nodded, though, as if it made perfect sense. “About time.”
I pulled the Ender to his feet, with the dagger still at his neck. “I think you understand me now.”
“I won’t take you to her. I won’t.” He straightened himself up. “You’ll have to kill me.”
Freedom is life to a Sylph.
The words gonged inside my head and I wasn’t sure where I’d heard them. But they were true and I knew I could use them.
I sighed and held a hand out, softening the ground under him excruciatingly slowly, so that each inch he slipped further was felt on every part of his body. “No, I won’t kill you. I’ll just stuff you so deeply in the ground no one will ever find you.”
His eyes popped open wide as he sank into the earth. He scrabbled at the edges, but I kept softening the ground, drawing him in inch by inch.
“One of your friends will help me.” I walked away and motioned with two fingers over the living grave of the second Ender. His body slowly emerged. His leathers were no longer a gleaming white and dirt smeared his pale face.
Ryk sucked in a sharp breath and began to hyperventilate even as he scrabbled at the ground. So green at his job, he didn’t realize that if he stole my air now, he’d stop sinking. But maybe then too, the panic was enough to keep his rational thoughts at bay.
I shook my head. What was Samara thinking, sending useless tits after me?
The question rolled around in my head, stopping me. She was smarter than that. Unless . . . unless she wanted me to make it all the way to her? That didn’t make sense.
“Stop, I’ll help you,” Ryk panted, and I firmed the ground around him. He was up to his ribcage. “I’ll help you.”
I smiled and motioned upward with my right hand. He was pushed out of the ground like a dog spitting out a bone.
“Good boy.”
I pushed his fellow Ender back into the earth. Shazer trotted up next to me and spoke quietly. “How did you know he would be afraid of being buried?”
“Claustrophobia, it’s a problem amongst them,” I said.
“How do you know that? They don’t talk about that ever.” His eyes narrowed, and I narrowed mine back at him.
“What do you know about Sylphs exactly?”
“More than you.” He snorted and trotted to where Ryk dusted himself off. The young Ender paused and stared up at the Pegasus.
“Are you real then?”
Shazer snorted and butted his head against Ryk. “I’m real, you idiot. You aren’t supposed to attack legendary creatures, you know.”
Ryk closed his eyes. “I can’t defy my queen or her consort. It was not my choice.”
I shook my head. “Queens need to be defied if they are wrong.”
He glanced at me. “You aren’t going to hurt her, are you?”
“No. I’m here to make things better,” I said.
His eyes lit up with hope. “Tell me you’re getting rid of her consort.”
That was an unusual request. “Why would I care who she’s got in her bedroom?”
Ryk looked around like he expected someone to pop out and point a finger at him. “Because we all think he’s controlling her.”
I struggled to swallow around the sudden lump of certainty in my throat. “What is her consort’s name?”
He took a breath and shook his head. “If I tell you, you might not remove him.”
“Why wouldn’t I do that?”
“Because he’s your brother.”
CHAPTER 18
“aven is Samara’s consort?” I spat the words out, horrified that they could be true. He was the only brother I had left alive. Unless Bramley was out there, waiting for me. I wasn’t going there. Not yet.
Suddenly the strange attacks that didn’t fit into the pattern I’d been seeing made sense. The Sylphs had been sent by Raven to kill me and take the stones I’d collected so far, rather than do it himself, the lazy bastard. But why then were all the Sylphs that had come at me weak, and easily dealt with? Could Samara be trying in her own way to keep me alive, by sending her youngest, most inexperienced Enders after me?
The thought had enough merit for me to hope it was the case.
I grabbed Ryk by the arm and dragged him close. “I will get rid of Raven, and keep your queen alive.”
He grinned. “Then you need to let me tie your hands together. I’ll carry you over my shoulder; pretend you’re unconscious. I’ll drop you right at his feet.”
I wanted to laugh at his eagerness, but I couldn’t get over the fact that Raven had ingratiated himself into Samara’s life. She knew who he was; she’d fought at my side against him.
“He has to be using Spirit on her,” Peta said. “You know that.”
I did know, but my mind revolted at the incredibly strong Sylph queen being sucked under his spell and controlled so completely.
Ryk turned me around and looped a thin rope over my wrists. “I won’t tie it, so don’t tug until you’re ready to stand.”
I nodded. “Drop me at his feet and back far away.”
“Why?”
I didn’t want to say because there was a good chance the Eyrie would be destroyed again. No, that was not the way to make sure Ryk continued to help me. “Because there will be a fight, and you need to stay out of it.”
I turned and he lifted me over his shoulder with a grunt. “You Terralings are damn solid.”
Peta took a swat at him. “Don’t insult someone who could kill you with the snap of her fingers, airhead.”
I grunted. “Peta, you and Shazer follow as if you’re trying to catch up.”
She bobbed her head and ran out of my line of sight. Ryk held onto me with one arm, and though I couldn’t see the lines of power on him, we rose. The wind whipped in a snarling whirl, carrying us high above the first mountaintop and into the thin air.
“You killed the two Enders who came at you in the Deep, didn’t you?” he asked, surprising me.
“One of them, yes. The other fell on his blade.”
Ryk shook his head. “I tried to go on that mission.”
“You wanted to kill me?” That was not a good sign when we were this far up. Mind you, Shazer could probably catch me, but he was no dragon with claws to reach out and snag me from the air.
“No, I wanted to be the one to bring you in. You’re legendary here, you know. The Destroyer.” He tightened his grip on me. “We’re getting close.”
“How old were you when I demolished the Eyrie?”
“I wasn’t born yet.”
I crunched my eyes shut. A baby indeed. He’d not have even seen his thirtieth year. Younger than I was at the time I’d destroyed the Eyrie.
“My queen,” he called out as we hovered. I struggled not to react, but to keep my body still. “I bring you the Destroyer. My comrades were sunk deep into the earth, but I survived.”
The sound of clapping and cheering rose into the air around us, and I dared to peek with one eye. The Eyrie was no longer high in the mountains, but deep in the valley I’d created. From the glimpses I could see, the layout was similar, with pillars, and open to the sky rooms.
“Bring her to me, Ender Ryk,” Samara called. “I want to see her face before I kill her.”
Worm shit, I was hoping I could talk her out of that part. “Remember, drop me and back the hell up.”
“Please don’t kill her. She is a good queen.” Ryk gave me a squeeze and we dropped from the sky like a stone. He landed and threw me forward. I kept my eyes closed and let myself go boneless. I hit the solid stone floor and bounced, rolling several times before I came to rest with my hands under my back and my face to one side. Through narrowed eyes, I took in what I could. The crowd of Sylphs, rimmed with Enders, filled the small section I could see. Samara had not wasted time building their ranks.
“How is it, Ender Ryk, that you, the greenest of my Enders, managed to stop her, the one who decimated our mountain?” Samara didn’t sound like herself. Her voice had a strange wispy tone as though she was out of breath while being angry.
“She attacked Aryl and Vista. She turned her back on me and I was able to take her down.”
“Yet, she still took out Aryl and Vista? You weren’t able to save them too?” Samara crooned the question.
Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) Page 17