“Tell me again why I shouldn’t be able to do this?” I asked Peta as I made my way down the wall, handhold by handhold as I created them. The last thing I wanted was a lecture from her about being nicer to Cactus.
“From what I understand, what you are doing is manipulating the material down to its most basic matter. As a Terraling, you can move sand the way sand moves, you can encourage plants to grow, you can communicate with animals. But taking a hard stone and softening it to the point of reforming it is something not done since the beginning of Terralings. It is an ability thought to be lost.”
I dropped to the cobblestone at the same time Cactus stepped out of the main doors. He wouldn’t look at me, and I was glad. I strode toward the side wall of the courtyard and flicked my hands at it. The stone blew apart and I walked through, ignoring the humans staring at me as I strode out.
“He’s making it easier on you to choose Ash,” Peta said.
“That he is.” I stared straight ahead.
“I hate to be the voice of reason, because I do not think Cactus is the right one for you . . . but does it seem like him to pout? To put you in danger?” Her words were soft, and they gave me pause.
“Why would he do it, then? Why would he put me in danger?”
“I can only think of one reason.”
I glanced back to see him trailing behind us, his hands stuffed in his pockets and his head lowered. “What reason?”
“He knows he’s already lost you to Ash, and so he is going to make it easy on you.”
I came to a complete and total stop. My heart thumped wildly against my chest. No, no, no. I did not want to believe she was right, but . . . it was something Cactus would do. He’d taken pain for me before, when we were children and had gotten in trouble together. The strap had fallen on him, not me.
I closed my eyes and tried to slow the beating of my heart. Cactus stopped a few feet behind me. I slowly turned to him.
“Are you trying to make me angry with you? Trying to drive me away?”
His eyes never left mine. “I want you to be happy, Lark. I love you enough to lose you if it means you will be happy.”
Damn him. My lower jaw trembled. “I cannot focus on this while we are trying to save my father. We can discuss this later, but I need to know if I can depend on you or not.”
He stepped forward and took one of my hands, raising it so he could kiss the underside of my wrist. “I am always here for you. I’m sorry, I . . . I could see the guilt in you, and I didn’t want to make it worse.”
I let him pull me into his arms. Slowly I dropped my head to his shoulder. “I can’t choose, Cactus. Don’t make me.”
“One day you’ll have to.” He kissed the side of my head.
“Enough. We have to go,” Peta said, her voice sharp.
I stepped away, my hands lingering in his. “You almost got me killed.”
“Nah, you handled it fine. I knew you would.” He patted at a few charred spots on my vest as he winked at me. I could admit I was relieved even while I was exasperated.
He reached around me and tapped the hard-backed book I’d taken. “Let’s see what we’ve got, then.”
Taking the book out, I held it in front of me. The title was Africa in Pictures. I flipped it open and grimaced as the scent of troll shit wafted up. “Disgusting creatures. I can’t understand who thought they were a good idea.”
“Some witch on a power trip,” Peta muttered.
Figured.
The pictures were bright and vibrant, stark and desolate all at once. I’d never been to Africa, though there were parts of it I knew would call to me. The deep jungles, the grasslands filled with animals, the mountains where the earth stretched to reach the sky.
I turned the page and a bloody fingerprint stopped me. The same as the one on the glass, it had been smeared a little over the blue water. Sand dunes stretched out into the ocean, triangular and shaped very much like dragon’s heads. “There. That’s where she is.”
“Are you sure?” Cactus leaned over my shoulder, his body brushing against mine enough to make me forget for a moment what I was going to say.
Peta cleared her throat. “Head in the game, Lark.”
Mentally I shook myself. “Yes, I’m sure. This is her fingerprint.”
“Could be a trap.”
“Not for us. If anything, she was trying to draw someone else.”
From my shoulder, Peta nodded. “I agree. Trackers are smart, tricky beggars. Giselle said someone else was looking for her; maybe she’s leading them on.”
With a quick tear, I ripped the page out of the book and folded it up. “The sand dunes are huge. We need to get above them to find her fast.”
“How are we going to do that?” Cactus asked. “It’s breeding season for dragons, which will make them next to useless. No Sylph will give us the time of day. And I wouldn’t trust a Harpy further than I could throw her.”
I situated myself, finding east easily. The sense of where the sun would rise was bred into me as surely as the power of the earth and the power of Spirit. “Peta, what do you think?”
“I think you need your second familiar. A winged creature big enough to carry you would be helpful. That being if I could choose your second.” She tipped her head to one side.
“A dragon?” Cactus’s tone was hopeful even though he’d just disparaged the big lizards.
“No. They only bond with demon slayers. Something else. Hmmm.” She went quiet and I kept moving. Regardless of what she said, we needed to get across the channel to the continent. Once there, we could find a way to get airborne. There were several supernatural creatures we could reach out to. Harpies, though tough, could be reasoned with for a price. There were several clutches of griffins who resided there as well.
But I had a feeling that whatever Peta came up with, it would not be—
“The Bastard. He’s our best shot, I think.”
Cactus let out a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? Isn’t he in Greece?”
Peta bobbed her head. “Yes, I’ve met him before, though it was a long time ago. I think he will remember me and I could convince him to help us. We have to go almost that far anyway. Unless you want to convince a human to take you up in one of their whirly bird things.”
Nausea rolled through me at the simple thought of trusting my life to a human contraption. “No, we’ll go to The Bastard. If you’re sure.”
“The only choice we have, I think,” Peta said, “and until you get your second familiar, maybe we can convince him to help us. He is a bit of a glutton, so a food reward would work. Or the offer of some attractive ladies.”
I grimaced. I’d heard The Bastard was difficult . . . one of those few creatures who was truly alone in the world since he was a creation, not a natural occurrence. Even the Trolls got to breed and have babies. The Bastard, not so much.
“Then it’s set, we’re off to see him. And hope we can convince him to help.”
I had a feeling it wouldn’t be all that easy, but it was a long road between us and Greece. Perhaps in the interim we’d find a simpler way.
Somehow I truly doubted it, but one could hope.
CHAPTER 10
“ou think the ferry is safe?” Cactus crouched by the edge of the boat while we waited for the sun to rise and for the human who owned the boat.
“You want to swim across the channel?” I lifted an eyebrow at him and he shook his head.
“Nah. It’ll ruin my hair.”
Peta snorted and shivered lightly. “Lark, I have a funny feeling—”
There was no warning other than Peta’s words. A wave shot up above our heads with a speed that could only mean one thing. An Undine had decided we were a threat.
I bolted backward, Cactus and Peta with me, as the wave crashed down where we’d been standing. The tail end of it caught my legs and sent me sprawling onto the rough cement that touched the docks.
The jagged footing tore at my pants and ripped at my skin. Hi
ssing, I rolled to my back to stare at where we’d been only moments before. A high-pitched giggle rebounded toward us and for a split second I thought Finley, queen of the Undines, was playing a prank on us.
A figure rose up out of the water and stepped onto the docks. Not a girl, not even a woman, but a rail-thin man stared at us. His eyes flicked from me to Cactus, to Peta, and then back to me. A full-body shiver rocked through him and he snapped his head back as it reached the top of him. He had dark eyes and darker hair and looked far too much like Requiem for my liking. Requiem had raped Bella, tried to kill Ash and me and had nearly taken the throne of the Undines. To say he was not one of my favorite people would be an understatement. If he’d still been alive, that was.
The Undine shivered again, softer this time. “Do you know who I am?”
“Peta, he look like anyone to you?”
“Mouse turds, he looks like Requiem.” She clicked her teeth together. “I thought we killed him?”
The Requiem look-alike dropped to a crouch and scuttled forward, like a crustacean. “Requiem, Requiem, he was my brother. A bastard to the core, he had me banished and here I am, mad as a hermit crab with no shell. No place to call my own, cut off from the place that feeds my soul.”
He scurried toward us and I took several steps back. A banished elemental . . . already mad with the loss of his home. I grabbed Cactus’s hand. “I don’t want to hurt him. If Requiem banished him, he was probably one of the good guys.”
“We may not have a choice.” Cactus turned me to the side where a second elemental crept our way. Another Undine, by the fins that sprouted along the edge of his arms and legs.
“Peta, tell me we can talk them down.”
She whimpered. “No. The banished are to be killed on sight. Not because they should die, but because they are dangerous—”
The Undine on our left roared and leapt toward us, his arms and legs spread wide as he shifted into a giant octopus, tentacles reaching for us. I dropped to one knee and yanked my spear clear of my belt. The octopus shifter landed on top of Cactus and me. Before I could get my spear free, the tentacles wrapped around us with a speed I’d previously reserved in my mind for striking snakes. We were jammed together as the Undine tightened his hold on us. My head pressed up against his bulbous eye and his thoughts rushed through me.
Kill them show loyalty, don’t question, kill them take me home please take me home don’t leave me out here I’m dying my spirit fades kill them take me home find me a place kill them.
His pain and sorrow flooded my mind, and if I’d been standing, the emotions would have brought me to my knees. Cactus groaned and then a burst of flame lit him up, covering his body long enough to make the tentacles release him. Except that they re-wrapped around me.
We slipped backward toward the water. Panic reared its ugly head.
“Worm shit, Cactus, help me!”
“I’m trying.” The sound of flesh sizzling under a ball of flame met my ears a split second before the Undine holding me dropped over the wooden dock edge and into the icy channel.
With my arms trapped to my sides, all I could do with my spear was swipe it uselessly through the water and hope I hit something. We rolled and I was looking up at the surface of the water. The tentacles tightened and then loosened a fraction of an inch. Enough to turn and get my spear up.
Time seemed to pause as our eyes met. He blinked once, shook his head and reared back. The parrot-like beak of his mouth aimed for my face. He let me go another few inches, and adjusted my position with his tentacles.
Lips clamped shut tightly, I thrust my spear tip up into the center of his head as I tried not to think about why he was banished. Because he’d opposed Requiem? Because he’d tried to stop a raging tyrant from taking over his home?
Forgive me.
I don’t know if it was his thought or mine. I drove the spear further in, pushing the blade hard and twisting it. Blood flowed into the water and his tentacles slowly released me. The creature convulsed and its questing tentacles drooped. His body slid down into the inky black water, his body shifting one last time as he breathed out his last gulp of water.
Keeping my hands tightly on the haft of my spear, I swam to the surface. I broke through to the sounds of fighting, and Peta snarling. Grabbing the edge of the dock, I pulled myself up but kept my body low to the wooden surface. In front of me, Cactus and Peta barely dodged the first Undine, keeping free of him but only just.
I stood and arched my hand back, took two running strides and loosed my spear. There was a slight wobble in it—it wasn’t meant for throwing like that—but it still slammed into the left center of his back. He threw his arms wide with a roar and fell to the ground. Scrabbling at his back, he tried to reach the spear, but failed and dropped forward onto his face.
“I am done,” he said, but his back still rose and fell. I approached him cautiously before crouching by his head. His eyes lifted to mine but not much else. Dark, so dark they were, like the night sky.
“You fought Requiem?”
“I did. He was a bastard.”
Snarling, he took a swing at me. I pressed his head to the ground and knelt on his hand closest to me. “Peta, can we call on Finley?”
He shivered under my hand. “The child cannot help me. No one can. End it now. You are an Ender. I demand you END ME!” he screeched and lurched toward me, but he had no strength in his body.
With my free hand I pulled the knife tucked into the top of my boot.
“Are you sure, Lark?” Cactus asked. I knew what the real question was. Could I live with killing the Undine in essentially cold blood? But what Cactus didn’t understand was that it wasn’t going to be in cold blood. Mercy was an act of love, an act of understanding. I could do for this Undine what he needed.
“Last words, if the madness is not so far eaten into you?” I asked.
Below me, the Undine shuddered. “Requiem is dead?”
“Yes.”
“Then I am at peace and need no last words. I go to the mother goddess’s embrace.”
I didn’t wait for him to say anything else. As hard as I could, I drove the blade into the back of his neck, angling it upward for a clean kill. His body jerked once, all his muscles contracting at the same time before he relaxed into his death.
Pulling both blades, I wiped them one at a time on his back. The salt water would rust the blades if I was not careful.
I put the blade back into my boot and the spear I reattached to my belt, my movements automatic. Without a word, I took the dark Undine’s arms and dragged him to the water’s edge. I laid him on his back and folded his arms over his chest. Peta moved to my side and pressed herself against me. “There was no other choice.”
“I know. But banishment from the Deep for fighting Requiem . . . I thought Finley would have made these things right.” I pressed my hands over the unnamed Undine. The queen of the Undines should have been bringing home those Requiem had banished. Why wasn’t she? A question I did not have time for.
I rolled the Undine into the water. “Go to her embrace then, and find your peace.”
The water splashed up, engulfing him with a single wave that settled within seconds as if he had never been. Being banished, perhaps that was the truth. Those banished were considered anathema, as if they had never existed.
Peta must have picked up on my thoughts. “Their names are wiped from any record. Finley likely doesn’t even realize they are missing.”
A hand brushed along the side of my face and I leaned into Cactus. He was softer than Ash in many ways . . . but right in that moment he knew what I needed. A touch, and the knowledge that he was there with me, with no pressure beyond what we could see in front of us.
I stood and let out a long breath. “Let’s take the boat.”
Cactus gave me a sideways grin. “Theft?”
“I think it’s the least of my sins tonight.” I meant it as a joke, but it fell flat and killed whatever levity he’d been attemp
ting. “Sorry, my timing sucks.”
“You’re telling me,” he grumbled, but again the mood lightened. In a matter of minutes we had a boat untied, a small one with a sail attached to it. Peta paced the dock. “It’s small, are you sure this is a good idea?”
“No, but you want to get to Greece. How else would you like to do it?”
“I would rather drag my belly the whole way than get into that boat. I don’t like water, Lark.” She blinked her large green eyes up at me. Yet she’d dived into the water to save me before she’d ever been my familiar. Peta had the heart of a dragon beating inside her chest.
“Not overly fond of it myself, but we all do things we don’t like. Come on, you can sleep the whole way.” I pointed at a small orange padded material with a hole in the middle. A perfect cat bed if I ever saw one.
Sighing, she shifted into her housecat form, then jumped into the boat and settled down. “This is not very comfortable.”
“Stop complaining, bad luck cat,” Cactus said.
She hissed at him but said nothing more. I stepped into the boat last and pushed off the dock with my boot.
“How in the seven hells are we going to get to Greece exactly?” Cactus asked. “Not that I’m doubting you, princess. Just curious.”
I ran my hand over the leather pouch at my side. Ash I would have trusted in an instant, and that was what made me pull the smoky diamond out of the pouch. With a quick flick, I put it on a leather strap, slipped it over my head and tucked it under my shirt. “Don’t tell on me, Cactus.”
His eyebrows shot up. “I never told anyone you put pig shit in Cassava’s dinner that one night. And I had my ass tanned for not saying who did it. They all knew, Lark. But I held my tongue.”
Peta let out a laugh, rolling onto her back. “She did not.”
He laughed with her. “Yeah, she did. Of course, she let me take the beating.”
I smiled, and rolled my eyes. “We were ten. I knew what the lash felt like all too well. If I remember right, I’d taken a licking for you the day before.”
“You think I didn’t know what the leather strap felt like?” He fell back into his seat. “I’m quite sure I have the scars to prove I was well acquainted. I could show you, if you don’t believe me.” His green eyes locked onto mine and he gave me a slow wink. No, I was not going there.
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