elemental 07 - destroyer Read online

  His eyes didn’t waver. “I saw her with you. I saw you pick her up from the badlands.”

  I shrugged. “She’s not with me now.”

  “Where did she go? Tell us and we’ll let you be in peace,” the second Sylph—one I had not met yet—said. I raised both eyebrows, unable to stop the laughter that flowed past my lips.

  I flicked a hand at him and beneath his feet the earth opened a wide black hole that kept deepening as I spoke. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

  “You would threaten us?” The second Sylph spoke with such incredulity that I knew he had no idea who I was.

  “I am the Destroyer,” I said softly. “I will do whatever the hell I want and damn the consequences.” The ground rumbled in response as if in agreement with me.

  Ryk shook his head. “You cannot make us go in there.”

  I snapped my fingers and vines shot up out of the ground at the speed of a flash of lightning. I twisted my fingers and the vines wrapped around the Sylphs and yanked them into the open hole in the space of only a few heartbeats.

  “Well, imagine that,” I muttered as I buried them up to their necks in dirt and rocks. “I did manage to get you into the hole.”

  The younger Sylph screamed at me and the wind picked up.

  But of course, that was not the problem I would truly face. Ryk pulled the air from my lungs, a surefire way to stop me. If I wasn’t ready for it.

  Still connected to the earth, I beckoned it to swallow them whole. They disappeared into the earth with a single gulp as though the ground were belching after a large meal. They would not die; they would be able to get out eventually. But it would keep them busy for a few days at least.

  “Ha!” Shazer yelled, his voice cracking. “Take that, flyboys!”

  I turned with a small smile, though it slipped at the sight of his broken legs. He’d pushed himself up out of the ground. Both front legs had bones poking through the skin, blood pooling around his body. “Shit, they really did a number on you, my friend.” I ran toward him, sliding to a stop as I dropped to my knees. I put my hands on his body and called on Spirit to help me. The power was such a different flavor than my connection with the earth, which felt like a warm blanket, a steady grounding that made me feel whole.

  Spirit was the dancing of lightning on my nerve endings, a sense that I could do anything, that I could change the world if I gave in to the power. So seductive, like a vision of all I could be. I wove the power through Shazer’s body, healing his wounds, putting the bones in place one at a time. He passed out near the end, but I kept my hands on him.

  It was the first time I’d ever been inside someone else’s head while I knew for a fact they were being manipulated by Spirit.

  “What are you doing?” Peta pushed against my hands, but I kept them tight to Shazer’s hide.

  “I think… I think I can break Talan’s hold on him.”

  I closed my eyes and let my connection to Spirit lead me. The power coursed through me and into Shazer in a continual loop that opened his mind to me. I skimmed through his memories, doing my best not to look because I wasn’t there to intrude. I only wanted to find what Talan had done.

  Faint, pulsing tremors of pink shimmered, pulling me forward, deeper and deeper into Shazer’s mind until I was no longer able to discern his mind from my own. I let out a sigh as I sunk further into the soft pulsing power.

  Someone was calling me.

  Someone was screaming my name.

  I wanted only to stay where I was.

  Forever.

  A trap, someone was saying it was a trap, that I was caught in a trap. The panic in her voice brought my attention around. There was pain, a sharp pain like knives cutting into my hands. I clenched them against the attack.

  The bond that held me to someone else tugged on me, pulling me out of Shazer’s mind.

  Peta. Her name filtered through my thoughts, giving me something to hang onto as I slowly emerged from whatever it was that held me tightly.

  Gasping, I fell away from Shazer’s smooth white hide. Peta was on my chest in a flash, her nose on mine while I struggled to breathe. “Lark, your heart stopped.”

  “No.” I coughed and sat up. That couldn’t be. Wouldn’t I have felt it? Then again, there was that sensation of floating. Shit.

  “Yes, it did. You stopped breathing and then your heart stopped. I’m sorry about your hands, but I…” She shook her head, then swatted my cheek with a paw, no claws. “Why do you keep doing this to me? One of these days my heart is going to be the one to stop.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whispered. Losing Peta would be the end of me, and I didn’t like even joking about it.

  I looked down at my hands, the slow burning pain of her claws having dug at my skin finally catching up with me. “I’m sorry. I thought I could break Talan’s hold on him.”

  Just saying the Spirit Walker’s name was enough to force me to my feet and stumble in the direction he waited, my legs moving without my command. Damn him. My fists clenched and blood dripped to the ground even as the wounds healed. “Peta, I’m sorry, but if I get a chance, I’m going to kill him.”

  She had been his familiar long before me. Talan had been her first charge, and she’d loved him the most prior to me. He’d been the one she would have died for.

  “I know.” Her words were soft. “He has changed. He is not the boy I knew when I was young. I will stand with you, Lark.”

  Her words eased the fear that had been hovering in me: that she would hate me if I went through with it. “Of course, that’s assuming I can even get close to him.”

  She jogged to catch up to me. “Wait, are we just leaving Shazer?”

  “I can’t stop my feet,” I said. “He’ll catch up to us. Talan has the same control on him.”

  Peta let out a low snarl. “Damn. And he knew I would come with you.”

  I tried to slow my feet but it was no good. “Maybe that is the key, Peta. Maybe you should go—”

  “No. You need me more now than ever. If anyone can help you stop Talan from whatever this is, it will be me.”

  “I thought he was going to train me.” I shook my head as I spoke. “I thought… I thought he was going to help me learn how to stop Viv.”

  “To set a trap like that in Shazer’s mind, though, that is beyond the pale,” Peta muttered. I agreed, but it changed nothing. My body was not my own, and no matter how I battered at the hold Spirit had on me, I could do nothing.

  Sweat dripped from me as I walked, as I struggled to push Talan’s bands of control off my mind.

  We walked for an hour before the beat of a huge set of wings turned me around. I kept walking as Shazer swept down for me. Peta and I leapt at the same time and the three of us were together again.

  “Kept you moving, did he?” Shazer asked.

  Peta filled him in on what happened when I tried to break Talan’s hold on his mind. The Pegasus shook his head. “So, it’s war between him and us, then?”

  My shoulders slumped. Another betrayal, another lost friend. The names circled through my mind. Cactus. Raven. Rylee, though I was the one to betray her. I doubted she would let me explain before she pulled her swords on me. Heart clenching strangely, I added Talan to the list. Why would it bother me, that he too, ended up betraying me?

  “So it seems.”

  We flew for another two hours before our destination came into view. A rock face that rose high into the sky, and at the top stood Talan waiting for us. The pull on my body to go to him did not lessen.

  “Bastard,” I muttered.

  “My name,” Shazer muttered back.

  I couldn’t help the laugh. The Bastard had been Shazer’s name before I’d found him. “Right, sorry. Then he can be asshole.”

  Peta snickered. “We shouldn’t be laughing about this, but I agree. Asshole he is.”

  The thing was, I knew why it was funny. We were trapped by him, and yet we were trapped together.

  We would fac
e him together, and we would win together. So even in the darkest of hours, we would not be alone. I put a hand on Shazer’s neck. “I wish you were truly my familiar, so you could—”

  “Feel what’s going on in your head? I can guess. I was quite the ladies’ man.” He winked back at me and I laughed softly.

  “Thank you. Whatever happens, thank you.”

  It felt like a goodbye to me, and I didn’t like that, but I went with it. Life could throw a curveball when you least expected it and I had a feeling this was going to be one of those times. I took a big breath and gave a nod. “Into the storm, my friends. Into the storm.”

  Shazer tucked his wings and we dropped from the sky, heading straight for Talan as I reached for my connection to the earth.

  I was going to let the world swallow him whole.

  See if he could Spirit his way out of that.

  CHAPTER 4

  Talan stood on the outcropping while the river rushed beside him and off the cliff in a spray of mist. Shazer banked his wings and we dropped slower now, landing lightly on the rock forty feet away from the Spirit Walker. As we touched down, the Pegasus buckled underneath me, rolling to the side, nearly pinning my foot under his now-unconscious body.

  Anger snapped through me and I beckoned the earth up around Talan, called on it to drag him down and smother him.

  Nothing happened. The rocks didn’t so much as tremble.

  “You cannot fight me,” Talan said. He flicked a hand at Peta who crumpled where she was, asleep in an instant with the mere motion of his fingers.

  Fear laced through my veins. He was too strong.

  But that didn’t mean I was giving up.

  I held onto my connection to Earth like it was a lifeline, but the harder I pulled, the more it slipped away. In desperation, I reached for Spirit, but it, too, was blocked from my grasp. Talan didn’t put me down like he’d done Peta and Shazer, though.

  He frowned at me, and I could feel his power sliding through my brain, picking through my memories as though sifting through pictures in a box.

  I screamed at him, all the rage spilling out, but lost in the cascading of the river over the edge of the falls.

  Talan’s eyes widened suddenly and I was looking at the same scene in my head as he was. Shazer on the beach, and me trying to undo what Talan had laid on the Pegasus.

  “You tried to free Shazer? And you survived?”

  “If you want to kill me, why aren’t you doing it? Your trap failed!” I spat the words at him, my body unable to move as if I had been the one encapsulated in the earth.

  Talan’s shoulders slumped. “It was not my bonds on him that you tangled with, Lark. This is only one of the reasons why training you is so important. You are like a child stumbling around a dark forest, not even realizing the danger you put yourself or others into.”

  I flushed under his comparison. “So you would keep me from protecting my family? You would force me to let them die?”

  He shook his head. “Some will die, yes, but not all. Not if I can train your abilities. We can hone them, make them deadly and strong and then I will let you go.”

  His words did nothing to soothe me, nor did they do anything to calm my heart. Belladonna was pregnant with her second child. She was queen of the Rim, and above all, she was my sister and she was being threatened. Even if I did not love her, I was an Ender, a protector of my people and of my world. Another scream began to build in me as I pushed at the silent bindings over my mind and body. It was as though I were pushing against a mountain with nothing but my bare hands.

  A sigh slid from Talan, and if I didn’t know better, he looked truly sad. “You leave me no choice.”

  The threads of consciousness slipped from me and I cascaded down into dreams that were not dreams, but memories: Fighting Raven at the Eyrie, watching him disappear before I could strike the final blow. Facing Viv in the cypress swamps with Peta in my arms, thinking we were about to die and willing to do so to stop Viv. Seeing Ash trapped as a golden eagle and not able to bring him to me. Realizing my little brother Bramley might not be dead, but in the world somewhere alive. Or he was dead and the ruse of his body not being where it should’ve been just another way to torture me.

  Over and over, the memories ran at a staggering pace, sometimes merging with one another, becoming true nightmares.

  Peta and Ash dead, their faces bloodied and their bodies broken beyond any hope of healing; Raven at my side holding my hand, my own body trapped in animal form unable to use any elemental abilities as my family was torn apart in front of me.

  Death and horror reigned freely as my imagination went wild. I could not escape the worst fears my own mind came up with, so I rode them out and wept without tears for the things that terrified me to my core.

  Above all else, that I would fail those I cared for, that I would not be strong enough to be the Ender I knew I was always meant to be. Destroyer might be my name, but I only caused chaos when those I loved were threatened.

  Ender. I was an Ender, a protector of this world and all I loved.

  There was no discerning when we stopped moving, or that we’d arrived anywhere. I just woke as suddenly as I’d been put under. The nightmares were gone in a flash of light as my eyes flew open. I was flat on my back and staring at the ceiling. Crystalized quartz, jagged and brilliant with pink, purple and white, flooded my vision. Each glittering piece of stone caught the light so it sparkled and danced. I tightened my hands in the blankets around me as I got my bearings.

  The smell of pine trees was still there, and the sound of water filled the empty space so it was a steady white noise. The waterfall. We had to be near it still. But where? Inside the mountain itself?

  At my side lay Peta. Not asleep, but lying quietly, waiting for me to wake. “We could not stop him, not one of us,” she said. “He is far stronger than I ever knew.”

  “Where are we?” I sat up, and with the movement, my anger surged. “Never mind,” I cut her off as she opened her mouth, “we’re leaving.”

  I was fully dressed, and beside the bed on the floor lay my spear. I scooped it up with my foot and tossed it into the air, catching it easily with one hand. “You coming?”

  “Of course. Don’t get sassy with me, Lark. I’ll bite your toes in your sleep.” She hopped off the bed, stretched and arched her back. In her housecat form, she was mostly gray with white on her belly, chest, and the tip of her tail, which was a little beacon of her emotions. At that moment, it twitched back and forth with irritation.

  “Sorry.” I shook my head. “It’s not you I’m angry with. I just… I can’t believe he took all three of us down. That he would keep me away from the Rim when he knows I should have stayed to protect Bella.”

  “Try to remember that it’s not me you’re pissed with.” She yawned. “Let’s get this over with. I doubt it’s going to be pretty, and trust me when I tell you this won’t go any better here than it did aboveground.” So, we were somewhere within the mountain. That much, at least, I was feeling correctly.

  She trotted ahead of me, her white-tipped tail a perfect guide as she led the way. I strode after her, my mind racing. Talan had seen Viv behind Belladonna as we’d flown from the Rim. I was sure of it. He could not pretend he didn’t know she was there and possibly attacking my family. Talan’s words all but condemned him. “Forgive me, Lark. This is for the best.” Said right before he’d used Spirit to dampen my mind, only seconds after I’d seen Viv behind Bella.

  Ghostly in form Viv may have been, but that meant nothing to an elemental like her. She could control all five elements and the only thing holding her back from using them openly on others was a curse laid on her. That didn’t mean she wasn’t still a danger to Bella and the rest of my family.

  My jaw ticked in time with my rapidly pulsing heart as I walked. “Peta, you know the way out of here, wherever here is?”

  Her ears flattened to her head. “No. That is a problem. Talan is the only one who can take us in or o
ut. At least, that is what he told me. Of course, I was as unconscious as you when he brought us in here. He only spoke to me after I woke.”

  I doubted there was no way out, but I didn’t doubt that Talan would make it seem like he was the only one who could let us in or out.

  Asshole indeed.

  The paths we walked were carved stone, the roof the same crystalized quartz as the room I’d woken in, as well as the only source of light I could see. The sound of water didn’t lessen, but increased the farther through the tunnels we went. All of that was on the peripheral of my mind as I could think of only one thing.

  Getting out and back to Bella and the Rim. After that, I would consider just what Pamela had done to the Veil, and why. The mother goddess had condoned it, but I didn’t understand, and that bothered me.

  The Rim first, though. That was where I was needed. Maybe Talan hadn’t been the one to set the booby trap in Shazer’s mind, and for that I wouldn’t kill him. But it changed nothing else. Talan and I stood on opposite sides of a crossroads and one of us was going to lose to the other.

  I didn’t like thinking about what had happened aboveground where the waterfall leapt out into open space.

  I didn’t like thinking that for the first time in a long time, I might not be able to fight my way out of something. Which meant… what? Would I have to sneak away? Pretend to go along with him long enough that he would let me go?

  I wasn’t sure I could keep him from knowing. He’d pawed through my mind like a child going through a drawer of toys. As though it were nothing to him.

  Ahead of me, Peta stepped through a tall archway that led into a wide circular room. At the center came the source of the sound of water. From the ceiling, pouring straight down into a matching hole in the floor, rushed a river of water that was easily ten feet in diameter. What surprised me was the water wasn’t louder.

  The base around the hole in the floor was edged in black quartz, sharp and jagged and beautiful with the way it glowed as though lit from within. Under my feet, the floor was cool, the stone smoothed perfectly flat with river rock of all colors from the palest of creams, to obsidian stone.