03] ES) Firestorm (26 page)

s the firewyrm leapt forward, time slowed. The mother goddess whispered in my ear.

Save her, Lark.

Damn it to the seven hells and back, this was not my fight. And yet, I didn’t hesitate at the mother goddess’s command. I jumped in front of Fiametta and held up both my hands, as I dropped to my knees.

“In the name of the mother goddess, stop!”

I waited with my head bowed and my whole body tingling with apprehension. Hot breath that smelled faintly of jasmine and chili peppers swirled around me.

“Who do you think you are that you can stop me with words? Are you like the other one?”

Like Fiametta? The firewyrm lowered his face so we were eye to eye.

I didn’t lower my hands. “Fiametta is a bitch, a liar, and a manipulator. She’s tried to wipe your people out, punished me with the intention to end my life, and in general being a grade
A
bitch.”

He chuckled. “Yes, all of those things and more. Why do you stop me then from snapping her in half and using her bones to pick my teeth?”

I slowly lowered my hands. “Because the mother goddess wants her alive for some unknown reason. And as her chosen one, I will do all I can to make sure her wishes are fulfilled. If it were my choice, I would let the queen die and another take her position.”

He pushed his face forward until we were nose to nose. “You are the one who saved my son and tried to revive my daughter. Spirit walker, your heart is too big for your body.”

The firewyrm shook his head at the queen. “Fiametta, only because this one,” he tipped his jaw toward me, “intervenes and speaks on behalf of the mother goddess will I spare you and your people. But I want my children back.”

I dared to stand. “The Salamanders have missing children too. Someone is killing them.”

He shook his massive head, the horns that swept over his neck shimmering from side to side. “Sucked into the lava?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“Then they are not dead. It is how our children were taken too. I feel their hearts beating yet. Come to my nest, and perhaps we can find them, Spirit Walker.” He backed up, his body disappearing into the hole he’d created.

Around me it felt as though a collective breath was released and silence reigned for a few seconds longer before several voices at once broke out.

“How did she stop him?”

“What did they say?”

“Why didn’t the queen kill the wyrm?”

I turned slowly, meeting Fiametta’s gaze. Her emotions were not written on her face like others.

Fiametta lifted a hand. “Larkspur. You are the half breed bastard child that Basileus has kept hidden from the rest of us. Correct? You are Ulani’s child.” The unspoken question was, are you a Spirit Walker?

No point in denying the truth now. “Yes.” I didn’t take my eyes from Maggie.

“Then we will discuss this once we are outside the mountain. For now I will trust you, not only with my home, but with my families’ lives,” the queen said, as she gave Maggie a look that stopped her in her tracks.

Fiametta turned and looked at her people. “We will exit through the main entrance, and once outside I will send some of my Enders to deal with the wyrms and the lava.”

No one argued with her, not even the Enders. I slipped back to where I’d deposited the two kids and went to scoop them up. They smiled, reaching for me, but I was pushed away, shoved hard enough from the side that I went to my knees. A big man, his red hair shorn close to his head and enough muscles on his arms to fill out three men’s sleeves glared down at me.

“Don’t touch them, you filthy wyrm lover.”

He picked the kids up, their eyes wide as they stared back at me, and strode away. The Salamanders flowed around me as if I were an island in a stream. They stared at me, the coldness of their eyes like ice against my skin.

Peta found me, her charge gone from her back. “They took her from me too,” she said before I could ask.

Ash waited for us, his arms also empty. “Me, too.”

“Guilty by association,” I murmured, as I pushed myself to my feet. Peta snorted and shook her body, shrinking to her housecat form. I held my arms out and she leapt up to me.

“You can carry me.”

Laughing softly, I placed her on my shoulder. “Thanks, I appreciate the vote of confidence.”

Falling into step beside me, Ash shook his head. “This seems too easy. Whoever is doing this, blocking them from their element wouldn’t just let them out.”

“You think it’s a trap?”

He nodded. “I’m sure of it.”

Walking at the back of the long line of Salamanders, I did a head count. Fewer than five hundred souls, and that was counting the injured being carried. A trap for five hundred people . . . if they couldn’t get out of the mountain, and they were blocked from their abilities, what would happen when the lava reached them?

They’d all die.

The line stopped moving and I held back, standing ten feet behind the last Salamander.

Peta sat up straight on my shoulder, looking over everyone’s head. “Why aren’t they moving?”

I shrugged. “Maybe Ash is right and the door is stuck.” The words popped out of me, and the Salamanders closest to us turned back to stare at me. Worm shit, I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. Peta stood up, her front paws on top of my head.

“I think that’s exactly what has happened. You need to get up there, you two.”

Reluctantly I pushed my way forward through the crowd. Easily enough, they parted around Ash and me as though we were diseased.

The front of the crowd was Maggie, Fiametta, and Cactus who was shaking his head almost violently.

“I can’t reach that side of my powers, my queen. I’m sorry,” Cactus said. Fiametta’s frame shook and at first I thought perhaps she was angry. It was only when I saw her face that I realized she was crying.

The queen of fire, hard as all the granite in the world was crying.

Fiametta saw me, her blue eyes shimmering with tears. “And you two, can you open the mountain?”

Ash stepped forward first, laying his hands on the large black door. I knew what lay outside, an orchard of cherry trees forever in blossom with the heat of the mountain. Ash’s arms showed nothing, no lines of power, no traces of green. He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

Now, my turn. I stepped forward reaching for the power of the earth even as it slid away from me. Teeth gritted, I put my hands on the door and bowed my head.

Voices behind me rippled over my ears. What’s she doing? Does she really think we would trust her? Their words were the fuel I needed, the anger at their distrust flowed through me and I reached for my connection to the earth. The power flared and I pushed it into the door, spreading it wide with a grinding screech.

I let go of the door and it immediately began to swing closed. Grabbing hold of my power once more I drove it into the door a second time. Sweat broke out on my head as I held it. In front of me were the cherry trees, the scent of their blossoms blowing into the tunnel along with a few loose petals that scattered around my feet.

“Hurry, get them through!” I yelled. Peta clung to me, her nose in my ear.

“What’s happening?”

Through gritted teeth, I spoke as the door groaned. “Someone is pushing the doors closed as I’m holding them open.” There was only one person it could be: that female in the black cloak, Blackbird’s lackey.

Closing my eyes, I held the doors, my entire body shaking with the effort. A hand touched my arm.

“Let it go, Lark,” Ash said.

They were through, that was my only thought as I relaxed my hold on the door. It slammed shut with a thunderous boom that shook the walls.

Breathing hard I put my hands on my knees for a moment before straightening and turning around. I stared at the scene in front of me. Not one Salamander less was in the group.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Why didn’t you go through?”

“How can we trust you?” Maggie said, putting her face right into mine. “You could have crumbled the archway on top us as we walked through.”

There was more than a murmuring of assent more like a roar of agreement.

The mother goddess’s words about my father came back to me. Fear would stop people from trusting even those who only wanted to help them.

“You all just signed your own death warrants,” I said softly, fatigue hitting me hard. Or maybe it wasn’t fatigue, but sorrow, an ache that even when I tried I wasn’t able to help them. Because deep down, no matter how much they hurt me or treated me like worm shit, I couldn’t stand by and watch them die.

Fiametta motioned for me to follow her a few steps away. For the first time, her eyes showed the strain she was under. “Larkspur, I will beg if I must. I cannot stop the lava flows.”

I frowned at her, anger building once more. “You could have made them go through the doorway. You could have been the first one through and shown them the way out and this would now
not even be a discussion
.”

Her face was carefully blank. “You are right.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Little late for that, don’t you think?”

Her lips pursed and then softened, but there was no time for her to answer me. Behind us came the cries of her people and the splashing of lava as it reached the back of the line. People pushed forward, screaming, crying, and begging.

I was jammed against the door along with Fiametta. They would take the doorway now . . . if I could open it.

Fear raced along my synapses as I put my hands on the slick back material once more. There was no room for anger inside the fear that snapped through me, biting at every thought and breath I had.

“Peta, help me,” I whispered. “I can’t reach the earth unless I’m angry.”

“Ash,” she called out, “Cactus, get over here.”

The two men pushed through, climbing over people to get to me. Screams echoed up the tunnel as the lava kissed at the heels of those at the back.

Ash and Cactus crouched beside me. “What do you need us to do?”

Peta curled tighter around my neck. “Show her you trust her. That is the key to breaking through these final bonds she carries.”

Cactus didn’t hesitate, but wrapped his arms around me from his side, pressing his lips into my hair. “I trust you to save us, Lark. You can do this.”

From my right side, Ash placed his hands over mine. “Larkspur, you truly are the best of us, don’t doubt it.”

Shaking, I closed my eyes, tried to block the sounds of people being burned alive as I dug into the part of me that held my powers. Spirit and Earth bound together, a bundle of strength I’d never truly tapped into.

Tears streaked my face as I fought to reach them, struggled to get past the blocks put in place by Cassava and an old anger burned through me.

“No,” Peta said. “Let the anger go and hold to the trust and love. That is your way now, Lark. That is the only way.”

The warmth of Cactus, the belief of Ash and support of Peta swirled through me and I suddenly understood. The strength I had would change things no matter how I used it, but I had a choice. Just like Blackbird.

For good or for ill, how would my power be seen?

The earth’s strength roared through me like never before and I flooded the door with it, blasting it apart and sending the one who would hold it against me flying away. On my knees, with my eyes closed, the rushing of the Salamanders as they flew by me no longer caring who I was, the world seemed to speak to me. Two words, but they meant everything to me.

Well done.

Not the mother goddess though, but a male voice, one I didn’t recognize. I slowly opened my eyes in time to see Fiametta stride through the opening. She stopped on the other side. “Hurry, the lava is right behind you.”

Her words snapped me out of the headspace I’d been in. I glanced behind to see the lava creeping along the tunnel, glowing its fierce red like the eyes of a demon. I put a hand on Peta.

“The children,” I said. “We can’t leave them to Blackbird. They were his back-up plan, I’m sure of it. And now he has a reason to use them.”

Cactus pulled back from me. “The children are alive? Can we get to them?”

I nodded and stood, a feeling of surety falling over me.

“We have to.”

With a flick of my wrist, I pulled the doorway down, plunging us back into the semi gloom of the lava-filling tunnel.