Ash (The Elemental Series, Book 6) (6 page)

“What is this place?” I spoke the words out loud to see how they sounded as much as anything. What I didn’t expect was an answer.

“A place between the Veil, yeah?” Griffin strolled out from behind a redwood on my right. I turned to face him. He was a bit taller than me with black hair and eyes just as dark. A wolfy grin stretched across his face and I almost expected his tongue to loll out. He was a shapeshifter, though I wasn’t sure I’d call him a werewolf. Griffin was something more than a mere werewolf. More like the father of all wolves, the Great Wolf. He had been a friend to Lark, so I did not fear him.

“How do you mean it is between the Veil? I know there are seven levels; how is this different?”

Griffin squinted up at the branches over our heads. “You see, the Veil is set up in layers like you said. This is a place between them, like what you’d see if you stopped in mid-stride as you crossed over them, yeah?”

I frowned. “And how exactly did I manage this? I have no connection to Spirit.”

Honestly, I’d thought the meditating was more a way to pass the time than anything else.

“Ah, well, I may have had something to do with that, yeah?” He winked. “I just needed you to relax long enough that I could draw you here. Now that you’ve been once, you can come and go as you please.”

Interesting as that all was, I wasn’t sure how it helped me, and I said as much.

Griffin laughed. “It don’t. Not one bit. But it might keep you from losing your mind, which if I recall can be an issue for you elementals when you are cut off from your power. Which even though you weren’t banished, you’re cut off, yeah? Long enough and you would lose your mind.”

He was right, and he’d touched on the fear that had begun to grow in me. Griffin went on. “Here, you can work your connection to the earth, here you can practice with your weapons. Your body will be weak when you get out of the dungeon, but your mind and muscles will know all you’ve trained them to do. You elementals always bounce back. You were made to.”

He turned and began to walk away.

“Wait, how can I train? I have no weapons, I have no opponents,” I said. Doing strengthening exercises was all good, but even I could only do those for so long. As it was, I suspected I was going to be in the dungeon a long, long time. Years, as Raven had said.

Griffin didn’t turn around. “Make them, Ender. Make your weapons, make your opponents, yeah?”

I took a few steps after him. “Why are you helping me?”

I didn’t want him to go. I didn’t want to be left alone in this place or in my dungeon cell. Elementals did not do well when captured. It broke something in our spirits, and already I could feel it eating at me. A few days and I could see what was coming if I didn’t find a way to keep myself together. Griffin had tossed me a lifeline I hadn’t expected.

“Larkspur.”

Just her name, nothing else. And then he was gone and I was alone in the cell again, snapped out of the meditation by the clanging of a tin plate and cup on the floor. Dreg’s shadow was already disappearing into the gloom of the rest of the dungeon.

I reached for the food, a slice of bread, cheese, and some sort of meat, a few pieces of fruit. Better than I’d been getting. I grasped the tin plate and pulled it toward me. My fingers brushed the edge of a piece of paper that was attached to the bottom of the plate. I pulled the paper off and flipped it open.

You are not alone.

I recognized Bella’s handwriting, having seen it more than once on orders. I folded the paper and tucked it under my vest. I ate the food, savoring it, knowing that there may not be much for me in the way of good quality soon enough. I had no doubt that Raven would find ways to make people forget about me. To make them believe I was gone for good. And then the food would suffer and with it so would my spirit as well as my body.

As I ate, I mulled over my options. They were slim, but I still had a choice. Captive as I was, I could still try and change things. Purpose, I had a purpose, and I needed to keep reminding myself that as long as I was alive, all was not lost.

I had to find a way to bring Lark back, to have her banishment reversed. Or to have Bella take the throne from her father. I took a bite of the cheese and frowned as I tried to see the problems from different angles. How could I have Lark’s banishment reversed?

I wasn’t sure there was a way without Bella taking the throne, and that spun me around in circles. “Damn it.”

Those two words echoed in the small chamber. What else could I do? Raven would see me coming a mile off if I chose to go after him. He was strong, and I had nothing on his powers, not to mention I had no doubt he would not offer to meet me one on one in battle.

I popped the last piece of bread in my mouth and chewed. Who was against Lark, who was always the one to hurt her, the one to stop her from doing what she had to?

I slumped where I was, suddenly and with no warning, as a heavy sleep rolled over me and only one thought rebounded in my head. Who was the one who still had some control over Raven?

That strange tension curled up my spine. With my eyes closed, I saw Raven in front of me. His blue eyes were serious. “My mother is the cause of all this strife. Of all Lark’s pain. Kill her, and we will all be free, Ash. Find her and kill her, that is what you must do.”

Cassava.

The puzzle pieces fell into place and I let out a breath and woke as suddenly as I’d fallen asleep. There it was. I knew what I had to do, what could help Lark and our world. A part of me saw that I was being led by the nose, but the majority of me thought it was a good idea, maybe even a great one.

I had to kill Cassava.

spent my days between the layers of the Veil. Slowly I learned to make weapons, and with them I practiced my Enders skills. Every weapon I’d ever used, and several I hadn’t. I worked with the weapons from the other elemental families like the tridents from the Deep and the clubs from the Pit.

I started with the trees, just using them as static opponents, but quickly fell to creating Sandlings. Drawn from the earth, I could build them up and give them directive
s
. We used Sandlings when we trained Enders because they were impossible to hurt, and made good opponents. They were shaped with arms, legs, and a head, and could even be given weapons, if need be, along with simple commands. The first I gave them was the most basic. To attack me one on one, then one on two, three, and four. Quickly I learned to create weapons out of the earth for them, again simple weapons, but they were good enough.

By the end of the third month in my dungeon, I was spending all my waking time within that meditative state, doing as Griffin had suggested.

I began to play with the earth, finding ways to use the strength innate to me, manipulating it in ways I’d never considered before. Lark had been the one to open my eyes, to show me that the limits placed on us by those who were our trainers were just that—limits. I learned how to beckon the earth to me faster, connecting without moving my hands or eyes. I no longer let my beliefs of possible and impossible hold me back . . . but there was only so much I could do when it was just myself.

Griffin never came back to check on me, but I didn’t care. I could feel my body growing stronger in that place, could feel the natural ease with all weapons sliding over me even more than before. The earth all but s
a
ng around me, and that gave me some solace.

Month four ticked by, and the food coming to me slowed to every other day, though the water still came daily. I was going to be starved to death if I did not find a way out of here soon.

At night I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling of the cell while I waited for sleep to take me. Between my dreams and the waking meditation
,
I could feel my hold on reality slipping. I would not go mad perhaps, but I wasn’t entirely sure where my body truly lived any longer.

My dreams showed Lark as she suffered in the desert, kept company by two of her father’s familiars. They were watching her, keeping her in line. Making sure she didn’t step out of her boundaries. Making sure she didn’t leave the desert where her heart hardened against the world.

I saw her look to the Rim and knew what she thought. That I’d abandoned her. That I’d not been willing to break the rules to be at her side.

I tried to turn away from that, but she was everywhere I looked, and her eyes condemned me.

Somewhere in the sixth month by the scratches I’d marked on the wall, I jerked awake in the middle of the night. I turned my head; the sound that woke me was so soft, I was sure I never would have heard it if I wasn’t so used to the complete silence.

A soft breath that was not my own, and the sound of padded feet on the stone. I rolled in my bed and looked down beside it.

Peta stared up at me, her green eyes unblinking. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble. You’re as bad as Lark, you know.”

I reached out, not sure if I was seeing things or not. “Peta, are you real?”

Her eyes softened and she leapt up onto me, landing in the curve of my belly.

My stomach was concave, my muscles dwindling from not only lack of use, but lack of food. She sat in the hollow and stared at me. “Ash. This one time, I’ll let you hold me.”

I laughed and curled my arms around her, pulling her tightly against my chest. I buried my face in her soft fur and knew now why Lark loved her so. When you needed her most, Peta found you and gave you hope.

I lay back, still holding her. I fell asleep and she stayed with me, her warmth a steady presence that I didn’t know how desperately I’d craved.

The morning light came soon after that and I woke to find myself alone.

“Shit.” I ran a hand over my face. I had been dreaming, then; Peta hadn’t found me after all.

There was the sound of claws scratching on stone and I turned my head. Peta stretched and yawned, in her housecat form—gray and white—her tail twitching at the tip. “I’m going to find us some food. Wait here.”

She was gone in a flash, slipping between the bars of the cell. “You think I’m actually going somewhere?” I called after her, and I was sure I heard her laugh echo back to me. Saucy cat.

I couldn’t help the grin
,
though. I wasn’t alone, and now with Peta, we would find a way out of here, we would go after Cassava, and make the world right again for Lark.