Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (19 page)

I tightened my jaw to keep from responding, because what would I say? Whatever the voice was, I knew the truth was far harder than the lies. That had been my entire life.

inley went with us to the stable to gather Shazer. “I want to see you off.”

“You mean you want to make sure we don’t cause more problems?” I laughed, but even I heard the bitter notes in it.

Finley shook her head. “No, Dolph is right. You have a knack for uncovering the darkness in our world, Lark.”

I grimaced. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too.”

Peta sat on my shoulder, once more in her housecat form. “The issue is that the news of something happening here that involved Lark will get to the other rulers before we can. Is the ambassador from the Pit still here?”

Finley raised a hand. “Dolph, can you answer this?”

He strode to her right side. “He left last night, shortly after Lark arrived.”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter, not really. The stones are used as a form of compulsion. Whoever is using them already knows I’m on the hunt for them. The ambassador will only confirm I’m on my way.” I could only hope that meant Blackbird would also be stalled. Or that he started searching after me, and followed rather than beat me to the other rulers. Who was I kidding? Certainly not myself; Blackbird was hunting as actively as I was. I’d just been lucky so far. Which meant we had to keep moving.

We stopped on the white beach, and Shazer went to one knee. Bella mounted and I leapt up behind her. “Be safe, Finley.”

She raised her hand. “You have my word, Lark. I will not be fooled again.”

Before I could answer, Shazer took off, galloping down the beach and gaining speed; right at the edge of the water he leapt. His hooves skimmed the surface and a dark torpedo-shaped body glimmered underneath us. I shuddered and looked away. We were done with the Deep.

It was the next family I needed to focus on.

Shazer glanced back at me. “Eyrie or Pit?”

Neither choice left me with much hope, but at least with the Salamanders, I’d left on good terms. Not so much for the Eyrie, seeing as how I’d destroyed their home.

“Pit. We leave the Eyrie for last and hope we have enough by then to take Samara down easily.”

Shazer snorted. “The Sylphs never go down easily.”

I thought about the two Enders who’d tried to kill Finley and me. “No, they don’t. Which means the more stones I can collect before I face her, the better. Not that the Pit is going to be an easy in and out.”

Bella looked back at me. “But is that not true of Fiametta? You have two rings already. Could you not use them to take her down?”

“The Pit is on an active volcano which Fiametta has direct control over. I’m not sure that going in swinging with all the power at our fingertips is a good idea.”

“Then what’s the plan?” Shazer banked to one side, angling us west across the continent.

“I’m hoping Peta can help me with that,” I said. Peta looked up at me from my lap.

“What do you need?”

“Your first charge, Talan. He was a Spirit Elemental. I need you to tell me all the things he could do.”

Her tiny eyebrows shot up. “You think you can learn without training? I told you I would take you to him when you were ready.”

She had, and I’d almost forgotten that. “Do you think I’m ready?”

“No, you are not. You’re too stubborn to learn from him, and he is too stubborn to teach you.”

Bella laughed. “Why don’t you tell her how you really feel, Peta?”

Peta shrugged. “You aren’t ready. I can’t even describe how I know, only that I
know
.”

The wind whipped around us, an errant current that tugged at our hair and pulled us to one side of Shazer’s back. He grunted and angled with the wind to correct it. I twisted in my seat to scan the sky around us. No Sylph waited behind or below us.

“Sometimes an element is just an element, Lark,” Peta said.

It was my turn to laugh. “But when it’s not, it’s damn deadly.”

Peta smiled up at me. “True. Back to your question. I don’t think I can tell you all the things he did. They didn’t have names to me, he didn’t explain himself. He didn’t tell me anything, really.”

“You’ve helped me before,” I pointed out.

“And you would have my help now if I could do anything!” She curled against me. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, it’s that I don’t think I can.”

Bella’s eyes met mine, and in them I saw the confusion I felt. Peta was not like this. I held a hand out to my familiar. “Give me your paw.”

“No.”

I grabbed her by the scruff before she could worm away from me and took one of her paws in my hand. Her tiny claws dug into me, but the skin of her pad brushed against mine.

I felt the shattering of Spirit’s hold on her as our skin touched.

She stared up at me, horror in her eyes. “I couldn’t help myself. I was told not to help you, to let you figure things out on your own.”

I nodded, anger snapping through me. “Do you know who did it?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I do.” I took a breath. “Talan met with me in the Deep. He was the one who left the bracelet, he was the reason I was acting strange. He . . . didn’t want you to know he’d been there.”

Grief and pain sliced through the bond between Peta and me. She tucked her head against my belly as if to hide her shame. “Why would he do that?”

I shook my head, placing a hand on her back. “I don’t know. It’s a game to him, I think, as it is to whoever is using the stones.”

My words seemed to still the air and Bella’s eyes widened. “Could it be him doing all this? Could he be playing both sides?”

Slowly, I nodded. “He controls Spirit, and he’s been around a long time.” The puzzle pieces cleared in front of me. Bella’s words were closer to the truth than I think even she realized.

Peta shook her head. “No, I can’t believe he’d do this. That he’d try to kill you.”

“Unless he wanted you back as a familiar, unless he wanted the stones for himself and thought to take them from me once I gathered them.” I recalled all too well the sadness in him when he spoke of Peta loving me better than him. I tightened my hold on her, as if by sheer will alone I’d be able to keep her with me.

I told them everything he’d said about me being trained. I said nothing about the battle, or how he’d said I’d screwed up. Or how he’d said Peta loved me better. I wasn’t so sure, and I didn’t think I could bear to hear her lie to me. My heart couldn’t handle knowing she was never truly mine.

*_*_*

Two days of flying took us across the continent to the eastern side of the Pacific Ocean. We spoke mostly of inconsequential things. Things that would mean nothing to anyone else, and yet they allowed me to freely consider other thoughts and possibilities . . . other ideas that could explain how the rulers knew we were coming.

Though I could easily blame the mother goddess, I doubted she would give me a charge, only to sabotage me. Not when it was clear that she truly believed the stones had to be gathered, and quickly before Blackbird gained hold of them. That left the creator of the stones, and Talan. And I was beginning to believe they were one and the same. The timing was too coincidental that he would appear in my life when the issue with the stones arose.

So his game with me in the Deep was just that, a ruse to throw me off. But how in a bucket of goblin piss had Finley and Bella known I was there before I’d ever revealed myself? Talan found me; could he somehow be tracking me? There were no Trackers left in the world so I knew that was out. The knowing of my impending presence had the feel of stepping into a trap I had no idea was even there.

We swept through the skies high above the Pit and I still had no answer as to how the rulers were being alerted to my presence.

“You’ve got a plan?” Shazer asked.

“Yes, though it will depend on my ability to control Spirit and Earth together.” I stared down at the mountain that held the Pit in its belly, smoke curling out of the top of it. About halfway down the mountain was an indent. Not a cave, but a section that had collapsed, leaving a lip of rock sticking out. “See that edge there; can you drop me off?”

“I can do you one better and land there.” Shazer tipped his wings and angled us toward the mountain. With a swift backstroke, he slowed our descent and landed us on the edge with a soft bump.

I slid from his back and went to my knees, pressing my hands to the dirt, knowing time was of the essence. “Everyone else stay on Shazer’s back. If this doesn’t work I want you out of here fast.”

Peta leapt to my shoulder, in complete defiance of what I’d just said. I opened my mouth to argue with her, and then stopped. I reached a hand up. “Rebel cat.”

“Loyal, not rebellious.” She tightened her hold on me.

Carefully, I opened myself to my connection to the earth first. It hummed around me, filling me with power before I called on it. Teeth gritted, I reached for my connection with Spirit.

The element writhed inside me, lashing to be let loose. “Damn it.”

The mountain rumbled and the stones around us hopped with the vibration. I swallowed hard and focused all my energy on what I was doing. Whatever balance I’d had was gone and the two elements within me seemed to know it.

The mountain shimmied again despite my efforts to keep it still.

Worm shit, this was going downhill faster than I’d thought possible. I only needed to find the Firewyrms. From there, I was sure they could help me find an entranceway that wasn’t guarded. At least not by Fiametta’s people. Spirit wove around Earth and my power sank into the mountain. I closed my eyes as a shudder rippled through me, not unlike the strange pleasure I’d felt in the graveyard when Talan had stared at me.

But this time, it was my own connection to Spirit that caught the edges of the unwelcome sensation. Muscles clenched, I pushed past it. Through the mountain I sent my power, searching for the creatures that lived alongside the Salamanders. Finally, in the deepest depths of the Pit, I touched on a soul I knew.

Scar. The first Firewyrm I’d ever met. Though he was older now, he lifted his head as my power rolled over him. I sent him a simple command.

Come to me.

In the depths, I felt him move toward us. I withdrew Spirit and Earth, bringing them back to heel easier than I’d thought was going to happen. Balance was what Talan said. What was it I’d done that was so different than before?

The answer was there, just at the edge of my mind, only I couldn’t quite reach it. Damn.

I stood and brushed my hands off. “Now we wait.”

“Why not just tunnel your way in?” Shazer asked.

“And end up inside the Pit because we took a wrong turn? I think not.” I folded my arms.

Minutes ticked by. Bella made a move as if to slide off Shazer. “No, stay there. Please.”

“I thought you were calling up a friend?” She frowned and I shrugged.

“People change. He was a friend, but it has been a lot of years.”

“Someone is coming.” Shazer snorted, and stamped a foot.

The section of mountain next to us crumbled and stones fell in a trickle around my knees, but I didn’t move. A flash of white scales behind the tumbling dirt caught my eye, and then Scar poked his head out of a hole twelve feet high and wide. He’d made a perfect circular opening, big enough that even Shazer would be able to pass with his wings tucked back.