Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (30 page)

She said it all so matter-of-factly. Like we were discussing the weather.

“Why would you give Peta to me, then? Why would you help me?” I took another step back.

She waved a hand at me and jiggled the leather bag with the other. “I needed you to survive long enough to do what I needed you to do. Peta is the only familiar that has the training to keep you alive.” She paused and tipped her head. “You were my backup plan in case Raven fell through.”

“You mean so I could find the stones.”

Viv, I suppose she was never the mother goddess after all, nodded. “And you threw the families into disarray which was an added bonus. The chaos you provide will be a perfect catalyst for me to step in. I am known as the mother goddess. Which family will turn from me?”

“So all that crap about me being a chosen one?”

“You had no confidence, and I needed strength from you. I needed you to believe in yourself. Only you took it a tad bit too far; you grew far stronger than I thought you would.”

The crack of a branch whipped me around. I had my spear up and poised for an attack before I registered who it was.

Talan stepped into the clearing, and though he approached me his eyes were trained on Viv. “You don’t want to tell her the rest?”

She glared at him. “You have been a thorn in my side for too long, Talan. Perhaps you should die with her. Suiting, since you so cared for Ulani, that you should die at her daughter’s side.”

He grinned at her. “I think you’re about to gain a new thorn.” He glanced at me. “Smart move.”

I kept my face carefully blank, as if I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. Idiot, he was going to blow my ruse. If he’d noticed what I’d done, the only question was, would she?

Viv lifted a hand. “She is going to die, Talan. And you will be next if you care to stand there and vex me.”

He laughed softly. “Oh, I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you think. You broke the bond between Peta and me on purpose. Why?”

Peta gasped. “No, that can’t be.”

I stood there with my mouth hanging open. “She could do that?”

“Yes, she can. If I’d been able to find Peta, I would have gone after her. Viv broke my ability to do that, though, and for many years, I thought Peta was dead. As she thought I was.” He didn’t take his eyes off Viv. “You see, she believed that without my loyal cat, I would be open to danger and easier to kill. Spirit walkers are nothing if not prone to an early death. All the charges Peta was sent to . . . they were marked for death. So that she would believe she was a poor familiar. You changed all that for her, Lark.”

Viv glared at him, and the glamor I’d always associated with her slowly drifted away, the last of my belief system collapsing around me. Her long dark brown hair and deep brown eyes were those of a Terraling. She looked disturbingly like Cassava.

That wasn’t what bothered me, though.

The truth fell on me, crushing a piece of my heart and spirit. We were alone then in this world; there was no mother goddess to turn to, no gentle love to guide us. No, that was not true. There was something out there. I just wasn’t sure exactly what the voice of the mountain was.

Talan stood to the left of me, his hands tucked behind his back. “Lark, what she doesn’t want you to know is she is not a mix of elements like Raven. She is a true hybrid, like you. She is—”

“Shut your mouth!” She flung a hand at him, I saw the lines of power over her arms. White and blue twinned across her skin. The intent was clear as day. She was going to kill him.

I may not have liked him, but I couldn’t let him die. Not if he wasn’t what I thought. I leapt at him, tackling him to the ground as the power ripped over our heads. Talan rolled and we were both on our knees in a flash.

“Come on, Viv. Let’s see what you’ve got.” He taunted her, beckoning with his one hand with a wiggle of his fingers.

“Are you crazy?”

“No, I trust you.”

His words shocked me. He trusted me? I didn’t trust him any further than I would trust Raven. Well, maybe a bit more than I trusted Raven.

Viv raised her hand a second time and Talan held a hand out to me. “Stay back. In case I’m wrong.”

She snarled. “You are done. But I’m killing her first. To be sure that she does not interfere, yet again.” The power built in the air, the small hairs on my arms stood at attention. Time slowed. Peta leapt into my arms, her body covering mine.

“Where you go, I go. I trust you.” Her eyes never left mine and I stared into her face.

Even into death. I wrapped my arms around her, hoping I’d done the right thing. Praying to a deity I no longer believed existed. I lifted my eyes.

Viv flung both hands at us and the world seemed to pause further. The lines of power intensified on her, flaring, and then a boom of thunder filled the tiny space. It felt as though all five elements screamed at once, the sound of death and destruction, inferno and hurricane, earthquake and rogue waves swept into a single note that made my heart waver. I clung to Peta, tucking my head against her, sure it was our death I felt.

But the sound faded and I slowly opened my eyes. Peta trembled, and her big green eyes blinked up at me. “Are we still alive?”

Talan stood off to one side, his eyes at half-mast, and his hands on his hips.

“What the hell happened?” I slid Peta off my lap and stood.

“The curse,” he said. “You didn’t give her the real stones, so when she attacked you, the curse kicked into overdrive. How . . . how did you know she was the one who’d created the stones? It took me years to figure out she wasn’t the mother goddess.”

I blinked, unable to clear my vision completely. Where Viv had been was nothing but a charred piece of ground. “Is she dead?”

He walked to the burn mark and scuffed a foot over it. “I doubt it. Hurt probably, and pissed as Peta was when I threw her into that arctic lake, but not dead. How did you know?”

Peta sniffed. “I was not pissed. I was cold, you fool.”

I stood under the cypress trees, the rot of the swamp curling around me. I drew it into my lungs. “How did she not know the stones were fake? I mean, I’m glad she didn’t, but is she really that full of herself?”

Talan shrugged. “Pride is a funny thing. And she trusted you to be obedient. So why would she even bother checking?”

That was along the lines I’d been thinking, hoping would happen. “She told me Raven was searching for the stones, but he wasn’t. He was having a good time in the Eyrie. I knew you were also causing problems, but it . . . I don’t know. I just knew. In the Eyrie, I knew. The story about the old elemental, about the stones, about Shazer.” I said the Pegasus’s name and I froze. “Worm shit, what if something happened to Shazer when I hurt her?” I bolted through the swamp as quickly as I could. Peta leapt along beside me. “Go, Peta, you’re faster.”

She didn’t wait, but sped through the swamp ahead of me.

Talan ran at my side, slipping and sliding, but he didn’t argue with me. And for the first time since I’d met him, he didn’t just disappear on me. “Why would she have hurt him?”

“Because she made him. She created him.” I pushed through the last of the foliage and burst onto the sandy beach. The sun beat down, brilliant and hot. Shazer was flopped out on his side, unmoving, the feathers of his wings ruffling in a breeze off the water the only movement.

Peta was at his head. She smacked him with a paw three times in the space of a second. “Wake up.”

He jerked and blinked several times, his large dark eyes foggy with sleep. Cracking a big yawn, he looked around. “Tell me we aren’t off to somewhere else.”

I slumped where I stood. “She didn’t hurt you?”

“Why would she hurt me?” He sat up and the lower part of his mane rolled forward. The material from Bella’s skirt rolled forward as it came undone. Four stones glittered as they fell to the sand. I scooped them up and wrapped them once more into the green cloth. I tied the knot tighter, pulling it hard before I tucked the package under my vest.

Talan leaned forward, his hands on his thighs as a laugh boomed out of him. “Well, I’ll be damned.”

I glared at him. “To be clear, we are not friends. You manipulated the leaders to attack me, didn’t you?”

He stood and his lips tightened a moment. “You need to be humble to be teachable, Lark. You are anything but. And I
need
you to learn. The world will depend on your ability to learn and to grow with what you have been given.”

I snorted. “I’ve heard that line before. Viv used it on me more than once. So you’d best come up with something better than that to convince me you are anything but an asshole on a power trip.”

Shazer yawned again. I waved at him. “Go back to sleep.”

He wasted no time in flopping back to the sand, wriggling his body to get in deeper.

I walked down the beach a ways, and Peta hurried to my side. “What now?”

What now indeed? “I think I have a rather powerful enemy. Worse than Cassava ever was. Worse than Raven.” I rubbed a hand over my face.

“You could be stronger than her,” Talan said. I turned on my heel to face him.

“I doubt that. She has all five elements at her disposal. I can’t use the stones; she could manipulate me. Shit, you could manipulate me.”

He nodded. “You have the same ability she does. Did you not hear me? She was a Terraling Spirit walker hybrid. That is a particular brand of elemental.”

“Why?”

His dark blue eyes never left mine. “You said it yourself: she is a powerful enemy. One that as soon as her wounds are healed will be hunting you down. She might not be able to hurt you directly, but will Raven fall to her lies again now that you ousted him from the Eyrie? Do you think Cassava could be twisted again if she was given the pink diamond? Or maybe Viv will find someone new to do her dirty business. Tell them that they are the chosen one. That she believes in them.”

His words struck a chord with me I didn’t like.

Fear crawled up and down my spine, biting and nipping. And then came the anger. “And, let me guess, your training will help me survive?”

“Yes.”

Peta stepped between us, and her anger felt like my own.

“Talan.”

His eyes dipped to her. He smiled and crouched. “Will you forgive me?”

She tipped her head. “No. You’ve been an ass to Lark.”

His head lowered. “Nepeta, you don’t understand—”

“No, I don’t. You weren’t an ass when I left you.” The word was firm from her. “I wanted to believe Lark was wrong. That you weren’t causing problems—”

“It has to be done,” he said. “She has to be humble in order for Spirit to truly bind to her. You know that.”

“Not like this. You’re a fool. You always were when it came to understanding women and what made them tick.”

I had to bite my lower lip to keep from laughing. His eyes shot to mine and he gave me the barest of headshakes. Almost like he was trying not to laugh too. Maybe it was the situation, I wasn’t sure, but I liked him a little better for that. For being a fool and letting Peta chastise him.

She sat at my feet, her rounded ears flipped partway back. She lifted a paw and pushed it into his chest, shoving him onto his butt. “You need lessons yourself. You apologize for being an ass, right now.”

Like she was his mother. I bit the inside of my cheeks and focused on breathing slowly, keeping the laughter under control.

“Nepeta, please. This is ridiculous.”

Her ears went flat to her head and she bared her teeth at him. “Apologize.”

He stood and took a step so she couldn’t see his face. And he grinned at me wide enough that I could see the sincerity in it. The fool.

“Peta is right. I’ve been an ass.” His grin never slipped. “Will you come with me? Will you let me help you?”

“You did not apologize. You only said you’d been an ass, which is true, but not an apology.” She swatted at him with a big paw and he leapt back.

“Peta, I wasn’t finished.”

My chest shook with silent laughter. Peta’s tail twitched. “Apologize or I will assume you truly meant her harm and then I will forget you were ever my charge and assume you are an enemy to us both.”

She was serious. And I felt it then through our bond. She was going to attack him if he didn’t apologize. The laughter evaporated from me, and along with it the last of the fear that she would choose Talan over me.

She stood, and the fur along her back rose as a low rumble rolled out of her. The mirth on his face slid off.

His jaw ticked and he held up both hands. “Larkspur, will you accept my apology?”

“Fine.” I turned my back on him. Peta grabbed my leg and I yelped. “What?”

“When someone apologizes, you accept it properly.”

Etiquette lessons from Peta was not something I was expecting. I sighed. “You’re forgiven. And no, I don’t want to train with you. I’m going home.”

I started down the beach once more.

Of course, that wasn’t the end of things with Talan.

He called after me.

“Ulani wanted you to train with me, and I promised her I would. I promised her I would watch over you and do all I could to help you learn. To keep you alive.”

Ulani . . . my mother. I closed my eyes and pressed the heels of my hands to them. Damn it, what did I do now?