CHAPTER 23
I braced myself for the memories from Peta or Ash. They were Peta’s this time, and they came softly, gently. Her laughing with Talan, her time with him, and all he’d taught her. All she’d given him. She’d tried to find him after he “died” the first time. She didn’t have it in her to believe he’d been truly gone. Through the memories, I felt the threads of love so strong and bright that I knew no matter how long it had been, she would always have a special place for him. A first love, her first charge. Her first loss. And now a loss again, this time in front of her eyes.
We stepped out of Spirit’s embrace and I looked around, totally confused for a moment as to just where I’d taken us. The room was well furnished with chairs and a long table—a human room somewhere within a city, if the hum of vehicles outside was any indication.
At the head of the table sat Raven, his hands propped up under his chin, his eyes closed so tightly, the skin on his forehead wrinkled.
“Lark, where the hell are you?” he murmured.
“Uh, here,” I said, and his eyes snapped open. He leapt to his feet and ran around the table. His embrace was so sudden and unexpected, I hugged him back. Ash ruffled his feathers and gave out a sharp hissing noise.
Raven stepped back. “Goddess, I thought… have you been feeling the strange pulls on the elements?”
“Yes.”
He blew out a breath and shook his head. “You’d only be picking up on Earth and Spirit. But Water is being tampered with too. Has Viv taken them?” His eyes were flooded with worry. “Are we too late?”
I shook my head. I knew we were running out of time, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to get to Mattie before Vivica did. Which meant I had one chance at taking on the last of the five elements. I had a plan, only… a great deal of it depended on me being right about my suspicion. That Vivica would be with Mattie even now, taking the last of her life, and with it, the last of her power.
“No. I… I carry them. And I am going to deal with Viv, right now.”
He stumbled back. “Wait… what are you saying?”
I pulled myself up a bit straighter. “Realm, Olivisha, Frost, and Talan gave up their power to me, to protect the world not only from Viv, but a greater threat. I’m going to deal with her now and then I will face the last.”
“What greater threat?”
“The humans’ war,” I said. “It is going to destroy the world in a way that no one will come back from. It will wipe out not only the humans, but the supernaturals and elementals, too.” I placed a hand on the table, tensing my fingers, the truth I was seeing as my connection to Spirit intensified. “They won’t stop… Viv has placed them on this path and so I must end her life first.” I looked up at him. “And then I must stop this war. The weapons are already engaged.”
He blinked at me several times like the information took time to slide through his brain. “And why have you come to me?”
“You need to come with me to Viv.”
“I will do what you want me to, Lark, but… do you think you need me to tackle Viv?” He shook his head. “I can feel the power vibrating through you and you aren’t even doing anything. Viv never had power like this.”
I nodded. “But I think I know where she might be, and if she is, then Samara is in trouble.”
He paled. “My son.”
I nodded. “Your son.”
“How can you know that?” Peta asked.
I bowed my head while I answered. “Pivotal points in my life have almost all been in the Eyrie. That is where the true mother goddess slept. It is why I woke her when I first went there. And… I feel a draw to it once more. Like I am being called home. I think… it’s because the mother goddess is my,” I paused because it almost felt silly saying it out loud, “grandmother.”
“Good enough for me,” Raven said.
I put a hand out to him and he took it. “In case I don’t survive,” he said, “will you forgive me for all I’ve done?”
I laughed. “Forgiveness was given the second you helped me escape Talan.”
His name echoed between us. A fallen comrade for the sake of giving me the power I needed, and even he had my forgiveness.
We all had done things that we believed were right, all with the same goal.
To stop Vivica.
I strengthened my resolve. “Move to the side when we approach Viv. Do not engage her. If Samara is there, go to her.”
“You want to face Viv on your own?”
I nodded. “I need to.”
Raven pulled me to him, and squeezed me in a hard hug. “You have always been the best of us, Lark. Of that, I have no doubt.”
I shook my head. But Peta laughed suddenly. “And the most stubborn.”
Bowing my head, I smiled. “I can accept that.”
“Wait, we can’t Ride Spirit with four of us,” Raven said.
I gave him a tired smile. “Impossible?”
His mouth hung open and he snapped it shut. “Point taken.”
I held a hand out to him. Ash and Peta tightened their hold on me.
I focused on where Viv was, seeing her face, seeing all of her… and let Spirit take us to her.
Raven’s memories… I did not want to see his past, and yet, it swelled around me in a wave of pain and grief. His training had been brutal at times, forced to develop his strength at a young age. Cassava had been relentless; even though she raised him as her own, he was not. And he knew it. He knew he was an outsider. Which was why he connected with me. We’d both been a part, and yet not a part, of our family. For different reasons, but it didn’t matter. More than all that, though, was a glowing thread that was… he loved me. He loved me not as brother and sister. I closed myself off from what I was feeling, blocking it like I’d never been able to block memories before. But that love was intense and it would not let me go.
The reality of it… explained so much about how he treated me. How he’d fought and yet held back. There had been times he could have killed me, or hurt me badly, and yet he’d always held back. I could argue it was part of the training they thought to foist on me, but I could see it for what it truly was.
Those few heartbeats where we floated through the ether took us inside the Eyrie. We went from the climate-controlled world of the humans to the snow-blasted mountains deep in the Himalayas.
I let Raven go and stepped to the side. Viv was in front of us, her eyes wide. “So you found a way to travel directly to a person? I thought that last was sheer coincidence.”
I arched an eyebrow. “What’s so hard about that?”
Raven moved off to the right, circling Viv. She didn’t look at him. “It is not to be done. Spirit does not like to be used in such a way.”
Both my eyebrows climbed. “No? Or perhaps you are just too weak, Viv.”
We spoke like old friends making a re-acquaintance. If not for the tension in the air that rose higher and higher, I would have believed it.
“You don’t really think you can kill me, do you?” Viv laughed softly. “I carry all five stones.”
I nodded. “I know you do.”
“You carry Earth and Spirit. And while you may be strong in them, it is nothing to what I can do.” She held up one hand. “I hold the original elementals’ lives here,” the stones glittered on each finger. “Kneel before me, Lark, and I will make your death easy.”
Peta leapt from my shoulder, shifting in midair. She landed between us. “Nothing Lark does is the easy way.”
Ash tightened his hold on my shoulder. He was with me, and when we were together, I could do anything I set my mind to.
Another time I would have laughed, but not now, not here.
“This is between the two of us,” I said. “I am the champion the true mother goddess has chosen.”
“I AM THE MOTHER GODDESS!” Her scream echoed through the valley, sending a slow growing avalanche down the hillside behind her. We stood, staring at one another. For I knew that once the battle began, there would be no turning back. There would be no second chance at killing her. There would be no chance to find Matarrah in the flesh, of that much I was sure. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to her element.
I only had to push Viv to use it on me, and in my heart, I knew I would find Mattie waiting for me within it.
I put a hand to my hip and pulled my spear off its ties, spun it loosely, and then pointed the tip at her. “As an Ender of the Rim, protector of the realm, I find you guilty of murder, treason, willfully endangering the world of the elementals, and manipulation of the vilest kind. It is my right and duty to end your life as I see fit.”
A low laugh rumbled from her. “Oh, please. You have no rights to my life.”
“I have every right,” I said. “And you will die.”
I knew all too well the consequence of engaging her with the elements. We could end up destroying the world, and that could not happen.
That left me one option. To face her in physical combat.
The moment was now.
I leapt up into the air with my spear raised. Ash burst upward taking himself high above our heads, a screeching call leaving his beak.
A battle cry I answered with a scream of my own.