CHAPTER 6
Raven stood in front of me in the rocky prison Talan kept us in like I should give him a welcoming hug. Of course, the pain in my body Talan had inflicted kept me from moving at all—that and the sheer shock at Talan’s audacity to bring Raven here and expect me not to try to kill him.
There was too much history between us, too many times that Raven had tried to kill me, or those I loved.
Peta, on the other hand, had no such compunctions about holding still. She leapt from my arms, shifting into her snow leopard form in midair. A roar from her lips as she soared toward Raven was all she got out before she was dropped to the floor a second time.
Her body just went limp as though she’d been shot through the heart, and she crashed to the stone, sliding into Raven’s feet. He held his hands up and took a few steps back. “It was not me, Lark.”
Pain or no pain, I whipped around to Talan. He stared back, totally unashamed. “No fighting unless I sanction it.”
I had never felt so useless in my life, and that was saying something considering where I’d started. I limped to Peta and crouched down at her hip. I ran a hand over her gently, wishing I could give her some of my energy. That, at least, was still mine, and it flared under my hands and slid into her. She groaned and rolled to look at me. “What happened?”
“Talan dropped you,” I said. “Again.” I wasn’t going to throw him under a falling redwood and tell her that he was a complete and total asshole for doing it. I was sure she’d figure that part out herself. She got to her feet, but didn’t shift into her housecat form. Her bright green eyes narrowed as she looked from Talan to Raven and back again.
Talan moved to where my spear lay. “I’ll be taking this too.”
“Did you take Raven’s weapons?” I struggled to breathe as the sudden spurt of pain radiated up my spine and through my ribcage. It felt as though Talan had just ramped up the agony along my nerve endings.
“I didn’t have to take his weapons. He’s not here to hurt you,” Talan said, and if I could have without passing out, I would have laughed. As it was, I wrapped one arm around my middle and put the other on Peta’s back to steady myself. There was nothing else to say. I needed to regroup, much as I hated feeling like I was retreating.
I’d agreed—sort of—to stay and train, seeing some validity in the scenes Talan had revealed to me from the Rim to the Deep to the humans. But that had been before Talan had put Raven in front of me.
I limped my way out of the room, my heart burning with humiliation that I had to retreat at all. A part of me thought if I left Talan’s presence, his hold on my pain would lessen, but it didn’t. Not one ounce slipped away. If anything, the hurt only intensified. The air whistled in and out past my clenched teeth and when I reached the room I’d started in, the only thing I could think of was sleep.
“Peta.” I whispered her name into the pillow as I fought tears of anger and shame. “How could I have been such a fool as to trust him?”
Her big body stretched out at my back so she was between me and the doorway, her warmth sinking into me. “You are not the only one. I thought… I thought I knew him. He has changed so much. I always knew Spirit could twist one’s soul but I never would have thought it would do this to him.”
I reached behind me with one arm and draped it over her middle. “If it ever comes to it—”
“I will never let you become like him,” she said softly. “Now rest. I will watch over you.”
I couldn’t sleep, though. The pain in my back cascaded through every part of me. Holding still, breathing, adjusting my position, all of it sent sharp shards of broken steel through me that I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t ease the suffering no matter what I did.
An hour slipped by, and then another while I stared at the wall across from me.
I closed my eyes, fought the tears, and tried to think of something good. Some reason to get up and fight through this. The world was breaking around me. What the hell was I going to do to stop it?
“Peta, tell me something good.”
“I love you, Lark.” She spoke that without hesitation. “You are my soul sister and that is strong enough to see us both through this. Whatever this part of our lives is, we will face it together. If you must train with him, then we will do it. You will learn whatever he can teach you. Apply yourself like you did when you became an Ender and use his tools to your own advantage. You will not let him beat you.”
“And if I am too weak?” That old fear, who would have thought it still resided in me? Yet it reared its head out of nowhere, the pain making me open to the old hurts like nothing else. My barriers had broken down with the pain radiating through me. “What if I become that useless elemental again who cannot protect her family?” The words flowed along with the tears. “I could not bear that.”
“You will never be too weak, Lark. You never have been weak.” She curled her head over and rested it on the side of my face. “You are smart and resourceful, so when you think you are too weak, remember that you have skills many do not. That despite the odds, you have always risen to the task. You will always rise, Lark. One day you will fly.”
I breathed out a sigh that turned into a groan. Her words soothed my soul, but not my body. “Peta, I cannot make this pain go away.”
“You are not healing at all?”
“No.”
She was quiet a moment, and I could feel through the bond her concern. “Perhaps there is more to this than just how much pain you can handle. Or trying to keep you quiet. If he is truly training you.”
Her words resonated with me and a slow suspicion began to grow.
This was a test of mind over matter. A way to show that I could handle whatever hardships came my way. That if I were caught by Viv, I would be able to work through the pain she gave me.
“It will go when it will go, Lark. I am here with you, breathe through it.”
The sharp and aching pulse grew with each breath no matter that Peta was trying to help. There was no easing, only a growing crescendo.
“What if… he wants me to… beg?” The words were hard to get out, as much because of the pain as of what I was saying.
“No begging. You can do this.” She began to purr softly, and the rumble of her energy flowed into me, easing the hurt a little.
Talan wanted me to beg him to stop, to submit myself to him, to tell him I couldn’t do it without his help. I knew it in my gut. I’d had worse injuries than this that didn’t hurt near as bad, injuries that I’d fought through despite the pain. Whatever comfort Peta’s presence had given me was slipping away second by second until my mind was numb. I would have kissed Talan’s feet if he’d appeared right then.
That image was enough to make me grit my teeth against the continued agony. “And if… it is… a test?” I could barely speak now.
“Of your fortitude or your willingness to ask for help?” Peta asked.
“Worm shit,” I groaned the words. “I… don’t know.”
A soft knock on the door, and Peta let out a low rumbling growl as she twisted to face it. Her whole body vibrated, shaking the bed. “Raven. Get away from her,” she snarled.
“I came to offer help with the pain,” he said. “I do care for her, Peta, much as I know neither of you will believe that.”
Peta didn’t move, but I could feel her tense beside me. I tightened my hold on her. “Let him come.” Through the bond, I tried to calm her. The hurt was so bad that I would almost welcome death if that was what he would offer me.
Peta gasped and I squeezed her as hard as I could. I didn’t truly mean the words.
Raven came around the side of the bed so he faced me. Those blue eyes I knew so well. Yes, I could see glimmers of Pamela in him, especially now that I was comparing the two.
He and I had been children together, played in the forest together; he’d defended me when I’d been in the Spiral and had to face his mother, Cassava. All the more reason his betrayal had cut me so deeply. I’d loved him; he’d been my favorite of all my siblings and it had meant nothing to him.
“Why?” That was the only word I could come up with, and yet it encompassed everything between us.
He settled into a crouch, his cloak flaring out around him. The wounds on his face were slowly healing, and his nose was no longer trickling blood, though there was a smear of it on his cheek as though he’d tried to wipe it away. The smell of the mountains clung to him, ice and snow and frozen fir trees. He clenched his hands into fists several times, and finally he spoke. “Would you believe I did it all to help you survive?”
Despite the pain coursing through me, I did laugh, even though I paid for it. Like a thousand tiny teeth slicing into my innards, the hurt came in a crashing bite. I clutched at my body with one arm and clung to Peta with the other. “Try again.” I spat the words out as I spoke through the throbbing in my body, surprised blood did not fly with the spit.
Faster than I could move away, one of his hands shot forward and caught mine—the one I had wrapped around my middle. Peta snarled and lurched forward but Raven lifted a hand to her, blocking her. The color of power on his arm was one of the lightest pink, the lines coiling tightly around his skin, so without being this close, it would be hard to discern. “Peta, I don’t mean her harm.”
“That’s new,” I said, but the words had no edge to them. The pain was easing in my body as he repaired whatever it was Talan had done to me.
Slowly, he pulled his hand back. “I know that right now you don’t trust me. But everything will be explained soon. And then maybe we can start again?”
Peta growled and I snorted as I pushed myself into a sitting position, my body fatigued as though I’d been going through Ender training for weeks without rest or food. The crushing pain was gone, but I knew I would be slow if it came to another fight.
Raven rocked back onto his heels. “You asked me why. The answer is far more complicated than the question.”
“Try.” I stared at him. Tried to see if he was lying to me or not, to see if he used Spirit to manipulate me. Just the thought of him in my head sent anger coursing hot through my skin and nerve endings.
He didn’t move. “It is a long story, if you are willing to hear it all. And it started long before either of us was born. Before Cassava and Ulani, before even the Veil was created.”
A chill swept down my spine. Not because of what he said, but because I could see, and feel, he was telling the truth. Shit sticks, I wanted every word out of his mouth to be a lie. At least then, I would know where I stood with him.
I drew a breath. “You came in here because Talan told you to, then?”
He shook his head. “Actually, no. He told me to let you decide when you were done suffering. I’ve trained with him, Lark, and I know which of his methods will work for you and which will just make you dig your heels in. I know you and I know him. This will not go well for either of you.”
He grinned and a flicker of my younger brother was there, the one who’d laughed with me as we’d stolen pies from the kitchen in the Spiral. “You can handle more pain than anyone. I knew you’d not buckle under this—his methods will only piss you off. It’s why I told him I had to be here to help you train. Not because I’m better than him, but because I know you better than he does, which means I have a better chance at training you.”
I didn’t like that, once more, his words were true. I didn’t want him to know me, to know my strengths and weaknesses. Not when I wasn’t sure I knew him at all.
“But the rest of the story, it’s best told by Talan. He knows more of it than anyone else. He’s only told me bits and pieces, but that was enough to convince me to help him. To help turn me against Viv.”
Peta flicked her tongue out and licked her chops. “That’s what Talan thinks. Stupid boy that he is, he does not know as much as he believes. Even he cannot be that arrogant.”
I twisted and looked at her. I mean, truly looked at my companion and familiar. It was easy to forget she was far older than she looked, and that she’d been there at the beginning with Talan.
She shook her head, picking up on my thoughts through the bond. “No, I wasn’t there at the beginning with him. The mother goddess… well, I guess she never was truly that, but still at the time I thought that’s who she was… she gave me to him when I was a kitten. He’d already lived a long time.” She closed her eyes. “Sometimes I go back to that moment when I was given to him, and I wonder what was in his eyes. Was he happy? Or was he condescending because maybe he thought he didn’t need me? Or did he think I was a plant, a spy for her?” A shudder ran along her coat and I tightened my arm around her.
Her questions rippled through my mind. “Perhaps you were meant to be a peace offering? Or perhaps at that point, she truly thought she was the mother goddess. What do you remember of them speaking when you were handed off?”
She squeezed her eyes shut so tightly, wrinkles formed around them. “Viv said, ‘You have been alone too long, and I fear for you.’”
I frowned. “And his response?”
Peta’s eyes flickered open. “He thanked her and took me from her. It was very… formal. I would not have thought anything of it until now.”
I rubbed a hand over her back. “I don’t think it matters now, Peta. Whatever her reasons were, your journey brought you to me. Don’t regret any of it.”
She bobbed her head. “You are right.” In a blink, she shifted to her housecat form and leapt up to my shoulder. “Let’s go see what Talan has to say for himself, then.”
I stood at the same time as Raven. He was a little shorter than me, and I glared down at him. “Back up.”
The twinkle that had always been in his eyes, like he was joking about something even if you weren’t in on it, was not there. I wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I decided on good. Maybe he was finally being honest with me. He did as I asked, though, giving me room.
Peta clung to my shoulder and along my back, her tail lashed side to side. Her emotions that cut through the bond were sharp, angry, and distressed. I lifted a hand to her head and rubbed her neck. “Don’t worry, we’ve been through worse.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Her words were soft enough that there was no way Raven could hear. “In the past, you faced enemies that were enemies. These two… I don’t know about either of them. Which makes this situation perhaps the most dangerous you’ve ever been in because we may have to trust them and not trust them at the same time.”
I agreed with her, but said nothing out loud.
Raven moved up beside me as we walked through the carved tunnels, the glittering quartz reflecting enough light that we didn’t walk in shadows.
“Why didn’t you kill me in the Eyrie?” Raven’s question caught me off guard.
“I was going to. You disappeared, remember?”
“I do recall that, but you took your time. You pronounced your intention, you claimed Ender status and judged me. You didn’t have to do all that. You could have just killed me.” He pointed out what I already knew.
Despite all that he’d done, despite the hatred I had for him and for whatever part he’d had in Ash being turned into a golden eagle, I was not sure I wanted to kill more of my family. “I’ve killed two of our siblings and our father. Do you not think that is enough to ask of any one person?”
“You did not kill Keeda.”
“I might as well have. Perhaps what I did to her was worse yet. At least she is in peace now.” I’d stolen her mind from her with Spirit, and then she’d been killed later, unable to defend herself. I stared ahead, refusing to look at him.
“You had more reason to kill me than any of the others,” he pointed out.
I spun and pinned him against the rough wall of the tunnel between one heartbeat and the next. “And I still have the same reasons now. But for some reason, I stupidly gave myself over to Talan and I am trapped here with you. Let me be very clear,” I pressed my forearm across his neck until his face turned purple, “there will always be a part of me that hates you. And there will always be a part of me that loves you for the brother you were.”
I let him go. “And I am holding back now only because I must learn from Talan. And he said no fighting, brother.”
I left him in the hallway, bent over, clutching his throat. We both knew he could have used any of his abilities to push me off, but he hadn’t. Which only made me wonder at the game he played, because I doubted Talan had cut him off from his abilities as he’d done to me.
Stretching my legs despite the fatigue that rocked me, I covered the last of the ground that took me to the room with the water pouring through the middle. Talan was there, as before, as if waiting for me. He sat on a protrusion of rock that looked carved into a chair for him. Like a stone throne. He looked up as I came in and frowned as he looked me over. “Raven healed you?”
I nodded.
His frown deepened and we just stared at one another. “Well, so much for that lesson.”
From behind me was the sound of Raven catching up, coughing as he walked. “Yeah, she was very grateful.”
I glared at him as he walked by me, rubbing his throat. I’d not hurt him badly, just cut off the air to his brain. “Drama queen.”
His eyes popped wide and a rough laugh burst from his lips. “See? I knew we could still get along.”
I didn’t want to feel that budding warmth of a laugh, so I squashed the emotion and took another step toward the water in the center of the room. “Talan, Raven says you two are going to explain to me just what in the goddess’s name is going on.”
With a heavy sigh, he nodded. “Damn your Terraling stubbornness. Fine, I will tell you the whole story.”
Peta snorted. “You aren’t that old. Raven says it goes back to before the Veil was created.”
Talan smiled at her. “Peta, you kept me company for many years, and you are probably the best familiar I have ever had despite the fact you were given to me as a spy.”
Peta gasped and he nodded.
“I cleared your mind of what she would have you do, so you were free to be yourself.” He smiled at her. “But I digress; you are not the first familiar I have had in my life. You weren’t even the second.”
Irritation flickered across her cat lips, like she’d smelled something rotten. “How old are you?”
He grinned and stood up from his throne—because now that I could see it, that was exactly what it was. “Lark is good at guessing games, but I will help a little. I was there when the Veil was created. I was there when the false mother goddess rose to power. She tried to confine me like she confined my siblings.” His violet eyes glittered, not with malice, but with humor.
I stared at him, his words sinking in slowly. The pieces of his past, of what he was saying coming together in an impossibility. He was right, I was good at figuring things out, but I had to be wrong about this. I had to be.
“No.” I breathed the word and his grin widened.
“I knew you of all elementals would guess this truth. If you could guess that Viv was the false mother goddess, that she was the one behind things, there was no way you wouldn’t figure out who I am if I gave you a few clues.” He took more steps and ran a hand through the rushing water. “Who am I, Lark? Even Raven hasn’t figured that out.”
My head whipped sideways to look at Raven. He shook his head. “I have no idea. He’s played this game with me, too.”
“The Veil was created by Spirit, by those humans we call Trackers now. But you helped them, didn’t you?” I arched an eyebrow at him.
Talan nodded. “Keep going, you’re almost there.”
I was shaking, because I struggled to believe even though the evidence was there. No, that wasn’t true. “Trackers are descendants of the first Spirit Walker.”
“Good, you’re getting there.”
No, no, no. This could not be. “You have no proof,” I said, my throat tightening on the words.
Raven and Peta both stared at me. But it was Raven who spoke. “Proof of what?”
“He’s…” I shook my head and started again. “Talan is one of the original five. The last born of the true mother goddess.”
Talan swept low into a bow from his waist. “Youngest and most troublesome of the five forebears of the elementals, at your service.”