Firestorm

“This is not your fault, Lark. You can’t be expected to protect yourself and others, and not hurt those who attack you, even if they are your siblings. And you are still learning how to use Spirit. This was an accident.” She let me go. We sat in silence for a moment, a silence that I dreaded the breaking of.

“I know you are worried about Keeda, but there is a larger problem. Father is still missing,” she said. “We can’t find him anywhere. We’re thinking . . . about using a Tracker to find him.”

I blinked several times. “We?”

She blushed. “Okay, I was thinking of using a Tracker to find him. Your friend, Griffin, suggested it and I think he is right.”

“That’s breaking rules, Bella. Rules the mother goddess put in place for a reason. We aren’t supposed to even contact those in the supernatural world, never mind seek them out.” I stared at my sister, but she was right. We had to find Father, no matter what happened.

I stood. “That’s what you’re asking me, isn’t it? To find a Tracker and use them to find Father? To break the rules.”

She sat up straighter, a strange sort of royalty coming over her. “Yes, Ender Larkspur. I am asking you to do whatever you have to do to save our king. Save him, even at the expense of your own soul and the possibility of banishment. Will you do it?”

I looked into her gray eyes, saw the love for our father, and the love for me as her sister.

I went to one knee and bowed my head. “It will be done.”