Rootbound

Her jaw opened and closed. The gritty sound of dirt grinding on her teeth made me flinch.

“Taaaaake iiiiiit.” She held the wooden box out to me.

Peta shook her head, reached and grabbed at my arm with her big paw. “Don’t, you don’t know—”

She was right, I didn’t know what was waiting for me. “What if it’s something from Ash? A hint about where he is?”

Peta’s paw slid off me. “I don’t like this.”

Swallowing hard, I held my hand out and the corpse dropped the box onto my hand. I pulled away, sliding across the dirt and graves until I was the length of a sapling away from her.

The corpse stayed where she was, staring toward me with her empty eyes, her voice clearing as she spoke, changing into one I knew. “Use the stones within to replace those you take. When it is done, I will help you find your golden eagle.”

Golden eagle. Golden-haired child. I knew what the message was; the mother goddess would help me find Ash. Damn her, damn her through all seven levels of hell and back. She’d known I wouldn’t be able to resist coming to his grave, to see if he was actually in it.

Apparently she knew me better than I thought.

I flipped the wooden box open without another thought, and sucked in a sharp breath that tasted of dirt and molding death.

Five stones rested within the bare bones box. Emerald, sapphire, smoky diamond, ruby, and pink diamond. One for each of the five elements. I brushed a hand over them, feeling no connection to any of the elements. Just stones, then.

The corpse lay back, her mouth stopped moving and her body shuddered as she was drawn back into the earth. That was not something I did.

Peta stuck her nose into the box. “Are these what I think they are?”

“Yes, they’re fakes to replace the real ones.” I slid them into the palm of my hand. They glittered in the sunlight filtering through the trees. I’d held the real ones, and these were perfect replicas, down to the settings. Some were rings, others necklaces. I put them into the leather pouch at my hip and pulled it shut tightly.

“You ready to tell me what the mother goddess had to say, now?” Peta asked.

Her sarcasm was not lost on me.

“I’m to steal the stones from the rulers and take them to the mother goddess. Blackbird is hunting for the stones too, and . . . he’s lost his mind. If he gets them all, he’s going to tear the world apart.”

“Why would he do that? What good would it do for him to destroy this planet?” Peta asked. It was a good question.

“Perhaps that is part of losing his mind. Maybe he thinks he is a god now and can remake this world in his own image?” I shook my head. “Does it matter why? I only know that he plans to.” Then again, I was going by what the mother goddess told me. Call it a hunch, but I suspected I wasn’t yet getting all the truth from her either.

Peta sat on her haunches. Her jaw opened and closed several times, reminding me more than a little of the animated corpse. A shiver of premonition slid over me and I shook it off. There was no way Peta was going to die.

She squinted one eye. “I thought that was just a story.”

I stilled. “What do you mean, just a story?”

She hunched her shoulders. “A single line I read when I was with Talan, years ago. Yet it stayed with me because . . . well—”

I stared at her, fear creeping up my spine. “Just say it.”

Her eyes closed and she spoke. “When the world is broken and must be healed, the only recourse is to break it.”

I blinked several times. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“But if Blackbird read that, could he believe he is saving the world somehow?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. The only thing that matters is that we get to the stones before him.”

I sat where I was and dusted off my clothes while my mind raced ahead. Planning how I would make each theft happen. To take one stone from a ruler would be hard. To take all four? A near impossible task, because as soon as one was retrieved, I had no doubt the other rulers would be tipped off and be waiting for me. And the fifth stone? That one was hidden away, and I planned to keep it that way until the last possible second. I’d grab it before we left the Rim. At least that was my plan.

Peta looked up at me. “That means you need to take Bella’s stone. But she will give it to you if you ask. That, at least, will be easy.”

I grunted. “Did I forget to tell you that the longer the rulers hold the stones, the real ones, the crazier they get?”

Peta’s eyes fluttered. “Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?”

From the entrance to the graveyard, Shazer snorted, drawing our eyes to him. “Someone comes.”

The Pegasus shuddered, his head and wings drooped and his body shivered as he lay down where he was and closed his eyes.

I leapt to my feet. “Shazer?”

I turned, and Peta wobbled where she sat, her eyes softening as she fell asleep, slumping where she was into a lopsided ball.

The crack of a twig to my left snapped me into action. I grabbed my spear and spun, holding the weapon out in front of me. A man stood against the wall of thorns, his arms folded over his chest, his dark blue eyes thoughtful. He had dark hair that at first I thought was short, until he took a step and I saw the long swing of a braid down his back.

A shiver slid over my skin, the feel of something I knew rather well.

Spirit, he used Spirit on me.