Rootbound

“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.”