Windburn

The Enders were on Noma in a flash. Three pointed spears fell on her at the same time. Boreas, the queen’s favored Ender, and two others.

Aria wavered to her feet. Boreas went to her side and helped her stand. “Thank you—”

“My queen, there is no need,” he murmured with a smug-ass smile on his lips.

She slapped him, hard enough to leave an imprint on his face. “You would have let her kill me. It was Larkspur who stopped her.”

Boreas’s face went white; with anger or shock, I wasn’t sure.

Aria drew in a breath, bent and took something from Noma’s body. “Terraling, you know what this is?” She held it out to me, a stone of blue that swam as though it held the ocean within it.

“Yes.”

“Take it to Finley. The girl will need it.” Aria threw it to me. I lifted my hand to catch the stone, but my fingers never touched it.

A gust of wind caught the jewel and sent it skittering across the floor at Samara’s feet. She bent and picked it up, but that wasn’t what drew my attention. From behind her, a figure stepped out of the shadows. The one person I would gladly kill, and whose grave I would gladly dance on. The one who’d stolen my family from me.

“Cassava.” I breathed out her name.

“Larkspur, so lovely of you to come. So predictable. He would not have done the same for you, I have made sure of it.” She reached behind her, grabbed someone and threw him forward.

My father sprawled on his belly, his eyes glazed over as if he were drugged with poppy seeds.

Peta stalked in front of me, her entire body fluffing up as her hair stood on end. “This is the bitch that hurt you. I will tear her throat out.”

“No,” I said. “She is mine, Peta. Mine alone.”

I tore my eyes from my father and looked at Cassava. “I am here, then. You’ve tried to kill me how many times, yet here I stand.” I spread my hands wide. “Perhaps now you want to see if you are stronger than me?”

She grinned. “You don’t wonder why I would meet you here?”

Aria answered her. “It has been a long time since elementals openly fought with their power, Cassava. Do not do this.”

I knew what Aria meant. Terralings truly battling would cause massive destruction. And the Eyrie would suffer for it.

Cassava sneered at her. “Old woman, will you or your people stop us? Or will you hold to the rules the mother goddess handed down that have slowly strangled our people?”

Aria stiffened. “We will not interfere. That is our way.” The Sylphs began to back away.

Cassava pulled a stone from around her neck. The emerald I’d given Bella. The emerald that would give the wearer power over the earth, or in the case of one who already had that connection, would boost it immensely.

Worm shit and green sticks, this was not a good turn.

The reality of what I was seeing set in. If Cassava had the emerald, what had happened to Bella?

It took everything I had not to run forward in a blind rage. “What did you do to her?”

“What makes you think I would hurt my oldest daughter?” Her sweetly laced words were venomous to my ears.

“I think you would destroy anyone who opposed you, even those to whom you gave life. You destroyed Raven.”

“You assume she didn’t simply hand this lovely gem to me. And Raven and I have a lovely relationship,” Cassava countered, her eyes glittering with malice as she licked her lips.

My father lifted himself up to his elbows, his eyes clearing a little. “Bella traded her life and the life of her child for the emerald, Lark.”

Cassava stepped up beside him, and kicked him in the side. He grunted, though I doubted her impact was all that hard. More likely he was already hurt. After two years in her care, he probably had his share of injuries.

Behind us, Aria whispered, “This will not go well for my Sylphs.”

I had eyes only for Cassava. “We are done with these games then, bitch. It is time you pay for your crimes.”

“I agree, at least on being done with the games. You have been in my way since the beginning. I regret not killing you then.”

I circled her, drawing the power of the earth to me until I fairly hummed with it. Her eyes flickered and the madness I’d seen in my father was reflected there. Mad. She was out of her mind from using Spirit the way she had; I knew it.

Cassava laughed. “Fool, just like your father. He thought he was strong enough to keep me in line. See him now as he grovels at my feet.”

Peta snarled and bared her teeth. “I am here, Lark. We do this together.”

She was right. Peta could stand with me, she was a part of me. Cactus made a move and I swung my spear to block him. “No. No matter what happens, do not step in.”

“Lark, do not—”

The ground under him bucked, and sent him flying across the throne room.

I whipped my spear around and pointed it at Cassava. She lifted her hands over her head in mock surrender, a smile on her lips. “Little Larkspur. I do believe it is time for you to be with your mother.”

Her words rang in my ears. With my mother. But not with Bramley? Her smile widened. “That’s right, half-breed. He lives. But not if you do not bow to me.”

CHAPTER 23

Lies, she had to be lying. But it was Aria who snapped me out of the fog of Cassava’s words. “She will say anything to stay your hand, child of the earth. She knows you rival her power. Even while she holds the emerald.”