CHAPTER 2
Breaking the Veil.
While Shazer flew higher, I kept my eyes on Pamela as I let the words sink in. The reverberation from the earth that I’d felt in my bones, the power and pain of the world crying out—I’d known nothing good could have come from that. But breaking the Veil? Was it even possible?
“Raven set you up to this.” The words slid from my lips before I could even fully process them.
Pamela’s blue eyes hardened. “I chose to do it, knowing the consequences.”
Worm shit. I looked over her head, between the Pegasus’s ears. There was more to this story than Pamela just breaking the Veil. I was sure of it.
“Shazer, how long before we reach the waterfall where Talan wants us?” I asked.
He flicked his ears a couple of times. “I think maybe a few hours at most.”
“Then, Pamela, you have time to explain to me why you did what you did.” I tried my best to keep my words even, and nonjudgmental.
She was quiet a moment, struggling to find the words. “I… the mother goddess told me to.”
Of course, the mother goddess—the true mother goddess—had spoken to me, too.
“Any idea why?”
Pamela shook her head. “No. I went with Raven on my own. He taught me how to use my powers, taught me to weave them together. But when it came down to it, I wasn’t sure I should open the Veil. The mother goddess told me to go ahead, that I had to break the Veil.”
“And then she told me to save you,” I said softly. “So for whatever reason, this had to happen. I believe you.”
A tiny sob slipped from her. I tightened my hold around her.
“Did he hurt you?”
“What?” She turned confused eyes on me. “Who?”
“Raven.”
“No, he… he saved me from the Guardian that came through the Veil. It was coming for me because I was the one to open it.” She shook her head. “He would never hurt me.”
She said it with such sincerity that it was obvious she believed her own words.
The idea of Talan getting his hands on the young witch was enough to make me hesitate. Obviously, he had a thing for power, or he wouldn’t have tried to take me as he did. I couldn’t risk him getting his hooks into her too. I just didn’t trust him.
“Pamela, is there somewhere you can go? Somewhere away from here? I think Rylee will need some time to come to grips with what happened.”
She hunched her back further. “You don’t want me to stay with you?”
I drew a breath and let it out slowly, knowing the prickly footing that came with teenagers all too well. “I want you to be safe. The man with me with the dark hair, did you see him?”
“The one with the violet eyes?” She nodded. “I saw him.”
“He’s a Spirit Walker, an elemental who can control others through their minds. I don’t know what he would do if he got his hands on you. You are very powerful, and witches with great power are feared by some elementals.”
She frowned and shook her head. “I can’t be controlled by Spirit. It is one of the reasons Raven was willing to teach me.”
My turn to frown. “You could keep yourself free from Spirit when Raven tried to manipulate you?”
She nodded. “While he was surprised, I think maybe he wasn’t at the same time. It was strange.”
The frown did not leave my face. How could a child, a witch who had power in all five elements, be stronger at resisting Spirit’s call than me who had power in the true element itself? There was no jealousy on my part, just true confusion.
Peta cleared her throat. “Sometimes, one using Spirit finds it’s a struggle to control those within their bloodline.”
Pamela stiffened. “Perhaps that is the case.” From her arms came a soft purrp from the orange cat.
“Tell her, Pamela.”
Peta leaned over. “Tell us what?”
“Oka,” Pamela said softly. “I don’t know if that is a good idea—”
“Tell her.” Oka peered up at her charge with large pale blue eyes, then they widened as she took in me and Peta. She swallowed hard, almost like she was tongue-tied. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, and then again, she swallowed and spoke quietly. “I may not be the familiar that Peta is, but,” her words slowly grew in confidence, “Lark is your friend. She is the Destroyer. She needs to know.”
Chills swept through my body and my skin tingled with apprehension. “Tell me what?”
Pamela drew a breath. “I… Raven and I are related.”
If she’d turned and slapped me, I would not have been more surprised. “Related? How?”
She lifted her head and looked me straight in the eye, and while I could see she was being brave, I could also see the fear.
“He’s my father.”
It took all my strength not to tell her she was being an idiot, that he was lying to her. But the longer I looked at her, the longer I stared at the shape of her face, the distinct color of her eyes… “Smile,” I said softly.
She let her lips curl upward, and the smile didn’t touch her eyes. Shit, give her blue-black hair and she was a softer image of him indeed.
“The similarity is there,” Peta said. “Enough that I would believe it.”
I frowned.
“And he offered to train you because of your connection to him?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Asking nothing in return?”
It was her turn to frown. “He wanted the sword… but he left it behind back there.”
That didn’t make sense. I knew Raven wanted the sword. He’d tried to get it from me at the Battle of the Veil.
“You believe me about Raven being my father?” Her question caught me off guard.
“I do.”
“And you don’t hate me for it?”
I laughed softly. “Ah, Pamela. Family is complicated. And you are family. I don’t hold your parentage against you. I only worry he will use your obvious care for him against you.”
We were silent a moment. I shook my head. “No matter our connection, you still can’t come with me to Talan. Raven is strong in Spirit, you’re right about that. But Talan has more strength with Spirit than any other elemental I’ve ever met.”
“Even you?” She lifted an eyebrow back at me, and again, I was struck that she really did look like Raven. I’d just never been looking for the similarities before.
I nodded. “Even me. Right now, he is drawing both me and Shazer to him with Spirit. I have no say over it.”
To be fair, I wasn’t fighting the pull to him either. I wanted to face him head on with my eyes open and my strength intact. And when I was done with him, I would go back to the Rim and protect my family. As was my calling in this life.
Her eyes widened. “You can’t break his hold on you?”
I shrugged. “I’m not trying, right now. But I believe he is stronger than me, so it will be a full-on fight when I do attempt to throw his hold.”
Pamela’s eyebrows dropped, so far they nearly touched between her eyes. “I can Ride Spirit away from here. But I can only take one other person besides Oka.”
Confusion slid through me again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh.” She blinked up at me. “Riding Spirit, it’s a way to travel to any place. Or any person. You just,” she waved a hand around in a circular motion, “ride it.”
Irritation flowed through me but I schooled my face so she did not see it. That didn’t mean Peta didn’t pick up on it through our bond.
Peta cleared her throat. “Can you be more specific than that, Pamela?”
The young witch shook her head. “You just take hold of Spirit and feed it into your body and then think of where you want to go. Or who you want to go to.”
Around us the wind shifted, stopping our conversation. The sudden gust blew from the east and snapped our hair around us, tangling the ends. Shazer fought the wind, his wings beating hard to keep us from going off course.
“Shit, this is not natural.” He spit the words out the side of his mouth.
“I didn’t think so.” I twisted around, doing my best to get a bead on who was controlling the wind. A Sylph, no doubt.
But why would a Sylph be here, of all places, and why were they coming after me?
“They’re here for me,” Pamela said. “I helped Raven escape them. I helped him…”
“Escape me,” I breathed out, remembering him disappearing at my feet on the floor of the Eyrie. I’d had him right there, and then he was gone before I could drive home the final blow. I didn’t have to ask why she’d saved him.
Raven was her father, and Pamela had a heart that loved too deeply. She had saved him from me.
A sob caught in her throat. “I have to go. If I’m gone, they’ll follow me. If you need me, look to the north.”
She tightened her hold on her familiar, and lines of pink flowed over her body, bending and twisting in on her, and then she was gone before I could say anything, before I could even grasp what she’d done. It was the exact trick Raven and Talan used to move around.
A gift of Spirit.
But there was no time to take it in. At that moment, I had bigger problems to deal with than figuring out how to jump using Spirit.
“Lark, they’re still coming,” Shazer called out.
“Of course they are. They don’t know she’s gone.” I slid forward, readjusting my seat on his back. The pull to Talan was intensifying, drawing me even though I knew it was going to be a fight.
“Can you stop?” I asked him.
“I’m going to try. Talan’s pull is strong.” He grunted as he slowed his wings so we were treading air.
“I’m going to chat with them, see if I can talk them down,” I said.
Peta snorted. “Like that’s going to work. They’ll think you’re with Pamela and Raven.”
I sighed, knowing she was probably right. Sylphs were not known for their ability to forgive, or recognize that there were more points in a story than their own. Even so, I would try.
The Sylphs were sweeping in behind the battering ram of the wind that pushed and shoved at us. “Lark, I have to land, or they’re going to break my wings,” Shazer yelled over the blast of air.
“Do it!”
He tucked his wings in tightly and we dropped from the sky like the horse-sized stone we were. Peta screeched. “Some warning would be nice, nag!”
Her claws dug in hard to the leather shoulders of my vest, but I reached up and put a hand over her back anyway. I could hold on with my legs well enough for myself, but I knew the Sylphs would not save Peta if she fell.
The ground swept up toward us for the second time that day and I held my breath, waiting for that last second lurch that would be Shazer’s wings snapping out and catching us.
It never came.
The wind hammered down on us from above.
“They’ve pinned my wings!” Shazer screamed.
The ground was closer, closer. I reached out to it, softening it, hoping it would be enough. The image in my mind was all too clear.
Shazer hitting the ground, all four legs snapping, his body being crushed under its own weight as it hit the unforgiving stone. I couldn’t let that happen.
I put all I had into the earth, calling it, easing it until it was near liquid.
It was the best I could do.
I could only hope it would be enough. “Hang on, this is going to be a rough one,” I yelled over the wind, my words sweeping away from me.
The split seconds stretched and the ground reared up. Shazer tucked his legs to minimize the impact.
And then we hit and the world turned inside out.