CHAPTER 20
I was shaking as I stood at the edge of the Rim with Cassava holding Ash on her arm. “He has been kept safe, Lark, all these years. But… I am not sure you can bring him back.”
My heart twanged and my jaw tightened. “No… he can’t be brought back. It would mean his death.”
She took a step and transferred him to my bare shoulder as though I’d said nothing. Peta peered around the back of my head at him. “We have seen firsthand what happens when you try to shift an elemental out of a shape. It’s not possible when there has been any significant time.”
Cassava took a few steps back and shook her head. “Not all minds can handle the shift in shape. That is why not all elementals find that ability. They are all capable, but they must trust themselves and the power the mother goddess has given each of us… Ash does not trust easily. This would be his shape if he were able to shift on his own.”
Her eyes were sad, and for a moment, I wanted to reach out and strangle her. “You did this to him.”
“No, Raven did,” she said softly. “Ash was dying, and without our intervention, he would have bled out on the mountain. Viv was close. She knew Ash’s importance to you and was going to twist him to her own uses. This was how Raven chose to protect him. If he’d just healed him, Ash would have been taken by Viv and you truly would have lost him. This was the only way for him to even have a chance at coming back to you.”
Her words had the ring of truth. “Damn it.” I bowed my head even as I reached up and carefully touched Ash’s back, feeling him there. If I stayed where we were one second longer, I would lash out. I could feel the rage building from the soles of my feet up to my throat.
Because there had been a great deal of time between then and now that Raven or Cassava could have brought Ash back. As soon as they were away from Viv.
“She would have known, Lark,” Cassava said, as if reading my mind. “She sought him out. He was the one, she knew, who could break you. The one you would have done anything to save.”
My jaw ticked hard and I struggled with the words. “You’re saying you kept him like this to what? Protect me?”
Cassava nodded. “Yes.”
Pain lanced through me, pain that Ash was trapped… all to keep me safe. I could not look at Cassava another second longer. I called Spirit to me and bent it around us, taking us away from the Rim. And yet again, the memories of another’s mind caught me off guard as we rode Spirit away from her words. The scenes that tugged at me and held me tightly were not Peta’s, but Ash’s as we swept away from Cassava, Griffin, and the Rim.
*
I saw Ash flying, and felt the joy he had in it, the feeling of wind over his wings and the sense of freedom he carried with him in those moments. The hatred for Cassava in the beginning of his time with her, and then the growing understanding as she poured out her heart to him, explaining everything. He was her only companion in all those years, her only connection to a world she was trying to save and he fought her words. He fought her truth. And then finally succumbed to it.
He accepted his fate to be chained not only to Cassava, but as an eagle forever. To never truly be free.
*
I broke out of the memories and onto a sandy beach I knew very well, the beach where Cassava told me my little brother was buried. This beach was where Bella and I had stood on my first mission as an Ender. To protect my sister as she went into the Deep as a diplomat so many years ago. The first time I’d let my rage take hold of my power and created a tsunami that had almost killed us both.
Was it because Bramley was somewhere near, that I’d found my first true grasp of power here? Another time I would have looked for his grave, but not right then. Not when I was shaken by the memories that had danced through me.
Ash’s memories were disjointed and scattered like those of someone who no longer knew how to think like a human, and that made my legs shake as though I’d been running for days. “Peta, what do I do?”
Peta leapt from my shoulder and glanced back at me, her big green eyes full of sorrow, her paws sinking into the sand. “I don’t know. I think… I think that only the mother goddess could help now.”
I bowed my head, and Ash jumped off and bounced on the sand, lifting one taloned foot and then the other.
“Mother goddess…” I didn’t get any further than that.
He will return to you as a man, Lark. But not yet, not until your task is completed.
“My task is to free your children, and now Olivisha is dead.”
There is more than one way to give a soul freedom.
Silence after that.
“You heard her?” I looked to Peta, who nodded.
“I did.”
“Ash,” I reached out and slid my hand over his back, “will you trust me to bring you back? To wait a little longer?”
He dropped his head, hopped forward, and pressed his beak to my cheek as a soft trill slid from his throat. A tear crept down my face. “Thank you.”
“Now that you have that settled,” Peta cleared her throat, “what are we doing here?”
I dropped to my knees. “I’m not sure, exactly. I just know I need to find the original elementals. Talan says he can’t, that only Viv knows where they are.”
“And?”
I bit my lower lip. “I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s hear it.”
I gathered my thoughts, putting them in order. “If I use Spirit to Travel directly to Viv—”
“You’re right, I don’t like it,” Peta said.
“Let me finish.” I swallowed hard because I didn’t truly like the plan either. “If I go to Viv, grab her, and use Spirit to Travel with her, I can see her memories. Maybe I can force her memories of where she hid the others to show me.”
Silence met my words. I looked down at Peta to see her eyes half shut. “The theory is good, but if it works, why not just Travel directly to each of the elementals then that are hidden? If we can Travel directly to a person?”
I blinked several times. “I thought about that. They are in oubliettes, blocked from the world and their power. How could Spirit find them then?” Understanding flowed through me. Spirit was what held the world together, all the pieces, all the connections like muscle, tendons, and ligaments holding the bones of a body to one another.
“Damn it,” Peta whispered. “She will kill you on sight. You know that.”
“Yes, I do.” I lifted Ash from my shoulder, taking his weight onto my wrist. His eyes were unblinking as he watched me. As though he was silently judging me. “Go to Finley. Bring her here, my love.” I swept my arm upward, giving him a boost into the air. His wings swept down in a great draft, the feathers brushing against my face like the touch of his hands.
I would not cry. I could not. “This has to happen fast. I will go to Viv and you will wait here on Finley.”
“Why?” Peta stuck a paw out and jabbed me with her razor claws. I winced and crouched down to her.
“Because if I am wrong, you are the only one who knows what is going on. And I don’t think Viv will kill me, not yet. I carry Olivisha’s flame and life, and she needs it.”
“That is banking a great deal on a guess,” Peta spat at me. Irritation and fear slid through our bond.
I held a hand out to her. “Peta, I will come back.”
She hunched her shoulders. “Damn you for leaving me behind again.”
Her words cut into me worse than her claws. I jerked back as if she’d slammed a paw across my face. “Peta, it’s not like that.”
“It is. And you know it.” She sat on the sand and closed her eyes. “Go then, if you’re going.”
I hated that she was angry with me. But I knew I was right about this. I needed to Travel with Viv without worrying about accidentally leaving Peta somewhere if Viv separated us, or by getting her memories instead of Viv’s.
Mouth tightly in a thin, hard line, I backed from her as I called up Spirit and wove it through my body. I thought about Viv, about how her true form looked, and I released Spirit, letting it snap through me and take me straight to the elemental who wanted nothing from me but my death.
I didn’t have far to go.
I blinked and was inside the Deep, in Finley’s private quarters. I was two steps behind Viv as she bent over Finley.
“You will destroy the humans on the water, shedding their blood to the very last drop.” Lines of pink swirled around Viv and Finley both.
Finley nodded. “It will be done, mother goddess.”
I leapt forward and slammed into Viv, weaving Spirit through us both and sweeping us away from the Deep. The original elementals, where have you hidden them? I screamed the question in my mind as I took us far across the world, into the deep snow of the Himalayas.
Her memories floated to me, slowly, in pieces.
Of all she’d done to hurt the world in her misguided beliefs that she should rule.
Of hiding Olivisha deep within the lava flows on the island of Hawaii.
Of making her pact with Talan to have access to his power.
I gasped as we emerged from Spirit holding us tightly, standing thigh deep in the icy snow.
I didn’t give Viv a chance to do anything, but swept us away again to another place. I did what Raven had done, flying us along over and over, each time screaming the same question at her mind.
But she caught on, blocking me.
You will never get it from me.
I redoubled my efforts, hammering at her mind with everything I had.
Time slid by and my energy began to flag. I knew I was going to be in trouble. At the next stop, I let her go, spun away and sent myself back to the sandy shore near the Deep.
I landed on my knees, then fell forward to my hands as well. I gagged several times, dry heaving because of the exertion.
“What happened?” Peta asked before I could even gather myself.
I shook my head. “How long was I gone?”
“An hour, maybe more.” Her fear for me cut through the state I was in. I held a hand out to her and gathered her close to me. Ash was with her on the sand, but he did not close the gap between us.
“I’m sorry. I had to try.”
“I know, stubborn dirt girl,” she whispered.
I burst out laughing. I couldn’t help it. “You haven’t called me that in a long time.”
“Maybe I should start again.”
I struggled to sit back on my ass and rubbed a hand over my face. I held a hand out to Ash and he hopped onto my wrist. From there, I set him on my shoulder. “Finley wouldn’t come, would she?”
He shook his head side to side, his eyes never blinking. A sigh slid from me.
“Well, I can find Viv easily enough, for what good it will do us.”
“But then why doesn’t she just come after you? I mean, if you can go to her directly, why doesn’t she just do the same with you, or Talan or Raven for that matter?”
It was a good question. “I don’t know.”
It hit me then that I’d found Viv inside the Deep. I rubbed a hand over my face. “Peta, I’m going to try something.”
“Wonderful,” she muttered. “Now I know how a guinea pig feels.”
I wove Spirit around us, and took us directly to Finley.
The leader of the Deep was still in her private quarters. Her eyes were slightly fogged over and she sat on the edge of her bed. The deep blue skirts swirled around her legs almost as if they were water itself. I crouched in front of her and gently wove Spirit into her mind.
“Finley, you must not kill the humans. Don’t start a war with them.”
She jerked away from me, coming out of the fog in an instant. “Lark, what are you doing here?”
I repeated the words, pushing harder with Spirit. I didn’t truly know what I was doing and the last thing I needed was to harm my friend.
“You are being manipulated,” I said. “And I am trying to show you the truth.” I held my hand out to her, knowing in the past just my touch was enough to break the hold of Spirit on someone.
But not this time.
“She said you would try to stop me.” She threw the words at me. “You have turned from the mother goddess, Lark.”
She swept her hands out and I saw the intention in the lines of power.
Finley was going to drown me.