CHAPTER 25
I followed Viv, Riding Spirit, locking onto her rather than a place, and letting the element take me to wherever it was she had gone. Once more we were back in the mountains where the Eyrie existed.
And Viv was waiting for me.
I blinked into existence as she thrust a knife into my belly, gutting me in a swift and vicious move that would have made any Ender proud. She yanked it out and held it up, the blade dripping.
“You see?” She leaned in close. “Even I know there is more than one way to skin a cat.”
I blinked up at her, grabbed a hold of her face and squeezed until her jaw cracked. She screamed and my fingers dug into the oozing flesh.
The final stones tumbled from her fingers and into the snow. I let her go, fell to my knees and grabbed them.
“I may die, but not before I end you.” I clutched the stones in one hand, and the belly wound in the other.
With all the strength in me, I crushed the stones, shattering the last of their power that was held within.
Viv screamed, her head thrown back as she arched away from me. What was it like, having the elements torn from you? I fell backward, cushioned in the snow as I stared up at the slow-moving clouds. I knew I had to finish her. I knew it was not over, not yet.
I rolled to the side and looked where she knelt staring at her hands. I wove Water and Air around her, the two elements coming to me easily now, as though somehow I’d proven myself to them.
I drew air and water from Viv until she was nothing but a husk.
Take them all from her, Talan said. Strip her of everything, for until you do, she will be able to hide away and regain strength.
“I took some from her already.” I groaned the words.
No, you must take her body and reduce it to the elements. All five must be broken away. That was Frost, his voice reassuring.
I bowed my head and pushed to my knees with one hand. Across the snow, Peta bounded in huge leaps, her green eyes wide with fear. “Lark!”
I waited for her, and took her push of energy to heal up the worst of the belly wound. At least I would not have my guts spilling on the snow.
“We are almost there, cat,” I said. “Almost there.”
With Peta at my side, I stood over Vivica.
She reached for Spirit, and I did too. Only I was faster.
I raised Spirit and wove it around her in a maelstrom of power, so fast and hard that she was lifted from the ground. With every shred of strength I had in me, I slammed Spirit into her, cutting her off from the two elements she had been born with.
Her scream rent the air, echoing into the mountains, and an answering cry coursed back to us. The sound of running feet, but I cared not.
I let Vivica drop to the ground, as helpless as any human who’d ever lived. She stared at me in shock, her face gaunt from loss of water, her skin pulled tightly so she looked like nothing more than a skeleton. “Impossible,” her thin lips whispered.
“That is not the word to use with me.” I was proud I could speak past the tears that dripped down my cheeks, past the pain eating me from the inside out. My family was dying in the Rim, Ash was gone, and I was afraid that without all of them, there was no reason to stop the humans.
What was this world without love? Without the ones who made you whole?
From the side of the mountain rushed the furred bodies of the Yeti tribes. I knew they existed, even if I had never met them.
One stepped forward, saw Ash, and fell to his knees with a howl.
“No, not my friend!”
The other Yeti looked uncomfortable, but they didn’t back away. From my side, Peta called to the big snow monster.
“Norm.”
He lumbered over to Ash’s body, crouched, and put a hand on Ash’s face. “Who, who did this to my friend?”
Peta’s eyes looked past me to Viv. “That one.”
Norm spun around, his face twisting into a grimace that made him the fearsome creature of lore I’d been taught about as a child. More deadly than ogres when they were riled, the Yeti were creatures of death.
I held a palm out to him, stopping him. “She is my kill.”
His eyes dropped to me, the snarl on his face not lessening. “He was my friend.”
“Ash is my mate,” I said, refusing to speak of him in past tense. “He is the other half of my soul.”
Peta let out a hiss. “She’s running.”
I kept my eyes on Norm, knowing that Viv would not get far. I’d reduced her next to nothing. “Catch her, and bring her to me alive.”
He grinned. “Now that is a prank I like.”
He was off in a flash, flying past me on limbs that stretched out easily on the snow.
I walked slowly to where Ash lay. I went to my knees and pulled his upper body into my arms. I buried my nose against his neck and breathed him in.
Peta did not try to get between us. She never had. I held him while I listened to Viv scream and the Yeti, Norm, snarl.
“He is dragging her back. You must finish this.” Peta put a paw on my arm, drawing me to the land of the living.
I gently laid Ash on the snow, smoothing out the hair on his forehead. I had no words for him because I didn’t know how to say goodbye. I didn’t know how to let him go.
I stood, pushing to my feet.
Norm shook Viv hard. “I think I broke her back. That’s a good prank, isn’t it?”
Her body flopped like a marionette with cut strings. I could heal her if I wanted, and have him hurt her over and over.
That wasn’t me, even if I was good at killing.
I drew a breath, the icy air steadying me. “Mother goddess, what is your will?”
Viv frowned; perhaps the only movement left to her was her face. “You would call me—
The true mother goddess spoke and her words reverberated through the mountains. Her death is assured. End her life, Larkspur. Rid the world of one who has caused so much harm. I hold my children again, and their power will not be lost to the world. Their children will live on even though they no longer walk the world.
Viv’s eyes were wide. “Mother goddess, you mistake me. I meant no harm. I meant only to rule in your name.”
Norm shook her hard. “Shut your filthy mouth, liar, liar, pants on fire.”
I walked over to her. “Your sentence has been given.” I put my hand out and used Spirit to pull her soul apart, the same way I’d done with the gargoyles and Finley. “You will be cast back to the elements. It is a far kinder death than you deserve.”
Piece by piece, she unraveled in front of me until there was nothing but a pile of sand. Her death was quiet and about as anti-climatic as it could be. “You deserve no fanfare,” I whispered. “You deserve to be forgotten like the leaves that fall from the trees to be replaced by others.”
I stared down, feeling all the original elementals’ power coursing through me, untapped and waiting.
A big mitt dropped onto my shoulder, the warmth from it shocking and showing me just how cold it was here.
“Ash was my friend.”
I looked up into his eyes. “Thank you for being his friend.”
He bobbed his head. “We could bury him for you.”
“No, I will take him home.” I would bury him next to my mother.
The ones I loved most would keep each other company in death.
I put my hands over my face and sank to the ground.
A pair of arms wrapped around me, and then the dark warmth of a cloak and the weight of Peta being placed in my arms. “Lark, we can go home now. They need us there,” Raven said.
The world shifted and we were gone.