03] ES) Firestorm (25 page)

On fire.

His element no longer protecting him.

What in the mother goddess’s name was going on?

You can save them all, Larkspur, if you are brave enough.
Her voice whispered to me. I wanted to shake my head but a small part of me wanted to believe her.

I grabbed Brand by the arm. “We have to assume that could happen to any of you. We need to get to Fiametta.”

The younger Ender, Jack by his hasty introduction, nodded. “That’s the plan. The queen is going to deal with this but she wants all her people with her.”

Brand herded his family after Jack. “Go with him. I want to see how deep this goes.”

Smoke’s eyes glistened. “Be careful, my love, I can’t lose you, too.”

He reached for her and they kissed, a mere brush of lip against lip and yet there was emotion enough that once more I felt I was witnessing something special, and intimate. I glanced away.

Ash touched my arm. “You need to get dressed.”

Without a word, I strode toward the house and tried not to think about the way the Ender had fallen to the lava. As if he were nothing--as frail and mortal as any human. How could that be? Our elements didn’t just leave us, they didn’t stop working for no reason.

I had my pants on and was tightening the straps on my vest as the thoughts racing through my head slowed, and with them my hands.

Peta leapt on the bed and put her paws on my chest. “I sense it in you. What have you thought of?”

I stared at the wall as my mind settled on the realization like a bird landing softly on the spindly branch of a too small tree. The weight of it slid over my shoulders. “Someone is blocking their ability. Just like my ability was blocked by Cassava when I was young,” I whispered the words. “It has to be the cloaked one. Blackbird.”

“That’s impossible,” Peta said. “You saw it yourself. He is an Undine who also carries Spirit and he also can reach the earth. And he is carrying a ring tied to fire. That would mean . . . three elements isn’t possible.” Yet her voice wavered at the end.

Ash stuck his head in, breaking up our conversation. “We have to move if we’re going to get to the Traveling room.”

Following Ash, who in turn followed Brand, we made our way to the far side of the living quarters to a ladder cut into the mountain. Brand gestured. “You three get up there. Peta, you can lead them to the Traveling room from there.”

She nodded, and leapt up several rungs to hang for a moment as she answered. “Hurry.”

Ash held his hand out to Brand and the fire elemental slowly took it. “The lava is rising fast, and the Traveling room lies below it.”

“Understood,” Ash said, letting go. “Be safe my friend.”

Brand turned away and I knew if he went, we wouldn’t see him again. Smoke would lose yet another piece of her heart.

I called after him. “Brand.”

He didn’t stop.

“Brand, you will break her if you do this. She deserves better.”

His whole body stiffened. The air in the cavern thickened with black smoke and I thought he wouldn’t turn.

“Damn you, Terraling.” He spun toward us and pulled himself up the ladder after Peta who scrambled ahead of him.

I climbed after him, Ash on my heels and I realized we were missing someone. “Cactus, where is he?”

“The queen asked for him while you were out,” Ash answered and then there was no air for questions, barely air for breathing.

At the top of the ladder, the thick smoke hung dark enough to dim the glittering light that lit the tunnels. Brand didn’t reach back for me, which was fine. I crawled over the lip of the ladder, coughing as I struggled to breathe. Ash wasn’t doing any better and we scooted forward until the air cleared a little.

Brand led us toward the Traveling room, stopping at the stairwell that led down to it. I peered past him to stare at the bubbling lava that curled up the steps toward us. That made the decision easy. No going home that way.

He didn’t pause though. “The queen has a backup pair of armbands in her chambers. She’ll let you use those. I don’t know where they will take you though.”

“Unless she’s using them to get her people out of here,” Peta said softly, padding ahead of us at a steady trot. She seemed totally unperturbed by the events slowly piling up. Events that had no real meaning I could see other than to wipe out the Salamanders.

The facts seemed to be that someone was trying to kill them. And I was pretty sure I knew who. It was just a matter of whether or not I could stop him.

That was the real problem; how did I find the man who called himself Blackbird and kick his ass if he carried three elements within himself? Three elements he was strong enough in that he could easily take me out. Not to mention he also carried the ring that gave him power over fire.

Brand stopped suddenly and I almost walked into him, so deep within my own thoughts as I was.

The healer’s room doors were flung wide and while there was a bustling trade going on, there was almost no noise. Fiametta strode from table to table, talking to those patients laid out. Her hands brushed against cheeks, touched skin that wasn’t broken with heat blisters, gave comfort where she could.

Clearing his throat, Brand got her attention. “My queen, the Traveling room is cut off.”

“I see.” She walked toward us, her blue eyes cool. “I suppose you want the bands from my room.”

Brand nodded. “I can get them myself.”

“Do that.” Her words were soft, like the precursor of rain as clouds were driven in on high, silent winds. I braced myself, facing her head on.

“You think we did this somehow.”

Her eyes narrowed and I expected to see lines of power running up her arms, except there was nothing. “If I thought that, I would kill you myself right now. No, this is the work of the traitors. Which you have agreed to help me find. I suggest now that you are healed, you get on it.”

Ash shifted beside me and I recognized the pose. He was prepping a move that would allow him to leap up and drive both fists directly into Fiametta’s throat. Her eyes narrowed. Of course she would recognize it, being a former Ender. As much as I hated her for whipping me as she had, a part of me understood that it
was
the law. Even I couldn’t deny it.

I put a hand on his arm. Our eyes met and he relaxed—a little, anyway.

“I know who did this,” I said, just as Cactus stepped into the room. He had a long burn up his left arm and there was soot all over his face, which made his eyes stand out even more, but he was at least intact.

He gave me a wink and blew Ash a kiss. “Good to see you two made it out all right.”

“Don’t speak too soon, pet,” Fiametta said and then turned to me once more. “What do you think has been done, Terraling?” Her voice dropped into almost a coo, that I recognized for what it was.

Dangerous.

This was the tricky part, yet there was no nice way to speak the truth. I fought not to cross my arms over my chest; I had done nothing, and yet I felt like I was already defending myself. “Your power has been blocked. And that’s why your element has turned on you.”

Someone from the table to the right of us moaned. “The mother goddess has turned her eyes from us. We have offended her and now she will cleanse her children of their sins.”

Fiametta didn’t move. “How could you know this if you were not the one—”

“Because Cassava has done it to me in the past. It is possible, and it’s the only thing that makes sense. It is the power of Spirit being used on you.” I waved my hand at the room, and the people in it. “How else would you explain this? Your people burning in their own element? Your inability to reach your power? The firewyrms attacking for no reason? Your inability to
see
reason . . . all of it can be attributed to someone manipulating Spirit. I just never would have thought it could be used on this scale.”

The queen lifted her hand and there was a flicker of red tracing the inner edge of her arm. She was trying to pull on her power, but the lines flickered and died like a flame being snuffed. Her shoulder’s slumped. “Damn you for being right. This is why those who carry Spirit are killed on sight.”

Her back straightened as fast as it had slumped. “Ender,” she pointed at young Jack, “I want everyone out of the mountain. Immediately.”

He clapped his hands together, and barked out orders. “You heard her, everyone head to the entrance, take nothing but the clothes on your back.”

Smit, the healer who tended me several times, made eye contact with me. I jogged to his side and slid an arm around his patient, a young girl probably of an age with Stryker. “I can carry her.”

He nodded. “She can help you find the entrance.”

Peta shifted beside me. “I can take someone.”

Smit snorted. “Bad luck cat, I don’t think so.”

I put a hand on him, tightening my fingers over his forearm. “Her name is Peta, and if you call her a bad luck cat again, I will forget you are a healer.”

His eyes flicked between us. He swallowed hard. “I thought the rumor was wrong about her being your familiar. Pardon me.”

Peta snorted and I shifted the young girl to her back. Smit handed me two small kids with burns on the soles of their feet. Their tiny whimpers shot through me, piercing me to the core. What was the point of this, hurting children, making them suffer for something as materialistic as a crown? What did Blackbird truly hope to gain? Was it just the crown, or was I missing something?

En masse, we left the healer’s rooms, a long line of people that curled through the tunnels. In the distance was the sound of the ocean, only I knew it wasn’t water washing against the inside of the mountain, but lava roaring out of control. Ash was just ahead of me also packing a young man, his feet burned, piggy backed style.

“Ash, can you block the lava behind us?”

He shook his head. “No, I can’t reach my power either. Whatever is blocking the Salamanders isn’t choosy; it’s blocking every elemental.”

And there was too much fear in me to reach my anger and thereby reach the power of the earth. The idea traced along my mind that maybe I could use Spirit on Ash and unblock his ability but I knew so little. What if I hurt him?

I had to trust we would get out of this without my powers.

The silence of the walk was unnerving, and the farther we climbed, the more the tension rose. The heat off the lava flows slowly choked us.

The mountain rumbled and the hallway wall ahead exploded inward, and a long sparkling white body followed it through. The firewyrm was far bigger than Scar, easily the size of a small elephant, only longer. It swung its head toward the cowering elementals.

“Fiametta, you go too far this time.” He, and it was most definitely a ‘he’ by his deep voice not to mention his well-endowed male bits that hung low between his back legs.

Fiametta faced him, her hands on her hips.

“Kill it.”

Of course, she couldn’t understand him.

“Stealing our children, you filthy Salamander,” he roared, his voice loud enough that the walls and ceiling shook, rocks tumbling around us. I cringed and jiggled the two kids as they began to cry.

He roared again. This was going to get ugly if no one did anything, which by the way, Fiametta’s Enders started forward with their weapons would be the wrong kind of “anything.”

“Stop,” I yelled, placing the two children on the ground before running forward. I held my hands up. “Stop it, both of you.”

As if that was going to work. The firewyrm lunged forward, snapping at the Enders, his teeth as needle sharp as Scar’s had been, only ten times as long. Two Enders disappeared into his mouth with two crunches each. The remaining Enders backed until they were right in front of their queen.

“We cannot take him like this,” Maggie said. I hadn’t even realized she was with the group until she spoke, her hair pinned under a tight skullcap of black leather.

“Cactus,” Fiametta called, “blast him.”

That was the moment it became very clear why Cactus was so important to her. He could damage the firewyrms where the Salamanders with their fire only could not. His connection to the earth would allow him to actually puncture their hides.

Cactus was at her side and he shook his head. “This is not a fight I can help you with.”

The big firewyrm advanced on Fiametta and she held up her hand. He ignored her.

“You think you rule here, but your fear is what rules this place. You are no queen.” The lizard snarled and leapt forward with his mouth gaping.