Ash (The Elemental Series, Book 6) (10 page)

Most times, the dungeon was used, as it had been in my case. The theory was the same: cut off the prisoner from his or her connection to their element, and they were in essence cut off from the mother goddess and her grace. In those moments of despair, they were to be humbled and as such, come to their senses.

But in Lark’s case . . . the oubliette had been a death sentence, a horrible, torturous way to die, as well as a way to hide her death from the world and from those who loved her. So we’d searched the surrounding area of the four elemental families, we’d gone to the desert, the deep ar
c
tic plateaus, and solitary islands that floated on the ocean with no luck.

In the end, it had been Peta’s idea to check the jungle. “It feels right. I cannot make more sense of it than that.”

I’d agreed, thinking that it no longer mattered, not in truth, and we’d gone to the southern jungle. And we’d found Lark, against all the odds, we’d found her.

I shook myself out of my thoughts. They weren’t going to help us now.

“Peta, are you sure you can’t fly? Can you not shift into some great winged beast that could help speed things up?”

She dropped to the snow beside me, sinking up to her belly. “Not last time I checked.” She lifted her nose and scented the air. “What makes you think Cassava is alive? Lark buried her under the mountain. While she is certainly strong, do you truly believe she could survive that?”

I started forward, working my way down the slope. For the moment, it was smooth and easy enough that there would be no vertical drops if I slipped. “I don’t know for sure. But the way Raven talked about her makes me think she’s not dead.”

Peta grabbed me with a paw. “Wait, stop right there. What do you mean the way Raven talked about her?”

I blinked several times and then frowned. “I thought I told you about Raven?”

“You most certainly did not. What about him?”

I opened my mouth to speak and the words stuck in my throat. Almost like I was being kept from saying them. “Shit.” Well, at least I could manage that much.

“Ash, he probably used Spirit on you to keep you from speaking about him to anyone. Goddess knows what else he might have told you to do!”

“Then why could I even say that little bit?” I frowned, struggling to remember when Raven had given me any instructions.

She shrugged, the spotted fur on her shoulders rolling. “Probably because you weren’t really thinking about it. The words just blurted out.”

I scrubbed a hand through my hair and started walking again. “Well, do you get the gist of what I wanted to say?” I was hoping she could make the connections.

Of course, she could; she was a cat.

She nodded. “Obviously Raven showed up at some point in your incarceration and you two had a chat. Whatever he said, you now believe Cassava could still be alive. Or it could be what Raven wants you to believe so you disappear on another long search for an elemental who is supposed to be dead. That would certainly put you out of the running for some time.”

I grunted. “Something like that.” A chat . . . Raven’s words echoed inside my head. There had never been a point where he’d told me not to repeat his words, yet obviously, he had somewhere in the conversation. He didn’t want anyone to know we’d spoken? Or did he not want anyone to know that he’d been in the Rim? Maybe some of each.

Or maybe something else altogether that I could not see. I touched my head as if I could dig out the answers from it.

Again, I could understand why those who carried Spirit were so feared. How did you fight something you had no defense against? That you not only couldn’t see, but never even knew when it was used against you?

A rumble of the earth below my feet and the ground dropped, snapping me out of my thoughts and sending both Peta and me into a crouch. Peta flattened herself into the snow and I did the same until I was almost buried under the icy cold white crystals. The mountain seemed to shift and roll, sending a wave of rocks and snow thundering past us. I could have sworn that I heard a laugh echo through the mountains, and then I was sure of it. The words were booming, loud and thunderous as if they were all around us. As if she was the storm and we were being buffeted by her. The voice could only belong to one person.

Cassava.

“Fool, you think you can come at me and survive? I will kill you both, and steal Lark’s heart and soul in one fell swoop,” she screamed.

I stared at Peta and nodded. We were more than on the right track, we’d hit the bullseye. But far sooner than we’d expected, which meant I was not prepared, and there was no plan.

How had Cassava seen us coming? There was no one that knew where we were going, what we were doing; I had no thought of coming here when I spoke to Raven, so there was no way he could have known and been able to warn his mother.

The ground rumbled again, a deep shudder that went on for a solid twenty seconds as we lay in the snow.

“Ash, that isn’t good,” Peta said, the breath from her words melting the snow around her mouth and nose. Her green eyes flicked to mine, fear trembling in them. As a cat of the mountains, she knew the landscape better than I.

“Avalanche?”

She nodded. “A bad one.”

The shaking subsided, but a new noise grew around us, tripping and falling over itself as it swelled through the air. Cassava’s laughter faded, but I didn’t feel any better about the position we were in. She might not be able to see us now, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try and strike us down.

I rolled onto my back and looked back the way we had come. The top of the mountain crumbled as I stared, as if in slow motion even though I knew it was anything but, and the speed would only continue to pick up. Snow and rocks crashed toward us like a raging river. The rocks I could handle, deflect and even soften; the snow was another problem. Made of frozen water, I couldn’t manipulate it.

I pushed to my feet and lurched forward. “Peta, run!”

She looked back, only once, then bounded down the mountain angling to the right. I followed her, using my connection to the earth to power each stride and help me stay ahead of the tumbling snow, rocks, and chunks of ice.

Barely, though. Cassava’s laughter echoed in the air. “Fool. Such a fool. I will have you yet, Ash.”

I didn’t look for her, that would have been a fool move. My focus was solely on keeping my feet under me.

Already, though, the river of snow flowed to either side of me, as if I were truly caught in a flash flood of fast-moving icy water. I fought to stay ahead of it, but even connected as I was to the earth, I was losing the race against the mountain and all its strength.

“Peta, go!” I had to trust that she would escape and be able to come back and help dig me out. Because I knew I was about to go under. I could feel the tug on my feet and legs, like a beast swallowing me bit by bit.

She didn’t look back but bolted forward, leaving me behind in only a few huge leaps. The tip of her tail and the spots on her coat were the last things I saw as I was dragged under the snow and plunged into a darkness where there was no air, where I couldn’t so much as move.

Caged in a tomb of frozen water.

n the embrace of the avalanche in the Eyrie, I wasn’t sure which way was up or down. I could have been inches from the surface yet die because I chose the wrong path to dig. That is, if I could have moved at all.

My entire body was pinned, crushed beneath the weight of however much snow was above me. Chest compressed, I could manage tiny gulping breaths, but even that was slowing as the air around me dissipated.

Panic reared its head, battering at my mind. You’re going to die here. And it will be slow and painful and of no use to anyone. The words were my own, and I could not seem to stop them.

The darkness and cold were complete, cutting me off from nearly all my senses, making the fear that much worse, stealing my ability to think things through . . .

No. I refused that line of thought.

I was an Ender, and I had trained for this possibility when I was young and only just starting my training. I closed my eyes, though it didn’t change what I saw, and focused on the earth around me. I only needed a few large rocks. I found two. As the oxygen fled, and my mind began to wander into the abyss of death, I pulled the two large stones through the snow to me. One bumped into my right hand and I shot it “upward” with a mere thought.

The other I pulled close to my face and then sent it “up” through the snow as well. The sound of shifting snow, the feel of new snow falling on my face, and then there was a blessed rush of fresh cold air as the two stones erupted out of the surface of the snow above my head.

I managed to twist my head so that my nose was right under the opening I’d made with the second stone. The one near my right hand gave me the room to start moving snow, shoving it into the opening I’d created, eventually freeing my arm enough that I could bring it near my head.

“You bitch, I’m going to kill you twice over.” I breathed the words out, more for myself than anyone else.

“Who is that you’re going to kill?” A male voice, one I didn’t recognize, bounced down the walls of my snow chimney. I, well, I would have frozen if I wasn’t already encased in ice, but . . . you get the point.

Friend or foe above me? There was only one way to find out.

“Manner of speaking. Can you help me out?” I asked. I couldn’t see who was above me, but I assumed it was a Sylph drawn by the activity on the mountain. They were nosy bastards for the most part and territorial on top of that.

“Well, maybe.” He seemed rather uncertain. Since when was a Sylph uncertain? Never. They were cocky on top of being nosy as hell.

More snow fell down the tube as if he was standing right near it. It splattered my face and went up my nose. This was not going well. I needed to get the hell out. “Can I convince you to help me?”

“Ha. Probably not. What you doing on this mountain, Terraling? Sylphs don’t like visitors.”

Now that was interesting. So he wasn’t a Sylph and he knew I was a Terraling. But what options were left as to what he was? Oh shit.

“Yeti?”

“Well, duh. Who were you expecting, Santa Claus?”

Yeti were an interesting supernatural. They sprang from some sideline combination of Sylph, Undine, and human that had yet to be discovered. They were in a way cousins to the ogres on the North American continent. Just as mouthy, but not as prone to fighting. More prone to love a good joke, though, and they were always looking for ways to pull one over on anyone they could find.

Maybe I could use that to my advantage. “No, I’m just . . . I’m trying to pull a fast one on the new Sylph queen. So I kind of need to get out of here to do it.”

He gave a low grunt and more snow fell down the tunnel, smacking me in the face.