Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (13 page)

“No, Bella needs to sleep. We’ll stop for the night,” I said, dismounting and then holding a hand out to my sister. She took it and slid from his back with a wince but she shook her head. “No, I think we should keep going. I’m fine. A short break will be enough.” She paused and rubbed at her backside. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been horseback riding.”

Shazer snorted. “Pegasus riding.”

She blinked up at him and smiled. “Right, Pegasus.”

Above us, the night sky twinkled, black and splattered with stars. I looked at Bella. She still had our father’s blood on one cheek. I motioned with my head for her to follow me. The sound of a creek drew me.

Beside me, Peta eyed the fireflies that flickered here and there. I rolled my eyes. “Go for it. I won’t tell anyone.”

With a funny mew she leapt into the air, batting at the bugs. They were almost as fast as her, though, and darted away as she pounced and chased. I smiled and looked up. Bella watched me, a smile on her lips, too.

“She’s like a kitten still.”

“Sometimes. Other times she seems the oldest soul I know.” I pushed through the long grass and down a small embankment to a shallow stream. I stepped into the creek and sunk to my knees before splashing my face and arms. Pink swirls of dried blood washed away in the shimmers of dark water that shone in the bright moonlight, curling through the current and then gone as if they never were.

Bella stepped into the water beside me, her skirt caught up with one hand. I took the edges of the material and held it for her as she cleaned her face and arms. In silence we stepped out onto the embankment and headed to where Peta lay crouched in the long grass. She’d shifted into her leopard form.

I gave a short laugh. “You think you can catch the bugs when you’re bigger?”

Her ear flicked at me but otherwise she didn’t move. In an explosion of speed, she shot twenty feet into the air to snag a bug, slamming it with both paws.

Bella burst out laughing and I joined in. “Damn, reflexes like a cat.”

Peta turned and faced us, lifting her lips so we could see her teeth.

And the glowing firefly in her mouth, lighting her up like a human’s Halloween pumpkin.

I choked on the laughter, unable to believe that she hadn’t squashed the bug completely. She opened her mouth and the firefly flew out, bobbled once, and rose into the air. Peta licked her lips. “Bet you two can’t catch one.”

“Challenge accepted!” Bella laughed and ran into the long grass. I stood and stared.

“We’re on a deadline, Bella. I can’t be playing—”

Shazer butted me from behind. “Go play.”

Peta nodded. “Go play.”

Bella stood in the middle of the fireflies as she spun and looked at me. “Afraid you’ll lose?”

I took my spear from my back and slowly swirled it in front of me. Through the bond to Peta, fear and sadness rolled. I drove the spear into the ground, haft first. “You are going to be sorry you said that.”

The tension in the air heightened and I let go of the spear and ran into the long grass after Bella. She spun and ran from me, and the tension was broken as we did our best to grab the fireflies from their nightly dance.

Screeching and laughing, we raced after the tiny bugs as though we were children and not full-grown adults. Peta dodged between us, knocking us down more than once, often right as we got close to capturing our intended prey.

A flash of white streaked by, Shazer with his neck outstretched as he snapped his teeth at a firefly that struggled to stay out of reach.

Bella gasped for breath and clutched at her sides. I stood next to her, breathing hard, not sure exactly why I was playing when I should have been off saving the world. Stopping Blackbird from getting the stones first.

“Because if you have nothing to fight for, saving the world doesn’t mean much, does it?” Peta sat on top of my feet, warming them. She looked up at me. “The world, and all it is, has to mean something to you again, Lark. You helped the Tracker save the world from the demons. But that wasn’t really you. You did it because you had to. This time, it’s your choice.”

“Mind-reading cat,” I muttered.

“What do you expect? I’m special.” She grinned up at me.

I waved a hand to catch Shazer’s attention. “We need to go.”

He trotted over and put his nose against my chest. “I hate to say the pussy is right, but she is.” He blew out a hot gust from his nose, warming my skin as Peta warmed my feet. She took a swat at him.

“Don’t be vulgar.”

“I’m not.”

“You are too, and you know it.” She frowned up at him.

He shrugged and went to one knee as Bella approached. Flushed from running about, she mounted with ease. “I think Peony was right, I need to stop trying to fit into the same size as when I was sixteen.”

I snorted as Peta and I leapt up behind her, Peta once more worming her way between us. “I’m glad you don’t try that when you are in your leopard form.”

“Me too. You’re not all fluff, you know,” Shazer bit out as he galloped across the field.

Bella crunched forward and slapped his neck. “It’s not polite to talk about a lady’s weight.”

He grunted as he leapt into the air. “When you start being a beast of burden, you get to say whatever you like about the size of people’s asses.”

She gasped, Peta let out a growl, and I rolled my eyes. “No comment about my weight?”

“Goddess, no, you’d probably cut my wings off.”

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and then I laughed softly. “True enough, I might.”

“You wouldn’t.” Bella twisted to look at me, her hair swirling out around her. I shrugged.

“Well, not on your behalf, I wouldn’t. I saw you naked earlier, remember? No hiding your ass from me.”

Her jaw dropped and horror flickered through her eyes. “Am I that fat?”

“Goddess, no, I was teasing!” I leaned forward and patted her on the head as though she were the younger sibling and not me. “You don’t look any different to me than you did when I was a child, Bella. Still the big sister I want to be when I grow up.”

Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. “That’s the nicest thing you could have said.”

“Well, I’m nothing if not full of sugar and spice.”

Peta snorted. “Heavy on the spice, I think.”

Shazer snorted. “Are you three going to have this hen party the entire time? My ears are on the verge of bleeding.”

“Yes,” the three of us answered in unison. Peta purred softly between us.

“This is how it is meant to be.”

I knew what she meant, but it scared me. I wrapped my arms around Bella again and we clung to each other like children fending off the night together. I only hoped that was not what reality turned out to be.

We flew through the night, and early the next morning we were over the southeastern seaboard. The Deep lay in the section of the ocean the humans nicknamed the Bermuda Triangle.

The water was brilliantly blue below us, and I could see a good distance into it. Triangular fins popped up here and there. Bella shuddered. I held tighter to her. Neither of us had the greatest memories from our time in the Deep.

“You were there, after River was born?” I asked.

“Yes.” Just one word, but that was all that was needed. She’d done it to keep her daughter safe from her psychotic mother, Cassava.

The sun had climbed only a few degrees when we dipped through the sky toward the white beach of the Deep.

Shazer landed lightly, with only a single hop, on the beach at the eastern edge. The sand was so white, it almost glowed. The spires of the main holdings rose into the bright sunlight, glinting as though they’d been shined just this morning.

“We need to make this happen as fast as we can, once we do it,” I said, finally speaking out loud the plan that had formed as we’d flown. “There are ambassadors here from every family. There were none in the Rim. Once we take the stone from Finley, the other ambassadors will have time to get ahead of us and warn Fiametta and Samara.”

“Only if it goes badly.” Bella smoothed out her skirts and I stared at her until she lifted her eyes. “What?”

“
If
it goes badly? I think we need to count on that.”

I started across the sand, heading for a paved section. Bella remained where she was. I turned. “What?”

“I just . . . I have not been here since you were banished. Finley and I were close then, but those are not the memories that bother me.”

Of course not. The first time in the Deep together, I was her Ender. She was an ambassador. Things had not gone well then, either. Not for her, at least.

I went to her side. “Do you want to leave?”

She shook her head. “No. I only needed a moment to gather myself.”

I waited, feeling the need to move grow until I almost grabbed her. A figure at the edge of the sand approached and raised a hand to us.

“Your Majesty, we had no word of you coming.” Dolph, my one-time teacher and fellow Ender, strode toward us. I took a step back, allowing Bella to lead. She nodded to Dolph, her face smoothing over in a perfect mask.

“Ender Dolph, thank you. It is of great importance that I speak with your queen. A new threat comes at our families.”

He frowned. “We have heard nothing.”

“I know, that is why I came in person rather than send a messenger.” She strode toward him, and I kept step in time with her.

“Finley is not here at the moment,” Dolph said. “But you are welcome to wait for her. I will have rooms ready for you.”

Bella nodded. “That will be fine.”

He led us through the Deep, toward the spire that rested nearest the center. Shazer veered off as we drew close. “I smell . . . uh . . . oats. I will be in the stable if you need me.”

I patted his side and he trotted off down the cobblestone street, wings bobbing.

“I do not smell any oats,” Peta grumped. “But I do smell a mare in heat.”

I clamped my lips shut tightly so as not to laugh. This was not a time for laughter; this was a time for focus.

Once more, I stepped into the Deep, the feeling of being out of my element—literally—surrounding me. The halls were not much changed from my previous visits. Sandstone walls embedded with seashells and pearls, the odd starfish here and there. Smooth stone under our feet, the constant sound of water trickling somewhere. There were not many Undines about, but those that were smiled when they saw us. Behind the smiles I saw suspicion and distrust.

But maybe that was just me.

The room Dolph took us to was not the one we’d stayed in before, though it might as well have been as the décor was the same. It felt like we’d stepped back in time.

Not something I wanted to do.

As soon as the door shut, Bella flopped onto the bed. “I could sleep for days. I’m exhausted.”

I lay beside her. “Might as well. We have to wait on Finley anyway.”

We were quiet for only a moment before Bella rolled to face me. “Do you love Cactus?”

I groaned. “Please, I do not want to—”

“Come on. Tell me.” She pushed me lightly with one hand. I drew in a deep breath but didn’t face her.

“I did once, before . . . before the oubliettes. I think I could have settled down with him.”

“And now?”

I scrunched my shoulders up. “He is not the one for me. Peta has known it all along, and I know it too. Now.”

“But he loves you.”

I grunted.

Bella leaned forward. “And you’re using that love. Lark, that is awful.”

Anger overcame fatigue and I sat up. “Listen. I’ve flat out told him off. He doesn’t want to listen. That’s not my fault. Surely you have suitors who won’t listen to you?”

Her lips parted. “Of course not.”

The lie was as thick as pudding in the air between us. “Spill it. Who is chasing you?”

“No one.”

I snorted. “Come on.”

Her lips twitched. “Maybe one or two.”

“And of course you told them off?”

Her eyes widened. “One is Fiametta’s son, so no, I have not told him off.”

Time for my eyes to widen. “A true merge of two families? Oooh, the drama.”

“I never said I was even going to—”

“Please, you don’t have to marry him to carry his child.” I lay back on the bed, instantly regretting my words. “Bella, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”

“Lark, don’t. Requiem was a long time ago, and I was a fool. I thought I was strong enough to face him on my own.” She sighed and lay beside me. “And as much of a monster as he was, he gave me the most amazing daughter.”

I wanted to reach over and take her hand, or hug her. But I couldn’t make myself move. I wasn’t sure I could ever be so forgiving of Requiem. Or the other monsters I’d faced.

“Go to sleep, Lark,” she said as though she were in charge.

I closed my eyes, knowing I should have been bothered by the fact that I did as she asked without question; old habits dying hard. Still, I fell asleep within seconds.

My mind, though, did not allow me any respite, as dreams haunted my rest. They battled for my attention, swinging from the war we’d fought against Orion and the demons, to the mother goddess laughing at me, to Blackbird trying to bed me as I lay tied down and unable to fight.

A violent shiver woke me at one point. The breeze coming in from the wide window cooled the sweat along my bare skin. I groped for a blanket and someone placed a thick duvet over me. Peta crept up in her snow leopard form, stretching out alongside my body, and sharing her warmth with me.

Bella dropped an arm around my waist. “Just dreams, Lark. They are just dreams. Let them go.”

Again, I obeyed her, and relaxed once more.

The fear left, the pain of all I’d lost slipped away. I fell asleep again, this time safe in knowing, if nothing else, I had my sister with me.

More the fool was I for believing my life would come together so smoothly.