Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (7 page)

“I cannot. I must follow my own rules. I must not interfere directly with my children’s lives. It is impossible. I must work through those I have chosen to speak for me. Those I trust to accomplish tasks I am unable to do. That is why you must do this. This is a task only you can accomplish.” She spun, her long braid whipped out around her, and for a moment I could believe she was my mother in truth.

No, I pushed that thought away. That was the kind of thinking that would leave me vulnerable to her demands. I couldn’t help myself with what spilled out of me next. Cactus was right. I was too stubborn for my own good, even if I would never admit it out loud.

“And if I say no? What then?”

Her shoulders drooped. “There will be no ‘then.’ You and Blackbird are the only ones strong enough to take the stones from the other rulers, Lark. If you will not, he will, and then we will all die.” She looked over her shoulder, and her face blurred. The ocean tugged at my feet, pulling me back though I held my ground.

“I did not say I would do it!” I yelled at her.

“The child of golden hair, you know of the one I speak?” she called to me, her voice curling through my mind as the scene before me faded. “The child that would have been yours had you stayed in the Rim, and not done as I’d asked. He can still be yours, Lark. But not if you fail in this. Not if the world is destroyed.”

The child . . . the child that would have been Ash’s and mine.

The implication was as clear to me as a reflection in a mirror polished to a high sheen.

Ash was alive.

“This is the last task I would ask of you, child of mine. The final journey, and you will be free to live your life however you choose, with whomever you choose.” Her final words were the clincher. Damn her for striking to the core of me. The ocean water warmed until I was no longer shivering but fighting to get away from the heat. The bright sun cutting through dimmed to mere flickers of torchlight beckoning me to the surface.

I burst out of the water of the hot spring, gasping for air. A spotted snow leopard surfaced beside me, bedraggled and frantic, her green eyes wider than I’d ever seen before they narrowed to mere slits.

“Lark! You’re going to be the death of me!” She made as if to swat me and I backpedaled. I didn’t need any new scars.

“It was not my fault. The mother goddess pulled me under.” I took a stroke, heading back to shore. Peta swam beside me, huffing and puffing.

“How long was I under?”

“Ten minutes. The only thing that kept me from losing my mind was that I could sense you. I knew you were alive.” Her green eyes stared straight ahead. “I’m too old for this, Lark. My poor heart can’t handle the stress.”

I laughed and she glanced at me. I reached out to her, pushing her sideways in the water. “Peta, you are hardly old.”

She snorted. “I’ve been through too much and it has aged me. Most of it with you.”

“That I would agree with. I’ve no doubt most of your grays are from me.”

“Did you just make a joke?”

“Maybe.” I couldn’t help it, hope was filling me where the grief had been. A dangerous thing, hope was, but I couldn’t stop myself from believing in the mother goddess’s words.

We reached the shore and I slogged out. The clothes I’d shed were filthy, not to mention human clothes, and I left them on the ground, bending only to pick up my spear.

“Lark, what happened? You seem . . . better,” Peta said.

“Ash is alive. I’m sure of it.” I strode up the stairs, the water beading on my skin and dripping off which left me shivering, but I barely took note of it. Ash was alive, and I would find him.

“Lark, I want it to be true as much as you but—”

“The mother goddess,” I struggled with how to explain my certainty. I knew why the mother goddess had done it—she knew me as well as I knew myself. “Just, trust me. Ash is not dead. I think . . . I have to prove it, though. To be sure.”

“Why?” Peta padded along beside me. “Why do you have to prove it?”

My jaw ticked. “I won’t take Viv at her word, I can’t trust her. This could be another game, another manipulation. But how the hell do I prove he isn’t dead?”

Peta paused at the top of the stairs and I stopped with her. She tipped her head to one side. “I saw . . . an old charge of mine delve a grave once using Spirit. He said he could tell if the person was the person actually in the grave or not.”

Two guards went by as I stood there, breathing hard, soaking wet, completely naked. Their eyes widened. I didn’t recognize either of them. “What are you looking at?”

The one on the left grinned. I pointed my spear at him. “One wrong word, boy, and I’ll see you on latrine duty for the rest of your life.”

His grin faltered. “I was going to tell you where to find clothes.”

“I know where to find the damn clothes,” I snapped and strode away. Other Terralings all but leapt out of my way as I headed toward the kitchen. Not that the kitchen was where the clothes were, but the storehouse off to the side was.

The kitchens were quiet this time of day, and I wasn’t stopped as I headed for the storeroom.

Everyone knew who I was, and my reputation for destruction. For once, it played in my favor to be known as a bad ass.

Clothing was a necessity, but it took all I had not to rush out to the graveyard on the southeast side of the Rim. I hadn’t been there in years, not since my mother and brother were laid to rest.

The storeroom held several sets of Rim Ender uniforms. The leather vest and snug-fitting dark brown pants were tucked away at the bottom of a chest. I pulled them out. The vest I chose had a score mark across the chest. I ran a finger over it. “This was Ash’s.”

“Are you sure?”

“When we were in the Pit the first time, he got this mark from our first fight with the other Enders.” I pulled the vest on, lacing the sides up so it fit me. Pants next and then a leather belt that I hung two smaller bags from. I turned, and Peta sat in the doorway, blocking my way.

“Peta, move.”

“Not until you tell me what the mother goddess asked of you. She gives nothing free, Lark. I know that.” Her green eyes narrowed.

“Not here. I will tell you, but not here.”

“What if she is wrong? What if he is dead? Have you thought that through?” She followed me out of the storeroom and up the stairs.

“Yes. No. I don’t know, Peta. I will not even consider that she is wrong at this point.”

“That is dangerous,” Peta shook her head, “but I understand.”

I dropped a hand and ran it down the length of her back. “Thank you, my friend.”

We hurried and were outside of the Spiral in a matter of minutes. I took a deep breath, drawing in the smells around me. Redwoods, ferns, budding flowers, the smell of someone cooking. This place should have felt like home. Yet I knew it wasn’t, not really. Not anymore.

Home was wherever Ash was.

Someone bumped me from behind and I spun, instantly angry, expecting Cactus. Shazer snorted on me, snot flying from his flaring nostrils. “Lark, I have been looking for you. We must talk. There is something I have to tell you.”

I placed a hand on his neck. “Yes, we will talk. But not right now.”

His dark eyes narrowed and he pawed at the earth. “When?”

“Soon, just not right now.”

“It’s important.”

Peta shook her head. “She won’t hear you no matter how important you might believe it is. There is a chance Ash is alive.”

His head snapped up. “Truly?”

“Yes.” Just the one word and I was off and running. Through the Rim with Shazer galloping alongside my left, and Peta flanking me on my right. Running with those I trusted, feeling their heartbeats and strength roll through me.

I would need it all if I were wrong, if the mother goddess was wrong, and I had to fully accept that Ash was dead and gone. I slid to a stop at the edge of the Terraling graveyard, my feet suddenly leaden.

The edges were hugged with blackberry vines, thick and tangled, fifteen feet high and curled around the trees. The only opening lay in front of me, an archway of vines. Blackberry blossoms filled the gaps between thorn and vine, a promise of life to come.

I took one step and paused. There was someone already in the yard, someone I did not expect in the least. The man who’d caused me more grief and pain than any other, the man I still wanted to be what I’d imagined as a little girl. My hero, the one who would love me unconditionally, the one who would protect me. Instead he’d become one of my greatest opponents, casting me into the oubliette the second time as though I were trash to be buried and forgotten.

My heart beat harder, thumping and fighting as if it would leap out of my chest. I loved him as much as I hated him, and I did not know if I could reconcile the two emotions. Not now certainly, and maybe not ever.

“Isn’t that . . .” Peta whispered.

“Yes,” I nodded. “That’s my father.”

he former king of the Rim sat on a stone bench next to a grave I knew all too well, a red hawk on his shoulder I also knew rather well.

My mother had been buried in the center of the graveyard, as a place of honor. To her left rested Bramley, a sleeping baby forever. For just a moment, I saw his smiling, laughing face and chubby cheeks, his bright eyes. The way he’d clung to me in his last moments.

Old grief, pain I thought I’d left behind curled up and cut through the hope that had buoyed me. I put a fist to my belly, doing what I could to quell the roll of emotions.

“Shazer,” I put a hand on his neck, “stay at the gate, keep watch.”

He snorted and bobbed his head as I stepped through the archway. Peta kept tightly to my side, her unwavering support about all that kept me moving through the memories that surrounded me, filling my mind and making my steps slow.

The hawk turned, saw me and tipped his head in acknowledgment. Red had been my companion in the desert, not that he’d wanted to be there. But as one of my father’s three familiars, he’d been sent to watch over me.

I lifted a hand to him. I would not slight him. He was a good familiar, even if he was not one of mine. And he’d helped me, knowing I did what I thought was best and supporting me as much as he was able at the time, even against my father’s wishes.

The newest graves were closest to the gate, and if I kept quiet, perhaps my father wouldn’t notice me. Though his betrayal was not truly his, with his mind manipulated by Cassava and then Blackbird, I could never truly allow myself to feel for him again. He was just a pitiful old man now, broken and weak, his family lost to him. I refused to let myself believe he would ever be anything else.

I bent beside the grave closest to me. Persimmon, Simmy, my old friend from the planting fields. She’d died when the lung burrowers had gone through our family, and her daughter blamed me.

Another old hurt; I’d not saved more of my family.

I moved past her grave and to the next and the next, until I came to the far right side of the graveyard. I glanced over at my father. He was still oblivious to my presence. That or he was ignoring me.

Enough stalling. I looked at the grave I’d come to see. Against the thorny wall, his name was etched into a flat piece of obsidian.