Windburn (The Elemental Series #4) (29 page)

“Cassava.” I breathed out her name.

“Larkspur, so lovely of you to come. So
predictable
. He would not have done the same for you, I have made sure of it.” She reached behind her, grabbed someone and threw him forward.

My father sprawled on his belly, his eyes glazed over as if he were drugged with poppy seeds.

Peta stalked in front of me, her entire body fluffing up as her hair stood on end. “This is the bitch that hurt you. I will tear her throat out.”

“No,” I said. “She is mine, Peta. Mine alone.”

I tore my eyes from my father and looked at Cassava. “I am here, then. You’ve tried to kill me how many times, yet here I stand.” I spread my hands wide. “Perhaps now you want to see if you are stronger than me?”

She grinned. “You don’t wonder why I would meet you here?”

Aria answered her. “It has been a long time since elementals openly fought with their power, Cassava. Do not do this.”

I knew what Aria meant. Terralings truly battling would cause massive destruction. And the Eyrie would suffer for it.

Cassava sneered at her. “Old woman, will you or your people stop us? Or will you hold to the rules the mother goddess handed down that have slowly strangled our people?”

Aria stiffened. “We will not interfere. That is our way.” The Sylphs began to back away.

Cassava pulled a stone from around her neck. The emerald I’d given Bella. The emerald that would give the wearer power over the earth, or in the case of one who already had that connection, would boost it immensely.

Worm shit and green sticks, this was not a good turn.

The reality of what I was seeing set in. If Cassava had the emerald, what had happened to Bella?

It took everything I had not to run forward in a blind rage. “What did you do to her?”

“What makes you think I would hurt my oldest daughter?” Her sweetly laced words were venomous to my ears.

“I think you would destroy anyone who opposed you, even those to whom you gave life. You destroyed Raven.”

“You assume she didn’t simply hand this lovely gem to me. And Raven and I have a lovely relationship,” Cassava countered, her eyes glittering with malice as she licked her lips.

My father lifted himself up to his elbows, his eyes clearing a little. “Bella traded her life and the life of her child for the emerald, Lark.”

Cassava stepped up beside him, and kicked him in the side. He grunted, though I doubted her impact was all that hard. More likely he was already hurt. After two years in her care, he probably had his share of injuries.

Behind us, Aria whispered, “This will not go well for my Sylphs.”

I had eyes only for Cassava. “We are done with these games then, bitch. It is time you pay for your crimes.”

“I agree, at least on being done with the games. You have been in my way since the beginning. I regret not killing you then.”

I circled her, drawing the power of the earth to me until I fairly hummed with it. Her eyes flickered and the madness I’d seen in my father was reflected there. Mad. She was out of her mind from using Spirit the way she had; I knew it.

Cassava laughed. “Fool, just like your father. He thought he was strong enough to keep me in line. See him now as he grovels at my feet.”

Peta snarled and bared her teeth. “I am here, Lark. We do this together.”

She was right. Peta could stand with me, she was a part of me. Cactus made a move and I swung my spear to block him. “No. No matter what happens, do not step in.”

“Lark, do not—”

The ground under him bucked, and sent him flying across the throne room.

I whipped my spear around and pointed it at Cassava. She lifted her hands over her head in mock surrender, a smile on her lips. “Little Larkspur. I do believe it is time for you to be with your mother.”

Her words rang in my ears. With my mother. But not with Bramley? Her smile widened. “That’s right, half-breed. He lives. But not if you do not bow to me.”

ies, she had to be lying. But it was Aria who snapped me out of the fog of Cassava’s words. “She will say anything to stay your hand, child of the earth. She knows you rival her power. Even while she holds the emerald.”

My training took over, my instincts and anger driving me. I leapt forward, as I held the spear over my head, snapping it down in a hard thrust toward Cassava’s heart.

She screamed, her face contorting as she flung a hand toward me. The lines of power were a brilliant, pulsing green as they wove around her arms and torso. I knew what she was going to do, but in midair I could not avoid the blow. A chunk of the mountain flew toward me, and slammed into my side. As it hit, I pulled the molecules of the rock apart, breaking it down into a fine dust and circumventing the full power of the impact.

Cassava’s eyes widened as I landed right in front of her, the powdered earth floating down around us. No more words. I was done talking.

I lunged at her, driving my spear toward her stomach. She spun backward and flicked her hands at the ground beneath me. Damn, she was fast. The other elementals I faced were slower in how they used their power. They called it up, I saw the intent in the power lines, and then I avoided what they tossed at me.

With Cassava, there was almost no time between her calling the power and what she threw at me. I didn’t know if it was the emerald or something else, and it didn’t matter.

The ground lurched up beneath me and I fought to smooth it out. Every step I took toward her, she diverted me. I finally dropped my spear. This was not going to be a fight where it would help me.

“Giving up?”

“Just getting started.”

We threw our power at one another, pushing back and forth, neither of us truly giving way. The balance between us was too close for either of us to truly get the upper hand. Sweat slid down my face and my legs shook as though I’d been running for miles.

The Eyrie broke apart piece by piece, walls and structures toppling as we tore and hurled the world around us.

Cassava’s hand wavered over her opposite arm, but she dropped it and flicked her fingers at me. The tile at my feet broke and the mountain seemed to reach up and take hold of my feet, pinning me in place.

I pushed the rock away from me, and stumbled to the side, ending up next to my father.

“Lark. The Namib Sand Sea,” Peta yelled.

She was right, I could use the same tactic here as I’d done on the sand. But I had to get my friends out of the way. “Shazer, fly!” I yelled. The horse gave a grunt followed by the sound of rushing wings.

Cassava laughed. “Still trying to save your friends? I’m going to hunt them down and kill them all, Lark. As soon as you’re dead.”

I moved to my father’s side and pressed my hands against the tile. I broke it apart so I could touch the ground underneath and truly feel the mountain. Within the Wretched Peaks lived intangible pathways that called to me; the elemental who’d created the Eyrie left them behind. I felt them under my hands, under my skin, and in my soul.

Like aqueducts brought water from the rivers, the energy channels that created the mountain and Eyrie flowed to me, and allowed me access to more power than I could ever reach on my own. The ground sucked my hands down in a welcoming embrace.

I felt the mountain sigh, as in relief.
It is time.

Cassava laughed again, throwing her head back. “You need to touch the earth still to call it up? Goddess, you are weak.”

“Peta, Cactus. Stick close.”

I didn’t have to ask them twice. Peta was at my side in a flash and Cactus was right behind her, crouching with me. The mountain . . . I could feel it as though it were a living creature, breathing slowly. Exactly as my first visit had awakened me to the added power within this part of the earth, again I could feel it waiting for me to call on it.

Cassava’s laughter stopped as suddenly as it started. The ground below us sucked Peta, Cactus, and me down so we were trapped up to my waist and Peta’s belly.

Vines sprouted between the remaining tiles and wrapped around all three of us, binding us as tightly as any chain. They squeezed until I could barely breathe, but I kept following the paths mountain showed me. Deeper and deeper I reached, Spirit and Earth calling to me in tandem as I sought out what the mountain strove to show me.

“Lark, tell me you’ve got this,” Cactus wheezed out.

“Of course she does,” Peta snapped back.

Of course I did . . . the pathways all lit up inside my head and I saw how the two powers interconnected. How Spirit boosted Earth, how the mountain had come alive with so much Spirit poured into it.

The entity welcomed me home. The mountain stirred under us and I called it up, beckoned it to me. The world shook and I closed my eyes. In my mind I saw the earth swallow Cassava, and crush her beneath the mountain, saw the weight of the rocks and the earth end her life.

A roar filled my ears as all around us the ground swelled and ripped apart.

Screams rent the air. Power ripped through me, and the mountain bellowed, as if a large animal was released from a thousand-year cage.

“Hang on!” I yelled as the ground beneath us dropped. We floated as if we fell for ages. I didn’t let go of the power. I funneled it through the mountain. Everything I had, I gave. I opened myself like never before and the mountain crashed around us.

Child, you go too far. This was not what I wanted.
The mother goddess spoke to me, her words hard.

“Then you should have let Cassava kill me.” I spat the words out. Or I think I did. It was hard to tell with the way the world twisted in on itself. The sounds of elementals crying out, the feel of the mountain turning itself inside out at my command.

The power . . . for all that was holy, it felt as though nothing could stop me. I reached for it with all the strength I had in me. I touched the mountains around us and felt them wake.

Yes, this was the way it should be. To start fresh, wipe out those who used them wrongly. To clean away the interlopers.

Those were not my thoughts.

The mountains spoke through me. Wipe them out, those who see us as nothing. They see us as less because we are of the earth and not the far-reaching skies. I give them life, I give them shelter, I protect them. They do not care. They do not thank me.

Rocks slammed into the ground around us, but none touched my skin. I forced my eyes open, forced myself to truly see what carnage was happening.

The mountain had sunk, dropping out from under us so we rested in a deep crater. As though a falling rock from the sky had annihilated it.

People were yelling. Peta and Cactus were yelling, but I didn’t hear them. I saw their mouths moving, but there was no sound. Cactus slapped me—hard enough to snap my head around. “Stop it, Lark! She’s dead, you have to stop this, you’re going to kill us all!”

His words hit me harder than his hand. I let go of the power and it receded, slowly, reluctantly. My entire body hummed with energy. Unlike other times, I had not lost anything in using that amount of the earth’s power. Instead, it filled me like a cup that overflowed.

My joy was short-lived. Peta trembled beside me, her ears pinned to her head. My father was on his side, his eyes closed, his words thick with the fog of whatever drug Cassava had given him. “Lark . . . you . . . you killed them all.”