Windburn (The Elemental Series #4) (21 page)

“Wait, she said the only people coming to speak to her would be trouble and I should try and stop them.”

“Ahhh,” Cactus said. “There’s the rub. The word ‘try’ implies that no matter what you do, you wouldn’t be able to stop said trouble.”

Tom’s mouth dropped open. “Are you sure?”

Peta leapt up and caught him between her big paws so fast she was a white blur. “Yes, quite sure.”

“Don’t hurt him!” I yelped. I could easily imagine what the queen would say if we killed one of her guards right off the start. Not exactly the introduction I was looking for.

Peta let out a yelp and leapt back, shaking her paw. “Little prick!”

“That’s not what the ladies say!” he hollered back as he zipped toward the gates.

“Hurry, we have to make it there ahead of him.” I bolted after the fairy, the glitter of his wings making it easy to track his progress. Peta was ahead of me, snarling.

Tom looked over his shoulder, yelped and sped up. Damn it. “Fairy sharts, they’re gaining on me! Open the gates, let me in!”

The gates didn’t move, though a few faces peered through the tall grills.

I held a hand up and slid to a stop. “Wait, Peta. I think . . . I think he wasn’t official.”

Cactus panted beside me, leaning over to press his hands onto his legs. “You sure?”

“Yes. If he was, they’d have come running when he yelled for help.”

The fairy hit the gates, going so far as to rattle his sword along them as we approached. “Let me in! They said the cat would eat me and pick her teeth with my bones.”

One side of the gate opened and a tall, slim figure stepped out. My heart seemed to stutter at the sight of the white leathers the Ender wore and the long white hair braided over one shoulder. He stood easily a foot taller than me, and his cool gray eyes swept us as if we were a mere annoyance. But all that wasn’t the reason. It was his resemblance to Wicker, the Sylph who’d helped Cassava take the throne and release the lung burrowers on my people. The Sylph who’d killed my mother and little brother.

He raised one eyebrow. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

Tom flew right up to his eyes. “I told you, you fecking moron! They’re here to kill me and assassinate the queen! Now let me in!”

With a casual flick of his wrist, the Ender swatted Tom, sending the fairy flying our way. He tumbled end over end and I caught him mid-air. “That’s not very nice. He might be a drunk and out of his mind, but you shouldn’t swat fairies. It’s bad luck.”

The Sylph’s lips didn’t even twitch. So much for breaking the ice. Tom groaned and I held him carefully. “I wish to speak with the queen.”

“Why?”

I made sure to keep eye contact with him. If Tom had been right and Terralings weren’t going to be allowed into the Eyrie, it was time to improvise. “We wish to visit the library. We have seen the Pit’s few books, and the Rim’s. But we have heard the Eyrie boasts the finest knowledge in all four families.”

“Scholars?” The Ender pulled back. “Perhaps your story would be more believable if you weren’t wearing a Terraling Ender’s uniform.”

Damn, the cold was making me sloppy. “An Ender cannot also be someone who seeks knowledge?”

“Not when your king is missing. We have sent the information requested, which is more than we had to do.” He stepped back.

“Wait. Please take the message to Queen Aria. Tell her I wish to speak with her.”

His gray eyes locked onto mine. “She will not see you—and I will take her no message from the lips of a Sylph-killer.”

The gate slammed shut and I let out a breath. Apparently my reputation had preceded me.

“What are we going to do if he won’t let us in?” Peta asked.

“Well, we have someone to help us, don’t we, Tom?” I held him around the waist and plucked his sword from his hands.

“What?” He slurred the word. I wasn’t sure if it was the drink, or the blow from the Ender.

“You want to get into the Eyrie, yes?”

“Yes!” He pushed at my hand. “Hey, let me go.”

“Not yet.”

Already the plan formed in my head. A secret entrance that Tom would show us; we’d sneak in, find my father and be gone in a flash. Yet that was not how things played out in the least.

The gate opened once more and an old lady peered out. Now, to say an elemental was old was usually a hard thing to determine. We aged . . . well. My father had perhaps a thousand years behind him and he had barely begun to gray.

This woman, though, she was stooped and her white hair trailed to the snow. She wore a pale blue dress dotted with tiny white crystals that caught the light, and a crown rested on her head seemingly made of gossamer silk and spider webs. Milky, unseeing, eyes turned toward me. “Child of the earth. The mother told me you would come. Here, do not mind my Enders, they are protective.”

Behind her, the tall Ender glared at us. “My queen, please do not do this. You said your death would come in through the front door. She is the one who killed Wicker.”

That was the truth. I’d killed Wicker when I’d ousted Cassava from the Rim. Not that I was going to tell them and confirm the accusation.

“Truly, you were there?” She faced me but her words were for him. “Ender Boreas, please do not spread rumors. I cannot abide by them. And if she was the one who killed Wicker, then so be it. He chose his path and it took him from us. He was banished for a reason.”

That was news to me.

His whole face shut down. “As you wish, my queen.”

She held a hand out to me. “Come. You three must be cold and hungry.”

“What about Tom?” I asked, holding the fairy out to her. “Is he not one of yours?”

Ender Boreas snorted, but the queen held out a trembling hand. “Tom, in trouble again, my old friend? One day you will end up at the ends of our world, I think. Perhaps as far as the Valley of Death.”

“Aria, I cannot stay away from the berry wine. It loves me too truly.” He gave an awkward bow as I transferred him into her palm.

She put him on her shoulder and went back inside. “Let them pass, and do not molest them.”

Peta pressed herself against my leg as we walked through the doors. We said nothing as we followed the queen into the Eyrie. The mountaintop was ringed with a platform at least a mile wide. Seemingly supported by clouds, our footing was anything but certain, and that made me nervous. It would be nothing for any of the Sylphs to take exception to us and toss us into open space. I put a hand to the gem hanging from my neck, remembering it was there for the first time since we’d left the boat on the beach in Greece.

Here and there the wind gusted over us, once with enough force that I had to lean into it to keep from being shoved backward. Peta’s fur ruffled in the hard wind. She blinked up at me. “Some of the strongest winds in the world reside here.”

I was sure she didn’t only mean the natural forces of air.

Ender Boreas kept pace with the queen. Where he was tall and muscled, she was petite and frail. Then again, she was stooped with age. If she stood, she might have been as tall as me. More than once I’d been mistaken as having Sylph blood because of my height.

We were led along open streets paved with nothing but thick clouds, past buildings that hovered, always a few feet above the footing we stood on.

Ahead of us at the mountain’s peak was what I could only assume was the palace. Its spires were jagged, like lightning bolts reaching into the sky. Colored a bright gold, they reflected the morning sun so they glowed with its light.

I held my tongue, though to be honest, that was easy. The Eyrie was as stunning as the Deep in its own way. Certainly outstripping the Rim with its grandeur and glittering surfaces.

“Come, there is someone I want you to meet.” Aria held her hand out and I looked at Boreas. I pointed at my chest. He nodded, though the look on his face was grim.

“Stop making faces, Boreas. You’re much more handsome when you smile.”

He blushed and I couldn’t help but grin. I put my hand in the queen’s and she moved it to the crook of her elbow.

She leaned heavily on me as we walked up the last of the steps to the gates of her inner sanctuary. “Here we can speak without fear of anyone interrupting.” Blind though she was, she led without hesitation. The throne room opened to us, and I couldn’t help but suck in a breath. Pillars of brilliant white ice reached as high as any redwood to the open sky. A whisper of clouds curled over our heads and snowflakes floated to our feet. A dream . . . it looked as though we walked through a dream made entirely to dazzle the eyes and ease the soul.

Only my soul was anything but calm. The exterior of the Eyrie may have been beautiful, but I knew all too well how beauty could hide the ugly truth.

“Your home is . . . exquisite.”

“A home is not the place you live your life, child of the earth.” The queen’s voice was strong and firm. “Home is the place your life blooms.”

I hadn’t been expecting advice. She patted my hand. “I think you will understand one day. Rumors have come to us that you did some marvelous work in the Namib Sand Sea.”

I blanched. “How?”

“Oh, the usual. Spies. Spies are everywhere. Even mine.” She laughed and waved at me. “Fairies mostly, if you must know. Elementals don’t notice them, yet they are everywhere. Close your mouth, child of the earth. You will learn soon enough that in our world, very little is as it seems. You have been led on a merry chase, haven’t you?”

“The mother goddess,” I said before I thought better of it.

Aria blinked up at me. “Well, she
is
a goddess. She sees what we cannot, even the future as it should be. But that is not what I meant. I know you seek your father, but he is not here, child. Whoever told you he was, led you wrong.” She stepped away and toward her throne.

I glanced at Cactus. He shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. I dropped a hand to Peta. She flicked one ear, her voice low. “There is no way the Tracker was wrong.”

Aria turned and smiled at me. “I see a question in your eyes. Ask it.”

“May I look around? It is my father I seek, after all.”

“I cannot let you wander on your own. The Eyrie is dangerous for the simple fact that not all the footing is grounded. If you are amenable to a guide, you may stay as long as you wish.”

“Take it,” Peta whispered, “you will not get better.”

“Thank you.” I bowed at the waist.

The queen slid onto her throne and let out a sigh. “If you ever have the pleasure of ruling, child, may I suggest a rather comfortable chair? This one bites at my rear no matter how I sit.”

I laughed, as did Cactus. “I will keep that in mind, though I doubt the time will ever come.”

She picked up a staff beside the throne and tapped it into the rolling clouds at her feet. A high-pitched ringing bell resounded three times, like the tinkling of chimes.

Cactus reached over and touched my hand, then pointed behind us. The doors swung open and three Enders strode in. Two men and a woman. The men were built like most Sylphs: tall and slim, their bodies whip-like in their movement and structure. The woman, on the other hand, was shorter than me. Her body was solid muscle by the way she moved, but she was not the slender shape of the other Sylphs.

“A curvy Sylph? Since when?” Cactus let the questions slip out and I fought not to cringe. The woman’s face didn’t even twitch, but I saw the hitch in her chest from a breath of air being sucked in too fast.

I stared at him. “And since when have you known a Terraling woman to be my height, Prick? Do you think you have met every kind of woman this world holds?”

Idiot.

“Idiot,” Peta spit out.

The female Ender looked at me, and our eyes met. Understanding passed between us. I knew what it was to stand out in your home, to not fit what was considered normal. To say it was a challenge was something of an understatement. The elemental world was not forgiving of those who did not conform.

“Samara, would you be willing to guide Larkspur through the Eyrie? Take her wherever she wishes and aid her in looking for her father. Nothing is off limits.”

Samara made a fist with her right hand and pressed it to her heart. “As you wish, my queen.”

“Bah, you wish it too. I see you wanting to know more about her.” The queen waved at her, her blind eyes seeing far more than they should have. “Go on now. Take our visitors. Show them a room, and give them some food.”

Samara crooked a finger at us. “Come with me.” Her voice was as solid as her body; there wasn’t a single wavering note in her words. She led us out of the throne room and to the left, down a long hallway that wound around the mountain, like the curve of a woman’s hip. “As guests of the queen, you will stay in the heart of the Eyrie. Your rooms are safe, set into the mountain. But the rest of the Eyrie could slip out from under your feet when you least expect it. There will always be a Sylph outside your doors, so if you have need of them, they will help you.”

Sounded more like we would have a guard at all times to keep an eye on us. But maybe it was my past experiences in other elemental homes that tainted my view of things.

The halls were wide and tall, with open ceilings like the throne room. Walls with no roof, and the bright blue, cold sky beckoning above us. Of course, the Sylphs could keep the weather constant over their homes. Cactus, Peta, and I, on the other hand, would have no such amenity.

Where the Eyrie was not cloud and drifting fog, it was set into the mountain, as Samara had said. I couldn’t help but reach out and touch those parts, reassuring myself that I could at least still feel the earth here and there.

Samara stopped in front of a door on the left of us, toward the mountain. I let out a sigh of relief. “There is food and drink inside. I will be back in an hour to take you where you wish.”

She turned on her heel and strode away, her white leathers blending into the drifting clouds at her feet.

I stepped inside the room and let out a sigh. There was no cloud for footing here, but a solid smooth stone. I bent a knee and pressed my hands against it. Limestone, common to the area. It warmed under my hand and the mountain seemed to strain to reach me.