Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (25 page)

“Who the hell were you two talking to?”

I shrugged. “Don’t really know.”

He flipped his muzzle at me. “Take a guess.”

“The mountain, I think.”

Peta nodded. “Yes, that’s as close a guess as any.”

His eyelids fluttered. “If you both hadn’t heard the voice, I’d have said Lark was losing her marbles. As it is, any good news from the . . . mountain?”

I laughed at his careful wording. “Just that the stones are needed, but not for what I think.”

“That doesn’t help us get into the Eyrie without being struck down by lightning, does it?” he pointed out.

“No, but I have an idea.” I smiled at him. “Think you could do a loop over the Eyrie and get some idea of the layout?”

He snorted and stomped a foot. “So just
I
get the lightning?”

“I don’t think they will strike you. Not without me on your back.”

He rolled his eyes. “The words,
I don’t think
, are not exactly reassuring.”

“Best I’ve got. I’m not going to lie to you.” I stood. “If you don’t want to do it, I understand.”

He grunted, spun and galloped away, leaping into the air at the edge of the clearing. Peta sat beside me. “He’s as prideful as any Sylph.”

“Yeah, but it works in my favor from time to time.” I walked to the edge of the clearing, my eyes going to the sky every few steps. I couldn’t see him, and I hoped he would be okay.

“He’s smarter than he looks.” Peta trotted ahead of me.

I changed the subject. “What, or who, do you think that was? The mountain, yes, but under that . . . what the hell are we dealing with here, Peta?”

She jumped onto a downed log, and sat. “Powerful, we know that much. Tied to at least two mountains. And your power woke them up. But when?”

I thought back to the times I’d used everything I had. “When I destroyed the Eyrie, that was when I heard the voice the first time. Again in the Deep, and then in the Pit when I was fighting with Fiametta and the mountain was collapsing.” And one other time that I hadn’t thought of in years.

“I see your face. There is more, tell me.”

“When I faced the shadow walker, during my banishment. I destroyed a fair bit of real estate and I felt the presence. It was distinctly male then, but there were no words, just raw power.”

Peta closed her eyes, a frown on her cat lips. I sat beside her and scratched the back of her neck. She leaned into me and I waited on her to speak.

“There were things I read in the libraries, things that didn’t make sense, but if what you are saying is true, perhaps . . .”

“Do you mean like the notes in the Deep? Did you actually get a chance to read them?” I asked.

Her eyes flew open. “Shit clumping kitty litter, I forgot about those! Yes, I did read them. They actually . . . they actually make what we are seeing here make more sense.”

“And?”

Her face twisted like she’d eaten something sour.

“Peta, how bad could it be?”

“Well, it just—”

I stopped scratching her neck. “Spit it out.”

She took a breath and then spoke faster than I’d ever heard her. “Basically, the papers said there was an elemental who caused all sorts of problems thousands of years ago. Chaos and trouble followed this elemental everywhere. And he or she, there was never a gender given, didn’t care. They reveled in it, and as they grew in strength, he or she started to lay things out. Made the stones. Created monsters. Divided the families as they are now.”

I leaned back on the log. “And this elemental is dead?”

Peta shook her head. “I don’t know. It didn’t say. If they weren’t dead, they would be the oldest living elemental out there. Which falls into line with what Shazer has said about his creator.”

My thoughts went to Talan. Peta didn’t know him the way she thought she did.

I glanced at her and she was still frowning. “Okay, that’s obviously not the worst of it, so what else did it say?”

Her eyes flicked to mine and away. “The elemental was the most powerful the world had ever seen. A half-breed.”

A chill swept through me and I already knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from her. “What was he?”

“He or she was a Terraling Spirit walker. Just like you.”

Just like me. One of the Tracker’s more colorful phrases rolled off my tongue before I could catch it.

“Fan-fucking-tastic.”

Peta’s eyes popped open. “Lark, you never—”

“Sorry, slipped out. Too much time with Rylee.” I opened my mouth to ask her if there was anything else pertinent. Any clue to what this elemental, who was just like me, might have done.

The rumble of thunder brought my head up. The sky darkened at a rate that could only mean one thing.

Shazer had been spotted. I ran to the center of the clearing to get a better look. Against the dark clouds, his white hide glimmered and shined.

“Get down here!” I yelled. He dropped like a stone as lightning snapped and cracked around him. A bolt landed at my feet, throwing me backward. I hit the ground and rolled, breathing hard. Peta shifted, and I held a hand out. “You can’t stop lightning. We have to dodge it.” The plan I’d had was thrown out and a new one grew at a rapid pace. “Let them capture us.”

“What?”

“They’ll take us to Samara for judgment.”

“Oh, goddess, this will turn all my black spots gray.”

I grinned at her. “Probably.”

Shazer landed, and I flapped my hands at him as he drew close. “Stay back, I’m going to let them capture me.”

He shook his head. “Bad idea.”

“Only idea.” I shoved at him and he let me push him away as another bolt hit the ground. I opened myself to Spirit and Earth and wove them together, deliberately using them as one. They blended perfectly and didn’t fight me.

Understanding hit me and I stood there like a fool. A bolt of lightning slammed into the ground on my left, waking me. Balance, this was what Talan had meant. Instead of using the elements always separately, I should be using them together.

But how was that going to help me now? Above me, three Enders floated on the air currents, their white leathers and hair swirling around them as they shifted and moved. Three Sylphs, that was more than I could handle on my own when all three were trained as Enders.

I was so screwed if I didn’t get them to ‘capture’ me and instead decided to just kill me and take Samara my body.

That would seriously derail my plans.

The one on the left, Lefty, dropped lower until he was only twenty feet over my head. He swung a long shimmering silver rod at me, the end tipped in a sharp barb, not unlike the tips of the tridents in the Deep.

“Take their air!” Peta yelled.

Powering my muscles with the strength of the earth, and thinking of Peta with the fireflies, I leapt into the air to meet him, twisting to dodge the barbed point. His eyes widened and he tried to avoid me but I crashed into him. I wrapped my hands around his neck and squeezed.

“Nighty night.”

He scrabbled at me, all training gone. There was no way to make yourself breathe, even as a Sylph, when your windpipe was cut off. His fellow Enders swept in as we crashed to the ground. I landed on him, felt the electricity in the air, and rolled as the lightning bolt slammed home. The buzz dissipated over Lefty, and I shoved him off me.

Two Enders left.

And I only needed one to make this work. I sprinted toward the taller of the two Enders. His legs dangling a few inches lower than the first had. I leapt from the ground, and snagged one foot.

“What the hell? Is she a shifter?” yelled his friend. It was only then I realized I’d easily leapt thirty feet into the air. There would be time to think about that later. I hung from his foot and lifted my own legs to wrap around his waist. I squeezed with all I had, compressing his belly, blocking his lungs from taking in air. Peta was right, the best way to stop them was to take away their air. They didn’t know how to deal with it.

We dropped to the ground as he passed out, and the final Ender floated forty feet above me. “What the hell are you?”

“I am the Destroyer.” The words hung between us, and he blanched so that his face matched his white leathers. His lips curled.

“Then let us see you survive a kiss of lightning.”

Lines of power whipped around his arms, faster than I could track. I grabbed hold of Spirit and Earth and wove them tightly around each other, driving them deep into the earth, anchoring me. I waited with my head bowed, fear racing along my spine. “Let me be right about this.”

“Lark, run!” Peta screamed. I held a hand out to stop her as a bolt of lightning hit me square in the chest.

I didn’t fight it, didn’t try to send it away.

I held it to me, cradling it in the power. It snapped and sizzled along my body, sending every tiny hair on my skin into orbit. Slowly, I raised my head, and held up one hand. The lightning pooled in my palm, writhing and twisting in on itself. But what the hell did I do with it? It wouldn’t hurt the Ender, it was his element.

Cactus had been the protector of the Pit because he’d been able to weave stones into the flames he’d created, making a deadly mix even to those who carried fire as an element.

I lifted my other hand, and with it, called up three large stones. I pulled them to me and imbued them with the lightning bolt.

“Not possible, that is not possible,” the Ender whispered, the wind bringing me the words as clearly as if he stood by my side.

“Anything is possible,” I whispered back. With a flick of my fingers, I sent it flying at the Ender. He dodged the first two crackling stones but the third caught him in the side of the head.

It exploded in a shower of shrapnel and light, like the humans’ fireworks. He dropped from the sky, hit the ground and was still.

I let go of the elements in me, but the feeling of the lightning hovered there still, making me shiver. Peta ran to the three downed Enders, sniffing them.

“All three are alive.”

I walked toward them, not even breathing hard. As I passed the first one, he groaned and his eyelids fluttered. I snapped my fingers over him. “Stay.” Vines burst from the ground, holding him down.

Another groan, but he didn’t otherwise try to fight me. The other two Enders I sunk deep into the mountain. Being buried alive sucked, but it wouldn’t kill them. They’d get out eventually.

Maybe.

I shook my head and made myself slow down. The adrenaline was pumping fast enough that I knew I was spoiling for another fight. I crouched beside Lefty. “Do you have a name?”

“Ryk.”

“Well, Ryk, you are going to help me get an audience with the queen.”

“She’ll kill you.” He squinted up at me. “She hates you.”

I shrugged. “Be that as it may, you are going to take me to her. As your captive.”

He frowned, his white eyebrows dipping low over washed-out blue eyes. “Why?”

“You think she cares if
you
live or die? You think she gives a shit about one lowly Ender?”

He rolled his head from side to side. “She was an Ender. She trains with us still.” Brave words, but the fear was heavy in them. He wasn’t sure, and I needed to use that to my advantage.

Maybe every Terraling Spirit walker was an asshole. That would explain a lot.

I smiled, knowing it was far from nice. “Please. She’s a queen. There’s plenty more Enders where you came from. Now. You will help me.”

I flicked my fingers at the vines, loosening them. He sat up and rubbed at the back of his neck. He was so new to being an Ender, I could almost see the moisture behind his ears.

“I could steal your air right now.” His hand dropped to hover over a dagger at his waist.

I didn’t waste time. I pounced on him, pinning him back to the ground even as I snagged the dagger from his waist and pressed it against his throat. “No, you couldn’t.”

“Your reflexes are improving, Lark,” Peta said. “What changed?”

“I stopped doubting. I stopped hesitating.” I blinked several times and realized the words were truer than even I knew until I said them.

Peta nodded, though, as if it made perfect sense. “About time.”

I pulled the Ender to his feet, with the dagger still at his neck. “I think you understand me now.”

“I won’t take you to her. I won’t.” He straightened himself up. “You’ll have to kill me.”

Freedom is life to a Sylph.

The words gonged inside my head and I wasn’t sure where I’d heard them. But they were true and I knew I could use them.

I sighed and held a hand out, softening the ground under him excruciatingly slowly, so that each inch he slipped further was felt on every part of his body. “No, I won’t kill you. I’ll just stuff you so deeply in the ground no one will ever find you.”

His eyes popped open wide as he sank into the earth. He scrabbled at the edges, but I kept softening the ground, drawing him in inch by inch.

“One of your friends will help me.” I walked away and motioned with two fingers over the living grave of the second Ender. His body slowly emerged. His leathers were no longer a gleaming white and dirt smeared his pale face.

Ryk sucked in a sharp breath and began to hyperventilate even as he scrabbled at the ground. So green at his job, he didn’t realize that if he stole my air now, he’d stop sinking. But maybe then too, the panic was enough to keep his rational thoughts at bay.

I shook my head. What was Samara thinking, sending useless tits after me?

The question rolled around in my head, stopping me. She was smarter than that. Unless . . . unless she wanted me to make it all the way to her? That didn’t make sense.

“Stop, I’ll help you,” Ryk panted, and I firmed the ground around him. He was up to his ribcage. “I’ll help you.”

I smiled and motioned upward with my right hand. He was pushed out of the ground like a dog spitting out a bone.

“Good boy.”

I pushed his fellow Ender back into the earth. Shazer trotted up next to me and spoke quietly. “How did you know he would be afraid of being buried?”

“Claustrophobia, it’s a problem amongst them,” I said.

“How do you know that? They don’t talk about that
ever
.” His eyes narrowed, and I narrowed mine back at him.