Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) (8 page)

Ash, loyal Ender of the Rim.

Rest in the mother goddess’s embrace.

My throat tightened and fear made me stumble. He would not be in the grave, I had to believe. I dropped to my knees, the soft ground giving way with a poof of dust that rose around me. Pausing, I glanced at Peta who hadn’t moved from my side.

“You can do this. No matter the outcome, I am here. I am with you.” Her words were all I needed. Even if I lost Ash, I had Peta, and she would see me through this darkness too.

Closing my eyes, I buried my hands into the soil of the grave. “I am afraid, Peta. Spirit, you said it is getting wild and—”

“Then do it fast, Lark. Do not hesitate,” she whispered.

I opened myself to Spirit and it roared awake, like a beast inside me. It tangled itself with Earth as if it would take hold of my other element again. I held my connection to the earth tightly to me and Spirit slid away and down my arms like nothing more than a petulant child.

But it was not trying to take control, not this time.

Twenty feet deep, Spirit fell and then wrapped around a body. Images and flickers of what Spirit felt came back to me. An Ender vest, a short sword, nothing else. Yet even that was enough to confirm for me that the mother goddess had lied to me yet again.

And her lie broke me.

I couldn’t stop the cry that escaped me, the budding hope dashed as though slammed with a sudden frost. A trembling set of hands touched mine.

“Death is not the end, my girl.”

I blinked up, and found myself staring into my father’s face. He’d aged since I’d seen him last, and not well. He’d not been at the battle against the demons, and now I knew why. His once-robust frame had thinned and become gaunt, his hair had gone completely gray, hanging down in a knotted mess to the middle of his back. But the second his hand touched my skin, his eyes, fogged with confusion, cleared. These were the eyes of the father I recalled from my childhood. Dark forest green and full of kindness, full of strength and wisdom.

A sob escaped me. “I cannot keep losing those I love.”

He caught me against his chest, crushing me to him as I’d longed for him to do for years.

No more words passed between us and yet the forgiveness was there. He held me as I sobbed, unable to stop the grief from pouring out of me, finally finding some refuge in my father.

Peta put a paw on my hand, adding to the love that surrounded me.

“Child, why do you grieve so hard?” My father set me back from him but I made sure to keep some contact on his skin.

“Ash, he’s in the grave, and I thought maybe . . . maybe he wasn’t.” Stupid, stupid words, I couldn’t help them.

Red fluttered his wings. “There are more ways than one to find out if the body is truly that of Ash.”

Basileus frowned. “Red is right. If there is any doubt, bring the body up.”

I swallowed hard. “I do not know if I could stand seeing him half eaten by worms.”

My father nodded. “That I understand all too well. I brought your mother up not long after she was buried. I couldn’t believe she was gone, I had to see her with my own eyes again.” He grimaced, pain shooting across his face like a falling star. “While it was one of the most difficult things I have done, it allowed me to move on.”

I bit back the retort that perhaps instead of moving on he should have killed the one who’d murdered my mother.

I kept a hand on him.

“Lark.” He smiled at me. “You are so like your mother. When she put her hand on me, my mind cleared, just like now.”

I gave him a smile, though it slid from my face quickly. “Basileus. When I let go of you, I want you to go back to the Spiral. Please.”

“I have to tell you something first.” He leaned in close to me, so our foreheads touched. “There is a story I remember from when I was very, very small. Barely to my mother’s knees. Whispers of a legend I didn’t recall until now, yet I think you must hear it.”

I wasn’t sure what to think. Was it a true clearing of his mind or had he slipped further into his madness? I glanced up at Red who ruffled his feathers. “I’ve not got a clue of what he speaks.”

My father touched my face, drawing my attention back to him. “A legend, a story. That the mother goddess we know, she is not what she seems. That she is . . . mortal, like we are. Long-lived, but mortal, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

I blinked several times, his words settling in my head. “That is not possible, Basileus. She is the mother goddess, I have felt her power.”

He tightened his hold on my face, breathing shallow gulps. “I am not long for this world and I would tell you this. I am one of the oldest of any elemental left. I have seen rulers come and go. I waited until I thought the world was safe to have my children, and even now they are torn from me, killed by each other and by themselves.”

I gritted my teeth, knowing I was one of the reasons his children had been harmed.

“Basil—”

“No, I have to say it.” His eyes were intense and he didn’t blink once. “I believe the legend; the mother goddess is not a goddess. She is an elemental. Like you and me and all the others. And she will destroy you if she can. I have seen in her mind, in my madness I have walked with her. She will make Cassava look like the sweetest peach in the garden if you see the truth of what she is.”

His words shivered along my spine, but I knew them for what they were. Madness, pure and simple.

I looked again to Red. “You’ve been with him a long time, my friend. What say you?”

Red shook his head, his eyes sad. “It is as you fear: madness. I stay with him now out of loyalty. The other two have disappeared.”

The other two. Red had to mean the bear shifter, Karhu, and the husky, Hercules. I let go of my father, and kissed him on the forehead. “Go to the Spiral. I cannot be sure you will be safe when I bring up the body.” I couldn’t say
his
name, even now. Ash’s body. That was what I would raise, not the man I loved.

My father’s eyes fogged and he looked around him. “The darkness climbs the vine, closing in on the blooms and the flower petals drop in decay to the ground once more.”

A cool breeze accompanied my father’s words, blowing through my hair in a whisper that almost echoed what he’d said. I shook off the sensation. There was no room for fancy in this world of ours.

“Come on, old man. Let’s find a place to sleep the day away.” Red flew into the air and a long trailing rope hung from his claws. Father reached up and took hold of the rope and Red led him away from the graveyard.

I watched them go, knowing I was stalling.

“Lark, you will not rest until you see his body in the flesh. I know you well enough to know that is the truth.” Peta touched the headstone with Ash’s name engraved with her nose.

I went to my knees to one side of the grave. The last thing I wanted was an explosion of power when bringing a partially decayed body out of the ground. I swallowed hard and gently called the power of the earth to me. Within the power, I wove all the love I had for Ash, the hope that he was alive, and the belief I knew he’d always had in me.

Spirit flowed with it, quiet, reverent in its feel against me.

The ground shimmied and shifted under my hands, shaking like a giant flour sifter until the shape of a body began to emerge. My hands trembled as the dirt slid from his face. I gasped and let go of the power under me. Brushing the dirt off the face, the features emerged; high cheekbones, delicate bone structure, tiny ears; it wasn’t Ash.

It was a woman.

A cry escaped me and I raised my hands over my head as relief flowed through me, hope growing in leaps and bounds once more.

Ash was not dead . . .but then why would Bella say he was? Did she not know either that the body was not his?

Peta seemed to read my mind. “Someone using Spirit could have made this body look like Ash’s. I doubt your sister, or even Griffin knew that it wasn’t him.”

I sat there staring at a new reality I’d have never have thought possible. As long as his heart beat, I could find him. We could make a life together. There was a chance that all we’d faced would be over soon.

Sobbing, I slung an arm around Peta. “He’s alive, he’s alive.”

“You can find him. I know you can,” she whispered through her own tears. “If anyone can make this right, you can.”

We clung to each other for a few minutes before I got control of myself. I let Peta go, and took a deep breath. “I’ll put her back, then we’ll go see if—”

Peta leaned forward. “Oh, that can’t be good.”

I followed her gaze and looked down at the body in the shallow grave.

Clutched in the woman’s hands was a tiny box with . . . my name on it.

I brushed a hand over the box and the woman’s fingers clenched it. I scrambled back, my heart rate flying to the tops of the redwoods around us.

“Worm shit.”

Peta crouched beside me, her body quivering. “Is it a booby trap?”

Damn it, I should be smarter than this. But the idea that Ash was alive had made me reckless and stupid. Blackbird knew me too well, he’d done this.

On my belly, I crept toward the partially covered body. The fingers clenched the box until the wood creaked. Her body arched so she was raised on her heels and the back of her head. Her mouth opened, dirt falling into her gaping maw.

“Laaaaarkspuuuuuuur.”

A snarl rolled out of Peta and I waved a hand at her. “Stay back.”

The body twitched and rolled, until the empty eye sockets faced me. The only thing I could think was that at least it wasn’t someone I recognized, a nameless face. Small comfort when looking into the eyes of the dead come to life.

Her jaw opened and closed. The gritty sound of dirt grinding on her teeth made me flinch.

“Taaaaake iiiiiit.” She held the wooden box out to me.

Peta shook her head, reached and grabbed at my arm with her big paw. “Don’t, you don’t know—”

She was right, I didn’t know what was waiting for me. “What if it’s something from Ash? A hint about where he is?”

Peta’s paw slid off me. “I don’t like this.”

Swallowing hard, I held my hand out and the corpse dropped the box onto my hand. I pulled away, sliding across the dirt and graves until I was the length of a sapling away from her.

The corpse stayed where she was, staring toward me with her empty eyes, her voice clearing as she spoke, changing into one I knew. “Use the stones within to replace those you take. When it is done, I will help you find your golden eagle.”

Golden eagle. Golden-haired child. I knew what the message was; the mother goddess would help me find Ash. Damn her, damn her through all seven levels of hell and back. She’d known I wouldn’t be able to resist coming to his grave, to see if he was actually in it.

Apparently she knew me better than I thought.

I flipped the wooden box open without another thought, and sucked in a sharp breath that tasted of dirt and molding death.

Five stones rested within the bare bones box. Emerald, sapphire, smoky diamond, ruby, and pink diamond. One for each of the five elements. I brushed a hand over them, feeling no connection to any of the elements. Just stones, then.

The corpse lay back, her mouth stopped moving and her body shuddered as she was drawn back into the earth. That was not something I did.

Peta stuck her nose into the box. “Are these what I think they are?”

“Yes, they’re fakes to replace the real ones.” I slid them into the palm of my hand. They glittered in the sunlight filtering through the trees. I’d held the real ones, and these were perfect replicas, down to the settings. Some were rings, others necklaces. I put them into the leather pouch at my hip and pulled it shut tightly.

“You ready to tell me what the mother goddess had to say,
now
?” Peta asked.

Her sarcasm was not lost on me.

“I’m to steal the stones from the rulers and take them to the mother goddess. Blackbird is hunting for the stones too, and . . . he’s lost his mind. If he gets them all, he’s going to tear the world apart.”

“Why would he do that? What good would it do for him to destroy this planet?” Peta asked. It was a good question.

“Perhaps that is part of losing his mind. Maybe he thinks he is a god now and can remake this world in his own image?” I shook my head. “Does it matter why? I only know that he plans to.” Then again, I was going by what the mother goddess told me. Call it a hunch, but I suspected I wasn’t yet getting all the truth from her either.

Peta sat on her haunches. Her jaw opened and closed several times, reminding me more than a little of the animated corpse. A shiver of premonition slid over me and I shook it off. There was no way Peta was going to die.

She squinted one eye. “I thought that was just a story.”

I stilled. “What do you mean, just a story?”

She hunched her shoulders. “A single line I read when I was with Talan, years ago. Yet it stayed with me because . . . well—”

I stared at her, fear creeping up my spine. “Just say it.”

Her eyes closed and she spoke. “When the world is broken and must be healed, the only recourse is to break it.”

I blinked several times. “That doesn’t even make sense.”

“But if Blackbird read that, could he believe he is saving the world somehow?”

I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks. The only thing that matters is that we get to the stones before him.”

I sat where I was and dusted off my clothes while my mind raced ahead. Planning how I would make each theft happen. To take one stone from a ruler would be hard. To take all four? A near impossible task, because as soon as one was retrieved, I had no doubt the other rulers would be tipped off and be waiting for me. And the fifth stone? That one was hidden away, and I planned to keep it that way until the last possible second. I’d grab it before we left the Rim. At least that was my plan.

Peta looked up at me. “That means you need to take Bella’s stone. But she will give it to you if you ask. That, at least, will be easy.”

I grunted. “Did I forget to tell you that the longer the rulers hold the stones, the real ones, the crazier they get?”