Windburn (The Elemental Series #4)(4)

Slowly I nodded, understanding what she was getting at. “And so they would rather deal with Cassava than an unknown factor. Even if it’s Bella.”

“Or your father.” She shook her head. “From what I’ve gleaned in the last few days, he didn’t rule much. Cassava ruled through him. In his own way, he is an unknown factor to his own people.”

“Damn.” I breathed the word out. She was right.

“So bringing him back doesn’t really give them a measure of peace, because in their minds, you are bringing back a puppet.”

Her words didn’t have long to echo in my ears before a new problem arose, one I’d been dreading. The blasted field section of the Rim was where the earth had died. A plague long before I’d been born had eaten away at the dirt and now nothing was left. No power to draw, no nutrients for plants and animals. And it was where I had hidden the two gemstones.

The gray earth had footprints all around, crisscrossing back and forth.

“Oh, this is bad, Peta,” I whispered. “How in the seven hells did anyone figure out where I’d hidden them?”

“Hidden what?” She leapt from my shoulder and sniffed the ground. “I smell nothing. I see footprints but there is no scent. There is only one Elemental I know who can do that.”

“Blackbird.”

Him wanting the two gemstones didn’t make sense. Blackbird was the only elemental who carried all five elements. He was the child Requiem had been trying to breed in the Deep. A monstrosity of power and destruction.

“Explain what is hidden and why Blackbird wants it.” Peta trotted in front of me, her gray fur blending with the ashen earth, creating a strange camouflage where moment to moment she almost disappeared.

“I have two of the stones from the legend of the five.”

She stopped with her paw mid-air, and her head swivelled to look at me. “Come again.”

“I have the pink diamond and the smoky diamond. Spirit and Air.”

Carefully she lowered her paw and sat. “And someone knows where they are hidden besides you?”

“I told no one.” I headed for the boulder I’d buried them under, far deeper than I needed to, probably. At least that was what I thought when I’d done it. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I dropped to my knees and buried my hands into the loose, dead soil. I dug down through the layers of the blasted earth with my power. Peta stood beside me with her front paws on my thighs. “You know, you should not be able to do that.”

“What do you mean?”

“The soil is dead, Lark. Nothing can grow here. There is nothing left to be manipulated. There is no power in it.”

It took a full minute for the bag I’d buried to be pulled up through the ground. “Must be another quirk of mine.” I gave her a grin and she shook her head.

“Quirk? You’re just plain weird, Dirt Girl. You do supposedly impossible things without any problem.”

I shrugged. “Spirit boosts my power with the earth. We know that.”

“But this much?”

I had no answer. I didn’t know why I could do what I could do. Maybe because I was the mother goddess’s chosen one.

Or maybe I was a freak, as Petal had said.

Under my fingers rolled the pliable leather bag I’d put the two gemstones in. With a quick look around, I pulled the bag out and peered inside.

“Drop them into your hand. Someone could have switched them,” Peta said. Goddess, I hoped she was wrong.

I spilled the stones onto my palm. They glittered. Swirls of power glimmered and flickered from their depths, sending a scattering of rainbow flecks over my arms. I had no doubt these were the originals.

I sighed, relief washing over me. I stuffed them back into the leather bag and then inside my vest. “I have to hide them again, but where?”

“May I make a rather bold suggestion?” Peta asked.

I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. “Please. When do you ask if you can be bold?”

“You are going on a rather dangerous journey in search of your father. What are the chances we run into Blackbird? Or Cassava? Or some new threat?” She paused, but before I could formulate words she went on. “Don’t bother answering. The chances are high; Spirit Elementals draw trouble to them, and we are going to add a Tracker to the mix which will cause a duplication of said trouble.”

I folded my arms over my chest. “All those words, and no actual suggestion yet.”

Her lips twitched. “Keep the smoky diamond close to you in case you need it; hide the pink since you already carry Spirit.”

Her idea held merit, but it bothered me. An Air Elemental had been the one to kill my mother and little brother. I did not want anything to do with that particular element. “Perhaps. I will think on it.”

The crack of a twig spun me around. A fleeting figure was all I could see dashing off into the distance.

“Peta, go!”

From one beat to the next, she was a tiny gray housecat, then a bounding gray and white snow leopard tearing through the forest after the spy. Now was my chance. I took off in the other direction, heading toward the northern lines of the Rim. There was only one place safer for the stones than the blasted fields. Mind you, there was one person who wasn’t going to be happy about my solution.

The trees and bushes, animals and birds blurred as I ran. I tapped into the strength of the earth and used it to boost my speed and agility. The power allowed me to cover the distance between the blasted fields and Griffin’s home in no time.