Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(18)

“You mean we’ll see the story,” Raven said.

“No,” Talan shook his head, “your spirits will go into the past and you will see how things happened. What brought Vivica to become Viv, then to become an effigy of the mother goddess.”

Peta butted her head against my cheek. “I will be with you.”

I was not afraid, not really. But I was unsure I wanted to send my spirit anywhere without my body. “I thought we were on a time crunch.”

Talan smiled. “The story happened in the past. Here in the present, the time that will lapse will be less than a few seconds. A heartbeat or two.”

That didn’t make me feel any better. “Can we be trapped there?”

He shook his head. “No. If you become afraid, you need only take a step back. As long as you walk forward, you will see the story unfold.”

His instructions seemed simple, and yet, I was not sure. “All of us are going?”

Talan shook his head. “Just you and Raven.”

I fought not to hunch my shoulders. “And you are staying behind why, exactly?”

“Suspicious much?” He smiled at me, but it wasn’t mean. “I stay behind because if something were to go wrong, then I can pull you both out.”

“So something has gone wrong before?” Raven asked. I was glad it was him and not me.

Talan rolled his eyes as though we were being ridiculous, but I saw the motion for what it was. He was avoiding the question.

I took a step, closing the distance between him and me. “You might be the last born of the true mother goddess. But don’t you dare lie to us now. You want us to work with you, then you’d better think about how you want us to see you. As a liar? Or someone we can trust?”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Damn it. You are too perceptive by half. Yes, this has gone wrong once before. But we both survived, so I am being cautious now.”

“What happened?” Peta asked.

Talan shook his head and then slowly answered. “The one who went with me tried to interfere. We both did, thinking if we could change the past, then things would be better. It doesn’t work that way.”

“What happened?” The question came from Raven and me at the same time.

Talan let out a groan. “Mother, help me not kill them all.”

Peta hissed at him. “Don’t you take that tone with us!”

Talan looked at her. “Fine. We were both hurt, the injuries were not life-threatening, but we struggled to connect with our ability for a time.”

“But you got it back?” Raven asked.

“We did,” Talan said.

“Will the people in the past be able to see us?” I asked.

Talan shook his head. “No, you won’t be visible to them, though as I mentioned, you can be hurt. You will need to watch yourselves.”

I glanced at my brother. It was like a three-ring circus and it would keep going if we didn’t at some point just jump forward. Or in this case backward.

“I will go. No more questions. If you swear to me you will pull us out if there is trouble.”

Talan nodded. “If you are in there longer than ten seconds, I will pull you out.”

I had a feeling it was going to be the best we would get. And suddenly I was eager to go, to see what had happened and understand what the hell was going on in my world.

“How long will that give us on the other side?” I stared into the water as I spoke.

“Long enough.”

Without another word, I lifted Peta off my shoulder and set her on the ground. She looked up at me, her green eyes narrowing before she gave me a tiny nod. No words. We couldn’t say what flew between us without speaking. Because if Talan knew she was my safety net, he might put her out of commission. Assuming he was not playing by the rules.

I smiled at her and she winked up at me.

I drew a breath and put my left hand into the waterfall. Raven moved up beside me and put his right hand in.

“Ready, sis?”

I shrugged. “Nope.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. The moment stretched, Raven disappeared, and there was nothing but the sound of water rushing around my ears, the feel of something tugging on my feet. I took a step, then another, and another, and the world as it had once been, long before I was born opened before me…





CHAPTER 8

THE PAST



What I expected when I opened my eyes after plunging my hands into the waters of the past was not what I got. I’d thought maybe I’d see things in snapshots, like human photographs in bits and pieces. What was laid out in front of me, though, was a living breathing place that was so like the world I resided in, I wasn’t sure I could tell the difference. I wasn’t sure I could tell I wasn’t standing there in truth.

I blinked several times and stared around me. To my right stood Raven. “Is this real?” I asked.

“I think so. It feels real.” He was doing the same as I was, staring around us. Because we were in our home—the Rim. No, that wasn’t quite right. We were in the Rim of the past. What it had been before our time. Long before our time. The center of the Rim was smaller than it was in our present day, and the trees were different, but not smaller. It was more like at some point the trees that were huge in the past had been cut down, or destroyed, and those we knew as the redwoods in the present were the seedlings we saw here. The sensation of knowing and not knowing the Rim was disconcerting.