Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(23)

Talan nodded. “She was the baby sister we all loved, born a long, long time after the rest of us. You carry her power, Lark. As did your brother. It had to be one of you.”

He was my uncle. Talan was my uncle. Holy shit, holy shit. I didn’t know how to process what I was learning.

Peta pushed herself against me. “Breathe, Lark, or you’ll pass out.”

I took a big gulping breath, held it, and let it out slowly.

“Again,” Peta instructed, and I did as she told me until the black spots in my vision slowed.

Talan crouched in front of me. “Viv destroyed six, so it will take the six of us to put her away. She knows how to block me from using Spirit against her, as she has learned to control all the elements. We must hammer her from all sides to take her down, because she has tied herself directly to the four remaining families. She can draw on the power of many, many elementals if she chooses.”

I looked up at him. “Won’t that hurt them?”

He nodded. “It will kill them, taking the weakest first.”

Well, that was a shitstorm just waiting to happen.

“So what next, then?” Because that was where I was stuck. All these things. My parentage being laid out. The civil war happening in the Rim, the destruction of the human world, the Deep under threat, all the Sylphs missing from the Eyrie. Vivica being who she was. Having to find the missing siblings. My missing… aunts and uncles. Weirdness did not even cover that.

“We train you,” Talan said.

“That is not enough,” I fired back. “We have the stones, surely that would help us?” Or at least, we had some of them. Those connected to Earth, Fire, Wind, and Water were within my possession. I reached to the small leather bag tied to my belt, running my fingers over it. Four stones with more power than anyone should ever have.

The pink diamond, the one connected to Talan’s power, had gone missing, though, and in many ways, it was the deadliest of the five, giving the wearer the ability to control so much, and in the bargain, lose their hold on reality. That was what had happened to Cassava. She’d worn the pink diamond for years, using Spirit for her own gains, and in turn lost herself to madness.

“There is more to the prophecy.” Talan turned to Raven. “Did you get the book from the Pit?”

Raven gave a sharp nod and left the room, his black cloak swirling out behind him.

Talan twisted around to me. He blew out a breath, and shook his head before he spoke. Almost like he wasn’t sure of what he would say. “I know this is a lot to take in. But everything that has been done has been to keep you safe, and to strengthen you to this point. So that you could help me free my brothers and sisters.”

I frowned at him, a dark suspicion growing in my heart. “What do you mean?” I didn’t like the sound of “everything that has been done.” Just how deeply did he have his hands in my life?

His eyes flicked over me, weighing me. He hesitated, though, and that only heightened the tension in the room. Finally, he spoke, slowly, as if each word were fragile.

“Your father’s madness. Your mother’s death. Your brother going missing. That’s only a few of the things. All your life has been steps on a path where we have been trying to dodge Viv, to keep her unaware of what we are planning, to keep her from realizing who you were. She expected a princess to face her, a warrior from birth. We made you a humble planter for a reason. She would have killed you as a child if not for Cassava blocking your abilities.”

I stared at him, my heart pounding as the words sank into me. Sank into my bones as if they would break each one apart from the marrow outward. Shaking from head to toe, I stared at him, unable to fully fathom at first. Because he couldn’t mean they’d manipulated my life from that early point on… did he?

I struggled to get the words out, to question him while the air I fought to keep breathing seemed to clog my chest and throat. “You… broke my world? You stole my family from me? You’re my uncle and you did this to me?”

Talan didn’t have a lick of sorrow on his face. If anything, his eyes hardened, and his lips tightened. “Yes, it was planned from the beginning.”

The air between us all but crackled, as if those words were an ignition for action. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I lost my mind in that moment.

I dropped Peta and launched myself at him with nothing more than my body and fists. All I could see was my past and the horrors I’d faced from such a young age. My mother falling from the sky as the wind was ripped from her lungs and her life taken, Bramley crying for me and then—dead or alive—his body stolen away, my father dying in my arms, having to kill my siblings, the oubliettes, Death Valley, being kept away from Peta, Ash. Ash.

Ash.

The scream that ripped from my throat was sheer pain, agonizing loss after loss exploding out of me like a monstrous burst of uncontrollable lava from a mountain that was too small to contain the violence.

There was no finesse about my attack. I drove my fist into his solar plexus and sent him backward through the falling water. He tumbled and landed on the other side with a wet thud, but I was already there, swinging a foot at his head. He rolled, and I followed, snarls ripped from my throat.

Never had I felt rage like this and my body could not contain the animal anger as it spilled upward. I’d only taken form as my animal counterpart a few times, and only when I absolutely had to—like when fighting Raven in the Eyrie. Right then, there was no controlling the shift as my body slipped its human shape and I landed on four large paws. As a snow leopard, I had no doubt I could destroy Talan. I would tear him apart starting with his treacherous mouth.