Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(26)

Peta snorted softly. “That’s like saying I’m never going to purr again. I might try not to, but it’s in my nature.”

I twisted to look at her, my tone dry. “Thanks for the backup, cat.”

I rubbed a hand over my eyes knowing I could not take any more in and still retain what I was hearing. “I’m done. I need to sleep for a bit and then perhaps we can get on with the training.”

Talan nodded. “Be my guest. But do not sleep long.”

I grunted at him as I left the circular room and the two men standing in it. The walk through the tunnels was silent, but my mind would not shut off—there was so much to take in, that I was overwhelmed with all I’d learned.

Back in the room that had been assigned to me, I sat on the edge of the bed. Peta jumped down beside me.

“You have a plan then?” She tipped her head to one side and narrowed her eyes.

I put a hand to the leather pouch at my side. “I have four stones, Peta. Do you think he could stop me from leaving if I used them?”

She sucked in a sharp breath. “Maybe. But you want to learn from him, don’t you?”

“I hate him. I want to learn from him. I’m afraid for my family. I’m afraid for what is going to be asked of me. I want to find Ash.” My heart lurched as I spoke his name out loud for the first time in a long time.

Peta stepped up and put her paws on my thighs. “Take what you can from Talan. For everything else, he is talented with Spirit. Even if he was not one of the original children of the mother goddess, I would tell you that. With training, you can be more than you are now and that could save those you love. And if we could find the original elementals, all the better. They can take up the fight against Viv. Maybe they could help us find Ash and bring him back.”

Her eyes blurred. It was easy to forget that both times I’d been cast out of her life, Peta had been with Ash. As his unofficial familiar, they had nearly as tight a bond as she and I did. I ran a hand over her head. “We’ll find him. We’ll bring him home.” Of that, I had no doubt.

I made myself lie on the bed, and Peta curled up on my chest, her chin on her paws. I closed my eyes, tried to relax, but even though I was fatigued from everything, my mind wouldn’t let me go.

The past and seeing Vivica fight the original Terraling, Frost. The things Talan had said. The stones laying heavy at my side. Raven. Ash. Bella. River. Father. Bramley. Pamela and Rylee. Names and faces swirled through my mind, making it difficult to do more than breathe.

Peta was oblivious to my upheaval as she slept, for which I was grateful.

I kept working at the many threads that had been laid in front of me. How many of them could I make sense of? Talan had said that Viv wanted to rule and the past images had shown that. But she couldn’t be free of the curse until she held all five stones, that was the catch of the curse. With four of them in my leather pouch, surely that would slow her down.

Maybe she had her hands on the pink diamond, but I didn’t think so. But that took me back to my past and all that had been done to me in the name of making me stronger. Of keeping me safe from Viv while I grew up. It was done. I was who I was and many lives had been lost in the process. I could not change it. I put an arm over my eyes in a vain attempt to truly sleep.

Training with Talan now… a part of me had thought I was done with that time of my life. My training as an Ender had been hard, but I had loved it. For the first time in my life, I’d been useful and had been learning and working toward a goal. I wanted nothing more than to protect my family, to keep those who remained safe. That had not changed.

This training felt more like it was holding me back. That I would do better if I was out in the world seeking out those original elementals and finding a way to free them.

Thoughts swirled around and around, one chasing the other. Sleep took me slowly, and with such small increments that at first I didn’t realize I was asleep and dreaming. For a moment, it was if I stood in the Rim, in real life and not in a dream. But as I stood there, my feet in the soft dirt, the smells of the forest filling me, I knew it for what it was.

Not a dream.

A vision.

My jaw tightened. The only person who’d come to me like this was Viv in the guise of the mother goddess to instruct and guide me in the past. True to form, a white and floating mist rolled toward me from the base of the trees inch by inch before it coalesced into my mother. Her long blond hair swirled around her face that was so like mine, but her eyes were not those I knew. They were a deep dark brown and they were thick with hatred.

“So, Lark. You have the stones.” I didn’t answer her as she strode toward me, her one hand outstretched. “Give them to me.”

“No.”

Did she truly think I would just hand them over?

Her hand trembled. “I am here to save our world.”

“Bullshit. You want control. And I’m going to stop you, bitch.”

“That’s what Talan has said, yes?” She smirked at me. “He’s an adept liar, don’t you think?”

I arched an eyebrow, though a part of me knew I could be in serious trouble. Visions were strange; they could reflect the real world, and could even cause things to happen that were then reflected in the waking world. “Takes one to know one.”

Her eyes narrowed and the image of my mother wavered until I saw not the face of my beloved mama, but a woman who looked very much like a Terraling, the same woman I’d seen in the past Talan had shown me. Her dark hair and dark eyes, dusky skin and short stature labeled her as surely as the red hair on my friend Cactus marked him as a Salamander.