Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(29)

He spoke softly, but there was a deadly tone to his words, and for the first time, I was afraid of him, of what he could make us do if he so chose. Yet even with that fear humming under the edge of my skin, I couldn’t back down. I couldn’t allow him to use what was left of my family for his gains.

“I will not apologize,” I said out of sheer stubbornness. “Besides, your mother isn’t lost. I hear her.”

Talan startled as if I’d slapped him. “What did you say?”

“She said,” Peta enunciated each word slowly, “she…hears…your…mo…ther.” She sniffed. “I’ve heard her too.”

He paled and slowly went to his knees. “There is no doubt then.” He covered his face with his hands and, horror of horrors, a sob slipped from him. I froze where I stood, not sure what was going on. The shift in emotions was so fast, it caught me off guard.

I shot a glance at Raven who just shrugged. Peta seemed to have no such worry about what to do. She hurried forward and put her paws on Talan’s thighs, then pushed her nose against his hands as they covered his face.

“Talan, I doubt it means she loves you any less.”

“Oh, Peta, if that was only the reason for my heart pain,” he whispered, but the words caught and echoed in the chamber. “If my mother is awake and speaking to Lark, then… it will happen. The world will break. I had hoped I was wrong, that we were years yet from this moment. I’d hoped it would never come to be truth. I’d hoped that by freeing my siblings, perhaps it would be enough to cow Viv.”

Raven cleared his throat. “The mother goddess has been speaking to my daughter as well.”

I frowned. “Daughter?”

He flashed me a quick smile. “Yes. Daughter.”

I wanted him to tell me it was Pamela, but he didn’t. He kept her name to himself and there was a flash of understanding in me. He was protecting her as best he could.

Talan lifted his face, his eyes still glittering with tears. “That is not a surprise. If Mother is speaking to Lark, she needs to also choose a witch to do her bidding. Which I believe has been done?”

Talan’s eyes flicked to mine for the briefest of seconds. Of course, he’d been there when I scooped up Pamela.

He already knew she was the one—he’d seen her break the Veil.

Raven paled and I felt a pang for him. Though I’d never had a child, I’d dreamt of one. A golden-haired little boy with Ash’s features and my smile with my mother’s eyes. The pang deepened into a wound of the heart I found myself fighting off as though it were a physical injury. I’d thought I’d given up on that dream long ago. For it to hurt now was a surprise.

Talan stood, and it was as if there had been no breakdown, no moment of weakness.

I waved a hand at him as I pulled myself together. “Okay, right now the fact that your mother is speaking to some of us doesn’t really matter. What matters is that Viv stole the stones and is going to kill your siblings. We have a chance, and we need to take it. Is there any other way we could find where she’s hidden the original elementals?”

Talan shook his head as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “No. I tried a Tracker years ago, but she was unable to help.”

I suspected there was one Tracker who could have done it. Rylee could do what no other Tracker could, but she’d lost her abilities at the Battle of the Veil.

“Then we have this one chance. We follow Viv,” I said, the decision already cast in stone as far as I was concerned.

Raven nodded. “I agree. Talan, you can train Lark as we go.”

Talan put both hands to his head. “This is not how things were supposed to go.”

Peta laughed softly, but there wasn’t a single mean note in it. “Ah, Talan, still trying to control everything? You may be older than me, but it is a lesson you have yet to learn. The world will bring you trouble in all forms. And you cannot always predict it.”

He ran a hand over her back and a sigh slid from him. “Damn it. Why are you always right?”

She grinned over her shoulder at him as she trotted back to me. “I’m a cat.”

I held out my hand and she leapt into my arms and from there moved to my shoulder. “What are we waiting for?”

Raven cleared his throat. “We might have a direction, but we still have to find Viv.”

“Oh, that’s easy. She’s with your mother, Raven. Cassava helped her. We find Cassava and we find Viv.” I locked eyes with him, daring him to deny that Cassava was working against him. She was mad, and it was obvious she was not playing with a full deck of cards.

Raven stared back at me. “I don’t think it’s going to be that easy, Lark. Even if Cassava could be found, she is not herself.”

My jaw tightened. “So you think we should just stay here, too, safe and tucked away while the original elementals are killed? What happens when that happens? The elemental bloodlines fail and we will die. I will not die like a rat hiding in a cave.”

The words echoed in the room in a strange way, almost like they were whispering back to me the answer. Yes, you will all die if the original elementals die.

“No, that’s not what I want!” Raven snapped back.

All the blood in my body seemed to still as if I’d been dunked into a frozen lake and left there. “Talan, is that what will happen?”