Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(53)

“Do whatever you must. Bella is in there.” His voice broke on the words. I’d already known in my heart she was. There was no way Viv would have set this fire for no reason. She did it deliberately to draw me here, to hurt me. She had to have found the Spirit stone. The one Cassava had hidden.

None of that mattered, though. Right now, we had to stop the flames that would kill my sister if I did nothing.

I tightened my hold on Flint and instead of giving him strength, reached deeply within him with Spirit and brushed against the living flame in his soul. The flame that connected him to the original fire elemental. I beckoned it to me, begged it to listen to my plea to weave itself with my power of Earth and the power of Spirit to be the dampener that would put out the flame.

I was thrown away from Flint with the force of an explosion. I hit the dirt, rolled, and sat up. “Cassava, she is in there. Help me!”

Cassava was at my side in a flash. “This is your first true test then, Lark. The flames, you have to bring them into you. It is the only way to make them a part of you.”

I looked to her. “What are you saying?”

She shuddered. “You have to burn, Lark. That is what she,” I had no doubt she meant Vivica, “told me. That she burned to find the original Salamander. The flames must find you strong enough. It is the only way to take on another element: you must willingly give yourself to it and trust that Spirit and the strength of your heart will protect you.”

“Viv told you this?”

She shook her head. “Ulani told me.”

I was on my feet and running, trusting her word and my life with it. Peta was beside me even though I wanted her to stay behind. I knew she wouldn’t listen, so I didn’t bother to tell her to stay back.

Together to the end.

The heat intensified as I drew closer with each step closer to the Spiral. The air I could breathe disappeared faster and faster as the flames ate the oxygen. The wall of fire grew with each step and I didn’t slow, though my instincts were screaming at me to dive away, to save myself. I took one last gasping breath, trusted that my mother had indeed given Cassava the information I was staking not only my life on, but Peta’s too, and dove into the flames.





CHAPTER 19



The unnatural fire surrounding the Spiral ate it up and broke it down like no other flame I’d ever encountered. It was as if the fire itself were alive, and had a mind of its own, a desire it could not quench. As if it were a monster that would devour all in its path.

I’d dealt with monsters before. And I wanted to believe I could face this one, too, and come out the other side. At the last second before I took that final step, I called Peta to my arms. I wouldn’t lose her, not now. She burrowed her face against my neck. “I am afraid, Lark. The flames are no longer kind to me.”

Her words resonated through me. The flames were not kind. The lash of the lava whip and the pain it produced was all too real, and a memory that still woke me from my sleep shaking and screaming.

And here I was rushing in full tilt.

All I kept thinking was that I had to do this. I had to find Bella and I had to find the flame within me, whatever the hell that was. Was I a fool for trusting Cassava? Had she played into my fear for her daughter and my willingness to throw myself into danger for her? What if Cassava was playing again for Viv and this was the perfect way to eliminate me? All the questions raced through me one after another. I could answer none of them.

But my heart said she wasn’t playing me falsely. Not this time.

Now there was nothing I could do but cast myself into the fire and pray to the mother goddess that I would be strong enough. That I would be found worthy by an element that had shown me only pain. That Cassava had been honest with me for the first time in my life.

I leapt through the first wall of flames, expecting to come out on the other side and maybe find a place within the Spiral not burning.

I was so very wrong. There was no break in the heat, nowhere to go, nothing to feel but the heavy embrace of flames and heat over my entire body, cutting through me, melting through my clothes. I drew breath to scream Bella’s name one last time and gulped in a live flame that scorched my mouth and burned a path through my lungs.

The pain in my body was in overdrive. It hurt everywhere. I could not identify just one part of it. My skin charred, my fingers were melting at the tips, my lungs seared from the inside out, and through it, I heard only one thing. I heard Peta suffering in my arms, crying out, writhing but not moving to leave me. She would die with me if I didn’t find a way to show my strength, if I didn’t find a way through this.

Goddess, help me.

I kept my eyes closed as I pushed to my feet and stumbled farther into the Spiral, my lungs burning for more than one reason. Each time my foot picked up off the burning floor, I left behind layers of skin and flesh and I cried out, only to have a little more air stolen from me. I didn’t get far. I didn’t even know just where I was headed exactly until I felt the stairs under my feet. Stairs that led to the hot springs.

I let my body tumble down the wooden framework. They cracked and groaned under me, the flame having eaten out the underpinnings of the structure. I crashed through the wood and fell, landing on the sand that surrounded the hot springs. I’m not sure I even truly understood why I felt the need to go there. Eyes closed, seared shut, I heard her cry out my name. Though, how she recognized me I had no idea.