Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(56)

A sense of urgency tugged at my feet. Already my time here was done and I had to leave. “Peta, let’s go.”

The snow leopard raced across the open stretch of the Rim to me, shifting at the last second into her housecat form as she leapt up into my arms. I caught her and she moved quickly to my shoulder. I looked around for Cassava. She was off to one side, quiet, watching, a hood pulled up to shelter her face.

I realized that Bella hadn’t seen her. I arched an eyebrow and Cassava shook her head.

I turned back to Bella and caught her in a hug. “I will always come for you, Belladonna. Do not doubt it.”

She clung to my shoulders. “I love you, Lark. Whatever it is you are doing, come home when it is done.”

I let her go, and strode toward Cassava, shepherding her out of the Rim. Raven had said traveling by Spirit couldn’t be done directly in and out of the elemental homes. That it was a fail-safe to keep Spirit Walkers from causing too much damage.

So much for that thought. Viv was wreaking havoc wherever she went. The only questions were, where was she now? And did she have the pink diamond?

No one tried to stop us as we hurried out of the Rim. There were no other goodbyes, no thank you for saving us. The upheaval was too great and the shock still setting in. “Is this happening in the other families, then, too?” I asked.

My question was directed at Cassava, but Griffin answered as he fell into step beside us.

“Yes, as they leave their homes, they are finding they lose their minds rather quickly. It is a way for Viv to control them, to keep them in one place.” His eyes swept over me, as though I would have the answer to this. “You are a smart one, yeah? Think you can figure out how she’s doing it?”

“Do you know?” I fired back at him. “Because if you do, this isn’t the time for games.”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. If I do, I’d tell you, yeah?”

Cassava sniffed. “Don’t believe everything the wolf says. He’s playing a deep game, too, one I’ve yet to understand.”

I hated that I agreed with her on anything, but most especially this. I wanted to trust Griffin. He’d been the first to help me work past the blocks Cassava herself had put on my power. I fought not to hunch my shoulders. To get to the edge of the Rim would take us less than an hour. I worked over the possibilities of how Viv was binding the elemental families to their homes so tightly. “She was the one who set up the homes like this in the first place, binding us,” I said softly, knowing only Peta would hear me. She wiggled her nose which brushed her whiskers across my cheek. “But how?”

Spirit was the only answer I could truly think of. Spirit was the reason that she—Viv—could do so much. But that didn’t mean anything to me other than knowing the tool. In a way, it was like holding a weapon but not being trained how to use it.

We reached the edge of the Rim in relative silence. Neither Griffin nor Cassava deigned to speak to each other or me. And I was lost in my thoughts of all that had happened so far, all that I’d learned, and all the secrets that felt like they were still there, just under the surface.

“Where do we go next?” Cassava stopped under the canopy of an arbutus tree, the bright red bark standing out like a flag behind her.

“We have to find the last three original elementals. That is the only hope we have of stopping Viv.”

I wasn’t sure now, though. Olivisha had given not only her power, but her life to me. How would waking the others help? Talan and Cassava seemed to think it would take all six elementals to stop Viv.

And now we were minus two.

Unless I stood in her place and my mother’s to face Viv with Olivisha’s siblings.

Certainty rolled through me. That was it. I was going to do double duty with the others.

Cassava stared at me and her eyes slowly crinkled at the edges as she smiled. “If anyone will do the impossible, it will be Lark.”

Unspoken words flowed between us, an understanding that where there was hatred, there was love; where there was love, there was understanding. I pulled myself up. “I have to go on my own, Cassava. You’ve helped me enough.”

She nodded. “Not alone, though, Lark. You have one more you need with you on this journey. One who has been waiting for you. I’m surprised you have not asked for him before now.” She held up her wrist and let out a long low whistle. The cry of a hunting eagle answered her, high-pitched and mournful. I stared into the treetops as he swept toward me.

The rush of wings, the tawny brown and gold body cascading down and then he was there, on Cassava’s wrist, his still golden eyes on mine.

A golden eagle, and the only man I’d truly ever loved trapped within that form forever.

Ash.





CHAPTER 20

I was shaking as I stood at the edge of the Rim with Cassava holding Ash on her arm. “He has been kept safe, Lark, all these years. But… I am not sure you can bring him back.”

My heart twanged and my jaw tightened. “No… he can’t be brought back. It would mean his death.”

She took a step and transferred him to my bare shoulder as though I’d said nothing. Peta peered around the back of my head at him. “We have seen firsthand what happens when you try to shift an elemental out of a shape. It’s not possible when there has been any significant time.”