Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(57)

Cassava took a few steps back and shook her head. “Not all minds can handle the shift in shape. That is why not all elementals find that ability. They are all capable, but they must trust themselves and the power the mother goddess has given each of us… Ash does not trust easily. This would be his shape if he were able to shift on his own.”

Her eyes were sad, and for a moment, I wanted to reach out and strangle her. “You did this to him.”

“No, Raven did,” she said softly. “Ash was dying, and without our intervention, he would have bled out on the mountain. Viv was close. She knew Ash’s importance to you and was going to twist him to her own uses. This was how Raven chose to protect him. If he’d just healed him, Ash would have been taken by Viv and you truly would have lost him. This was the only way for him to even have a chance at coming back to you.”

Her words had the ring of truth. “Damn it.” I bowed my head even as I reached up and carefully touched Ash’s back, feeling him there. If I stayed where we were one second longer, I would lash out. I could feel the rage building from the soles of my feet up to my throat.

Because there had been a great deal of time between then and now that Raven or Cassava could have brought Ash back. As soon as they were away from Viv.

“She would have known, Lark,” Cassava said, as if reading my mind. “She sought him out. He was the one, she knew, who could break you. The one you would have done anything to save.”

My jaw ticked hard and I struggled with the words. “You’re saying you kept him like this to what? Protect me?”

Cassava nodded. “Yes.”

Pain lanced through me, pain that Ash was trapped… all to keep me safe. I could not look at Cassava another second longer. I called Spirit to me and bent it around us, taking us away from the Rim. And yet again, the memories of another’s mind caught me off guard as we rode Spirit away from her words. The scenes that tugged at me and held me tightly were not Peta’s, but Ash’s as we swept away from Cassava, Griffin, and the Rim.

*

I saw Ash flying, and felt the joy he had in it, the feeling of wind over his wings and the sense of freedom he carried with him in those moments. The hatred for Cassava in the beginning of his time with her, and then the growing understanding as she poured out her heart to him, explaining everything. He was her only companion in all those years, her only connection to a world she was trying to save and he fought her words. He fought her truth. And then finally succumbed to it.

He accepted his fate to be chained not only to Cassava, but as an eagle forever. To never truly be free.

*

I broke out of the memories and onto a sandy beach I knew very well, the beach where Cassava told me my little brother was buried. This beach was where Bella and I had stood on my first mission as an Ender. To protect my sister as she went into the Deep as a diplomat so many years ago. The first time I’d let my rage take hold of my power and created a tsunami that had almost killed us both.

Was it because Bramley was somewhere near, that I’d found my first true grasp of power here? Another time I would have looked for his grave, but not right then. Not when I was shaken by the memories that had danced through me.

Ash’s memories were disjointed and scattered like those of someone who no longer knew how to think like a human, and that made my legs shake as though I’d been running for days. “Peta, what do I do?”

Peta leapt from my shoulder and glanced back at me, her big green eyes full of sorrow, her paws sinking into the sand. “I don’t know. I think… I think that only the mother goddess could help now.”

I bowed my head, and Ash jumped off and bounced on the sand, lifting one taloned foot and then the other.

“Mother goddess…” I didn’t get any further than that.

He will return to you as a man, Lark. But not yet, not until your task is completed.

“My task is to free your children, and now Olivisha is dead.”

There is more than one way to give a soul freedom.

Silence after that.

“You heard her?” I looked to Peta, who nodded.

“I did.”

“Ash,” I reached out and slid my hand over his back, “will you trust me to bring you back? To wait a little longer?”

He dropped his head, hopped forward, and pressed his beak to my cheek as a soft trill slid from his throat. A tear crept down my face. “Thank you.”

“Now that you have that settled,” Peta cleared her throat, “what are we doing here?”

I dropped to my knees. “I’m not sure, exactly. I just know I need to find the original elementals. Talan says he can’t, that only Viv knows where they are.”

“And?”

I bit my lower lip. “I have an idea, but you aren’t going to like it.”

She rolled her eyes. “Let’s hear it.”

I gathered my thoughts, putting them in order. “If I use Spirit to Travel directly to Viv—”

“You’re right, I don’t like it,” Peta said.

“Let me finish.” I swallowed hard because I didn’t truly like the plan either. “If I go to Viv, grab her, and use Spirit to Travel with her, I can see her memories. Maybe I can force her memories of where she hid the others to show me.”

Silence met my words. I looked down at Peta to see her eyes half shut. “The theory is good, but if it works, why not just Travel directly to each of the elementals then that are hidden? If we can Travel directly to a person?”