Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(74)

Bella hugged me tightly and kissed me on either cheek. “You can do this, Lark. You can.”

River even hugged me. I kissed her on the forehead. “Look after your mother.”

Her eyes flashed. “Always.”

Then it was just Raven, Peta, and me. I looked him over. “Where is your son, the son you had with Samara?” I didn’t know if I should tell him his son was a child of Matarrah, that he’d bedded the very first air elemental. Would it matter? Probably not.

“He is with Cassava,” he said. “She will look after him, and then take him to Pamela when he is older.”

“You say that like you won’t be around to raise him.”

His eyes were on mine. “I’m not sure I will be. This thing the mother goddess asks of you is power beyond power.”

Peta shivered across my shoulders. “I feel it too, Lark. This is an end to end everything as we know it.”

I sighed. “Nothing truly ever ends, not without a hope for some new beginning.”

I paused. “I would see her one more time, before I do this. Will you come with me?”

Raven nodded, and I took him by the hand and let Spirit take us to Cassava.

She sat in a rocking chair, holding a small bundle as she soothed the snuffling child. Cassava didn’t even look up as we appeared in the room.

“Is Viv gone then?” she asked.

“She is.”

“And you are here, why?” She lifted her head then and arched an eyebrow at me. My nemesis for my whole life, and yet she hadn’t ever been my true enemy but the dearest friend of my mother’s.

“I am sorry, Cass,” I said softly. “For all you suffered to bring this day around. I wish it could have been different.”

Her eyes widened and her lips trembled. “You… I would do it all again to make this world a safe place.” She glanced at the child in her arms. “The half-bloods will rise up now without Viv’s interference. As it always should have been, the world will no longer be broken into pure bloods, but instead, ruled by those who carry more than one power.”

I nodded. “Less division.”

“Yes.”

The words halted between us and I didn’t know what else to say. “Keep safe, then.”

She smiled. “I heard your words, Lark. You did not need to come here to tell them to me in person.”

“Are you not mad now?” I knew I was stalling, and perhaps she did, too. I could admit I was more than a little afraid of what had been asked of me.

Cassava stood and walked to me, the child now sleeping in the crook of her arm. “The mother goddess removed the madness for all that I have tried to do to help your cause. But I will not go back to the Rim. Too many will not be able to forget my part in the breaking of our lives.”

Cassava watched me. “His mother has given him much strength, more than any other Sylph could have.”

My eyes snapped to hers, and she smiled and tipped her head ever so slightly. So she knew who the baby’s mother truly was… somehow I was not surprised.

A sigh slid out of me. “Please watch over Bella, as best you can. Please.”

Her eyes locked with mine and I saw that she understood what I could not say out loud. That I didn’t believe I would survive this, not even with the guidance of the original elementals.

She leaned in and pulled my head down to kiss me on the forehead. “Your mother was right about you, Larkspur. She believed that all the pain, all the suffering would teach you as nothing else could to have a soft heart. She knew you, even then.”

I touched the child on the head, brushing the mixture of dark and white hair over with my hand.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and stepped back. No goodbye, I just wrapped Raven and me in Spirit and took us back to the cemetery at the Rim. I let go of his hand and took a few steps away, setting myself once more between my mother’s body and where Ash had lain.

“No more stalling,” I said to Peta.

Her hold on me was gentle and firm. “Saying goodbye is not stalling.” She butted her head against mine.

I opened myself as fully as I could to the five elements I held and looked at Raven. “I will do what I can to keep the destruction down.”

Raven had the audacity to laugh. “Please.”

I managed a smile and held my hand out to him. “Here we go, brother.”

“I always was your favorite.” He winked even though there were tears in his eyes.

I swallowed hard, finding it difficult to speak around the lump in my throat. “Yeah, I guess you were.”

Peta tightened her hold on me. “I am here, Lark. You are not alone.” Her love was a balm to my aching soul, and I held onto it for all I was worth. Through everything I’d suffered, Peta had been my light. She’d been my soul sister in more ways than one.

Air slid out of me and I sent all five elements curling from my center, driving them deep into the earth, searching down, down, down to find the core of the land we stood on. The forest trembled and the trees groaned as if they knew their deaths were coming.

Pain, this would hurt so many, yet… I was going to do it anyway. The animals around us fled, running ahead of a danger they could sense but did not understand.

At the center of the planet, the five elements hovered, and I could see the crack that would send out a rippling shudder that would reshape the world.