"That is the problem," he said. "I don't know exactly. We could have a few days, a week, or even a month. Hell, we could have a year before things truly shatter. But because I don't know, we need to act as though we have only weeks at best. Because it could very well be less. It could be mere hours."
I wanted to sink to the floor, my soul crushed under the truths I'd seen in the mirrored water. "Peta, what do I do?" I whispered the question to her.
She was silent for a full minute before she finally answered me in a mere whisper.
"I think we must stay for now, as much as I hate it."
Talan cleared his throat and scrubbed the back of his neck with one hand. "There is something else you should know. I won't be your only trainer here. In order to speed up your learning, I thought it best to have two people showing you the ropes."
I frowned at him, confused. "What do you mean? There is another Spirit Walker? I thought you were the last."
From a side doorway stepped a figure I never wanted to see again unless it was laid out and dead at my feet. Hair black as the bird he was named after and eyes as blue as the sky, his face was scratched to hell and blood dripped from his nose, but he was alive.
Raven smiled at me. "Hello, Larkspur."
CHAPTER 6
Raven stood in front of me in the rocky prison Talan kept us in like I should give him a welcoming hug. Of course, the pain in my body Talan had inflicted kept me from moving at all-that and the sheer shock at Talan's audacity to bring Raven here and expect me not to try to kill him.
There was too much history between us, too many times that Raven had tried to kill me, or those I loved.
Peta, on the other hand, had no such compunctions about holding still. She leapt from my arms, shifting into her snow leopard form in midair. A roar from her lips as she soared toward Raven was all she got out before she was dropped to the floor a second time.
Her body just went limp as though she'd been shot through the heart, and she crashed to the stone, sliding into Raven's feet. He held his hands up and took a few steps back. "It was not me, Lark."
Pain or no pain, I whipped around to Talan. He stared back, totally unashamed. "No fighting unless I sanction it."
I had never felt so useless in my life, and that was saying something considering where I'd started. I limped to Peta and crouched down at her hip. I ran a hand over her gently, wishing I could give her some of my energy. That, at least, was still mine, and it flared under my hands and slid into her. She groaned and rolled to look at me. "What happened?"
"Talan dropped you," I said. "Again." I wasn't going to throw him under a falling redwood and tell her that he was a complete and total asshole for doing it. I was sure she'd figure that part out herself. She got to her feet, but didn't shift into her housecat form. Her bright green eyes narrowed as she looked from Talan to Raven and back again.
Talan moved to where my spear lay. "I'll be taking this too."
"Did you take Raven's weapons?" I struggled to breathe as the sudden spurt of pain radiated up my spine and through my ribcage. It felt as though Talan had just ramped up the agony along my nerve endings.
"I didn't have to take his weapons. He's not here to hurt you," Talan said, and if I could have without passing out, I would have laughed. As it was, I wrapped one arm around my middle and put the other on Peta's back to steady myself. There was nothing else to say. I needed to regroup, much as I hated feeling like I was retreating.
I'd agreed-sort of-to stay and train, seeing some validity in the scenes Talan had revealed to me from the Rim to the Deep to the humans. But that had been before Talan had put Raven in front of me.
I limped my way out of the room, my heart burning with humiliation that I had to retreat at all. A part of me thought if I left Talan's presence, his hold on my pain would lessen, but it didn't. Not one ounce slipped away. If anything, the hurt only intensified. The air whistled in and out past my clenched teeth and when I reached the room I'd started in, the only thing I could think of was sleep.
"Peta." I whispered her name into the pillow as I fought tears of anger and shame. "How could I have been such a fool as to trust him?"
Her big body stretched out at my back so she was between me and the doorway, her warmth sinking into me. "You are not the only one. I thought … I thought I knew him. He has changed so much. I always knew Spirit could twist one's soul but I never would have thought it would do this to him."