"Not just you, Frost. All your siblings. The mother goddess has been silent too long and our people need a goddess who cares for them. I will give them that." She smiled down at him, reached out and caressed his cheek with one hand. His face paled further, though I wouldn't have thought it possible.
She reached to a bag at her side and pulled out a fat emerald I knew one day would be put into a ring setting. An emerald that now lay in a leather pouch on my body back in the cave.
Frost stared up at her and a soft fog seemed to float over his eyes. "There will be a breaking of the world and one will stand at the center, and you will face that one. One to save, one to destroy."
Viv's eyebrows shot up. "A prophecy?"
The fog slipped from Frost's eyes and he shook his head. "That can't be right. You are not a savior."
She laughed softly. "Perhaps I am, Frost. Perhaps I am the savior of our world as well as its queen, even if you don't like it."
Raven and I lay there, staring, but all I could think about was the wording. One to destroy.
I was the Destroyer.
Before I could get wrapped up in it, Viv pressed the emerald to Frost's lips. "Breathe."
He didn't have a choice, by the shades of pink that covered his body, and she forced him to do as she had bidden. His breath slipped out of him and the emerald shone from within.
Frost slipped forward. His eyes, that had been as green as the stone put to his lips, were dull gray as they shut.
Vivica stepped back and Frost slammed into the ground with a thud.
I was shaking, and couldn't stop.
"Is he dead?" Raven's question was asked in a tone that was as full of disbelief as I was feeling.
I watched Frost's back. It rose and fell slowly. "No, he's breathing still. This is the start of it, Raven. She's going to trap him."
As if to confirm what I said, Vivica spoke.
"One down," she said softly as she held the emerald stone up to the sky, the light cutting through it, "four more to go."
CHAPTER 9
Neither Raven nor I moved from where we lay on our bellies in Death Valley, our eyes trained on the figure of Vivica-the false mother goddess. She'd just taken the power of the first Terraling-Frost-and embedded it in an emerald.
I could not believe what I was seeing. I wanted to imagine that the whole scene was a creation of Talan's and not the true past. I wanted to believe he'd somehow put this together to force us to help him. But I knew in my heart and soul what I was seeing was real, that somehow Vivica had learned a way to harness the power of the original five elementals into the stones.
Stones that all but for one lay in my leather pouch.
I blinked and I was no longer in the desert, no longer in the past but back in the present, standing once more in the cavern where we'd started the journey. My hand was numb from the icy cold water and I jerked it out as if I'd been burned.
Stumbling, I made my way across the room and finally went to my knees, breathing hard as though I'd been running. Peta was there in a flash, her face tucked in tightly to mine. "What did you see? You were only gone seconds."
I wrapped an arm around her and held her to me. "The false mother goddess, she confined the original elementals, she stole their power and infused it somehow into the stones." I put a hand to my hip to reassure myself they were still there.
No, that wasn't quite right. I turned to look at where Talan stood. "What happened to you? Why are you not confined? Why has your power not been sucked away?"
On his knees across the room from me, Raven nodded. "That is my question as well."
Talan sighed. "Vivica came to me last, after she'd imprisoned my four siblings. As you know, Spirit elementals had been slaughtered almost into extinction. I … made a deal with her. She would have some access to my power without a fight, and she would allow the last few lines of my family to continue. I knew that it was within one of those lines that the one who would stop her would be born." His eyes swept over to me. "You are our only hope, Lark. You are the one we have been waiting for."
"What about Raven?" Peta asked. "He has the same powers, more actually than us."
Talan shook his head. "No, his strength is broken between five elements. It is Spirit that trumps all, and Lark is stronger in Spirit than anyone, even Vivica. Once you are trained."
"But not you," I said.
"Not me." He agreed with a quick smile that hid a truth. He thought I would be stronger than him at some point.