Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(59)

"There isn't time," Cassava said.

I spun on her. "There is always time to save those we love. I refuse, I damn well refuse, to lose anyone else." I was yelling, and I didn't care.

Cassava's eyes closed. "So like your mother. You cannot save them all, Lark. You can't. I know this better than anyone."

Nope, I would not fall to those tears. I drew a breath. "We're going to find out what Viv has done here, and you are going to help me, Cass." I deliberately used her nickname from my mother. "And then we are going to find the original elementals."

Griffin barked out a laugh that went on far too long. I looked over my shoulder and glared at him. "What's so funny, wolf breath?"

"You think you can find elementals that have been missing for thousands of years? Elementals who even Talan, their youngest sibling, can't find?"

I drew myself up, and the answer deep in my belly was simple. "Yes."

He stopped laughing and just stared at me, the air tensing around us. "Well, shit. Maybe you of all of us can."

"Not maybe." I took a step toward the center of the Rim. "It's going to happen or our world won't survive."

Cassava fell into step beside me. "My daughter …  Is Belladonna here?"

I nodded. "She was last time I checked."

"She is a good queen."

"Yes." This was a damn weird conversation. In part because Griffin trailed along behind us like a wayward dog. Peta was close to me, stepping through the ferns and over downed logs with ease, ghosting through the forest as if she'd been born and raised there. "Did you give Viv the Spirit stone?" 

"No. I hid it again. I may not always agree with Talan, but she would have direct access to his power and to him. That would be the final blow to our efforts against her."

I nodded.

She glanced at me as she moved around a sapling redwood. "You don't want to know where I hid it?"

I shrugged. "No. If she can't get it, I don't care."

Her shoulders relaxed as though she'd been holding something heavy. No more words passed between us. I would never truly be her friend, but I understood a little of where she came from now, and those memories would stay with me a long time.

If she were to Travel with me from here on out, I would see more of her memories whether I wanted to or not. I sighed to myself. "I still want to hate you."

Cassava laughed. "Yes, I imagine you do."

"But …  I understand all you've done. Why you've done it. Though, I wish …  I wish there had been more honesty. You could have trusted me long ago." I did look at her then. She was so like Bella in form and coloring, it would be easy to mix them up.

Now was not the time for those kinds of thoughts. A crackle of flames reached my ears.

"Do you hear that?" I put an arm out, barring Cassava from taking another step. "Peta?"

"Yes, something's on fire," she said.

A whisper on the wind brought us the sound of shouting, and the distant bite of flames on wet wood. I broke into a run, unable to keep my feet from taking me home.

The trees seemed to close around me and I fought not to give in to the sudden panic that I was going to be too late. That once again, I would fail not only my family but all those I felt the need to protect. No matter how far I went, no matter how long I was away, I was always and forever in the heart of my world, an Ender. A protector.

The Rim proper opened in front of me and I slid to a stop in pure shock.

It was burning, the old redwoods lit up like gigantic candles.

There were Salamanders and Terralings side by side battling the flames, while other Terralings and Salamanders fought behind them. Bodies littered the ground, some still moving, others still.

"Bella!" I screamed my sister's name, and put the power of Spirit behind the word. Those elementals close to me fell away, their hands clutching at either their chests or their ears. I knew they weren't hurt badly or I would have stopped. I broke into a run, heading for the center of the Rim where the most smoke billowed. Bella would be there, fighting the fire.

My heart thumped harder and harder as the Spiral-the seat of my family's power-slowly came into view.

I'd watched it come into existence in the memories Talan had allowed me see, and now I was here at its end. The entire Spiral burned; the flames were hot and multicolored from the palest yellow to the brightest blues and greens.

A dozen Salamanders stood around the Spiral with their hands raised, the intent on their arms as their power raged clear to me. Terralings tried to pull them away, and if I did not have the sight of their power and understanding what they were doing, I would have thought the same thing. That they were burning the Spiral.