Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(60)

But they were trying to stop the flames and failing.

"They are helping!" I yelled as I ran forward. "Help them, give them your strength." I stepped beside Flint-Bella's intended-the only Salamander I knew in the circle. I put my hand on his forearm and pushed the power of Spirit into him.

He gasped and his arms shook as the red lines brightened and the power raged across his skin. I held on as my hand heated, my skin tingling with what was going to happen if I kept holding on. For the Spiral, and those still within it, I would burn with him. I closed my eyes as the pain intensified in and around me. The other Salamanders backed off, I could feel them go, stepping away. It was only Flint and me now standing between the flames and the Spiral's total destruction. My power fed his as we fought a flame that was anything but natural.



       
         
       
        

I knew who had done it. I could taste her power on the flames, the same dark decay that had been on the gargoyles.

Viv. Viv had started this fire with the ruby stone in her hands …  but how, when it was sure to hurt those who lived here?

Unless she had found the pink stone. I looked over my shoulder, searching for Cassava.

"The pink diamond, could she have found it?"

Cassava touched a hand to her throat. "Goddess, she must have."

Well, that changed things.

I could almost see Viv standing in the dark of the night as she set fires that would never be quenched. Fires that would rage for years before finally being gutted because of their unnatural power. There had to be a way to stop her, to stop this flame.

"Flint, I'm going to try and weave the power," I spoke softly.

"Do whatever you must. Bella is in there." His voice broke on the words. I'd already known in my heart she was. There was no way Viv would have set this fire for no reason. She did it deliberately to draw me here, to hurt me. She had to have found the Spirit stone. The one Cassava had hidden.

None of that mattered, though. Right now, we had to stop the flames that would kill my sister if I did nothing.

I tightened my hold on Flint and instead of giving him strength, reached deeply within him with Spirit and brushed against the living flame in his soul. The flame that connected him to the original fire elemental. I beckoned it to me, begged it to listen to my plea to weave itself with my power of Earth and the power of Spirit to be the dampener that would put out the flame.

I was thrown away from Flint with the force of an explosion. I hit the dirt, rolled, and sat up. "Cassava, she is in there. Help me!"

Cassava was at my side in a flash. "This is your first true test then, Lark. The flames, you have to bring them into you. It is the only way to make them a part of you."

I looked to her. "What are you saying?"

She shuddered. "You have to burn, Lark. That is what she," I had no doubt she meant Vivica, "told me. That she burned to find the original Salamander. The flames must find you strong enough. It is the only way to take on another element: you must willingly give yourself to it and trust that Spirit and the strength of your heart will protect you."

"Viv told you this?"

She shook her head. "Ulani told me."

I was on my feet and running, trusting her word and my life with it. Peta was beside me even though I wanted her to stay behind. I knew she wouldn't listen, so I didn't bother to tell her to stay back.

Together to the end.

The heat intensified as I drew closer with each step closer to the Spiral. The air I could breathe disappeared faster and faster as the flames ate the oxygen. The wall of fire grew with each step and I didn't slow, though my instincts were screaming at me to dive away, to save myself. I took one last gasping breath, trusted that my mother had indeed given Cassava the information I was staking not only my life on, but Peta's too, and dove into the flames. 





CHAPTER 19



The unnatural fire surrounding the Spiral ate it up and broke it down like no other flame I'd ever encountered. It was as if the fire itself were alive, and had a mind of its own, a desire it could not quench. As if it were a monster that would devour all in its path.

I'd dealt with monsters before. And I wanted to believe I could face this one, too, and come out the other side. At the last second before I took that final step, I called Peta to my arms. I wouldn't lose her, not now. She burrowed her face against my neck. "I am afraid, Lark. The flames are no longer kind to me."

Her words resonated through me. The flames were not kind. The lash of the lava whip and the pain it produced was all too real, and a memory that still woke me from my sleep shaking and screaming.