Destroyer (The Elemental Series #7)(69)

Correction, it was my own spear.

Talan had put it here? Was that possible?

Anger surged through me. "Peta, I'm going to try to break the hold on her first."

"There is no hold on me!" Finley screamed. "Guards!" 

I flicked a hand at the door, cementing it closed with stone from the floor, and then sealing it with fire so the block was solid, heated to a temperature that locked the doors from all that would try it.

I went back to where Finley lay on her back and I saw just how far in Peta's teeth had gone. One wrong move and she could kill Finley with barely any more pressure.

I went to my knees and put my hands to either side of Finley's face. "Let her go, Peta."

She pulled back and I pushed Spirit through my hands and wove it into Finley's mind. I found the lines of manipulation Viv had laid on her, found the knots that held them together. Complicated and fierce, the power of Spirit had been overlapped and overlapped so many times, I could barely see where one piece began and another ended.

I dug into the mess, pulling the strands off as fast as I could while still being careful. I felt as though I stood in front of a doorway covered with a thousand years' worth of vegetation with only my bare hands to remove it.

Well, I'd been a Planter and a nurturer of the earth for the first part of my life. This was no different. I would not let Finley go without a fight.

If I had anything to say about it, I would not let another of my friends die.

I bent over Finley. More and more layers I found within her mind, wrapped around my friend, until I realized there was so much more to this than just a single moment of manipulation. I found the root of the net Viv had laid on the Undine queen.

From the time Finley had been a child, the false mother goddess had warped her mind, feeding her subtle lies that became a part of who Finley was.

"Peta." I whispered her name. The shock of what I was seeing was too much for anything louder. "I don't understand. What am I seeing? Can you see this?"

"Oh shit." Peta sighed the words. The door behind us rocked hard as the Enders of the Deep slammed their bodies against it.

"What is this?" The more I pulled away the threads covering Finley, the less I saw of the girl I'd known, the child I'd saved and loved as surely as if she were my little sister and not from a different family.

"Her life was never her own," Peta said, putting a paw on my hands. "What you are seeing is simply a creation of Viv's. She was never Finley, not from a very young age."

I bowed my head. The door behind us cracked as the seal I'd placed on it began to fail. I bit my lower lip. "If I take it all away?"

"There will be nothing of her left," Talan said softly. I spun around, anger flying through me. If I hadn't been elbow-deep in Finley's mind, I would have attacked him.

"That can't be," I snapped at him. "There is always a way to bring someone back!"

He nodded once. "This is what happens when a mind has been manipulated from such a young age, there is nothing left that is real. She was never real, Lark. She has been Viv's creation from the beginning, just waiting to be used. Just like the gargoyles."

I glared at him. "What about me then? I was manipulated since I was very young too. Am I not myself?"

Talan shook his head. "Certain memories, certain things were changed in you. Not everything. That is the difference. Vivica manipulated almost every aspect of Finley's life. We took your memories, but we never tried to change the core of who you were."

Despite my arguments for Finley's life, I knew what Talan meant. There would be no convincing Finley to not attack the humans. There would be no keeping her safe. There would be no letting her live. Slowly, I delved my power with Spirit into Finley's mind searching for the pieces that kept her moving, breathing.



       
         
       
        

"What are you doing?" Talan's voice was sharp, and I knew without looking Peta stepped between us.

"I'm ending this," I said, "with as little pain as I can for her."

I put her to sleep first and wove for her a memory, one of her own I knew had made her happy, one of the few I could see were her own. A time when she was with her father and mother, when they held her tightly and loved her so, that they could not see the dangers around them. They were happy. They were safe in that ignorance before Viv got her claws into Finley.

I left her memory at the front of her mind and began to pull apart the threads that held her life force together. One by one, I plucked them away, tears sliding down my face with the removal of each.