"Bastard," I muttered.
"My name," Shazer muttered back.
I couldn't help the laugh. The Bastard had been Shazer's name before I'd found him. "Right, sorry. Then he can be asshole."
Peta snickered. "We shouldn't be laughing about this, but I agree. Asshole he is."
The thing was, I knew why it was funny. We were trapped by him, and yet we were trapped together.
We would face him together, and we would win together. So even in the darkest of hours, we would not be alone. I put a hand on Shazer's neck. "I wish you were truly my familiar, so you could-"
"Feel what's going on in your head? I can guess. I was quite the ladies' man." He winked back at me and I laughed softly.
"Thank you. Whatever happens, thank you."
It felt like a goodbye to me, and I didn't like that, but I went with it. Life could throw a curveball when you least expected it and I had a feeling this was going to be one of those times. I took a big breath and gave a nod. "Into the storm, my friends. Into the storm."
Shazer tucked his wings and we dropped from the sky, heading straight for Talan as I reached for my connection to the earth.
I was going to let the world swallow him whole.
See if he could Spirit his way out of that.
CHAPTER 4
Talan stood on the outcropping while the river rushed beside him and off the cliff in a spray of mist. Shazer banked his wings and we dropped slower now, landing lightly on the rock forty feet away from the Spirit Walker. As we touched down, the Pegasus buckled underneath me, rolling to the side, nearly pinning my foot under his now-unconscious body.
Anger snapped through me and I beckoned the earth up around Talan, called on it to drag him down and smother him.
Nothing happened. The rocks didn't so much as tremble.
"You cannot fight me," Talan said. He flicked a hand at Peta who crumpled where she was, asleep in an instant with the mere motion of his fingers.
Fear laced through my veins. He was too strong.
But that didn't mean I was giving up.
I held onto my connection to Earth like it was a lifeline, but the harder I pulled, the more it slipped away. In desperation, I reached for Spirit, but it, too, was blocked from my grasp. Talan didn't put me down like he'd done Peta and Shazer, though.
He frowned at me, and I could feel his power sliding through my brain, picking through my memories as though sifting through pictures in a box.
I screamed at him, all the rage spilling out, but lost in the cascading of the river over the edge of the falls.
Talan's eyes widened suddenly and I was looking at the same scene in my head as he was. Shazer on the beach, and me trying to undo what Talan had laid on the Pegasus.
"You tried to free Shazer? And you survived?"
"If you want to kill me, why aren't you doing it? Your trap failed!" I spat the words at him, my body unable to move as if I had been the one encapsulated in the earth.
Talan's shoulders slumped. "It was not my bonds on him that you tangled with, Lark. This is only one of the reasons why training you is so important. You are like a child stumbling around a dark forest, not even realizing the danger you put yourself or others into."
I flushed under his comparison. "So you would keep me from protecting my family? You would force me to let them die?"
He shook his head. "Some will die, yes, but not all. Not if I can train your abilities. We can hone them, make them deadly and strong and then I will let you go."
His words did nothing to soothe me, nor did they do anything to calm my heart. Belladonna was pregnant with her second child. She was queen of the Rim, and above all, she was my sister and she was being threatened. Even if I did not love her, I was an Ender, a protector of my people and of my world. Another scream began to build in me as I pushed at the silent bindings over my mind and body. It was as though I were pushing against a mountain with nothing but my bare hands.
A sigh slid from Talan, and if I didn't know better, he looked truly sad. "You leave me no choice."
The threads of consciousness slipped from me and I cascaded down into dreams that were not dreams, but memories: Fighting Raven at the Eyrie, watching him disappear before I could strike the final blow. Facing Viv in the cypress swamps with Peta in my arms, thinking we were about to die and willing to do so to stop Viv. Seeing Ash trapped as a golden eagle and not able to bring him to me. Realizing my little brother Bramley might not be dead, but in the world somewhere alive. Or he was dead and the ruse of his body not being where it should've been just another way to torture me.