Cassava’s laughter stopped as suddenly as it started. The ground below us sucked Peta, Cactus, and me down so we were trapped up to my waist and Peta’s belly.
Vines sprouted between the remaining tiles and wrapped around all three of us, binding us as tightly as any chain. They squeezed until I could barely breathe, but I kept following the paths mountain showed me. Deeper and deeper I reached, Spirit and Earth calling to me in tandem as I sought out what the mountain strove to show me.
“Lark, tell me you’ve got this,” Cactus wheezed out.
“Of course she does,” Peta snapped back.
Of course I did . . . the pathways all lit up inside my head and I saw how the two powers interconnected. How Spirit boosted Earth, how the mountain had come alive with so much Spirit poured into it.
The entity welcomed me home. The mountain stirred under us and I called it up, beckoned it to me. The world shook and I closed my eyes. In my mind I saw the earth swallow Cassava, and crush her beneath the mountain, saw the weight of the rocks and the earth end her life.
A roar filled my ears as all around us the ground swelled and ripped apart.
Screams rent the air. Power ripped through me, and the mountain bellowed, as if a large animal was released from a thousand-year cage.
“Hang on!” I yelled as the ground beneath us dropped. We floated as if we fell for ages. I didn’t let go of the power. I funneled it through the mountain. Everything I had, I gave. I opened myself like never before and the mountain crashed around us.
Child, you go too far. This was not what I wanted. The mother goddess spoke to me, her words hard.
“Then you should have let Cassava kill me.” I spat the words out. Or I think I did. It was hard to tell with the way the world twisted in on itself. The sounds of elementals crying out, the feel of the mountain turning itself inside out at my command.
The power . . . for all that was holy, it felt as though nothing could stop me. I reached for it with all the strength I had in me. I touched the mountains around us and felt them wake.
Yes, this was the way it should be. To start fresh, wipe out those who used them wrongly. To clean away the interlopers.
Those were not my thoughts.
The mountains spoke through me. Wipe them out, those who see us as nothing. They see us as less because we are of the earth and not the far-reaching skies. I give them life, I give them shelter, I protect them. They do not care. They do not thank me.
Rocks slammed into the ground around us, but none touched my skin. I forced my eyes open, forced myself to truly see what carnage was happening.
The mountain had sunk, dropping out from under us so we rested in a deep crater. As though a falling rock from the sky had annihilated it.
People were yelling. Peta and Cactus were yelling, but I didn’t hear them. I saw their mouths moving, but there was no sound. Cactus slapped me—hard enough to snap my head around. “Stop it, Lark! She’s dead, you have to stop this, you’re going to kill us all!”
His words hit me harder than his hand. I let go of the power and it receded, slowly, reluctantly. My entire body hummed with energy. Unlike other times, I had not lost anything in using that amount of the earth’s power. Instead, it filled me like a cup that overflowed.
My joy was short-lived. Peta trembled beside me, her ears pinned to her head. My father was on his side, his eyes closed, his words thick with the fog of whatever drug Cassava had given him. “Lark . . . you . . . you killed them all.”
I spun. “No, I couldn’t have.”
Cactus ran from my side to where a pile of rubble shifted. He threw the rocks aside, green lines running down his arms as he tapped into the earth and moved the stones. I didn’t waste time asking more questions. I fell in beside him, digging out the Sylphs who’d not fled when the fight started. The power in me was different now, normal. As if I were the one controlling it and not the other way around.
Body after body we pulled out, none alive. Cassava was nowhere.
“I saw her go under,” Cactus said, as though reading my mind. “She’s gone, Lark.”
His words should have made me feel better. But nothing could ease the horror flowing through me.
No matter how much rage I carried, this was not what I’d wanted.
I had done the unspeakable, and whatever punishment came to me I would willingly take. Most likely death, and a part of me welcomed the thought of crossing the Veil. My father was safe, and I knew Cactus could get him home. Cassava was dead and the world had no need of me.
Around us, the Sylphs who had fled to the air dropped to the ground. Peta stayed distant from me, as did Cactus. As though they were afraid of me. I refused to consider that I’d truly given them reason to fear me.