Breakwater Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE ELEMENTAL SERIES

  "I love Shannon's Rylee Adamson series . . . and I was wonderfully surprised that I loved her Elemental Series even more!"

  -Denise Grover Swank USAT & NYT Bestselling Author of the "Chosen Series"

  "I could not put it down and greedily consumed it in one sitting!"

  -Books In Veins

  "I think Larkspur aka Lark is the new heroine to watch out for . . ."

  -Coffee Book Mom Reviews

  “What a fantastic start to a new fantasy series! I love a strong female lead and we were delivered that in spades with Larkspur . . . This story is fast paced and exciting right from the start. I can't wait to see what comes next!”

  -Boundless Book Reviews

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  As always, I have to thank my amazing support group who stand by me when I feel like I’m losing my mind, fighting to get characters to behave or even just need someone to tell me that yes, I can get this book written too. My editors Tina Winograd (and assistant), N.L “Jinxie” Gervasio, beta readers Lysa and Creig Lessieur, and Jean Faganello (aka Mom) have helped to make this book shine under their gentle (and sometimes brutal) edits. :) Honestly, I couldn’t ask for a better crew to help me out with my writing. Of course, my readers have to be mentioned too, because without their enthusiastic embracing of Larkspur and her adventure in “Recurve”, I don’t think “Breakwater” would have come to life the way it did.

  Last but not least, to the two men in my life. One tall and handsome, one tiny and handsome. You two are the reason I get up at the crack of dawn, and stay up past midnight to make these books happen. You are my motivation, and the reward I have for doing what I love.

  CHAPTER 1

  he ocean lapped around my feet, tickling my toes, and for a moment I forgot why I was there, the peace and comfort was so strong. The mother goddess stood over me, her image shimmering as if she were within a heat wave. Her long skirt trailed behind her in the air, dancing on currents I couldn’t see. Deep brown hair like the richest soil of the earth with hints of silver glinted in the sunlight. Green and gold eyes sparkled with what I could only target as mischief. “Child, the bonds Cassava placed on your soul are deep and well-rooted. I can begin their undoing, but you must be the one to finish it.”

  She directed me to lay down, her hands gentle as she guided me. Flat on my back, I dug my fingers into the wet sand under me. “How long do I have to complete the breaking?”

  “Once I begin, you will have time. But . . .” She held a hand over me, and through her fingers I saw all five colors of the elements swirl. Green, blue, red, white, and pale pink. Earth. Water. Fire. Air. Spirit.

  “But what?”

  Her softly swaying hand mesmerized me more than a little, like a cobra with a tiny mouse. The analogy perhaps wasn’t so far off base. She leaned toward me, her eyes a deep, glowing green and gold.

  “Be warned. The power that resides in you is that of ten elementals. Your mother’s bloodline has done that for you, charging your abilities and connection to the earth beyond that of any elemental who walks this world. You may not understand now, but you will one day. Be patient, child of mine. Your time will come.”

  “Before you start, what about my father? Will he not need to be broken apart too? Cassava was as much in his mind as she was in mine.”

  The mother goddess smiled, but her mouth was not kind. “Basileus was older when Cassava worked Spirit on him. His mind already formed. His journey back is different from yours, Larkspur, and you cannot hurry it along.”

  She lowered her hand until it hovered over my feet. The five colors shifted, spinning faster between her fingertips. At first, her touch was cool, her skin soft and smooth; safe, I was safe with her.

  With a speed I couldn’t follow, heat radiated from her hand. The water around my feet bubbled and foamed. I wanted to scramble away, out of the water, farther up the shoreline.

  But I couldn’t move, my body seemingly frozen to the ground. A moan slipped out of me as the heat escalated, chased by my fear I was about to be cooked alive.

  “This will not be pleasant, Larkspur.”

  Jaw tight, I didn’t answer, just tried to breathe through the fear climbing my body like a monkey shimmying up a tree, screeching once it reached the top. The sizzle and crackle of my skin rose to me as the water heated past boiling. Her touch held me down. Moans turned into screams as the heat exploded up my legs, bursting through my bones, shattering my body into tiny molecular elements.

  “Soon, child, it will be done soon.”

  A wave of water washed over me, dousing the heat and leaving me blessedly chilled to the core. The water didn’t recede, though. It clung to me, smothering me. I wanted to thrash against the bonds the mother goddess placed on me. Wanted to sit up; that’s all it would take and my head would be free of the water. The mother goddess stood over me, her hand shimmering with power. The water forced itself into my nose, mouth, and eyes, down into my lungs and belly. Chest expanding with the force, I fought the new panic rising within me.

  As the water pressure reached its peak, it whipped away from me and I spun into the air, held aloft by the west wind. It tore at my hair, drew the water from my lungs, and gave me breath. Just as quickly, it stole my breath, collapsing my lungs inward, drawing my life away as I was spun ‘round and ‘round in a twister that seemed to pull at my very soul. The mother goddess was there one second, and gone the next as I was sent spiraling.

  The ground rose and cradled me, stopped the spinning. I clung to the earth, buried my hands into its strength and comfort. This was home; this was where I belonged.

  “Reach for your power now, child. Once you leave my embrace, anger will be the key. As you grow and learn, you will adapt to connect when other emotions fill you. But for now, your fury will be your strength.”

  I didn’t hesitate, but did as she said. The power was there, a lightly humming tune I couldn’t quite make out . . . yet it called to me. I reached for it with everything in me, from my hand stretching outward, to my soul reaching for it, brushing against the spirit and power of the earth. Twinning around one another, the connection rippled all the way through me. My body was cushioned by the wet sand and I stared up at the sky, no longer in pain. No longer questioning what the mother goddess would show me. Slowly, I stood and faced the mother goddess. “There is something else, isn’t there?”

  She lifted her hand, trailing it down the edge of my face, letting it hover over my heart. “You carry Spirit as well as Earth, and that is dangerous. Spirit, the one element that can control all the others . . . it is a double-edged sword. If you use it, as Cassava has, your soul will begin to shatter. Pieces of it used up until you are no longer yourself, but a shallow, dark imitation. And those you use it on? What do you think happens to them?”

  I frowned, considering my own situation, my father’s, and even Ash, who I knew was manipulated by Cassava. “Paranoia.”

  “Yes, the heart that fears cannot trust, even those who it loves. Where there is fear, love cannot reside.” The mother goddess looked past me, out into the water. “Spirit was never meant to be used as a weapon, and so it breaks those who wield it thusly.”

  She turned to me, and the conversation shifted again. Her smile warmed her face, and her long hair swirled around her, teasing the top of her shoulders. “Child, you are my chosen one. You will bring your family back to their glory. They believe their power is of growing things, of manipulating plants and conversing with animals. They have forgotten their ties are to everything this earth offers.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She held a hand over the sand and it swirled up in a lazy loop, bits of sparkling quartz and silicone catching the light. “Every particle of the earth is yours to command. When you understand that, you will be in your full power. The earth is the womb of all that IS. It births everything. You will see, fear not. The trials you face will shape and teach you. They must. Or your family and our world will die.”

  Chills swept over me. “No pressure there.” My home called to me, tugging on my body and heart. “I think I need to go back now.” Yet I wasn’t totally sure. What would happen if I stayed? Could I stay with her?

  “Yes, you do. There is much to be done to cleanse the world of those who do it harm.” With a single nod, I turned and walked away. My testing was complete. I was an Ender.

  I thought when my testing was finished, and having gained the approval of the mother goddess, I would be able to connect to my abilities whenever I wanted. That I would finally be like the other elementals and no longer the useless outsider I was raised to believe.

  Apparently, not so much. I stood thigh-deep in the water of the testing room, the damp heat from the underground hot spring curling around my naked body, caressing my skin, and making me shiver. Above my head, the stalactites hung low, moisture dripping from them into the pool. I couldn’t quite bring myself to step out of the water, though. I wasn’t ready to go fully back to the world that awaited me.

  I stood there, fingers trailing in the water as my mind wandered.

  Already the experience on the other side of the hot springs within the mother goddess’s embrace was fading, and I struggled with my insecurities. My whole life I’d been the weak one, the one everyone mocked for my inability. I’d been the one sent to the Planting fields, and even in that I’d failed. And now the mother goddess told me I was her chosen one . . . “Can’t exactly tell her that I decline, either,” I murmured. No, one did not tell the mother goddess, ‘no thanks, I think I’ll pass. Choose someone else to help you.’

  Swallowing hard, I held my hand over the water. My feet were half-buried in the hot spring sand. The display the mother goddess had put on, swirling the sand through the air, had fascinated me. Maybe I could do the same. I reached for the power of the earth, cringing just before I connected, unable to make myself grab hold of it. The pain was still too real to me.

  “Damn.” I put a hand to my head, rubbing at my temple. The mother goddess’s voice whispered across the water to me.

  “Child, it will be many moons before you can fully break the bonds Cassava has placed on your soul. Be patient with yourself. Be kind to yourself.”

  I rolled my eyes so I could stare at the darkness and stalactites above. The conditioning I’d endured had come close to severing my connection to the earth completely. I didn’t know how close, but I suspected there were more than just my family’s lives in the countdown to destroy the lung burrowers. Had that only been a few weeks ago? Cassava had come close to tearing our entire family apart, nearly killed my father, and had weakened our home by wiping out nearly all of the Enders.

  All so she could reign as she saw fit, without anyone to naysay her. The only good thing that had come out of the situation was the training I’d been put through. Becoming an Ender had started me on a path to finding out the truth about myself, my abilities, and the secrets of the past.

  I shivered again as my body recalled, all too clearly, the pain when mother goddess severed Cassava’s ties to my heart, body, and soul.

  In my time with her, I felt like I’d been stripped to the marrow of my soul.

  Flicking my hands across the top of the water, I sent my mind along another path, one that didn’t give me the heebie-jeebies.

  The last few months still seemed unreal in quiet moments of reflection. I’d gone from being a lowly Planter in the fields, to training to become an Ender—one of the king’s elite guards—faced down my stepmother Cassava, saved my family from the lung burrowers, and now I’d finished my testing. Something I thought I would never do with my lack of power. I looked around, finally taking note of the beach in front of me. The torches that had lit my path to the hot spring had gone out—except for one.

  How long had I been in the water?

  Flickering and dancing on a breeze that swept down through the halls above, the last flame beckoned me. A hand-like flare reached out, curling fiery fingers toward the beach. I stepped back. Growing and shifting, the flame leapt from the torch, forming itself into a fire tiger.

  The big cat stalked toward me, its coat rippling in the unseen breeze, stripes going from a deep blue glow to a strange green and back again. As beautiful as it was, though, I wasn’t getting any closer.

  I took a few steps back into the water. “I don’t suppose you just want to talk, do you, kitty?”

  The tiger opened its mouth and roared, a fire storm shooting toward me. I fell back into the hot spring, the water rushing over my head. I stared upward as I sunk into the embrace of the water, while the flames rushed over the surface. Distorted and muted, they still illuminated the hot springs the way human fireworks lit the skies several times a year.

  I kicked back, pushing myself deeper before lifting my head out of the water. Twenty feet from the shoreline now, the water steaming hot around me, I tread the surface.

  I couldn’t resist. “Here, kitty, kitty.”

  The tiger roared again, flames licking across the distance, dying before they touched me. The big cats were always tied to a fire elemental, or a Salamander as we called them. And seeing how I had killed a few of them in the fight to save my family only weeks ago, I was betting they still weren’t happy with me.

  But that was just a guess.

  The big cat swatted at the sand, sending sparkling hot tiny embers into the water. Maybe not so much a guess, after all.

  Putting the fire tiger’s flame out to get to the shore was possible, but I would have to call on the earth and use the power newly opened to me.

  “Couldn’t I have at least gotten a day or two to get used to using my abilities?” I licked my lips, tasting the minerals and salt from the water. I lifted one hand and focused on the ground under the tiger’s pacing feet. Wet and heavy, the sand would douse the fire perfectly.

  If I could make it happen and push past my own hang-ups.

  The power of the earth hummed just out of reach. “Come on,” I whispered. “Just grab it.”

  Fear, icy cold and jarring despite the heat of the hot spring, shot through my body and stabbed at my thoughts. The pain was almost as bad as before, mind numbing in its strength. Cassava had done her work well. I lowered my hand and scissor kicked my legs, swimming backward. “You win this time, cat.”

  I reached the far side of the hot spring and pulled myself up on the slick, warm rocks. Shame burned in my gut. On the far shoreline the tiger paced and snarled, its body swirling as the fire flicked off its coat.

  Someone had sent the cat to hurt me, to get back at me for what had happened in the Pit, of that much I was sure. I closed my eyes, the memories swirling up and around. I could almost smell smoke and sulfur that had been underneath everything we touched, could feel my spear shiver as I slammed it into the Enders we’d faced. Killing another Ender was a death sentence, one I’d barely escaped. But it looked like I wasn’t out of the fire just yet.

  I opened my eyes to see the tiger gone and moved back into the water.

  Voices floated down the stairs. “She’s still in her testing, we don’t know how long it will take. You know that!” My tester who’d sent me into the hot springs to meet the mother goddess, Douglas if I remembered his name right, did not sound happy. At least he was trying to defend me to whomever he was with.

  “I don’t care if she’s still naked and shaking from the touch of the mother goddess, she is going to trial for her crimes. She thinks she is above the law. As an Ender, she is more subject to it than any other. Her training makes her deadly. She is a weapon not to be used for anything other than protection. Her head will roll before this is over.” That voice was familiar, but hard to place with the way it bounced across the water. Female, and husky, I tried to place it but failed. There was n o woman I knew in our family with that raspy of a voice.

  Sliding along the rocks, I pushed under an overhanging shelf so I could watch without being seen. The mist rising off the hot spring continued to flow upward, helping to hide me. But it meant I couldn’t see as well as I’d hoped, either.

  Two figures came to a stop on the beach. They argued in low tones and finally it seemed that Douglas had enough. His back was to me and he was blocking my view of his companion. Douglas put a hand on the other figure’s chest and shoved. Silently, I cheered.

  “Tester, you are going to get yourself killed.”

  “Then you are no better than what you are accusing our princess of.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. No one in our family had ever called me a princess, even though it was true. A spot warmed in my heart and I clutched my arms around myself as if to hold it there. If nothing else, I would hold this moment to me.

  Douglas had his hands in the air, and his back to me physically blocking the other person. “Get out of here. She isn’t out yet. You can see that.”

  “She has completed the testing. I know she has set foot on the sand.” A booby trap. The cat was set to attack me and alert its master as soon as my feet touched the ground.

  “You don’t know that,” Douglas shouted, his voice bouncing off the walls in the cavern.

  Finally, I got a good look at his companion. Bright red hair visible, even across the water and through the mist. And I knew without seeing her orange eyes.

  Magma had come looking for me.

  Green shit sticks, this really was not a good turn of events. I leaned out so I could get a better look. Magma strode across the sand, her black leather Ender body suit clinging to her. She stopped with her feet at the edge of the water. “I will wait for her here. I don’t want her slipping past us again.”