Rootbound (The Elemental Series, Book 5) Read online

  A flutter of feathers and the thump of hooves hitting the ground spun me around. I knew only one creature who had a combination of hooves and wings.

  The Pegasus stomped his foot, and snorted as he flung his head up and down, which sent his mane flipping about like a spray of water. “It’s about time you got here.”

  “Where have you been, Shazer?” I wrapped my arms around his neck and he dropped his head over my shoulder. The unspoken question was why hadn’t he been with us in the battle against the demons.

  “I was behind you on your cross-country run, decided you’d come home eventually and . . . I’ve been looking for him,” he said softly. Him. Ash.

  I tightened my hold. “Thank you. Have you—”

  “No.” He stepped back and shook his head. “There’s been no sign of him anywhere. It’s like he just disappeared.”

  “That’s not possible. Even if he were dead, there would be sign of him,” Peta said. I drew in a slow breath. “He’s not dead.”

  Shazer and Peta shared a look I didn’t like. As if they were adults and I the child who didn’t understand the ways of the world.

  “I need to sleep. Then I will start my search for him in the morning. I’m no good to him running on empty.” I said.

  I turned from my original path to the Spiral, and headed for the western edge of the Rim. I doubted anyone else had taken over my old home. Bella and her daughter, River, had lived in it during my banishment, even though Bella, at the time, was the heir to the throne. Seeing as she’d given birth to a half-breed, people weren’t sure if they wanted her as their potential new queen. Even if she’d told them the child wasn’t her choice initially, that River was the result of rape, the truth would have made no difference.

  With Peta on my shoulder and Shazer at my side, I made my way without incident across the length of the Rim. Which for me was saying something.

  My old home was a redwood tree, the apartment fifty feet up the trunk. Using the pulley and weight system, I was at the doorway in a matter of seconds. I glanced down at Shazer. “Are you staying then?”

  He wasn’t really a familiar, not like Peta. More like a gift from the mother goddess. A tool I was to use to accomplish the tasks she gave me.

  “Seriously, you ask me that after I waited around for twenty-five years for you?”

  I grinned. “Had to check.”

  Peta dropped off my shoulder and trotted into the small apartment. “It smells like Bella’s perfume.”

  I drew in a breath. It did indeed. I stripped as I walked toward the bed, dropping clothes and weapons with thuds and clinks, and with each step, I shed some of the anxiety.

  I was home. Safe. I would find Ash and we would finally be together. Maybe I would never have a real home again, but I wouldn’t be alone.

  I hit the big bed and rolled under the covers, burying my face in the thick pillows. Bella’s perfume permeated everything, and I let it calm me. As if my sister were here, watching over me. I closed my eyes. Peta curled up with me, and I passed out.

  What felt like only a few short heartbeats later, the sun knocked on my eyelids. “Worm shit,” I muttered. “I finally get some sleep without dreams and it lasts less time than it takes to close my eyes.”

  Peta grumbled something about being hungry. I stretched, the luxury of taking my time something I’d not had . . . since before I’d become an Ender over twenty-five years before. I sat up and stared at the place I’d called home.

  Women’s clothes taken from the human world were strung out everywhere. Jeans, tank tops, shoes, bras and panties. With the clothes were other human trinkets, paintings, makeup, a box of black and white cookies. I smiled and stood, stretching again, feeling each vertebrae in my back pop as I breathed through the movement.

  From behind me came a nicker. I spun to see Shazer curled up on what was a new addition since I’d lived here: a wide balcony. He flipped his lips at me and nickered again. “Nice view.”

  I rolled my eyes and picked up my clothes, putting them back on, piece by piece. They were also human clothes, but at least they fit: jeans, T-shirt, and sports bra. That would change once I was back in the Spiral. They would have extra clothes for me. Ender clothes.

  I tied my long hair in a loose ponytail and headed for the front door. I caught a glimmer of my reflection in a full-length mirror. I paused and stared. How long since I’d last seen myself? Almost as many years as I’d been banished.

  Six feet tall, blond hair, one eye green, the other gold. I didn’t look any older than I had in my late twenties; elementals aged rather well. But at the same time, I didn’t recognize myself. The scarring down my one arm where I’d been branded by the lava whip in the Pit, and the subsequent healing from the mother goddess had left a long tattoo. Though it wasn’t actually a tattoo, that was the closest word to describe it. Maybe brand would be better. The pattern was simple: a long curving vine of dark green bearing deep purple thorns that dug into my flesh. I ran a finger down it. Sometimes, if I concentrated, I could almost feel the thorns, and with them the heat of the lava whip.

  Even with all that, it was my eyes I was drawn to. “How different am I now, Peta, than when you first met me?”

  She sat at my feet and her eyes met mine in the reflection. “By the time we were bonded, you were already not the girl who’d started her journey here. And because of that, I cannot say how much you’ve changed.”

  I nodded. “Doesn’t matter.” But a part of me thought it did. What I’d screamed into the storm stuck with me. I was no longer that wide-eyed girl who’d left the Rim in search of a cure for the lung burrowers. I was no longer the girl who’d fought Requiem in the Deep. Or the girl who’d faced Fiametta in the Pit. Or the girl who so badly wanted her father’s love and acceptance.

  That girl . . . she was the core of me, but she was weak. And I knew better than anyone that weakness killed faster than a bolt of lightning while you stood in a mud puddle.

  “Let’s go see Bella.” I scooped my toes under the haft of my spear and flipped it up. Before I could catch it, Peta shifted, jumped into the air and caught it with her mouth. She spit it out to me and I caught it.

  “Reflexes like a cat,” she said. “You should work on that.”

  Laughing, and knowing that was her intention with her antics, I nodded. “I’ll do that.”

  CHAPTER 3

  elladonna, my oldest sister, one of my closest friends and now queen of the Rim, stood in nothing but the skin she was born in while a seamstress measured her.

  “Ow, do you have to pull so hard?” She glanced down at the older elemental at her feet as she pulled a skirt tight around her waist, tugging at it to get it to overlap further. The seamstress was chunky, like a ball with legs, her body fluffed out like her namesake. Peony, if I recalled right. Only once had she measured me for a custom dress. When I was ten, right before my mother was killed. She’d called me a bastard half-breed and spat at my feet.

  “Your Highness, I wouldn’t have to pull so hard if you didn’t insist on trying to fit into clothes you wore when you were sixteen.” Peony swatted Bella on the ass cheek. “Now stop squirming. I’d like to be done before lunch.”

  Bella’s jaw dropped and she glanced at me as I stepped into the room. “Do you see this behavior? This is not how you treat your sovereign.”

  I shrugged. “I’d have done worse than swat you on the ass. Probably would have thrown you into a mud puddle.”

  The seamstress laughed around a mouthful of pins. “I always liked you, Lark. You say what you mean.”

  I felt the lie as easily as if I’d put my hand out and touched it. One of the perks of having Spirit as an element—or downsides, depending how you looked at it—was that from time to time, I could pick up on the truth of someone’s words.

  “Oh, I doubt you ever liked me. I am the half-breed bastard, after all,” I said softly. The seamstress stiffened and her movements became hurried.

  Bella tipped her head to one side. “Really
, Lark? Did you have to say that?”

  I shrugged. “I can’t abide lies, Bella. They soothed me for too many years to swallow them now.”

  Peony finished and left at a pace that belied the size of her belly. I watched her go, wondering what it said about me that I didn’t feel bad for embarrassing her.

  Bella snagged a dress and pulled it over her head. “Since you scared Peony away, you have the honor of lacing me up.”

  I stepped up behind her and took hold of the laces at the back of the dress. Working them quickly, I made sure to pull evenly on each side, her shape forming nicely under the material. “I don’t think you’ve changed since you were sixteen.”

  “I’ve had a child, Lark. Of course I’ve changed.” She smoothed her hands over her hips and flat belly. “But you didn’t come to talk about the size of my rear, did you?” Her eyes met mine in the reflection of the mirror.

  I finished lacing her dress, tying a perfect bow at the top. “No, I didn’t.”

  “What then? You have been home for only a few hours and I see the restlessness in you already.” Bella turned and motioned toward a table and two chairs. I sat and immediately stood back up, unable to hold still. She was right, I had to keep moving.

  Bella raised both eyebrows, but made no further comment on my inability to sit still. “Wherever you are wanting to go, Lark, you must do it without the armbands.”

  That stopped me mid-pace. Did she mean to forbid me to leave? Anger swelled and with it, Spirit rose in me, wrapping itself around my connection to the earth. The Spiral shook, trembling.

  “Easy, Lark,” Peta murmured. “This is your sister, not some errant elemental who wishes you harm.”

  I kept my mouth shut and waited for Bella to explain, hoping Peta was right.

  Bella poured herself a cup of tea, stirred in sugar and cream, and took a sip, acting as though she didn’t feel the tremor in the Spiral.

  As if she thought the waiting was hard for me.

  “I sat in an oubliette for a long time, Bella.” I crossed my arms. “I think I can outwait you on a simple explanation.”

  She grimaced as if her tea were sour. “Goddess, I am an ass. Lark, I’m sorry. The games I must play to keep those around me believing me to be a good queen . . . they never stop. I had no idea.”

  “You have been queen for only a few months,” I pointed out. She’d officially taken the role right before the battle with the demon horde, when our family had turned to her.

  Her eyes flashed. “You think it was an easy task you pawned off on me?”

  “It was never meant for me, despite what Father said. I am not a Terraling through and through. I cannot abide my feet to be in one place; you said it yourself. You, on the other hand, have always been ready to be the queen.” I pointed a finger at her. “You have it in you to be the greatest queen the Rim has seen. I know it.”

  A tear welled and fell from one of her eyes, plunking into her tea. “Nothing has gone right, Lark. From the beginning. We lost people in the battle against the demons, and when we came back, there was dissent over whether I should be allowed to stay on the throne. Our people have been ruled by so much madness, they are no longer afraid to stand up to their ruler.”

  I crouched in front of her. “Are our people that malcontent? Perhaps this is perception on your part?”

  She closed her eyes and put a hand to her forehead. “Perhaps. The Traveling bands stopped working immediately after we returned. They all said it was the curse of the mother goddess, that she was angry I was on the throne and not another.”

  Peta slipped up beside us and put her paws on Bella’s knees. “Who did they think should take the throne? None of them would want Lark.”

  “Thanks for the reminder,” I snorted.

  Bella smiled, but it slipped away. “They want a new family to take the throne. They say ours is so rotten, so corrupted, that we should be cast out.”

  That didn’t sound right. “Bella, are you sure?”

  She stood so quickly, she tipped her tea off the table, and if not for Peta’s reflexes, she would have had a hot tea bath. “I hear them, Lark. I hear them.” She spun the large emerald stone on her middle finger. The stone allowed the wearer to connect with the power of the earth, and in the case of an elemental who already had a connection to the earth, boosted that power tenfold. It had started out as a necklace when I gave it to Bella all those years ago. Somewhere along the line she’d had it reset as a ring.

  I put a hand over hers, the bump of the emerald she wore, underneath my fingers. “Be calm, Bella. I doubt this is as bad as you think. I will help you, you know that.”

  She jerked her hand away from me and clutched her fingers to her chest. “I know nothing of the sort.”

  What had come over her?

  “Ask your question.” Peta pressed her head into the back of my calf as if to urge me forward.

  Bella glanced at her, whatever anger she’d had, gone in the blink of an eye.

  “What question?”

  Strangely enough, it took me a moment to gather the words. “Do you have any idea where Ash might be? He was not at the battle. I know you lifted the banishment on him but . . .”

  Her eyes widened and then closed in a soft flutter of her lashes. “Oh, Lark. I thought . . . I thought you knew.”

  My heart thumped hard against my ribcage as I struggled to breathe. “Tell me.”

  She held a hand out and took mine as I’d done for her only a moment before. My hands were suddenly cold, icy in her warm grip. I couldn’t move. I wanted to, but my feet seemed rooted to the floor.

  “I sent Griffin to find him, you know that much?” I nodded and she continued. “When he came back, Griffin that is, he . . . I told him to spread the rumor that Ash had not been found. That he was missing. I didn’t want—”

  “Spit it out.” I bit out the words, feeling the pressure growing behind my eyes, and deep inside my belly. My heart cracked.

  “Ash was killed. Cassava did it. He’d been hunting her, we knew that . . . Griffin found her and she gave him Ash’s body. We buried him here in the Rim.”

  For me. Ash had been hunting Cassava for me. After I’d destroyed the Eyrie, Cassava’s body had never been found. I knew she was out there, Ash did too.

  I reeled away from my sister, the room swirling. The dreams I’d been building, dashed on a single word. Buried. They’d buried him, he was dead. Gone.

  “No.” I refused it, as if a single denial would make it not so.

  “Lark, I am so very sorry.”

  I stumbled away from her, rushing from the room, blinded by pain that rocked the very center of who I was. I was outside, and without thought I ran to the place that meant the most to Ash, and because of that, to me.

  The Enders Barracks.

  Though it was a burnt-out shell, the air still filled with the scent of charred wood and leather, I didn’t care. It was Ash’s home.

  My home.

  Distantly I knew Peta was with me, even though she didn’t speak. I felt her pain with my own. When I’d been in the oubliette the first time, she and Ash had been companions as they’d hunted for me. I knew she loved him, could feel it. I scooped her up in my arms and fell to my knees. The wood below me groaned, and a puff of ash whooshed into the air but the ground held.

  A set of arms wrapped around me and I stiffened. I jerked my head up. “Cactus—”

  “I heard about Ash,” he said softly. “I’m sorry, Lark. I know you cared for him.”

  His words were conciliatory, but the look in his eyes was barely disguised happiness.

  I snapped a fist forward into his nose. “You are an ass, Prick. Get the hell away from me.”

  He fell back with a yell, clutching his nose as blood poured around his fingers. “What is wrong with you, Lark? I tell you I’m sorry you lost a friend—”

  “Worm shit! You’re damn happy he’s gone. You think with Ash dead, you can just move right into my bed? You’re out of your ever-loving
mind! He was not just my friend, I love him.” I stood and pressed the back of one hand to my mouth. I shook all over, the adrenaline and anger, grief and pain mingling into a dangerous blend of energy.

  With a quick turn, I had my back to him and strode away, deeper into the burnt barracks. Ash’s bedroom wasn’t far from the main training area. Maybe there was something remaining of it. Something he’d left behind for me.

  Hope flared and fled just as quickly when I stepped into Ash’s room. The walls were black, the bed a bare pile of cinders. Even with Peta beside me I struggled to not break down. “Nothing. There is nothing of him left.”

  “That is not true.” Peta swiped at some of the char on the floor in front of her. “You know that. He is in your heart, and as trite as it may seem to say right now, he is safe there. As are your mother and little brother.”

  “I do not want any more people in my heart. I want them in my life.” I brushed a hand over the wall; it came away black. I scrubbed it over my jeans, leaving a long dark smear.

  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. My heart shriveled.

  Peta grabbed my lower leg with one paw. “You are filthy. I think it is time to get you cleaned up.” She tugged me backward and I went with her, though there was no real contest between us when she was in her housecat form. I followed her out of the room and into the main training area. Cactus was gone.

  “Small mercy,” I mumbled.

  Peta glanced at me, but kept moving. “There is a hot spring under the Spiral, is there not?”

  She’d been there. But I knew what she was doing, forcing me to respond to a question we both knew the answer to. Forcing me to pull myself out of the mire, at least a little bit.