Rootbound

She leaned into Bella, putting her head on my sister’s shoulder. I took her injured hand, knowing I could heal her. Wondering if I should, if the cost to my own soul was worth it.

Damn, if I wouldn’t heal her, I was losing whatever good was in me. I pulled her bloody hand out and covered it with my own. My body shook as I pulled on Spirit, weaving it through her wound and closing it. I let her go and she held up her hand, her eyes wide.

“Lark, I didn’t know you could do that.”

Peta butted her head between us. “To truly destroy, you have to know how to heal first.”

Her words seemed to shimmer in the air, and that same shiver I’d felt before crawled up my spine. The words were too close to me, too close to the truth I was learning, and I waved my hand as if to bat them away.

“Finley, who commanded you to try and kill me?”

She put her healed hand—minus one finger—to her forehead. “I don’t know. The voice was familiar and he made me do things. I think . . . I think you are right, it has to do with the ring.” Her eyes flicked to my closed fist. “Take it away, Lark. I don’t want it anywhere near me.” Finley pushed my closed hand away. “I don’t have the strength to hang onto it and not use it, even though I know I will be manipulated. I want the power too much.”

“You see?” Bella said. “Already you are clearing from it.”

Finley’s body shook. “I used it sparingly, though I wore it often. Perhaps . . . that is why it already fades from my mind.”

I stood and held a hand out to her. She put her hand in mine and I pulled her to her feet. She wrapped an arm around my waist. “I’m sorry I turned on you, my friend.”

“No apology needed.” I gave her a squeeze and let her go. “But we must leave.” I pushed away from her. The chance we’d make it to Fiametta and Samara before Blackbird was slipping away from me.

“Wait!”

I paused and looked back.

“You are seeking Ash, aren’t you?”

Staring at her, I wasn’t sure I’d heard her right. Her words couldn’t have stolen the air from my lungs more completely if she was Sylph. “What?”

“Ash, I saw him right before he went missing . . .” She shuddered. “He was looking for Cassava and he thought he’d find her in the cypress swamps. That was where he went. I did not remember until you healed my hand, like it healed a part of my mind that was meant not to recall.”

“Thank you for telling me.” The cypress swamps. I tucked the piece of information into the back of my mind. I would go after Ash if I thought I could find him on my own, but I knew I had to deal with the stones first, before Blackbird could get his hands on them.

Finley nodded, pulled her shoulders straight and swept past me, snapping her fingers at Dolph. “I want a proper report of the Deep within the hour for the past six months. I have been controlled for the last time.” There was more than anger in her voice; a low simmering rage radiated off her.

He bent at the waist and raised grateful eyes to me. “It will be done, my Queen.”

I nodded at him as I went by and he touched the top of my hand in a gesture I’d not seen since I’d been in the Pit. A sign of respect; one he gave to both Bella and Peta as well.

I followed Finley, catching up to her easily. Which turned out to be fortuitous for her.

As we circled around a corner, two Sylphs approached, their strides as long as the rest of them, their movement anything but friendly as their hands went to their weapons. Their long white hair and white leathers marked them as Enders for their people. Fighters and enforcers.

The hallway we stood in groaned as a hard wind curled through it, tugging at the tapestries and painting that hung above us.

“Why am I not surprised?” I pushed Finley and Bella behind me as I snapped my spear out, holding it in front of me to bar them.

The Sylphs held up their hands in tandem and the wind picked up, howling as though a hurricane had been unleashed within the Deep. “Peta, take the left.”

She leapt in front of me in her snow leopard form. She raced ahead, her body close to the ground.

Finley flicked a hand and from below the Sylphs, the Deep rumbled. “Finley, I can’t breathe under water.”

“With the ring you can!”

Hell, I did not want to put the ring on. What if I was controlled? But she was right, it would at least allow me to breathe water as though I were an Undine. And maybe I’d hear the voice try to tell me what to do.

“Peta, find high ground. Bella, get back!”

Peta skidded and leapt for an open window. Finley snapped her fingers and the hallway flooded between one breath and the next, filling to the rafters, but never spilling through the windows or doors, like a self-contained aquarium. At the edge, I saw Bella pacing and Finley with her hands held out holding the water steady.

I slid the ring on and took a breath. The Sylphs would have no problem breathing with their connection to air, but they fumbled in the water. I swam toward them, my spear clutched in one hand as they tried to backpedal.

I grabbed the foot of the Sylph closest to me, yanking him through the water so we were eye level. He swept a hand toward me, the glittering edge of his knife cutting through the water with ease. I caught his wrist against my arm, spun my hand and grabbed his hand. With a sharp twist I broke several of his fingers and the knife fell.

Arms snaked around me from behind, as the Sylph in front of me kicked out, nailing me in the stomach. A burst of air bubbled out of my mouth, but didn’t float away. As I struggled to breathe, the bubbles hovered in front of me. They floated closer until they pressed against my eyes.