Rootbound

“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.