All of them shouting.
But none of it had anything to do with me.
I stood and went to my father. “You heard her confess, didn’t you?”
His jaw twitched and the shouting faded. I pressed him. “Did you or did you not hear her confess?”
His breath blew out in a slow stream. “I heard her.”
“And the ring is gone, so she can’t control you anymore.”
His head snapped up, his eyes crackling with green fire. “She never controlled me, I am the King.”
“You are a fool if you believe that.” I turned from him, my feet taking me out of the Spiral. I didn’t care who followed, didn’t care what happened. Cassava had been stopped. The family was, mostly, intact.
The smell of wolf preceded Griffin, and I shifted so he could lean against the redwood next to me. “Your father is wrong, you did well. Better than well. You saved them all.”
I nodded. “Then why do I feel lower than worm shit?”
“Because our parents, no matter how old we are, have that kind of power over us.”
A stumbling figure slid to the ground, just barely visible between two homes. Dark head, blood soaked clothes, and a single hand.
His green eyes met mine. “Lark, help me.”
Chapter 23
Coal!” His name burst from my lips as I ran toward him. I fell to the ground at his side, wrapping my arms around him, “You’re alive!”
“What happened?” His words were slurred, as if he’d been drinking.
“You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I pulled my belt off and wrapped it just above the stump where his right hand had been, tightening it quickly. He’d put a makeshift tourniquet on his arm, but it wasn’t doing the job. “We have to get you to a healer.”
“Who did this to me?” he whispered. “I’ll kill them. I’m less of a man. Can’t do my job. Useless now.” He mumbled all the way to the healers’ rooms where I left him in the capable hands of those who knew better than I how to help him. Not that he would want to see me again, not when the truth came out.
Goddess help me, let Coal never know it was me who took his hand. There was no way to explain why or how. He would never understand.
I made my way slowly to the Ender barracks. Blossom was there, sitting in the middle of the floor, worms dead all around her. I crouched beside her. “Hey, how are you feeling?”
She glanced up at me. “Mal died. The fire came too late for him.” Then she started to cry. “I don’t want to be an Ender; this is too hard. There is too much pain.”
“This would have happened if you were training to be an Ender or not.” I frowned, trying to find the right words. “Being an Ender just means we’ll be trained to fight this sort of thing, so we have a chance to save our loved ones.”
“But I couldn’t save him.” Her sobs tore at me, making my eyes water. I knew the feeling all too well.
“But maybe next time, you can save someone else.” I carefully put a hand on her shoulder, not wanting to push things. She would have to make her decision one way or another.
And then I remembered.
The cells below, Ash was there. And blocked from the outside world. “Mother goddess, the fire wouldn’t have reached him!”
I sprinted, bolting for the lower levels where I’d left Ash. The door to his cell was closed and I grabbed the hanging keys from the wall and jammed them in the lock. “Come on, come on!” I couldn’t find the right key, couldn’t get it open. Finally, the last key, of course, unlatched the lock and I swung the door open. He was pale, the live worms on the floor beside him testament to the fact he was still infected.
“Put the necklace on him.”
“Griffin, are you sure? You said it wouldn’t work on my father.”
The old wolf came to my side. “It’s his only chance, it might be soon enough. We’ll find out.”
I slipped into the room and dropped to Ash’s side, taking the necklace from over my head and placing it on his chest. His fingers curled up and around it. “Did . . . you stop her?”
“Yes. But you missed the fireworks.”
He gripped the necklace and the worms poured out of his mouth, an explosion of wriggling white that had me backing up as fast as I could. He rolled to his side and puked hard, gagging on the worms as they died.
“He’ll make it. I’ll watch him,” Griffin said and I kept backing away, unable to stomach what I was seeing.
“Won’t you catch it?”
“Nah, wolves are immune to crap like this.” He jerked a thumb at Ash, who still heaved and wretched.
“Yeah, you watch him then.” I stumbled away. Ash and I might not be friends, but he’d helped me as much as he could while still being under Cassava’s power, and I didn’t want him to die.
Back in the barracks, the remaining Enders gathered. If three could be called a gathering.
“This is it, Lark.” Blossom pointed at herself, another of the Seeders, and a young man barely old enough to grow a beard named Tree. He ducked his head, sorrow written clearly on his face.
“What do you mean, this is it?” I looked from one to the other.
“We’re the last three Enders, everyone else was killed. Someone actually killed some of the Enders. It wasn’t just the lung burrowers.” Her eyes filled with tears, and I wondered how long she’d last in the training now. Especially if she knew I’d killed two of those Enders. Granite and Snapdragon, gone because of me.