He nodded. “She can help you find the entrance.”

Peta shifted beside me. “I can take someone.”

Smit snorted. “Bad luck cat, I don’t think so.”

I put a hand on him, tightening my fingers over his forearm. “Her name is Peta, and if you call her a bad luck cat again, I will forget you are a healer.”

His eyes flicked between us. He swallowed hard. “I thought the rumor was wrong about her being your familiar. Pardon me.”

Peta snorted and I shifted the young girl to her back. Smit handed me two small kids with burns on the soles of their feet. Their tiny whimpers shot through me, piercing me to the core. What was the point of this, hurting children, making them suffer for something as materialistic as a crown? What did Blackbird truly hope to gain? Was it just the crown, or was I missing something?

En masse, we left the healer’s rooms, a long line of people that curled through the tunnels. In the distance was the sound of the ocean, only I knew it wasn’t water washing against the inside of the mountain, but lava roaring out of control. Ash was just ahead of me also packing a young man, his feet burned, piggy backed style.

“Ash, can you block the lava behind us?”

He shook his head. “No, I can’t reach my power either. Whatever is blocking the Salamanders isn’t choosy; it’s blocking every elemental.”

And there was too much fear in me to reach my anger and thereby reach the power of the earth. The idea traced along my mind that maybe I could use Spirit on Ash and unblock his ability but I knew so little. What if I hurt him?

I had to trust we would get out of this without my powers.

The silence of the walk was unnerving, and the farther we climbed, the more the tension rose. The heat off the lava flows slowly choked us.

The mountain rumbled and the hallway wall ahead exploded inward, and a long sparkling white body followed it through. The firewyrm was far bigger than Scar, easily the size of a small elephant, only longer. It swung its head toward the cowering elementals.

“Fiametta, you go too far this time.” He, and it was most definitely a ‘he’ by his deep voice not to mention his well-endowed male bits that hung low between his back legs.

Fiametta faced him, her hands on her hips.

“Kill it.”

Of course, she couldn’t understand him.

“Stealing our children, you filthy Salamander,” he roared, his voice loud enough that the walls and ceiling shook, rocks tumbling around us. I cringed and jiggled the two kids as they began to cry.

He roared again. This was going to get ugly if no one did anything, which by the way, Fiametta’s Enders started forward with their weapons would be the wrong kind of “anything.”

“Stop,” I yelled, placing the two children on the ground before running forward. I held my hands up. “Stop it, both of you.”

As if that was going to work. The firewyrm lunged forward, snapping at the Enders, his teeth as needle sharp as Scar’s had been, only ten times as long. Two Enders disappeared into his mouth with two crunches each. The remaining Enders backed until they were right in front of their queen.

“We cannot take him like this,” Maggie said. I hadn’t even realized she was with the group until she spoke, her hair pinned under a tight skullcap of black leather.

“Cactus,” Fiametta called, “blast him.”

That was the moment it became very clear why Cactus was so important to her. He could damage the firewyrms where the Salamanders with their fire only could not. His connection to the earth would allow him to actually puncture their hides.

Cactus was at her side and he shook his head. “This is not a fight I can help you with.”

The big firewyrm advanced on Fiametta and she held up her hand. He ignored her.

“You think you rule here, but your fear is what rules this place. You are no queen.” The lizard snarled and leapt forward with his mouth gaping.

CHAPTER 22

As the firewyrm leapt forward, time slowed. The mother goddess whispered in my ear.

Save her, Lark.

Damn it to the seven hells and back, this was not my fight. And yet, I didn’t hesitate at the mother goddess’s command. I jumped in front of Fiametta and held up both my hands, as I dropped to my knees.

“In the name of the mother goddess, stop!”

I waited with my head bowed and my whole body tingling with apprehension. Hot breath that smelled faintly of jasmine and chili peppers swirled around me.

“Who do you think you are that you can stop me with words? Are you like the other one?”

Like Fiametta? The firewyrm lowered his face so we were eye to eye.

I didn’t lower my hands. “Fiametta is a bitch, a liar, and a manipulator. She’s tried to wipe your people out, punished me with the intention to end my life, and in general being a grade A bitch.”

He chuckled. “Yes, all of those things and more. Why do you stop me then from snapping her in half and using her bones to pick my teeth?”

I slowly lowered my hands. “Because the mother goddess wants her alive for some unknown reason. And as her chosen one, I will do all I can to make sure her wishes are fulfilled. If it were my choice, I would let the queen die and another take her position.”

He pushed his face forward until we were nose to nose. “You are the one who saved my son and tried to revive my daughter. Spirit walker, your heart is too big for your body.”

The firewyrm shook his head at the queen. “Fiametta, only because this one,” he tipped his jaw toward me, “intervenes and speaks on behalf of the mother goddess will I spare you and your people. But I want my children back.”