Blinking, I sat up. We were in the Rim, the towering redwoods swaying lightly in the breeze. Low hanging clouds flowed through the boughs of cedar, but unlike the normal white, they spread in pale purple filaments that seemed to cling to everything. The mother goddess stood next to the biggest redwood in the forest, the sides of it easily reaching fifteen feet to either side of her. The dark red color of the trunk offset the soft cream dress the mother goddess wore, her long pale gold hair a shade lighter than mine. A part of me was disturbed that she always chose to come to me in the guise of my own, long dead mother.

I bowed my head. “Mother.”

“Child, you have saved Ash from death. Well done.” Her hand touched the top of my head.

Questions bubbled up on my tongue and I struggled to figure out where to start.

“Just say the words as they come, Larkspur.” She spoke quietly, but with authority and I stopped trying to think too much about what I had to say.

“The man in the cloak, he calls himself Blackbird. Why would you tell him to heal me? He’s an asshole.” Okay, maybe that was a bit too bold for conversing with a goddess, but I had to know. I lifted my head a fraction of an inch so I could look up at her.

Her eyes were closed as if deep in thought.

“He is my child, as are you. He serves me in his own way, though you will not understand his part in your life until your journey is close to an end. The balance must be kept. For everything good, there is something vile.” There was a heavy pause as she drew in a deep breath. “And now I will ask of you one more thing, a task I know you will fight. A task you perhaps have already guessed.”

Shivers of fear trickled through me. Her words were enough to set me on edge and send my mind into a whirling maelstrom of questions. “I am your servant,” I whispered.

“You will stay in the Pit and save the firewyrms.”

“Why don’t you just stop Fiametta? What could I possibly do that would be better than you showing up and putting her in her place?”

Her lips quirked upward at the edges and she crouched beside me, her knees tightly together as she leaned over them toward me. “Child, there are rules that define this world, rules even for one such as myself. My consort flaunts the rules as he tries to influence things,” she reached out and touched the griffin tooth hanging from my neck, “and one day he will suffer for it. Remember this, if you remember nothing else. The rules set in place are to protect you, to keep you safe and your soul intact.”

I couldn’t stop the sigh that slipped out. “So long story short, you mean you can’t stop Fiametta?”

“That is correct. Rules and free will, they are a juxtaposition that has existed from the beginning of time.” She stood in a single smooth motion that made it seem as if she’d never been crouched beside me. “Save the firewyrms, Larkspur. That is what I want of you, and in doing so, you will save many lives.”

The mother goddess put her hands on my back, a soft breath escaping her that sounded like a whisper of pain. “You should not have been punished, but I cannot turn back time. We all make mistakes, Larkspur. Even I have.” Her fingers trailed the deep pits and ruts of the wounds and I could see the terrain as though I looked at a painting. My back was all but destroyed, muscles and ligaments burned apart, my spine peeking through in places, exposed to the open air. The man in the cloak, Blackbird, though I doubted that was his true name, may have healed me, but as he’d said, he could not put back what was no longer there.

Her fingers felt like a butterfly dancing across my skin. “Save the firewyrms, and I will make this right.”

My jaw dropped and again anger curled upward like a creeping vine that no matter how you dug, you never truly got all the roots. They always found purchase somewhere else.

“Heal me first,” I said, not dropping my eyes.

The mother goddess stared at me, her eyes emotionless, but her tone held more than a little anger. “This is not a negotiation, child.”

“I believe it is. Who else have you got within the Pit with the strength to possibly stop Fiametta?” A small part of me struggled to understand why I was fighting her on this.

The mother goddess took a step back. “You are walking a fine line between obedience and outright defiance. That is not a line you can balance for long and you will have to decide if you are truly one of my children, or one of the banished.”

The threat was clear. Do as she wanted or be cast out to die alone. I bowed my head, but said nothing.

Sleep rolled over me in a wave, dragging me down into the place of dreams and nightmares. The mother goddess was gone and I found myself on my knees again, reliving the fire whip as it seared through my back. I jerked awake and a hand rubbed through the back of my hair. “Easy, Lark. It’s over.”

Ash’s voice soothed the fear and I lowered my head to the bed once more. One of his arms encircled my waist and he pulled me against him. The warmth radiating from his body into mine eased the aches and residual tension my muscles held.

I rolled in his arms and buried my face against his neck, breathing him in. A soft, furred body curled up at the back of my neck. Peta dropped her head into the crook of my neck. “Sleep, Lark. Sleep and in the morning we will leave.”

But would I leave? Or would I do as the mother goddess commanded? My thoughts jumbled together; my body twitching and jerking as I fell into a fitful sleep. Disobeying her would mean I was leaving the firewyrms to fight on their own. Scar’s eyes floated through my mind, the soft glimmer of amethyst.