Shock hit me like a lightning bolt and I stumbled backward. “No, no it can’t be.”

In front of me stood not Cassava but my younger sister, Keeda. Her mouth was slack and her brown eyes empty of any emotion, long tendrils of dark brown hair flowed around her face. She looked like a doll, empty and vacant of any sort of life. The ticks I’d seen her, so like Cassava, they were just a daughter’s habits learned at her mother’s knee.

Queen . . . she’d been fighting to be queen here.

I struggled to breathe and ended up on my knees in front of her as tears trickled down my cheeks. Peta moved to my side. “You used Spirit on her, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “What have I done?”

CHAPTER 25

Peta let out a sigh as she drew closer to me. “My first charge, he learned to use Spirit, but it is tricky. A powerful tool. When you use it without really knowing, it can burn someone else out.”

“Burn them out?” I stared at my little sister, the blank gaze in her eyes, the dribble of drool falling from her lips. I’d done that. I’d destroyed her mind. “Can it be reversed?”

“I don’t think so.” Peta butted her head against me but I pulled away. I didn’t deserve any comfort. I stood and walked to Keeda.

“We’ve got to get her out of here and back home. Maybe Niah can help, she knows more than she lets on.” Niah was a storyteller in the Rim, but she also knew a lot about things most Terralings had forgotten. Legends, myths, stories that seemed impossible yet were not.

“Perhaps,” Peta said, but I knew she only spoke the word I wanted to hear.

Peta turned and walked away, leading the way. I hooked an arm through Keeda’s and tugged on her. She took a step in the direction I urged.

We reached the wide doors, stepped through and the skin on the back of my neck prickled. I spun and looked back into the throne room.

No one was there, no one I could see. And yet I felt eyes on me. I looked up at the doors.

All who enter shall be judged, and those found lacking shall be destroyed.

Was that what had happened, some sort of judgment? I looked away from the words, feeling them burn into my soul. Destroyed, that was how I felt, like a piece of me had been pulled apart and smashed in front of my face. Peta shrunk to her housecat form and slipped into the tunnel behind the statues that would lead us back to the firewyrms. I pushed Keeda ahead of me and she went willingly.

Mother goddess, what had I done? What kind of monster was I?

We emerged into the opening where the firewyrms, Cactus, and Ash waited.

Except they weren’t the only ones. The missing children were there too. Tinder saw me, his eyes sparkling with mischief. Waving wildly, he ran to greet us.

“Terraling, the bad luck cat saved us. I couldn’t believe it when I saw her, but she saved us.”

Peta gave a low grumble, but through our bond her pleasure was a warmth that spread through to me. She leaned out and gave Tinder’s face a lick. “You’re welcome, little lizard.”

Ash strode forward, took one look at Keeda and sucked in a sharp breath. “What happened to her?”

I shook my head, unable to say the words, hiding my shame behind a wall of silence. Cactus looked from me to Keeda and back again and my face burned. He would figure it out if anyone would. But he said nothing about her.

Holding Keeda by the arm, I drew her forward. “I have to get her home.”

Cactus nodded but he wouldn’t make eye contact with me.

The firewyrms took us to a tunnel that led back to the entranceway. Peta went first then Ash. The seven children, including Tinder, piled in after him, excited and chattering like they hadn’t been abducted and kept in a dungeon for hours. Resilient little hearts was the only thought I had for them.

I guided Keeda ahead of me, and Cactus brought up the rear, a faint glow of fire over his left hand. Each Salamander child also held a tiny glow above their hands, lighting the tunnel with ease. At least they could reach their element with Keeda and her cohort gone. I hoped that meant they—and the other Salamanders—were finally safe.

The tunnel was big enough for us to walk without crouching, but only in single file, which made it easy for me to ignore Cactus’s attempts to talk to me. Three times he tugged at my arm and cleared his throat. Each time I pushed forward a little faster until Keeda was on top of Ash.

Ash glared back at me after the third pushing incident. “Lark, hurrying at this point isn’t going to help anyone.”

He was right, but I still didn’t want to explain what happened to Cactus so when he reached for me a fourth time, I jerked my arm away from him. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I just want to hold your hand, Lark. To know you really are here and we’re getting out,” he said softly.

Shame burned me through and through. I reached back for him and he laced his fingers with mine. A soft warmth cascaded through me and eased some of the heartache that hummed within my body. Still though, my mind would not let me forget what I’d done.

I’d destroyed my sister’s soul. She and I were not close, and it was obvious that she was taking after her mother. That didn’t negate the fact that she was a hollowed out creature, her body intact and her soul missing. My control—or in this case lack of control—over Spirit had done that.

Another minute passed and we were out of the tunnel and in front of the broken doorway. The children ran around, darting like large fireflies in a game of tag. Ash opened his mouth and I knew him well enough to know what was going to come out. He would tell them to settle down, to be serious, and fall in line.