Free Ash (The Elemental Series, Book 6) by Shannon Mayer

despair, they were to be humbled and as such, come to their senses.
    But in Lark’s case . . . the oubliette had been a death sentence, a horrible, torturous way to die, as well as a way to hide her death from the world and from those who loved her. So we’d searched the surrounding area of the four elemental families, we’d gone to the desert, the deep ar c tic plateaus, and solitary islands that floated on the ocean with no luck.
    In the end, it had been Peta’s idea to check the jungle. “It feels right. I cannot make more sense of it than that.”
    I’d agreed, thinking that it no longer mattered, not in truth, and we’d gone to the southern jungle. And we’d found Lark, against all the odds, we’d found her.
    I shook myself out of my thoughts. They weren’t going to help us now.
    “Peta, are you sure you can’t fly? Can you not shift into some great winged beast that could help speed things up?”
    She dropped to the snow beside me, sinking up to her belly. “Not last time I checked.” She lifted her nose and scented the air. “What makes you think Cassava is alive? Lark buried her under the mountain. While she is certainly strong, do you truly believe she could survive that?”
    I started forward, working my way down the slope. For the moment, it was smooth and easy enough that there would be no vertical drops if I slipped. “I don’t know for sure. But the way Raven talked about her makes me think she’s not dead.”
    Peta grabbed me with a paw. “Wait, stop right there. What do you mean the way Raven talked about her?”
    I blinked several times and then frowned. “I thought I told you about Raven?”
    “You most certainly did not. What about him?”
    I opened my mouth to speak and the words stuck in my throat. Almost like I was being kept from saying them. “Shit.” Well, at least I could manage that much.
    “Ash, he probably used Spirit on you to keep you from speaking about him to anyone. Goddess knows what else he might have told you to do!”
    “Then why could I even say that little bit?” I frowned, struggling to remember when Raven had given me any instructions.
    She shrugged, the spotted fur on her shoulders rolling. “Probably because you weren’t really thinking about it. The words just blurted out.”
    I scrubbed a hand through my hair and started walking again. “Well, do you get the gist of what I wanted to say?” I was hoping she could make the connections.
    Of course, she could; she was a cat.
    She nodded. “Obviously Raven showed up at some point in your incarceration and you two had a chat. Whatever he said, you now believe Cassava could still be alive. Or it could be what Raven wants you to believe so you disappear on another long search for an elemental who is supposed to be dead. That would certainly put you out of the running for some time.”
    I grunted. “Something like that.” A chat . . . Raven’s words echoed inside my head. There had never been a point where he’d told me not to repeat his words, yet obviously, he had somewhere in the conversation. He didn’t want anyone to know we’d spoken? Or did he not want anyone to know that he’d been in the Rim? Maybe some of each.
    Or maybe something else altogether that I could not see. I touched my head as if I could dig out the answers from it.
    Again, I could understand why those who carried Spirit were so feared. How did you fight something you had no defense against? That you not only couldn’t see, but never even knew when it was used against you?
    A rumble of the earth below my feet and the ground dropped, snapping me out of my thoughts and sending both Peta and me into a crouch. Peta flattened herself into the snow and I did the same until I was almost buried under the icy cold white crystals. The mountain seemed to shift and roll, sending a wave of rocks and snow thundering past us. I could have sworn that I heard a laugh echo through the mountains, and then I was sure of it. The words were booming,