Igniting Spirit (Gathering Water Book 3) Read Free Page A

day, they had mentioned eliminating him and his protection of me. He never showed up, even though I sent out an “SOS” via the gems in my armlets. I’d been so preoccupied with Cash that I didn’t think of the other people I cared about who might have been hurt because of me.
    “He’s fine, thanks to Ezra. Apparently that man of yours was on his way to warn the Elders about his father when he came upon my son fighting a losing battle with a few of Kaylus’ rotten apples. The fight ended with those still alive going into custody back at the Elfennol compound, and my son assured of Ezra’s intentions. Once Alexander was certain of your loyalties, he communicated them to me.”
    If she’d been in communication with Alexander this whole time, then that meant, at least by Elfennol standards, that Alexander was a traitor. Had he been slipping Elfennol secrets to the Clades? I could feel my face darken at the thought of his betraying my father.
    “You stop those thoughts right now, young miss! My son is a good person, and loyal. He has only ever had the well-being of our people on his mind, and has done nothing to betray the trust that has been placed upon him. Especially you and your father’s trust.”
    I narrowed my eyes at her. I wasn’t used to being read so easily. In fact, only Cash could do it so well, and he was part empath thanks to his mother’s side of the family.
    “I’m no mind reader, Della of the Leoht. But you learn how to see thoughts before they’re spoken when you’ve been around as long as I have.”
    “Sounds like the definition of mind reading to me,” I mumbled under my breath. Before she could respond, the ground — the air even — began to shake. I looked at Aahana. “Is this normal?”
    “Most definitely not.” She didn’t even finish the words before an enormous boom filled the air. Not waiting to see if she would follow, I ran off in the same direction Ezra had gone just moments before. Something bad was happening, and I knew Kaylus was at the root of it.
    When I reached the part of the town square where I last saw Kaylus, the crowd seemed even larger than  before. I couldn’t see Kaylus or Ezra, but Ezra had a ring with some of my power in it, and I honed in on it like a tracking device. When he had carried me through the people before, I saw a few skirmishes between Kaylus’ men and the other Clades. All the fights had finished, and even though the crowd was larger, everyone was looking around the giant cave in confusion, making it much easier to squeeze my way past them in my search for Ezra. The tremor was getting more violent, quaking so roughly that I had difficulty keeping my feet under me. People around me were having the same difficulty, and soon I was dodging falling bodies.
    I could see Ezra at the entrance to the cave surrounded by the only people who seemed to have more pressing matters than the sky literally falling — because it was. Rocks, varying in size from pebble to boulder, were raining over our heads. I created a Shield for myself before thinking about it, then created a second to form a sort of umbrella to protect most of the people around me.
    I’m a good samaritan like that.
    It only took a half dozen steps to get to Ezra. “What’s happening?” I asked, stepping beside him to look at the wall he was currently trying to beat down with a combination of his hands and abilities. Others were also using their control over Spirit energy to chip away at the wall.
    “He got away! Damn it, Della, we had him and he escaped. If that wasn’t bad enough, he did something to our door on the way out so we can’t even follow him.” He banged an already bloodied fist against the stone wall — er, door — with a desperation that shook me.
    “Ezra, is he causing this whole earthquake thing happening right now?” I used the calmest voice at my disposal, which meant I shrieked like a harpy.
    He looked around as if he was noticing what was happening for the