ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To those who told me the truth, and pushed me to keep digging, and helped me see how much I could do if I kept at it. Thank you.

CHAPTER 1

A dream, just a dream was what a piece of my mind told me, but the terror and pain ‘just a dream’ evoked seemed no small thing. Yet, I couldn’t escape it.

The new growth of the pale green ferns tickled my bare legs, stroking my ankles as I tiptoed through low lying bushes, a giggle trembling on the edge of my lips. I wrapped my fingers around the vines climbing alongside me, as I peered through the mist of the forest. Hide and seek was my favorite game, well, my and Cactus’s favorite game. The sound of his footsteps reached my ears a split second before he ran around the side of a medium-sized redwood. I dropped to the ground and wiggled my fingers. Vines and foliage moved swiftly at my request, covering my body, and hiding me from his view. I covered my mouth with my hands, stifling the laughter as I watched him stand there in a huff, his legs spread wide.

“Lark, I can’t find you. Are you cheating again?”

Lips clamped tightly, I almost fell for his trick, my leg muscles bunching to push me out of my hiding spot. I would never cheat. I was a king’s daughter, after all. Even though I was not a legitimate heir, I was still a princess. At least, in my own head. As such, cheating was not allowed.

But then I saw the curl of a laugh on Cactus’s lips as he spun in a circle, looking for me.

“Lark?” He put his hands on his skinny hips, and blew out a long, noisy sigh. “Fine, you win. Again. You’re just too good at this.”

I curled my finger into the soil and pushed a gentle pulse of power through the ground, and into the soles of Cactus’s feet. He turned toward where I hid, a smile on his face as he felt my call to him. This was something we’d just learned, how to reach out to each other through the earth when we were close to each other.

I sat up and waved at him, the vines sliding off my shoulders. “Over here, silly loser.”

Groaning, he tromped over to me. Red-haired and green-eyed, he was as much an anomaly in the Rim—our home here in the Redwoods—as I was with my blonde hair and eyes of different colors. One amber, one green. We’d found each other in the early summer months when the low fog was deep on the woods, and we’d been inseparable ever since.

“Do you want to hide now?” I patted the spot beside me, clearing away the foliage so he could sit.

“No, you’re too good at this game for me. What else can we play?”

I looked into the air above us at the heavy fog making up the clouds of the forest. There was one place we were supposed to never go. Close to the edge of my father’s kingdom, right next to the human roads that led to their cities. A place forbidden to those who weren’t Enders—the kingdom’s guardians. A thrill of excitement went through me at the thought of seeing a human in person, and not just in a book. Cactus, though, would be hard to convince. “Why don’t we go exploring?”

His eyes narrowed. “Where? We know the forest better than anyone, what more can there be to explore?”

A grin slid over my lips. “The Edge.”

His eyes popped open wide. “If your mother catches us, we’ll both get a beating.”

I snorted and slid a piece of grass through my fingers. “My mother doesn’t lay hands on me, not like yours does.” I cringed as the words slid out. I put a hand on his arm to soften them. “Besides, my mother is busy with the baby. She won’t even know we’re gone.”

And just like that, we were off. I didn’t know how big the cloud forest actually was; at ten, I didn’t pay attention to those kinds of things. The redwoods were our home, where we were safe to run and play from morning’s first light until late after the sun had set. But I did know that the human road on the outskirts of the forest was to the west, and the closest city from there was to the north. A place where there were cars and electric lights, a place where the women wore pants and the men wore earrings. At least, that was what I’d seen in Belladonna’s, my oldest stepsister, Rolling Stone magazine.

“The date on it was funny, not like how we count seasons,” I told Cactus. “November nine, one nine seven two. I asked my mother what that meant and she said it’s how humans do things. They have to label everything.”

Cactus grunted, but didn’t say anything. He wasn’t interested in human things.

Belladonna had shown me the ‘magazine’ just the other day and the images had burned into my mind. I wanted to see if they were real or not. If the humans really did all those strange things.

“Lark, do you think one day the other elementals will like us? Maybe Fern even?” His eyes darted to me, and then away to the treetops.

I climbed over a large, half-rotten log with flowers sprouting out of the composting material, then reached back to help Cactus up. “Of course. Because one day they will see just how strong we are, and that we could be heroes. And Fern will see how handsome you are, and stop being so mean to us. Maybe she’ll even let you kiss her.” She was the worst of the bunch, worse than my own siblings even, always teasing and making us look bad in front of others. That didn’t stop Cactus from staring at her with longing every time we saw her. She was, after all, the prettiest girl in the forest. No, that wasn’t true. My mother was the prettiest girl in the forest with her long blonde hair and violet eyes that seemed to see through a person.

His eyes lit up. “Really? You think she would let me kiss her?”

I nodded, not bothered that he mooned after Fern. “My mother told me one day you and I would be heroes, and she would never lie about that. Why wouldn’t Fern want to kiss a hero?” Even so, I felt a twinge in my heart. Cactus wasn’t really that strong with earth, not like he should have been. His talent lay more in his father’s realm.

He was more Fire and I’d heard that his mother might be sending him to the Pit to be with his father’s family. To train there.

A shudder rippled through me. Half-breeds like us, a child who carried two types of elemental abilities, had a much harder time making it in the world. But that didn’t mean we wouldn’t make it. Just meant there was more work to do. That’s what my mother always said.

“Cactus, do you ever get to see your father?”

He shook his head, and I watched in fascination as his face suddenly seemed ten years older. Like he grew up right in front of me. “No.”

“Do you want to?”

The age fell away from him and he was just my friend again. “I don’t know. I get scared sometimes. My fire gets away from me, and I can’t hide it. I think my mom is going to send me away.” His voice lowered. “My father, I don’t think he’s a nice man.”

I clutched at his hand, lacing our fingers together and squeezing them tightly. Not like his mother was all that kind, either. How she had a sweet boy like Cactus, I didn’t understand. “I won’t let her. You’re my only friend, and I’m yours. No matter what happens, we’ll always be friends.”

He smiled at me and I smiled back. I looked away in order to get our bearings. “We’ve veered off track, I think.”

Cactus didn’t let go of me as he turned, which meant I went with him, looking back the way we’d come. “Did you hear that?”

We both went still, listening to the sounds of the forest. The steady calls of birds had gone silent, and even the bugs seemed to have dulled in their constant songs back and forth about where the best place to burrow was. Only the steady dripping of water plunking through the leaves and the fog was left of the sounds I’d expect. Around me, the foliage trembled, as if a wind blew, but there was no wind. This was not the forest I knew, the paths I’d grown up on. Then a sharp, cold blowing gale that didn’t belong in the forest coursed down through the treetops, drawing tendrils of the condensed air with it.

I squeezed Cactus’s hand tighter and whispered, “I don’t like this. It feels strange.”

He pulled me against him, wrapping his arms around my narrow shoulders. “Can you hide us?”

Without another word we dropped to the ground, and I coaxed the vines and undergrowth to cover us. We pressed our bellies hard against the earth, and Cactus kept his right arm over my back. Our breathing slowed as we naturally synced with the earth below us, our hearts beating with the one we all called the mother goddess.

Even with that comfort, though, fear tightened around us, bearing down on our bodies like a large stone lowered slowly, torturing us with what could be coming our way.

The air swirled and then came the heavy pounding of running feet. A voice crying out made my heart leap out of control, constricted my muscles, and tightened my throat until it seemed to close over.

“Lark, run!” My mother’s words ripped out of her, shattering the unnatural stillness.

Cactus’s eyes widened as he gripped me tightly and held me to the earth. No words flowed between us, but we both knew. My mother wouldn’t tell me to run for no reason. The whispers at night for the last few weeks, the fear on the still air as I woke each morning, and the odd look in my mother’s eyes as she stared at my brother and me suddenly seemed to have more meaning.

The currents grew thick, ozone gathering into deep layers around us. Air elementals, Sylphs, were the only ones who could manufacture a storm within the cloud forest like this. I knew; my mother had been teaching me about all the elementals. I pushed Cactus off me and rose just far enough that I could see above the stalks of grass. In the clearing where Cactus and I had been standing moments before, my mother now stood. Her back to me and her blonde hair dancing in the wind so it never touched the earth as it normally did. A soft cry, and I knew she had Bramley with her, my little brother.

What happened next . . . I could barely understand. Five figures, clothed in shimmering shadows, floated down from the treetops. A glimpse of pale skin here and there was all I saw until they landed, encircling my mother.

“You didn’t think you could outrun us, did you? You’re an abomination, a child of Spirit that should have been eliminated when you begged for sanctuary here, and then to seduce the king and give birth to monstrosities. What did you think to accomplish but your own death?”

That voice I knew all too well. My father’s wife, the queen. Cassava. She stepped out of the cover of the trees, her long spider web train floating on the breeze behind her. Short and powerfully built, she was the polar opposite of my mother’s lithe, lean body and ethereal beauty. From where we hid, I could see her face. She was pretty in the way of the earth elementals, her dark hair and bright green eyes flashing.

“Do as you will with me,” my mother said softly, the timbre of her voice soothing me even though I knew she was afraid. How could she not be afraid, though? The queen was terrifying. Yet my mother stood firm. “But leave my children be. They are innocent in this affair.”

The queen snorted and flipped back the hood of her cloak. “And have them tattle on me? I think not. You will die, and your children will die with you.”

Below my bare feet and hands the earth trembled, an anger swelling from the core, up through the layers of all that we held to be holy, and into my body. Before Cactus could stop me, I was up and sprinting toward the closest of the four figures in the black hoods. Without another thought, I flicked my hands at the cloaked body and the vines that had been so kind, so soft under my hands, reared up, wrapping themselves around that one. The vines tightened and the crunch of bones snapping rippled through the air.

“Lark, no!” My mother spun, her ocean blue eyes streaming with tears as they tracked down her cheeks. “Run, sweet pea, run!”

She moved to hand me Bramley and was jerked backwards by invisible strands of air. I caught Bram, clung to him as our mother was torn from us, her body flung high into the air, far into the clouds above the forest. I trembled where I stood, unable to obey her. Bramley let out a wail, his chubby fists clenched, and his face red with anger and fear. I counted the seconds, waiting for her to fall. And when she did, the whoosh of a body coming back to the earth through the clouds stilled my heart.

The world slowed as my mother’s body cascaded down, her hair flying up as if she were a kite, the string broken and the body free of tethers. My eyes were unable to close, I watched her fall, her body breaking as she hit. The fall shouldn’t have killed her, yet in my heart I knew she was gone.

She was gone, and there was only the two of us. Shock, unbound and filling my whole body, left me shaken to the center of my being. My mother—the one person I knew who loved me, the one who was soft with all those she encountered, giving those who had less than her all we had, sheltering those who had nothing.

Gone, in a split second on the whim of a jealous queen.

“You see what will happen if you don’t do as I say?” Cassava smiled at me, her lips tight and barely turning up at the edges. Hard. She was granite, with none of the beauty true granite held. “Now, give the brat to me,” she snarled, then glanced at her friends. “Wicker, kill the baby first, and the girl last. He is the one my fool of a husband has named as his heir.”

“What about the other half-breed?”

Cassava glanced at Cactus. “I will wipe his memory clean. I think I will have a use for him later.” Then she reached for us, as if I would hand Bram to her.

“NO!” All my fear and emotion poured out of me in that single word and the dirt around us exploded. Stones and chunks of earth flew through the air. The projectiles missed us, but the queen wasn’t so lucky. Something, a hunk of quartz by the flash of it, smashed into her temple and she went down in a heap. One of the tall, cloaked figures took a rock to the head, which slashed his face on the left side.

A distant part of my mind wondered where our Ender was. Father would never let us be without protection. Where was he? He was supposed to keep us safe from things like this.

My thoughts scattered as I faced the danger alone. Taking down the queen left three figures, Sylphs, who closed in on us. I clutched Bram to my chest, holding his squirming body with all I had. His tiny fingers gripped my hair, digging in hard as he whimpered.

“Mama.”

I backed away, fear pounding a steady tempo inside my head and heart, drowning out the anger that had sustained me.

The figure on the left burst into flame, his scream snapping me out of the fog I moved in. Hands grabbed me, and with Cactus at my side, we ran as fast as I could while carrying Bramley. The wind swirled, dragging us back, inch by inch. We leaned into the sudden wind tunnel, our bodies jerked around like puppets on strings. I clung to Bramley, his crying barely audible over the roaring of the wind around us.

I did the only thing I could. I called on the earth, begged the mother earth to save us.

“Please!” My scream was ripped away from my lips and I didn’t think anyone heard me.

I was wrong.

The ground shook and our legs sank, the dirt forming an anchor around us, stopping our backward slide. Hunched over my brother, I fell forward, keeping him between the ground and me. Curling around him tight, I screamed as he slid a little from my arms. With everything I had in me, I tightened my grip on him, but I was only a little girl, and the wind was so strong. Laughter filtered around us, somehow making it through the windstorm. I lifted my eyes and looked over my shoulder. The queen stood, blood dripping from the side of her face where the rock had struck her. She flicked her hand and the anchor around our feet released.

Bramley was snatched from my arms, his blond locks tugging in every direction, his eyes like mine, one amber and one green, filled with tears and terror as he flew through the air and into the queen’s hands. She grabbed him by one arm, dangling him as if he were just a hunk of meat. With a flick of her wrist at the Sylph, the windstorm eased. I gasped for breath, realizing the wind had been stealing the air from my lungs.

“Please, give him back to me.” I didn’t care that I begged. I would do anything for him.

She smirked at me. “You want him back?”

“Yes, please, he’s just a baby and he’s scared.”

She tipped her head, long curls of dark brown hair spilling over her shoulder. “Doesn’t seem scared to me.”

He hung from her arm, silent, his eyes closed.

Chest unmoving.

Body still.

Tingles of apprehension flowed through my body and my vision darkened. Below me, the earth shot a thread of power through the soles of my feet, snapping me out of my stupor.

The queen had killed my brother.

She’d killed my mother.

Cactus tugged on me. “Lark, we have to get away.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the queen, my brother dangling in her hand. An image of my mother floating to the earth, her hair spilling upward like some broken doll.

Brother. Mother. Family. The words were staccato, playing over and over in my head, a record stuck on a loop. She threw his body to me and I scrambled to catch him.

She was speaking to Cactus, but I barely heard her. Dropping to my knees, I held Bram in my arms. Maybe he was just sleeping, faking so the queen wouldn’t hurt him again.

I brushed my fingers over his face, stroking his cheeks. “Bram, baby boy, please wake up.” My tears burned hot streaks down my face, my skin feeling as if it were on fire.

But he was gone, his life taken when he was just beginning to live and grow.

Around me, the world seemed to shift, the ground rumbling under my knees, a steady thrum that coursed through my body.

I lifted my hand, feeling the earth’s power running through me, giving me the strength and understanding I needed. The trees bent backward, as if reeling away from us. All I saw were those who’d done this. Other elementals, ones who didn’t belong in the forest. Who should never have dared to come into our home.

And then the trees loosed. Snapping forward, they slammed into the remaining two air elementals, flattening them into the ground. They didn’t have time to scream, to cry for help.

The queen spun. “Well, well. Perhaps I won’t kill you after all, Larkspur. Your father told me you were weak, so weak. But I see he was wrong. Or maybe he was just trying to hide you from me.” She tapped a fingernail against her teeth, and her eyes grew thoughtful. “Yes, that is something he would do.”

Words that were not my own with a voice I didn’t recognize, spilled out of my mouth.

“Cassava, you will pay for these deaths.”

The queen stumbled back, her eyes hard, and lips harder. She lifted her right hand to me, her glittering pink diamond ring catching my eye, mesmerizing me. “This is just a dream, Larkspur. You know that. Your mother, she died from the lung burrowers, as did your brother. Pity as it was. And you will no longer be able to reach your power—doing so will feel as if your soul is being ripped from your body. You are weak, too weak to be of use to anyone.”

My mouth opened to deny her, but then I . . . remembered. “They died from the lung burrowers. I am weak. I am useless.”

“That’s a good girl,” she cooed, coming closer to me, taking something from my arms, something I didn’t want to give up. I whimpered, “No, that’s mine.”

“No.” Cassava leaned in close, her breath against my cheek. “It’s not yours. Go to sleep, Larkspur, and when you wake, remember none of this.”

I lifted my eyes streaming with tears to hers, knowing only that she’d done something horrible. Something I could never forgive, something that couldn’t be undone. “I hate you. I’ll always hate you.”

She grinned down at me, her beauty stark and cold. “The feeling’s mutual, little bastard.”

CHAPTER 2

I jerked awake, sweat rolling from my hairline and down my neck to pool against the cotton sheets. Beside me, Coal stirred, the lines of his lean body visible through the thin sheet. Thank the goddess he’d stayed over. The dreams were never quite as bad when I had a warm body beside me. I laid a hand against his back, the heat and ripple of his muscles an anchor against the fog of the dream. “This is real, this isn’t a dream,” I whispered to myself, and lay back, the sheets sticky against my bare skin. Flipping an arm over my eyes, I struggled to get my heart rate under control. How many times was it this week? Five nights in a row, the dream had rolled me under its spell and held me there, drowning me with the sheer solidity of it.

Like it was a memory instead of a reoccurring nightmare. No, I knew it was just a bad dream, a way for my mind to make sense of my family’s senseless deaths. Yet still, it felt so real.

I peered over my arm. By the little light coming through the window, it wasn’t even dawn yet, but I knew from past experience there would be no going back to sleep, not with my heart rate through the roof and the sweat slicking my body. A sigh slipped out of me and I sat up, the sheet dropping in fits and starts as it stuck to my bare skin, finally settling around my waist.

“Lay down and shut your eyes, Lark,” Coal mumbled. “You’ll go back to sleep if you try, but you won’t if you get up.”

Leaning forward, I stretched my back, choosing to ignore Coal. He didn’t understand, and I’d stopped trying to make him see my point of view. That the dreams were real to me, even though I knew they weren’t real. My muscles were tight and cramped from tension, and the stretch helped to get the blood flowing through them. Coal rolled over, his hair, black as a raven’s wing and just as smooth, rumpled from sleep and lovemaking. I leaned over and ran my fingers over his head. “Go back to sleep, I’m going to—”

“Go find a clue that tells you this isn’t a dream and our queen really is a terrifying killer?”

I pulled my hand from him as if he’d scalded me. “Don’t mock me, Coal.”

“I’m not, but this is stupid. It’s a dream, Lark, not reality. You need to get that through your head. It’s just something you made up as a little girl to deal with the death of your mom and brother. Get over it.”

Get over it. Like losing a loved one so dear to me could be ‘gotten over’. There were times he really was an ass. Times I questioned our relationship.

He kept talking as I strode toward the armoire. I buried my toes into the golden shag rug in front of it. The fluffy material was all the rage in the human world for the current year according to my half-sisters. I yanked the armoire door open and pulled out my favorite clothes, which also happened to be the ones Coal hated. My human digs I’d bought off an Ender coming back from a Hunt. Blue jean cut-off shorts that sat low on my hips and a neon pink tube top with the word electric zigzagged across the front. I couldn’t even answer Coal. I was so angry and afraid if I did answer him, it wouldn’t be very nice. Actually, I was sure it wouldn’t be nice. Tying my waist length hair into a knot at the base of my neck, I paused and looked over my shoulder. “I’m going to work.”

“Lark, stop.” He stood, lifted his hands over his head and stretched out his six-foot frame, drawing my eyes to him like a bee to honey. Lean, muscled lines, and the rippled abs that came from not only hard work but great genetics, that dark hair spilling over his forehead, and then those deep green eyes framed with long dark lashes and deeply tanned skin—all of it called to my body. Coal was, if nothing else, as hot as they came. He held a hand out to me, beckoned me to him. Reluctantly, I went, and he folded me into his arms, and kissed the top of my head. “I don’t want to fight. I’m sorry. This isn’t just killing your sleep, you now that, right? And guarding the Edge to keep the humans out isn’t the same as planting seeds all day. Those damn hippies keep getting closer, wanting to commune with nature as they smoke the funky weed to connect with the mother goddess.” He snorted. “It’s my job to keep them away, and it’s hard to do if I’m sleeping on the job, you know? It’s not like planting, which you can do in your sleep.”

Keeping my breathing even was all I could focus on. Damn him for belittling me—again. Like working with the earth wasn’t good enough. “Yeah, I know I’m waking you up. Look, I’ve got to go.”

His hands rubbed up and down my arms, then lower to slide under the frayed edge of the jean shorts to the crease between my butt and thighs, tickling the sensitive skin. “Sure you can’t stay a bit longer?”

My heart began to pound for a different reason and I struggled to shake the hormones off. Was he good in bed? Of that, there was no question.

A memory flooded over me of the night before, the slow, burning kisses he’d trailed from the soles of my feet, biting and sucking the tender skin on the back of my knees, sweeping along my inner thighs with the tip of his tongue and then higher, slower—

“I’ve got to go.” I pulled away and all but ran to the door. “Go home, Coal, and sleep at your own place tonight.”

“Lark, don’t do that. Don’t be like that. Come on!”

I didn’t hear anything else he had to say because I slammed the door between us. I trotted down the stairs to the lower level, then opened the door that would take me out. My home was different than the rest of the families. Mine was a hollowed out redwood that had been converted into a tree house. Most everyone else had more traditional homes, log houses built snug against the side of a redwood. But not in a redwood like mine.

All around me, the gigantic trees seemed to sway, though I knew they didn’t do anything of the sort. The cloudbank had lifted just above my house and it gave the illusion of movement. I tucked my bare foot into the loop of woven rope that ran through a system of pulleys and stepped off the platform at the edge of the door. My weight was just enough to take me to the ground thirty feet below in a slow circle that gave me a view of our home.

The Spiral was at the far end of the Rim, what a human would call a city, or maybe a village. The Spiral, the central part of our little world, was a twist of multiple trees bound together by my father’s power. From the outside, it didn’t look that big, but looks could be extremely deceiving in the Redwoods.

Inside the Spiral was a sprawling manse with hundreds of rooms, banquet halls, kitchens, and game rooms. Even a full lake on the lowest level, made from a spring that warmed the water, and perfect white sand that was always warm no matter the time of year. The Spiral was my home for a time after my mother died. But that had changed. Jaw tight, I looked to the other buildings around the Spiral. The Enders, my father’s enforcers, had a barracks to the left. Like the Spiral, it seemed small on the exterior, but I knew from my one visit there that the interior was huge, a complex with a central area designed for fighting, training, and lessons. The lower levels consisted of the healers’ rooms, and holding cells that had been out of use for longer than I’d been alive.

I shuddered at the thought. My mother had taken me to the prison once, the one time I’d been in the barracks.

“These cells cut you off from all creation, Lark. You don’t want to ever find yourself in them. So always be a good girl. Don’t fight with your siblings, listen to your father, and always be kind to those around you.” Those were some of her last words to me, before the lung burrowers claimed her and Bramley.

The homes closest to my father and his Enders housed the members of our elemental family who were the strongest; the ones who had the power to make a difference in our world, the ones who held rank and were a real benefit to our family.

I sighed and looked at the ground as it came up to greet me. “And here I am, at the farthest edge of the Rim.” Pretty much, I was as far away as one could get from my father. And not because I wanted to be.

My foot touched the earth, warm and comforting on my bare soles.

I let go of the rope when a sharp ‘cluck, cluck, cluck’ of a raven turned my head up. Coal hung from my window, bare-chested and frowning. The frown slowly turned up, and I knew him well enough to know he was about to be a jerk. “You need help, Lark. Like serious therapy. Maybe you should see one of the human shrinks, let them examine your head and prescribe you some really, really good drugs.”

My back stiffened and I glared up at him and his smirking face, as three ladies in my planting group came around the corner and started to titter. Well, if they wanted to laugh, I’d better give them something to laugh about.

“You know, that sounds like good a plan, Coal. Maybe I can get something for you too. Something to help you in the stamina department. You and I both know it isn’t normal to last only two minutes.”

His jaw dropped, and I blew him a kiss before I turned my back on him. “Hello, girls.”

“Larkspur, nice to see you,” the oldest of the three, Persimmon, Simmy to her friends, patted me on the shoulder. “I see you are on the outs with young Coal again.”

I shrugged. “Nothing new.” The other two gals hurried ahead of us and Simmy hooked her arm through mine, slowing my walk.

“That boy, he needs a firm hand. If you want to see it through with him, you can never be a doormat. He won’t respect you, Princess.”

“Respect.” I spit the word out, the taste of it like dung on my lips. “How can he respect me when I’m of so little use? When my abilities are so small I’m hardly good enough for the planting fields?”

Simmy’s eyebrows arched upward and her eyes sparkled dangerously. “You think you’re too good for the planting fields?”

“No.” I softened my tone. “No, that’s just it. I’m hardly able to help there, where the children often give a hand. Most of the ten-year-olds are beyond me in skill. You know that.”

She tugged me to a stop, next to a giant redwood. “Your mom wouldn’t like to hear you talk about yourself that way. She always said you would be one of our best one day. And she would know. She had the sight sometimes, could see what was coming.”

“Doesn’t matter what she would or wouldn’t like, Persimmon, she’s dead. Too bad she didn’t use her sight to stay alive. And I’d thank you to not remind me that she’s dead.” The words came out harsher than I intended and Simmy pulled away from me.

Shaking her head, she backed away. “You don’t have so many friends, Lark, that you can treat them poorly. Perhaps you’d best think on that as you work today.”

Spinning on her heel, she walked away, hunched a bit as if expecting a blow. I watched her go, waiting for her to be far enough ahead that my long legs wouldn’t eat up the distance between us. Shame bit at my insides, shame and guilt. The forest would have been better off if my mother had survived the lung burrowers, and I’d died in her place.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you, Simmy.” I grabbed at a fiddlehead, broke it off, and popped it into my mouth. I hated that she was right, though, about the ‘friends’ part. As the weakest member of our entire family, I was looked on with a lot of pity, and even more scorn. As the daughter of the king who was the strongest, I should have been living in the Spiral. Should have been helping our family by doing more than digging tiny holes by hand, picking weeds, and moving dirt.

The day in the planting fields went about as good as could be expected. Without even the meager friendship of Simmy, I worked alone, ate alone, and took my breaks alone. Left alone with my thoughts was not a good thing. The dream played over and over in my head, the fight with Coal, and the flare of irritation every time I caught a glimpse of the Spiral until I was flushed with emotion more than exertion.

At the end of the day, I’d planted lots of seeds, but not much else. The others were able to get their seeds to germinate and sprout right away. Not me. I just stuffed them in the dirt and prayed to the mother goddess that they wouldn’t rot. The fields, set in a patch where the redwoods didn’t hide the sun, emptied as the sun dipped lower, and I stood alone, my feet partially buried in the soft soil. Every day I stayed when the others left. And every day I hoped something would be different for me.

Maybe today was the day I’d breakthrough.

I wiggled my toes, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reached for that part of me that was connected to the earth.

Inside my head I could see the power, humming in a spinning ball of flickering green warmth, just waiting for me to dip my fingers into it. It beckoned me closer. I lifted my hand, as if to touch it.

A flash of pale pink rushed across my vision, like a splash of pink champagne, bubbling and dancing, followed closely by a shock of pain scoring along my skin, so sharp it made my heart stutter. I dropped to my hands and knees, the dirt biting into the bare skin.

Gasping for air, I lowered my head, tears dropping into the ground about the only thing I could give the seedlings. There were no words I could say that would change the fact I was retarded in my abilities. I would never be what the others were—guardians of the earth, one of the chosen. A useful part of society.

Footsteps brought my head up to see one of my father’s Enders standing across the way from me. Dark blond hair closely shorn into a spiky mess, and eyes the color of liquid honey watched me with no little amount of scorn.

He shifted his feet, crossed his arms, his dark brown leathers not making a sound as he moved. Our Enders wore a leather vest and leather pants, and were the only members of our family who wore heavy boots. The boots were a symbol that they would not willingly touch their natural abilities when sent to kill someone. Death by using the mother goddess’s sacred power was taboo.

Weapons hung from the belt wrapped low on his hips, a dagger strapped to each of his thighs so they wouldn’t swing and make noise. Over his back, above his head, poked a large handled sword. His arms were bare except for leather bracers covering the wrist and forearm, stopping before the bulge of his biceps.

He didn’t say anything, only watched me, watching him. How long had he been there? Could he sense me trying and failing to reach my meager ability with the earth? The thought galled me and I flushed under his gaze. That he might have seen how weak I was for himself, and added onto that, I was more than aware how much dirt I wore from the day’s work—that I didn’t look anything like a king’s daughter should. “What do you want, Ash?”

His eyebrows dropped and his lips turned down. “Do not speak to me like you have a right to order me about, cuckoo.”

The blood drained from my face, I could feel it slide. Cuckoo. A child slipped into another’s nest to be raised, but not of their kind. An interloper leaching the strength and resources of others.

“I am not a bastard. I know who my parents are.” I was on my feet and striding toward him, anger driving me. “You are an Ender, and you answer to the royal family of which I am a part. Perhaps you should remember that.” I was in his face, my head tilted back. He had a few inches on me and he used them, staring down at me, the contempt written in his eyes plain to see.

“You are not a part of the royal line. Or you would live in the Spiral.”

He might as well have slapped me. My jaw dropped and I had to work up the spit in my mouth before I could answer. “I am. The king is my father.”

“Yet here you are, a Planter.”

I glared at him, unable to come up with a proper, scathing response. The best my brain would give me was ‘so what’? But I wasn’t going to resort to a childish back and forth.

“Lark, are you—” Simmy’s voice broke the standoff. “Oh, I see you have company. Ender Ash, how are you this night?”

I didn’t turn around, and Ash never took his eyes from me. “I’m well, Persimmon, Lady of the Fields.”

Simmy laughed softly. “Well, aren’t you the sweet one? That title hasn’t been used in a redwood’s lifetime.” She reached us and put a hand on my arm. “Lark, come, you know tonight you must go to the Spiral. It is your night to sit at your father’s side.”

I blinked and glanced at her. “Goddess, I forgot!” I turned toward her, put a hand on her arm. “Thank you, Simmy. You’re a good friend. I’m sorry, for earlier.”

She flushed. “Ah, ‘tis nothing, Larkspur.”

I looked over my shoulder to see Ash tip his head back staring at the tree’s swaying branches above our heads. “Goddess save me from the king’s whims.”

What happened next wasn’t planned and yet it came together so smoothly you’d think I’d have been prepping for weeks for that one moment. I jumped to the left side of Ash, slammed my right arm across his chest as I drove my right leg behind his.

He went flying to the ground, landing in a puff of dirt, his honey gold eyes wide as saucers. “The king’s whims are commands to you, Ender, perhaps you’d best remember that.”

His eyes flashed as he looked at me, a hand going to the knife on his left thigh. Simmy yanked me hard. “Run, before he’s to his feet.”

I took heed of her words. I’d attacked a king’s Ender, a whipping offense at the least. Worse I was sure if Ash caught me. Spinning, my hair strung out behind me as I ran from the fields, a smile on my lips.

Whipping offense or not, it was worth it to see the shock on his face, the widening of those eyes always so in control.

So, totally worth it.

CHAPTER 3

My best dress was something of a throwback to an era gone by. My mother’s finery was really all I had left to me of her, and I seldom wore it for fear I would ruin the tiny stitching and expensive materials. Tonight, though, I had to stand in front of my father’s and our people, and I needed all the armor I could muster.

The sky blue gossamer gown floated on the breeze making it feel as though I wasn’t wearing anything at all. With a square cut neckline and sleeves that looped low over my arms, leaving my shoulders bare, it flattered my body, as it no doubt had flattered my mother’s. The bodice ran snug down to my hips where the gossamer was left untamed and allowed to flow as the wind would take it. I fingered the simple teardrop diamond that sat in the hollow of my throat. A gift from my father to my mother on the day of my birth, a precious gem for the love of his life. Or so my mother had told me. I’d twisted my hair into an elaborate cluster of curls with Simmy’s help, but a few tendrils had escaped their confines as I’d walked to the Spiral and they now spilled down my back.

“Scared?” Coal stood at my side, escorting me as was his tradition, even when we’d been fighting. Like tonight.

“I hate sitting in there, everyone looking at me.” Their eyes full of pity. I didn’t say that part, but Coal heard me loud and clear. He turned me toward him, his hands on my arms.

“You are a beautiful, amazing woman, no matter your abilities, Lark. You have to remember that. You are a princess; don’t let them treat you elsewise.” He kissed my forehead and our fight from the morning was gone. These were the moments I knew he was a good man. That I was happy he was in my life.

I nodded and was about to go in when I caught a glimpse of blond hair and Ender leathers. Ash obviously hadn’t said anything to anyone about me knocking him down or I’d have been taken to the whipping post already. Which meant he didn’t want to be embarrassed by telling someone I’d bested him. Even if it wasn’t really a fight, it didn’t matter; I had the upper hand now.

Stiffening my back, a smirk on my lips, I stepped into the Spiral, my bare feet on the warm wooden flooring. All around me, the room was lit with lightning bugs and candles. The bugs darted around the room, lighting up the recesses, and the candles flickered and sputtered with the tiny breezes the bugs caused. Everyone was dressed in his or her finery. The bringing forward of complaints happened only once every season, which was my excuse for forgetting it was my turn to sit at my father’s feet while he listened to the concerns of his people. With five other siblings, it was easy to forget where I fit in.

The room was decorated in thick hanging ivy that bloomed with impossible flowers. Flowers that would never bloom on ivy, or on this continent for that matter. But the contrast of deep, dark green and fragrant exotic beauties tugged at my senses and I stepped forward.

Ahead of me a murmur of voices swelled in conversation that stuttered and stopped as I swept by each group of people. Testers, those who decided if an elemental was worthy of moving up in the ranks, Ambassadors from the other three families, Walkers, those who went into the human world to help where they could, and the Shifters—all fell silent as I passed. The Planters waved to me, I was one of their own and they were more than a little proud that a princess worked by them in the fields. It didn’t matter to them that I was weak, or that none of them really wanted to be my friend, they saw me as a direct connection to the king. I smiled at Simmy, who waved a calloused hand at me, but the next group stole that smile. My siblings.

Five of them, starting with the oldest, Vetch. He was a real piece of work and we locked eyes as I drew close. He favored his mother in coloring, dark-haired and green-eyed. Short and stocky, he thought he was a real ladies’ man, but in truth, the ladies were afraid to say no to the crown prince. Next in line for the throne was Belladonna. She was five years older than me and unwed, though not for lack of trying. Rich chestnut hair spilled down her shoulders in carefully manicured waves that she curled around her fingers whenever she caught a man looking at her. The demure lowering of lashes over her light gray eyes was a seriously false advertisement. Demure, she was not.

Beside her, mimicking every move she made was Keeda, named for a flower Cassava had seen bloom in winter. Her hair was the lightest of my siblings, a dirty blonde that she darkened to be more like Belladonna’s. She and her twin sister, Briar, were identical, right down to their hazel eyes. Briar, though, was sweet, where Keeda worked hard to be as difficult as Belladonna.

Last born was Raven, who came into the world a mere month after me. He looked nothing like the rest, his blue eyes and jet black hair reminding me more of a certain guard who’d been on duty with the queen for years. No one said anything, but the family knew Raven was as much a bastard as me. The difference was simple, though, he was strong where I was weak. And his mother would never allow anyone to claim one of her children as a bastard. It would be instant banishment.

The three girls clustered together, pointing at my clothes and then tittering. Keeda took the point on their attack. “Doesn’t she know that she looks like an old lady in that?”

They were dressed in the most recent human convention of skin tight, shiny material that left nothing to the imagination. “At least I don’t look like a human’s painted whore.”

The room, so silent as it was with my passing, drew in a collective breath.

“Daughter, how kind of you to join us.” My father stood from his throne and I immediately dropped into a curtsey.

“Your Majesty,” I murmured.

Raven came to my side and held out an arm. “Sister, may I escort you?”

I placed a hand on his elbow and nodded, grateful. Raven and I knew we both stood on rocky ground, and he often came to my defense. Of all my siblings, he and I were the closest.

“You look lovely, they are jealous ‘cause they can’t pull off any amount of grace,” Raven said as we walked the last thirty feet at a slow, sedate pace.

“Thank you, Raven.” I squeezed his arm. “How has it been?”

“Oh, the same. Plotting against one another, bickering, doing nothing of import. Father is happy, which makes me think perhaps he’s found a new mistress, and mother is more violent than usual, which confirms it. Also, to be noted, that is the reason she chose not to come today. Said she was tired of being compared to sluts.”

For that alone, the relief flowed through me. Seeing Cassava would only make the reality of my dream harder to dispute, just one more reason to avoid coming to the Spiral. I raised an eyebrow and scanned those closest to the throne. “Any idea who father might be bedding?”

“I was hoping you might be able to help with that. You seem to have a knack for digging out the truth.” Raven smiled up at me and I laughed. Of that, he was right. I scanned the room again, and saw one face that stood out. Rich auburn hair, so dark the red tones were hard to see, caught my eye first. And then her deep green eyes fairly glowing with the burn of new love, and in one glance between her and my father I knew I was right.

“Good goddess, he’s seeing a child,” I grumbled.

Raven slowed our walk even more, dragging out our time together. “Who is it?”

“The one on the right, there in the green dress that matches her eyes. Her name is Fern, she is a few years younger than you and me.” I could scarcely believe it, but there, another glance between them confirmed it. A sigh slipped out of me. “Don’t tell your mother. Goddess knows, it will fuel her rage if she sees how young he’s gone this time.”

“Point taken, and now I must leave you, sister. Good luck.” He gave me a wink, bowed, and left me to stand directly in front of our father.

King Basileus still cut a sharp figure, despite his advanced years. We didn’t age like the humans. At around the thirty-year mark, our bodies just stopped maturing, allowing us longer than normal lives. There were a few in the family who looked old, which meant they had been around a very long time indeed. And no, you don’t ask how old they are, it’s rude.

My father’s time on this side of the soil had not aged him, and his body was as firm as those of his Enders. Deep brown hair with hints of auburn and a few flecks of silver, that was long enough to be braided, but he left it to flow down his back. A number of the men tried to emulate it, but couldn’t really pull it off. He wore a full beard that was trimmed close to his jaw, showing off the lines of his face and again, emphasizing he was still a man to be reckoned with. His eyes, though, they were what captivated me. Deep, dark forest green that sometimes faded to black when angry. But today I was in luck. His new love had softened him, and his eyes sparkled with good humor and a relaxation I hadn’t often seen on him. I let out a sigh of relief and curtseyed again. “Father.”

“Come, sit by me, Larkspur.”

I made my way up to the dais and sat at his feet as he lowered himself onto his throne. “You look like your mother in that dress,” he said softly, putting a hand on the top of my head. I closed my eyes and leaned into his hand, wanting nothing more than to feel his approval.

“I am glad it pleases you, Father.”

“It does. Now, let us see what today’s supplicants bring.” He clapped his hands and spoke over the crowd. “Come, let those who would be heard step forward.”

A small number of people came through the crowd, lining up in a proper fashion.

The first was a Tender from the outer edge of the forest, far to the east. He made a stiff legged bow. “Your Majesty, the trees are dying in our section of the forest. There seems to be no natural cause. Would you consider sending one of your healers to us? I fear we will lose too many and then whatever this is will get away from us.”

My father considered, closing his eyes as he thought it over. When he opened his eyes, I already knew the answer, could see it easily. He shook his head. “No, it is the way of the forest, some must die so that others may live. If it is still a concern in the next season, come again and we will revisit this.” The supplicant slumped, and nodded. What else could he do? It was the word of the king.

But I knew what it meant to the Tender, similar enough to the Planters in their duties. Leaving a potential disease to run rampant was not a good idea. In the planting fields, blight on the seedlings, if left untreated, could spread like a wildfire. You could lose not only the crop, but also the fields they lay in if you were not diligent in scourging the blight clean. I frowned up at him. “Father, may I speak?”

“Of course, that is what you are here for.” His tone, though, said otherwise. I swallowed my trepidation and raised my voice, knowing the shaky ground I traversed.

“I think, perhaps, you should reconsider and send a healer. Just one, to evaluate the dying trees. If there is truly nothing to worry about, then it will not tax you to send a single healer. But if there is a cause for this, a need for help, you will be further ahead of what could become an out of control disaster.”

He laughed and the crowd laughed with him. It took everything I had not to drop my chin. “My daughter, the Planter, thinks to advise me. Fine, to ease your worries, child, I will send a healer. Just one, though.”

The supplicant gave a sigh of relief and bowed to us both. He scooted forward, took my hand and kissed the inside of my wrist, a submissive gesture. “Thank you, Princess.”

Heat suffused my cheeks, as much for the bow and the kiss, as the way my father had mocked me. In front of everyone, as if he didn’t care that I was sitting right there.

And that was the main reason I hated to come to these things. I wanted him to love me like he loved my other siblings, but I knew I would never be strong enough for him to do so. Still, I came with hope, and every time I left with less rather than more.

There was a shuffling of bodies as a healer came forward and went with the ranger from the outer reaches. They conversed in low tones and then left together.

Shouting erupted from the far side of the room, and a flurry of gray and brown cloth seemed to spin through the crowd, easily dodging the two Enders attempting to detain him. Or as the case turned out to be, her.

She stopped, breathless at the foot of the dais where she could look up at the king. Which meant I got an up close and personal look into her face. She wasn’t that old, or at least not any older than my father with the way our people aged; it was hard to tell. The silver strands here and there sparkling in her hair gave the biggest indication. Her eyes were tinged with madness. The washed out blue, almost violet, iris in the center shook as if her trembling followed through to even the miniscule parts of her body.

“Your Majesty, a storm comes.” Her head bowed and her shoulders slumped. “A storm, a storm, a storm. You will see, you will see. Finally, you will see what has been in front of you all this time. Your love will know, the Lady Ulani will know, ask her.” She raised her head and looked at me, her eyes and hands beseeching.

At the mention of my mother’s name, the room dropped into a silence borne of horror.

The king stood and then crouched in front of the woman. “Lady Niah, you were once a bard, a singer of songs, and teller of tales. Madness eats at you. This”—he swept a hand toward me—“is Ulani’s daughter.”

Niah looked at me, squinted her eyes, and lowered her voice. The acoustics in the room should have picked up her words, but it was if a blanket were thrown over our three heads, muffling the world outside our tiny circle. “She has the power of Ulani and the power that comes from your bloodline. Yet, she is broken, too.”

My father let out a breath. “I know. She is weak.”

I closed my eyes, and a tear slipped down my cheek. How much harder was it to hear my father say that I was weak? Bad enough that I knew it, that everyone knew it, but to hear it from his lips and know that he thought me useless . . . my heart could barely stand the thought.

“I would hear what the bard must say.”

I stiffened my spine to fight the cringe that wanted to take me over and make me hunch in on myself. Cassava’s voice rang pure and sharp through the room and the world was clear in front of me again. The queen wore a ridiculously skin tight, black dress with a slit clear to her hip, easy to see as she stood over us. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun that left the lines of her face as hard and clean as ever. To some, she would be beautiful, but not to me. Not for the first time I wondered what my father had seen in her.

“Of course, my queen,” Father said.

Niah took a deep breath and I was close enough to see the fear pass through her eyes. “A tale, one that some would call a legend, a child’s story. But it is true and it will come to pass.” Her posture changed as she sat up straight, and lifted her hands to the sky, the ground, to the fire in the east, and the water in the west. An intonation that all she would say was true.

“In the beginning, the mother goddess was lonely. She sought out company from the other gods, but they were too busy meddling in the affairs of men. And so she fell into the arms of her consort. Together, they had five children who would become the founders of the elemental families. Born in order, Earth Child, Fire Child, Air Child, Water Child and finally, a surprise to them both, Spirit Child. Each of their children went on to propagate their own families of elementals. With their immense abilities, they quickly began to conquer the world, taking their leave of their hidden lives, ruling as tyrants over the humans, causing mayhem and destruction on a level the world had never seen . . . and so, the mother goddess and her consort chose to remind them that they were not truly gods.

The mother goddess created bindings that would keep the elementals tied to certain parts of the world, and if they left those parts for too long, they would begin to waste away, until they lost all their powers and became . . . human.

Yet, even this did not deter their children who had grown fond of power and the life of ease.

So the mother goddess went to the five nations of man, fashioning for each, a ring. Five rings made to be held in times of need. Rings that would rule a portion of the elemental world, and keep the humans safe from the mother goddess’s children who’d gone astray. With those rings, the humans brought the world into balance, and finally, the elemental families were put to rest, and they made of themselves a help to the world, healing what they could. Occasionally still being destructive, but only when warranted and the humans needed to be reminded they were at the mercy of the earth and her guardians.

Avoiding all these battles was the Spirit Child, for she flitted between the four families, as the youngest of them, never truly settling down. Her heart was pure, and her love true, and she never believed the worst of her siblings, always wanting for them to make peace. The restrictions of the others were never placed on her, and when her siblings realized this, they started to quietly kill off her progeny.

Jealousy and the realization that Spirit’s children could manipulate elemental and human to do what they wanted caused a great deal of fear in them against her. Leaving her line nearly wiped clean except for a few who escaped the slaughter by hiding with the humans.”

Cassava lifted a hand, her eyes flashing with an anger I didn’t understand. “That is enough. We have had enough of your stories. This is a place for supplicants, not mad fools.”

“You will not be the queen for long,” Niah said and for the third time, the crowd went silent.

Cassava laughed, her teeth flashing. “I am, and will always be, the queen, fool. And any who would argue may find themselves banished, or worse.”

The threat was there despite her pleasant tone. I hope to the seven hells and the heaven’s above that Fern took the warning to heart. Because even if what I dreamed truly was just a dream, I would not put it past the queen to kill a rival who stood in her way.

“Larkspur”—Father put a hand on my bare shoulder, his hand squeezing ever so slightly—“take Niah to the kitchens and make sure she is fed. She was our friend once, and I would not like her to go away with nothing.”

I stood, curtsied to him, and then to Cassava, who stopped me with a lifted hand. “And stay there with her. We have no need of you here. This is a place for royals.”

I smiled up at her, the words slipping out of me before I could catch them. “Funny, I was thinking the same of you.”

A nervous titter escaped someone in the crowd, which took the heat off me as Cassava spun to see who would dare laugh. I turned while she was distracted, and took Niah by the hand. “Come on, let’s get some food into your belly.”

The walk to the kitchens was slow and Niah kept mumbling under her breath, but none of it made sense. Her words weren’t even strung together in coherent sentences; instead, they were placed in a random rhyming singsong that stuck in my head.

“Rings, sing, rings, sing, Ender, Ender, fight, fight, fight, Spear it, hear it, spear it, hear it.”

I held her lightly by the arm and turned to the silent kitchen. Everyone was in the great hall, leaving the vast room of pots and pans empty. “Here we go. Let me get you some food.” I got a plate ready for her, loading it with the fruits of my labors. Sweet potatoes, asparagus, spring greens lightly covered in olive oil and spices, a generous helping of goose left from dinner, no doubt, and a hunk of homemade cheese still soft and fresh. Topped off with a slice of bread warm from the ovens. I made myself a plate too, since I wasn’t invited to dinner and hadn’t had time to eat before I came. “Think you can finish all this?”

I sat next to her, pouring her a full glass of fresh pressed apple juice. I tucked into my food, my belly gurgling happily that I would finally feed it.

She took a few bites, and then twisted in her seat to face me. “I am not mad.”

A smile was all I could give her since my mouth was full. But even if it hadn’t been, I wasn’t really sure what I could say.

Swallowing what was in her mouth, she wiped her hands on her skirt and took my fingers, spreading my right hand on the table, palm up. “Madness is a place where I hide from those who would silence me.”

I drew my hand back and curled it into the layers of my skirt. “But only a person who was mad would think they weren’t. The rest of us question ourselves from time to time.”

“Do you think yourself mad?” Niah leaned forward so we were very close and I could see her eyes clearly.

I thought about the nightly dreams, how they sucked me under and made me believe things I knew weren’t true.

“Sometimes, yes.”

Those pale blue-violet eyes had stilled, there were no more tremors. It was her turn to smile. “In small doses, belladonna causes the eyes to shake. Now, you, Larkspur, must hear the rest of the story I spoke. The progeny of the fifth child, they survived. By breeding with the humans.”

A chill slithered up my legs from the ground. “I don’t need to hear this. It is an old legend, and nothing—”

“You do need to know this. Ulani, she knew the truth, and she was killed for it. You must be wary, child, for your death sits on the throne. She will see you dead when she realizes you threaten her position on the throne. Right now, you are leverage to gain what she wishes. It is time for you to come into your own. No more hiding. Go to the recluse on the Edge; he can help you.” She pointed back the way we’d come.

“Cassava means to kill me? How could I threaten her?” I whispered and Niah nodded. Then the rest of her words hit me. “Wait, my mother was . . . killed?”

She nodded. “In the child of Spirit, the mother goddess placed the heaviest burden. To one day rule the entire realm of elementals, taking them in hand during their darkest hour and saving them from themselves. For that day would come, and when it does, only one could be the light in the shadows, only one would see the narrow path that must be walked by our people.”

“But what does that mean?” Confusion rocked me.

“Holy Hannah banana, I don’t know,” she muttered, her eyes flicking to one side, before she bit into a piece of goose. The meat dangled from her mouth and she smiled around it.

I frowned at her. “Niah, why are you—”

“The queen wishes to speak to you.”

I spun in my seat. Ash stood in the doorway, watching us. For how long? I gave him a tight nod. “Of course. I will go to the great hall at once.”

“No. In her private quarters.”

I rose, my heart pounding, Niah’s warning ringing in my ears.

Your death sits on the throne.

Feet moving slowly, mind spinning through the possibilities, I followed Ash from the kitchens and up the stairs.

The queen had given a command and I had to follow it. Niah shook her head as I passed her, a tear trickling down one cheek as she whispered, “Ulani, protect your child.”

CHAPTER 4

Inside of Cassava’s personal apartment was really not a place I wanted to be. In the nearly fifteen years since my family died, I had avoided Cassava, and seemingly she me. No more than a handful of conversations had been had between us, and only ever at functions where I was required to attend and we couldn’t get away with ignoring one another.

The dream played out slowly in my head again, this time highlighted with the smell of her lilac perfume, which permeated the oversized apartment I stood in.

I didn’t move from where Ash had deposited me, my feet buried in the thick carpet of moss and low growing grass. From where I stood, I could easily see her bed, hanging from the ceiling by ivy vines as thick as my arm. The sheets were perfectly pressed and tucked into the edges, looking as though no one had ever slept there.

There were two doorways leading out of the room I was in. One on the left; one on the right. Which one led to my father’s chamber? If I had to, could I make a run for it, and more importantly, would I make it? I shook my head. I wouldn’t have to run, Cassava wasn’t going to kill me.

I wished I could believe my own thoughts on the matter.

“I see Ash did as I asked. He really is quite a handful, even as an Ender.” Cassava swept in through the door on the right and I immediately angled my body so I had a clear run to the left. Just in case.

“I hadn’t noticed him being difficult,” I lied, and she snorted softly.

She moved across the room, shedding her jewelry and hairpins as she went, dropping them into the thick growth of the floor. “I do not wish to discuss him. I wish to discuss you, Lark. What do you plan to do with your life?” A snap of her fingers and the floor bulged upward into a cupped seat, which she lowered herself into.

“I’m a planter, your Highness. My abilities”—I swallowed hard, took a breath, and went on—“will not allow me much more than that.”

She tipped her head and raised her eyebrows. “Really? I’d heard the planters were going to ask you to leave, seeing as you can’t even spring a seedling from the ground.”

Horror raced through me, rooting me to the mossy floor as surely as the human’s cement would have. “I help them, I do most of the heavy lifting. I do the job I must.”

“The job you must? Why then do you do it?”

Cassava knew why, she was just baiting me. I clamped my mouth shut and closed my eyes. Cassava spoke, but I didn’t hear her and I didn’t have to answer her.

I thought maybe she said, “Sleep, Larkspur, and remember this not,” but I couldn’t be sure. My feet tingled in the moss and I wiggled my toes, as a heavy fugue wafted over me. I wanted to lie down and sleep, the sudden and overwhelming fatigue hitting me hard. The mother goddess had denied me the abilities that my birthright should have given me, leaving me powerless. I was powerless. I was weak.

I lifted my eyes, sleep dragging them closed, to see Cassava’s lips moving and the ring on her right hand. That damned pink diamond, flashing with sparkling pink lights. The moss was soft on my knees and as I bowed my head, someone pulled the pins from my hair, letting it cascade down over my face, obscuring my vision. Blinking so slowly the scene around me came in chunks.

The flashing ring.

Cassava holding a vial to my lips.

Me turning my head and holding my breath, feeling like my body wasn’t my own, heavy with resistance and barely able to do my bidding.

“Breathe, Larkspur!” Cassava growled, and the world cleared a little.

I shook my head and kept my eyes closed.

Someone screamed, and then a bear let out a roar that shook me to the center of my bones. My eyes snapped open, but the world bobbed and jumped crazily.

Arms around me, holding me tight.

The scenes tumbled and fought for me to see them, to piece them together, but I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. I was dreaming again. That was it, dreams. Nightmares.

The nightmares faded and an empty, dreamless sleep took me, dragging me under its spell, and I finally rested. It was not the light of the sun that woke me though, but a hand tugging at my arm. I jerked upright in my bed, my head pounding with the steady beat of my heart. “I didn’t drink any wine.”

“No, you did not.”

Carefully, very aware that every movement made the pain worse, I turned to see Niah sitting beside my bed, a wicked looking weapon across her lap. A war spear with a three-foot curved blade at the end. The haft was solid black and where the moon streamed in through the window, the haft shone almost as much as the blade.

Beside Niah, a large black bear lay silent, his eyes never blinking as he watched me. His coat shimmered in the moonlight, and his violet eyes pegged him as one of our shape shifters. I just didn’t know which one. Or why he was in my room.

“What are you doing here?”

“Protecting you. The queen can’t control you much longer with her ring, and what do you think will happen then?” Niah leaned forward, her face shadowed with the light of the moon coming in behind her.

“The queen isn’t going to hurt me. She hates me because of my mother, but she isn’t going to hurt me.” I put a hand to my head and the night replayed in my mind, and suddenly I wasn’t so sure of my words. “What happened?”

Niah held a hand out to me, ignoring my question. “You have two choices, Larkspur. You can come with me and you will be safe; she won’t be able to hurt you. Or you can stay and face the consequences. The choice is yours.”

I slid my legs over the edge of the bed, pressing my bare soles into the smooth wooden flooring. “I’m not leaving my home.”

Niah stood. “Stubborn, just like your mother. That stubbornness killed her, you know that?”

My throat tightened. “It is just a dream, all of it. My mother died from the lung burrowers.” But even as I said the words, they sounded hollow and false to me. It was as if someone else were speaking, a parrot spitting out the only tune it knew, even if it was wrong.

The bard stood and handed me the war spear. “Here, it was your mother’s legacy. A weapon she chose not to raise in anger, or even in defense. I hope you don’t make the same mistake.” She thrust it into my hands and I fumbled with it, unsure of what I was supposed to do with a weapon of that size.

Niah and her bear walked to the doorway, the creak of wooden boards under the bear’s weight giving truth to the fact I wasn’t seeing things. She paused, one hand on the doorframe. “If you need to speak to someone, go to the recluse on the Edge. He can help you, I think.”

“I don’t need help.”

“Maybe not today, but today is not tomorrow, and tomorrow may prove to be the day your world changes, Lark.” Her eyes were pinched and full of sorrow.

They slipped out of my room and a few moments later the sound of heavy feet lumbering away from my home floated through my window. I stood, swayed a little and forced myself to move. At the window, I could just see the disappearing image of Niah riding astride the bear as they slipped into the forest. I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck, as I tried to make sense of everything that had happened.

“I’m not in danger,” I whispered to the moon, as I wished that I hadn’t told Coal to sleep at his own place. Though I wouldn’t admit it out loud, even I didn’t believe my own words.

I was in danger, I just didn’t know how much.

It didn’t take me long to find out.

CHAPTER 5

The next morning dawned cold for a summer day, the fog lay heavier than normal in the trees, so low I could touch it with the tips of my fingers if I’d had the energy to do so. Exhaustion dragged at my feet as I shuffled along the well-worn, familiar path to the fields. I wore long tan-colored pants, the cuffs bound around each ankle with a thick blue ribbon I’d woven partway up my leg to hold the pants snug. My top was my last clean shirt, tied into a knot around my middle, baring my belly button.

Not until I got to the field did I realize something was wrong. Simmy was the only one there, and she wasn’t working. She stood, in between the freshly planted rows of seedlings, her arms folded over her chest and her eyes brimming with tears.

I started toward her and she held up a hand. “No, don’t come any closer. You’re not a Planter anymore, Lark.”

I froze mid-stride, lowered my foot to the ground, and stood there, stunned. “What do you mean? That’s all I can do, Simmy.”

Her lips trembled. “You made us look bad in front of the royal family. Because of you, our workers are going to be looked down on for years. We don’t want you here anymore.” The words hit me like blows and the tears streaming down her cheeks were enough to undo my own. I made them look bad in front of the royal family? The way she said that, it was if I was not a part of the royal family.

My legs shook. I knew what would come next. If I didn’t have a job, I would be sent away. Sent to be a slave for one of the other families, most likely.

Slave. The word ran through my mind, stinging me like a thousand tiny ants. “Simmy, did you . . . know this was going to happen?”

She shook her head. “Go, run away, Lark. Get away from here before things get worse.”

I stepped back. “Simmy, look after yourself, and your two girls.”

Nodding, she covered her face with her hands. “I’m so sorry. Your mam, she wouldn’t want this.”

No, I didn’t think my mother would want this at all. But what choice did I have? There was no job in our family that would require less skill with the earth than that of a Planter. To sprout seedlings was something anyone here could do. Anyone except me.

The forest floor flew under my feet as I ran back to my home. As I climbed the ladder steps grown into the tree’s side, I looked up. Movement in my bedroom window. Pressing myself against the tree trunk I listened for the telltale sign that it was an Ender. The occasional creak of leather was the only thing that would give them away. I hung there, fingertips burning as I breathed in the scent of the redwood against my face.

“Damn it, Lark, where are you?” Coal’s voice burst out and I didn’t hesitate.

“I’m here,” I scrambled up the last twenty feet and all but fell into my apartment. “I’m here.”

He scooped me up into his arms and crushed me to his chest. “My girl, they can’t send you away.”

I tightened my arms on him, knowing that as a guard, he would have the latest gossip. “What have you heard?”

“They kicked you out of the Planters for supposedly embarrassing them last night. If anything, they should be proud of you! But that isn’t the worst of it. Someone started a rumor that the king is going to ask you to go and serve under our cousin, Fiametta. As a maid.”

I pressed my forehead against his chest and fought to breathe normally. Fiametta, was queen of the fire elementals. From what I’d heard, she was a royal bitch that made Cassava look like a powder puff. “A rumor?”

“Go to your father, ask him to his face.” Coal held me out so he could look me in the eye. “You are no one’s slave, Larkspur. You are a princess, your father can’t send you away for giving him good advice.”

I stared into his eyes and brushed a hand against his jawline. “And if he sends me away?”

His eyes never left mine. “One step at a time.”

He helped me dress, because my hands shook so badly we both could see I wouldn’t have gotten the corset tied up without his help. Again, I wore one of my mother’s gowns, something to remind him of his love for her, if not for me.

“Wear the necklace again.” Coal slipped it around my neck and did the clasp.

I looked at myself in the mirror. The dress was the one I knew my mother had worn on the day my father had first seen her, the day she told me he fell in love with her. A corset top, and long flowing skirt that was slashed so that glimpses of my legs could be seen as I moved. All done in a pale pink that highlighted my sun-kissed skin, and set off my long blonde waves.

“You look beautiful. Now go, and convince your father.” He gave me a gentle shove. “I don’t want to lose you.”

The walk to the Spiral was surreal. People wouldn’t look at me; they wouldn’t even make eye contact. Like I was already banished, a ghost about to be sent away on a flicker of flame and a billow of smoke.

At the entrance to the Spiral, two Enders stood guard. Ash and the head of the order, Granite, who had been around in my mother’s time. His eyes widened, lips parting in what could only be disbelief. He took two steps forward and raised a hand as if to touch my cheek. “Ulani?”

I grabbed his hand and held it between mine. “Granite, I want to speak with my father. Now.” Under my skin a flicker of heat danced up through my veins and seemed to weight my words.

“Of course, Princess.”

Ash snorted. “So she can have another shot at the queen? No. You will see your father when he calls for you. You’re lucky you aren’t clapped in chains, little cuckoo.”

This time it was my eyes that widened. “What are you talking about?”

“You attacked the queen, we all heard you screaming at her. You’re lucky you didn’t do anything more than scratch her.”

Shaking my head, I noticed we were drawing a crowd. “I didn’t touch her! She invited me to speak with her, you took me there, Ash.”

He frowned at me, his eyes clouding. “Don’t try to pull me into your lies. I did not take you to the queen. You should be banished for this, sent as far away as your father can.”

My jaw dropped and someone threw a rock that bounced off my shoulder.

“Go away! Useless!”

I don’t know who shouted it first, but the cry was taken up within seconds, a war chant that cut at me.

“Useless, useless, useless!”

Another rock was thrown, this one clipping my ear. I crouched and held one arm over my head.

“She can’t even defend herself!”

Laughter, more rocks, and in the crowd I saw a dark head. Coal, standing there, watching. Shaking his head. Doing nothing to help me, to stop them from trying to stone me to death.

“Coal,” I held my hand out to him and he . . . he turned away.

“That’s enough, you’ve had your fun,” Granite stepped close enough to me that my hecklers were forced to stop throwing rocks or risk having Granite thump them. My legs barely held me up and it wasn’t because I was hurt. Shock coursed through me, numbing my muscles and shutting down my mind. This was not how elementals treated one another. No one was stoned, or heckled, not even those considered useless or mad. They were all treated with respect. Yet why was I surprised? I was the only one in our family not treated with any sort of dignity. This moment was an extension of my whole life.

Granite took my arm, his fingers biting into my flesh, leading me, not into the Spiral, but toward the Enders barracks. “Don’t say anything, just come with me.”

I stumbled after him, my mind reeling. Coal had been with me, just an hour past, and now he turned from me.

Who could blame him, though? If he were attached to me, my sentence would become his. He would end up banished alongside me. Jaw aching with my teeth mashed together, a part of me still hated him. If he loved me as he claimed, wouldn’t he want to be with me, no matter where I was?

Granite took me to the far side of the barracks and sat me on a bench. “I don’t know what’s going on, but something’s up.”

A sigh of relief escaped me. “So, I’m not the only one being treated like this?”

His black eyes, flecked with blue, were as hard as his name. “No, you are the only one treated as such. But even so, no one has ever been stoned in our family and I’m not going to let them start now. I will bring your father to you. Don’t move, don’t talk to anyone.”

Don’t move? Where in the seven hells would I go? I leaned back, resting my head against the wall behind me. Above me hung an array of weapons, swords, daggers, blades of all sorts, most of which I couldn’t name. A few spears, and at the end hung the bows and arrows. The broad heads I knew were used for hunting, designed to cut through flesh. But Enders only hunted traitors and criminals. I swallowed hard, realizing I fell into at least one of those two categories, according to what everyone believed of me.

Footsteps brought me to my feet.

Granite walked a few feet behind my father. I couldn’t move, couldn’t walk toward him even for fear that he would think me attacking him. So I stood up where I was, slowly, carefully. “Father, she’s lying, I never touched her. Please, please don’t banish me.”

“Be silent,” he snapped, his tone harsh enough to sit me down on the bench. He softened his voice, but only by a degree, “I know you didn’t attack her, you are as soft as your mother was before . . . Cassava’s just lashing out because . . . .” He ran a hand over the back of his neck. “It isn’t your fault, she’s just being petty. But what am I going to do with you?” His eyes met mine and I saw in them a sorrow that for the first time I understood.

“You never stopped loving her, did you?”

His jaw clenched and his throat bobbed. “You . . . are so much like her it hurts me to look at you. And you remind Cassava of her more than I would like.”

That was the closest thing he’d ever come to saying he loved me and for a moment, I thought things would be okay.

“None of that matters.” Father’s voice was raspy and he coughed to clear it. “You will always be a target because you’re weaker than the rest of us.”

And there was that word again. Weak. I was too damn weak to protect myself.

Granite stepped beside my father and whispered something in his ear. Father started and looked from Granite to me and back again. He rubbed a hand over his chin, eyes thoughtful.

“You think that would help?”

“It would give her a way to protect herself, and would give her a very good use. You know we are forbidden to use our abilities with the earth when we go on a Hunt. She would fit in perfectly in that respect.”

A chill swept through me as an inkling of what they were talking about grew in my heart. Could it be? Might I have a spot in our family after all, one I could actually do?

Granite confirmed it, cajoling my father. “I could train her. She’s already strong from the physical labor of the planting fields, stronger than any of the other recruits by far. Wouldn’t take much to turn that into a weapon. And if the queen is concerned of an assassination, Enders will surround Lark. Of course, once she takes her final testing, she will be taking oaths that will bind her from ever hurting someone in the royal family.”

My father took a slow breath looking from me to Granite and back again. “And what do you think about being trained as an Ender, Larkspur?”

Me, an Ender? A weapon for the king to wield when needed. A champion of the people, someone who dealt in justice and doing what was best for the family. Heart pounding, a flush of excitement washed up through me, as if I’d dove into a hot spring on an icy winter day.

“Yes, make me a weapon.”

CHAPTER 6

More than one pair of Ender’s eyes followed me as I packed my small amount of allowable items into the tiny room allotted to me. All I had was my work clothes, the jewelry my mother had left me—what little of it I had—and the spear Niah had given me. That got the most looks, but it was Granite who stopped me, blocking my path. His eyes traced the weapon with a familiarity that I didn’t understand.

“Where did you get that?” He held his hand out and I handed him the spear.

For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him it was my mother’s or that Niah had given it to me. “A friend gave it to me, for luck in this new . . . venture.”

“Spears are hard to use, but if you can master it you’ll be far ahead of those who favor the sword. Keep it in your room, use the practice spears to begin with.” He hefted it in the middle, balancing it perfectly on one finger. With a twirl of the handle, the blade cut through the air with a sharp ‘whoosh’. I didn’t move, but let him whirl the blade around my head.

“That’s right, Useless, let him cut you in half!” The shout came from behind me, but I kept still. Granite had given me this chance and I trusted him. He wouldn’t hurt me, but I could easily end up hurt if I moved.

Granite did know what he was doing, the blade whirled around me several times, brushing close but never touching me, cutting off a small lock of my hair. I watched it float to the ground, the golden blonde threads standing out against the hard-packed dirt. He planted the butt of the spear, and tipped it toward me. I put my hand on the shaft to take it, but he didn’t let go. “You’re going to have to work twice as hard as anyone else here, Lark. Put your things away and get your ass back here. Training starts now.”

I gave him a nod, took my spear, and continued on to my room. Twelve–by—twelve was all we got. A bed shoved into the sidewall, an alcove for our things, and a small table beside the bed. I piled my stuff into the alcove and sat down on the bed for just a moment, the spear laid across my thigh.

A welling of emotion crept through me. I could do this, I could be an Ender and then I . . . what, would I prove that Cassava was a lying bitch?

“Well, why the hell not? Not like I’ve got anything to lose.” I wasn’t kidding myself; I knew this was my last shot to keep from being banished. There was no place for fear, for weakness or uncertainty. If it killed me, I would make my father proud of me. With that thought held at the front of my mind, I stood, and strode back the way I’d come.

Surprisingly, the main hall was almost empty. I thought the older Enders would want to watch the new recruits. But only a few Seeders—the new recruits—stood in the room. They were younger than me by a few years, maybe only just out of their teens. But I didn’t care.

Granite stepped out of the shadows. “Physical training first, if you can keep up, then we move to the weapons. I need to see what your stamina is like, so go until I say stop, or you can’t move.”

The recruit to the left of me, snorted. “I’m going to outlast all of them.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him and his lean muscles. He might last, but I doubted it. There was a fine line between trim and not having enough mass to keep moving. The planting fields taught me that.

Granite lifted his hand and the earth below our feet rumbled, warping and rippling like the ocean waves. I bent my knees and let the motion roll through me. “Stop fighting it, you idiots!” Granite snapped and I stole a glance at the others. They were trying to out maneuver Granite by using their abilities against his, instead of riding the wave like I was. They instead stood still and attempted to stop the wave using their connection to the earth. The only effect it seemed to have: pissing off Granite.

He flicked his hand and the ground jerked hard under us creating huge mounds of earth, hills that were about fifteen feet high, nowhere near the height of the ceiling, which was at least double that. “Get climbing, Seeders, first one to the top gets a private lesson with the Ender of their choice.”

I didn’t hesitate, just scrambled up the endless, rolling hill. At first I thought I would make the steep climb in under a minute, but then I saw what Granite was doing. The ground below me fell away as I fought my way up, the ground above me continued to grow. A fracking Jacob’s ladder of dirt.

Beside me, on the other hills, the panting and swearing began. I saved my breath. There would be a trick to this; it couldn’t just be all about the physical, could it? I kept a steady pace and just kept going. The others fell, one at a time, tumbling down the shifting hills. Sweat streamed down my spine, the loose soil sticking to it as I kept my head up and my feet moving.

“Sprint, Lark,” Granite barked at me and I forced my feet to move faster, digging in with my toes, my thighs burning and my lungs unable to keep up with the demand for air. The breath hissed past my teeth as I gave it everything I had. Arms and legs, muscles and blood, everything narrowed to my body, demanding more of myself than I ever had before.

And then I stumbled on a dip in the footing and fell flat on my stomach, the breath whooshing out of me. I lay there, sweating and breathing hard as the ground slowly dropped, flattening out until I was parallel to the floor. I pushed myself up and dusted off my clothes and legs. I stood there, body quivering, but I refused to bend over as the others were, refused to show my fatigue.

“Next.” Granite didn’t give us a chance to catch our wind. This time it was upper body strength. We were each given a rope that we were to climb, but before we even started I began to see a theme. The ropes had each been slid through a pulley at the highest point of the ceiling, which meant as we climbed . . . the ropes would slowly slide down. The others groaned, but I didn’t even blink, just ran for the ropes and leapt as high as I could. I was about half way to the top, my height and reach giving me an edge on the others. Hand over hand I jerked myself up, not even bothering to use my legs. My arms and back were strong from moving rocks and dirt by hand, something everyone else did without thinking through their connection to the mother goddess. The pulley at the top was two feet away when the rope unraveled under me, dropping me unceremoniously to the ground. I landed hard on my right hip, the impact jarring all the way up my spine. Groaning, I rolled to see the other trainees watching me with big eyes.

A glance at Granite showed only his usual stoic face. I struggled to my feet and limped after them. The next task was all core strength, keeping our bodies in a full plank position, balancing only on toes and fingers as Granite piled rocks on our backs.

I don’t know how many I held up before I fell to the ground, but with each failure, my confidence slipped further away. How could I make my father proud if I couldn’t even handle the physical side of things? The part that Granite thought would give me an edge over the others was proving to be anything but.

Yet I couldn’t give up, and I wouldn’t stop trying.

The hours stretched until the six of us were laid out on the floor, unable to move, the light fading around us. There had been vomit, crying, and even some shit as one of the guys lost control of his bowels. That had been in the swimming portion and he’d been first. And yes, Granite made the rest of us swim through it. We literally had to swim through shit, which had produced more vomit only adding to the mess in the water. That was not pretty and just the thought of it made my stomach clench. If I’d had any food in me, I might have lost it too.

“All right, how many of you are ready to keep going? Stand up if you’re ready for your next test. Stay down if you’re done.”

I wanted to stay down, goddess my body ached like I’d been run over by a herd of buffalo, then been beaten by switches until my skin burned. Rolling to my belly, I made it to my hands and knees, took a breath and got to my feet. I faced Granite, knowing I was signing on for a night of pain and exhaustion.

“That all you got, old man?”

I thought I maybe saw his lips twitch. If they did, it was there and gone so fast I couldn’t have said for sure.

“Start from the beginning then.” He flicked his wrist and the dirt hill appeared in front of me. The other recruits snickered. Facing the hill of sliding dirt, I evened out my breathing and then started. In minutes I was on my hands and knees, crawling up the slope as it slid out from under me.

“Get to your feet!” Granite roared.

I forced myself up, falling to my knees, pushing myself back up. Sweat seared my eyes, dirt sticking in the creases of my eyelids, scratching at the tender skin, but still I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.

Granite would report back to my father and I had to do everything I could to make sure the report was that I was going to make it. That I could be an Ender.

The hill fell away and I went without being told to the ropes. My arms quivered as I pulled myself up. If my feet were more than an inch off the ground, I would have been surprised, but I didn’t look down, just up. There was nothing for it but to keep going. To keep fighting for my place here.

In the quiet hours of the morning, I struggled out of the pool, shit and vomit sticking to my body.

“Enough,” Granite said, and I fell to my knees. “Get some sleep, you start again in a few hours. And tomorrow is going to be harder than today.”

There was only one thought as I stumbled to my room, peeled out of my stinking clothes and sponged down with the clean water someone had left out for me in a basin by my bed. How in the holy seven hells could the next day be worse?

It couldn’t be; Granite was just trying to scare me.

I was wrong.

CHAPTER 7

From working in the fields, I knew I would need fuel to keep going, and at breakfast I ate as much as I could. Oatmeal, fruit, cheese, milk, and several slices of toast slathered in butter.

“So, not only are you useless, you’re going to eat us out of the pantry?” That was one of the other new recruits, the lean one from the day before. I stopped chewing, swallowed my food and leaned back in my chair. “Mal?”

He nodded, smiling at me, but I saw the fatigue in his eyes.

“You ever work as hard as you did yesterday in your whole life?”

Mal didn’t answer, just tightened his lips.

I snorted. “That’s what I thought. If you’re going to make it through, you need to eat. No fuel, no go. And Granite is going to make us go until we drop.”

The other recruits looked at one another and dug into their breakfasts. Mal did not. I didn’t care. I wasn’t there to help him. The Enders ate at the far end of the kitchens, their eyes on their plates. Except for Ash, who stood with his arms folded over his chest, arm bands pressing hard into his biceps. I held a piece of toast up and saluted him. His eyes narrowed, and I smiled. Maybe I was digging a hole with him, but he hated me anyway so what did it matter? “Ash, did you get the dirt out of your leathers?”

The other Enders lifted their heads and looked from me to Ash. “Dirt’s easy to get out,” he said, his voice that deadly soft tone that I instinctively knew was a bad sign. “Blood, not so much.”

I swallowed hard, the piece of toast in my mouth suddenly too much to get down without a drink. I spit it out on the table. “Good to know, if I get blood on mine I’ll be sure to ask you how to do laundry.” Standing, I left the room, feeling stupid. Why did I poke at him? He was obviously one of the queen’s lackeys, which meant . . . what exactly? Did that mean he was an enemy? A cold shiver ran down my spine. Yes, Ash was an enemy and I needed to be careful. Until I could prove otherwise. Or maybe ‘if’ was a better word for that.

Three people I didn’t recognize waited for us in the training room. A man who towered over me, which meant he was at least seven feet tall, with a willowy lean build and long white hair in a braid to the back of his knees. He was in the forefront of the small group with his back to me. Encased in white leathers studded with brass buckles and rivets, and I knew without asking that he was an Ender for the Sylphs, the air elementals.

In front of him stood a middling-sized woman, probably a couple of inches shorter than me. She was curvy, even while looking like she could kick some serious ass. Her red hair was buzzed short and close to her head, and her eyes were the strange orange that only came through in the Salamander lines. As a fire elemental, I knew her temperament would be the opposite of her element. That was their way, to cover that heat with a cold exterior. Like a mountain sitting on top of a lava pit, waiting to be unleashed if provoked. She wore black leathers that covered her from ankle to wrist, the buckles and straps as black as the leather.

The last was an Undine—a water baby—though I would never say that to his face. His hair was a pale green and his skin was iridescent to the point I could see his blue veins clearly in his neck. He had eyes the green of seaweed, which was fitting, I supposed. His leathers were a deep blue with swirls of green that worked up the legs, and it didn’t look like leather, but something else. I squinted, trying to get a bead on the material.

A whisper over my shoulder, one of the other recruits, said, “Shark skin. Hurts like a bitch if you have to rumble with them hand-to-hand.”

“Good to know.”

All three of the other Enders were hard; muscled to the point where I wondered how they got in and out of their leathers. At least our Enders had a vest as a top, which made it easy to get in and out of. Or at least, I assumed.

I shook my head, knowing my thoughts were scrambled because of the fatigue and minimal hours of sleep. As the Sylph turned, I stepped forward, my eyes meeting his. A scar ran down the left side of his face, puckered and pale from years gone past. His stormy blue eyes widened and his face paled to match his leathers.

“Ulani.”

He breathed my mother’s name and I froze, staring up at him. “Who are you? And how do you know my mother?”

He blinked, a shadow falling over his eyes. “Everyone knew your father’s whore. He took her with him everywhere.”

Whore. The word shot through me, and anger like I hadn’t known in my life surged up. It was one thing to call me useless, to throw rocks, and tell me I was about to be banished. But to have another elemental who wasn’t even in our family besmirch my mother?

A sweet, hot rush of anger lit my nerve endings and I held onto it, let it burn through my fear.

“Nobody talks about my mother like that,” I growled, advancing on him. The world faded away. All I saw was the Sylph who didn’t back away from me. I jammed two fingers into his solar plexus. “Apologize.”

The word echoed in the room and with it, the tension rose. He sneered down at me, but it was the curl of sweat dripping down his hairline that fascinated me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was afraid of me.

“Apologize!”

His Adam’s apple bobbed. “I spoke out of turn.”

Around us there was an audible drawing of breath. I stepped back. “Good enough.”

I spun on my bare heel, digging it into the earth, a feeling of euphoria floating over me. I’d made him back down. Without ever lifting a finger. Holy shit on a green stick, what had I thought I was doing? And where had that come from in me? I caught Granite’s eye and what I saw there shook me. Shock and fear.

What was going on?

The others in the room got moving, as if nothing had happened. The Ender from the Pit, Maggie, took the lead. “Come on, you little pukes, I’m here to teach you how to deal with a fire elemental on the off chance you may encounter one on a Hunt.”

We lined up and she strode in front of us, her orange eyes seeming to glow from within. “Does anyone know what it would take to fend off a Salamander?”

Mal stepped forward, one hand on his hip, cocky as ever. “Water, of course.” He snorted and looked at the other Seeders, who didn’t back him up. His grin faded.

She barked a laugh. “Really? Get in the pond, puke.”

His face twisted in a sneer, but Mal did as he was told. At least the water had been cleaned. He swam out to the middle of the water, ducked under and slicked his hair back, then floated on his back, splashing about like a child.

Idiot.

I moved to the side so I could watch Maggie’s face. Was there anything to give away what she was going to do? I squinted, and stepped closer. There, in the center of her iris, a flicker of light. Mal let out a gasp and we all looked to him. Below his feet, at the base of the pond was a steady, pulsing glow.

He tread water, trying to look below him to see what we could so clearly observe. “The water, it’s warming up.”

Maggie snorted. “You’re an idiot. No wonder your family is the weakest.” She flicked her hand and the glow spread, steam curling off the water, and Mal let out a yelp. She was going to cook him alive.

My jaw tightened and I stared at her. “And it’s no wonder your family isn’t invited to play with others.”

She whipped around, her teeth bared. “Who do you think you are, royalty?”

The other recruits snickered and the only other girl in my group, Blossom, put her hand up. “Actually, she is. Even if she is a bastard.”

Maggie laughed softly. “The bastard of the king? We’ve heard rumors of you, that you have no power with your element. That true?”

No point in denying it. I held myself straight. “Yes.”

She walked toward me, though it felt more like she stalked me, circling around. “Interesting. So it’s going to be all hand-to-hand and weapons for you then, and hope to the seven hells you can manage with that.”

I nodded, but refused to turn and watch her. Something slammed into me and by the feel of the imprint of it on my lower back I knew it was her foot. I hit the ground, rolling to my feet as fast as I could, despite the pain stabbing me through my back and kidney.

“Perhaps you might make it, your reflexes aren’t bad.” Maggie shrugged and turned her back on me. Dismissing me as a threat.

Goddess, I wanted to smash her, wiping that smug look right off her fat lips. Shock filtered through me. I was not a violent person, had never thought about hurting anyone. Not even Cassava. One day in the Ender’s barracks and I was contemplating wrecking another person’s face. And making a Sylph back down, with a rage I had never known I’d possessed.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about the changes in me, but I knew whatever the cause, I had to keep moving forward with this course of action. I had no choice. I would become an Ender or I would become an outcast.

Letting a slow breath escape me, I dusted myself off and watched as Mal pulled himself from the now bubbling water. His eyes met mine and he gave me a nod. I returned the gesture. The distraction had given him enough time to get out of the water without any permanent damage, something another elemental could easily do to one of our own. Hence, the ban on using our abilities against other Enders. But when it came to criminals and traitors, we needed to know how to handle the possibility.

The Undine, Dolph, stepped forward and the water stilled. “There are many things that can kill an elemental. But using our abilities against one another is a surefire way to hurt and maim. An injury from another of our kind can easily be lethal. Consider that as you train. Always use restraint when you use your abilities toward another Ender. Your abilities are to be fine tuned, not used as a hammer.”

No problem there for me.

The rest of the day was spent working with the three elementals, learning to work around their abilities, finding ways to subdue without hurting. Which pretty much meant I was screwed.

Granite pulled me aside. “Watch what they do, and at the end of the day, I want you to tell me how you could have dealt with them.”

“You don’t actually want me to spar with them?”

“With what? You have no strength with the earth, Lark. You need to figure out how you could deal with them using only your hands, weapons, and mind. The other Seeders are learning how to combat another elemental that comes at them using their talents with whatever element they are born to. Though this may be their last line of defense, it is a line you won’t ever be able to cross.”

I walked around the combatants as they fought, able to see the telltale sign when Maggie, who we learned was short for Magma, was going to pull on her abilities. That flicker in her eyes showed up a few seconds before she unleashed her fire. A tell, a sign that she was going to open up her fire. Would it be the same for all Salamanders or just her?

I looked around for Granite to ask him, but he was on the far side of the room, instructing Blossom as she worked with Dolph in the pool. All the other Enders had left.

Except for Ash.

“Well, no time like the present to see if we can work together,” I muttered, then walked to him, taking a small amount of pleasure in watching his eyes narrow.

“I have a question.”

“Ask Granite.”

“He’s busy, and you’re just standing here doing nothing,” I pointed out.

“I’m making sure you don’t try to kill anyone.”

The laugh burst out of me, and I bent at the waist, it hit me so hard. “Really? You see me working with anyone here? Nope, that’s right, I’m useless, remember?” There was more than a dose of bitterness with that last word, but I didn’t care. “Do all Salamanders have the same tell?”

His frowned at me, his honeyed eyes thoughtful. “Tell? What are you talking about?”

“That flicker in the corner of Maggie’s left eye. It comes just before she taps into her ability. Are they all the same or will it change with each person?”

His eyes slowly widened. “What are you talking about?”

I swallowed, wondering if maybe I was a freak in more ways than one. “Here, I’ll show you.”

He followed me to where we could watch Maggie working with another of the recruits. “In the lower corner of her left eye, near the tear duct. There’s a flicker, there!” I pointed as the telltale burst of light in her eye flickered a full second before she unleashed a lash of flame in the form of a whip.

Ash had me point it out again and again, and each time I did, the flicker grew until it was both of her eyes that glowed. “How are you not seeing this? Are you blind?”

He grabbed my arm and dragged me over to where Dolph worked now with Mal. “Look at him; do it again.”

I watched Dolph, narrowing my eyes. There was nothing I could see, at least, not at first. But then, there, around his hands was a shimmer, like water flowing. “Left hand,” I whispered. Ash’s grip on me didn’t lessen, but I didn’t care. I was getting excited. If I could see when another elemental was about to blast me, I could become an Ender. I didn’t need to be able to touch the earth’s abilities.

I stared at Dolph’s hand until the shimmer moved up his arm, all the way to his shoulder. Like with Maggie, the more I focused on him, the easier it was to see when he was going to unleash. Ash dragged me over to the Sylph, whose name I hadn’t yet caught.

“What’s his name?” I asked as I stared at the Ender’s eyes and hands, looking for his tell.

“Wicker, but to his friends, Wick.”

Words floated through me from a dream that wasn’t a dream, after all. My reality shattered with those words, and I felt something in me crack open, a shell that had been holding me together, keeping me from who I was meant to be. A flash of light behind my eyes, a pink burst of color that left me gasping. Left me with nothing but the truth of my dream.

“Wicker, kill the baby first, and the girl last.”

CHAPTER 8

Fainting was not something I thought would ever happen to me, but there I was, flat out on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. The expression “two worlds colliding” never had more meaning.

Next to me, Granite crouched, his mouth moving, but I heard nothing. Could see nothing but that moment in my dream—no, my memory—where the Sylph stole Bram’s wind and stopped his heart.

Wicker had killed my baby brother. I sat up, and the closely gathered Enders gave me room.

“Lark, what happened?”

A slow boiling rage, like the burn of the summer sun as it heats the flesh, crept through me, a thousand times hotter than when my mother had been insulted. This was the rage of justice coming home to roost. “Where’s the Sylph?”

Granite looked over my shoulder and I twisted to see Ash standing there, shaking his head. “Why?”

“I’m going to kill him.”

The room around me swirled and someone grabbed at my arms, but I jerked away from them and ran to where the weapons were kept. I yanked a spear down, it wasn’t mine, but it would do.

“You can’t kill another Ender, Lark! It’s a death sentence!”

“I don’t care, let me go!” I fought against the hands on my arms, the fingers prying mine off the shaft of the spear. “Let me go!”

Granite gripped my arms hard. “What did you see, Lark? You looked at him, and your eyes fogged over. We thought . . . he’d done something to you.”

A scream worked its way up my throat, bursting out in a mix of rage and pain, grief and regret. The dream was real; it had been real all along. Something inside me had broken open, to reveal that I wasn’t the kind, sweet planter girl I’d always thought. What I knew instinctively was blood lust roared through me and I fought those who would keep me from killing Wicker.

Punching and kicking, I jerked my body hard, yanking someone with me. I wasn’t even seeing faces as I did all I could to free myself. “I’ll kill him, I’ll kill him!” My words, my voice, but it was like watching a play being acted out in front of me. Ash had my arms pinned behind my back and Granite was yelling in my face, slapping me to get my attention.

“Lark, stop! Have you gone mad? Your father will send you away. He’ll banish you!” Slap, slap, slap. Which only enraged me further. That crack inside me opened a little more for just a moment, and then Ash was dragging me, his arms hooked under mine, my back pressed against his chest.

“Let me go, you bastard.” I threw my head back, trying to connect with his nose. He dodged me, and I tried another tactic, dropping my weight to the floor and then spun to one side. Ash stumbled over me and ended up on top of me, holding me to the floor. With a grunt, he raised his right hand up and let fly with a punch that stunned me.

But not for long. I heaved him off, thrusting and twisting my hip, shoving him from me with my long legs.

“Battle it out,” Granite said and I didn’t understand, didn’t care. Ash was in front of me and I wanted nothing more than to choke the life out of him.

He spit a wad of blood and saliva that hit the floor with a wet splat; maybe I had managed to connect a blow. “Come on, little cuckoo, let’s see what you’ve got.”

I swung wildly at him, my fists missing as Ash kept dodging out of my way, which only sent me deeper into my rage.

And then he hit me again, and again. Fast as a cobra, he slid toward me in a crouch, and delivered a sharp jab to my left side, stunning me for just a second. He moved to step back out of range and I brought my right hand down on his left shoulder as hard as I could.

Something cracked under my hand and I didn’t know if it was him or me. I couldn’t feel anything, couldn’t think of anything except that he stood between Wicker and me. The fight, and it really wasn’t much of a fight, lasted only another two minutes. With a roar, Ash tackled me and we tumbled backward into the pool.

The water whooshed over my head, filled my ears, nose, and mouth as I fought against his hands that held me under. We hit the bottom and I kicked off, shooting to the surface where I sucked in a lungful of air, gasping and coughing out the last of the water.

Ash surfaced a few feet away, water dripping down his face, his eyes watching me carefully. “Done?”

The water had snapped me out of whatever madness had dug into my soul. Wicker was gone. I would have to find another way to get to him. I wiped my face with my left hand. “Done.”

We swam to the edge of the pool and Granite offered me his hand. I gave him my right hand, and then whimpered. It hadn’t been Ash who had cracked under the blow. The bones in my hand protested Granite grabbing them.

“Thought I heard a crack.” He slid his hand up over my wrist and yanked me out of the water. “You going to tell me what that was all about?”

I sniffed and smoothed my hair back from my face. Ash stood to one side of me and with him there, listening, I couldn’t find my voice so I shook my head.

I knew what they would say if I told them Wicker had killed Bram. I knew from experience that people would say I was crazy. But this time, I didn’t doubt myself. In the past I’d always doubted, I’d thought I was crazy.

Now I knew the truth of my past.

I just had to prove it, I had to keep what I knew to myself until I could lay it all on the table, could lay out the evidence and the players so there would be no denying it. I swallowed hard and shook my head again.

Granite frowned at me. “Nothing?”

Ash cleared his throat. “You don’t go into a killing rage for nothing. We all have our secrets, but unless you actually pass the testing and manage to become an Ender, you don’t get that privilege. Especially if you’re trying to kill another Ender.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw a flicker of green light dance along Granite’s fingers on his right hand, seconds before the ground shifted under our feet, smoothing away the training area. “Ash, leave it be. We’re done for the day.”

It was only then I realized every single Ender available had been watching, and of course, all the recruits too. They’d all heard me melt down, all seen me fight and lose to Ash. Humiliation burned hot along my skin and it took everything I had not to look down, to keep my eyes up. I would not be ashamed.

More than one Ender narrowed their eyes when I looked their way.

“I said,” Granite growled, “we’re done for the day. Except for you, Lark. You stay here with me.”

After another weighted hesitation, they all cleared out, though there was more than one curious look thrown over a shoulder at me. Curious and suspicious. The big room was quiet and I stood, waiting. Would I get kicked out for attacking Ash?

“You going to tell me what that was all about?”

“No.”

“Larkspur, come with me.” Granite beckoned me with his right hand, fingertips dancing with green light that wove through his fingers like ivy a moment before the ground gave me a push toward the front doors. I followed him out of the barracks and into the forest. We walked in silence for close to three hours, taking pathways I knew by heart, and some that I’d never seen. The walk calmed me, helped me to put things into perspective. Wicker knew who I was, but did he know I remembered? I didn’t think so. My feeling was that if he knew, he would have tried to kill me on the spot. But then again, maybe not. Maybe he wouldn’t want to give himself away.

Granite took me to the far western Edge of the forest. The roar of vehicles hummed along my senses, the smell of the human’s world overwhelming. The highway stood between the forest and the coast, a divider I knew our people rarely crossed.

“Do you know why I brought you here?”

I shook my head.

“This is where I found your mother.”

My jaw dropped and I sputtered out my questions with difficulty. “Found her? When? How?”

Granite ran a hand over his jaw, his eyes going distant. “When she was about sixteen, I guess. I thought she was a human runaway, from time to time they are drawn to us, you know that. And then I thought maybe she was a half-breed.”

My heart thumped harder as I waited for Granite to confirm what I hoped he would. “She wasn’t though, was she?”

His sharp eyes saw through me. “You know what she was?”

“I . . . think so.” A child of Spirit. Though, what that meant wasn’t clear. Not that it would affect me anyway, I had no abilities.

“Then we won’t say it out loud. The forest is not always safe, Lark. You of all people should know that.”

I stepped close to him and bent so I could speak into his ear, my voice as low as I could make it. “Her death was not natural, was it?” He shook his head and a sob caught on my lips. “I was there. I thought . . . all these years—”

His hand slapped over my mouth and he shook his head, then slowly drew a finger across my throat and then across his, the meaning clear. Even though Granite didn’t know it was the queen, he had to suspect. There was no one else who had cause to kill her, or my brother. Cassava would have both Granite and me killed if she knew either of us thought her a murderer.

“It’s why I wanted to train you, the way I trained your mother. But you, you’ll go further, I think, than even she did. She was too gentle for her own good, it was her downfall. To be an Ender, you have to be able to set aside all of your attachments, you have to be able to kill without hesitation, knowing if you don’t, you will be buried twenty feet down with salt covering your sack of bones. To be an Ender, you have to embrace the dark side the mother goddess hides from the rest of the world. The balance of all that is light and good, of growth and life. We are her darkness. We are her Enders.”

A chill swept through me, the truth of his words sinking into my soul. He went on, his eyes soft with remembrance.

“Your mother, she could never be that darkness, her whole being was life and love.” His voice was gruff, and under the bluff exterior I saw something more than a stoic Ender. Almost like I could see the story laid out in pictures in front of me. He’d found a girl close to his age, a beautiful girl and taught her to fight. Became her friend, and maybe he wanted more and she didn’t see him. Because she’d caught the eye of the king.

“Did you love her?”

His back stiffened, then he relaxed and gave a barking laugh. “Don’t matter now, Lark. But you have her good senses, you see people, see through the layers they hide under. See through the bullshit and cockamamie. Just like Ulani.”

I smiled. “And you brought me all the way out here to tell me this?”

This time, he leaned forward, whispering. “When you know. You come to me, and we’ll face them down together. Whoever did this, we’ll face it together, understand?”

He stepped back and started back the way we’d come. “But not yet, Lark. Not until you are trained and ready to do what you have to.”

What I had to do. The words unspoken hung in the air between us.

To take down those who had killed my family.

A shiver of fear and anticipation ran through me. “You think I’m not gentle, like her. That I have the killer instinct to do what I must?”

His eyes met mine, never wavering. “You have it, Lark, in spades. I think Wick saw something in your eyes to make him leave so quickly.”

I jogged to his side and looked down at him, thinking about Wicker, about Cassava and all the years I’d thought I was alone.

He tipped his head so he could look at me. “You may look like your mother, but you are most definitely not her.”

A smile flitted across my lips. No, I wasn’t like my mother at all.

And for the first time in my life, I was grateful.

CHAPTER 9

The next month was nothing short of grueling, which was good. It kept me from being able to brood on the fact that Cassava was a murderer and I had no way to prove it unless I convinced Wicker to confess. The odds were most definitely not in my favor.

All I could do was keep my head down and do everything I could to get stronger, faster, and more deadly. I had to believe there would come a day where I could face down Cassava and Wicker, and whoever else helped her.

I worked every day with the other recruits and then when they went off on their free time to rest, I worked with Granite. Ash never told Granite what I could see when another elemental used their power. And neither did I. It was my only leg up when it came to dealing with another elemental with no power of my own. More than once, I dodged blows from rocks being thrown, or holes opening up under my feet.

My body ached all the way through to my bones and every night I lay down exhausted. So tired that if I dreamed, I didn’t remember.

Finally, we were given a day off.

“You actually going to take a break?” Mal asked as we sat around eating breakfast. I nodded, and shoved another spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth. It had taken a solid week before the other recruits relaxed around me again, but there had been a definite change in how they treated me. No more catcalls of useless or cuckoo.

I thought about what Niah had said, about going to see the recluse near the southern edge of the forest. He was tolerated since he wasn’t an elemental, but as one of the supernaturals that wanted to keep away from the humans, we allowed him to stay there.

“Going to take a long walk, I think.” I spooned the last of my breakfast into my mouth and chased it with a glass of milk.

Mal laughed. “A walk? I was thinking I’d sleep all day.”

I gave him a half-grin. “Isn’t that what you normally do? If you moved any slower on the sparring mats you might as well be sleeping.”

A chorus of ‘oohs’ erupted along the table and Mal lifted a fist, shaking it at me with mock anger. “You just wait and see, Princess, I’ll best you one day.” Around his fingers a glimmer of green gave me the heads up and I stepped to the left as a hole in the ground opened up where I’d been standing.

“Damn, how do you do that?” he muttered.

I just shrugged. “A girl’s got to have her secrets.”

I went to my room to pick out what I’d wear. The outfit we were given as Seeders was an imitation of a true Enders leathers. Snug fitting pants and a vest made out of thick, woven cotton, boots that laced up over my ankles, and then the belt for my weapons. I attached the practice spear to my side, splitting it in half with a quick twist, and hanging it from my belt, blade pointing down. I hesitated over the bow and arrows. I wasn’t as good with the bow as I’d like to be. I grabbed it and slung it over my chest, hanging the quiver from my left side. Maybe I would get a chance to practice with it. Finally I took a large knife, the blade the length of my forearm, the handle made out of antler, and tucked it into a sheath built into the left side of my vest, just under my heart.

“Where are you going?” The voice came out of nowhere and made me jump.

I spun and glared at Ash in the doorway. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people.”

“Not sneaking up, you weren’t listening. Something that will get you hurt or killed someday.” He tipped his head. “I’ll ask again, where are you going?”

“For a walk. Why, you want to pick flowers with me?” I raised an eyebrow at him and he rolled his eyes.

“You aren’t picking flowers covered in weapons.”

“Why are you really here? Just to prove you can still boss me around for a bit?”

He laughed at me, and his eyes sparked with humor. I was pretty sure he was laughing at me, not with me. Ash flexed his arms as he stretched them out in front of his body. “For a bit? You have at least two years before you can even be tested for the entry level of our order. Two years, Princess, of work and deprivation. Of learning to kill, of fighting for your place here. Assuming you don’t give up before then.”

I shrugged. “They used to test Enders faster. During the wars, Enders were trained in less than a month and sent into battle.”

“That was then”—he bent to look at the small array of rocks on my nightstand—“this is now. Two years of work that will go down the river when you are kicked out for failing your final testing.”

I swept the rocks away from him. “Maybe you wanted to give up at one point, and maybe so did everyone else, but I have nothing left. There is no option. I’m either an Ender, or I’m dead.”

The words were true, but they hung between us.

My eyes met his. “Ash, what do you want?”

His eyelids lowered, hooding the honey gold until I could barely see the color. “You have a visitor.”

Now that surprised me. I brushed past Ash, and made my way up to the entrance. A dark-haired man stood there, a man I didn’t think would have anything to do with me ever again.

“Coal?”

He’d been inspecting his feet, scuffing them in the dirt and when I said his name, he snapped his head up. He looked me over, a grin spreading over his lips, his voice dropping to a familiar husky tone I knew all too well. “You look good, Lark. Really, really good.”

I blinked, wondering where the flush of excitement along my synapses was, where the hot flood of lust had gone. “Thanks. What do you want?”

Behind me, I heard a soft snicker and looked over my shoulder. Mal gave me a thumbs up before I turned back to face Coal. He offered me a hand. “I heard you had some time off, I’ve been coming every day to see if they’d let me at least talk to you. I’ve missed you.”

“Really?” I tried to keep my tone casual, but there was no help for the bitterness. “The last time I saw you, I was being dragged away and accused of murder, and you let them take me without a fight. Doesn’t seem like something someone who gave a worm’s shit about me would do.”

I brushed past him and out the door, breathing in the early morning air and letting the coolness soothe the anger burning in my gut. That wasn’t honest; it wasn’t just anger, it was betrayal.

Coal jogged to my side and moved to put a hand on my elbow, but I stepped away before he could touch me. “Go away, Coal.”

“Lark, please. I made a mistake. Contrary to what you think, I’m not perfect.”

I snorted a laugh. “And if they’d killed me? What then? What kind of mistake would you call that?”

He lowered his voice and stepped close to me. “I knew they weren’t going to kill you.”

“How? There is no way you could have known.”

His jaw twitched and he tipped his head for me to follow him. Reluctantly, my curiosity getting the better of me, I did as he wanted. He kept ahead of me, the easy stride, long muscled legs, tight butt, all very enjoyable to watch. Normally I would have been drooling by the time we’d gone ten feet. Funny enough, his lack of support had killed my libido. Go figure.

We were out by my place, at the far end of the family before he spoke, turning to catch my elbow. I pulled back from him, folding my arms. “Go ahead, let’s hear what your reasoning is.”

His lips pursed as he put his thoughts together. I’d seen the move before, when I’d asked him to leave. I’d give him this, he was an accomplished convincer. “There were rumors that you were going to be arrested. One of the other Edge Guards told me to watch my back. He said if they took you, and I tried to stop them, I would be charged with treason. You have your father looking out for you, Lark. I’ve got no one with power on my side.”

He reached again for my hand, but I kept my distance. “Why didn’t you warn me then? Why did you help me dress and go to my father without any knowledge of what could happen? At least then I could have been prepared for what might happen, as it was—”

“Because then you would have something for them to draw out of you. I didn’t know how far it would go, Lark. I was doing what I thought was best to protect you and me. If I thought I could have fought for you and kept you free, I would have, you have to know that. But we were outnumbered. The only chance was that you would be pardoned, which you were, and then we could be together again. Which we can be.”

His words sounded good, and there was a ring of truth to them. I turned my head just enough to see that his eyes were fogged with uncertainty. Not something I often saw in my cocky guy.

I blew out a breath and he saw my acquiescence. Without another word he swept me into his arms and kissed me. I kissed him back, suddenly hungry for more than just his company. The only touch I’d had for the last month had been rough punches and slaps. Nothing that I would call soothing or loving. A niggle of guilt ate at me. I hadn’t missed Coal, hadn’t thought of him even once in the last month. Yet, here I was. Maybe I just needed one last fling.

Or maybe I just needed a different kind of outlet. Whatever the case, I gave in to the lust.

It was a struggle to get out of our clothes as we tumbled to the ground, our knees hitting the dirt at the same time, hands stripping each other down to bare skin. The ferns and undergrowth cloaked us, hid our bodies. I ran my hands over his back, feeling the muscles I knew all too well, over his firm ass and down the length of his thigh and back up again. His lips caressed my face, brushed over my eyelids, my cheeks, and finally my lips.

Our hands buried in the dirt as we rocked against one another, taking solace in each other’s bodies, and for just a moment, I thought the world was going to be all right. I stroked a hand down the side of his face and he smiled at me, lips parting as his tongue darted out to taste my own.

“Marry me, Lark. Leave the Enders and let me take care of you,” he whispered in my ear as he nibbled along the edge of the sensitive rim.

His body was so very warm against mine, and he fit so well against me, inside me, filling me, making me consider for just a moment accepting his words. The ground seemed to rumble underneath us, a warning, or maybe an admonition. I sat up, and shoved him off me. “Take care of me? Are you serious?”

He rolled to his side, and grinned up at me. “Well, maybe that wasn’t the best way to put it. But marry me anyway. You don’t need to be an Ender. You’ve made your point. You’re strong in your own way, strong enough to survive the first month of training. I get it. You needed to prove yourself. Just marry me. You know you want to marry me, you always have. You could wear one of your mother’s dresses, we could have a baby.”

Some of what he was saying was true. The rest, not so much. “You’re wrong, Coal. I don’t think you ever really knew me. I want to be married, but not to someone who doesn’t really know me.”

“No?” His eyelids drooped. “Did you find someone you like better than me?”

I burst out laughing. “It isn’t always about sex, you idiot. I like my training, and I am going to be an Ender.” I found my pants and vest, and yanked them on. My boots followed swiftly as did my weapons. I was dressed and ready to go in less than minute. “You’re just upset because if I become an Ender, I’ll outrank you.” The words crossed my lips before I thought better of them, but they were true. My eyes shot to his. His jaw flexed and twitched. Damn, that was it. He didn’t want me to be above him. He liked being the powerhouse in our relationship. “Take care of yourself, and don’t come back, Coal. We’re done,” I whispered, feeling the tie between us sever for the final time. Even if he didn’t feel it, I knew the truth of our relationship. He wanted a doormat, and even before starting down this path, I hadn’t been that. Hence the fighting.

He sat up, that damn cocky grin on his lips, his eyes sparkling. “Lark, you will always come back to me. I am the only home you know. I’m the safety net you’ll fall to when you fail at this.”

I thought about the barracks, about Granite and even Mal, Blossom, and the other Seeders. They were my home now, they were my family. They would be my safety net if I fell.

“Not anymore.”

CHAPTER 10

I had to run in order to make it to the southern edge of the forest before mid-day, if I was going to make it back to the barracks before midnight. Even then I knew I would only have a few minutes to talk to the recluse before having to head back.

The day was still cool, which was a mercy, the fog hanging heavy over the forest. I found my running rhythm as I went. Breathe in. Breathe out. My body moving in perfect sync with the forest, the flow of energy passing through me and marking me as a part of the circle of power. I’d never felt this kind of give and take before, not even close, and the strength hummed along my senses.

Leaping over a log, I pushed off hard and was shocked at the distance between one leap and the next. How fast could I go, connected like this to the earth? I drew in a deep breath and cranked up the speed, pushing myself to the limit, allowing the strength to flow from the ground up through me. I blinked away the tears as the wind rushed against my open eyes.

I let out a howl of excitement, unable to contain the wild energy pouring along my muscles and heating my blood, sending a bevy of birds into the air with disgruntled squawks.

And then, I was there, at the southern Edge, the recluse’s home in front of me.

I stumbled to a stop and checked the sun’s position. Less than a half hour for a trip that should have taken closer to five.

“Mother goddess,” I whispered.

“I wouldn’t go invoking her here,” a gruff voice said.

I dropped to a crouch and pulled the bow and an arrow from my stash of weapons. I set the arrow, nocking it with a single smooth motion. A tall, broad-shouldered man grinned at me from the log where he sat about twenty feet away in the shade of a small fir tree. He had dark hair shot through with silver flecks and eyes three shades of black from darkest night, to moonlight sky, to the moment just before the sun rose. If I were to guess, I’d put him in his forties, in human years. But I knew he was a supernatural, so I didn’t know how old he really was.

I shook myself, and relaxed my hold on the bow.

“Niah sent me.”

“I know, she warned me you would come.” He didn’t move, just watched as I unfolded myself from my crouch.

“She said—”

He held up a hand, stopping me. “Don’t matter what she said. You need a bit of help, yeah?”

I didn’t answer him, mostly because I had no idea what kind of help he could give me. “Do you have a name?”

His grin was lopsided, and it reminded me of something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. “Griffin. In the human world I go by O’Shea.”

I narrowed my eyes, and really looked at him. “May I ask what you are, exactly?”

He barked a laugh, which only emphasized my feeling that there was wolf in him, a hell of a lot of wolf. But not werewolf. No, something else.

“You already know, so what does it matter?” His eyes met mine in a direct challenge, and I didn’t back down.

“Then you know who I am?”

“I do. I know that you are blocked from your abilities, and the mother goddess hasn’t given two shakes of a rat’s ass to help you. She’s bitchy like that sometimes when she thinks she’s been snubbed. You not reaching out to her, that’s a snub in her books.” He rubbed his hands over themselves in a dry wash.

“I can’t reach her, I’ve tried,” I cried out.

“She don’t see things the way we do. That’s the problem with gods, they only see what they want.”

He closed the distance between us, eyes roving over me, not lecherous like, but as if he wondered how I worked.

“You want to figure out how to tap into your abilities?”

I snorted, and shook my head. “You think you’re the first to try? You think my father didn’t try to find someone who could teach me? He brought in healers and shamans and even a Daywalker once, who happened to be more interested in getting me into bed than helping me, the little green-eyed lech. None of them could help me; none of them broke through because there is nothing to break through. I’m weak and that is all there is to it.” The words hurt me to say, but I kept my face blank. Something I’d worked hard at being good at over the years. Being weak was one thing, letting other’s see it was totally different.

Griffin shut one eye and squinted the other at me. “Not weak, blocked. There’s a big difference between the two. Just got to figure out what it is that’s cutting you off, yeah?”

He stood and walked away, obviously expecting me to follow. I hesitated. What the hell, I had nothing to lose. I followed him down a narrow path, the trees tight to us on either side, crowding close and blocking out the sun better than the fog could have. Griffin stopped and I stepped up beside him. We looked over a cliff’s edge, the view stunning as the world seemed to drop away into a deep ravine, the tops of the trees below us looking like waves on the ocean being ruffled by a steady wind.

“That’s very pretty, but—”

Snarling, he backhanded me, hitting me hard enough my vision blurred and warm, wet copper flavor burst in my mouth like an overripe grape.

I rolled, stopped only by sheer resistance on my part as I scrambled to grab the bare dirt with feet and hands, right at the ledge. He didn’t pause, didn’t give me a moment to breathe. Shifting into a huge wolf, his body contorting as fast as one of our shifters, the wolf Griffin lunged, teeth missing me only because I scrambled backward along the cliff. Panic reared its head and I fought to slow things down.

“What are you doing? You were supposed to help me!” I lost my bow and arrow in the scramble and I heard them clatter down into the ravine, bouncing off the rocks; my fate if I didn’t do something, and fast.

Niah had sent me here, was she trying to get me killed? Was it possible they were working for Cassava?

I didn’t know, and didn’t have time to think on it. I pulled my dagger and he bit down on my wrist, snapping clean through the bone. Screaming, I punched at him with my left hand, but my blows bounced off his thick skull. I kicked out as he shook me like a rag doll, the muscles and tendons tearing in my arm under his strength and teeth. Blood flowed down my arm, a warm trickle that pooled underneath us, making a slippery patch of mud.

He spit me out and I cradled my arm as I struggled to my feet, my back to the cliff’s edge. His dark eyes narrowed and his shoulders bunched. I knew what was coming, but I was powerless to stop him.

I pulled my spear with my good hand and swung it toward him, but I was too slow. He dodged the blow, but in dodging it, slammed his shoulder into my hip sending me over.

The world slowed holding me lightly for a moment. Weightless, I fell, looking up at the sky, and the earth seemed to whisper to me what I already knew. I was going to die. I knew it to the bottom of my heart and soul. I said my goodbyes quickly, breathed a hope that the mother goddess would accept someone so weak, and begged that I be reunited with my mother and baby brother.

A voice that was not my own whispered along my senses.

Call on your power.

I didn’t question the voice, just reached for that part of me connected to the earth. The part that hurt every time I tried. But what did it matter if I was going to die anyway? One last attempt before I bit the dust. I envisioned the ground softening, accepting me like a soft, moss filled bed, easing my fall. A flare of green filled my vision and instead of hitting the rocks a hundred feet below, I . . . bounced. A scream ripped out of me as my broken and mauled arm twisted under my body. I tumbled down the sheer slope until I hit the trunk of a tree, the bark biting through my clothes. But I was alive and the shock of that hit me hard.

I sat up in a puff of dirt, the pulse of green power gone from my eyes. There was a scrabble of rocks and Griffin slid down the rest of the slope, back in his human form. In desperation, I reached for the power connecting me to the earth again. A hum began low in my belly and rose up through me until my hair danced in a breeze. Terror lit me up like a bonfire on the night of the dead. “Don’t come any closer!”

He held up his hands and then squatted to a crouch twenty feet from me. “I told Niah there was only one way you would learn.”

Trembling, the pain was making itself known in a bad way, and I struggled to keep my breakfast down as the nausea rose. “What are you talking about?”

He spread his hands, a smile curving over his lips. “When someone has been blocked as long as you have from their natural born powers or talent, it takes a life or death situation to begin the road to opening you up. You had to truly believe I was going to kill you. Had anyone you’d known tried this, it wouldn’t have worked. You wouldn’t have believed them, yeah? But me. You didn’t know me. Still don’t.”

Even as he spoke, the power slipped through my fingers and the pain I’d always associated with trying to touch it rammed its horns deep into my brain. I screamed and tried to grab my head with both hands, which of course just set my arm off again.

The scent of wolf, musky and earthy, surrounded me and a hard vessel pressed against my lips.

“Drink, it will ease the pain in your arm and speed the healing.”

I gulped the liquid, which warmed in my mouth, and then burned down my throat. A curative from the Pit, if the hint of sulfur was any indication. Salamanders were known for their abilities with healing. Distantly I wondered how he’d gotten it. The Salamanders were not known for letting outsiders into their burrow. We were the only ones who allowed outsiders this close to us. I pushed the flask away. “Enough. You try to kill me and now try to heal me?”

He shifted, scooting back, but still staying crouched low to the ground. “First time you ever touched your power, yeah?”

I thought back to the day my family was killed. “No, but it’s been a long time. A very long time.”

“You’re welcome, then.” He grinned and my jaw dropped open. “It’s the first step back, Lark. And it won’t be easy, but I believe it will be worth it. Unless, you like being weak?”

I shook my head, and drew in a deep breath. “No, of course not.” I flexed my right hand, the pain receding as the bones and muscles knitted themselves together. “What if I hadn’t been able to reach my power? I would have died.”

His eyes were dark and fathomless, sending a chill through me as I saw the unbending spirit of the wolf in him. “Then you would have died. Your death wouldn’t have been a loss if you were truly a useless elemental.”

We stared at one another and the truth of his words curled around my heart. “Maybe to you, no loss. But to me, I am rather attached to this side of the dirt.”

Laughing, he offered me a hand and I slowly gave him my good one. He jerked me to my feet, drawing a sharp breath from me as my bad arm even healed as it was, dangled.

His eyes were hooded as he spoke. “It’s time for you to be retrained, Lark. Your life has bent you to the winds around you, forcing you into an unnatural state. If we don’t recurve you now, you may not ever be able to undo the damage.”

“You say that like there is a time limit.” I clutched at my bad arm.

“There is.”

I lifted my eyebrows. “And?”

“You need only know time is short. Train hard, and come to see me as often as you can.”

“So you can beat the worm shit out of me?”

He laughed and chucked my chin with two fingers. “No, so I can teach you what the others can’t. So I can make you the weapon you were always meant to be. The Enders can only teach you so much, I will teach you the rest, and together we will make you into your destiny.” He paused, tipping his head to one side, drawing in a gulp of air as if he were tasting it, before going on. “You better head back. It’ll take you ‘til your curfew to reach the barracks.”

Wobbling still, I didn’t argue with him, or wonder how he knew so much about the barracks and our curfew. None of that mattered. I climbed the ravine with difficulty, and when I reached the top I looked down to see the wolf was back. He tipped his head back and howled, the sound curling around me, driving into my soul.

Be strong, child of the earth. Death rides on the wind. You escaped him once, and he hungers for a taste of your blood.

I turned my back on him and slowly started for home. My arm still throbbed, and I was beaten and bruised despite the curative I’d drank. His warning should have scared me, but a slow sense of exhilaration began to fill me. I had tapped into my abilities; I wasn’t useless.

I reached for the power of the earth, thinking I could just take hold of it again, that now I could show people I was better.

I was wrong.

Pain lanced behind my eyes, like a thousand stabbing needles. A cry escaped me and I dropped to the ground as I whimpered, unable to even think about moving.

Son of a bitch, the wolf had made it worse.

CHAPTER 11

Limping into the barracks, long past midnight, I didn’t see Ash until he was right in front of me.

“You’re late.”

I glared up at him, snorted. “What are you going to do about it?” My encounter with Griffin had given me a lot to think about and I’d had a long walk. So when Ash moved as if he were going to hit me, his body tensing, I reacted. I spun my spear out and had it slicing through the air toward his head between one heartbeat and the next. His eyes widened and he dropped to the ground, rolling out of the way, my spear slicing through the strands of his hair as he fell.

He flicked his hands and the green glow that was the earth’s power surrounded his fingertips. I leapt from where I stood, straight back, avoiding the hole that opened up where I’d been standing.

“Why do you hate me?” There it was, the question burning in me for all the time I’d been training.

He sneered and the hate was there in his eyes; an anger so intense I knew I wasn’t seeing things. “Because you think you’re above the law. That you’re better than the rest of us, but you aren’t. Royal blood doesn’t run pure, it runs putrid. You attacked our queen and instead of being killed, you were given the opportunity the rest of us have to fight for. You should be banished, sent far away from here. Better for all of us if you just disappeared.”

“I didn’t attack her, you were there!”

“Liar!”

We circled one another and I didn’t think, just reached for that part of me connected to the earth. The pain would be worth it if Ash was trying to kill me; I had to be strong enough to stop him. I imagined a huge hole under him, one that would suck him down and keep him from hurting me. A hole so deep he’d never dig his way out.

I was wrong about the pain being worth it. The lightning bolt of agony toppled me in a blinding flash that left me gasping for air and flat on my back.

Ash stood over me, honey-colored eyes full of contempt. “Useless. One day, you will die.”

I lay there, panting as the pain and his footsteps receded. “No, not useless.”

It took everything I had to get to my feet and make my way to my room where I promptly passed out in my bed, not even bothering to remove my weapons. Griffin’s voice echoed in my head as I slept, a single word over and over until I murmured it out loud.

“Recurve, I get it.” A faint glow of green hovered behind my eyelids as I drifted off, and I slept, deep and dreamless for once.

Still, the morning came too quickly for my liking.

Someone banged on my door and I let out a groan. “Go away.”

“Hurry up, you’ve got to see this!” Blossom stuck her head in. “They’re bringing your father in to seal it up.”

That got me sitting up. See what? “This had better be good,” I grumbled, stretching my arms over my head, my vertebrae popping one by one, muscles aching from everything that had happened the day before.

I stood, and my body only gave a faint protest. Damn, that potion of Griffin’s worked better than I thought it would.

I made my way to the training room. Or at least, to the edge of it. The entire floor had collapsed, a hole that ran around the edges of the room so that there was barely room to stand. A sinkhole. My eyes widened as I peered down, into the cavern. No bottom that I could see. Just like the hole I’d wanted to drop Ash into; but this couldn’t have been me, could it?

Granite, standing to the left of me, shook his head. “Aren’t many who could pull this off.” He never even looked at me. No one did. Why would they?

But my father, standing in the entranceway . . . his eyes landed on me, weighing me. I couldn’t meet his eyes. The thing was if this had been me, I didn’t remember it. A niggling piece of doubt curled around me, the faint memory of the green glow behind my eyelids as I passed out the night before. My father raised his hands over his head, the power clinging to him.

His hands weren’t the only things that glowed green, the air around him pulsed with magic, as if it drew strength from his heart, the beat creating a rhythm. The glow expanded, growing with each second that passed until it surrounded his body. He was our king, my father. And his blood ran in my veins, his power was the same as mine. I straightened a little. I didn’t dare to believe I would ever be as strong as him, but maybe soon he would see I wasn’t powerless, useless.

“That’s amazing,” I whispered, and Granite gave me a sharp glance.

“He hasn’t done anything yet.”

I swallowed my words and just watched as the glow gave a final surge and the ground below us rumbled in answer. The earth bucked and filled in the hole, as if the soil were water, sloshing and gushing upward. I stepped back from the edge as the cavern slowly disappeared.

“Granite, I would speak with you. We have word from the eastern front, I may have to send . . . .” my father’s words slipped away as he turned with Granite at his side. The rest of us stared at the newly made floor. Even though my father had fixed the hole, I didn’t truly trust it would hold up if we stepped onto it.

Blossom came to stand beside me, her riotous brown curls barely coming up to my chin. “Have you ever seen anything like that?”

I shook my head. “No, never.”

There were murmurs all around and the speculation lasted through breakfast and until we started to train, at which point Granite put an end to the talk.

He tucked his hands into his belt loops, a grimace on his face. He said only one word. “Sandlings.”

The Enders working with us grinned as a unit.

“About time,” Ash muttered and I frowned at him. He gave me a grin that was in no way nice.

If he was happy, we were in deep worm shit.

The Enders hands glowed green, the color spreading up their arms as they drew a lot of power. More than I’d ever seen them draw. The green faded into a thick black glow which made me stare at them, instead of what they were doing. Why would the color change? Shouldn’t it have stayed green regardless of what they were doing?

My thoughts scattered as a blow hit me in the center of my back, right between my shoulder blades. I rolled as I hit the ground, coming up with my spear in my hands. In front of me stood a man, only it wasn’t a man, it was a contrivance of a man made up of dirt and clay. It had teeth, but they were broken shards of glass and rock, and eyes made out of chunks of coal. Legs and arms were thick and blocky, but it still moved with the fluidity of a predator. Hands tipped in uneven sizes of rocks, embedded in the thickness of his fingers.

“Sandlings are excellent training tools, you can’t hurt them, and you can’t kill them. They will push you to your limit.” Granite spoke over the grunts and moans as the sandlings advanced on the recruits. “You will work with them for the rest of the day. Mal, the queen has asked to see you, go to her and then come back and train.”

Mal straightened and I shook my head. The queen liked to have her ‘own Enders.’ The fact that she was interviewing already shouldn’t have surprised me. She often took them as lovers too, from all accounts. Something we all knew.

Blossom was beside me as we waited for further instructions. The look on her face, though, was enough to make me stop my musing. Her brown eyes followed Mal all the way to the door, the pain in them as obvious as if she’d painted the word on her forehead. So, that was how it was between them.

I reached out and touched her wrist. “Hey, she probably won’t even like him. He’s too scrawny. She likes them like Ash, tall and on the fat side.” I indicated at the Ender with a bob of my head and Blossom looked at him. Ash was anything but fat, but I wanted to soothe Blossom’s worries. I didn’t like to see pain in her eyes.

“You think?”

“Yeah, Mal isn’t the queen’s type.”

Ash, feeling our eyes on him, turned to glare at us. I wiggled my fingers at him, speaking loud enough that he couldn’t miss my words. “He loves the queen. Don’t you, Ash?”

His eyes narrowed so far, I wondered if they were even open anymore. Blossom, leaned into me. “He might love the queen, but I don’t think he likes you.”

With a grunt, I agreed. “Yeah, that’s the understatement of the season.”

My body, so newly healed from the attack of Griffin, still ached, but I didn’t have the luxury of taking a day off.

Granite looked us over. “Seeders, ready?”

We all nodded.

“Enders, ready?”

The Enders grinned. Yeah, this was going to be rough.

“Begin!”

I battled it out with my sandling, which was of course being manipulated by Ash. I wanted to cheer the first time I took its head, only to want to cry when its head slowly regrew.

To my left, Blossom panted. “Lark, got any ideas?”

I wiped sweat from my eyes, the grit of dirt mixed in with it stinging my skin. “Not a clue.”

It didn’t help that my mind was still on my father’s visit, which left me fighting without any real effort. Sure, he’d come to fill in the hole that I may or may not have made. But what was that about the eastern front? Wasn’t that were the ranger had said the trees were dying? Was something going on, was the disease not caught by the healer?

The end of the day finally came and the Enders lowered the sandlings, who just absorbed back into the ground as if they’d never been.

Granite checked on each of us, then disappeared to his rooms.

The idea of the eastern front, and of my father’s obvious worry, stuck to me. I no longer had Coal to go through to get the gossip, which meant I had to get it straight from the source.

Granite knew what was going on, and I thought—hoped—he would tell me if I asked. Maybe there was nothing I could do, but I hated to be in the dark. Hated to have secrets wound around me. Especially now, after all that had happened.

I knocked on his door, my knuckles bruised and bleeding, dirt sticking in the wounds, yet I barely felt it.

“Enter,” he barked.

The door opened soundlessly. “Granite, I have a question.”

“Lark, I don’t have time for questions.” I ignored him and barreled forward, coming to a stop beside his well-worn wooden desk.

“What is going on in the eastern front?”

He looked up from where he sat, paper strewn in front of him. I saw the words ‘disease’ and ‘dying.’ More worrisome was the ‘spreading fast’ I glimpsed before he covered the sheets, shoving them into the bottom drawer. I strained to see more, but only caught a glimpse of a stack of the green human money used for when an Ender went into the human world on a run.

“None of your concern. Your job is to train, and train well.”

“But—”

He stood up fast and I braced myself, putting one leg back and balancing so if he hit me, I could take the blow. A smile lit his face for just a moment. “You’re getting better. But you aren’t good enough to deal with this. Go, take your rest and get food into your guts.”

I backed out of the room, frustration filling me. I was not a child, yet even now I was treated as one.

“Damn it.” I slapped the wall as I walked, which only served to make my palm tingle uncomfortably.

My own room was at the farthest end of the barracks and I suddenly couldn’t stand the thought of being there. But where else could I go?

The truth was, nowhere. This was my home; this was where I had to stay. There could be no running away for me, no going back to the Planter’s fields or, I snorted, the Spiral. The barracks was my home.

I slipped into my room and shut the door behind me, leaning against it.

I looked around the small space, blinking, wondering if I was seeing things. “Damn.”

My room was tidy, the bed made and the clothing hung. Not at all the mess I’d left it. Like someone had suddenly decided I needed a clean and neat room. An envelope lay on the bed.

I picked it up, turning it over a couple of times before cracking it open.

Meet me at your home as soon as possible. I’ll be waiting.

Fern

I turned the paper over and lifted it to my nose, smelling it. There was a hint of citrus, which was good enough for me. Cassava hated citrus scents, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t her. Mostly sure. Ok, not at all, for all I knew it could be some sort of trap. But what if it was Fern? Maybe she had a message from my father. Or maybe she could tell me what was happening on the eastern front. That was enough to go.

I tucked the envelope into my vest. What in the world could Fern want from me? It wasn’t like we were friends, she’d treated me like she was the princess and I the lowly planter all the years we knew each other, even though it had been her family in the planting fields and mine in the Spiral.

The world was a twisted place that sent me to the fields, and her into the arms of the king.

Outside the barracks, only a few people were roaming the main pathways. Most people would be in their homes with their families eating, resting after a long day in whatever task they favored. Those who I saw on my walk to my apartment were like me. Alone.

And still none would make eye contact with me. I kept my chin up and strode down the main thoroughfare, my legs eating up the distance to my apartment at the far end of the Rim. At the base of my tree, I stared at the balcony and window to my room. A flutter of movement, the curtain swaying with the air currents of a person passing close by them, a pale slender hand touching the edge of the material. I made a circuit of the tree, checking the perimeter, making sure no guards were posted. No surprises waited for me.

It looked like Fern was serious.

I climbed up to my apartment and slipped in the doorway. She hadn’t lit any candles, the dim glow of the setting sun the only illumination. She sat on the bed, twisting her hands over themselves, wiping at her eyes now and again. Every few minutes she’d stand, go to the window, and carefully peek out. How had she missed me coming?

I didn’t move from the shadow I stood in. “What do you want, Fern?”

She spun from the window. “Larkspur, is it really you?”

“Yeah, I got your letter.”

With a speed that had me backing up, she ran at me and flung her arms around me, squeezing me to her. Had it been anyone but Fern and I would have been pulling my spear; she was a total powder puff.

Draped over me, she started to weep, great heaving sobs wracking her body. “Oh, Lark, you have to help me. Your father said I should come to you.”

I pried her off me and helped her sit in my favorite chair. The overstuffed leather seemed to cradle the body just right, giving the sense you were being held. She burrowed into it and I flipped a soft blanket over her trembling shoulders, despite the fact that it wasn’t really cold out. The summer nights were still warm; autumn hadn’t made its presence known yet.

“What do you need help with?” And why the hell would my father send his mistress to me for help in the first place? The second question I kept to myself.

Sniffling, she twisted her hands in her lap. “Someone is trying to kill me.”

My eyebrows shot up. I didn’t have to guess who she meant. “Cassava.”

“How did you know?”

I snorted. “Are you serious? You’re my father’s mistress, and while we all know that’s acceptable, and even encouraged in the other families, Cassava doesn’t play well with others. Does she?”

Fern shook her head, long looping brown curls dancing over her tightly corseted breasts. “No, she doesn’t play well with others.” She gave a soft laugh. “But there is more, something I didn’t tell your father. I was . . . afraid of what would happen.”

A wave of nausea rolled over me at what I thought she might say. “Spit it out.”

She gulped. “Can I have a drink please?”

Rolling my eyes, I went to the kitchen and poured her a cup of wine, knowing that she loved apple wine. “Wine okay?”

“No. Just water.”

I tipped the glass of wine to my lips and drank it down fast. Apple wine was sweet and I needed the fortitude. I rinsed the cup, refilled it with water and took it to Fern. “Do I need to say it, or are you going to say it?” If she wasn’t drinking wine, I could think of only one possible reason why.

Her eyes welled with tears. “I’m so afraid, Lark. She said awful things to me, threatened me, and she threatened”—she waved a hand at her belly—“she said it wouldn’t be the first time she’d killed a rival, or a bastard child.” Her eyes met mine and understanding flowed between us.

I wanted to vomit and I struggled to get the words out. “Did she confess?”

Fern shook her head. “No, she just said she wouldn’t have an upstart whore try to take her place again. That there is no room in the royal line for bastards.”

There it was, the start of the proof I needed against Cassava. But even I knew it wouldn’t be enough. It would be Cassava’s words against Fern’s. Not much of a challenge when one was the queen and the other the queen’s rival. No one would believe Fern.

I paced the room, thinking. There was no way I could leave Fern to fend for herself. From what I knew, she was only middling in strength with the power of the earth. She’d past her testing to become a fourth level elemental, but only just. She would never be able to move any further along in strength. Which meant there was no way she could face down Cassava, who like my father, was a first level elemental. Those at the first level were adept at wielding every aspect of the earth and the powers that lay within it: power over rocks and dirt, over the plants and trees, ability to command any animal, to converse with the mother goddess and to shape shift. I looked around me, suddenly wondering what shape Cassava was able to take on. She could be listening in even now.

My heart clenched and I grabbed Fern’s arm. “Time to go.”

“Can you help me? Will you help me?”

I thought about Griffin, but immediately dismissed it as I helped Fern into the loop of rope that would take her to the ground, my mind rushing ahead through the possibilities. I didn’t know Griffin well enough to put the life of an unborn child, a new sibling, in his hands. My mother had lived for years in the human world going unnoticed until she came to the forest. That was Fern’s only chance.

“Meet me at the western edge, go now, don’t go back to get anything from your rooms. I’ll catch up with you on the path.”

Her eyes were wide, like giant saucers. “Thank you, Lark. Thank you, I won’t forget this. Not ever.”

I pushed her to the west and then I ran in the other direction. “Don’t thank me yet.”

CHAPTER 12

Slipping in and out of the barracks without anyone seeing me was going to be interesting. Everyone was still in the kitchens, the sound of their voices floating up and down with the conversation. I had to move fast. It wouldn’t be long before they flowed from their eating, up to their individual rooms.

I went to my own room first, and grabbed my few pieces of human clothing. Jeans, t-shirts and running shoes, and stuffed them into a bag, along with two small daggers. The tricky part was what came next.

Creeping along the hallway, I paused in front of Granite’s room. I knocked once, a single soft rap. No answer. Swallowing hard, I slipped into his room, grateful there was a single candle burning on his desk. The flame flickered as I stirred the air with my movement, sending shadows to dance all around me.

I opened the bottom drawer of his desk and grabbed the first stack of green money humans used for trade. I thumbed through it. One hundred was printed on each of the pieces of thin paper and I counted out forty. I could only hope that would be enough for Fern, but not enough to tip Granite off that some was missing.

Next to the money lay the papers I’d asked him about.

“In for a penny, in for a pound¸” I whispered to myself and pulled the first sheet out.

Report for King Basileus

Eastern front

Dying trees

The disease seems to be spreading quickly, and from all accounts, was deliberately loosed and encouraged to thrive. The humans we work with are doing their best to help stem the flow of lung burrowers, or Cryptococcus as they call it, but there is no slowing of the spread. There seems to be a magical push to the maggots, wind is constantly blowing. Will be sending a delegate to the closest Eyrie and our Sylph cousins to ask for help.

Truthfully,

Ranger Fir

I tucked the paper back into the drawer, my hand shaking. Lung burrowers being pushed along by the wind. No wonder Granite had been upset. The last time they’d come through, we’d easily lost over half our family. I paused, my brain sticking on a single fact. But my family had been killed by lung burrowers, which I knew was false now. What if there had been no disease at all? What if something else had killed our people, but it had been hidden beneath the pretext of the lung burrowers? My heart clenched and I knew that it was a distinct possibility.

The questions had no answers, and the longer I stood in Granite’s room, the better chance I had of being caught.

Cracking the door open, I peered down the hallway and breathed a sigh of relief. No one waited for me. I had to fight the inclination to run, and even so my steps were hurried.

“Hey, where you been?”

I spun to see Mal coming up behind. He gave me a grin and his hands glimmered green. I stiffened until he twisted his hand and presented me with a rose. “Thought you might like this.”

I blinked several times, staring at him, noticing that in the light, the whites of his eyes had a funny pink tinge. Maybe he was sick. “What’s gotten into you?”

He shrugged and gave me what I could only describe as a shy grin.

“Are you hitting on me?”

The grin widened. “And if I was? Would you do anything about it? I heard you and Coal split, thought I could fill in for him.”

A laugh burst out of me. “Not if you were the last elemental on this planet, Mal. Seriously, go bug Blossom, she’s been mooning after you for weeks.”

He frowned and I took the moment to turn my back on him and hurry out of the barracks. What the hell had gotten into him? Seemed his interview with the queen had given him some confidence. And how had he known Coal and I were no longer an item? It wasn’t like I went about announcing my life status. Coal must have been bitching then, if Mal knew, then everyone would.

Dumbass Coal and his gossip mongering.

I wove my way through the forest, looping back several times to make sure I wasn’t being followed. Just in case. I found Fern closer to the western edge than I’d expected. She was panting for breath, her heavy skirts weighing her down.

“Fern.”

She jumped and spun around, her hand to her heaving chest. “Larkspur, you scared me.”

I moved up beside her and pulled my bag from my back. “Come on, you need to change.” Getting her out of her clothes was time consuming. Corsets and stays were not an easy form of clothing to deal with. The jeans and shirt I’d brought were too big on her, the arms and legs at a length good for me. I rolled the cuffs of the pants up and then used a strip of leather to act as a belt. Fern looked down at her clothes with dubious eyes.

“Are you sure this is necessary?”

“Yes, you have to fit in for a little while.”

She blinked. “Fit in? I thought you were going to help me hide.”

With a sigh, I stuffed her dress behind a log and she let out a squeak, her hand reaching for it. I batted her fingers away. “Fern, you can’t stay here. We have to get you out of the forest if we’re going to keep you and”—I waved at her belly—“safe.”

“I understand, but where are we going?”

I took her arm and didn’t answer her. Probably best not to until the final moment. From what I recalled of Fern, she could be totally unreasonable, breaking into fits of tears and a massive tantrum at the drop of the hat. I wanted to believe she’d grown out of that particular habit, but I doubted it.

We walked in silence until we reached our destination.

A human highway that wove between the coastline and us bordered the western edge. It was to the place Granite had taken me that we were headed. I stopped, and stared out at the scene in front of us. Cars and trucks zipped along the strange, flat, black ground dotted with white and yellow paint.

Fern clutched at me, her hand clammy against my bare arm. “You can’t be serious.”

I turned to her, giving her a light shake. “Fern. Cassava thinks you are too weak to survive. She won’t look for you in the human world, which makes it the only chance you have. The forest is too dangerous for you right now, you know that.”

Her back slowly stiffened and she gave me a slight nod. “You’re right. I have to be strong enough for both of us. You’ll come back for me when you’ve made it safe?”

Well damn, it looked like Fern had done some maturing. And then her words hit me. She expected me to fix whatever problems there were with Cassava. “I’ll do my best, but it will probably be my father who makes things better. He has to deal with his batshit crazy wife.”

Fern gave me a smile and then wrapped her arms around me tight. “You’re going to be the best step-daughter ever.”

“Ack, let me go.” I wanted to shove her away and would have if she hadn’t been in her particular condition.

Now came the tricky part. While we’d both been educated on the human world, the history of it, where they were at with their technology, actually stepping into their world was entirely different. How to deal with humans was all good in theory. Putting it in practice, I wasn’t so sure.

“Have you ever been out of the forest?” Fern asked.

I shook my head. “No. Have you?”

She shook her head. “I remember the books from school, about the humans, but I never wanted to go. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pay much attention.”

And really, I hadn’t, either. I took a deep breath and let it slowly out. This was not how Enders traveled when they had a Hunt. That much I was sure, but we didn’t have a choice left to us. “I think we can do something called ‘hitched’ hiking.” Taking her hand, we walked to the side of the black ground. It was fully dark now, and the vehicles were lit up like owls, their lights giant glowing orbs that aimed at our midsections as they whooshed by us. Each time a car passed, Fern clutched me to her.

The real problem though was I didn’t really know how to make one of the cars carrying humans, stop.

“Do you think the painted lines in the middle are important? Maybe we should stand on them.” Fern asked, pointing to the middle of the road.

I shrugged, not recalling anything from my lack luster human history lessons that would help. “Worth a try.”

Watching the cars zip by, I waited until there was no great glowing orbs coming our way, then led Fern to the middle where the lines were. “When one of the cars gets close, wave at it,” I instructed, recalling that the hitched hiking required you to signal the drivers of the vehicles so they knew you wanted their attention.

The first set of lights curled around a bend in the road and the sound reverberated in my chest. “Lark, that one is far bigger than the others.”

I grit my teeth. Bigger was an understatement. It was ten times the size of the others, and the lights were lit all over it. Like a squat mountain on fire, it hurtled toward us. But humans did this hitched hiking all the time, so it couldn’t be dangerous. Fern squealed and clung to me as the lights hit us, blinding us completely.

“Wave at it!” I yelled and I assumed she did because the vehicle let out a powerful roar and then something that sounded like a monstrous goose. If a goose could be the size of an elephant. The screeching of metal on metal, the goose honking and the blinding lights, the ground bucking underneath us with the impact of a massive weight slamming into it, and we just stood there, waving our arms as the world went to hell around us. I held my breath hoping I hadn’t made a mistake and just killed us both.

The silence was what made me open my eyes, my arms still over my head. The oversized vehicle was on its side, inches from our faces, and vehicles were stopping all around us, humans getting out of them as they rushed to the aid of the driver of the big vehicle.

I pulled Fern to the side of the road, nodding. “Well, that worked well.”

She turned her eyes up at me. “Now what?”

I did a quick scan of the people who’d stopped their vehicles, spotting one that had flowers painted in a variety of colors on the side. It seemed a good omen. “That one.” I dragged her with me, through the growing crowd.

The people in the car saw us coming and rolled down their windows. A haze of smoke rolled out and I recognized the smell. I wrinkled up my nose. “Fern, they smoke the funk weed.”

She shrugged her shoulder peeking out from the collar of my t-shirt. “That’s okay, my uncle grows it for the healers.”

“Hey, two groovy babes.” A human man stuck his head out, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Need a ride?”

“Yes, my friend does. Can you take her to the next closest city?”

Fern clutched at me. “You aren’t coming with me?”

“I have to go back, you’ll be missing and if they figure out I’ve helped you we’re both sunk,” I growled at her. The human was bobbing his head.

“Yeah, no problemo. We’ll take her to Eureka.”

I shoved my bag into Fern’s hands, lowering my voice for her ears only. “There’s human money in here. Find a place to stay on the outskirts of town, close to nature. Don’t show the money to anyone and bargain wherever you can. It should be enough for a few weeks. If it takes longer than that, I’ll come get you.” I didn’t know how the hell I was going to manage, but the fear in Fern’s eyes was enough to make me promise her something.

“How will you find me?” she asked as she slid into the boxy car.

I gave her a grin. “I’m an Ender, that’s what we do.”

She smiled in return. “Be careful, Lark. Please be careful.”

The sound of a high pitched whistle, like that of distant screaming tornado was drawing close, and with it flashing lights of red and blue. “I will. And you too, Fern.”

The car started up and I saw Fern’s eyes widen as they pulled away from the scene. I slipped back into the forest, leaving behind me the human’s highway.

Now I just had to figure out how to keep Fern safe, and prove that Cassava was a murdering bitch.

No problemo, as the human had said.

Right.

CHAPTER 13

The disappearance of Fern went relatively unnoticed. Most people thought she ran away in disgrace when my father refused to marry her—a rumor I started—and it seemed to be working in our favor. I’d mentioned it to one of the Edge guards in passing; they were all as gossipy as Coal.

As far as I knew, Granite hadn’t noticed the missing money, either. Of course, why would anyone steal human money? We didn’t use anything of the sort here, and it would only be good for starting a fire.

Three days after Fern “ran away,” it was my turn to spar with Granite, one-on-one and no audience. He used his abilities with the earth, and I was to try and use only my weapons. Like I had any choice. I still couldn’t reach that spinning green orb of power I could so easily see if I closed my eyes. No, the pain dropped me every time, and yes, I tried regularly enough to know.

The upside of not having my own power was the more I looked for the telltale sign that Granite was tapping into the earth, the easier it got for me not only to see the sign, but pinpoint what he was going to do. Like when the green glow deepened, I knew he was going to shake the earth, and when it brightened and danced, rocks flew hard and fast. So while I couldn’t fight him in some ways, I could outthink him, and dodge what he sent my way.

“Damn it, how are you doing this?” Granite growled, wiping off a spot of blood where I’d caught a rock on the shaft of my spear like a baseball and fired it back at him.

“I think I’ll keep that secret to myself.” I smiled and offered him a hand up. He shooed me away.

“I’m not so feeble I can’t get to my feet on my own.” He stood, wobbled, and I put a hand on his shoulder.

“Sure about that?”

“Bah, see how steady you are after you get a rock smashed into your brain cup.”

Smiling, I crinkled up my nose. “Brain cup?”

He waved me off again. “Go get something to eat. We’ll go again in an hour.”

With a twist, I split my spear in two, the halves easily carried on the belt at my side, blade pointing down. The spear hung as if it were a part of my body, never getting in my way as I moved and fought, yet always right there when I needed it. I wrapped my fingers around the two pieces, wondering how often my mother had worked with the weapon. Of course, her spear was back in my room, waiting for me to become proficient enough to use it.

Granite, seemed to read my mind. “She wasn’t as good as you are with it. She didn’t want to hurt anyone, so she hesitated; it made her vulnerable to being attacked.”

His eyes met mine and I thought maybe he was going to say something. Maybe he knew something more since the last time we’d spoken about my mother. The tension between us rose, questions unanswered, fears hidden in the dark coming to light.

I opened my mouth to ask him, to demand he tell me what he knew. “Granite, my mother—”

Three Enders ran in, carrying one of their—our—own. The face was pale, but I recognized Oakley bouncing along in their arms. “What happened?” Granite barked, running to them.

Oakley coughed twice, blood burbling out of his mouth. “On a job in the east.” As if that somehow explained things. The Enders shared a glance that swept over me. Apparently, I wasn’t supposed to know about whatever it was Oakley had been doing.

I moved to help them and Granite put an arm out, stopping me.

“Don’t come any closer, Lark.” His face paled, almost to that of Oakley’s color.

“What’s wrong?”

“Lung burrowers.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. “Already?”

Granite’s eyes shot to mine, narrowed. “You see too much. But yes, the eastern front is being overwhelmed with them. At the rate they’re being pushed, it won’t be long before they’re here, a day or two at the most.”

They swept Oakley to the healers’ rooms, leaving me standing in the middle of the training ground. My father had gone to the eastern front.

A cold chill of premonition curled around me. If something happened to him, the one left ruling would be Cassava, with no one to rein her in.

The thought had no more hit the front of my brain and I bolted for the doors, running to the Spiral. The doors were locked shut, a bar across them. Snap, one of the queen’s personal Ender’s stood to one side.

“You aren’t allowed in, Cuckoo.”

“Shut your hole, Snapdragon,” I barked at him and his eyes widened in surprised. I pushed into his space. “Is my father back?”

He tried to push me back, but I held my ground. A snarl curled over his lips. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

I wanted to grab him and shake him ‘til the truth fell from his stupid face. I backed off a few steps, and glared at him, unable to think what I could do. My father was strong, but even he could fall to a disease. I snapped my fingers and bolted off to the north, running through the forest. Coal would know, he always knew the rumors before they reached the center.

The northern edge of the Rim was always quiet with the mountains ranging ahead. I found Coal asleep, an arm flung over his eyes.

“Edge Guard,” I snapped at him, using his proper title. He propelled himself up, his eyes blurry.

“Damn, Lark. You scared the life out of me!” He gave me a grin that slipped off as his eyes focused on me. “What’s wrong?”

Breathless from the fear coursing through me, more than the run, I finally got the words out. “Do you know if my father is back from the eastern front?”

Coal shook his head. “No, he’s still there. The last guard change came with news, the eastern edge is having problems with the trees dying still.”

Closing my eyes, I breathed in the air and tried to still my mind. Who could help me? “Be careful, Coal”—I turned my back on him—“promise me that. It isn’t just a disease, it’s the lung burrowers.”

“Hey, aren’t you going to stay and keep me company?”

I dared a glance over my shoulder to see him beckoning me back, his eyes full of heat. A surge of answering desire whispered over my body, giving me a shudder of unease. The last thing on my mind was sex, so why the desire?

Forcing myself to step closer to him, to test my theory, shock faded to need, the heady thrum of blood rushing through my body heightened. He moved toward me and I swayed. I kept myself from touching him. “Coal, something is wrong.” His green eyes, they had that same pink tinge that I’d seen in Mal’s eyes when he’d made a move on me.

“Nothing has ever felt so right,” he whispered, catching my hand in his, and then his lips were pressed against my own, that strange haze flowing over me. The comfort of his love, the familiarity of his touch, the smell of his skin—they sucked me under. We were there, cocooned in that feeling for what seemed like hours, not doing anything but touching, holding, kissing. No sex, just together.

Like we were under some kind of spell.

I jerked backward, the light around us having shifted enough that it was easy to see the hours that had gone by. My stomach growled, loudly, and I put a hand to it. I was starving and so thirsty. I reached down and scooped up Coal’s kit of food and water. The food was rancid, mold growing on it. The water, though stale, was clean and clear, and I gulped it down, the raggedness of my mouth and throat grateful.

Hours, it wasn’t hours I’d stood there with him but days.

“Shit on a green stick,” I gasped out and really looked at Coal. Like I was trying to see him use his abilities. That faint pink glow hovered in the whites of his eyes. I never would have seen it if I hadn’t drawn so close. I stepped back, easy to break away now that I knew what was happening. Days—days had been wasted here.

Frowning, I continued to back away.

“Lark, please don’t go.”

That clinched it. “You never ask me to stay with you, Coal. Not in all our time together.”

He tipped his head and the pink faded from his eyes. “What? I didn’t ask you to stay.”

Anxiety began to heat in the bottom of my belly. “No, of course not,” I said and turned away from him. I put a hand to my head; was I going crazy? Seeing pink glowing eyes, and feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling, hearing words Coal would never say . . . .

I trudged back to the barracks, my body exhausted and unable to give me more than a clipped walk. I slipped into the barracks through the back door. There was no one waiting for me, no one to ask me where I’d been.

A cold rush of air circled up and around my legs. A faint hint of herbs and sour sickness crept along with the air and I followed it down to the healers’ rooms. I’d only been in the room once, when I’d first started my training, to be sure there was nothing seriously wrong with me.

Then, the room had been large and spacious, the skylights letting in plenty of natural light to brighten the room. The beds had all been empty, the room rarely used. Bottles and jars of herbs and healing ointments, a couple of curatives from the Pit had been lined up along the walls then. Everything in order.

Now, every bed was taken with an Ender, and the recruits were using the floor. Jars and herbs were scattered, blood on the sheets, wriggling worms weaving their trail of death down the bodies.

The healer, Orchid, saw me, gasped, and ran to my side. “If you aren’t sick, leave, now. Ender Ash is the only other one not showing symptoms.”

I pushed against her hands. “Is my father sick? Raven?”

The sorrow in her eyes was all I needed. “Yes. Everyone except the queen, and Ash. And now you.”

Chills swept through me, followed closely by a rush of heat. “Why am I not surprised?”

A rattling cough drew my eyes to the wall on my left. Granite sat in the bed, but only just barely. His shoulders slumped forward, as if he was no longer able to hold his own head up. I moved as if to go to him and he held a hand up, stopping me.

“Don’t come any closer. I’ll be okay, go help Ash. Tell him I ordered you to go with him.” He held out a piece of paper to the healer, as another cough rattled through his chest, shaking his entire body with the aggressiveness of it. A ripple of pain passed over his face. Gingerly, I stepped forward and took the paper from the healer, then quickly stepped away, putting space between the disease and me as much as I could.

I looked at the bed next to him, Oakley laying there, barely breathing. The burrowers were there, just under his skin, breeding, and then their spores were coughed out into the air ready to dig into another set of lungs.

I nodded and backed out of the doorway, wondering if even with that small interaction I’d breathed in a lung burrower. I clamped my lips shut and held my breath as I ran back the way I’d come, gulping for air only once I was at the end of the hall. My legs were wobbly, a reminder that I’d been trapped in some sort of spell with no water or food for three days. I didn’t have time though to stop and eat, or rest—none of us did.

My hand tightened the crinkle of paper reminding me. I opened it, my fingers tingling as I read the words.

Go to the Pit. The healers there will help. And beware of Ash. Cassava owns him.

Cassava owned Ash? Worm shit, I was right about that then. And it explained why he hated me so. I had to find him, and quickly. I made my way, my hand against the wall for balance, down to the lowest level of the barracks. There was only one place he could be if he was going to go for help.

The Traveling room.

I knew about the place only from the training, and I hadn’t seen it yet. It had taken all four families to create, and it was a powerful tool. A way to traverse the world, and allow us access to the other families without having to deal with the humans disgusting, loud, filthy vehicles. The stairs that took me to the lowest level of the barracks were lit with torchlight, a good indicator that Ash was already in the Traveling Room. I made myself hurry, stumbling over the last few steps and crashing through the doorway.

Ash was still there, just grabbing something from the chest in the middle of the room. He was, of course, wearing his Ender leathers. But he’d added a long cloak that swirled between brown and green. The material fell to the floor in thick layers and was far too heavy for the warmth of summer. I couldn’t help but wonder what it was for. But I didn’t ask, knowing I was going to have to push him to take me along. I didn’t want to waste my breath on petty things like, “why are you wearing a winter cloak?”

I’d never come down this far, and I couldn’t help but stare. The room was built in imitation of the entire earth. I stepped fully into the room, my jaw dropping. The floor, walls, and ceiling were curved so that we were inside the globe looking out. I took another step, a splash making me shake my head. Lifting a foot, salt water dripped from my boot. I stood in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

The sense of awe kept me moving, unable to see enough. Of course, my awe didn’t last.

“What are you doing here?” Ash grabbed my arm and started to shove me backward. I dug my heels in, water sloshing up and over the edge of my boot.

“Granite sent me to help you.” I glared at him, made myself look into his eyes.

His jaw twitched. “You have no help to give. And even if you did, I wouldn’t want it. You’ll just get in the way, Seeder, and end up dead.”

I noticed the band on his upper arm. Smooth and made of red cedar, it glowed against his skin, the etchings carved in it those of our people. Dominating it was a tree, from root to tip curled around the band, a redwood with all its tiny needles spread wide. Wreathed in fog near the middle of the tree, with water droplets painstakingly carved in careful details, and a fire burning hot between the treetop and the roots. It was a masterpiece done in miniature.

A symbol for each of the families.

A band worn to travel between the homes of the four families. That much I knew.

I clamped a hand over it.

“You go, I go. That’s how it’s to be.”

He tried to jerk out of my hand, and I dug in hard. “I will not stand here and do nothing while my father and siblings lay on their death beds. I’m coming with you.”

With a snarl, he reached over his head with his free hand. “Fine. But the Pit is no place for the weak-minded.”

Granite’s admonition to keep my eye on Ash stuck in my head. “Tell me how it works. I need to know in case we get separated.”

His jaw ticked. “The arm band is simple. Put it on, a counter clockwise twist will bring you back here. Forward twist will take you to the last place it was used to travel to. New place, you have to be standing in a Traveling room and pick a spot, like this.” His eyes flicked over to the chest where he’d pulled the armband.

“What?”

His voice was soft. “There should be three bands, there are only two.”

“Could it have been taken?”

His eyes came back to mine. “That’s what I’m afraid of. But I don’t have time to search for it.”

I nodded, understanding. There were more important things than dealing with a missing armband. I watched his hand move, as if in slow motion, he opened up his hand and then pinched his fingers together, as if picking something up. The movement slowly drew the room, and the section of the globe we looked at, closer to us. The globe around us shifted, tightening, the details coming with more clarity. He did the same thing twice more until we were looking at the base of a mountain, cherry blossoms blowing in the wind, the scent of the flowering buds heavy on the air.

“Hold onto me, and no matter what happens, don’t let go,” Ash said.

I reached out and grabbed the thick belt around his waist.

“No, there has to be skin contact.” He grabbed my hand with his free one, but never actually looked at me. That didn’t mean I stopped watching what he did. I took note of everything, each move he made. His hand attached to the arm with the cedar band on it, lifted and he touched his index finger to a spot between two cherry trees on the over-magnified globe.

The world seemed to implode, the air around us gone in an instant, and my first thought was that Ash had finally found a way to get rid of me. But one look at his face, narrowed eyes, and the heavy pulse in his throat told me otherwise. I tightened my grip on him as we spun, our bodies seeming to come apart at the seams.

I closed my eyes and let my mind relax. Whatever happened would happen, there was nothing I could do but wait. And hope Ash wasn’t trying to kill me.

If I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. No question there. Traitor.

I didn’t move my lips, but I answered him. “You’re the traitor. Not me.”

And then I saw a memory that wasn’t my own, and felt Ash try to pull me away from it. Get out of my head!

“I can’t . . . I’m trying!” I didn’t know what was happening, only that this was not how Traveling worked. Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to. Up to three people could travel at a time, safely. Their minds didn’t meld together, though, and they didn’t suddenly see each other’s memories.

I was seeing through Ash’s eyes, a memory I knew from my own head, but not from that angle.

He was an Ender, but he was watching me as a child. The day my mother was killed.

The day Bramley was killed. Cactus and I were playing hide-and-seek, and Ash was bored out of his mind. My heart thumped hard against my chest, as if to escape what I knew was coming.

I fought against the memory. ‘”No, I don’t want to see this!”

But I had no choice. I was seeing it whether or not I wanted to.

CHAPTER 14

A waste of talent, sending him to keep an eye on the brats. A smile flashed across his face, though he had to admit, it was easy enough. And the two kids were entertaining as hell, playing hide and seek, using their innate abilities to cheat. Especially little Lark. She was a natural when it came to tapping into her power. One day she would be a force to be reckoned with. He only hoped she would be more like her mother and less like her older sisters. He gave a shudder. That Belladonna was a wretch, and he avoided her whenever he could. Lately, though, she seemed to be able to sniff him out like a bloodhound.

Ash walked in tandem with Lark and Cactus, but they didn’t see him. He kept to the shadows of the trees, kept an eye on them with ease. They thought they’d left the world behind, but her father would never leave her without protection.

“Hello, Ash,” a soft voice beckoned and he spun. Belladonna stood behind him, her top open down to the middle of her ample bosom. At sixteen, she was just coming into her own, looking more like her mother every day and less like a child. She wore a deep red dress that barely hung onto the curve of her breasts and hips. So much so that he easily saw she wore nothing under it. Shit. His eyes widened, but he responded as best he could.

“Princess, I’m surprised to see you here.”

“Are you done watching the little bastard yet?” She ran a hand down his arm and grabbed his ass. He stepped back, away from her. She made a moue with her lips, pouting as if that would draw him in.

He gritted his teeth. Damn this girl, she thought to get him into her bed at every turn. But she was such a little bitch. Another part of her just like her mother.

“No, I have the shift for a few hours yet.” He turned his back on her and her arms slid around his waist, and down to his belt buckle.

“A few minutes wouldn’t go amiss, would they? Surely you have time for a princess who wants your attention.” Her fingers were deft and she had the belt off in seconds.

Goddess, he wanted to slap her. He pulled her hands away, and took the belt back from her, using more patience than he realized he had. “I thank you for the offer, but I am an Ender. I cannot be distracted, not even by a beauty such as you.” The words were false, but she fluttered her eyelashes appreciatively. He thought she would go away, and leave him be then. No, she took it up a notch.

“If you don’t, I will tell my parents you tried to rape me and they will have you banished.”

He spun to stare at her. “What did you say?”

She shrugged and slid out of her clothes with just a twitch of her hips, the material sliding down to pool in a ruby puddle at her feet. “You heard me. Pleasure me. And yes, that is a command, Ender.”

He was young enough to be afraid of her still. So new to being an Ender. What could he do? He didn’t want the princess, didn’t even like her. Her beauty was overshadowed by her nature, cold and hard and unkind. He had to think quickly.

“At another time, I promise to take you wherever you would go, the peaks of pleasure if that is your wish.” With a deft move, he leaned in and kissed her softly. That would have to hold her. He started to back away from her, yet again.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh no. That is not near enough.” A flick of her wrist and the vines around them reached up, attached themselves to his clothing, and ripped them off.

What happened next, I managed to skip over. The last thing I wanted was to see my sister knock boots with Ash.

I closed my eyes and the images faded. But when I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t out of his head. Not yet.

He stood over my slumped form, Cassava in front of him.

“They will never believe you, Ender. My husband will only know that they died, from a disease. That is all the world will know.”

He dropped to his knees, and scooped the small version of me up with one arm. The queen had killed the kids? How could she? And then a breath under his arm, the girl was alive. “You let her live?”

“Yes.”

A choking cry echoed in his chest as he crushed Lark to him, and pulled his medieval sword with the other, pointing it at Cassava. “You killed her brother and mother. By rights, I can kill you.”

Cassava tipped his chin up with a single finger. “Who will believe you, Ender? No one. Not even the girl. I took her memories. I took her friend’s memories. But I will leave yours. Yes, I think that would give me pleasure to see you suffer.”

The tip of his sword didn’t waver as it rested just above her left breast. “I could kill you.” But he hesitated and it was enough for her to do . . . whatever it was she did.

A flashing glow of pink surrounded her like a strange Aurora Borealis. “You can’t kill me.”

His arms shook and he lowered my body. “I can’t kill you.”

The queen leaned forward, pushing the blade away with disgust. “I own you.”

He lowered his head, shame and guilt flooding him. He’d failed as an Ender. He’d let his charges die while he was rutting with a bitch in heat. Did it matter that he could see now that Belladonna had likely been acting on her mother’s orders? No, it didn’t. What mattered was that he was a failure, that he’d allowed those he had been trained to protect die.

“You own me.”

I jerked out of the memories and lay there, hands wrapped around Ash’s biceps, the cherry blossoms swirling around us in a vortex of color and scents that stole my breath.

We lay on our sides, facing each other. Ash’s face was slack with sleep, the lines that normally curved downward between his eyes smooth. It made him look younger than he was and a wash of pity rushed through me. On impulse, I reached forward and brushed a hand over his cheek. “I’m sorry she hurt you too.” His eyelids fluttered and I pulled back before he knew I’d touched him.

“I think we’re here.” I released his other bicep, sat up, and looked around us, choosing not to discuss the invasion of privacy. Maybe if we didn’t talk about it, we could act like it hadn’t happened.

We were at the base of a mountain, cherry trees planted in precise rows. “This doesn’t seem like a place they’d call the Pit.”

With a grunt, Ash got to his feet. “The Pit is inside the mountain, Seeder.” He didn’t say “idiot,” but I heard the unspoken word. I glared at him, pity gone. Maybe he didn’t know what I’d seen in his mind. Maybe it was best that way.

“Yeah, we haven’t got to that lesson yet. Care to fill me in?”

Rolling his eyes heavenward, his lips moving in what I had no doubt was prayer, he then motioned for me to follow him. “The Pit is in the center of the mountain and goes all the way to the core of the earth, to where Fire is created. The rest of the Salamanders’ home is pretty standard. Not so unlike ours in some ways, completely opposite in others.”

“Cryptic,” I muttered.

“You’ll see soon enough what I mean.”

I was beside him as we walked, and I fiddled with the knife at my belt. “You think they can help?”

“They have to.”

Except that I knew that wasn’t the truth and I didn’t have to be a mind reader to know that.

“They’ll think we’re contagious, won’t they?” I whispered and Ash’s jaw tightened.

“Let’s hope not.”

We approached a large slab of black rock embedded in the mountain, smooth and shiny in the sun. Flames were carved into it along with powerful symbols. Fire and death, fire and life. Symbols for all four of the families. I ran a finger down the smooth surface, amazed at how warm it was.

Ash pushed my hand off the slab. “Don’t touch if you don’t know what you’re doing.”

I glared at him, but was curious. He put a hand to the slab, over the etching of a redwood and his fingers pulsed green, three times. Then he stepped back. “Now we wait.”

And wait we did. Hours passed. Hope faded. The cherry blossoms continued to swirl around us.

They were blooming out of season, the heat from the mountain under them giving them a false spring year round. At least, that was what Ash said.

“Can we force our way in?” I asked, standing to look at the black slab for what was probably the hundredth time.

He snorted. “And how would you like to do that? You are useless, and even I know my limits. I can’t force their hands.”

“I am not useless.” I put a hand over the redwood tree etched in the stone and thought about the green glow. I closed my eyes. My father would die if we didn’t get him the help he needed. Swallowing hard, I let out a slow breath and carefully reached for my link to the power of the earth.

The pain was intense, driving through my brain, but I didn’t stop trying. Spasms wracked my body, and it was all I had to keep my hands pressed into the etching, to force whatever power I could grasp at it. Pain and power, they were wrapped in a tight bundle inside me. I couldn’t have one without the other. Moisture slid down my cheeks as I fought to reach the power, fought to find the words. “Please, my father is dying, please help us!”

A sonic thump slammed into my chest, throwing me back from the doorway and into Ash. He caught me with ease, held me up. His hands around my waist tightened.

“What did you do?”

“I . . . .” I put a hand to my head, feeling as if there should have been a crack wide open through my skull. “I don’t know.”

“I think they’re going to answer you,” he said, not letting me go. I forced myself to my feet, though it took me three tries, and my legs barely held me up.

In front of us, the black slab shimmered; the images engraved turning a bright molten lava. Even from fifteen feet away, the heat scorched, making me turn my face to the side.

The black rock continued to heat until the entire thing was a bright, vibrant red. Melting away, the doorway opened deep into the heart of the mountain. Expecting a dark, dingy hole that smelled like sulfur and death, I couldn’t believe the truth of what I saw. The walls were lined with gemstones, glittering and brilliant, and they picked up the light from outside, illuminating our path. Cherry blossoms blew through the doorway, bringing the smell of the clean spring air with them.

Ash gave me a mocking bow. “After you, Princess.”

An image of Belladonna demanding him to pleasure her rose up in my mind. “Don’t call me that. Not ever.”

He raised his eyebrows at me as we stepped into the glittering entranceway. “But, aren’t you a princess? Isn’t that what you’ve been trying to prove, that you aren’t just a bastard?”

I shook my head, hair swirling in the breeze, a cherry blossom catching in the ends, “No, I’m an Ender now.”

I thought he’d smile, but he just nodded. “Ender Larkspur, after you.”

We moved in tandem, side by side, falling into step together. We didn’t get very far when a pair of fire elementals barred our way. They wore heavy black masks that went with their black Ender leathers. I thought maybe I saw a glimpse of red curls peeking out of one helmet, but I couldn’t be sure.

“Maggie? Is that you?”

“Hello, Lark.”

I let out a relieved breath. Maggie would help us. She knew we weren’t here for trouble. But then beside me, Ash tensed even more, body tight with anticipation. The two Enders loosely held four-foot long, blunt ended clubs that looked to be made of the same stone as the doorway.

“We need the healers to come with us. The lung burrowers have gone rampant. Or we can speak with them and they can send the cleansing fire,” Ash said, shifting his weight so he was . . . in a fighting stance? Oh, this was not good. I mimicked him, hoping I was wrong. We weren’t really going to fight, were we? Surely the Salamanders wouldn’t try to hurt us.

Elementals stuck together, that’s what I’d always been taught. They worked with one another, unlike the humans who were always starting wars and wiping each other out. We were different, above that kind of pettiness. We were better than the humans.

I was taught wrong.

CHAPTER 15

The two fire elementals didn’t waste time. They attacked, forcing us back a few steps. They spun their long clubs, almost like you would whirl a spear, the black material turning into a blur. “Maggie, don’t do this!” I yelled, yanking my spear out and around, barely blocking the blow from her partner.

“You must leave. It isn’t our decision, but we have to uphold it.”

“This isn’t asking nicely,” Ash spoke from my other side.

Not much comfort, but I wouldn’t stop trying. “Please, my father is sick, dying! You have to help. Your healers are our only hope.”

I was paying too much attention to Maggie and not enough to the Ender I faced. A blow to my right knee sent me to the ground, the twist of bones and tendons tore under the blunt club like peeling bark from a tree. I bit my tongue as I went down, fighting the black spots that scattered across my vision.

Ash stepped in front of me, his wicked sword slashing through the air, cutting the club in half as it swept toward my head. I closed my eyes and ducked. The clash of metal on solid rock was a screech that dug into my ears.

Stop it, just stop it. I wanted nothing more than help for my father, for all those who didn’t deserve to die. Like Granite and Mal, Blossom, and even my siblings. Most especially Raven and Briar, they weren’t like the others. Just stop this madness, there are too many lives at stake.

Silence, sweet and heady in its quiet breaths, met my ears, and I lifted my head slowly. Ash stood in front of me, protecting me. Blood dripped from his left arm where a shard of the club had slashed through him and partially embedded in his muscle.

“What happened?” I tugged at Ash’s leg. He spared me a glance.

“I don’t know. They just . . . stopped.”

Using the wall, I pulled myself to my feet and hobbled forward to touch Maggie’s arm, despite Ash hissing at me. I ignored him. “Maggie?” I gently pulled her helmet off. Her strange orange eyes stared past me, seeing nothing.

“We stopped,” she whispered, and I stumbled back, into Ash who caught me before I could fall to the ground for the second time.

Her words, they had nothing to do with me. Did they? I swallowed hard. “Well, we can go in now, I guess.”

Ash looked at me and I stared back. “What?”

“We need to go in to speak to the healers. Right? No one will know we’re here for a bit.”

He pulled the shard of rock from his arm, dropping it to the floor. “Maggie and Match aren’t the only Enders here, Lark. There are more, and they will hunt us down for coming in aggressively.”

I couldn’t read him, couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

“We have to help them. My father could die. And while you might like the idea of Cassava as a queen, I do not. So come with me, or give me the armband and I’ll go myself to find the healers.” I limped forward, using the wall as a support. Each step sent a spasm of fire down my right leg. This was going to be a long haul to heal.

Ash jogged to my side and slid an arm around my waist, lifting me a little and taking the pressure off my knee. “Here, if you insist on going, at least let me help you.”

“Why the sudden change of heart?”

“You’re like your mother, I think.” He paused, and we slowed. “I heard she exchanged memories with people when she used the armbands with others. Which means you saw my memory of the day your mother died, didn’t you?” There was a raw edge to his voice, a mixture of grief and pain. I knew that combination well.

“Yes. I didn’t want to say anything. It wasn’t my place to see it.”

“And you believe what you saw?” His eyes were wide, the disbelief in them as clear as a sky in mid-summer. A feeling I knew all too well. To know something in your heart was true, but to be unable to speak of it, to tell others what you knew.

“No one would believe me, either, Ash. And I convinced myself it was just a dream, one I lived over and over.”

His arm loosened on me, just a little.

“Then you know I was assigned to keep you safe.” I nodded and he continued. “I failed you once. I won’t fail you again . . . Larkspur.”

I blinked away a wash of gratitude, which was closely followed by a shot of anger. “Then why the hell have you treated me like worm shit during my training?” The words snapped out and Ash gave me a lopsided grin.

“Best way to keep you safe was making sure you didn’t become an Ender. To think you couldn’t do it. This is not a job for the long-lived and uninjured, if you haven’t noticed.”

My jaw dropped and I spluttered. “You were trying to get me to quit?”

“Yes.”

“That’s why you were being such a bastard?”

His chuckle reverberated through to me, our ribs pressed against one another. “Who’s calling who a bastard?”

Ouch. I flinched away from him. “I think I’ll use the wall.”

He didn’t apologize and I realized he was still trying to get me to give up. To make me turn back from this course of action, of becoming an Ender. And somehow, that made me like him more. He might be an ass, but in his own way, he was looking out for me. Even after all these years.

We wove our way slowly through the passages until voices brought us to a standstill. “Is that who I think it is?” I whispered.

Ash frowned. “I sure as hell hope not.”

With her high-pitched soprano tones, Belladonna was a hard one to confuse with anyone else. She laughed at something, and then Ash was pushing and shoving me into a tiny crevice with him, our bodies jammed so tight we could have been sardines in those tin cans the humans liked so much. He drew his cloak over us except for our eyes. Now the cloak made sense, a perfect camouflage in the darkness.

From the shadows, we watched Belladonna draw close. “So you see, your Highness, my mother thinks it’s best if this”—she waved her hand in the air, flickering her fingers several times, light glinting off rings that didn’t look like anything she’d previously worn—“illness runs its own course, without the intervention of healers. She wants to see our portion of the family strengthened.”

We both stiffened under the confines of the cloak. Anger burned up my guts and it took everything I had not to lurch out, hobbling on one leg, to bash Belladonna until she told us everything.

“Steady,” Ash said, his voice low and surprisingly calming.

The man with Belladonna, I could easily guess who he was. Queen Fiametta, a rather calculating lady, ruled the Pit. Okay, she was a total bitch from what I understood. No doubt this was her crown prince, Flint. He had bright red hair like many of the Salamanders did, but he also had a streak of black running down the middle of it, like a charred log in the middle of burning flame. A signature that ran in the royal bloodline here.

The odd couple drew close enough that I could see the orange light flickering in Flint’s eyes. He reached out and touched a finger to Belladonna’s chin. “It’s a shame the families don’t recognize half-breeds. We would have amazingly beautiful babies.”

My mouth dropped open and Ash slid his hand over it. He pressed his lips to my ear. “Shhhh.”

If I’d wanted to, I could have reached out and grabbed my half-sister by the ear, jerking her around to face me. Belladonna laughed, oblivious to how close we stood. “My mother would rather see me dead than give birth to a half-breed, no matter how beautiful it was, cousin.”

They continued on their way, flirting back and forth, voices slowly receding. Ash unwrapped us from his cloak and we stepped out of the crevice. “I hope he knocks her up,” I said, my voice low.

“Me too.”

I shot a look at Ash. He was watching their receding forms, a full body shudder taking him. No, he didn’t like her any more than I did. And he had far more reason to hate her.

“We need a way down to the healers’ quarters. I know roughly where it is, but we need someone to help us get by all the checkpoints.”

I couldn’t help but wonder if my friend was still here, and if he was, was he still the boy I knew or had he changed too much to help an old friend? “I think I might be able to help there.”

Ash shot me a sharp look. “Then do it.”

Letting out a slow breath, I placed my hand on the wall we stood closest too. It was an old trick, one that every elemental knew. Those you were close to, if you weren’t far apart, you could call them through the earth. Every elemental had a tie to the mother goddess, and like the human technology we could make a call of sorts. But that would mean tapping into the earth and the power there. Fear grabbed me around the throat, strangling me with an ease that left me gasping. I shook my head, sweat dripping down my face, nausea rolling through me. “I can’t, the pain will be too much. You’ll have to call him, Ash.”

He put his hand on the wall, not questioning me. “Who and how?”

“Cactus. Tell him you want to play hide-and-seek in the forest.” I was surprised Ash didn’t balk at the seeming silly request, but also at how much I wanted to see Cactus. He’d been taken away, not long after my family had been killed. We hadn’t even been able to say goodbye. I leaned against the wall, breathing slowly, rubbing carefully at my knee.

“We’ll get the healers to help you with that too.” Ash pointed at my leg. “And when we get back and things settle down, we are going to deal with your block.”

My eyes snapped to his. “You think you can help me?”

“I’ve seen the results of your power, Lark.” His eyes were distant. “You don’t need to be an Ender to be a part of this family, but you need to find the key that will unlock your abilities. Or it won’t matter what place you have in the family.”

“Why would you help me?” I didn’t understand him, or his motivation. All I kept seeing in my head was Granite’s words scrawled on the paper. Cassava owns him.

Ash lifted a hand and I clamped my mouth shut. The sound of running footsteps, heavy breathing, and a soft voice I knew too well.

“Lark?”

I stepped around Ash.

“Cactus.”

A glimpse of green eyes and deep auburn hair were all I saw before he swept me into his arms, spinning me around. “Goddess have mercy, Lark, I thought I’d never see you again.”

I hugged him hard, and he set me down. He stood only a little shorter than me, tall for both sides of his family. “Cactus, we need to get to the healers.”

His eyes looked from me to Ash and then back to me as if seeing me for the first time. “You’re an . . . Ender?”

A grin flickered over my lips. “Kinda. Can you help? Please, there are so many lives on the line.”

His mouth twitched. “Does this mean we’re about to get into trouble again?”

A laugh bubbled up, but I kept it in, my words as solemn as I could keep them. “Yeah, I think so.”

He grinned wide, his eyes lighting up. “It’s about time.”

CHAPTER 16

It appeared that Cactus had kept up with his troublemaking ways once he was shipped off to the Pit for training. “Come on, I’ve got some stuff stashed that’ll work to hide you.”

In his room, he pulled out two cloaks made of shimmering black that could only be Ender cloaks.

“Just happened to have them?” Ash asked as he traded his cloak for the black one.

Cactus shrugged. “Never know when they might come in handy.”

We slipped them on, and then Ash scooped me into his arms as if I weren’t six feet tall and a solid eleven stones—one hundred and fifty pounds.

“I can walk.” I twisted in a vain attempt to get him to put me down, embarrassment coursing through me. “I’m not a feeble girl.”

Cactus stopped me. “We can move faster and if it looks like you’re hurt, we can get you in with ease to see the healers.”

Begrudgingly I stopped wrestling with Ash. I didn’t want to give him any more reasons to believe I couldn’t be an Ender. That I couldn’t do it. Because I knew that even if we managed to unblock my power, I still wanted to be an Ender.

I fit in the barracks, like I’d fit nowhere else.

Cactus led us through the Pit, which was a damn good thing. The fire sanctuary was set up like a beehive, the hallways and doors branching off each section. The number of intersections and entranceways we passed were mind-bogglingly numerous. “Are there that many Salamanders?” I tightened one arm around Ash’s neck as we started down yet another set of stairs.

Cactus didn’t turn around. “No, it’s a safety measure. Hard to find the queen if you can’t even find your way out. And some of the doors open into things you’d really rather not deal with.”

“Like what?”

“Drops straight into the heart of the Pit. Fire demons. Netting that will drop on your head and burn through your skin to pin your bones to the floor. The usual stuff.”

I glanced at Ash who gave a slight shrug. “The reason why I wanted a guide to the healers. One wrong turn and the rest of our family would have no one to take them the cure.”

“The cure? For what?” Cactus asked and I opened my mouth to answer, then slowly closed it, rethinking my words. If he knew the lung burrowers were rampant, even though he was my friend, he might not help us.

“The healers will know, they are the ones who will be able to figure this out.”

Ash tightened his arms around me, a nod of approval of sorts. Cactus half-turned, trotting down the stairs sideways. “Ender secrets?”

“Something like that.” I gave him what felt like a weak grin.

He shrugged. “That’s okay, I’m used to being left out of the loop. That’s the way it is here, especially for the half-breeds.”

Minutes passed, more turns, more twists, and twice we had to backtrack because of other elementals coming our way. I was breathing harder than Ash, who seemed to be no worse for the wear packing me around, despite the wound in his arm.

“Almost there,” Cactus whispered, peeking around a corner.

We crept forward, eyes and ears peeled for any sound that we’d been found out. I knew we didn’t have a lot of time left, there was no way Maggie and the other Ender would stay frozen forever. And when they woke up . . . a shudder rippled through me. I didn’t want to be close enough for Maggie to get her hands on me. The image of Mal in the training pool as it began to bubble was all too clear in my head. She was ruthless when training; coming after us when she had a reason . . . I could only imagine how bad it would be.

The door in front of us was blood red, the edges marked in gold slashes. In the center of the door, a snake wrapped around a single rod was etched deeply into the door. Cactus gave a sweeping bow. “The rod of Asclepius, Princess. The healers await.”

Cactus swung the door open.

Ash didn’t move. “You first.”

The implication was clear and Cactus was no dumbass to miss it. His eyes narrowed. “I wouldn’t put Lark in danger.”

“Still, you go first.” Ash didn’t put me down, nor did he step forward. I squirmed.

“I trust him, Ash.”

“I don’t. I remember him too, and I clearly remember the queen stole his memories. We don’t know what she put there instead.” Ash’s honey eyes met mine. “She said she would have use for him.”

A chill swept through me, and I turned my head to see the confusion written clearly on Cactus’s face. His eyes drawn, a furrow in his brow, lips down turned. “What are you two talking about?”

“Cactus,” I said. “Please, go in first.”

His eyes widened, hurt hovering at the edges. “You don’t trust me?”

My throat tightened and I shook my head. “I don’t trust Cassava.”

He frowned hard at me. “You aren’t making any sense.”

“Please, Cactus, go in.”

He shrugged and stepped through the doorway, muttering under his breath. “Fine. Crazy earth brats.”

He disappeared into the shadows of the room and then called out. “Satisfied?”

Neither of us answered. Ash stepped forward through the gilt edged doorway. The darkness was an aspect of the doorway, as we stepped through, the room lit up as if ten thousand candles had been set out. I blinked, my eyes watering in the sudden light after the dim corridors.

Around us was a room not unlike our own healers’ rooms in our own barracks. Well lit, clean, beds laid out in rows. Shelves of bottles and fresh wrappings. The scent of herbs cleared the air of all aspects of sulfur. If I were stuck in the Pit, I wouldn’t wander far from the healers’ rooms.

The only difference between here and the rooms back in the forest was here, the beds were empty.

A healer, his top white, his pants jet black, strode toward us. “Put her on a bed.”

Ash did as told, setting me on the bed closest to us.

“My name is Smit. What have you done to yourself, little lady?” He gave me a soft smile as he prodded my knee.

I winced. “Oh, the usual.”

Ash crouched beside me. “Smit, we come from the Redwoods.”

“Oh, I know that very well. Can smell the cedar on your skin clearly enough.”

Ash put a hand on Smit’s arm. “The lung burrowers are back. We need the cleansing fire, or our family is lost.”

Smit rocked back on his heels, his eyes taking us both in. “This is a request that needs to come through our queen. I can’t just give out the cleansing fire to anyone.”

I leaned forward, putting a hand on his arm, willing him to help. “Please, our people are dying. We would have come through the proper channels if we’d been able to. Our king is waylaid with the disease too.”

Smit looked at me, then Ash and back again. “Let’s get your leg dealt with first. That much I can do without repercussions.”

The healer walked over to a side table against the wall. “A quick serum if I know you Enders well. Something that heals fast, even if it hurts all the way to the core of your bones.”

The blood drained from me. I swear I felt it sliding down the veins in my neck, but I nodded. “Yes, fast is best, I think.” The pain couldn’t be worse than what I faced when I tried to reach the power of the earth.

Smit hummed to himself as he mixed and stirred, singing under his breath. Cactus sat on a stool, spinning around and around, his head bowed. Like a kid bored with all the adult talk.

“You never had to grow up, did you?” My question stopped him in his spinning.

His eyes glittered with unspoken laughter. “Not really. They don’t mind half-breeds so much here and that’s worked out well for me. I come and go as I please, and don’t really have much to do.”

“Nothing but find trouble, you mean,” Smit said, a smile tipping his lips. The smile faded as he looked at me. “Okay, you two are going to want to hold her down for this.” Smit stepped in front of me, a crystal vial in his hand. Smoke trickled out the top of the vial, and the scent of sulfur filed my nostrils. I wrinkled up my nose. “No one has to hold me down.”

“You Enders always think you’re so tough. But there is a truth all healers know. It hurts far more to heal a wound, than to be wounded in the first place. When you heal, you are aware, and you must consciously take the steps to put things aright. When you are cut open, there is always some strong emotion tied to it. Fear. Anger. Passion. Those emotions hide the pain of the injury, which is why many don’t seek help until the wound festers. By then, it is a great deal harder to mend.” His eyes met mine, and I had a feeling he wasn’t just talking about my bones.

“I can handle it.” I lifted my chin.

“I can’t hold her down,” Cactus said. “I’ll throw up on her if I smell that tonic.”

Great, down the one friend I had.

Even so, Ash put his hands on my shoulders. “I’ve been at the end of their tender mercies. Trust me, you want someone to hold you down.”

Smit tipped the vial to my lips, the smoke curling up my nose making me gag. “Drink it all. You throw it up and we’ll have to dose you again.”

Rotten eggs and a heavy layer of wood smoke coated my tongue and I gagged, but kept the vile tonic in. Then it hit my bloodstream.

The term “light me on fire” had never held so much meaning. My veins pulsed with heat that scorched along nerve endings, through muscles and bones, as if my entire body had been dunked into boiling water and had the same liquid shot through my innards. I fought the urge to arch, to keep my back flat on the bed, but it was so very, very hard. Tears leaked from my eyes as my knee put itself back together.

Teeth clamped shut, I sought something to focus on, something to ground myself with. Cactus was across the room, his back to me, his body trembling—the coward. Smit had already turned away to some other task.

Which left Ash.

I grabbed his forearms as a spasm of fire raced through me, a gasp slipping past my lips.

“It will be over quickly, just breathe.”

I stared up at him, tracing the shape of his face with my eyes. Dark gold lashes, a scar over his left eye so faint I’d not noticed it before, a sharply angled jaw line, ears tight to his head, but the left one had a nick out of the top, maybe it happened when he got the scar over his left eye. I’d have to ask him. I sucked in a deep breath, the fire in me blazing around my busted up knee. Full lips, straight teeth, and a strong profile, nose a little on the crooked side with a bump in the ridge, probably another injury. Air escaped me in a whoosh, and the heat in my body slowed a fraction.

Honey eyes, he had liquid honey for eyes that no doubt burned hot when he made love to someone. My eyes flew wide, shock hitting me hard. I pulled my hands from his forearms, the heat still burning through me, but not with the intensity it had started with.

“Thanks, I think the worst has passed.”

“Can you stand?”

I slid sideways, ignoring the fact that my body still wrestled with the potion Smit had given me. “No, but I can talk-k-k-k-k-k.” The stutter at the end hit me alongside a particularly sharp pain in my knee. I clamped a hand around it.

“Smit, what do we have to do to convince you to give us the cleansing fire?” I bit out the words. I massaged my knee, tried to focus on what we were here for and not the draining effect the healing was having on me.

The healer let out a sigh. “I am a healer, and you now that my first and most important oath is to help any who ask for it.”

Ash tensed beside me, though I didn’t know why. What Smit was saying was what we were banking on.

I forced myself to my feet. “Yes, we know that, and know we’re begging for your help.”

Smit gave me a soft, sad smile. “I would help you if I could, truly, you must believe that. But there is a small problem.”

I swallowed, praying to the mother goddess that the problem was indeed small, that it would be easily surmountable. A fee for his services, a favor given in return, a reward. Anything.

Orange eyes met mine. “The cleansing fire has been taken by another. Apparently, you are not the only ones plagued by plague.”

I was standing without realizing it. “Who . . . who took the cleansing fire?”

Wiping his hands on a thick white towel, he tucked the edge of it into his belt. “The Sylph’s had one of their Enders come for the fire just this morning.”

Jaw clenched, I didn’t realize I was walking toward Smit until I looked down at him, seeing the bald spot on the top of his head, spreading out like a cancer. “What was his name?”

I didn’t really have to ask his name; I already knew.

Smit looked at me, then to Ash and back to me.

“Wicker.”

CHAPTER 17

The Sylph’s name echoed in the room. You could have heard a pinworm hit the floor.

“Do you know him?” Cactus crossed to me, his nose wrinkling as he drew too close and got a whiff of the healing tonic. A gag curled him away from me.

I nodded. “Yes, he killed Bramley.” I whispered the truth out loud and behind me I felt Ash stiffen. Cactus laughed, though it was forced. “Lark, I heard about your delusions once I was here, that you tried to make it out that Cassava killed your mother and little brother. But I had no idea it had gone so far—”

“They are not delusions¸ half-breed. You were there, Cactus,” Ash said, his voice soft and deadly. “You were there that day and Cassava stole your memories. She blocked Lark from reaching her powers and left me to carry the knowledge, knowing no one would believe an Ender’s word against a queen’s.”

Cactus looked from me to Ash. “She’s convinced you too? Shit, that’s partly why I was taken away, you know. She kept trying to get me to believe this dream she had was reality, and not what had happened. The lung burrowers swept through, the same as they are now. People die; that is life. Get over it.” His words were harsh and I realized he was not the boy I’d grown up with. I didn’t know him anymore. I backed away, bumping into Ash.

“We have to go. Thank you for your help, both of you.”

Smit cleared his throat. “If you are going to find this Ender who took the cleansing fire, I will give you a piece of advice. He was not going back to the Eyrie.”

My eyes shot to the healer. “What do you mean?” And how in the seven hells could he know that?

Smit blushed. “He dropped a note on his way out, I tried to get it to him, I did. But he left before I could . . . .” He dug into his pocket and held out a thin piece of paper, crumpled and stained. I took it from him and read it, horror filling me. I handed it to Ash.

“Son of a bitch in heat. She’s going to kill your father,” Ash whispered.

The note’s words were imprinted on my mind.

Take the fire to the eastern front. Wait ‘til the worms are deep in the king. Then release the fire.

“Won’t that cure him, though?” Cactus took the note and read it over before handing it back to Smit.

The healer shook his head. “No, when the lung burrowers have gone on too long, they become too deeply ingrained into the host. They can still be killed, stopped from getting into anyone else, but when they die, the host dies too. If they use the fire right away, most of your people should be safe. If not . . . .” He shrugged, but it wasn’t dismissive, but more of a regretful gesture. “I’m sorry. It is not my place to meddle in the affairs of the other families.”

Ash held a hand out to Smit, grasping the shorter man’s hand and shaking. “Thank you. Be careful, we don’t know who all is in on this plot.”

And there it was, the truth of what we were facing was a plot indeed. A conspiracy to kill my father, which would allow Cassava to take over as ruler and head of our family. She would have me killed, no doubt, Fern and her unborn baby, and anyone else who opposed her. Probably Niah and Griffin too. I glanced at Ash. Would he be killed? I wasn’t so sure. Belladonna would probably try to have him trussed up in her bedroom.

The sound of running footsteps snapped my head up. That was not good. “They know we’re here.”

Ash crooked a finger at me and I moved to grabbed hold of his left arm. Cactus grabbed me from behind, yanking me to a standstill. “If there’s trouble, I’m coming with you.”

Except all he did was slow us down. Ash made a grab for me, but Cactus inadvertently held me back, one arm around my shoulders, the other clinging to my left hand. “Cactus, let me go!”

From outside the room a clatter of weapons being drawn sliced through the air. Ash lunged for us. “Give the princess to me, half-breed,” he snarled.

I spun, struck a leg out sideways and tipped Cactus over my hip, sending him crashing to the floor. He laid there, his mouth gasping open and closed like a landed fish. But we were too late, Cactus had screwed us over whether he realized it or not. I straightened and turned. Four Enders faced us, Maggie had brought back up. They cut between us, in seconds, making it impossible for Ash to use the armband without leaving me behind.

Ash backed up a step so he could pull his sword. “Maggie, we were just leaving.”

“Not without a visit to the queen’s dungeon, my friend.”

Ash stiffened. “Weapons only then, Ender. No abilities.”

Maggie tipped her head ever so slightly. “Let it be.”

I pulled my spear, rolling the shaft in my hand, “To your left, Ash,” I said, sidestepping that direction. He shifted his weight and the tension grew as the six of us weighed each other.

I knew the older Enders would recommend taking it slow in a fight like this, where we were outnumbered. But we didn’t have time. Like I was watching someone else fight, I could see what the other Enders would do a split second before they started to move. Just like when watching them reach for their abilities. I used it to my advantage. The Ender in front of me had my death in mind, and he was aiming to hit me over the head with the club, and then cut my throat, making it look like he hadn’t meant to go that far.

Without another thought, I whipped the spear forward in a downward slashing arc at him. I aimed for his right shoulder, fully expecting him to block the blow, and readying myself for the reverberation along the shaft. He didn’t get his club up in time. Not even close. The blade bit in deep, cutting through his shoulder and clavicle, peeling him open. I jerked the war spear out hard and fast, my heart hammering, blood thrumming through my veins.

Something deep within me knew there was no turning back now; we—I—had drawn blood, had struck a killing blow. As the Ender in front of me fell to his knees, eyes rolling back in his head, I breathed in, and calmness filled me. He’d wanted my death, his was deserved. I was within my rights. But it was the first time I’d hurt someone so badly, and a small part of me curled up and whimpered.

Behind me, Smit let out a groan, but I didn’t pause. The momentum of the blow turned me in a full circle and I let it, my hair whipping out around my face, the blade catching the light.

The second Ender I faced was going to dodge to the right and then swing in low, landing his club in my gut, dagger to my left eye. That’s what I saw, as clearly as if he’d painted me a picture. I moved with him, stepped back and drove my spear forward in a thrust that caught him through the belly. I slid my hand down the spear and pulled it forward with a quick yank, then turned to face the last two Enders with Ash. He’d dispatched one, and now faced Maggie.

I saw the flicker in her eye, the lava burning there and ready to roar up and around us, swallow us whole. Nope, not going to happen on my watch.

I circled around the back of her and swept her legs with my spear. She hit the ground hard, her head bouncing against the stone floor. Her eyes rolled up in her head and I paused, wondering if she was dead or not.

“What in the seven hells of the goddess was that?” Ash yelled at me and I floundered, stumbling back as the glow I’d floated in disappeared.

“What . . .?” I stared at him, not comprehending. Around us, the noise level had suddenly come back. The healers were helping the two Enders I’d fought, trying to staunch their wounds. I swallowed hard. I’d done that. The guts dripping out of one, and the arm nearly severed on the other.

My work. My fighting. My weapon.

The shaking started deep within me. I pushed a hand tight to my stomach. Ash grabbed me. “Come on, we’re in deep shit here.”

We ran out of the healers’ room and there on the floor, beside Maggie was the reason we were in deep shit.

The armband Ash had worn to bring us to the Pit was broken in two. Our way home severed with a single blow from one of the clubs.

I had to trust Ash that he knew where we were going, that he would find us a way back to the forest. The hallways blurred as we ran, they all looked the same to me. Ash stopped at a door, cracked it open and peered in. Apparently, it was good and I breathed a sigh of relief. I followed him in.

The room was set up as a library, the walls covered in books, and a large table set in the middle. But the books were not really books, just paint on the wall. This was one of the dummy rooms, which at least was better than a hole all the way into the Pit.

Ash paced the room, hands on his hips, his jaw twitching, and the silence stretching until I wished he would just say what he had to say. “What in the goddess’s name were you thinking? We don’t kill other Enders, Larkspur!”

I pushed off the door. “We don’t know they’re dead. And they were going to kill me.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do!” I yelled back, the anger and fear blending together into a heady mixture. “I saw it, saw what they were going to do, the same way I knew Maggie was going to pull on the lava in the Pit just as I swept her legs.”

Ash blinked several times, the confusion clear on his face. “Say again.”

“They were planning to kill me. Both of them. And Maggie, there was fire in her eyes, the same way I saw when I trained with her, except I could see what she was going to do with it. She was going to have the lava spill up and swallow us. There would be nothing left of us to find.” I rubbed a hand over my face. “I don’t know how I know, I just know that was going to happen, what they were going to do. I’m sorry.”

He was quiet long enough that I dared to look up. His face was thoughtful, the anger gone. And then he truly surprised me. “I believe you. I knew something was different the minute we stepped into the Pit. The way Maggie and Match faced us, the aggressiveness they were showing. That isn’t like them. Could it be Belladonna setting this up?”

I wondered that myself for just a split second before shaking my head. “No, she might be a tool, but Cassava would be the only one to make something like this happen. But I thought Granite was the only one who knew we were coming?”

“Cassava knows more than she should.” Ash closed his eyes. “She’s always there, always seeing what she shouldn’t. As if she can see through my eyes, hear through my ears.”

None of that would help us, though. If the Enders I’d fought actually died, I would be on the hook for their lives. “You believing me won’t get us out of this. And I have no way of proving what they were going to do. Which means if they die, I’ll be right behind them.”

The sound of running feet and shouting outside our door interrupted us, and brought us both around, reaching for our weapons. Tension rose and my muscles ached to move, to run, adrenaline with nowhere to go was a terrible thing. The running footsteps faded and I let out a slow breath. Ash still wore the black Ender cloak Cactus had given him. I’d left mine behind in the healers’ room. I doubted one cloak would be enough to hide us both, and if the Salamanders were like our Enders, they knew every single one of their own. There was no way we could get by them. And then there was the main door. How would we open it?

An idea began to form, one I wasn’t sure was good, but it was all I could come up with.

“They have a Traveling room, like us?” I tapped one foot on the floor.

Ash’s eyes shot to mine, narrowing slightly. “Yes, but it will be deep within the Ender barracks just like ours. Highly protected.”

“Do you know where the barracks are?”

He nodded, eyes glittering with a spark of life. “Yes, I do.”

“Then what choice do we have? We have to get to the Traveling room if we’re going to stop Wicker.” I straightened my back, the tension in my muscles pulling at me to relax and take it easy. “If we get out of this alive, I’m going to need a spa day.”

“If we get out of this alive, I’ll take you myself,” Ash muttered, moving to the door.

A soft laugh escaped me. “Pedicures for us both?”

He gave me a lopsided grin and opened the door. “Why the hell not?”

Pedicures with Ash. Damn, my life was getting weird.

CHAPTER 18

Ash knew where we were going. The Salamander barracks were near the entranceway, the better to guard the Pit. Which was all well and good. The layout of the Pit with the endless hallways, doors, and stairwells worked in our favor, as well as against us.

For the third time, we jammed ourselves into the dark recesses of a hallway as two Enders swept by, their eyes glowing, flickering with a barely contained fury. Their footsteps eased and we started on our way again.

“They’re going to kill us both, if they catch us.” I kept my voice low as we ran up a set of stairs that seemed to go on forever. At the top, the landing curled to the right and climbed again.

“All the more reason to get the hell out of here.” Ash peered around the corner before beckoning me to follow. The running, fatigue, fighting, lack of food, and general heartsickness left me moving in a haze, after the initial burst of adrenaline. The world around us blurred and blended into a never-ending game of cat and mouse. Sweat slid down my face, and my arms burned from clinging to my spear for all I was worth. I wanted to put it away, but I knew that was a foolish thought.

We paused again, waiting to make sure the hallway was clear when I was grabbed from behind. I struggled until I heard Cactus’s voice.

“Just me. Thought you might need a hand.”

Ash grabbed my upper arm, his eyes widening when he got a good look at me. “Goblin piss, we have to get out of here.”

“I can help,” Cactus said. “I want to help, to make up for what I did.”

I gave his hand a squeeze. “Thank you.”

Without another word, he stepped into the lead, striding ahead of us. Of course, no one would think anything of Cactus walking about.

“Can we trust him?” Ash asked me for the second time.

“We have to,” I whispered, swiping at the moisture on my face. Ash wasn’t sweating. I on the other hand, was slick with sweat, as if I’d just stepped out from under a waterfall.

He clamped a hand over my mouth. “Quiet.”

Blinking, I fought to push the fatigue away and straighten. The running had put me into a sort of trance, and I shook it off. Mouthing “sorry” against Ash’s hand. He took it off my face and nodded.

Cactus stopped in front of a doorway and pointed at it with one finger. I recognized it with a startle. The door and the hinges were the exact same as what stood at the front of our barracks in the forest. Down to the doorknob and the black paint on the door, the door could have been a perfect replica.

“Somebody likes things all matchy matchy,” I muttered. Ash grunted softly and we jogged across the hallway and slipped through the door Cactus held open for us. He didn’t follow us in.

“Be careful, Lark.” He touched my cheek as I went by and for a moment, I thought I heard him say something. I shook my head, but he didn’t repeat whatever it was he said.

“Thank you, Cactus. Now get out of here, before they see you helping us.”

He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Be careful, my friend.” And then he was gone.

Nothing I could do about it now. We were here and we were going home one way or another. The entrance to the barracks was gloomy, as if we’d walked into a cloudbank. A hot, dry, sulfur-smelling cloudbank. I reached forward and grabbed at Ash as his body started to fade into the darkness, snagging the back of his belt. Now was not the time to be separated.

We slunk through the darkness, moving slowly in a low crouch. All the fatigue was gone from me as a second wave of adrenaline kicked in. I wanted to ask Ash if we could at least try to find a torch, a candle, anything that would give us a glimpse of where we were going. With each step, the tension around us tightened, like a noose slowly twisting around our necks. Unfortunately, the image was all too clear in my head, and my heart rate shot through the roof.

“Calm,” Ash breathed to me and I nodded, which was stupid since he couldn’t see me. I wanted to take a deep breath, but the air was getting thicker with fumes. I froze, jerking Ash to a stop. I pulled him back so that he was at my side. I spoke as softly as I could.

“They know we’d have to come here, to get to their traveling room. And this is where they train, right?”

“Yes, they train here.”

I grabbed his arm, digging my fingers into the muscle. “They train with what exactly?” I knew the answer, knew it in my gut. Fire and lava, that’s what they would train with, and they’d be damn good at using it against intruders.

Ash stiffened, his arm tightening under my hand. “Run.”

As if we were bound together, we leapt forward, running through the fumes and smoke, the room around us suddenly lighting up as flames shot around the circumference of the training area. Faces were illuminated, and not one of them was happy. The image was a split second of realization that we were sunk, truly and completely done in. It didn’t matter that the two Enders I’d potentially killed would have cut my throat and claimed it an accident of some sort, didn’t matter that our people would die, my father would die; no one would take that into account. These Enders wouldn’t care. They wouldn’t ask why we were here, or why we’d done what we’d done. Their job was to keep their family safe from threats. And for the first time in my life, that’s what I was.

Fear raced along my synapses and I wanted to sob with the understanding of what would happen, how much would be lost because of Cassava’s greed for power. Because of my stupid ability to see what was coming in a person’s actions.

Lava spilled up at our feet, forcing us to skid to a stop. I teetered on one foot, the heat from the liquid death slamming into me like a runaway elephant. Ash grabbed me and pulled me back.

“We only want to go back to our forest, without any help from your healers,” his voice was strong and controlled. Calm.

The tallest of the Enders stepped forward, face hidden behind another of those black masks, it wasn’t until he spoke I was sure that it was a man. “You killed two, TWO of our Enders. You know the penalty for killing another elemental.”

Ash inclined his head. “Not when it’s in self-defense.”

I knew in my heart there was no way Ash would be able to talk us out of this. He was stalling for time, for the slim chance we could make it past them somehow, that one of them would lower their guard. I closed my eyes and prayed, the words on my lips nothing more than movement. “Mother goddess, help us get home.”

There was no response to my prayer, nothing to tell me that she’d heard me or cared. I opened my eyes, seeing the room as if for the first time. Ash was pleading now, trying his damndest to get the Enders to understand, to see. But they weren’t going to let us go, they had the upper hand and they knew it.

The circle of black leather tightened on us. That noose cinching around our necks inch-by-inch. Behind the masks, I could see the flicker of fire in their eyes as they reached for their ability with fire as a unit.

They drop intruders into the Pit.

Not today they wouldn’t. I could beat them to this, but I didn’t have time to explain to Ash. I pulled my spear out and thrust it past him, directly into the Ender he spoke with, dropping him to the floor.

Around us, there was a stutter, a hesitation as everyone tried to comprehend what I’d done, and I took those seconds to my advantage. Swirling the spear over my head, I sunk it into the neck of the Ender on our right. Two down, and just enough room to run past those who would kill us. Ash didn’t wait for me to say ‘go’. We ran through the tiny opening as the rank of leather exploded behind us in a burst of screaming and fire.

Hands grabbed at me, snagging my clothes; I stabbed at them, forcing them back as we stumbled down a hallway, the space behind us lighting up as fireballs careened off the walls. One singed my arm as it rumbled past me, but I didn’t stop, didn’t let myself think about what would happen if I stopped. If we let them catch us.

We came to a dead end and my heart seemed to stop before I realized it wasn’t a dead end, but a doorway. With one kick, Ash booted the heavy door open and pulled me through. He took his sword and jammed it through the handle and into the wall, buying us time.

The globular room was exactly like ours. “Find the Redwoods, I’ll get the arm band.”

I did as he asked, pulling the globe with my fingers as the door shook behind us. The Redwoods would bring the Salamanders to our doorstep. The last thing we needed was an all-out war on our turf. Biting my lip, I shifted the globe to the north, just a little.

Maybe we could lose them somewhere they wouldn’t expect us to go. Then Ash was at my side, and he slid the band over my arm. “Just in case.”

I didn’t understand what that meant and there was no time to ask. He snaked his hand around my waist as the door burst open. We turned to look as the Enders spilled into the room. Ash kept his eyes on them, didn’t even look at the globe as I reached up and touched the spot just north of the forest. A roar of rage hit us from the other Enders, but they disappeared from view as the armband sucked us through to the other side of the world.

I didn’t have to wonder if I would again see Ash’s memories, they hit me hard, harder than I expected.

Cassava stood in front of him, swirling her skirt in the fine dust at her feet with one hand, the other, pointed at his chest. “I want you to be my personal Ender. You will make sure that Larkspur doesn’t find her abilities, that she remains weak. Do you understand?”

His breath came in a short gasp, the pain radiating in his chest matched only by his hatred for the queen. Hate her, he might, but she ruled him and he had no way to prove what she was doing. “I understand.” The words were squeezed out with difficulty because he fought them. He didn’t want to help her, but it was as if he had no choice.

She clucked her tongue at him. “Now, the harder you fight me, the more it will hurt you.”

A shiver ran through his body and he lowered his head to hide his eyes from her. “Yes, my Queen. I will do as I must to keep Larkspur weak.”

She patted his head, and a soft laugh trembled on the air. “That’s a good boy.”

The memory split apart and we rolled across something black and seemingly smooth. But it was not smooth, it was as hard as quartz that had been ground up and packed together, and it tore at my bare skin. Grit and sand cut into my arms and cheek, the friction dragging me to a painful stop. My eyes were inches from a yellow strip that I knew indicated the middle of the road. I rolled to my side. In front of us were tall buildings, the windows dark, the people in them unaware that we’d just popped into existence right on their doorsteps.

“Lark, where did you bring us?” Ash’s voice came from a few feet away. I rolled my eyes to him, his memory still vivid in my mind.

“Eureka.”

“Why in the goddess’s name would you bring us to the human city?” he growled, pushing himself to his feet.

“Because they—the Salamanders—are going to follow us, aren’t they?” I sat up and picked a couple of pieces of grit from my skin, wincing.

Ash bent over me. “Maybe, maybe not. Most likely they’ll send an emissary to the king to ask for our heads.”

I frowned and slowly stood, my body aching. “Then I just slowed us down.”

He rubbed a hand over his face. “Yes. But I understand why you did it. In another situation, this would have been the smart choice. We have an easier time going unnoticed amongst the humans, the Salamanders tend to stand out.”

Around us, the world was quiet, night having fallen while we were gone. But I could still smell something cooking, something wonderful. I drew in a deep breath. “Let’s get something to eat, before we go.”

That stopped Ash dead in his tracks. “You’re hungry, after all the bloodshed?”

“Starving, I haven’t eaten in three days.” I didn’t want to try and explain to him what had happened with Coal, how I’d been trapped in some sort of spell. Nor did I want to think about the fact that when we left our home, my soul had been clear of any wrongdoing. And now I’d killed four people. Four.

“You think we have time to stop and eat?” he snapped at me, and I spun around to face him, emotions high.

“Listen here, you might know more than me as an Ender, you might outrank me in power, but I am hungry and I will be damned if I take another step without getting food!” My voice reverberated across the empty street and a light flickered on high in the building and someone stuck her head out.

“Look what you’ve done. You’ve woken up a human,” he snapped.

Except that it wasn’t a human hanging out of the window, her long brown hair floating on the night breeze. She waved at us. “You came for me, I knew you would!”

Ash shot a glance to me. “Is that Fern?”

I hunched my shoulders. “Yes.”

“And why would she think you came for her?”

I brushed past him, walking toward the building. “Because I helped her escape the queen’s wrath.”

CHAPTER 19

Fern met us at the doorway, dressed in a long t-shirt that did nothing to hide the tiny bump in her belly. Ash’s eyes goggled and I had a moment of feeling superior. It didn’t last.

“You helped hide a woman who is pregnant with the king’s child in a human city?” Ash grabbed my arm, spinning me around to face him.

“And now I’ll have to hide her again, before you can run back to your master and tattle.”

His jaw dropped and then snapped shut with a click so hard I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d cracked a tooth. “She is not my master.”

“That’s not what your memory showed. I can’t trust you. Even if you don’t want to help her, you are, for some reason. She owns you.” Granite was right, but I didn’t dare bring him into this. He was really the only one I could trust at that point. We stood in the stifling hot entranceway to the building, Fern behind us making shushing noises.

“Be quiet, please, the landlord is very grumpy and he’ll kick me out to the street if I make too much noise.”

But all I could see was Ash, that he could hurt Fern, whether he wanted to or not. All he had to do was tell Cassava that Fern was pregnant and hiding in the human city. He didn’t even have to lift his hand to do the damage, just open his mouth.

His throat convulsed. “I am not her pet.”

“I hope you’re right. Because her life”—I pointed at Fern—“and the life of her child depend on you being able to keep this secret.”

I left him standing there as I followed Fern up to her apartment. The place was sparsely furnished, but she had food stuffs in a white box she called a fridge. She pulled out a plate of food I didn’t hesitate over, even though it looked like worms in red dirt. I ate everything she put in front of me, not even really tasting it. The flavors melded on my tongue into nothing but fuel for my body. She handed me a drink at some point that, I gulped down and she refilled. My stomach finally gurgled contentedly at me and I leaned back. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I didn’t think you’d eat that much.” Her lips twitched and looked down at the three empty plates and I shrugged. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”

She lowered herself into the seat in front of me, her hands resting on the table.

“So I can come back now? I can come home?”

I shook my head. “No, this is just a quick stop for us.”

“The lung burrowers are deep in the forest, Fern,” Ash said, stepping through the doorway, closing it behind him and then turning the lock. “It is no safer for you there now, perhaps even more dangerous.”

She put a hand over her ample bosom. “Basil, is he safe?”

It took me a moment to realize she was speaking of my father, shortening his name, as only someone you were close to would do. “No, he’s not.” I wouldn’t keep the truth from her. If it were me, I’d want to know if someone I loved was in danger of dying.

“Then I must go to him, I can help take care of him.” She stood, pushing her chair back with a screech that evoked some yelling from the room below us.

I put a hand on her arm, stopping her. “No, there is nothing you can do to help.”

Her eyes filled with tears that slid down her face in perfectly straight streaks. “Then you have to save him, for both of us.”

I nodded. “I’m trying. We’re trying.”

“That’s why you just had to eat? Because you’re trying to save your father?” Ash sneered at me and I wanted nothing so much as to backhand him. Yet the sudden shift in him gave me a pause. Of all the people I knew, he should understand the need to be at our best to face Cassava.

“And if I fall flat on my face from fatigue, unable to face whatever is coming because I haven’t eaten in three days, what then?”

The sneer fell from his face and he nodded, his tone back to normal. “If you’re done eating, Princess, I think we have a long run ahead of us.” I stared at him, the quick twist in his attitude was weird at best, and more concerning than anything.

“Is she . . . in your head now?”

His eyes lifted to mine, the honey-colored orbs tinged around the edge with a soft pink glow, the only sign I had that Cassava was riding him, controlling his words and actions.

I swallowed down the large lump growing in my throat. Whatever hold she had on him, it was there now. He was no longer the Ash I could depend on and I had to treat him like the enemy. He raised an eyebrow at me.

“No, of course not. But we need to go. We need to get to your father.”

I bit the inside of my lip, thinking fast. “Wait for me outside, I want to talk to Fern before we go.”

He nodded, gave us both a bow and slid out of the room, his steps silent. The door clicked behind him and Fern opened her mouth to speak. I put a finger to my lips and lowered myself to the floor. Head against the cool, strange feeling material, I stared at the base of the door. The minimal light shining underneath it showed me that Ash had not moved away, his shadow casting two spots where his feet stood.

I rose and cleared my throat, speaking loudly, “Fern, I think perhaps you should come with us. Let me help you get dressed.”

“Oh, okay, Lark.” Her eyes were on mine and I shook my head. Fern, perceptive that I was not saying everything I had to, dressed quickly. The rustle of her clothes was the only sound in the apartment. I went to the door and leaned against it, wishing I didn’t have to dupe Ash. I thought, for a moment or two that we might be able to work together. Maybe even become friends. But not if I couldn’t trust him. Not if Cassava controlled him. There must be a proximity to what she could manage, because when we were at the Pit, he was reasonable. Like he could think for himself.

I closed my eyes and focused on what exactly Ash had said about the armband. A counterclockwise twist would take us back to the origins of the band. In this case, back to the Pit. I fingered the smooth black band, really looking at it for the first time. Flames were etched deep into the cool stone as the main theme, another reminder of where we were headed. In the flames lay the symbols of the other families too, though. I touched the tree, as if that alone would take us home.

From the traveling room in the Pit, we could travel to the forest. Dangerous? Yes, but also far faster. I had no idea how to use one of the human’s vehicles. Ash probably did, but there was no way I could allow him to take us.

I feared that we were already too late, and going to the Pit was our only option for speed.

Fern drew close to me, a pretty green dress cut with a high empire waist that helped to disguise her bump. “What is wrong?”

“Ash is working for the queen.” I kept my voice low, but apparently not low enough.

The door burst open and Ash stood there, his daggers in his hands and I grabbed Fern. “Hang onto me.” She wrapped her arms around me and I twisted the band counterclockwise. The last thing I saw was Ash, darting forward, and daggers slashing toward us, and then we were traveling. I expected to see Fern’s memories, as I’d seen Ash’s.

I did not expect her to see mine.

She saw my mother die. Saw Bramley die. Saw my memories stolen and the queen’s deception.

And then we were lying in the traveling room in the Pit. I sat up before the dizziness faded.

From outside the room was a shuffle of feet. “You hear that?” a man’s voice asked.

I stood and held my hands up to the globe while Fern lay at my feet, gagging. I pulled the globe around, drawing it close to me until I was looking at our home. But where?

The eastern front was full of lung burrowers, and there were no Enders who could help. Who could I trust?

Griffin.

I slid my hand across to the southern edge, reached down and grabbed Fern’s hand. “Don’t let go.”

The door burst open as I reached up to touch the southern edge of the forest. And an arrow shot through my palm. I screamed and two more arrows shot toward me. I closed my eyes and pushed my hand into the globe.

Pain seared my right thigh and hand. This time, if there were memories exchanged I didn’t see them. Or maybe, we were just too out of it to be aware.

I came to first, the pain in my thigh bringing me out of the haze of traveling. I struggled to sit up, whimpering with the pain. The blood seeped through my pants, warm and wet as it dripped down my leg. With a quick twist, I snapped the haft off with my good hand, the jerk reverberating through my bone. Groaning, I carefully went to my knees, curling my right hand against my chest. The arrowhead had gone right through my palm, but I’d need help to get it all the way out, the shaft sticking out on either side at least six inches.

“Fern,” I whispered her name and poked at the slumped body beside me. Had she been hit with an arrow? I’d seen three, but only two had hit me. With only the one good hand, it was hard to roll her over gently. She flopped, boneless, and I put a hand to her throat. The pulse was steady, a good sign, and no arrow protruded from her anywhere.

I shook her. “Fern, time to wake up. I need your help.”

“She’s going to be out cold for a long while.”

From the bushes beside me, Griffin appeared, ghosting through the fog like the wolf he was.

“There’s no time, help me with these arrowheads.” I held my hand up to him.

“You in trouble already?” He took my hand, snapped off the feathered end of the arrow and slid the shaft slowly through the wound. The pain wasn’t too bad, or at least, not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Or maybe I was just becoming numb. Or maybe I’d just been injured so much lately nothing felt as bad as the last wound.

He pulled off a strip of material from the bottom of Fern’s skirt and wrapped my hand with it. “You going to tell me what happened?”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t want anyone else to have to deal with this if they don’t have to.”

“Deal with what?”

I tipped my head back, thinking about how to answer him. How to explain that I’d killed other Enders, that Ash was under some sort of spell, and that the lung burrowers were going to kill my father no matter what I did?

Griffin put a hand against my thigh. “That’s fine, don’t answer, I don’t need the details.” He pulled his belt loose and stuffed the leather into my mouth. “Bite down.” I didn’t argue even though the leather tasted of sweat and wolf. He jerked the arrow out, the broad head slicing through my flesh as bad on the way out as the way in. I bit down hard, and managed not to scream, but only barely. A second strip of Fern’s dress made a nice band of color on my leg.

“Cassava did all this.” I waved my good hand above my head.

Griffin lifted an eyebrow. “That doesn’t tell me much unless you’re trying to say she made the forest which we both know isn’t true.”

I bent at the waist, and then straightened up fast. “She brought in the lung burrowers, she knows if she waits and unleashes the cleansing fire after a certain point, my father will die. And that would leave her as sole ruler.”

Griffin nodded. “Suspected something like that. You’re going to do something about it, yeah?”

“What can I do? You may be right about me being blocked, but it doesn’t help me. I can’t face her, I can’t stop her.”

He stuck out his bottom lip in an exaggerated movement. “What did you think, that it was going to be easy? That she would just lay down and let you put your foot on her chest and claim a victory?”

“No, of course not.” The image though was rather satisfying. “I want you to keep Fern here, keep her safe.”

“And what are you going to do?”

I swallowed, a lump in my throat growing. “I’m going to save my father.”

“Then you might need this.”

Frowning, I watched him closely as he bent to pick up a small bag at his feet. He opened it, fished around and then threw me a bundle about the size of an apple. I caught it mid-air, but didn’t look at it.

“Go ahead, open it.” He waved at me with both hands and then sat on his log.

I rolled the package over in my hands. The bundle was covered in oiled leather and bound with the sinew of some animal, deer by the feel of it. I untied the lacing and flipped open the leather. Inside lay a necklace of carved stone beads, and in the center hung the canine of a large predator. Brilliantly white, and perfectly curved, it was four inches long from root to tip. I ran a finger over the smooth surface, feeling it warm under my skin. “What is this from?”

He grinned, all teeth. “My namesake. There is great protective power in the tooth of a griffin.”

I looked up. “Why would you give me this?”

“Wear the necklace, Princess. It will keep you safe from the worms.”

“I should give it to someone who matters. Like my father.”

Griffin’s eyes softened. “Too late, the worms will be deep in him already, you know that. Now it’s a matter of setting off the fire as fast as you can. The necklace would have helped him at the beginning, if we could have gotten it to him and kept him clear of the queen.” My heart stuttered as my hands clenched around the necklace.

“Why, then, didn’t you give this to my father? He is the one threatened, not me.”

“He will always be threatened. He will always have to be wary of his affections, of who he loves.” He pointed at the sleeping Fern. Yes, I understood all too well. To love my father, you stood to pay the highest price. You put your life on the line. Like my mom did. And now Fern would take that same path.

Griffin stood and walked to me, took the necklace and slid it over my head. “There is precious little time if you mean to save those who despise you, and the one person who cares for you.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “When you are done, bring back my necklace. This is a loan.”

I stepped away, toward my home, pausing to look over my shoulder.

Griffin gave a giant shudder, his skin and muscle rippling as he shifted into his wolf form. His coat all silver and black, danced in the light breeze as he shook. Tipping his head back, he let out a long howl that echoed through my heart. Words without words.

Run, child of the earth, run to save those you love.

There was no real question, at least, not for me. I needed to get to where Wicker was and use the cleansing fire.

Finding him, though, that would be a problem.

The Spiral was the best chance I would have to get information. My pulse steadied as I jogged, my leg hummed with a deep ache, and I did my best to ignore it. As I ran, the fear slowly slipped away, and with its disappearance, my connection to the earth sharpened. Power, clean and pure, slid through my body, healing the wounds, and sparking my heart with hope.

I ran for all I was worth, the power driving me, giving me the strength and speed I needed. The chance I needed.

The trees blurred into a dusky red of the bark and green of the needles as my legs sped me faster than the first time I’d connected like this. Faster and faster. Need and hope driving me, my purpose not for myself, but for my family.

My father and Fern. Everyone who Cassava would cut down in order to take her place on the throne. I had to believe I could stop her, that I could bring this madness to an end.

Minutes later I stumbled to a stop in front of the Spiral, my lungs and legs straining for air. I went to my knees and sucked in huge, gulping breaths. My body had completely healed during the run; the earth’s power wiping away the last vestiges of aches and wounds.

The Ender on duty, Snap, a favorite of Cassava’s lifted his dark brown eyebrows high, eyes glittering with undisguised disgust. “Get out of here, Useless.”

“My father,” I gasped out, leaning over at the waist. “I need to speak with him.” I was hoping I could get to him first, slip the necklace on him. Maybe Griffin was wrong, maybe the necklace would protect my father if I hurried.

“He’s not here.”

“Where is he?” I bit the words out, wanting to punch Snap in the balls for being such a piece of worm shit.

“Eastern front still. Not that it should matter to you. Why aren’t you with the others at the field?”

His eyes darted away from mine, just a flicker but I knew it for what it was. Snap was lying to me, my father was here somewhere. Just a matter of where. I let out a groan, ignoring Snap as he called after me, and ran from the Spiral to the Ender’s barracks.

My footsteps echoed in the large empty room. A sense of abandonment flickered over me, chilling me to the core. There was no one there, not a soul. To be sure, I ran through the hallways, checking bedrooms. No one. I swallowed hard. Snap said something about why wasn’t I somewhere, where did he say? Was it the gathering field?

I ran to the healers’ rooms. Empty too. My throat tightened. Had they all died? Was I too late already?

I bolted back the way I’d come, seeing something that made me stumble to a stop. In front of me, the bark under a young redwood rippled. The new growth bulged as a large worm inched its way through the material, driving deeper until the ripple was gone. The tree quivered and for a moment, I thought I heard a cry of pain.

The worms had truly invaded. And if they were here in such thick numbers, there may be no saving anyone. I touched my necklace and hoped Griffin was right, that I would be spared long enough to do something about this.

Making my way to the gathering field, I wove between the homes, looking in the windows for any sign of life.

Nothing.

A hand snaked out from between two houses and snagged me. I let out a yelp and then Coal was there, crushing me against his chest. “Be quiet and listen to me. Your father is gone and Cassava has taken over. She has a Sylph with her, the tall one. I remember you telling me about a Sylph in your dream with a scar. I’m so sorry I didn’t believe . . . .” his eyes glazed over and he stood there as if someone had turned off a switch in his head. I grabbed his face. That damn glow of pink whispered across the whites of his eyes.

“Coal, what are you doing?” I shook him and still, he just stood there. I shoved him so he slumped against the wall and slid down. Unable to snap him out of it, I forced him to sit. I may not have wanted to be with him anymore, but that didn’t mean I didn’t care about him.

In the distance, I heard the murmur of a large crowd. A steady thrumming rumbled through the ground reaching out to touch me, like a heartbeat with a stutter. I followed it, turned the corner around the last large tree and couldn’t believe what was in front of me.

Every person in our community stood in the clearing we used for large gatherings. They coughed and groaned, and their breath gurgled in their lungs, the worms eating their way out of the bodies like maggots at a buffet.

At the center of the clearing Cassava stood, her hands raised above her head, a pink dusting of light sparkling around her entire body. So there it was, the finally surety that she was controlling those in our family.

But it was the others who kept my eyes drawn to them. Like Coal, they seemed to have nothing left of life in their eyes. They were for all intents and purposes, gone. Yet I knew they lived, could see their chests rise and fall, could hear the rattling in their lungs that their breathing caused.

I dug my fingers into the tree beside me, feeling a worm shimmy under my hand. What the hell could I do? Anything?

Granite was there, standing next to Cassava. Ash, Blossom, Mal, and all the other Enders stood a few feet away. Why not Snap, why had he been left at the Spiral? He was left behind to guard something.

My father. The truth of it slammed home. My father was in the Spiral, and Snap was guarding him. Yet I couldn’t move, the sight in front of me as hypnotizing as a cobra’s deadly dance.

What was Cassava doing? That pink glow hummed like a hive of bees, pulsing around all of them. Like a heartbeat outside their bodies, driving them to move even when they were so sick most shouldn’t have been standing.

“Where are you, Larkspur?” Cassava called, and an urge to obey her slid over me. I shook it off and kept my body glued to the tree, my fingernails digging into the bark.

“Larkspuuuuuuuur,” her voice echoed over the people, my family, and they . . . repeated it back to her, a creepy groaning of my name that made me want to vomit. “Find her, bring her to me.”

Oh. Shit.

Heart in my throat, I didn’t waste time. I had to get to the Spiral. As I passed Coal, his hand snaked out and grabbed at my ankle, tripping me. He was on me in a split second, and though I knew I shouldn’t hesitate, I did. I didn’t want to hurt him.

He had no such inclinations as he jerked me by my ankle and dragged me toward Cassava and her mob. I pulled my dagger and slashed it across his arm. Blood poured from the wound, dripping onto me, the layers of muscle and flesh flapping with every step he took.

He didn’t let go and a sob ripped out of me. Terror ate at me, for me, for Coal, for my family. My spear was the only chance I would have to free myself. “Let go, Coal, I’ll cut your hand off!” I yelled at him, hoping to break through whatever spell he was under.

He didn’t answer me, and there was no hesitation in his steps.

Tears pooled in my eyes as I pulled my spear free. It would be an awkward angle, but I knew I could do it. I just didn’t want to. The sound of others drawing near was what gave me the strength to do what I must to save myself. I swung my spear hard toward Coal’s wrist. The blade cut through like the bone was a spring fiddlehead, switched in half like it was nothing. He didn’t scream, the gush of blood from his amputated hand something I knew he wouldn’t survive unless a healer got to him. His hand still clutched my ankle, as I stood and ran, a sob on my lips. I didn’t wait to see what happened, to see if he would fall down, or just keep walking. I kicked off his still warm, twitching hand and bolted.

I had to get to the Spiral before someone else grabbed me.

And with the odds a thousand to one, my chances were not good.

Not good at all.

CHAPTER 20

I ran for the Spiral, but my feet slowed as I drew close, slowed, as my mind told me what I already knew.

I couldn’t run from this. Griffin was right, and I knew it. My father would have been one of the first infected, and I couldn’t depend on him to take care of this for us.

Even if I managed to survive, Cassava would still be after me, she’d still be trying to kill my father. Breathing hard from the emotions more than the run, I spun in a quick circle, mind racing. Then I bent my head back and looked straight up. The trees stood tall and firm, their branches touching one another in many places. The other children had played in the branches, safe in the knowledge that if they fell, they could soften the ground to ease their landing. I’d never played like that, not after Cassava killed my family.

“Come on, Lark, you can do this.” I prepped myself. The kids used their connection to the earth to be able to cling to the trees like monkeys. There was no time like the present to see if I could.

I ran straight at the closest tree trunk, digging my hands and boots into the bark. At least, that was what I tried to do.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Ash spoke with an authority I knew wasn’t his. “Don’t you want to see what we have in store for you?”

I didn’t look down, didn’t say a word, just fought for purchase on the bark, a cry slipping past my lips as he grabbed my ankles. “Please!” I screamed, hoping for the mother goddess to hear me, to answer me.

Nothing.

He gave a sharp yank and I fell hard, hitting the dirt, an explosion of air erupting from my lungs, leaving me breathless.

I rolled to my back to look up at him. His eyes had that strange pink glow, the same as the mob. “Ash, she’s controlling you, you know she is! You can fight her.”

His jaw twitched and he gave his head a shake. “You don’t know; you’re immune to her.” He fell to his knees beside me, and I grabbed his shoulders, my hands on his bare skin, feeling how cold he was. Clammy, as if he were sick.

“What are you talking about? What am I immune to?”

“Something in you keeps you safe from her spells, it’s in her ring, Lark. The ring she wears gives her power over people’s minds. She can’t compel you like she can the rest of us. That’s why she has kept you alive, she’s trying to figure out—” He gave a cough and a worm slid out of his mouth, pasty and wriggling. The worm was two inches long and swollen from feasting on Ash’s flesh and blood, the red glow to its thick squirming body making me sick to my stomach.

“Ash,” I whispered his name, hands tightening on him. “You’re sick, we have to get you to a healer.” Even though I knew a healer could do nothing, it was at least something.

“You have to stop her.” His eyes met mine, clear of the pink glow. “You’re the only one who can stand against her.”

I dropped my hands and the glowing pink haze returned to his eyes. He backhanded me, snapping my head so hard I thought he might break my jaw. Reaching down, he grabbed my ankles, the same as Coal had done, and dragged me to the Ender barracks.

“I think it’s time you did some penance for your disobedience. Time you learned your place, Useless. I think we will wait to kill you, to show you the devastation after we are done.” He jerked me hard and my head hit a protruding rock, stunning me.

In the Ender barracks, he pulled me across the training floor and I scrabbled at the dirt, twisting and flipping my body around. Trying to break free. But even sick, Ash was too strong, and I had lost all my weapons. He took me down to the lower levels where the brig was, a dingy hole full of dust and rust. More of an object lesson than anything, it hadn’t been used since before my father’s time. Hadn’t needed to be. The cells were cut out from the world, an oubliette of sorts that made it so you couldn’t touch the earth, and you couldn’t be drawn out of the cell through the earth. The cells were a place of non-existence. Where a criminal could be tossed and forgotten about for years.

He heaved me into the first cell and I grabbed at the doorframe, screaming, “Ash, snap out of it! Please!”

“He can’t. She’s holding him in thrall to her. Rather tightly at the moment,” a voice I knew all too well said. A voice that gave me hope. I wasn’t alone in this; Granite would help me.

The shock made me lose my grip on the cell’s edge and Ash threw me in. I hit the far wall hard. Granite strode in, his body straight and strong, no sign of the lung burrowers in him. “Granite, you have to stop her,” I said, pulling myself to my feet as the door behind us clanged. I let out a groan. Now we were both trapped.

“Lark, do you know why she wants to kill you, do you understand what’s going on?” He crouched in front of me, his eyes full of compassion.

I shook my head. “Ash just said she couldn’t compel me, like she could everyone else.”

He gave a wry twist of his lips, hardly even a grin. “Well, that is part of it.” From his waist he pulled a few items and placed them on the floor in front of him. Motioning to me to come closer, I did, wondering what he was doing.

He laid a small, dusty red, hollowed out bowl, a pouch, and a flask. He mixed the ingredients from the pouch with that from the flask together, slowly, as he spoke. “You are one of the last, Lark. You are one of the only ones in the elemental world who can control not one, but two elements in equal portions. You are a half-breed, but not like your friend Cactus. He can barely touch his power with the earth, I doubt he could even make a seedling sprout.”

I nodded. I knew that. Knew that was why it was discouraged to have relations with someone from another family. It diluted the blood and what you could reach in terms of power was pretty much nullified. Cactus, for a half-breed, was strong, his ability with the earth was only marginally better than mine. That was what passed for strong in the half-breed world.

Granite stirred the powder and liquid together slowly. “You can reach both, and that makes you very dangerous. It’s why the queen blocked your power.”

“You . . . know?”

He nodded. “Yes, I was trying to see if I could get you to break through the block she put on you. But I couldn’t, no matter how hard I pushed your training.”

“You tried, that’s more than a lot of people would have done.” I let out a shuddering breath. “But I still have to find a way to stop her. She’s going to kill my father.”

He gave me a gentle smile. “Hold still.”

I did as he asked. He dipped two fingers into the shallow bowl and spread the paste across my forehead. The mixture was warm, and seemed to soak through my skin and into my skull. My mouth went dry as he took his hand from my head. “What’s this for?”

“To make sure you don’t break through the block she put on you.”

I slapped a hand to my forehead, but felt nothing. The mixture had soaked in completely. “Granite, why?”

He shrugged and stood. “Because your mother loved me, too. But your father convinced her he was better for her. And it got her killed. I promised myself I wouldn’t let you suffer when the time came. I had the queen keep you away while the worms invaded, but that was all I could do. This is the only way, Lark.”

Suddenly my three-day hiatus with Coal made sense. The queen had done that too. “You were never sick, were you?”

He shook his head.

Tears stung my eyes. “Ash wasn’t the one owned by her. It was you. You are her pet.”

He turned his back, and rapped his knuckles on the bars. “Ash, let me out.”

The door creaked open and I sat there staring at where Granite had been. “I trusted you! You were my friend!”

He glanced over his shoulder. “And that’s where you went wrong, Lark. You shouldn’t trust anyone in this world. They will use you, just like the king used your mother. Perhaps you’ll learn this lesson better than she did. If you do, you might survive. But I doubt it.”

A slam of the cell door and I dropped my head, thoughts reeling. Granite was helping Cassava. He’d set me up to mistrust Ash. Why?

Maybe because Ash was the only one I should trust. The only one like me who understood the evil that lay within the queen.

I stumbled forward, pressing my face to the bars. There was Ash, sitting quite close to the bars. Sliding down, I reached through the bars to him, thinking about before. When I’d touched his bare shoulders. If I had both sides of my bloodline, then I could control Spirit too. If I could get through the blocks put on me. When I’d touched him before, the pink glow had faded from his eyes and he’d been himself. Worm shit and goblin piss, could it be that easy? Would it even work now that Granite had put that crap on my forehead?

“Ash, please, you have to listen to me. I need your help. I know you don’t want her in your head. I saw your memories. I saw your hate for her. You have to fight her, I know you can, you’re strong enough.” I put my hand on his knee and squeezed. He jerked his leg away from me. Not the reaction I was looking for. But then he grabbed my fingers, tight enough to make my knuckles pop. The second our skin touched, the pink glow faded.

Mother goddess, maybe this would work. His body slumped, and if the heat in his hand was any indication of the fever coursing through him, he was in trouble. With agonizing slowness, he lifted his eyes to mine.

“Lark, how can you block her from me?”

“I think it’s when we touch, something about that keeps her out of your head. As long as I don’t let her power roll over me, I can keep her free of you,” I whispered, tightening my grip on him. My head began to thrum, the pressure of a storm building from the inside of my skull. The scent of cinnamon filled my nose, and I shook my head, instantly regretting it.

“The mixture Granite put on you, you have to fight it, you have to break through it.” Ash coughed, but didn’t let go of me.

I swayed, my head hitting the bars. “How?” The lines drawn on my head seemed to be pulling together, pulling and pinching my skin even as the pain reverberated outward from the center of my brain. A groan slid out of me and Ash’s hand tightened on me.

“Not sure. But you should be able to push it out with your abilities. That’s all I know.”

Some help he was. But it was something. I focused on the pain, easy enough. My body shook with the spasms in my head and the idea of pushing the block out formed into a solid image: me in the planting field, digging at an invasive weed that would choke the life out of the seedlings. In my mind’s eye I could see the edges of the mixture wrapping around me just like that weed. I worked around it, then put my fingers to my forehead where Granite had spread the thick paste.

“Out.” I whispered, pushing it with everything I had in me. Sweat popped out along my forehead, and with that sweat, the scent of cinnamon filled the air again as I coaxed the mixture out, wiping it off as it slid from my pores.

“Here, wipe it with this,” Ash handed me something, and my fingers grasped a wet cloth. I slopped it across my face, taking the last of the thick paste from me. I panted as if I’d been running, but the pain was gone, and so was the smell of cinnamon. I forced myself to sit up, my one hand still clutched in Ash’s.

“Ash, let me out, we have to get to Cassava. We have to stop her.”

He shook his head. “No, I need to be in the cell. If she tries to call me through the earth to her, she’ll not be able to get to me then. In there, she can’t touch me.” He pulled out the ring of keys with his free hand and opened the cell door. He coughed, the spasm wracking his body and jerking his hand from mine. I pushed my way out and shoved him down into his chair, my hands on his face. Skin to skin.

“I wish I could heal you,” I whispered. “But you haven’t been sick long. I’ll release the cleansing fire, and you’ll be okay.”

He nodded, his skin feverish and dry. I helped him stand, keeping my skin in contact with his and then helped him into the cell. I laid him down and he stayed there, breathing hard. If he was this bad, this fast, how much worse would my father be?

“Lark. The ring. Get the ring off her hand and you’ll clear everyone’s minds.”

I nodded, but there were no words left.

I tried not to think about all that could be as I left Ash behind and stumbled through the hallways. I paused in the testing room. On the far side, was the folded uniform of an Ender. The brown leather was thick enough to take a hit from a weapon, the brass buckles and rivets holding it together burnished to a high gleam. I may never have another chance to wear it.

“What the hell.” I ran across the room, shucking my clothes as I went. If I was going to die, which, if I was being honest with myself, was a pretty high possibility, then I might as well go out in style. No, the truth of it was, I knew it was my time to be an Ender. And they would give me far more protection than my training gear. The leathers were cool against my bare skin as I slid them on, lined with dark green silk to keep the chaffing to a minimum. Cinching the buckles, I felt better already. More prepared.

I tightened the belt, and on it slid an array of weapons. Blades mostly. But it was my own spear I wanted. My mother’s spear. If I got a chance at taking out Cassava, I wanted it to be with my mother’s spear.

I went to my room and pulled it from under the bed. The wood was blackened, as if it had been through a fire and then polished to a high gleam. I turned the weapon in the light, the blade catching and sending flickers of color off the razor edge.

“Be with me, Mama, Bram. Help me fight her. Help me put your memories to rest.” I leaned the shaft against my forehead, and then rolled it in my hand. With a decisive sweep I sliced it through the air, for once in my life knowing I was the only one who could save our family. I was the only one who could stop this madness. But it wasn’t really for them, and as much as I loved my father and would be devastated if he was killed, this moment had more weight to it than even that.

I pointed the spear, stood straight, and stepped out the doorway. I was going to kill the queen, for so many reasons, but only one mattered.

“This is for you, Mom. You and Bramley.”

CHAPTER 21

Weaving my way through the Rim was my plan, dodging those who would mob me. But as I peered out of the Ender barracks I knew that wasn’t going to be the case.

“I’m going to end up worm food,” I muttered to myself. Everyone who was able bodied walked through the main thoroughfare, their eyes lit with a seriously unhealthy pink glow, like a wicked case of pink eye run rampant. If only it was that simple.

There was no backdoor out of the barracks, which meant if they saw me in the doorway I really was screwed. And then it hit me. They were looking for me, my long blonde hair making me stand out. I ran back inside, grabbed a helmet, and tucked my hair up into it, then wrapped the lower part of my face with a piece of dark brown material from one of my tops, leaving only my eyes visible. If someone looked close enough, they would see it was me, being the only person around with one eye gold, the other green. But I didn’t think they’d look close enough. Or at least, I was hoping they wouldn’t.

Moving swiftly, I strode out of the barracks with as much confidence as I could muster, brushing past the first few people with no problem. They never even turned their heads my way. Not even a blink. My heart raced, like a herd of wild horses spooked by a thunderstorm, yet I kept my pace even.

“Who the hell are you?”

I knew it was Snap, knew I didn’t have a choice. I swung toward him in a blind slash, spear outstretched, and slammed it through his neck. His head rolled to the side, eyes and mouth blinking at me as the light went out in him.

Around me, the people turned as a unit.

“Hello, little Larkspur.” They all spoke, but not clearly together making it seem like a strange echo of one voice. I couldn’t kill them all, nor did I want to; this wasn’t their doing. I had a simple choice. I could try and fight my way out, which I wasn’t willing to do. Or I could give Cassava what she wanted.

“I’m coming to you, bitch. You still in the gathering field?”

The people all threw their heads back, laughter spilling out of their tortured bodies, worms spilling from lips and blood trickling down their faces. Tears prickled my eyes. These were our people, our family. How could she do this to them?

The laughter abruptly stopped and every single head snapped my way. “Come then, little Larkspur. Let me see you. . . . see you . . . you.”

Planting the butt of the spear in the ground, I moved out. The walk to the gathering field was strange and anxiety curled through me. Flanked on all sides, there was no way I could run now. Why didn’t Cassava just have them mob me?

I knew the answer, she was an attention whore, and wanted me to see whatever her master plan was, no doubt.

How the hell was I going to do this? Cassava had Granite and Wicker with her. At least. What if she had other elementals? What about my siblings, would they fight with her, or against her?

My step faltered as I imagined facing a Salamander. Like Maggie. Mouth dry, I stepped onto the edge of the gathering field, our people behind me. I chose to believe they were there to support me, pretending they would cheer me on.

Cassava sat in a makeshift throne on the raised mound at the head of the field. Granite on her right, Wicker on her left. At Wicker’s feet lay a clay pot, about the size of a large pumpkin. I had no doubt that was what held the cleansing fire.

“Unleash the fire, Cassava. I know you have it,” I shouted across the green space.

She tipped a finger at me, beckoning me forward. “What have you done with my Ash? I can’t sense him anymore.”

“Can you sense Snapdragon?” I held my ground.

Her eyes narrowed. “No, I can’t.”

“I killed them both.”

She laughed, and the mob laughed with her as they formed a firm line, locking their arms together, and began to push me forward. Worms crawled off them and onto me, but when they touched my skin they fell off, writhing.

Thank you, Griffin.

If Cassava wanted me closer, then that worked for what I wanted too. I stepped away from the pushing hands and strode across the grassy field.

“Oh, look at her. First she thinks I will believe she was able to kill not one, but two Enders, and now she comes at me like she could hurt me. Silly girl. Granite, take care of her.”

My steps faltered. “Don’t. Don’t do this, Granite. You aren’t under her power, I can see it in your face.”

In fact, there was no glow about him as he slid his dual swords from the sheaths at his sides. “No, I am not under her power, as you say. But I do this of a free will. Our king is weak; Cassava is the queen we need. The one who will save our people from being the doormat the other elementals believe us to be.”

His eyes were hard, and he swung his blades in a whirling arc toward me. I ducked and slid the pole of my spear through his legs, making him stumble. I followed with a hard thrust of the butt end to his chest, knocking him onto his ass.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Granite. You are my mentor, my friend. You saved my life!”

“Then it is mine to take, isn’t it?” he growled as he leapt toward me.

I blocked his blows, barely, dodging his fist as he swung at me. “Even now, you’re trying not to hurt me.”

He slowed and his eyes filled with a sorrow that was palpable on the air. “You aren’t strong enough to be here, Ulani. You have to leave.”

Cassava snarled. “She is not Ulani. She is Larkspur, and you will kill her or I will make you kill her!”

Granite’s body tensed and I fought to keep my hands still, and my weapon lowered. “If you loved her, then you would want to kill the one who killed her. It wasn’t lung burrowers, Granite. It was Cassava. She killed my mother and brother.”

Granite shook his head. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”

I pointed with my spear to Cassava. “Ask her. Before you kill me, ask her for the truth.”

Before he could turn, Cassava began to laugh. “Oh goddess, this is so much fun. Granite, I killed Ulani and her bastard boy, smiling as they died. Now, you have sworn oaths to me, the unbreakable Oath. So do as I command and kill Ulani’s last child. Wipe her from the face of the mother goddess.”

Granite’s face lost color at an alarming speed. “You . . . .” He went to his knees, shaking his head. “But I remember, Ulani and the worms.”

Cassava snorted, and a pink glow suffused her right hand and the ring on it before she snapped her fingers. “There, have your foolish memories back. All of them. All those you asked me to take away so you wouldn’t feel the pain anymore.”

As if a boulder had been dropped on him, Granite fell to the ground, his body twitching. I ran past him and up the incline of the raised mound.

“I’m so glad you wanted to come of your own free will, Larkspur. What is this ability you have that keeps you from doing exactly what I say? Hmm? Your mother was a half-breed, unable to touch the earth’s power. So. What possible excuse could you have for being strong enough to resist me?”

“Ash resisted you.” I stopped about fifteen feet from her.

She waved a hand at me. “Bah, he’s stubborn like none other I’ve ever known. He still had to do what I wanted. But I let him believe he could fight me. It kept him in line.”

My jaw tightened. “Release the fire, Cassava, and I’ll let you go.”

Her eyebrows shot up. “You. Will let me. Go?”

I nodded. “Yes. Go. As in I won’t stop you from leaving. Just release the fire, let our people be healed.”

A sly grin slipped across her lips. “Beat Wicker in a battle of hand-to-hand, and I will release the fire.”

She crooked a finger and Wicker stepped around her. He full-on grinned at me, baring his teeth. “I thought I was seeing a ghost when I first spied you in training. But knowing I get to kill the one I was kept from all those years ago, how sweet it will be to finish unfinished business.”

“You talk too much,” I said, leaping toward him, knowing he wouldn’t expect it. Or so I thought.

He sidestepped me and I crashed to my knees. He kicked me in the side, but I was already moving so it was a glancing blow, one that barely skimmed my ribs. Still, it sent me skittering across the platform. Right to where the fire pot sat, all alone and unattended. I grabbed it up and held it over my head.

“No, you little bitch!”

Around Wicker, clear blue sparkles rippled across his knuckles as I threw the pot down. A huge gust of wind ripped in behind me, sweeping the pot into the air where it hovered.

“You break the rules, Larkspur,” Cassava cooed.

“Thought I’d join your club,” I shot back. Sweat rolled down my spine, nerves getting the better of me. Damn it, I thought I’d beaten her. Thought I’d saved my family.

“Well, since we are both breaking the rules, how about this one? Wicker, kill her. Steal her air.”

Oh. Shit. I knew what was coming. He’d pull the air from my lungs, collapsing them until my frantic heart stopped beating. Just like my mother and Bramley.

I clamped my mouth shut and glared at him, knowing if there was any moment when I needed to reach my connection to the earth, this was it. This moment, or I was going to die a very, very painful death.

There could be no hesitation any longer; there was no one who would save me. I dropped to the earth, driving my hands into the soil and bowing my head.

“Oh, Wicker, look. She’s trying to reach her power. But she can’t, not as long as I hold the block on it. And Granite put a little extra ‘oomph’ into the block with his concoction.”

Wicker laughed. “I’m going to enjoy this. Do you know, I think her mother begged me to kill her quickly?”

I raged against their words and there, just outside my reach, I sensed the power of the earth, growing. Rising to my call, bending to my will.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Cassava whispered, her voice audible over the roaring wind. A thick film coated my eyes, dusted in pink and as it drove into me like a sharp spike, that building connection to the earth receded. “Oh, you will obey me, either by your will, or because I will break you.”

“NO!” I screamed and fought back, but she was so strong and the urge to just give in and let her win was heavy on me. But that was the ring. I knew it was. I bucked hard under the fury mounting in me with no place to go. Nothing to do with it but scream.

The wind roared around my ears and I was lifted into a maelstrom of debris. The air slowly began to escape me, no matter how hard I kept my mouth shut, breath by breath it slid from my lungs. Was this how it was with my mother? Did it take this long, or were they drawing it out? I didn’t close my eyes, I stared into the swirling wind. Hating Cassava.

Hating Wicker.

Hating how weak I was.

Griffin’s voice found me in that darkness my heart had fallen into. Child of the earth. You stopped the Enders with your words. Do it now.

My air was gone and I fought to draw a breath, my lungs burning, muscles and heart screaming for oxygen.

I couldn’t speak, so I mouthed the words. “Wicker, stop.”

I plunged to the ground, hit hard, and sucked in a lungful of air. Like a seedling being watered after a dry spell, I drank it down.

A sharp slap of skin on skin. “Why did you stop? Did I tell you to stop?”

“I . . . don’t know. I heard someone tell me to stop.”

Cassava snorted and I rolled to face her on my hands and knees. “I told him to stop.”

Her eyes widened, understanding flowing over her face. “No. No, your mother was a half-breed.”

I slowly stood. “She was a child of Spirit. As am I.”

A large, black wolf sauntered onto the raised ground, and Griffin shifted in a split second. “Yes, she was. And now her daughter will take her place as a proper princess.”

Cassava screamed and scooped up the fire pot. Wicker stood, trembling. “I can’t move. I can’t move. What have you done to me?”

I swallowed hard and would have undone, or tried to undo, whatever it was I’d done. As it was, I didn’t have the chance.

A sword slid through Wicker’s middle, and then a second one popped out of his chest. He gurgled as he stared down at his pierced body, hands touching the blades, his eyes wide and staring. “My mother always said I’d die as I lived. I’m sorry, Mother.”

He slid forward as the blades were yanked out of his body, twisting as they went. Granite stood behind him. “That was for Ulani, you piece of shit fly boy.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

His eyes hardened as he looked at me. “Do not thank me. Your death is next.”

“Granite, you aren’t under her sway.” I backed away from him, spinning my spear in front of me. “Why would you listen to her?”

“Some oaths can’t be broken, Lark. Remember that as you make your own.” He lunged and the green flicker around his fingers tipped me off. I sidestepped as the earth fell away behind me.

“Damn you,” he roared, slashing at me with such ferocity it was all I could do to keep the blade from my skin. I couldn’t beat him, he was too good, too experienced. And he was driven by pain, something I understood all too well.

“Any oath can be broken by the mother goddess, call on her.” I panted the words as I fought to keep each blow from landing hard. He clipped my left shoulder and I jabbed the butt of the spear into his right thigh, hard enough that he dropped to one knee. But I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. I wanted to believe he was under Cassava’s power, despite what he’d said. Despite the fact that I could clearly see his eyes were his own.

He gave me a tired, sad smile. “Just like your mother, you are too soft for this life, Lark. It will be a mercy to kill you now instead of letting you struggle against the inevitable for years.”

“Whatever will let you sleep at night, you go ahead and believe,” I snapped, straddling my legs, one forward and one back, to brace myself for his next attack.

His hand flicked, green glow flashing in a pulse that I didn’t recognize until too late. The ivy growing along the edge of the raised mound snaked across the grass and jerked me from my feet. I swung my spear, cutting through it, but not fast enough.

Granite swung his two swords in a cross-blade blow meant to remove heads. I knew. I’d seen him do it to the dummies in the training room. I threw myself backward, unable to take my eyes from the swords as they cut in front of my face, the tips of them nicking me under the chin.

I let out a yelp and tried to roll, but the vines crawled over me, tightening their grip over my arms and legs, keeping me from doing anything that might save my ass. Panic reared its ugly head, making me babble. “Granite, don’t do this. I can stop her. You’ll be free of your oath if she’s dead.”

He barked out a bitter laugh. “No, I won’t. Oaths hold until the person who made them die, Lark, not until the person they made them to die. I made an oath to her that I cannot break.”

Panic flooded me as he stood over me, one leg on each side, one sword raised up. “Goodbye, Larkspur.”

I shot a glance to the side, to see Griffin standing there. “Help me!”

“I told you, if you can’t touch your power when you really need to, you aren’t any good to the world. Save yourself.”

Everything seemed to slow down, the drip of sweat on Granite’s face falling in a zigzag line, the sword coming straight for my face, the point glittering in the sunlight through the trees.

There was no time to think, I just reached for the power, blasted through the blocks despite the pain, and took hold of it. There was only one thing I remembered how to do, the only aggressive tactic I’d ever used.

Beneath Granite’s feet, the earth exploded, sending him flying through the air, tumbling, his weapons falling from his hands. He hit the ground, rolled, and was on his feet looking at me with wide eyes.

“Impossible.”

I flicked my hands, best as I could tied to the ground by the ivy, and the trees around us bent backward, as if pulled by a huge rubber band trembling with the strain.

My eyes met his and he straightened. “I was wrong about you, you are stronger. You are not your mother.”

A tear slipped from my eyes. “Goodbye, my friend,” and I released the trees. The wind passing over their leaves and needles made a whooshing sound, and I closed my eyes a split second before they hit him.

Griffin stepped to my side, crouched and cut the vines away. I lifted my hands, and flicked my fingers, sending the vines away from me before he could finish. He half-tipped his head toward me. “Go after the queen. You have to release the fire, and you have less than five minutes before it will be too late for your father and many of your family.”

Five minutes. I sat up, pushed the sorrow in my heart away. Griffin was right. Cassava had slipped away while I dealt with Granite. My job as an Ender was to track down and execute traitors.

And there was only one traitor left in the forest.

CHAPTER 22

I counted as I ran, five minutes was three hundred seconds. If there had been any doubt in my mind that Cassava was done controlling the people, I was quickly dissuaded. I barely stepped off the raised mound when a group of people swept up and tried to surround me, their eyes glazed and chests heaving from the worms. I sidestepped them easily, their movements sluggish, at best. No matter how hard Cassava might be pushing them, their bodies were failing. They were dying.

I had to get to the cleansing fire and release it. And fast.

Two hundred twenty-nine.

Running, I dodged around the first group, keeping my spear tight to my side and pumping only one arm. I had to back track three times in order to get around bigger groups of people. I didn’t want to hurt anyone else, and I knew that it wasn’t really their faults anyway. Still, they were slowing me down and I cursed them for it.

One hundred eighty-four.

The Spiral rose in front of me, calling me to it. I ran up the steps and into the main hall, not pausing to look around. I knew where Cassava would be. The throne room, without a doubt, the seat of power, the place she wanted to make her own.

One hundred ten. I bolted in that direction, body slamming three people on my way there.

Seventy-one. I felt bad, and hoped I didn’t hurt them, but I had to see everyone who could be controlled by Cassava as an enemy. Which meant everyone.

I skidded to a stop at the edge of the throne room, my heart leaping into my throat.

Forty-four. Cassava sat on the throne, the fire pot in her hands. My father laid at her feet, his body splayed out, face down. Around her were her children, standing from oldest to youngest. Vetch, Belladonna, Keeda and Briar—the twins—and Raven. Briar and Raven were the only ones who looked terrified, Briar’s cheeks stained with tears as she clung to Raven’s hand, and Raven’s skin paled with shock. The others, grinned, their eyes holding the same wicked darkness their mother’s had. They were her children through and through. They wouldn’t help me face her.

Raven gave a slight shake of his head. I heard the unspoken words, though. They couldn’t get away, not even if they wanted to. But I still could.

“I’m not leaving those I love.”

His jaw twitched and he pulled Briar closer to him, away from the others, the division clear. Cassava glared at him. “I will deal with you two later.” Then she turned her eyes to me.

“You wanted me to release the cleansing fire, Larkspur. I think I will.”

Eight.

She launched the pot high, arching it over her head.

Six. By the time it hit the ground, the clock would have run out, it would be too late.

I took three running strides and threw my spear.

Two. The clay fire pot hovered at the peak of its arc, the spear shattering it in the air. The fire exploded in a blast that sent me sailing backward. I slammed into the wall, hard enough that ribs cracked, splintering under the force. Overwhelming heat followed the blast, scorching my skin, sliding through me as it searched out the worms. On my knees, I watched as my father’s body jerked and heaved, worms pouring out of his nose and mouth, dying as they shriveled up beside him.

I crawled across the floor, sweat dripping down my bare arms and leaving little drops of moisture that lasted all of two seconds on the fire heated floor. I crept to my father’s side and scooped his upper body into my arms. His eyelids fluttered, and his breathing eased. He was alive. I’d done it in time.

But how would he know that Cassava was a scheming bitch? That she wanted his death? His eyes opened and I shook my head.

An idea formed, like a spark of lightning across my mind, and I grabbed onto it. I shook him lightly, making sure he saw my eyes. “No, no! You killed him!” He gave the slightest inclination of his head that could easily be seen as movement from me shaking him. And then he closed his eyes again.

Cassava laughed. “Of course, I killed him, that was the plan, you little idiot. How sweet that this will be the only time you get to hold the one who despised you the most.”

A gasp slipped from me, both from the pain of my body and the pain in my heart that she might be telling the truth. “He didn’t despise me.”

Her grin widened as she stalked around me, her three oldest children fanning out behind her. “You remind him of Ulani. Too much. And she was cheating on him, with Granite. You know that?” The glow around her hand pulsed, the pink fire swelling until it encompassed her body. I lowered my father to the ground and stood.

“He didn’t despise me, and my mother would never cheat on him. I know she wouldn’t.”

Cassava glared at me. “Damn you, believe me!”

Her roar hit me, a sound wave of epic proportions, and I leaned into it as it swept my hair up. Her voice wrapped around me and squeezed like a boa constrictor, tightening until I could barely form the word I needed to say: “Liar.”

The power around me came to a pulsing crescendo, hammering at me to let it in, that all would be well if I just listened to her. I pushed against it, like sticking my hands into deep mud and trying to push off. The power sucked me under and I held my breath . . . as if that would help. All I knew was I couldn’t let her in. If I did, I was giving up.

My boots dug into the hard packed floor, and from the ground, a thrum of strength resonated through me, starting at my feet, crawling through my body, pushing her magic away from me. Forcing her to leave me, inch-by-inch until . . . I was free of her. I gasped in a breath and found myself on my knees, staring up at her. She had a hand in my hair and held my head back at an awkward angle. Her eyes glittered with a hate she didn’t bother to hide.

“Your mother could defy me, too. I always wondered how strong the genetics were. Time to die, Larkspur, like the whore’s bastard that you are.” Her hand lifted and the sparkle of green around her fingertips lit up her fingers. She was going to drop me into a hole and crush me.

“Tell me, why do you want him dead? At least give me the truth before you kill me.” I tried to look at my father, but she held my head tight.

She burst out laughing, almost doubling over at the waist. “Larkspur, you are truly naïve or maybe just the stupidest elemental alive. Not that the reason matters now. We are in no hurry.” With her free hand, the one with the thick pink diamond on it, she stroked my hair. “Your father was weak. Too weak to do what he must. All he was good for was siring children of strength. Do you know, the other elementals laugh at us? They know we don’t have their strength in magic or numbers. We need to take our place amongst the elite. We should be the rulers of the world, Larkspur. Do you know that it used to be that way? That foolish storyteller had that part right. We were meant to rule the humans, to direct them and be worshipped by them. And I am not the only one who thinks so. There are others, like your mentor.”

A thought seemed to hit her. She narrowed her eyes. “Where is my general? What have you done with him?”

I leaned forward, pressing my face hard against her hand, the roots of my hair pulling. The ring was just with in my reach. “I killed him, and now, I will kill you.”

I grabbed her hand and jerked her toward me, yanking on the ring as I tucked her arm under my own. I had to move fast, there was no other way this was going to work. My ribs burst in an eruption of fire inside my chest, the broken ends splintering further, but I didn’t let her go. Couldn’t. This was our one chance.

She let out a scream, “To me!” and the throne room flooded with people. They shambled, gasping for breath, but already they were healing. The color of their skin pinking nicely, no worms dangling from their lips. And they were moving fast.

Not as fast as her oldest children, though. They ran for us too, Vetch with his sword raised above his head, Belladonna and Keeda lifting their hands, calling on the power of the earth. If they reached me, this would be over.

Two arrows flew, straight and true. One into the right shoulder of Vetch, the other into the ground at Belladonna’s feet. They spun, and Griffin stood there, grinning at them. “Right now, it’s a fair fight between those two. Let’s keep it that way, children.”

Vetch launched himself at Griffin and I lost track of them as I spun in a circle with Cassava, using her body to shield me from the grasping hands of her mindless followers.

From the very edge of my vision, as I wrestled with Cassava, a flash of a ragged green skirt caught my eye. Fern?

I didn’t look her way again. As long as Cassava didn’t know she was there, maybe Fern would be safe from the queen’s control.

“Little bitch, I will slice you open and eat your heart!” Cassava screamed and the ring stuck there, on her finger, at her knuckle. We spun and spun, and my body was giving out, my ribs making it incredibly hard to breathe.

I reached to my waist and pulled my final remaining dagger. “This is going to hurt you far more than me.”

She screamed as I put the blade against her middle finger, gritted my teeth, and shoved. Surprisingly, the blade slid through her skin and bone with ease, a light pop as it came completely off. Cassava’s scream tipped into a high-pitched wail as her finger fell to the floor.

The hands reaching for us dropped, and the mob slowly slid to the floor, an eerie silence spilling over them. At my feet, the finger twitched, the pink diamond glittered and the ground gave a slight rumble before eating both items in a single gulp. Someone behind us retched, and the splat of vomit on the hard packed dirt met my ears.

I still held Cassava’s arm under my hand, which meant the bleeding finger was easily visible as it and the others glowed a sickly green. Her hand and arm began to shrink until it was nothing but a claw, minus a digit, black and scaled. Wings beat at my head, black feathers filling my vision as I fought not a woman, but a giant raven. Twisting around, I dropped to my knees as a wicked sharp beak shot toward my right eye. I turned my head and her beak slammed into my temple. Again and again she pecked at me, and I couldn’t get her away. My skull ached, and I knew it would be one more blow and she’d break my head open.

Scramble my brains.

But my family was safe, my father alive.

I’d done my job as an Ender.

“Enough!” That single word reverberated through the air, knocking us both back.

Head feeling as if it had been slammed against a rock, repeatedly, I lay on the floor, my eyes barely focusing.

My father stood, Fern supporting him, his children behind him. As if they’d always stood behind him. He held a hand out, palm open and alive with green fire. Above me, Cassava shrieked. There was a triple beat of her wings, and then a whoosh of air passing, as she dropped to the ground, forced back into her human form.

“Basil, Lark tried to kill you,” she cried. And there it was, the gambit she would throw down. But would my father believe her?

“Lying bitch, you will be banished for this, if not executed,” he swore at her, and relief coursed through me like a waterfall on a hot day.

She put a hand to her left arm, under her long sleeve. And without seeing it, I knew she had the stolen armband. With a grin and a mock curtsy she twisted the armband.

“Not today, lover.”

Her body swirled and sucked in on itself, and then she was gone in a pop of air.

I fought to sit up, to see that it really was my father. That he was okay. But I wasn’t so sure I could even do that.

“Larkspur, I expected better of you,” my father said, and I stared up at him, shock hitting me hard. His eyes were foggy, and he seemed confused. But that didn’t ease the sharp pain his words caused.

“I tried to stop her,” I whispered and he shook his head, slowly, disappointment heavy in his eyes and the way his brows dipped low.

I closed my eyes, tears trickling, stinging the cuts on my face, stinging the spots where Cassava had slammed her beak into my skull. What more could I have done? Would I ever make him proud?

The answer, as simple as it was painful, filled me. I would never make him proud. I was a half-breed, bastard child.

“Basil, I can’t believe you would say that to her! Have you lost your mind? She just saved you and our people, and you would demean her?” Fern snapped. “Is that how you would treat our child? Because if that’s the case, I will so go back to Eureka and live there with the humans.”

My eyes shot open to see Fern standing beside me, her arms crossed over her bosom, which also accentuated the swell of her belly. My father stared hard at her. “Our child will not be a half breed who cannot even touch his power.”

A pair of hands helped me to sit up, the musky scent of wolf surrounding and soothing me. Griffin gave a grunt. “She’s got her claws too deep into him, even now the lies she spun are truth in his eyes. It’s going to take some time for him to sort it out.”

I nodded, but still, it hurt. “Fern, your place is here, with him.”

She turned and dropped to her knee. “You saved me from her, Lark. I won’t let him treat you this way.”

My heart swelled and I realized maybe, just maybe, I did have some friends here. Raven and Briar circled around and crouched beside me. “Lark, you saved us too. We were next, she told us.”

I looked over their heads at my father, his eyes shadowed with doubt and something I’d never seen in him.

Fear.

He didn’t understand. Or maybe he understood too well.

Griffin helped me to stand, and Raven slid an arm around my waist. “We need to get you to a healer.”

Beside me, Griffin snorted. “Here, got a bit of this left,” and before I could say yes or no, he jammed the flask to my lips and poured the contents into my mouth. I swallowed convulsively. The healing hurt, like before, my body writhing as the bones cinched back together. I ended up on my knees, ears buzzing with the shouting that had erupted in the room.

All of them shouting.

But none of it had anything to do with me.

I stood and went to my father. “You heard her confess, didn’t you?”

His jaw twitched and the shouting faded. I pressed him. “Did you or did you not hear her confess?”

His breath blew out in a slow stream. “I heard her.”

“And the ring is gone, so she can’t control you anymore.”

His head snapped up, his eyes crackling with green fire. “She never controlled me, I am the King.”

“You are a fool if you believe that.” I turned from him, my feet taking me out of the Spiral. I didn’t care who followed, didn’t care what happened. Cassava had been stopped. The family was, mostly, intact.

The smell of wolf preceded Griffin, and I shifted so he could lean against the redwood next to me. “Your father is wrong, you did well. Better than well. You saved them all.”

I nodded. “Then why do I feel lower than worm shit?”

“Because our parents, no matter how old we are, have that kind of power over us.”

A stumbling figure slid to the ground, just barely visible between two homes. Dark head, blood soaked clothes, and a single hand.

His green eyes met mine. “Lark, help me.”

CHAPTER 23

Coal!” His name burst from my lips as I ran toward him. I fell to the ground at his side, wrapping my arms around him, “You’re alive!”

“What happened?” His words were slurred, as if he’d been drinking.

“You’ve lost a lot of blood.” I pulled my belt off and wrapped it just above the stump where his right hand had been, tightening it quickly. He’d put a makeshift tourniquet on his arm, but it wasn’t doing the job. “We have to get you to a healer.”

“Who did this to me?” he whispered. “I’ll kill them. I’m less of a man. Can’t do my job. Useless now.” He mumbled all the way to the healers’ rooms where I left him in the capable hands of those who knew better than I how to help him. Not that he would want to see me again, not when the truth came out.

Goddess help me, let Coal never know it was me who took his hand. There was no way to explain why or how. He would never understand.

I made my way slowly to the Ender barracks. Blossom was there, sitting in the middle of the floor, worms dead all around her. I crouched beside her. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

She glanced up at me. “Mal died. The fire came too late for him.” Then she started to cry. “I don’t want to be an Ender; this is too hard. There is too much pain.”

“This would have happened if you were training to be an Ender or not.” I frowned, trying to find the right words. “Being an Ender just means we’ll be trained to fight this sort of thing, so we have a chance to save our loved ones.”

“But I couldn’t save him.” Her sobs tore at me, making my eyes water. I knew the feeling all too well.

“But maybe next time, you can save someone else.” I carefully put a hand on her shoulder, not wanting to push things. She would have to make her decision one way or another.

And then I remembered.

The cells below, Ash was there. And blocked from the outside world. “Mother goddess, the fire wouldn’t have reached him!”

I sprinted, bolting for the lower levels where I’d left Ash. The door to his cell was closed and I grabbed the hanging keys from the wall and jammed them in the lock. “Come on, come on!” I couldn’t find the right key, couldn’t get it open. Finally, the last key, of course, unlatched the lock and I swung the door open. He was pale, the live worms on the floor beside him testament to the fact he was still infected.

“Put the necklace on him.”

“Griffin, are you sure? You said it wouldn’t work on my father.”

The old wolf came to my side. “It’s his only chance, it might be soon enough. We’ll find out.”

I slipped into the room and dropped to Ash’s side, taking the necklace from over my head and placing it on his chest. His fingers curled up and around it. “Did . . . you stop her?”

“Yes. But you missed the fireworks.”

He gripped the necklace and the worms poured out of his mouth, an explosion of wriggling white that had me backing up as fast as I could. He rolled to his side and puked hard, gagging on the worms as they died.

“He’ll make it. I’ll watch him,” Griffin said and I kept backing away, unable to stomach what I was seeing.

“Won’t you catch it?”

“Nah, wolves are immune to crap like this.” He jerked a thumb at Ash, who still heaved and wretched.

“Yeah, you watch him then.” I stumbled away. Ash and I might not be friends, but he’d helped me as much as he could while still being under Cassava’s power, and I didn’t want him to die.

Back in the barracks, the remaining Enders gathered. If three could be called a gathering.

“This is it, Lark.” Blossom pointed at herself, another of the Seeders, and a young man barely old enough to grow a beard named Tree. He ducked his head, sorrow written clearly on his face.

“What do you mean, this is it?” I looked from one to the other.

“We’re the last three Enders, everyone else was killed. Someone actually killed some of the Enders. It wasn’t just the lung burrowers.” Her eyes filled with tears, and I wondered how long she’d last in the training now. Especially if she knew I’d killed two of those Enders. Granite and Snapdragon, gone because of me.

I rocked back on my heels, and a cough turned us all around.

He was pale, and his eyes fogged with pain, but there were no worms on him, and that gave me hope we would be okay.

“Not quite the last three,” I said softly.

Ash stared at us. “That’s it? Three Seeders and me to defend the Rim?”

Blossom nodded. “Yes.” And then burst into tears once more.

“Then I guess we’d better move your training up,” he said, naturally stepping into Granite’s role. Taking his place as our mentor.

He sent us out to help those who needed a hand, clearing bodies, getting the ones too weak to stand back to their homes. The day waned and still we lifted bodies, both alive and dead.

With the fading light, I found myself in the gathering field, the mound of dirt where Cassava had stood still there, unchanged. Chunks of boulders lay here and there, and a few people pointed at them, questioning who had done it.

My feet carried me closer until I could see the depression where Granite’s body had lain.

It was gone. I grabbed at the sleeve of one of the men helping. “Did someone move him?”

He paused and looked at where I pointed. “Move who?”

Jaw ticking, I ran to the spot I’d left Granite. No body, no blood. But around the edges were large score marks, like that of a large bird’s claw scooping up its prey.

I swallowed down a sudden uprush of bile. They were both still out there. A not so small part of me was happy; I didn’t want Granite dead. He’d been my only friend in a long time, and I didn’t want to wish him ill.

Cassava on the other hand . . . .

A hand clapped on my shoulder, and I didn’t need to turn to know it was Griffin. “She won’t give up, you know that.”

“I know. I just wish someone else believed me.” The tendrils of a fresh wind blew through the trees, wiping away the scent of disease and death, bringing with it the sharp bite of a coming autumn.

A second hand clapped me on my other shoulder. “I believe you.”

I turned my head. Ash stared at me, his eyes no longer full of hate. “You were the only one who could see through her lies, Larkspur, even I was wrapped in her spells. None of us would have made it without you.”

I thought about the ring, how the earth had sucked it down. If someone else found it, we would be no better off. In my mind’s eye, I could see Belladonna slipping the ring on her finger, and taking up where her mother had left off. My gorge rose. I slipped away from the two men. “Thank you, but I have to go.”

Without another word, I strode toward the planting fields, grabbed a single tool, and then headed for the Spiral. The thought of someone else holding that ring, of wielding whatever power it had over our people made me want to vomit. Stomach rolling with anxiety, I found the spot where the earth had swallowed her finger with ease. Her blood had soaked in, but the dark spot was still easily visible.

I pushed the spade into the earth and lifted out the clump of dirt. Three shovelfuls, and there was nothing.

“What are you doing?”

I didn’t look up at Raven, just kept digging. “Go away.”

“You’re looking for her finger, aren’t you?”

I stopped my shoveling and looked up at him finally. “Yes, now go away.”

“Why?”

“Raven”—I dug another scoop and dumped it out on the floor—“I have to hide it.”

“Her finger?”

Let him believe that, it was easier. “Yes, I have to hide her finger.”

“Hmm. Why exactly?”

I still was trying to figure out who had sucked the finger down. Had it been my father? Or maybe one of my siblings? Too hard to say, I hadn’t been able to watch everyone’s hands while I wrestled Cassava.

“Never mind.”

Another scoop and I was standing over a hole almost three feet deep. And there it was, laying there, her finger still twitching, as if with a life of its own.

Raven drew close and I swung the spade out, stopping him. “No, I mean it, Raven, you don’t need to see this.” In reality, I didn’t want him to know the ring was what had given his mother her power. And he was smart enough to put two and two together if he saw it.

I leaned into the hole and with one hand slid the ring off, palming it, then stood with the finger. Raven handed me a small piece of silk and I wrapped her finger in it. “Raven, I’m sorry about your mom.”

He shrugged. “She wasn’t a good mom, she didn’t even like me. Told me so on several occasions. You know, I remember your mom, but I could never tell you. I fell down in front of her once, when I was very little, split my lip open.” His eyes had gone distant with remembering. “She picked me up and held me close, sang softly to me until I stopped crying. It’s the only time I remember someone comforting me. She smelled like exotic flowers, scents I couldn’t name even now.”

I nodded, my throat suddenly tight. Moving forward, I brushed past him. “Raven, will you fill that in for me?”

“Sure.”

And then I was outside of the Spiral and heading for the southern edge of the forest. I walked, unable to do anything more. It didn’t matter how long it took me, there was no urgency any longer. So I breathed in the smells of the forest, and tried to put everything that had happened behind me. At least for a little while.

I passed by Griffin’s home and stepped to the edge of the ravine. I tossed the finger down, watched it tumble over the rocks and disappear into the scree.

Alone, I pulled the ring out of my pocket and rolled it in my hands. The temptation to put it on, and to finally have a power of my own called to me. But I’d seen too clearly what it had done to Cassava, how she’d hurt those she’d been charged with caring for.

“What do I do with it?”

There was no answer, no one I would trust with this weapon. I startled and realized that was what it was—a weapon.

A dangerous, addictive weapon that was far too powerful for any one person. I needed a place to hide it, to put it away from the world. The only question was, where?

It took me a long time of sitting on the cliff, dangling my legs as if I were ten years old again before a suitable hiding place came to me. A grin slipped over my lips. It was perfect, and no one would ever think to look there.

I stood, brushed off my clothes and headed to the inner Rim. I would have to wait until night fell, but that was fine. I could do that. The darkness of the night was nothing to fear, nothing at all compared to what I’d seen.

“No one will ever find it again,” I whispered, tightening my hand around the jewel.

Please, goddess, let that be true.

CHAPTER 24

The gala being held was over the top, an affair to remember by all accounts. A celebration of life, of new beginnings, and clean slates. Though the lung burrowers killed almost all the Enders, most of the general populace survived. Everyone was being told Cassava had been killed. A lie that would be shattered the minute she returned with a vengeance.

But for now, they were happy, and my father was safe. He held Fern lightly around the waist and she smiled up at him, her face glowing with happiness. No reason she shouldn’t be, he’d just asked her to marry him in front of everyone. Of course, she said yes, and the people were excited. A wedding was a huge affair in the Rim.

I watched from the edge of the gathering field. No different than any other time, I wasn’t invited, despite Fern’s protests to the contrary. She’d even had a gown made for me, in the latest human style, sleek and body hugging, a deep golden tone that matched my hair and eyes. While she was far from perfect, she would make a far better queen than Cassava. And I’d told her that. She teared up, hugging me tightly as she cried.

“I wish your father would change his mind, you are the best of his children.”

That had been the other reason I refused to attend, even though she’d fought for me to be there. Vetch, Belladonna, and Keeda were still living in the Spiral. They claimed Cassava had twisted their minds, just like everyone else. But those were lies I saw through with ease.

I would not be fooled by them, even if my father and others were. Cassava wasn’t done, and I had no doubt she would work through her three oldest children to bring her plans about.

So, as it was, I sat, crouched on the rooftop of the nearest house, watching. Making sure no one stepped out of line.

Protecting them, even though they didn’t see me, even though most of them still thought me useless. The irony was not lost on me.

“Hey, beautiful, could you use some company?”

Coal stared up at me from the ground and I held out a hand to him, pulling him up beside me. He hugged me to him, but I pushed him gently away, and turned back to watching over the field, the sparkling lights, lightning bugs and swaying dancers. “I’m on duty, Coal.”

“Look at you, being all proper-like. You have years yet before you’re a full Ender.” He touched the side of my head with his hand, fingers trailing down my face. Guilt hit me hard. I hadn’t told him I’d been the one to maim him. How could I?

And that guilt had allowed him back into my life, and into my bed. My eyes never stopped moving, watching for a sign that something was going to go wrong. “You know, when our family first came here, Enders were trained in less time, they were tested by being sent out to battle and if they survived, they were sent through the final testing stage.”

“That was then, Lark. This is now.”

I heard the footsteps, recognized the cadence of them. “Ash.”

“Larkspur, Coal is going to take your watch tonight.”

Coal gave a grunt. “I am?”

“Yes, we’re short on numbers, you know that.” Ash stepped into view, his honey-colored eyes glowing in the dim light like some large jungle cat. “I need Larkspur to come with me.”

“Is something wrong?” I scrambled down the edge of the roof, fear clutching at me. The tone in Ash’s voice told me that whatever it was, it was serious.

“No, but you need to come with me.” He turned and walked away before I could ask any more questions.

I glanced up at Coal, who shrugged. “He’s the boss.”

And that was the truth. Ash was the boss now, my father had asked him officially to take over the Enders. To train those who would come to be one of our family’s ultimate protectors. After the clean up, several of the Edge guards offered to step in, to train. We were up in numbers, but with only one actual Ender to deal with all the problems that cropped up, life would get tough very quickly for Ash. But not Coal, with his missing arm he was lucky to still be an Edge guard. And he knew it.

Ash strode out, taking me to the Spiral of all places. “What’s wrong, is it my father?”

He shook his head. “No one is in trouble, Lark. Relax.”

The tension in my shoulders faded, but only a minuscule amount. “Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who gets blamed for pretty much everything.”

I rubbed at my bare arms, the leather vest not quite warm enough for this late in the summer. Since everything had gone down, it seemed like I was in trouble every day. First, was the ambassador from the Pit.

“You’re lucky your father managed to clear you,” Ash said. “That alone should tell you how he feels.”

I didn’t say anything. My father had cleared me by saying I had been under Cassava’s control and so I wasn’t to be held responsible. I was grateful, but a part of me hated that I’d had to hide behind lies. Behind Cassava in a way.

Three weeks since she had nearly killed my father, three weeks and yet it felt as if the summer had been an entire lifetime. In a little over two months, I’d gone from a nearly useless planter, to an Ender in training, to facing down the queen, saving my father and family, and now I was being treated like I was weak again. Weak because Cassava had “used me” according to all reports. And no one trusted me. Except for Ash and my father. And Fern. I couldn’t leave her out of that small group.

I was back to square one in many ways, which was galling to say the least.

We made our way quickly through the main building of the Spiral, and then headed down a narrow set of stairs to the hot springs below. “Ash, are you going to tell me what’s going on?”

“No. It isn’t my place.”

That didn’t sound good, despite his assurances. My guts tightened and a nervous tremor started at the base of my skull. He pushed open the last door that led into the hot springs, and waved me through.

The sand was as white and clean as the last time I’d been there, as a young girl. Right before Cassava had me removed from the Spiral. But this time was different.

Torches lit and burning bright were placed in the sand, making a perfect pathway to the water. The water was no longer the sharp, clear blue that I’d swam in years past as a child. Now it was a deep, dark blue that lapped gently at the white sand, the belly of the spring glowing with a bright clear light that beckoned me.

One of our Testers stood at the beginning of the path. “Larkspur, I am Douglas, I will be your tester today.”

Confusion scrambled my brain. “What’s going on?”

Ash stood in front of me, hands folded over his chest, eyes never leaving mine. “You are here for your final testing, Lark. What you said to Coal is correct. In the past, in times of great need, Enders were trained and sent into battle to be tested. Those who rose to the challenge were brought here for the final steps. Do you wish to see this through?”

I nodded, throat tight. I was going to be an Ender. No longer useless to my father or family. And then behind Ash, at the head of the pathway, stepped my father.

He gave me a soft smile. “Come here, sweet pea. There are things you need to know.”

This was the man I remembered as my father. Where had he been all these years? I stumbled to him and he caught me in his arms. His hold tightened on me and I breathed him in. Feeling like I was ten years old again, and my father would make everything right in the world.

“Hush, I don’t think Enders are supposed to cry.”

I laughed and stood up straight, wiping my eyes. “Father.”

“I have to go back to the gala, but I wanted to be here for this moment. For you. For your mother.” He handed me a folded stack of papers. “This is your lineage on your mother’s side. Her family tree will tell you much you need to know about yourself. Things I haven’t been able to tell you.”

I took the bundle of papers, and held them to my chest, a question burning in my heart, one that had hovered on the edge of my lips for years. “Why did you turn away from me? All those years . . . .”

His eyes closed and a tear tracked down his cheek into his beard. “I knew Cassava would see you as a threat. It was the only way I could make sure you were safe, that you could grow into the woman you are. By making her think you meant nothing to me, her jealousy was kept from you.” He opened his eyes and took my hands in his. “All of my children are precious to me, every last one of you. Lark, my daughter, you have it in you to be stronger than them all. That is why I kept you away. That is why I acted indifferent. What do you think would have happened if you’d stayed close, if I’d truly had someone break through your barriers while Cassava was still here?”

“She would have used me too.”

He nodded. “And there would have been none to save us.”

I blurted out the next question. “Then why the hell didn’t you kick her ass out of the forest?”

He didn’t yell, didn’t get angry; he laughed, but it was a tired laugh. “Oh, if only it were that easy. By the time I realized what she was doing, she had more than half my Enders, and was manipulating the other families as well. I was biding my time. It’s not like we don’t have a lot of that.”

“Not my mother.”

“Lark, another time we will speak of all this. Of your mother, of Bramley, and all that happened that you did not see. I promise.” He put his hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently. “But this is here and now. You must decide, is this the life you want? To be an Ender? To forsake hearth and home for steel and blood?”

I took a half-step back from him. “Until Cassava is dealt with, there is no chance for peace here. No safety for any of us. Certainly not for anyone I would love, or any child I would have.”

“Then go with my blessing. And know I love you, my daughter, even if it seems to the world I do not.”

He turned and walked away, slipping through the doorway that would take him back to the gala and the revelers waiting for him.

“Strip,” Ash said.

“Everything?”

“Every last stitch.”

I wasn’t shy, but still, it was unnerving to take all my clothes off in front of Ash and Douglas. Anyone else wouldn’t have bothered me, but Ash’s eyes saw through me. Saw more than I wanted him to.

Naked, skin prickling with the air blowing through the cavern, I fought not to cross my arms. “I’m ready.”

His eyes never left mine as he spoke. “Good luck.”

Douglas stepped forward. “Larkspur of the Redwoods, you are called to battle for those you love. Will you answer the call?”

“I will.”

“You are called to stand as protector of the forest and all it holds. Will you stand firm in the face of all that comes with evil in its heart?”

“I will.”

“You are laid bare before the mother goddess, that she will see your heart and know its truths. Let her embrace you, and she will show you the path you will face.”

The sand slid between my toes as I walked through the path of torches, mouth dry, and heart skipping several beats. The walk was not long, and yet long enough for my mind to run ahead to all the possibilities. What would happen when I slid into the water? What would I see?

My feet touched the edge of the warm water, and a small wave lapped up and over my foot. The ringing of a bell sounded and I looked around. Ash was gone, and the cave had disappeared. I stood on the edge of a long white sandy beach under a full moon. The crash of the ocean, the pull of the earth on my senses, the warmth of a gentle breeze tickling the back of my legs.

A woman walked toward me, dressed in a flowing skirt, so long that it trailed in the air behind her at least ten feet. Her hair was the color of the soil, dark and rich, shot through with sparkles of silver. Every step she took brought her closer until I could see the details in her face. The curve of her jaw, the slightly slanted eyes that gave the impression of some large animal trapped under her skin, the full lips and tiny nose. Her eyes caught mine in a snare, green and gold, and then every color the forest had ever given to a flower.

I slowly dropped to my knees. “Mother.”

She cupped a hand around my cheek. “Larkspur, I have waited a long time for you to come to me. Now, we have much to speak of and time is short. There will be a long, hard path for you to learn how to use your abilities. And you will have more trials to face than any other of my children.”

I lifted my eyes to hers. “Cassava, she is part of this.”

“Yes, my child. She is not done yet, and you are not ready to face the destruction she brings. But you will be.” She stroked a hand over my head, smoothing my hair. “You will be.”

I stood and she beckoned me to follow. I looked behind to see the flickering of a torch, the sandy beach where Ash waited for me to finish my testing.

“Come, Larkspur,” the mother goddess called to me. “The time to see you recurve is now. Let us begin.”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Let us begin.”

AUTHORS NOTE

Thanks for reading “Recurve”. I truly hope you enjoyed this introduction to Larkspur, her family and the world I’ve created for them. If you loved this book, one of the best things you can do is leave a review for it. Amazon.com is where I sell the majority of my work, so if I can only ask for one place for reviews that would be it it – but feel free to spread the word on all retailers.

Again, thank you for coming on this ride with me, I hope we’ll take many more together. The rest of The Rylee Adamson series, along with my other novels, are available in both ebook and paperback format on all major retailers. You will find purchase links on my website at www.shannonmayer.com. Enjoy!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Shannon Mayer lives in the southwestern tip of Canada with her husband, dog, cats, horse, and cows. When not writing she spends her time staring at immense amounts of rain, herding old people (similar to herding cats) and attempting to stay out of trouble. Especially that last is difficult for her.

She is the author of the The Rylee Adamson Novels, The Nevermore Trilogy, A Celtic Legacy series and several contemporary romances. Please visit her website for more information on her novels.

Website:

http://www.shannonmayer.com/

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ShannonMayerAuthor

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/TheShannonMayer

Sign up here for Shannon Mayer’s Newsletter:

ALSO BY SHANNON MAYER

THE RYLEE ADAMSON NOVELS

Priceless (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 1)

Immune (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 2)

Raising Innocence (A Rylee Adamson Novel Book 3)

Shadowed Threads (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 4)

Blind Salvage (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 5)

Tracker (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 6)

Veiled Threat (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book  7)

Wounded (A Rylee Adamson Novel, Book 8)

Alex (A Rylee Adamson Short Story)

Guardian (A Rylee Adamson Novella 6.5)

Elementally Priceless (A Rylee Adamson Novella 0.5)

Stitched (A Rylee Adamson Novella 8.5)

THE ELEMENTAL SERIES

Recurve (The Elemental Series, Book 1)

CONTEMPORARY ROMANCES (Written as S.J. Mayer)

High Risk Love (The Risk Series, Book 1)

Of The Heart

PARANORMAL ROMANTIC SUSPENSE

The Nevermore Trilogy

Sundered (The Nevermore Trilogy, Book 1)

Bound (The Nevermore Trilogy, Book 2)

Dauntless (The Nevermore Trilogy, Book 3)

URBAN FANTASY

A Celtic Legacy Trilogy

Dark Waters (A Celtic Legacy, Book 1)

Dark Isle (A Celtic Legacy, Book 2)

Dark Fae (A Celtic Legacy, Book 3)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Authors Note

About the Author

Also by Shannon Mayer

Copyright

Recurve (The Elemental Series, Book 1)

Copyright © Shannon Mayer 2015

Copyright © HiJinks Ink Publishing, Ltd. 2015

All rights reserved Published by HiJinks Ink LTD.

www.shannonmayer.com

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a database and retrieval system or transmitted in any form or any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise)without the prior written permission of both the owner of the copyright and the above publishers. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Or deliberately on purpose, depending on whether or not you have been nice to the author.

Original illustrations by Damonza.com

Mayer, Shannon

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Authors Note

About the Author

Also by Shannon Mayer

Copyright