“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 is
n’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.
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