“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 ove
rstuffed 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 we
stern 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.”
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