She gave a snort and waved her hand, the mood dispelled. “Don’t be foolish. The child of the Kraken will come. Though hopefully not in my lifetime.”

“Why not?”

“Change is not easy for those of us who have lived this long. You, you will have no problem with change.” Again, she waved at me. “Now, a token to go along with your story.”

She wiggled her fingers at me and something shiny and hooked flew over them, dancing back and forth several times before it came to rest in the palm of her hand. “Here.” Niah held it out to me. “I think you will need this very soon.”

I peered into her hand and gingerly held up a fishing hook, barbed on one end, and a tiny blue diamond sitting at the top where the line would be set. “What will I need this for?”

She smiled, took the hook and lifted it to my ear. “Hold still.” I flinched as she jammed it through the cartilage. “There, very pretty.”

Gingerly, I ran a finger over the new earring I sported. “Thank you?”

Niah popped another grape in her mouth and sauntered away. “Just you wait and see, Ender, you will thank me. Just you wait and see.”

After finishing my meal, I went straight to my father’s private rooms. The moss thick under my feet, cushioning my steps as I moved in farther—albeit a bit reluctantly.

“Lark, there is only one way to keep you safe. You may not like it, but you will do as I say in this.” His green eyes flicked to mine as if to judge my reaction. I nodded, though my mind raced with possibilities.

“Of course.”

He waited as if I were going to retract my words. “Good. You will be going into the Deep with your sister. I believe a civil war is brewing, and my contacts have disappeared. You will do two things while you are there. The first, find our ambassador. Dead or alive, Barkley has information I need. Do you understand?”

I nodded, a steady thrum of excitement and nerves building in my gut. My first assignment . . . even if the reason for it was because I was in over my head in worm guts, it didn’t really matter. This was to be my life, as an Ender, helping the king and making sure his ambassadors were safe.

“If Barkley is dead, then find his room and search it. Just be wary, his lover is an Undine. Do you understand?”

I hate to admit my jaw dropped. “His lover is an Undine? And you knew?” Half-breeds like me were not common, and the higher up your station, the more likely you were to be forced to marry as you were told. Which, of course, was why it was all that much worse that my father broke his own rules by bedding my mother who was anything but an earth elemental.

My father frowned at me. “I approved, yes. You’ll understand when you meet them.”

I nodded again, though I wasn’t sure how I could understand him approving a relationship that would produce a half-breed. I wouldn’t wish that life on any child. “And the other thing?”

“You will protect the ambassador I’m sending with you at all costs. I have not decided who is to be my heir to the throne, but she is in the running. As are all of my children.”

The door slammed open and Belladonna strode in. “Surely you don’t mean all your children, do you, Father? No one would stand behind a bastard on the throne.”

Belladonna’s voice might have been smooth as silk worms spinning their threads, but it grated over my ears. I straightened, my vertebrae cracking and popping. Not that I’d been slouching, but I refused to look like I was taking any crap from her.

And then her words and my father’s hit me. If Belladonna was here, she was the one Father was talking about. For a stupid moment, I’d believed I was taking Briar with me. Why couldn’t it have been sweet, kind Briar?

“Belladonna,” Father said her name softly, “try to be kind. She is still your sister.”

Belladonna sniffed the air as if something stunk, her gray eyes narrowing. “I am always kind. Ask your people, Father, they’ll tell you I am nothing but sweetness and light.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “More like you terrorize the children when you think no one is looking. Giving them nightmares with stories of lung burrowers coming to eat their hearts if they don’t bow to you when you go by.”

She stomped her foot, fists clenched at her side, her demeanor slipping. “You sneaky ugly weevil! What are you doing, following me around? I will take you outside and beat you as you should have been beaten years ago!”

I stepped toward her, using my height to an advantage, looking down at her. “Belladonna, say the word. Say it.”

Father cleared his throat and put his hands between us, gently shoving us apart.

“Girls, whether you like it or not—and I see by your faces you do not—you are going to work together.” We stood across from him but as far apart from each other as possible. Belladonna was as opposite to me in looks as she was in personality. She was petite and curvy and had long dark brown hair and light gray eyes. The top of her head barely came to my chin, but her looks weren’t really what concerned me.

No, she was her mother’s daughter, through and through. I knew she was lying when she said Cassava had tricked her too. But our father wouldn’t hear me say a word against her, or any of my siblings, for that matter.

Belladonna smiled sweetly. “But Larkspur is so new to being an Ender. Wouldn’t it be better if someone more experienced came with me? Someone . . . like Ash?”

My whole body stiffened. I’d seen his memories of her and if I was anything of a friend to him, I couldn’t let him get sucked into this. “Ash can’t go. He’s running things here for Father.” My voice was sharp and I struggled not to yell at her. I had seen too clearly how she had treated Ash in the past.