As if saying his name had called him, my senior Ender and mentor stepped into the room. Dressed in the dark brown leather vest and lighter brown cotton pants of our order, he cut quite the figure. Even I could admit that about him. Dark blond hair and honey-colored eyes gave Ash an exotic look in a family of elementals where dark hair and eyes were prevalent. He gave my father a quick nod. “Your Majesty, the ambassador and her Ender from the Pit are waiting for you in the throne room.” He didn’t look at me, or Belladonna, but stared straight ahead.

My father let out a sigh. “Daughters. You will do as I ask. Belladonna, you are the acting ambassador. I want to know all you can decipher about the two who are battling for the Deep’s throne. From what I understand, they are both children of King Marianas, do your homework on them before you go. You will promise them nothing, understand?” His eyes flicked to mine. “And you will protect your sister.”

As if my life was worthless. But I knew that wasn’t the case, as much as the words stabbed at me. He had to have a way to get me out of the Rim long enough to defuse the situation with the Pit. Our fiery cousins might be good at reining in their tempers, but when they finally blew their tops . . . the world was not a safe place for anyone. Especially not the person they were pissed at, which in this case was me.

Father strode from the room, the carpet of grass muffling any sound his steps made. Ash snapped his fingers then pointed at Belladonna and me. “You two, meet me at the Traveling room in one hour.”

“Gladly, pet,” Belladonna purred, and I had to fight the sudden urge to reach over and strangle her.

With a swish of her skirts, she sashayed past Ash. At the last second she ran a hand down his arm. “I wish you were the one coming with me. At least then I’d know I was safe.”

She couldn’t see his face, but I could. He swallowed hard, as if he were trying not to vomit. “Princess, thank you for the compliment, but I’ve trained Larkspur. She will do her job,” he said, but the revulsion was in his eyes. Rape is not something our people condoned in the least, but as Ash had said, who would believe the princess had forced him to pleasure her?

No one but me. I knew my family too well not to believe him.

“Ash, hold on,” I said, “I want to speak to my father.” I didn’t stay for Ash’s answer, just ran after the receding figure of my father.

I caught up to him just before he reached the throne room. “Father. Wait, please.” He stopped and glanced back at me.

“Larkspur, I do not have time for this.”

He was right, there was no time, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try and fix what I already knew was going to be an epic disaster. There was no way Belladonna and I could work together.

“Send Raven instead. Belladonna will make things worse in the Deep. I know that.”

“Belladonna is trained to be an ambassador, you are not. How would you know who would be best to send?” His voice rose in intensity with each word, his eyes flashing with emotion.

I refused to back down. “She is her mother’s daughter. You don’t know she isn’t still doing as Cassava wishes. And it’s not my fault that I wasn’t trained as she was! I could have been if I were treated as your daughter and not as some outcast cur!” I snapped at him. His eyes widened, then narrowed with a speed that made me doubt the hurt I’d seen in them.

“You go too far, Ender. Remember your place. A princess by blood? Perhaps. But not by any other standard.” He stepped through the door and into the throne room, slamming it behind him.

Stunned, the shock of his words slowly filtered through me as I stared at the closed door. Once more, put in my place by someone who was supposed to love me unconditionally. I made my way back to my father’s rooms where Ash waited for me. He took a single look at me, but asked no questions as to what I’d needed to speak to the king about. I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. What did my face give away? I hoped nothing, but I had a feeling Ash saw far more than I wanted.

I didn’t know what to say, how to break the growing silence between us.

Ash looked me over again. “Testing went well?”

I nodded, grateful he broke the awkward quiet. Grateful he hadn’t heard my father speak to me like I was still nothing to him. Was this part of the act to keep me safe, or did he really mean what he’d said? I might not ever know. I replayed Ash’s question in my head. “Yes, I guess the testing went well. I wouldn’t know if it hadn’t, would I?”

“You wouldn’t be here so quickly if it had gone south.” He turned and beckoned for me to follow. “A week is a fairly short time to be in the mother goddess’s embrace.”

I stumbled to a stop. “A week? I was gone a whole week?” At least that explained the gnawing hunger and thirst. The whole time with the mother goddess had felt like hours. And though the pain part had seemed to last longer, I was already forgetting it.

He glanced over his shoulder at me. “My testing, I was gone ten days. If you had taken longer than a month we would assume you were lost. Our bodies can’t stand to be within her embrace for longer.”

Damn, I had no idea that was even possible. “No one told me about that.”

“It’s not spoken of until you come through. You need to go in blind to the dangers.”

I frowned, thinking about the time I’d spent with the mother goddess. None of it had seemed particularly dangerous. Painful, yes, but I never thought I was truly in danger.