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.