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.”