“Lark, no!” My mother spun, her ocean blue eyes streaming with tears as they tracked down her cheeks. “Run, sweet pea, run!”

She moved to hand me Bramley and was jerked backwards by invisible strands of air. I caught Bram, clung to him as our mother was torn from us, her body flung high into the air, far into the clouds above the forest. I trembled where I stood, unable to obey her. Bramley let out a wail, his chubby fists clenched, and his face red with anger and fear. I counted the seconds, waiting for her to fall. And when she did, the whoosh of a body coming back to the earth through the clouds stilled my heart.

The world slowed as my mother’s body cascaded down, her hair flying up as if she were a kite, the string broken and the body free of tethers. My eyes were unable to close, I watched her fall, her body breaking as she hit. The fall shouldn’t have killed her, yet in my heart I knew she was gone.

She was gone, and there was only the two of us. Shock, unbound and filling my whole body, left me shaken to the center of my being. My mother—the one person I knew who loved me, the one who was soft with all those she encountered, giving those who had less than her all we had, sheltering those who had nothing.

Gone, in a split second on the whim of a jealous queen.

“You see what will happen if you don’t do as I say?” Cassava smiled at me, her lips tight and barely turning up at the edges. Hard. She was granite, with none of the beauty true granite held. “Now, give the brat to me,” she snarled, then glanced at her friends. “Wicker, kill the baby first, and the girl last. He is the one my fool of a husband has named as his heir.”

“What about the other half-breed?”

Cassava glanced at Cactus. “I will wipe his memory clean. I think I will have a use for him later.” Then she reached for us, as if I would hand Bram to her.

“NO!” All my fear and emotion poured out of me in that single word and the dirt around us exploded. Stones and chunks of earth flew through the air. The projectiles missed us, but the queen wasn’t so lucky. Something, a hunk of quartz by the flash of it, smashed into her temple and she went down in a heap. One of the tall, cloaked figures took a rock to the head, which slashed his face on the left side.

A distant part of my mind wondered where our Ender was. Father would never let us be without protection. Where was he? He was supposed to keep us safe from things like this.

My thoughts scattered as I faced the danger alone. Taking down the queen left three figures, Sylphs, who closed in on us. I clutched Bram to my chest, holding his squirming body with all I had. His tiny fingers gripped my hair, digging in hard as he whimpered.

“Mama.”

I backed away, fear pounding a steady tempo inside my head and heart, drowning out the anger that had sustained me.

The figure on the left burst into flame, his scream snapping me out of the fog I moved in. Hands grabbed me, and with Cactus at my side, we ran as fast as I could while carrying Bramley. The wind swirled, dragging us back, inch by inch. We leaned into the sudden wind tunnel, our bodies jerked around like puppets on strings. I clung to Bramley, his crying barely audible over the roaring of the wind around us.

I did the only thing I could. I called on the earth, begged the mother earth to save us.

“Please!” My scream was ripped away from my lips and I didn’t think anyone heard me.

I was wrong.

The ground shook and our legs sank, the dirt forming an anchor around us, stopping our backward slide. Hunched over my brother, I fell forward, keeping him between the ground and me. Curling around him tight, I screamed as he slid a little from my arms. With everything I had in me, I tightened my grip on him, but I was only a little girl, and the wind was so strong. Laughter filtered around us, somehow making it through the windstorm. I lifted my eyes and looked over my shoulder. The queen stood, blood dripping from the side of her face where the rock had struck her. She flicked her hand and the anchor around our feet released.

Bramley was snatched from my arms, his blond locks tugging in every direction, his eyes like mine, one amber and one green, filled with tears and terror as he flew through the air and into the queen’s hands. She grabbed him by one arm, dangling him as if he were just a hunk of meat. With a flick of her wrist at the Sylph, the windstorm eased. I gasped for breath, realizing the wind had been stealing the air from my lungs.

“Please, give him back to me.” I didn’t care that I begged. I would do anything for him.

She smirked at me. “You want him back?”

“Yes, please, he’s just a baby and he’s scared.”

She tipped her head, long curls of dark brown hair spilling over her shoulder. “Doesn’t seem scared to me.”

He hung from her arm, silent, his eyes closed.

Chest unmoving.

Body still.

Tingles of apprehension flowed through my body and my vision darkened. Below me, the earth shot a thread of power through the soles of my feet, snapping me out of my stupor.

The queen had killed my brother.

She’d killed my mother.

Cactus tugged on me. “Lark, we have to get away.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off the queen, my brother dangling in her hand. An image of my mother floating to the earth, her hair spilling upward like some broken doll.

Brother. Mother. Family. The words were staccato, playing over and over in my head, a record stuck on a loop. She threw his body to me and I scrambled to catch him.

She was speaking to Cactus, but I barely heard her. Dropping to my knees, I held Bram in my arms. Maybe he was just sleeping, faking so the queen wouldn’t hurt him again.