Replaceable.

The funny thing was I wasn’t more than a few steps up from useless. A smile flickered over my lips until I saw who was waiting for father at the far side of the hot springs. Long dark brown hair so like her mother’s cascaded over her shoulders all the way to the backs of her knees. Her gray eyes glanced over at me and she arched an eyebrow. No words were needed. We didn’t like each other. She was too much like her mother.

And I was too much like mine.

She slipped her hand into Father’s and he gave her a gentle smile. The oldest of my siblings was also the best at making it look like she was an obedient child despite the truth of her wild ways.

I whispered her name as if in doing so I could make her disappear.

“Belladonna.”

CHAPTER 2

I managed to get to the kitchens in the Spiral without being seen. I don’t know how long I’d been in the mother goddess’s embrace, but I’d been without food and water and my reserves were stretched thin enough that I didn’t think I’d make it to the Enders barracks to eat. I must have been gone at least a day by the way my stomach growled at me to hurry up.

Platters of leftovers from the king’s table the night before were stacked up. I grabbed a plate and shoveled food onto it in large quantities. Potatoes, leeks, radishes, trout, and a fresh green salad with dandelions were the first helping. I sat in a corner, eating quickly, barely tasting the food; just filling my stomach as fast as I could.

“A drink to go with it, perhaps?” A goblet was thrust under my nose, the heady scent of honey mead making my mouth water.

I took the goblet, and lifted my eyes to see a familiar face. “Niah, what are you doing here?” The storyteller hadn’t made an appearance since she’d stirred things up months ago. Things that had ultimately sent me to the Ender’s barracks. Looking back, I realized she’d done what she’d done on purpose. Like a lot of storytellers, she was part seer as well. Or at least, she claimed to be.

“I like food. Most storytellers do, you know. They eat, and as they eat, they think up new ways to spin their words.” She plucked a bunch of grapes off a plate and popped one into her mouth. She poured a second cup of the honey mead for herself and took a sip. I licked my lips, the sweet flavor lingering nicely. The mead tasted thick and lovely on my tongue.

“So what tale have you got for me this time? Last time you nearly had me with my head on the chopping platter.”

She smiled and the hint of violet in her eyes glimmered, the mark of a shape shifter. Not a common ability amongst our family. “Oh, nothing much. Rumors abound you know.”

That stopped me in mid-shovel. “What kind of rumors?”

“Oh, that Cassava is working through the other families, trying to make trouble.”

I stuffed my fork into my mouth and talked around the food. “Nothing new there.”

“No?” Niah tipped her head back and gulped the mead as if it were water. “I wouldn’t be so sure. May I make a suggestion?”

I waved a hand at her, but kept eating with the other. “Be my guest.”

“Your stepmother is a tricky devil. I believe she will go to ground for some time to let the ‘heat’ as the humans say, die. That doesn’t mean her tools won’t be used, though, and her plans abandoned.”

While the advice was good, it wasn’t something I hadn’t already considered. “How about an actual story, Niah. Something I can think about while I’m on trial at the Pit.”

Her eyes widened. “Your father surely won’t let you be taken.”

I shrugged then leaned back in my chair. “Don’t be so sure he has a choice. What would he do if the other leaders spoke against him? They could cite the rules. We all know what I did as an Ender . . . never mind. A story. Please?”

Niah tapped her fingers against her lips. “For you child, a story of the Deep and the ocean the Undines rule.”

I hadn’t heard an Undine story since I truly was a child. “Of the Kraken that protects them?”

She laughed. “Are you telling this story or am I?”

I waved her to go ahead while I dished up another plate of food.

Niah’s voice lowered until she was barely whispering, and the atmosphere in the room seemed to darken with it. “The Undines have a legend that the child of the Kraken will one day rule, and under his guidance they will see their family raised above all others.”

I smiled; every family had a story about a chosen one. Even ours. My smile faltered as the mother goddess’s words bounced around in my head. “You are my chosen one.”

My food suddenly didn’t seem so palatable, and I pushed my plate away.

Niah didn’t seem to notice.

“The Kraken will rise in the face of great evil, and help its child rule. But not before so much blood spills that the waters of the Deep darken, and the fish disappear, and the air stills. These are all signs that the Kraken’s child is upon them. Each of the Undine’s three bloodlines believe they will produce the Kraken’s child. But I will tell you now, it is not the warriors with their green-tinged hair, nor the shape shifters with their violet eyes, nor even the healers. No, it will be a true child of the water, a child born of all three lines. Blue hair and pale skin, with eyes of the clearest ocean waves; that is the child you must seek if you want to meet the Kraken’s chosen heir. And so the legend is told.”

“And what happens when this child is never born?” I couldn’t help poking at her, just a little.