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free, Ash. Find her and kill her, that is what you must do.”
    Cassava.
    The puzzle pieces fell into place and I let out a breath and woke as suddenly as I’d fallen asleep. There it was. I knew what I had to do, what could help Lark and our world. A part of me saw that I was being led by the nose, but the majority of me thought it was a good idea, maybe even a great one.
    I had to kill Cassava.
     
     

CHAPTER 4

 
     
    spent my days between the layers of the Veil. Slowly I learned to make weapons, and with them I practiced my Enders skills. Every weapon I’d ever used, and several I hadn’t. I worked with the weapons from the other elemental families like the tridents from the Deep and the clubs from the Pit.
    I started with the trees, just using them as static opponents, but quickly fell to creating Sandlings. Drawn from the earth, I could build them up and give them directive s . We used Sandlings when we trained Enders because they were impossible to hurt, and made good opponents. They were shaped with arms, legs, and a head, and could even be given weapons, if need be, along with simple commands. The first I gave them was the most basic. To attack me one on one, then one on two, three, and four. Quickly I learned to create weapons out of the earth for them, again simple weapons, but they were good enough.
    By the end of the third month in my dungeon, I was spending all my waking time within that meditative state, doing as Griffin had suggested.
    I began to play with the earth, finding ways to use the strength innate to me, manipulating it in ways I’d never considered before. Lark had been the one to open my eyes, to show me that the limits placed on us by those who were our trainers were just that—limits. I learned how to beckon the earth to me faster, connecting without moving my hands or eyes. I no longer let my beliefs of possible and impossible hold me back . . . but there was only so much I could do when it was just myself.
    Griffin never came back to check on me, but I didn’t care. I could feel my body growing stronger in that place, could feel the natural ease with all weapons sliding over me even more than before. The earth all but s a ng around me, and that gave me some solace.
    Month four ticked by, and the food coming to me slowed to every other day, though the water still came daily. I was going to be starved to death if I did not find a way out of here soon.
    At night I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling of the cell while I waited for sleep to take me. Between my dreams and the waking meditation , I could feel my hold on reality slipping. I would not go mad perhaps, but I wasn’t entirely sure where my body truly lived any longer.
    My dreams showed Lark as she suffered in the desert, kept company by two of her father’s familiars. They were watching her, keeping her in line. Making sure she didn’t step out of her boundaries. Making sure she didn’t leave the desert where her heart hardened against the world.
    I saw her look to the Rim and knew what she thought. That I’d abandoned her. That I’d not been willing to break the rules to be at her side.
    I tried to turn away from that, but she was everywhere I looked, and her eyes condemned me.
    Somewhere in the sixth month by the scratches I’d marked on the wall, I jerked awake in the middle of the night. I turned my head; the sound that woke me was so soft, I was sure I never would have heard it if I wasn’t so used to the complete silence.
    A soft breath that was not my own, and the sound of padded feet on the stone. I rolled in my bed and looked down beside it.
    Peta stared up at me, her green eyes unblinking. “I thought I told you to stay out of trouble. You’re as bad as Lark, you know.”
    I reached out, not sure if I was seeing things or not. “Peta, are you real?”
    Her eyes softened and she leapt up onto me, landing in the curve of my belly.
    My stomach was concave, my muscles dwindling from not only lack of use, but