The Given Garden

by S. K Munt

  He got my hand again and this time, I breathed shallowly and let it stay even though he was making my skin crawl. I embraced the loathing, because it was easier than the hurt to tolerate. ‘You told me that you would forgive me, and wait for me!’

  ‘As your best friend, and that’s all we can ask of one another so why are you here demanding that I give you more now when I cannot? You told me that your powers would get us all killed if you didn’t let them out, now you’ve vented and are hopefully feeling well so I don’t see why we’re hashing this out instead of enjoying the morning.’ I finally set some of my true anguish through. ‘I know we’re buddies, but if you think I want to talk about how it happened, how much you enjoyed it to make you feel accepted-’

  ‘I didn’t take that as the promise of a best friend! I took that as…’ he ran out of steam and sagged, reaching for my waist and resting his head against my shoulder so that I could feel his hot tears. ‘I was weak,’ he breathed. ‘But you made me that weak. I’d never have gone to her if I didn’t love you so much. And if you tell me that because I did, you’ll never love me again- I don’t know what I’ll do!’ His tears ran down my shoulder and they were hot- just as the charge from where he was touching me was borderline burning. ‘I can take five years waiting for you, but not a life without you. If you can’t forgive me for this…’

  I stiffened, understanding the threat before even he could and fearing it accordingly. If I couldn’t forgive him- if I couldn’t allow him to believe that I would come to love him again, he would do something drastic, and that would probably end up with me in the Wildwoods, me underneath him without the right to refuse- or with someone dead. But how could I give him a false promise? That wasn’t me.

  ‘I need you as much as you need me,’ I whispered, turning my face to his ear and pressing a kiss to his cheek punctuate the only truth that I had for him- I did need him. ‘But seeing you in another woman’s arms caused me quite a great deal of pain, and I have never been good at covering my emotions. If you truly love me, you will be a friend and help me deal with this, rather than encourage a breakdown. Besides, I’d hate to be banished from Arcadia after all we’ve been through, for killing Emmerly in a moment of jealousy.’

  Kohén sniffled and looked up with a hopeful expression. ‘You were jealous?’

  I smiled. ‘I could have generated enough electric charge to fry a hemlock or two myself.’ I caressed his jaw, despising him for the flash of pride that brightened his eyes momentarily. ‘Please… let’s have no more of these talks, okay? No more cuddling and no more vows. Like you said- we’re going to need space, we’re going to need room to breathe and we’re going to need to hold onto our friendship with both hands and trust that on the other side of my freedom, a life together awaits.’

  ‘That is all I believe in or want from my life,’ he said sadly.

  That was a lie- he wanted Pacifica, and a larger crown and to best Kohl and to have as much sex as I could stand, but I let him keep his lies as I was keeping mine, for he was only fooling himself. He could not have all of those things AND me, but telling him that would be my undoing.

  I could be his friend still, but only time would tell how close we’d end up in the end. ‘And what I want is a cotton field, the Statue Of Liberty in view and you at my side.’ I pulled back from him and rested my book in my lap. ‘Oh, and to finish this book like I promised Martya I would. You’ve already made two of the dreams come true- can you help me with the others by giving me space?’

  But Kohén’s face fell. ‘Larkin, there’s something you need to know about Martya…’

  ‘That she died en route to St Miguel?’ I said, as though reading from a script, and Kohén frowned. ‘I know. I wish she’d waited until the thaw…’

  Kohén swallowed. ‘Uh… yes. I, erm… didn’t know that you knew.’

  ‘Karol told me,’ I said, rolling onto my stomach and holding the book in front of my eyes again. ‘In the pool.’

  I heard Kohén’s breath catch. ‘What else did he do and say in the pool?’

  ‘Nothing I’d like to recall. In fact, as you can probably imagine- thinking about Karol naked and Martya’s death are as unappealing subjects to me as you fucking Emmerly is.’ I heard him moan lightly but kept my triumphant gaze on the mildewy pages. ‘So please, come back when I have finished this, or when you have a new ball for us to kick around.’

  ‘Where’s yours?’

  I lifted my eyes to his at last. ‘In the same coffin that Emmerly took my jewelled shoes from.’

  Kohén went pale. ‘She…?’

  ‘I don’t like to make accusations,’ I said blithely. ‘So the next time you indulge in pillow talk, ask her for me, all right? Then, you can tell me your thoughts.’

  Kohén’s hand stroked my hair. ‘I am never leaving Eden without you again. Everything fell apart while we were separated!’

  ‘That’s one of the promises I’m going to take with a grain of salt, and spare myself bitter disappointment from later.’

  Kohén sighed, but he rose and said: ‘I’m going to find a ball. Tell me how the book goes, okay? I mean, it looks like a fascinating subject.’

  ‘Utterly enthralling,’ I drawled. And finally, Kohén laughed an uncomfortable laugh but blessedly left.

  I didn’t exhale until I heard the rear doors open again and then, I collapsed face first on the book and moaned. I was fairly sure that I’d just handled the altercation to the best of anyone’s ability, but I was trembling and the aestival heat on my bare shoulders felt like an icy draft.

  Just keep reading. Keep your goals in mind- this IS a fascinating subject, after all, or would be if you still had a functioning brain cell in your hormonal body!

  I straightened up and turned the page, relieved when it flopped open easily- telling me that I had finally made it halfway through the bug statistics. But as my eyes refocused on the page, I saw that that instead of having text, both pages were old-fashioned diagrams on cotton plant height that folded out to make a page twice the size of the book- or at least they had been. Scrawled over the diagrams in family, tidy and large red handwriting, was a letter.

  Dear Larkin,

  I hope this letter finds us both in a position where we can laugh off my paranoia, but as I write it, I am frantically packing to leave Eden forever, and I am feeling equal measures of triumph, paranoia and hysteria, so forgive me if I sound a little crazy but… but just in case I don’t make it to St Miguel, here is a copy of the real formula for the locust panacea, because the one I have handed to the king is missing one crucial ingredient and-’

  I gasped as electricity ran up my spine and then made my muscles clench painfully. At first, I looked over my shoulder- utterly convinced that Elijah or Kohén had snuck up behind me but no one was there- that chill had come from inside me- from the core of my paranoia. Just as quickly as it had come, it passed and was replaced by a flush of heat right across me. I looked back to the page and read on at a maniacal pace but I realised quickly that I knew what it said before I’d even finished it.

  Martya had been killed-and someone was going to pay for that!

  *

  I re-read the letter five times before I snapped from my stupor and realised that Eden was coming alive. The rear doors had been latched open, as had the left-hand gates, and as I slowly came into awareness and wiped tears off my cheeks, I saw that people were coming over the common- lots of people, and their eyes all went to the same place- Lady Liberty.

  ‘Oh! Oh it’s even bigger than I thought it would be!’

  ‘Really? I thought it would be much taller.’

  ‘Doesn’t it look so dramatic like that, with the cliff behind her, and the ocean! Oh, father, can I come next week and paint her?’

  My heart was pounding so loudly in my ears that their voices sounded tinny and far away. Martya had been killed, and Karol had either lied to me, or had been lied to by his father. But which was it? I HAD to know.

  ‘If they open the gate
s again, of course, though I’m sure you’ll have to jostle for position!’

  Open the gates? Wow- Elijah is letting townspeople into the rear lawn so that they can share in this too? But he never lets people in back!

  I stared, a little bit awed as more and more people streamed in with the clear intention of gawking at my birthday present. I felt a surge of possessiveness over her, but I looked at the amazed faces and grudgingly decided that such a beautiful sight was something to be shared, not guarded. The little Artisan girl was right after all- the statue looked not only beautiful where they had perched her, but formidable.

  Besides, I could use the distraction.

  ‘I don’t think she was worth the expense,’ a man muttered, looking annoyed. He had a face that was a perfect example of Calliel’s miscegenation: skin like ebony, hair as red as rust and sharply angled eyes. ‘It’s food we need, not landmarks. If Elijah thinks he is distracting ME-’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ his partner said, hugging him around the waist and grinning over his shoulder. ‘There isn’t enough food left for the kingdom to spend all of its money on right now, so why not splurge in a reason to live, instead of a way how?’

  The man’s eyes fell to me, and his eyes gleamed. ‘I suppose you’re right…’ he said softly. ‘Sometimes, a picture is worth a few thousand coins, isn’t it?’

  I knew better than to give him a foul look so I got to my feet and began to retreat, a little overwhelmed when I saw so many sets of curious eyes turn to me. They evidently hadn’t noticed me before I moved but now, heads turned and it felt to me as though they all knew that Kohén had wasted some of the treasury on pleasing someone worthless. I clutched the book to my chest and slipped back into my open window, jolting a little when I saw Adeline in the room beside me. She gave me a sad smile and waved at me through a break in the blooms clustered over her window, but all I could do was nod and lock my window frame behind me, afraid that if I tried to meet her gaze, the need to confess about her niece’s letter would overcome me, but I couldn’t, not without knowing more first.

  I was shaking like an orb spider by the time I made it back inside, but I put down the book, took a deep breath and then finally met my reflection in one of the many gilded mirrors... and was devastated to see a Companion looking back.

  My hair fell in large whirls to my waist, which truly did look like frosted silver and gold, and the white dress hugged me just tightly enough to be considered scandalous. My internal chill had made my nipples harden so that they made the silk around my breasts stress invitingly, and the shadow between my legs was rather blatant with the morning sun falling in a rectangle over the bed behind me. My skin was golden and the vines etched in gold around my eyes like a masquerade mask made me look mysterious and expensive.

  One-thousand-coins-a-ride- expensive, apparently!

  ‘You look like Heaven,’ Kohl had whispered, and now I finally understood the comparison. I did resemble the Heaven Barachiel of my imagination but it was the thing we did not have in common that evoked my strength; I had made it to sixteen years and one day, but she had not. She’d been a beautiful infant, child and youth while I had been ugly until late-youth, and though I’d once considered that a disability, I now knew that I had grown strong for that where she had been weak and spoiled. She’d been like Kelia, but I was someone else: Lady Liberty- tall, proud and standing, even if my soul was on a lean and my body clad in a toga. Someone powerful who people still assumed was as frail as gold filigree and in need of rescuing, and even though that was a lie that I still sometimes believed myself- it was also something that I’d be able to manipulate to my advantage.

  I made quick work of parting my hair with my fingers, and then pulled two long matted strands off my bed’s feathery throw before using them to fasten two piggy-tails on either side of my face with little fluffy gold bows. When that was done I looked ridiculously innocent, but I needed more than just innocent, so I went into the bathroom to touch up my lip-gloss and spray on some of the perfume that Kohén had left for me; coconut and frangipani, the scent of the islands. Flowery, soft and utterly tempting.

  I abhorred dressing myself up to please a man, and I was going to feel ridiculous going out looking the way I did, but I was worth a lot more than a thousand coins, and Karol Barachiel was going to be willing to pledge a million for what I could do for him before breakfast had been served, and more!

  If I was going to be a Companion, why waste time sobbing over the loss of a lowly second-son’s heart, when I could grab the heir apparent by the balls, and force him to see just how equal we were to one another- and how I would invoke Hell upon Earth within paradise, if he did not kneel to me!

  Maybe I’d been born third into this perfect world, and was undeserving of being a mother, or someone’s soul mate … but this was not the Barachiel harem- but mine- and if I was going to have to choose a favourite, I’d forge an alliance with the angel who was least likely to break my heart, and make the one who already had rue the day that he’d decided that I wasn’t enough for him.

  And then I was going to get the hell out of paradise.

  The excitement continues in The Eden Chronicles with book Two: The Forbidden Fruit, out early June 2015!

  Larkin is suddenly in possession of a lot of very powerful secrets, but will she regret the hand she plays with them? And what promise or deal could possibly be strong enough to get her out of a kingdom full of men who desire her submission, not her uprising?

  Please like my Facebook page ‘The Fairytail Saga’ for more updates!

  https://www.facebook.com/skmunt

  Adult Titles by S.K Munt

  The Fairytail Saga

  #1 The Marked Ones

  #2 Three Rings

  #3 Heads Or Tails

  #4 Stained Glass

  The Kissed By A Muse Trilogy

  #1 Unchained Melody

  #2 Turn The Page

  #3 More Than Words

  The Highway to Never After

  #1 Palpitations

  #2 Sanguivorous

  #3 Kinemortophobia

  #4 Thanatophobia

  The Harlequin Bros Legacy

  #1 The Harlequin Doll

  The Eden Chronicles

  #1 The Given Garden

  #2 The Forbidden Fruit

  #3 The Wildest Woods

  4#The Tangled Trees

  Young-Adult Titles

  The Siren Song Quartet

  # 1 The Legasea

  #2 The Turning Tide

  #3 The Maelstrom

  Urchin

  (Prequel to the Fairytail Saga)

  All titles available through Amazon Kindle.

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