The thought burns itself into my movements as I finish the aerial portion of my performance and prepare for my grand exit. My heart pounds harder than my feet hitting the ground.
The music begins to swell, the drums growing louder and faster. Smoke floats into the middle of the ring, and I search the room for my captors. Three of the Gardener’s lackeys guard the door and eight are positioned around the tent behind the partygoers. Once I make my move, I won’t need to worry about them. The lights dim as the smoke hides me from the audience.
Time to move.
With a flick of the wrist, I unfasten the sash holding up my long, heavy skirt to reveal a shorter skirt underneath. With nothing to encumber my movement now, I rush for the audience.
My feet pound in time with the rhythm of the drum as I race in the direction of the man in the wolf mask. As I burst through the cloud of smoke, one of the lackeys shouts over the music. He’s too late. They all are.
I find the man in gray and lunge for him, jumping up onto the table. A silver goblet tumbles over, spilling rice wine onto the white tablecloth, as I dodge his plate and jump over him. Twisting my body midair, I flip myself around the man and snatch a sapphire-encrusted knife from his belt, then hold the blade up to the tender part of his neck. The woman next to us clutches her chest like she might faint. It’s almost comical, considering five seconds ago she was watching me just as eagerly as the rest of the audience.
“Get up,” I say into the man’s ear, still trying to catch my breath.
The muscles in his hand tense as he tightens his grip on a pair of silver chopsticks.
“You really should pick someone else,” the man says.
His wolf mask muffles him, but I swear there’s a smile in his voice. My eyes flit toward the emperor, and the soldiers must realize this isn’t part of the show. I have precious few seconds rolling away like the sweat trickling down my brow.
“Up! Now!” I command, pressing the blade a little harder.
“I’m telling you,” my hostage says. “You really should—”
“Now!” I shout. One of the soldiers raises his crossbow. I tug the edge of Wolf Mask’s robe, the fabric coarse against my fingers, and angle him so he blocks me from getting shot with an arrow.
“As you wish,” he says with a sigh. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He puts his hands out in front of him and rises painfully slowly, tucking in his chin like he’s trying to rest it on the knife. I have to stand on my tiptoes to keep the blade steady when he reaches his full height.
“Now back,” I say, grabbing a fistful of his robe.
He should stumble as I yank him, but his movements are smooth, like this is a practiced routine. If I can just keep a hold of him until we reach the tent flap, then I can push him into the converging swarm of men and find a place to hide until I can come back for the others. Hopefully the lackeys will already be nice and drunk so they won’t put up a fight. We’ll make it out of here. We have to. I’ll have a head start on the Gardener. It’ll have to be good enough. The Delmarion soldiers shouldn’t care about a single dancer escaping, so I doubt they’ll track me.
“Let’s go,” I scream, my voice echoing through the tent. I hadn’t noticed the musicians drop their instruments.
All I can think about is Fern’s death, and it rips through me worse than a hot iron to the back of my legs.
“Don’t worry,” my hostage says. “In a moment, those soldiers aren’t going to be worrying about you anymore.”
I take a step backward, jerking him along with me, but instead of moving, he rips off his mask. The audible gasp from the audience confirms what he just said, and I nearly lose my grip as I crane my neck to see his face.
“It’s the traitor!” one of the Delmarion soldiers shouts, pointing at us.
“Get the Zareeni vermin!” shouts another.
My fingers go slack on his robe.
“I did warn you to choose someone else,” my hostage says, turning.
No… It can’t be him.
Even from behind the bars of my cage, I’ve heard whispers of the rebellion fighting against Delmar’s emperor. Sometimes when the Gardener’s lackeys get really drunk, they scheme about hunting down some of the rebels for the ridiculous bounties on their head. And no one is worth more than their leader and ex-heir to the throne, Rayce Sun. I’ve seen his poster so much that I’ve come to memorize the thick scar that cuts down the left side of his face. But those pictures didn’t do justice to the commanding presence of the man standing before me. Even in the glow of lanterns, his hair is as dark as the inside of my cage in the middle of the night and hangs loose over hooded, mud-brown eyes.
“Now would be a good time to light it up!” Rayce shouts to some unseen person.
Before his mouth closes again, four rockets explode into the air, ripping through the top of the tent then bursting into a million little sparks that catch the fabric. I’ve never seen fireworks up close, but it sounds like thunder trapped in a bottle. Screams erupt as people dive to avoid the sprinkles of flame raining down on the audience, but I’m transfixed by the fire consuming the tent fabric and wooden poles like it is the literal translation of the rage burning inside me. This is exactly what I needed to break away, and I wonder if Fern had known about the rebellion coming here tonight. Now I just need to sneak out and get lost in the crowd of panicked people.
“Time to run,” Rayce says, easily twisting the knife out of my grasp. He tosses the blade into his other hand and grabs my palm, entwining our fingers tightly.
“I’m not going with you,” I shout over the panic.
I face the leader of the Zareeni rebellion squarely. A wicked grin plays on his chiseled face, promising a thousand more reckless moments.
“You put a knife to my throat,” he says. “There’s no way I can let you off now, not with so much at stake. Follow me.”
“Let me go,” I snap. “This is my chance! You’ll ruin everything.”
I wrench my hand back, but our palms stay connected. Though his grip remains tight, he isn’t hurting me.
“Sorry, but I did warn you,” he repeats. “You should have picked someone else. Now we’re in this together.”
I start to protest again, but he ignores me, pulling us through the burning tent flap with a trail of soldiers shouting our exit.
Chapter Six
Outside the tent, the tidy world of upper-class Delmar has descended into chaos. Men drag women in trailing robes out of the burning tent like it’s a sinking ship, trampling the beautifully lain flowers and sparkling blue rug under their heeled feet. Fireworks explode in an array of vivid colors, lighting up the nighttime sky, while leather-clad Sun soldiers rush around, assisting guests out of the flame-engulfed Garden. So much for a cheerful welcoming of spring.
Everywhere I look there are blurs of people and shouts of panic, all submerged in a thick cloud of gray smoke. From somewhere among those screaming, the Gardener’s voice rings out as the consequence of tonight’s events get through his thick head: his tent is destroyed and his star is missing. Almost everything he worked for is gone. Now I just need to finish him off by freeing the rest of the girls.
My hostage-turned-captor pushes us through the crowd of panicked people, keeping his face down and his callused grip squeezing my palm. My cheeks heat at the strangely intimate contact, and I wish more than anything that he’d let me go. We pass the emerald holding tent where my sisters are waiting for me.
I can almost hear them calling out, can see their faces through the green fabric and smoke burning my eyes. This is my chance. I don’t even need to wait. The Gardener and his lackeys will be more concerned with saving the main tent, not the lives of his replaceable dancers.
“I have to go,” I yell over the chaos of the crowd.
I kick out my foot, connecting with the back of Rayce’s knee, and he drops to the ground, letting go of my hand in his hurry to catch himself.
I don’t check to make sure he
isn’t injured, instead plunging toward the tent, clawing through anyone who gets in my way. This is our only chance to escape. To start a new life. The memory of Fern’s screams spurs me on, the comfort of her face hardening my resolve.
The crowd thins as I draw closer to the burning Garden. A giant firework explodes in the air, like a red spiderweb, and rains down more fire and smoke. I push past an older lady and can almost touch the tent flap.
A large hand wraps around my forearm and yanks me backward, just as my fingertips graze the coarse fabric. I stumble back, straining my arm toward my sisters, and crash into something rock hard. I look up to see Rayce’s creased forehead and dark eyes, realizing I’m pressed up against his chest.
“What are you doing?” he yells over the people screaming. “We’ve got to get out of here. They’ll find us.”
“Let me go!” I jerk away from him, but it doesn’t break his hold.
“Stop fighting me! You’ll get caught again.”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to save them.”
“Who are you talking about?” he asks.
“The other dancers,” I say. “The Gardener will take out his fury on them if I don’t help them escape.”
He frowns, and surprise flickers in his eyes at my answer, but his hand tightens around my arm. Why won’t he just let me go? This is my only chance! I throw all my weight away from him, but his arm over my shoulders doesn’t budge. His eyes flash toward the tent, and I automatically follow his gaze. Inside stands the Gardener, sweat sticking his hair to his head as he screams at several lackeys running back and forth with pails of water. The Flowers aren’t even there. If Rayce hadn’t stopped me, I’d have run right back into the Gardener’s waiting arms.
“Come on,” Rayce says.
“No.” I cough as smoke pours into my lungs. “I’m going to find the other Flowers.”
He shakes his head and draws me closer. I struggle against his chest, twisting to break out of his grip, but before I can get free, he bends down and lifts me over his shoulder. His arms feel raw over the backs of my exposed legs. I scream and beat against his back, but he’s already moving through the crowd.
I can’t tell if it’s from my burning eyes or from the overwhelming terror of knowing my only chance to rescue my sisters disappears behind the gate we pass through, but I’m crying. My heart is locked away with the girls back in the Garden, so how can it still be pounding in my chest?
Rayce takes a hard right and tucks us into a dark alley right outside the palace gates. It’s just wide enough for us both to squeeze through. He lets me down gently, and I lean against the stone wall to hold myself up.
“Don’t think about running back there,” he warns, his eyes boring into mine. “You’re staying with me until I know it’s safe.”
“And if I refuse?” I ask, my voice betraying the anger seething inside me.
“Then we’ll have to do this the hard way again,” he says.
I look away from him, back to the smoke cloud billowing in the sky. The pockmarks in the rocks dig into my bare legs, but I’m too numb to care. The lingering smell of several-days-old meat and sewage mix with the smoke still clinging to our clothes, making my lungs work hard to catch a breath.
He sighs. “I know you want to help the other performers, but you won’t help anyone if you wander right back into the Garden’s trap.”
“How could you just leave them?” I ask, wrapping my arms around myself. “You’re the leader of the rebellion. Aren’t you supposed to help people?”
He frowns, rubbing the back of his neck.
“This is the meeting place,” Rayce says, ignoring my question. “My men will be here any minute, and then we can get out of the city.”
“Why not just let me go then?” I try again, looking down at my soot-covered feet. “It’s not like I’m your responsibility.”
I can’t stay here. Not only will the others be expecting me to rescue them once word spreads that I escaped, but the most dangerous place I could be right now, even more so than the Garden, is standing next to the leader of the rebellion. If this man knew the secret the Gardener and I share about my past, it very well could spell the end of my freedom for eternity. Or my death.
“You’re joking, right?” He cocks an eyebrow. “You just pressed a blade up against my throat and threatened my life in front of a room full of witnesses. How do I know you’re not an assassin sent by the emperor?”
“I had to get out of there somehow,” I snap. “Besides, if I were an assassin, I’m obviously not a very good one, since you managed to get the knife away from me and capture me, twice.”
“Or you just want me to believe that,” he says. “You have to understand, you picked me out of a crowd of a hundred people. How am I supposed to believe it was random? It’d make sense that my uncle would send someone to eliminate me, since the details of his precious treaty are being finalized tonight.”
Fern mentioned something about a deal between the emperor and the Gardener, and how it had to do with me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Yeah, realization wasn’t just all over your face.” He swings around to look out into the courtyard. “Besides, even if I let you dive headfirst into trouble, where do you even think you’d go?”
Now that the chaos of the tent burning has begun to die down, slipping back into the Garden unnoticed isn’t an option. When I made my plan to escape, I’d imagined staying somewhere in the city, near the Garden, until an opportunity to infiltrate showed itself. And if by some miracle that worked, where would we have gone? We couldn’t have made it to Varsha. Even if we managed to bribe one of the soldiers on the Blue Gate, the Gardener and I both know I’d never be safe there. Not with my past. It’s the main reason our show has never crossed into Varshan land.
“A girl like you, dressed in an outfit like that,” Rayce says, turning back to me. A blush sweeps my cheeks as his eyes pass over my bare stomach, tiny strip of a skirt, and low-cut top. “Well, if you didn’t have anywhere to hide, you’d draw quite a bit of attention.”
“I know where I’m going,” I snap, unwilling to reveal just how poorly I’ve planned ahead.
“Yes, with me, back to Zareen.” He unties the strip of fabric holding his robe together. “Until we assess whether or not you’re a threat to our cause.”
He shakes off all three layers of his clothes and lets them drop into a puddle of fabric, revealing a pair of black trousers underneath.
I look down at my bare feet. It’s not like I’ve never seen a man’s bare chest before. The lackeys are anything but modest, especially when they’re setting up the Garden in the sweltering heat. I just haven’t seen anything like Rayce’s lean, muscled back as he fishes through the pile and pulls out a simple linen shirt.
“Now, take off your clothes,” he commands.
“What?” I hug my bare stomach.
He straightens, a black robe hanging from his hands. “I mean no harm. As I said earlier, you stick out in your current attire.”
He hands me a white robe, and I accept it without question.
“I’m Rayce, by the way,” he says, clearly changing the subject.
“I know who you are. Your face is plastered on every surface in every town in Delmar. You’re the leader of the rebellion.”
“Almost as popular as you are, Miss Flower,” he says with a mocking bow.
“My name is Rose.”
I slide my arms through the large sleeves and wrap the opening around my body, realizing too late that this is his under robe. I spin around to face the courtyard so he doesn’t see the blush creeping onto my face as I tie it closed. His warmth still clings to the fabric, seeping onto my skin.
“But you already knew my name, too,” I say, “since you attended the show.” I don’t mean for the edge to come out in my voice.
I smooth down the robe, nearly drowning in it. This is the most covered I’ve been since before I was stolen to be in
the Garden.
“I know your stage name,” he says. “Going to give me a real one?”
I haven’t been called by my real name since I was eight years old, and happy. I’m not about to pick that scab right now.
“No.”
“Fair enough, Rose,” he says, enunciating my pseudonym. “But your cooperation would go a long way in determining whether or not I can trust you enough to let you go.”
I press my lips together to keep from snapping back at him. If he wants my cooperation, I can pretend long enough to slip away. My years in the Garden have made me very good at showing men the face they want to see.
I step out of the alleyway. Peering into the courtyard, I notice the crowd thinned out while we were changing, and a thick layer of smoke moved in to take its place. A figure breaks through the smoke, running straight for us, the shiny links of the Delmarion chest plate glinting in the firelight.
Panic seizes my chest, and I grip the top of my new robe shut.
“W-we have to run,” I say.
Rayce turns toward the figure, following my line of vision. A slow smile finds its way onto his face.
“Relax,” he says. “That’s one of my men.”
The man clambers up to us, his body covered in the brown leather uniform of a Sun soldier. He stops in front of Rayce and pops off his helmet, revealing wavy light brown hair plastered to his head and large brown eyes. He doesn’t exactly look Varshan, but he’s got the thick hair and round eyes that are common in my homeland. “Did you see all the fancy inside that tent?” he says, shimmying out of his armor. “I can’t believe your cheap jerk of an uncle spent so much on tonight’s festivities.”
“Nice to see you, too, Arlo,” Rayce says.
Arlo gives him a sarcastic salute, and then his gaze travels to me. A toothy smile slides over his face like it was always meant to be there.
Garden of Thorns Page 4
