My heart flutters at the thought. I love him. Somewhere among the pain and honey crisps and death and jokes and promises kept, I’ve fallen for this man who will freely give his life to save others. And I have to make sure it doesn’t come to that.
Rayce reaches his uncle first, unleashing a flurry of attacks so fast I can barely follow them. His uncle parries each move as calmly as he studied his ant farms, meeting his nephew’s speed blow for blow.
I run up behind Rayce and swing my sword as the emperor blocks Rayce’s blade. The emperor throws up an armored forearm, and my blade skates across his metal armor, producing white sparks in the air.
“Are you going to need a woman to help you finally beat me, Nephew?” the emperor asks, shoving me back.
I skid to a stop just behind Rayce and grit my teeth.
“I don’t need any help,” he growls, his eyes hazed over as he slams his sword down on the emperor’s again. “But Rose wants vengeance for Oren as much as I do.”
“And I will gladly help him succeed,” I say, squaring my shoulders.
The emperor jolts forward, his thick blade arching toward Rayce’s head. Rayce jumps back, leaning to keep out of the way of the sharp tip coming for his neck.
“Stupid boy,” the emperor says. “Feelings don’t belong on the battlefield. Have you retained nothing I taught you?”
While he’s distracted, I lunge, aiming for the slip of skin exposed on his neck, but the emperor easily parries my attack like he’s batting away a fly.
“I don’t need any of the training you gave me,” Rayce spits, returning his uncle’s attack.
The emperor jumps back, putting space between us. We stand in a triangle, swords drawn to make the points of the shape. Rayce’s eyes burn with an unquenchable fire, his hands barely able to contain the rage welling through him.
The sun behind the emperor’s back glows bright, and the reflection off his shiny armor nearly blinds me.
“Your insolence has gone on long enough,” the emperor says. “You spout out nonsense about the value of human life, and yet, you continue to fight, claiming the lives of hundreds on both sides. How many people will you sacrifice before you’ve finished your temper tantrum?”
Rayce swings at his uncle but misses, nearly feeling the edge of the emperor’s blade instead.
“How many will you sacrifice because they don’t think the same way you do?” I ask. “Including your own flesh and blood.”
The emperor’s eyes slide to my face, and I fight not to crumple under the weight of them.
“As many as need be,” he snaps.
The ant farm he drowned…how many of his precious pets did he exterminate because one moved out of turn? I know in that second that he wouldn’t hesitate to throw his entire empire at Rayce if it meant righting the world in his mind. And I also understand why Rayce feels like he must press on through all the heartache. How he can justify every sacrifice he’s forced to make, and why I find him up late into the night.
“Then we’ll keep fighting,” Rayce says.
“Wrong,” the emperor says, glancing at Oren. “You’ll die just like this traitor did.”
When Rayce attacks again, something changes about the way he moves. He’s more measured, his steps sure as he dodges and hacks, fighting with a different sort of fury. The emperor’s words reach through his rage into a place deeper than his fury. For the first time, the emperor’s movements become stilted as he wades backward.
I trail behind them, but I can barely keep up with their blurred attacks, jumping out of the way as their blades clash over and over again.
Rayce’s sword slips through his uncle’s defenses, slicing through the leather holding up his chest plate. Blood spurts out as Rayce pulls back his sword.
In that moment, the emperor rips out a small knife sheathed behind him.
“Rayce!” I scream.
But my warning comes a moment too late. The emperor jams the short blade deep into Rayce’s gut.
Rayce’s beautiful eyes widen, his expression frozen in shock and pain as he stumbles backward, dropping his blade to clutch the knife hilt sticking out of his stomach. My entire world shakes, and I reach out an utterly useless hand as he wobbles away from me, blood staining his shirt.
He trips over a fallen Zareeni guard and goes down, landing with a thud on his back. No! Rayce can’t die. He has to stay with me. His uncle can’t have him. There’s still so much he doesn’t know.
The emperor raises his weapon high with both hands planted on the hilt, aiming to kill.
I run up and shoot my blade out, my knee hitting the dirt hard in front of Rayce. The emperor’s sword carves into the back of my ear as I break its trajectory away from Rayce’s heart.
Everything in me wants to drop my weapon and check to make sure Rayce is okay, but if I do that, the emperor will kill him, and I will not let that happen. He’ll have to administer the final blow over my dead body.
Please be okay.
My mind fills with the blood crawling up Rayce’s shirt, but I push it away. There is no room for distractions if I’m going to have any hope of protecting Rayce.
“Are you going to fight me, girl?” the emperor asks, the hint of a smile on his lips. “Do you think you stand a chance when you just saw my nephew fall to my blade?”
“I don’t know,” I say, rising. My limbs tremble from the effort. Blood coats my face and runs sticky down the back of my neck.
“But I do know that you won’t touch Rayce ever again.”
I slide my left hand to the bottom of my sword hilt, readjusting my grip, and hold the blade out between Rayce and his uncle. Since he can’t fight, I will be Rayce’s shield the same way he has protected me up until this point.
“How many days did you practice with the sword, Flower?” he asks, amusement shaking his voice. “Did they teach you how to wield a weapon while learning how to dance?”
“No,” I say, taking a step forward. My lungs burn, my muscles ache, but I remind them that together we killed Shears and stopped the Gardener. Luck will just have to be on my side one last time. “But you still won’t win.”
The emperor’s eyes flicker above my head for a moment, and I use it, swinging my blade with everything I have at his shoulder.
His weapon meets mine, and my arms shake with the impact.
“Clumsy footwork,” he says, pushing me backward.
“At least I don’t have to cheat to win,” I say, jabbing out at him.
“There is no cheating in war, girl,” the emperor says. He jams his blade against mine, this time meeting my strength with his until our faces are an inch apart. As my muscles strain under his might, I remind myself that I bested him once. He underestimated me then, but I was able to slip through his fingers. I can do it again.
He gives a final shove, and I stumble back.
Instead of advancing, he whips around and takes a few paces backward. I follow him and notice again that he’s looking around me, his focus someplace other than our fight.
I dare a quick glance to my left and see a Zareeni guard downing a Sun soldier with a zap of their stunner. Everywhere my eyes dart, I notice there’s a lot less blue than when Rayce and I burst onto the scene a few moments ago.
I lick my lips, tasting sweat and blood, and turn back to the emperor. He comes at me with another blow, but the strength isn’t behind his attack.
“Tell me something,” the emperor says. “Do you really think my nephew will care about you after he finds out you’ve been lying to him this whole time?”
His words cut into the deepest roots of my fear, and the tip of my sword lowers. Maybe Rayce won’t be able to forgive my lie, maybe this secret I’ve been harboring my entire life will be too big for the two of us to bear. Maybe we will crumple under the weight of it. Or worse, maybe he will fade from the decision he’ll be forced to make.
Sword still out, the emperor takes a few steps back.
“He is my protégé, after all,” he says,
his eyes flicking above my head. “My teachings will always affect him, whether he will admit it or not.”
Oren’s final words to me about trust ring through my head, and I set my jaw. He believed Rayce is strong enough to shoulder the weight of my heritage, and I have to honor Oren’s belief. I owe it to him and to Rayce and even to myself.
“Rayce won’t abandon me,” I say, lunging forward.
The emperor parries my attack with a lazy flick of his wrist, my blade slicing through his cape.
He continues stepping backward. I release a flurry of blows, dodging left and right, aiming for any sliver of skin I can see, but every time I move, his sword is already there, ready to deflect mine.
Sweat pours off my brow; my arms shriek with every movement. Our swords collide, and my muscles scream out in protest. Every bit of me wants to give up as the emperor keeps moving us away from Rayce’s crumpled form.
But then I remember Oren, and my fury reignites, sparking through my tired limbs.
I spin around, putting all the force I can into my sword swing, and the emperor jumps back, twisting on his foot to retreat. I rush after him, dodging the clusters of Delmarions and Zareeni rebels fighting.
The emperor races through the crowd, breaking through the battle to jump onto a gigantic white warhorse. I rush after him, sword drawn, but the horse rears up at my approach, and I have dodge out from under its heavy hooves.
The emperor steadies the beast with a hand on its head and peers down at me.
“Know this, girl,” he says. “I won’t wait forever for you decide to stop dawdling around with my inferior nephew to take back what is rightfully yours. You will not be able to free your people without the might of my army by your side. Remember that, and remember it well. Your time marches on without you, Princess, and soon you will be forgotten even by those that were once loyal.”
He says my title in a mocking tone, his eyes alight with frustration.
“I will never surrender to you,” I say. “I’d rather die.”
At my statement, the emperor shrugs. “My war will be easier with you, but your death wouldn’t pain me, either.” His eyes scan our surroundings. “It seems we have worn out our welcome.”
He raises two fingers, spinning them in a circle. “I’m sure this isn’t the last time we’ll meet.” He clicks the horse’s reins, and it begins to move.
“The next time we do, it’ll be your head on the chopping block,” I snap.
The blare of that blasted horn sounds out in three quick sessions. The Sun soldiers look up and begin to backtrack, fighting off stunner bolts as they move toward the emperor and their horses.
He’s calling for a retreat.
I glance across the battlefield, picking through the carnage and blood painting everything red and see the relieved look on the Zareeni rebels’ faces as the Sun soldiers begin to swarm their emperor. My mind can’t quite process the information that stands in plain sight.
Rayce said there was a good chance he wouldn’t have enough people, but it seems like with the help of the stunners, we might have…
We won?
A cheer swells through the crowd, the rebels picking up the sound and sending it with force at the retreating hooves of the army that should have bested us. Arlo screams louder than the rest a few feet ahead of me, the barrels of his twin stunners still shooting after the soldiers.
But all I can think as I see the emperor retreating toward the blue sky is that Rayce is still among the bodies littering the ground.
My feet pound against the packed dirt and trampled grass as I carve a straight path for the raised platform, careful not to look at Oren’s body still lying there.
A figure struggles to sit up, crawling over a soldier’s body. I catch the long black vest before I see his face.
I skid to a stop next to Rayce and drop to my knees. He holds his abdomen where the knife used to sit. Blood peeks through his fingers, and he breathes deeply through his nostrils.
“Rayce, are you okay?” I ask.
He grimaces and removes his hand for me to assess the damage. I peel back his blood-soaked shirt. A clean, deep wound pierces the lower left side of his stomach, blood oozing out. I place my hands on his stomach, feeling his warmth trickle through my fingers.
“I’ve been better,” he says, placing a bloody hand on my forearm. “Where did my uncle go?”
I look down at the cut I’m holding closed.
“He got away,” I say.
His hand moves up my arm, resting on my cheek, and though his eyes are shut tight, he rubs his thumb along my jawline.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “We’ve won this battle, and the Garden has been crushed. That’s more than I could ask for.” He takes another pained breath through his nose. “Thank you, by the way. For blocking my uncle’s final shot and fending him off.”
“I wasn’t going to let him hurt you anymore,” I say.
A small smile finds its way to his pale face.
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you liked me,” he says, his shaking hand going weak.
I look up, still applying pressure to the wound on his stomach, and scan the area. “Someone, please help!” I shout.
My eyes find Arlo’s lighter-colored hair in the crowd. He turns at my voice, takes one look at the pain that must paint my face ugly, and sprints over.
“The emperor wounded him,” I yell to Arlo and turn back to Rayce, pressing my hands over his wound. “You’re going to be okay. Everything going’s to be okay.”
His eyes dart around my face, and a weak smile pulls on his lips.
“Don’t worry,” Rayce says, his voice nearly a whisper. “It only hurts when I breathe.”
Arlo takes one look at my bloodied hands holding Rayce’s stomach and starts shouting orders at the remaining Zareeni guards. They move with an ease that only comes through hours of practice, picking through the battlefield for survivors, constructing a bed out of the tent fabric from the Garden to carry Rayce and securing the Gardener for the trek back to the rebel base. I look away when three men walk to the platform to gather Oren’s remains, a lump lodging in my throat.
While they work, Suki leans down next to Rayce and begins pulling out supplies from a small green pack. I see the same brown bottle Rayce used on my cut and look at his tense face, knowing his pain is just beginning. Suki cleans the wound, instructing me on what to hold and what to prepare, and together we help Rayce sit up and wrap it.
I hold Rayce’s hand until they load him on the makeshift stretcher.
Arlo stands next to me as I watch the two men begin to move out of the little town.
“You did amazing, Rose,” Arlo says, clapping a hand around my shoulder. The weight feels friendly, like how I imagine Marin feels when he comforts her. “We lost a lot here—” His voice cuts out, and he clenches his jaw. “But we also accomplished a lot.”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “All of this is my fault.”
Arlo pulls me closer to his side. “No, it isn’t. It needed to be done, with or without you pushing us into action. We couldn’t allow the Garden to exist in our new world, and this display of might definitely spooked the emperor.”
I force the protest welling up inside me to stay pressed against my tongue and look at the tops of my feet, filthy from the muck and blood now staining the abandoned town. The grotesque view of slain or stunned soldiers and guards in front of me somehow completes the story of this site.
“What I need to know from you is what you’d like to do with all of this,” Arlo says, motioning to the cages that used to hold me and my sisters captive and the looming tent now filled with holes. Sunlight floods through the fabric, burning dots on the ground like the edges of a diamond.
I recall the moment I fled the Garden for the first time.
“Burn it,” I say, my voice strong in the afternoon sun. “Burn it to the ground.”
As we begin the long trek back to camp, carrying the wounded, a plume of smoke b
illows in the blue sky at our back. The scent of smoke and tiny sparks of red ash rise in the wind, a reminder that today is the day the Garden had its final curtain call in Delmar. Tomorrow when I wake up, it will be only a memory, no longer part of this world, and my sisters will be able to stand next to me, free.
The victory sours in my mouth.
For tomorrow will also be the first day Oren will no longer be in this world.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Three days later, I awake in the room I share with Marin, tucked safely underground in Zareen. The artificial light unable to chase away the darkness feels fitting as the previous days’ events replay over and over in my mind. I stare into the bucket of water in front of me that’s stained red from the dried blood still clinging to my hands. Even now, I can’t get all of it off, like a permanent reminder of the lives I took. The water dyes a deeper color every second I leave my hands in it, and still, all I can think is a single thought. It keeps pumping through my veins, making my vision teary.
Oren is dead.
I couldn’t save him.
I almost lost Rayce…
As it rushes over me again, I’m kneeling back in that field, the scratchy blades of grass poking through the fabric of my pants as I crawl forward. I’m reaching for Oren, and he looks at me with such serenity. Then the blade comes down, robbing me of his wisdom and kindness forever with one swift motion.
A gentle rapping on the door brings me back to the present. I look up at Rayce leaning against the opening, his arms crossed over his chest. A white bandage pokes out above the collar of his tan shirt, and his dark hair is slicked back in a short ponytail from his face.
“You’re looking worse for the wear,” he says.
“You’re not looking your best, either.”
He chuckles at my response.
“I thought you’d want to know that the other girls have all been assigned rooms close to yours and are resting,” he says. “And the Gardener has been locked up. We’ll be questioning him soon.”
Garden of Thorns Page 31
