Rayce brushes a piece of hair from my forehead, his fingers trailing down my face to linger on the edge of my jawline.
“That wasn’t just a little healing, Rose,” he says. “That was a miracle.”
I guess I won’t be joining the sands just yet. A smile touches my own lips through the last of the pain.
Arlo’s gaze moves from me to the desert rose near us, which seems to have grown brighter, as if proud of the secret we just revealed.
“Are you okay to sit up?” Arlo asks.
I nod, wincing as the movement claws at my newly closed wound. Even though it has stopped the flow of blood, the skin still feels fragile.
“We need to bring some of this stuff back to Piper,” Arlo says, rising with the small brown bag he brought over. “Marin, help me with this…what’s it called?”
As he dumps out the contents of his pack, he looks back to me puzzled.
“Rose,” I say, my voice weak. I don’t meet anyone’s eye. “Desert rose.”
Rayce’s hand on mine grips a little tighter, revealing he knows exactly how heavy the words weigh on me. This is my flower, for better or worse.
Arlo nods, breaking off pieces and shoving them in his sack.
“I don’t know how it worked.” Marin rises. “But thank Yun it did.” She walks over to help her brother, leaving Rayce and me alone for the moment.
Blinking a few times, I turn back to look at Rayce, rubbing my lips together, trying to figure out something to say. I settle for running my free hand over my forearm to try to warm myself. His eyes dance over my face like he’s trying to memorize it, his lips clenched into a straight line.
I open my mouth to ask him what he’s thinking, but I’m not even able to get out the words before he pulls me up to him, pressing me against his chest. The stubble on his face tickles my cheek raw and the strange scent of blood and sweat mixes with the fragrance of honey and spices that still clings to him from his time in the kitchen. My body molds into his and I wrap my arms weakly around his waist. I close my eyes and focus on letting his warmth melt away all of the stress and pain still clinging to my body.
“Nothing about this battle frightened me,” he whispers into my ear, his voice shaking. “Nothing, except the thought of losing you. I don’t know how that crystal works, but I’m thankful it was here.”
The last of my tears slip out as he speaks, filling me with a glow brighter than the Zarenite burning through our skin. After a stolen moment, he lifts me up and places me gently on my feet. I do my best not to survey the carnage of the battle, but the silence surrounding us tells me everything I don’t want to know. Neither side was without causalities. Relief washes over me as I pick out Calla, Lily, and Clover among those emptying the caravan.
Instead of dwelling on the battle, I turn back westward, toward the lands that held me prisoner for the past seven years, and try to mentally prepare for the trek home. Traversing the desert was hard when I was at full capacity, but now that I’ve depleted my energy, I dread the day-long journey, afraid of what news awaits us when we cross the Blue Gate into Delmar.
Nothing will stop me from killing the emperor and the traitor king sitting on my father’s throne, short of my own death. Because the world the emperor wants to create, a world where there is no choice, where a single person out of line can result in death, where he can permenantly scar his nephew for refusing to believe in his warped sense of rule, is not a world I will allow to exist. Not while there is breath left in my body.
A tendril of doubt curls around my gut, tightening like a weed trying to strangle my heart. If we succeed in our plan, if my vengeance is finally realized, then Rayce will likely wear the mantle of emperor, and if I want to remain by his side, I must accept that burden along with him. His people will become our people. And I’m uncertain there is enough water and sunlight in the world to help me grow that tall.
Chapter Four
The caravan takes much longer to weed through than I originally hoped and doesn’t yield nearly enough fruit. Just a few crossbows, a set of fine armor, a few scrolls that Rayce packs to read through later, and six sacks of grain. We take what we can and leave the rest where it lies like an offering to Zaina.
Because of the lost time, we leave much closer to dawn than I was anticipating, and though the rebels around me whisper nervously about the rising sun, I stay quiet knowing that soon it will be high enough in the sky to bake us alive. My skin hungers for the never-ending heat, after years of being tucked away in my cage in the Garden and then months of living underground in Zareen, but I know my companions won’t fare well.
Though I was in the front on our way here, a man and woman take the lead now, using a strange contraption that Piper, our lead inventor, made that allows them to determine which way we’re going in the endless mounds of sand, like it can map stars that are no longer there. My eyelids droop heavily, each slow blink threatening to drop me where I stand even as I trudge forward, but I focus on the pain still radiating from my shoulder. Each step tests the newly formed skin over the wound as if one wrong move will burst it open again.
I touch the white bandage wrapped around my shoulder and wince.
“Still tender?” Arlo asks, falling into step with me.
“A little.” I clench my teeth around the words and tuck my damaged hand farther into my sleeve.
Though we’re walking at the same pace, Arlo lags behind by a second, his boots sinking a good inch farther down in the sand than mine. Though I haven’t been in this climate for years, my feet haven’t forgotten the delicate way to step so they aren’t fighting with the sand. A grown Varshan would make my footfalls look like the stumblings of a child.
“You do remember that you don’t have to keep your pain to yourself anymore, right?” Arlo asks.
“It’s never wise to reveal one’s weaknesses in the midst of war.”
He blinks like his eyes are trying to adjust to the sunlight, his forehead knitting. “You sound just like him right now…Oren, I mean.”
I turn toward the horizon just as the orange morning sun breaks away from the earth’s grasp.
“I should. It’s a quote from one of his books.”
The words hang in the air like a cloud of smoke, threatening to choke us both. I clench my eyes shut and reach to grasp the piece of parchment tucked around my neck.
“Yes, well…” He clears his throat. “He’d be happy to know someone is finding a use for his collection. He was always trying to get Rayce and me to read his war strategy collection, but neither of us have ever been particularly studious. Rayce read a lot when he was at the palace, but that’s because his professors literally forced the material onto him. He’d spend most of the time he was supposed to be studying drawing elaborate plots on how to escape so that he could sword train.”
A smile touches my lips, thinking about a younger Rayce hunched over parchment with a quill pen in his hand, hatching ideas in crudely drawn figures, when he should have been practicing drafting laws.
My days used to be filled with lessons, too, when I walked the sands of this desert easier than the spaces between the trees in the Shulin Forest. Sometimes, Father would appear during the middle of my horribly meticulous arithmetic lessons and rescue me for a trip into the bustling Varshan marketplaces, where we would blend in and I could see how our people lived outside of the palace.
He called those days our adventures, but the more I observe here, the more I realize he actually wanted me to understand the people and their wants and needs so I might understand how to lead them one day.
Too bad it was all a waste.
Prying my mind from memories that have rested with the sands for a long time, I turn to Arlo. “Well, that explains why our days are so heavy with training.”
“Old habits die hard.” Arlo clears his throat. “So, speaking of your reading…has Rayce mentioned anything to you about Oren?”
His question feels like he’s trying to lead me into a trap, and I stiffen for a
heartbeat, long enough for my feet to sink in the sand so he can catch up.
“Not really…why?”
Arlo shakes his head. “It’s just strange. I haven’t heard him say Oren’s name a single time after he spoke at his funeral, not even in passing conversation.”
Grief.
The subject is as familiar to me as the steps of my aerial routine. It’s been four months since I’ve heard the notes of my act in the Garden and my body still knows the moves. They’re ingrained into my soul for Fern. Every move I made in the Garden was for her, my Wilted, to keep her safe…until the Gardener killed her, igniting the rage I’d kept smothered for years to protect her.
I rub my lips together, considering Arlo’s words. “People handle death in different ways. Just because he isn’t talking about Oren doesn’t mean he isn’t thinking about him. Maybe it’s too painful.”
“That’s just it. For as long as I’ve known him, the way he honors the fallen is by thinking of them often.” He pauses for a moment, clenching his jaw as fire flashes in his eyes. When he speaks again, the anger I just witnessed isn’t present in his tone, but a bitterness blacker than coffee seeps through. “Back when Marin and I got the news that our parents died in that farce of a mission the emperor sent them on, Rayce used to tell me that the only way for the dead to never be forgotten is to speak of the good times. That’s one of the reasons he makes it his mission to know everyone’s name.”
In my short time with Rayce, I discovered how deeply he cares about the people he leads, how he always puts the fate of the people that depend on him before anything else. Part of that was always knowing their names, but I never realized that he wanted to keep them, even in death.
Arlo runs his hands through his hair, sweat from the morning sun and our trek sticking the unruly lighter brown strands to his forehead. The rest of the rebels stand out like bugs in rice with their dark hair among the sands, but Arlo almost looks like he belongs.
“Every time I bring up Oren, he changes the subject or walks away. It isn’t like him and it makes me wonder if he isn’t dealing with his death.” Arlo frowns. “I don’t expect him to accept that he’s gone, but the point is we’re able to hold this conversation. Rayce…isn’t. Will you do me a favor?”
The sun rises higher in the sky now, beating down heat on any part of exposed skin it can find. Holding my good hand up to shield my eyes, I watch the way the rays slip through the cracks between my fingers to caress my face.
Smiling from the warmth, I turn back to Arlo. “You mean besides gracing you with my presence?”
He rolls his eyes, looking down. “You’ve been spending too much time with my sister. Yes, a favor besides dazzling me with your grace and beauty.” He lets out a long breath. “Could you try talking to Rayce about Oren? Maybe it’s just me that he can’t talk to.”
“I’m not sure I’ll have any more luck than you,” I say. “But I’ll try.”
He flashes a quick smile brighter than the desert sun and nods like he’s trying to convince himself that everything will be all right.
Thinking about Oren brings back the crunch of grass underneath my knees as I fell forward, men shouting in agony, swords colliding, stunner bolts lighting the world green, the taste of blood in my mouth, the feeling of the stunner hilt in my unpracticed hand and Oren’s patient eyes connecting with mine seconds before the emperor ended his life. His last moments alive haunt me and I push them away, instead returning to the night I hugged him and he helped me finally piece together my own destiny, the constant smell of hot tea, ink, and old parchment clinging to his clothes as he hugged me back.
I ball both hands into fists, trying to combat the wave of sorrow that rolls over me. The emperor took away Oren before I was able to get the chance to know him well. There was still so much left for me to learn. Anger burns bitter in my throat, hotter than the sunrays beating down on my back.
After another hour, I instruct everyone to slip the white pieces of fabric that were tied around their waists over their heads. Every way I turn, I catch cracked lips, bloodshot eyes, and sweat pouring from my fellow rebels. They thrive in the comfortable climates of the forests, where the trees catch water drops for drinking and shield you from the brunt of the sun. At this point, when the sun is at its zenith, I would prefer the ease of that landscape, too, though I’d never admit it out loud.
We comb through the sand like the walking dead, having already been up to see two sunrises and surviving the battle that ensued last night. My bones shriek to stop and surrender to the sleep tugging at my weary body, but the pain still pulsing through my shoulder keeps me alert enough. In some strange way, I guess I’m lucky. At least I have that to focus on.
Marin walks beside me, recounting the fight and her part in it, but I know that she’s really just keeping an eye on me to make sure I don’t pass out from exhaustion.
Hours pass by in a blur of heat, and I begin to lose hope, longing for the coolness of the night air and the gentle light of the stars so we can finally have a marker in the sky.
“There, finally! Almost home!” Marin says, pointing ahead of us.
I follow the tip of her finger and crane my eyes across the miles of white-yellow sand to the back of a giant blue serpent peeking out of the horizon, stretching as far as I can see on either side. The Blue Gate. The thing that is supposed to keep us out of the desert and keep Delmar safe from invasion.
Almost home.
The moment I repeat her words, a dagger of regret stabs through me. There was a time not long ago when I would have rather died than consider Delmar my home, but finally being free and fighting beside Rayce has made me reexamine the way I view the land.
My feet stumble the rest of the way, Marin steadying me with one arm, and I keep my focus pinned on the giant stone wall growing closer with each step. Near the bottom, the bright blue paint has faded and chipped where the wind and sand have eaten away at it, large portions of the natural gray stone popping out underneath. After checking with the rebels that have been guarding this sector of the gate for our passage back, we use the grapplers to scale the wall.
Relief rushes over me the moment my feet touch the walkway on top, and I lean against the hot stone wall that comes up to my hip. Looking over my shoulder, I watch the desert winds erase our footprints in the sand and gulp down the last of my canteen. The boiling water does nothing to quench my parched throat. Tipping it over, I glare as a few drops trickle out.
“I thought you cautioned us to ration our water, oh wise desert walker,” Rayce says, causing me to jump away from the wall.
He reaches out a hand to steady me.
“You could announce your presence,” I say.
The smile on his face fades. “Sorry, I should’ve remembered that you were hurt.” He unhooks his canteen and holds it out to me. “Apparently, I’m more tired than I thought.”
I don’t hesitate, savoring the way the water feels when it slides down my throat.
“Thank you.” I hand him the mostly empty container back. He raises an eyebrow but doesn’t comment. “Between fighting, my injury, and marching nonstop over the past few days, my thirst is unquenchable.”
In two steps, he evaporates the space between us. I look up into his patient brown eyes and my world swivels as I fall into them, this tiny bit of home he carries around even though the base is miles away.
“Do you want me to check the wrapping?” His hands move to my shoulder, and I pull back slightly, unwilling to face the pain of dressing my wound right now. He doesn’t hide the hurt that flashes across his face.
“No, I don’t want to mess with it until after we get back, but when we’re home, I’d appreciate some help cleaning it.”
To sweeten my peace offering, I brush my fingers against his chest, resting my palm over his heart. It thumps solidly, saying hello with each little tap. My favorite sound in the world. He slides his hands up my arm, cupping my hand in both of his, and presses his lips against my fingertips.
I fix my gaze on a point over his shoulder, hoping my cheeks aren’t as bright as they are hot. “Yes, well, we knew the risks when we undertook this mission. I’m just glad the whole thing was successful.”
The outcome of not being able to complete our task hangs in the air between us for far too long. If the emperor had managed to make a treaty with Varsha and the king sent over reinforcements, it wouldn’t matter how many stunners Piper was able to craft…the rebellion would be squashed before we could even blink.
And if the traitor king found out I was alive, he would either kill me or force me to marry him, since the blood in my veins deems me the rightful heir to the throne. As the emperor mentioned, that would silence those unhappy with his brutal uprising and finally put Varsha in a state of peace. The price would only be my soul.
No, I would rather die.
“I’m thankful for that, too,” he says. “And that our informant was correct. I know you don’t trust him, but there is no denying that the information he gave us was good.”
I stiffen in his embrace and pull my hand back from his grasp. Just the mere mention of him at a time like this is enough to make me want to empty the contents of my stomach over the wall. Even though the Gardener was correct in informing us of the emperor’s intention of trying to make peace with Varsha, it doesn’t make us listening to him any better. Nor does it ease the disgust I feel at knowing he’s alive.
“Just because the caravan was there, doesn’t mean anything,” I say, turning away from Rayce. “It certainly doesn’t mean we can trust him.”
An uneasy feeling bubbles in my gut, churning quickly into anger. Everything about this conversation, about keeping the Gardener alive, is wrong. The moment Rayce showed mercy to a man that was better off dead my life has been stunted, unable to grow with his rotting presence dragging me back to my roots.
War of the Wilted Page 3
