War of the Wilted

by Amber Mitchell

  “Am I interrupting something?” Her curly golden-brown hair frames her face, and the sword she’s never without is strapped to her hip.

  The pages slip from my fingers and I give up trying to find my place.

  As an answer to her question, I hold up the small book. “Just doing some light reading on poisons. Not that I’ve found anything interesting.”

  She arches an eyebrow. “Oren and Arlo used to speak about the subject for hours. I never paid much attention, though, since it was so dull. My brother thought it was the answer for everything, though lately he’s turned to stunners. He still collects a lot of poisons, though.”

  Marin walks fully into the room, her arms crossed over her chest as her gaze wanders around the place that has become almost like a second home to me.

  “I don’t mind working hard, but lately my brother’s been pushing me past my breaking point. Every time we get more bad news about a mission, he redoubles his efforts. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  A humorless chuckle escapes my lips. “I know that feeling well.”

  She leans against the back of Oren’s desk. I sit up a little, watching a scroll wobble with her movement, and dread pours through me. With every change, his presence lessens. What happens when I walk in here one day and it isn’t here at all?

  “Did something happen between you and Rayce? I saw you two talking on the Blue Wall and then”—she tilts her head—“not really talking the rest of the way home.”

  I tuck the book in the chair beside me and let out a sigh, my shoulders releasing a little of their tension. She gives me an encouraging smile.

  “Rayce doesn’t want to listen to reason,” I say. “He’s so levelheaded and open about almost everything, except when it comes to keeping the Gardener prisoner.”

  She pushes a curl behind her ear and frowns.

  “So he’s acting just as pigheaded as my brother?” She rolls her eyes. “Maybe we should start a recovery group.”

  “I’d have to be able to see Rayce more than a few seconds at a time to have anything to talk about.” My fingers dig into the worn fabric of the chair. “We tried to have a conversation a little while ago and he stopped in the middle so he could go to some important meeting. It’s never been a secret that his duties as leader come before everything else, but it seems like lately there is always something pulling him away.”

  I take a deep breath, trying to calm myself, but the storm I’ve started won’t be appeased so I unleash it on the right target. The Gardener is the reason we’re in this mess to begin with.

  “And every time the Gardener is right about something it just makes Rayce more stubborn about holding him for information. The Gardener’s been keeping the emperor’s secrets close, playing them at the best possible time to keep Rayce in the palm of his hand.”

  Marin kicks off the desk, causing the scroll on the edge to roll off and hit the ground with a hollow sound. She moves across the room, her boots deftly avoiding the stacks of books littering Oren’s floor, until she reaches my chair. She wraps her arms around me, lending me some of her strength, and sits down on the arm of the chair. I reach up and rest my hands on her arms, closing my eyes and leaning into her as the comforting scent of apple and leather from her armor washes over me.

  “Arlo’s the same way. He thinks he knows best. I know he’s only trying to look out for me, but it’s infuriating when you feel like you’re just screaming at a wall.”

  I squeeze her arm and pull away.

  Maybe if Rayce could see past what the Gardener’s information is doing to help the rebellion, he would be more willing to understand how dangerous it is to trust him. That’s been a hard sell, though. Everything the Gardener’s told us has benefitted the rebellion, but he has to be up to something by sharing all of this, something more than just saving his own skin. If I could just get down there, I could make him reveal his true intentions. But that’s a problem when Rayce just forbade me from seeing the Gardener. Besides, can I stand to face him again? My gut twists when I picture myself walking into another cage and facing the Gardener’s pockmarked cheeks and hungry eyes.

  Leaning my head back on the chair, I look up at her. “I have to figure out what his real plan is. He never gives away anything for free. There has to be an angle we’re missing. If I can get down there and bait him, he might reveal it to me, but Rayce refused to take me down there. He said without him I wouldn’t even be able to get in and to let him deal with the Gardener.”

  She rests her elbow lightly on my forehead. “Were his words that he wouldn’t take you down there or that you couldn’t go down there? Because I happen to know a certain guard who is on duty tomorrow tasked with watching the prisoner’s cell.”

  I open my mouth and close it, thinking about our conversation. “I asked him to take me and he said no, but he never said I couldn’t go on my own.” I move my head quickly, trying to make her lose her balance. “Marin, you’re a little bit of an evil genius, you know that?”

  She catches herself, giving me the same smug grin she always starts with when we spar against each other. “Oh, I know.”

  She waggles her eyebrows and we both laugh. It feels so good I can almost pretend the rest of my issues don’t exist. I stand up, grabbing my book on poisons, and feel a hundred times lighter than when I walked in. I offer my hand to Marin, pulling her up from the depth of a nearly inescapably comfortable chair.

  “I guess this means you’re going to need to come up with a way to make him reveal his true plans to you.”

  “I doubt I’ll need to. As soon as he sees me, he’ll definitely gloat. He can’t help himself.”

  She walks with me to the door and nods. “Sure, but how are you so confident you’ll be able to make him stop acting like a mouse with a new master?”

  “Because…” I pause, hating the next words out of my mouth with everything inside me. “I was his prized Flower. He won’t be able to resist a chance to lord that fact over me. No matter what we’ve both been through, a snake cannot change its appearance that rapidly. He’ll revert to his real self, and I’ll make sure Rayce sees the truth.”

  Her hand flexes on the hilt of her sword and she drums her fingers nervously.

  “Just promise you’ll be careful.”

  “Of course.” We get to the door and I stop, shoving the book in my pocket. “Are you sure you can get the guard to let me in?”

  She bumps into my shoulder playfully. “Leave that to me. He’s one of my scouting partners who owes me after I covered for him a few weeks ago when he drank a little too much the night before. I can find out when he’s stationed there tomorrow and let you know.”

  As we head down the hall, she talks a little more about her frustrations with Arlo, and though I try to pay attention, my mind drifts.

  Tomorrow, I’ll see the Gardener for the first time in almost three months. Though I haven’t laid eyes on him, he haunts my nightmares. Every time I blink, his is the first face I see, his voice following me like a ghost down the hall. And tomorrow, I’m willingly stepping into a cage with that beast and only one of us will come out on top. I have to prove once and for all that he doesn’t own me. That no one does. And more importantly, I have to believe it myself.

  Chapter Six

  By the time Rayce walks through the wooden door leading to his room, I’ve already made myself at home on his bed, the snug green blanket wrinkled as I lie on top of it with the book from Oren’s office propped up on my legs. Even in my downtime, I have to have something to do. After so many years being idle in the tiny cart in the Garden with nothing but Fern and my own imagination to occupy me, stillness and quiet prickle the hairs on the back of my neck.

  My gaze flickers from the page to his weary face and I watch as he pauses momentarily at the door, as if steeling himself before he walks in. He might be able to avoid me everywhere else, but this is the one place he can’t stay away from forever, and even though I’m still upset he cut our conversation about the Gardener sho
rt, I promised Arlo I’d talk to him about Oren.

  His eyes pass over me, but he doesn’t say anything about my presence. Exhaustion hangs around him like a fog, in dark half circles under his eyes and tugging the corners of his mouth down. Judging by the way he attacks the buttons on his long black vest and throws it on the chair, I’d be willing to guess his meeting didn’t go well.

  “If you’re here to talk about the Gardener, it isn’t going to happen tonight.” He sits down in his simple white under robe, blankly eying the stack of parchment that has invaded his desk since Oren’s death before putting his head in his hands. “I don’t have the energy.”

  I grip the edge of my book, seeing him so defeated. Even with our victory in the desert, it seems like things haven’t improved here. Perhaps this conversation couldn’t have come at a better time. It always helps me to remember why I’m fighting in the first place.

  “That’s not why I’m here.” I snap the book shut and sit up, forcing my voice to stay light. “Why don’t you come over here and sit down?”

  Apparently the change in topic interests him enough to abandon his paperwork until tomorrow. Or perhaps it’s the idea of resting for a little while. He crosses the room in a few short strides, kicking off his boots, and sits beside me on the bed, letting out a long sigh. If I weren’t so annoyed with him, the messy way his hair sticks out right now and the low dip of his robe revealing the top part of his chest would make my heart pound wildly.

  Well, it does anyway. But I don’t act on it.

  He picks up the thin brown leather book and reads the title. “Reading about poisons? Have I made you that mad?”

  I take the book back and set it beside me, turning to sit cross legged facing him. “Not yet, but I’ll let you know tomorrow.”

  He chuckles at my response, and it loosens the fist around my stomach.

  “Rayce, I came in here because I wanted to tell you that I found some books about Varshan armor in Oren’s office.”

  He stiffens for a moment then lies back on his bed, his feet hanging off the end. He tucks his arms behind his head and stares up at the stony ceiling. I wonder if he likes to picture the stars above our heads like I do.

  I play with a loose string on the sleeve of my purple robe instead of looking up.

  “Why don’t you ever want to talk about Oren?”

  His voice is gruff when he speaks. “It isn’t that I don’t want to talk about him. It’s just that it won’t help anything to dwell on the dead.”

  “But why wouldn’t you want to honor his memory?” I rub my hands together as I consider his words, my mind instantly rejecting his flawed logic. “If we don’t talk about him and remember him, it’s like he was never here.”

  He scrubs his face, the sound of his skin against his stubble the only noise for a while. His slow movement reminds me again how tired he is. Not that it isn’t something I’m used to now. He always looks this exhausted at the end of the day.

  “Can we drop this?” His short sentence and unwillingness to elaborate reveals everything I need to know.

  My fingers freeze around the piece of thread before I rip it out.

  “I know his death was hard on you.” I’m careful to keep my voice smooth. “It still feels like I can’t breathe every time I picture his face.”

  My words conjure up Oren in perfect detail, his long black beard with more than a few gray hairs and something always caught in it, his kind, patient dark eyes, his slightly round face and gentle smile that made me feel like I could do anything. The last time I hugged him fills me like a wilting flower finally feeling rain. With his face comes the strong scent of ink, old parchment, and tobacco. I can almost sniff it in the air.

  “Just…don’t.” He turns his face to the wall so I can no longer see him. “I didn’t push things you didn’t want to talk about when you first came here, so I’ll ask you to do the same.”

  We cut our last conversation short because his duties as shogun took him away from me, and now, when we have time, he won’t discuss something this important? I grit my teeth at the unfairness of it all and jump off the bed, snatching up the book I was reading.

  “Fine, how about I just leave you alone then if my presence bothers you so much?” The stone is cold against my feet as I head for the door.

  I stop in the doorway, hearing the bed shift. At this point, he would normally have wrapped his arms around me, brushed his lips against my neck, and whispered that everything was going to be okay. The cold underground air surges around my exposed back like it’s trying to remind me what we are missing.

  “Rose, don’t be like that,” he says. “Just because I don’t want to talk about it doesn’t make me in the wrong here.”

  My chin brushes over my shoulder as I turn around to look at him. His eyes echo my frustration, and I scrape my fingernails against the stone of the doorway to try to relieve the pressure building up inside of me.

  “And just because I do doesn’t make me wrong, either. Try to get some sleep, Rayce.”

  Before he can respond, I march out of the room, shoving my book inside my robe. The corner bites against my rib as I cross my arms over my chest and move fast in case he tries to stop me.

  Maybe things are better being unresolved. I can’t let anything distract me from my mission tomorrow, and being locked beside his warmth for the rest of the night might give me pause. If I’m going to face the Gardener on my own, I must have no doubt, or he’ll sense it, and the moment he smells weakness, I’ve already lost.

  …

  The next morning, Marin confirms that her acquaintance has the midday guard detail. She lets him know to expect me, we head to sword training, and then I sneak away midway through, already missing the sweat and sore muscles that come with a good workout.

  But my mission is more important than even my continued training to defend myself.

  The prison cells are tucked deep under the earth, a fitting place to cage a snake. He should feel right at home in the shadows. Though this was my plan and I’m in control of the situation, my heart pounds against my rib cage as my boots echo out an unsteady rhythm against the stone floor. The Zarenite flickers overhead, reacting to the swirling bouquet of flowers Piper tattooed onto my arm.

  The sound of someone else’s footsteps echoing behind me fills my ears, and I jolt around, catching a long, dark shadow. Crawling up from its depths is the Gardener, his round pocked face split in a grin, revealing yellow teeth, his black-lined eyes trained on me as he reaches out a small hand to catch me by the throat. Multiple jeweled rings glitter around his plump fingers, his fingernails long and dirty.

  “My lovlee has come back,” the Gardener says, the twisted way he mutilates words washing over me like decay.

  Fear floods my veins and I take an involuntary step backward until I’m pressed flat against the wall. The tunnel bursts with glowing green veins as the Zarenite reacts to my touch, burning the image of the Gardener away with its brightness. It wasn’t real. The mantra repeats over in my head and I cling to it to keep from shattering into tiny pieces. The cool stone chills my back through the fabric of my robe as I crumple to the floor, trying to catch my breath, bathed in green light.

  I suck in deep mouthfuls of cold air and wait for fear to stop controlling my limbs.

  “I’m not his any longer, I’m not his,” I whisper to myself. “My name is Arianna Vasile of the Zareeni rebellion.” My mind tries to fill in the last part of my title, the one I’ve been running from for so long that it feels like a distant dream, but I cut short that particular track of thinking. “You aren’t going to keep doing this to yourself. Not now, not ever.”

  I clench my teeth, frustrated with my own weakness, and I rise on shaky knees. Allowing him to hold that kind of sway gives the Gardener power over me. I can’t have that. I held my blade to his neck and burned down his horror show. By my hand, everything he had been is now ashes in the wind.

  A moment from a few months ago flickers in the back of my min
d as the last tendrils of fear echo through me, something that meant very little to me at the time, but now that Oren’s gone, all I have left are fleeting memories. Tiny flickers of flame in a yawning darkness that his presence used to fill.

  Rayce leans down, his hands covering a deep gash in a Zareeni woman’s leg, blood spilling from his fingers as she grips onto his arm, breathing heavily through her nose. Standing out of the way, feeling useless with my lack of medical knowledge, I listen to him call out for a first aid kit and watch as one of the other guards rushes toward him with it.

  Rayce’s confession about growing ill at the sight of blood replays in my head. For a man that hates it so passionately, it seems like his life is bathed in the oozing red life force. Why would he subject himself to so many things he hates?

  Oren walks up next to me, white dragon pipe in hand, letting out a small puff of smoke that floats up into the air, dulling the metallic smell of blood flooding my nostrils.

  “Do you dislike the sight of blood, too?” Oren’s question slips into my thoughts, pulling my attention back to the scene in front of me. “I haven’t ever seen you look this conflicted.”

  Of course it would be Oren who notices me in the chaos swirling around us. My gaze flickers toward him, his long hair tied with a cord at the base of his neck, flecked with streaks nearly as white as his pipe, and the soft brown tunic he wears slightly rumpled from travel.

  “Blood doesn’t really offend me,” I say. “I was just wondering why Rayce is always the first to rush to heal when he admitted he feels sick looking at it. I know he cares about his people, but there are others just as skilled at dressing wounds. I’m not sure why he feels the need to be in the center of it.”

  He gives me a reassuring smile, his long beard lifting with the corners of his mouth. “Because sometimes a leader must push past their own fears to become truly great. All of these people depend on Rayce, and it’s not something he takes lightly. Their lives could extinguish as easily as their blood drips through his fingers.”