by J A Armitage
Beyond that, it might force me into a decision I wasn’t ready to make.
“Are you all in a hurry to move on?” I said.
Azia narrowed her eyes, clearly trying to interpret my words.
I waved a hand. “I’m not saying you need to go. I’m just thinking that it sounds like we have a lot to talk about.”
Lilian read my mind and jumped in. “You’d all be very welcome to stay at the palace for a few days. It sounds as if you could all use some rest and a few good meals, and we can provide both.” She checked in with me, her blue eyes sharp and reading into every flicker of expression across my face. “Then perhaps we can continue this discussion.”
Azia glanced at the other two. Blaise widened her eyes, urging Azia to agree, and Castiel rested his elbows on his knees and gave her one tense nod.
“We’d appreciate that,” Azia said.
Lilian nudged the drowsing dragon on her lap, and it opened one eye as if it rather resented the interruption.
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of Azia’s lips. “I can stay outdoors with her,” she said.
“Nonsense,” Lilian said. “We’ve got at least one chamber with tapestries I absolutely hate. I’ll be thrilled if she burns them up.”
“Thank you,” Azia said. She was talking to Lilian, but her attention had caught on me.
I looked back at her, and my skin prickled at the familiarity of her gaze.
“But we can’t stay long,” Azia added. “Whatever this curse is, it seems to be spreading fast. I’d like to stay one step ahead if we can.”
Once our guests were settled in their chambers, Lilian took my hand.
“I think we should go for a walk.” She made it sound like an invitation, but I knew my wife. This was an order.
We wandered through the barren gardens as the sky darkened to dusk. A moon rose, a waning crescent as thin as the narrow side of a leaf. Lilian clutched my hand tightly in hers as we wandered in silence.
Neither of us seemed to choose a direction, but after a while, we found ourselves in front of the door to my private garden. I slipped the key from my pocket.
“You came prepared,” Lilian observed.
I slid the key into the lock. “I always keep this key on me. I even had it in my pocket at the ceremony yesterday.”
The door creaked open, and I guided Lilian inside with my hand on the small of her back.
“Never sure when you’ll need to come tend your plants?” she asked.
“It’s more of a talisman by now,” I said. “When Remington was here, it became a reminder that I belonged here, whatever he said.”
She turned and took my hand again. “I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that. I should have sent him packing the day he arrived.”
I shook my head. “You didn’t know.”
“I knew soon enough.”
I caught her up in a hug. “You can’t blame yourself for him.”
“I do, though,” she said. “I should have known better. But I didn’t, and you suffered.”
“There’s a metaphor here,” I said. “Something about roses and thorns.”
Lilian pulled back far enough to fix me with a stern frown. “Don’t you dare bring up that stupid poem.”
“What?” I said. “You don’t want to have to memorize the entire epic Parable of Suffering? You don’t agree with our dear tutor Barringtonia about how utterly moving those passages are?”
“I will murder you,” she promised. “Just watch me.”
“Yet joy cannot exist in life without its mirrors, pain, and strife,” I began.
Lilian clamped a hand over my mouth. I continued reciting, though the words came out as a series of muffled hums.
“Deon,” she said. “I will divorce you. I will divorce you, and then I will murder you, and then I will track down a necromancer to bring you back just so I can kill you again.”
I fell silent, and she glared up at me. Her eyes betrayed her. They crinkled at the corners, and I knew she was half a breath away from dissolving into giggles.
She took her hand away and waited, eyebrows raised. I opened my mouth, and she tilted her head, warning me.
I couldn’t help myself. “The rose that blooms without a thorn--”
Lilian threw herself at me, and I caught her and wrestled her back until I had her pinned against the wall. Her shriek of outrage immediately melted into laughter, and then into silence as my lips silenced hers. She kissed me back, her breath sweet and the heat of her body a shield against the slight evening chill.
“Divorce,” she promised, voice soft with all the kisses. “Murder.”
“I look forward to it.”
She giggled, and her hand settled against my chest. The garden around us lay silent and empty, and it didn’t matter, because it already held as much beauty as I’d ever hoped to coax from it.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she said suddenly. She wrapped her arms around my torso and buried her face in my chest.
I drew back, trying to see her face, but it was too dark to make out her features. “What do you mean, Lils? I’m not going anywhere.”
She was silent for a long moment, then let out a heavy sigh. “You have to,” she said. “Those people who showed up today. They want you to come with them.”
“They didn’t say that.”
“They will.”
I didn’t want her to be right. But the thought had already started tugging at the edges of my mind while I tried fervently to ignore the pull.
“I just got you,” I said. “I’m not going.”
“You are. We have to save the kingdom.”
“We can do that here,” I said. “We’re already making progress with the enchanted glass, and you and I have the mushrooms to study.”
Lilian wouldn’t look at me. She kept her cheek pressed up against my chest.
Gently, I touched her chin and nudged her face upward.
“I’m not going anywhere, Lils.”
She swallowed. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but she fought to keep them from falling. “You have to go,” she said. “This blight is bigger than us. It has something to do with those people, and that means it has something to do with you.”
“There’s no proof of that.”
“There’s evidence,” she said firmly.
A soft breeze floated through the garden. It didn’t smell like Floris: not like flowers, or freshly cut grass, or herbs with their sharp medicinal notes. Its fragrance was of dull dirt and the sickly sweet aroma of decay.
“We just got married, Lils,” I said.
“I know.”
I wrapped my arms around her, trying to enclose her like I was a blanket thick and warm enough to shield her from the world.
She held on to me, too, tightly, as if, in spite of her words, she never planned to let me go.
21st April
“I had an idea,” I said.
Lilian rolled over to face me. I’d known she was awake; she’d been staring out the window at the blue sky. Still, sleep clung to her features, softening her skin and weighing on her eyelids.
“Good morning to you, too,” she said.
I kissed her. “Good morning, my love.”
Off in the distance, in the corner of that patch of perfect blue, a hawk descended in a slow, gliding spiral. I watched it for a moment, then looked back at her.
“I had an idea,” I said again. “About the mushrooms. I think we should try to grow two sets of them, one under enchanted glass and one without. They might end up coming out the same either way, but there might be subtle differences worth studying. And we should hire a specialist to help us propagate them. I’ve never grown mushrooms before. Hedley mentioned once that they can be finicky.”
She blinked dreamily up at me. “I thought the palace grew all its own produce except for some grain.”
“We buy our mushrooms from a man just outside Tulis,” I said. “He’s got a pretty big operation.”
“Sounds
like we should hire him.” She wiggled under the blankets until she was nuzzled up against me, then closed her eyes and let out a contented sigh. “You should work on your magic, too.”
I curled up next to her, spooning her body with mine. It was such a simple pleasure, being with her like this. I’d thought I belonged at the palace, but this--this was home.
“I’ll keep at it,” I promised. “Although I doubt it’ll help much. Even magicians like Hemlock and Cypress haven’t been able to heal blighted plants, and they’ve been studying since before I was born.”
Lilian nudged her feet slightly backward so they tangled up with mine. “I don’t mean for the blight,” she said. “Having magic might be useful when you’re traveling.”
I didn’t answer. Her words from last night still rang in my mind--not just her words, but the truth of them.
I nuzzled against the back of her head. Her soft golden hair floated around my face, smelling of magnolias and warmth. I could have stayed here forever with my nose buried in her hair.
“I don’t want to leave you,” I said.
She sighed softly. Then I realized the sigh hadn’t been her at all, but one of her fluffy white puppies, which must have come to sleep at the foot of our bed sometime in the night.
I hadn’t noticed the creature, small and half-buried in the cushions as it was.
As soon as I met the dog’s eyes, its tail started wagging frantically, and it trotted clumsily up our bodies. Lilian huffed as the dog’s paw landed heavily on her side, then rolled back over to let the puppy lick her face.
“How does your paw weigh so much?” she asked, roughing up the dog’s ears. “How does that work? You don’t look that big, but you’re heavy as a horse when you jump on me like that.”
The dog wagged its tail, delighted by the sheer honor of having its mistress’s attention.
I knew exactly how it felt.
“You have to go, Deon,” Lilian said. Her eyes were sad, but she smiled anyway. “I don’t like it. I’ll never enjoy being away from you. But this isn’t a coincidence. Something’s happening, and I need you to go figure out what. It might save our kingdom.”
Our kingdom. It was ours, now--not just the land I lived in and loved, but now the land I had agreed to bear responsibility for.
I had promised to love Lilian. But I had also promised to help her bear the weight of her responsibilities as a princess, and someday queen.
“Mama and Papa would never allow me to run off,” Lilian said. “And anyway, I can’t be away from Mama right now. But you can. Maybe you can figure out what’s going on. You and those people who look just like you.”
I laughed. “They don’t look a thing like me.”
“That’s true,” she said. “And yet, they do. It’s not just the eyes. There’s something, I don’t know, the same about all of you. Even aside from the problem of the blight, you owe it to yourself to figure out the magic that connects you to them.”
“I’ve never needed to know where I come from,” I said. “Or, at least, I didn’t until yesterday.”
I couldn’t forget the way my skin had prickled when Azia had met my eyes. There was something within us that resonated at the same frequency--something deep, like the thread of magic at the core of a flower’s stem.
“Go learn whatever you can,” she said. “And then come back and tell me everything, because I’m dying to know.”
I scratched the top of the dog’s head. It closed its eyes and collapsed on top of Lilian, overwhelmed at having two people loving it at once. Lilian raised her eyebrows at the pup, then glanced up at me and giggled.
“I’ll write you every day,” I said. “Plus, telegrams if I see something I can’t wait to tell you about.”
“Cute animals?” she suggested.
“Of course. And good food.”
“Collect recipes for the cook,” she said. “When you get home, we’ll have a feast, and I’ll taste your travels.”
“I wish you could come with me.”
“So do I. Maybe we’ll meet somewhere along the road,” she said. “I’m sure I can arrange short trips here and there.”
“You’ll have to because I can’t stand the thought of being away from you.”
I’d never been away from Lilian, aside from her occasional diplomatic visits and family trips to the coast. But I had a feeling this journey would take weeks, maybe months.
“Even five minutes away from you feels like a long time right now,” I admitted.
“I know.” She sighed. “I missed you yesterday when you went to go change your clothes.”
“We’re pathetic.”
I leaned across the dog to kiss her. The pup wriggled its way between us, trying to join in on the affection. Lilian laughed, which only seemed to excite the creature more, and I watched as joy and amusement colored Lilian’s face with shades of rosy pink.
“I wouldn’t change it,” I said. “Not for the world.”
We’d arranged last night to have a late breakfast with our guests. I’d wanted to learn more about them, and I’d sent a last-minute invitation to Hedley and the king and queen. They’d been the ones to suspect everything in the kingdom was happening thanks to a witch, and I hoped they’d have some information to share that could somehow illuminate our guests’ various quests.
The king and queen had declined with apologies, although the queen had included a hastily scribbled note asking for Lilian and me to please stop by her chambers this afternoon to answer questions about our guests. Hedley, however, arrived early, bearing a newspaper under his arm.
“I’ll be glad to meet your new friends,” he said, as we walked into the small parlor together.
Lilian and the queen used this space sometimes for breakfasts and teas with nobles. Cushioned wicker furniture covered with bright floral cushions sat in a cluster, spaced to encourage friendly conversation. The room had once been filled with potted flowers and vines hanging from birdcages, giving it the air of a conservatory in springtime. Now the birdcages hung empty, and the only flowers were the ones on the patterned cushions. Still, the sunshine made the space pleasant, and the trays of hot food spread out buffet-style along the windows were inviting enough.
Lilian urged Hedley to fill his plate, and then she and I sat to await the rest of our guests. They arrived exactly on time, Azia in the lead looking as though she’d already been up for several hours, and Blaise trailing behind and visibly suppressing a yawn. Azia and Castiel had brought their animals, and Hedley observed the wolf and dragon with interest.
The guests returned his interest, giving him either sidelong glances or brazen stares, depending on their dispositions. When we were all seated with food on our laps, I made the introductions.
“This is Sheldon Hedley,” I said. “He’s a gardener who’s been working on how to fight the blight. He was the first person to suggest to me that magic might be involved, and I thought he might be able to help us figure out what’s going on and what our next move should be.”
“Our next move?” Azia inquired, the coolness of her voice belying her clear interest.
I cleared my throat. Lilian put an encouraging hand on my knee and nodded at me to go ahead.
Sticks and stones, the world would be dark without her at my side. I said a silent prayer that whatever adventure I was about to embark on would be worth the sacrifice.
“You all seem to be on a mission to find information,” I said. “We’re working here in Floris to combat the blight, but I think we all agree it would be better not to have a blight to fight with in the first place. If you’re willing, I’d like to join you for a while and see if we can track this thing to its source.”
“If it’s a curse that affects our kingdoms in different ways, it stands to reason that someone cast that curse,” Lilian said.
“We agree,” Castiel said. “I hoped we’d find that person in Floris, but it seems you’re as lost as we are.”
“We thought a woman named Dame Gothel might
be to blame,” I said. “Maybe she is, and maybe she’s not, but we could start there.”
Hedley cleared his throat, and we all turned to look at him. I furrowed my eyebrows in question.
He picked up the newspaper he’d brought along. I’d assumed it was this morning’s edition, but as he unfurled it, the paper crinkled as if it had been sitting somewhere for a long time. The edges curled, tinged slightly with yellow.
He looked through the pages, muttering to himself, and then he pulled a sheaf out from the center.
“I put in a request with the Central Archives at Urbis.” He glanced around. “I don’t suppose Deon mentioned that the world changed when he arrived?” he said. “Only for the better.”
Blaise speared a rogue grape with her fork, and the tines scraped against the plate. “My parents said something like that about me. Called me a good luck charm.”
Azia didn’t say anything, and Castiel’s jaw seemed to tighten slightly.
“I did some research into Deon’s birth,” Hedley said. “I thought it might provide us with clues.”
I froze, waiting to hear that he’d learned about my birth parents, or that he knew where I’d come from originally.
“I didn’t find anything,” Hedley said.
Something deep inside me, a sense of curiosity that had lived buried and ignored for years, seemed to deflate. I’d told Lilian the truth: I hadn’t cared that much about where I’d come from. Not until now.
“I did, however, discover evidence of yet another person around his age being adopted by a prominent family in Aboria,” Hedley said. He held the newspaper out to the center of our little group. “By the king and queen, as it happens.”
Castiel was the first to take the paper. He scanned the article, his gaze passing quickly over the text. His face betrayed very little, but at one point, his eyebrows twitched.
“Look at the bit about the eyes,” he said, handing the paper to Azia.
She read, too, announcing the important bits aloud as she went. “The king and queen of Aboria adopted an infant. This must have been, what?” She glanced at the top of the newspaper. “Eighteen years ago.”
