When I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to fall off—and that he and Grim knew what they were doing—I sat up again. Trees flew past as the district gave way to the gentle foothills. The sun was bright, the air cool, and the speed exhilarating. I was quick on my feet, but I’d never run like this before. Like the entire world was a possibility. Likefreedom. And I was a littledisappointed when we topped the last hill before we reached the garden proper.
“There!” I called out, pointing to the clearing ahead on the right.
Nik slowed Grim to a walk. “You didn’t mention the garden was straight down the road.”
“You didn’t pay for directions but a guide.”
When he reached it, he stopped Grim and then dismounted and ran a hand through his windblown hair like a roguish bandit from a storybook. He tied Grim to a hitching post, then began to walk away.
“A little help?” I asked.
“I didn’t pay for that,” he said with a bland smile. “Get down the same way you went up.”
I looked at the ground, which seemed very far away.
I cursed him and considered just staying on the horse until he came back. But he wanted me to look for Aether, and I wasn’t giving up that bag of coins, so I gathered my courage, swung my leg over…and nearly stumbled out of the stirrup. I managed to hold on to the pommel and steady myself, and lowered my foot, toes searching for the ground.
“That dismount was embarrassing,” Galen said when I managed to get my other boot out of the stirrup.
My legs were a little wobbly, and my hips a little sore, and tendrils of hair had sprung out of my braid from the wild ride. I was sure I looked a mess. But the ride had been worth it.
“I can get better at dismounting,” I told him. “You’ll probably be an arsehole forever. Let’s go see the garden.”
Five
The garden was cradled in a small valley among the foothills.
“They call it the Giant’s Thumb,” I explained. “When the realms first split, humans shared Terra with giants and monsters. A lost human once came upon a giant’s demesne, but the giants refused to share their land or food with the human, who they thought was too puny to be worth their time. The human stole a crumb one of the giants dropped in this spot, and the giants were furious. Their king tried to squash the human like an ant and pressed his thumb into the ground.”
I held up my thumb and fit it into the spot. In the terraced hills beyond, a line of workers pushed bulbs into readied soil.
“Mountain lilies?” Nik asked.
I nodded. “By midsummer, they’ll be taller than the people sowing them. Then they’ll be processed and used for pretty much everything. Food, cloth, fodder, perfume.”
“It’s beautiful. Who owns this land?”
“According to the Emperor Eternal, he does. He demands half of everything the stronghold makes.”
His gaze shot to mine. “That can’t be right.”
“It’s right. You saw the market. For most, there’s coin for necessities, little more.” And for some, there wasn’t even coin enough for necessities.
The wind changed and carried the song the farmers chanted to the rhythm of the work. It was the same one the kids had sung yesterday about the gates and fighting princes.
“ ‘Fight ’til their father brings them home again,’ ” Nik repeated. “Harsh.”
“Yeah. Probably better not to mention that to the prince.”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t even hear it.” He extended a hand toward the garden’s entrance, which was marked by an arch of woven vines. A stone figure of the Terran god of land, spade at the ready, squatted nearby, its nose rubbed smooth by gardeners who’d touched it for luck.
There was a tight prickle in my chest, and as I moved closer to the statue, I could see the faint haze of Aether in the moss that crowned its head. It had the same sickly tinge that I’d seen in the market.
Thankfully, while the pinch was growing fiercer, it was still quick. “The practitioner was here. He touched the statue.”
Nik moved closer and stared at it. “Tell me what you see.”
“A green haze. Sometimes it glows, like the light of a will-o’-the-wisp. But there’s no trail from here, so let’s check Innis’s plot.”
