Page 40 of Embers of Ruin

“No,” he replies, turning away. “You did not.”

And then he leaves. Not in a rush, or a grand display of power. He simply walks down the white stone path, his shadows trailing behind him like living darkness, and the silver gates open before he reaches them.

I stand alone in the Sacred Gardens with a bleeding palm, a living flower, and a hatred that no longer feels as simple as it did yesterday.

CHAPTER 11

When morning finds me, I have decided several things. First, I hate the bed. Not because it's uncomfortable. It's the most comfortable bed I've ever slept in. I hate it because I slept. I should have spent the night planning my escape. Instead, I apparently collapsed into silk sheets after making flowers bloom for the Shadow King like an absolute idiot…after allowing one infuriating king to occupy far too much of my mind.

I had every intention of remaining awake all night, keeping watch like some hardened prisoner preparing her escape. I planned to study the lock, count the steps beyond my door, listen for guard rotations, perhaps even pace dramatically beneath the window and think clever thoughts about freedom. Instead, I apparently fell asleep five minutes after drinking cold tea like a weary old woman. How humiliating for me.

Second, I hate the room. Again, not because it is ugly. It is not. It is beautiful in the way everything in this palace is beautiful, dark and excessive and designed to remind a person that whoever owns it has more coin than sense and far too much control over people with taste. The cream rug beneath my feet is softer than anything I have ever owned, and every time I walk across it, some treacherous part of me wants to curl my toes into it and enjoy myself. Which is exactly why I hate it.

The tiny cuts scarring my fingers from yesterday are gone. Not healed in the way wounds normally heal, but gone entirely, as if the thorns never pierced my skin at all. I turn my hand over once, then again, searching for evidence that the Sacred Gardens did not happen, that I did not touch a dead rosebush and watch life crawl through it like dawn forcing itself through a crack in the world.

There’s nothing. Not a scar. Not a sting. Just my hand, whole and warm and innocent-looking, which feels particularly rude considering what it has done.

I flex my fingers. A faint silver-gold shimmer moves beneath my skin and I immediately close my fist.

“No,” I tell it. My hand, unsurprisingly, has no respect for authority.

A knock sounds at the door before I can argue further with my own body. I don’t answer because I’ve barely been here two days and I’m already questioning so many things that I don’t have the energy to think about anything else.

The door opens anyway.

Mazelle comes striding in first, because of course she does. I’m beginning to suspect that knocking is merely ceremonial in this palace, a polite little warning before everyone barges in and reminds me I possess no privacy whatsoever. She wears another black uniform today, severe and tailored. Her hair is twisted into that same unforgiving knot at the base of her neck, and her expression suggests she has already been disappointed by at least three people before breakfast.

Two guards follow her in, one of whom I am appreciative to see. I recognize the other from when I first arrived, Briar, with his locks braided into four sections down his back. I don’t mind seeing him today, I’m just glad it wasn’t the blond guard.

Onyx looks at me and offers me the closest thing to a smile that I’ll get from him while I’m here. I don’t care who is watching, I smile wide for everyone to see because his presence feels like a breath of fresh air—and I never thought I would say that about the man who kidnapped me.

Mazelle’s gaze drops to my still-wrinkled nightdress and bare feet.

“Lady Tarethyn, you are not dressed.”

“Lieutenant Mazelle, good morning!” I smile, but my eyes don’t carry the same excitement they did when I saw Onyx. “I noticed. I thought I might sleep in this morning.”

“His Majesty is waiting,” she continues with an exasperated sigh, tapping a fingernail against the table.

“Oh, goodness,” I press a hand against my heart, feigning sympathy. We both know it for what it is. Bullshit. “Then he has my sympathies. Waiting builds character.”

Briar makes the mistake of snorting under his breath, and Mazelle turns her head slightly giving him a death glare that I’m glad I’m not on the receiving end of. He goes silent.

Mazelle gestures toward the chair near the hearth, where a fresh gown has been laid out. This one is darker than yesterday’s, nearly black, though when the dim morning light catches the fabric, deep green flashes beneath the surface like moss under shadow. The sleeves are fitted, the bodice simple, the skirt split just enough for movement. It’s not as revealing, which pleases me, and it’s practical by palace standards. Which means it probably costs more than half of Elvora.

“For your training session with the king,” Mazelle says, gesturing to the gown.

I look from the gown to her, blinking rapidly. “Training? In a gown?”

“Yes.”

“With… the king.”

“Yes, with His Majesty.”

“So I’m supposed to train with the king dressed like this… in the dead garden?”

Her mouth tightens. “The Sacred Gardens, Lady Tarethyn.”