Page 5 of Queen of War and Ruin

The garden. For food, not for decoration.

“They’re ready to pick,” Agnes announces.

She pats my hand, then wanders off. When she comes back, she’s holding two small wicker baskets. She hands one to me. I take it and smile like I know what I’m supposed to do here. And then I follow her to a row of vines growing on a little fence.

She bends down, pulls a long, thick pod from the vine, and drops it in the basket. Then she does it again. And again. And again. I stare at her until I finally realize why she handed me the second basket.

Great. I bend down next to her. The first pod I pull takes half the vine with it, and I feel like a complete idiot. I watch Agnes a little closer, noticing where she grabs the pod and imitating her as best I can. The sun beats down on the thin cloak covering my shoulders and soaks through the faded green traveling dress Agnes brought me this morning. Insects hum all around us, and the wind shakes the leaves. Agnes moves down the row, out of my peripheral vision. My basket slowly fills.

“Hello, Princess,” a thick, deep voice says from behind me.

I jump, almost spilling my basket. When I come to my feet, my cheeks are burning. Zarek stands next to me, smiling in the sunlight, and my gods, he’s so beautiful it almost hurts. He looks at the half-full basket of pods, then back at me.

“You’re a woman of many talents,” he says.

I shrug, although my cheeks flush with an absurd rush of pride at the pile of pods I managed to collect.

“I think Agnes would like us to shell those,” he says. “Would you like me to show you how?”

“Shell?” I ask, staring at the heavy green tubes.

“They’re peas,” Zarek says, softly.

I open my mouth to stammer that of course I know what they are, but some part of me whispers that my husband would see right through that obvious lie. I’ve only ever seen peas on my dinner plate, and they didn’t look anything like this.

Zarek turns, and I follow him along the edge of the garden to a stone bench in the shade of a massive oak tree. I sit next to him, putting the basket on the ground at our feet.

“How are you?” I ask, as he reaches for one of the pods. “Your ribs⁠—”

“Fine,” he replies.

I snort. “That’s what you always say.”

He smiles again, and my breath catches in my throat. I remember those lips on mine, the heat, the feel of his tongue in my mouth.

“Agnes wrapped my ribs,” he says. “It’s helping. How are you?”

I turn away from the intensity of those dark eyes. My cheeks burn, and I realize I’m suddenly, horribly jealous of the old woman who got to wrap a bandage around Zarek’s chest. I should have done that for him.

“I’m fine,” I say. “It’s stopped. The woman, Agnes, she thinks I lost⁠—”

My voice fails. I can’t quite bring myself to say that she thinks I was pregnant, that the blood was a miscarriage.

“I know,” he replies, his voice low. “Thank the gods the bleeding stopped.”

I glance at him, then back at the nodding leaves in the garden. I remember Blayne’s words as he handed the potion to me. I’m not raising the snake’s spawn. I turn to Zarek, a question rising to my lips.

“Here,” Zarek says, holding one of the green pods between us.

I swallow the question and watch as Zarek puts his fingers on either side of the seam that stretches down the pod. It pops open, revealing a half dozen little peas inside. He runs his thumb down the inside, dropping the peas into the basket. And then he hands a pod to me.

Well, it looks simple enough.

I put my fingers on either side of the seam and tug. Nothing happens. I frown at the damn thing, then press harder.

The pod explodes. Pea juice squirts between my fingers.

“Damn it,” I snap.