The Weeds within the Rulership Read online

  The Weeds within the Rulership

  by Emily Martha Sorensen

  Copyright © 2016 Emily Martha Sorensen

  Cover art by StunningBookCovers.com.

  The Weeds within the Rulership

  “Your parents said you were sick,” Jontan said to me, holding out a shabbytext/part0001.html bouquet through the doorway. His fingers clutched around the stems so tightly that they were bending. “I brought you some flowers.”

  I stared at him dispiritedly from my bed. I had been hiding in my room for two weeks, not staying here because I was still sick, although that was what I had told everybody. I’d had a fever for three weeks, so that had been a convenient excuse. But no. I didn’t want to see people because I was terrified they’d notice that I’d started growing magic. k12

  “Thanks, Jontan,” I said, trying to sound glad to see him. He was a friend, after all. “You can leave them on my dresser.”

  He tiptoed into my room, laid the wilting flowers across the top of the piece of furniture, and then leapt back to the doorway as if burned.

  I barely kept from rolling my eyes. “You’ve been in here before,” I told him.

  “It’s not proper without a chaperone now,” he insisted.

  Honestly. Jontan took the rules of propriety seriously, it seemed. We were both twelve years old, we’d just barely taken the oath of childhood, and it wasn’t even like he was courting me. If he started acting all formal now, it was going to drive me crazy.

  “Are you going to look at the flowers?” he asked anxiously.

  With a sigh of annoyance, because after all I was supposed to be sick, I angled myself out of bed and shuffled over to the dresser. The row of wilted flowers stared up at me.

  There were filias in it. Yech. They were such an ugly color, all purple-blue, and they meant “loyalty to the Rulership,” so using them was like showing off. Jontan loved the flowers, though, so he had probably included them just because he thought they were pretty. The rest were inna blossoms, which I’d forgotten the meaning of, and torron stalks, which meant “get well soon.”

  Jontan hovered in the doorway, as if waiting for me to say something.

  “Uh, thanks,” I said. “I hope I get well soon, too.”

  He kept on hovering.

  Oh no! What if he’d noticed some magic I’d used accidentally? Jontan was a stickler for the rules, and landowner use of magic was more than just a rule: it was a law. If I got caught, I could be killed.

  “Ohhh, I have a headache,” I moaned, saying the first thing that came to mind. “I have to be alone now. Can you leave me?”

  “Oh! Oh, sorry!” Jontan jumped back. “Can I . . . can I come back later?”

  “Sure,” I said. Of course he could come back later. Why was he even asking? His family’s land was right next to ours. We saw each other all the time.

  Jontan looked a mixture of scared and relieved, and hurriedly waved goodbye and scuttled down the hallway. I heard his feet pound on the way down the stairs.

  I shuffled back to bed and put the sheet over my head. I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t want to see anyone else today. A spark of magic lurched out of my elbow and made the pillow underneath my head more thin and lumpy.

  Argh! I spun around to try to get comfortable again. Horrible magic! It was ruining everything!

  The slight scent of innas, torron stalks, and filias drifted through the air. Something tingled in my nose, and I sneezed.

  Suddenly the odor was overpowering. The fresh smell of the torron stalks was like a whole field during harvest, the perfume of the filias dug underneath it with pugnacious grandeur, and the inna scent was now so spicy that it made my eyes burn. There was something else as well, something like ash or burning . . .

  I gasped and flung the blanket off my head. I hadn’t set something on fire, had I?!

  No. My bedroom looked the same as it ever had. But the bouquet now had a flower I hadn’t noticed before. Something grey, and blobby.

  Oh, gross, I thought with disgust. A groverweed. Jontan didn’t watch what he was picking, and picked a groverweed.

  I got up out of bed and picked up the whole bouquet to throw it out the window. Maybe the wind could carry the appallingly strong odor away. As soon as my fingers touched the stalks, the flowers shrank.

  Argh! I screamed silently.

  Wait . . . why were the other flowers smaller, but the groverweed bigger?

  I stared at the bouquet for a moment, confused. As my thoughts raced, magic surged from my hand again, and the odor of the other flowers shrank to nothing. The blobby grey flower’s persistent ash scent remained the same.

  Slowly, I separated the one ugly grey flower from the rest. Had it grown because I’d accidentally used magic on it? Did groverweed grow whenever you threw magic at it?

  Nervously, because I’d never tried using magic on purpose before, I tried pushing magic into the groverweed. It unfurled a leaf, and then put forth a petal. The tingling in my arms ceased.

  I concentrated harder, and shoved even more into it. Within just a few minutes, the stalk held a long, straggly clump of roots, black petals ringing a head of seeds, and two more buds growing. For the first time in weeks, I felt satisfyingly hollow and empty.

  I drew a breath in wonder. All these weeks of misery, all this time of feeling sick, and all I’d needed to do was . . . that?

  I spun around and thumped my hand into my pillow. I tried to make it soft and fluffy, and nothing happened. Not even the wrong thing. It just lay there inertly.

  I danced around the room in excitement. I was free! I was free!

  My bedroom door opened, and Mother came in.

  “Did you accept Jontan’s invitation?” she asked.

  I froze from dancing around the room, and quickly spun the bouquet around to cover the groverweed.

  “Wh-what invitation?” I stammered, nervous that she had seen it.

  “The inna,” Mother said. “That means he likes you. He said he was going to ask you to the social event that’s happening at the Brushflower land next week. Did he?”

  I froze. I stared down at the bouquet. I knew I was old enough to be courted now, but . . .

  This was an invitation?

  “I . . . I . . . I’m feeling much better now,” I stumbled. “Excuse me!”

  I shoved on my shoes, raced out of the room, and pounded down the stairs, carrying the flowers tightly in my hand.

  “Raneh!” Mother shouted behind me. “You’re twelve years old! You have to wear your hair up in public!”

  I paid her no heed. I flung open the front door and thundered down the dirt road that connected our families’ lands.

  “Jontan!” I shouted. “Jontan, wait!” k'12

  He paused, and I caught up to him.

  “I didn’t realize what you were asking me,” I said, panting. “Yes! Yes, I’ll go with you!”

  Jontan’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “Yeah! Yeah, of course I will!”

  We stood there, beaming at each other, both of us embarrassed.

  “Thanks for the flowers,” I added awkwardly. “They were really great.”

  He ducked his head, and I felt a surge of giddiness. I was going to go to my first social event with a suitor! And I didn’t have to worry about magic! And I was safe!

  As soon as I got back home, I was going to plant some groverweed in my garden. It was now my favorite flower in the whole Rulership. k12

  And here’s a sneak peek of Chapter 1 of The Keeper and the Rulership, which happens six years later!

  I should have been delighted. In normal circumstances, I would at least be relieved. I wouldn’t be obliged to attend the
most significant event of the season without the favor of a suitor displayed on me.

  But there were a few obvious problems with being presented with two bouquets. First, of course, whoever I turned down would be offended.

  Second, I honestly didn’t know which boy I preferred.

  I tried to swallow my coil of fear — bad things happened when I got nervous — and turned to the first bouquet.

  It was from Jontan. His family’s land was right next to ours, and he’d been an easy escort for me for years. The problem was, I didn’t think our relationship was going anywhere. Jontan felt more like a brother than a suitor, and I was weary of pretending we had chemistry that just wasn’t there.

  Derrim and I sparkled with chemistry. He made me laugh, and even though he wasn’t handsome, he had incredible charisma. When he took me to events, I lit up with laughter, I had a great time, and I felt giddy as long as we were together.

  But there was a problem with Derrim, too. He was rude and caustic, his cutting remarks always hilarious when said in context. But every time I let him escort me someplace, I felt sick the next morning. I liked Derrim, I liked spending time with him, and yet I didn’t like the person he made me.

  I stared at the two bouquets disconsolately.

  A rustle sounded behind me. I turned to find my mother sweeping down the stairway.

  “Why, Raneh!” she cried, plucking up the first of the enormous bouquets. “Two choices! And here you were worried that you might not receive any!”

  I gave her a weak smile as she flipped through the flowers expertly.

  “Luries,” she said, running her fingers along the broad pink petals. “Thick. And healthy. He has honorable intentions.”

  I nodded. Jontan’s intentions were always honorable. That was one of the things I liked about him.

  “Affection and fondness,” Mother continued, examining the smooth orange lennies and the delicately scented turquoise adlies. With just a hint of sweetness, those must have been cut just before budding. That required foresight. He must have been planning this for weeks. “And tied together with tiny white speckies. A very harmonious arrangement, Raneh.”

  “Jontan’s always are,” I sighed, pointing at the tiny spray of wheatling and adly leaves that was his family’s signature. “But they always have something else, as well.”

  Mother frowned and pulled out the biggest of the pale pink luries. There, hidden beneath the rest of the flowers, was the crushed velvety blue-purple he always shoved there.

  Mother let out a bark of laughter. “Filias? He really always puts one in there?”

  “‘Loyalty to the Rulership,’” I said dryly. “If it were anyone else, I would think he was showing off. But with Jontan, he’s always sincere.”

  Mother chuckled. “That’s not a bad trait in a suitor, Raneh.”

  “But it’s not flattering, either!” I protested. “Every single bouquet he sends is practically saying he’d put the Rulership first over his family!”

  “So? Were you planning to make him choose between them?” Mother teased.

  I looked down, not daring to answer that. The truth was, I had reasons for not liking the Rulership, reasons for not wanting to marry somebody who was so blindly faithful to it. In fact, Derrim’s irreverence towards the Ruler had been one of the reasons I’d been attracted to him in the first place.

  “Let’s see the other bouquet,” Mother said, setting the first one down. She picked up the second and examined it critically. “I see Derrim’s preference for spectacle hasn’t been dampened since the last invitation he sent.”

  This bouquet was a wild mash of clashing colors that seemed entirely haphazard. Garishly orange whirlies spun out the sides, purple-green-striped inna leaves jabbed from the middle, and tiny red speckies were strewn in strange places. He’d put his family’s signature of laceleafs right where it was supposed to be, front and center, but it was rendered deliberately ridiculous with a pair of bright orange stokwings perched on top, arranged to look like birds about to eat the laceleaf berries.

  Mother caught a whiff of the strong scent of inna and whirlies, and choked. “Would someone teach that boy how to mix perfume properly?”

  I giggled. “He always uses flowers that are too strong and should not be mixed together. I think it’s his way of showing off his acerbic taste.”

  “Or lack of taste whatsoever,” Mother shuddered. She tossed the bouquet back onto the main hallway’s receiving table. “Tell me, does he actually show up smelling like this?”

  “No, no.” I couldn’t stop giggling. “He rarely wears scent at all, actually.”

  “Well, that’s something.” Mother eyed me critically. “So? Which boy are you planning to go with?”

  I hesitated. “Well, in some ways Derrim is a lot better than Jontan. He’s so interesting.”

  Mother glanced at the so-safe-that-it-could-have-been-taken-straight-out-of-a-textbook-and-probably-had-been bouquet. “I understand. Jontan does lack creativity.”

  “Or ability to gain status,” I admitted, brutally. “He rarely loses any, which is more than I can say for Derrim, but he rarely earns anything, either. He’s just . . . invisible. I’m not saying that I’m wildly ambitious, but . . .”

  “But one can’t spend status that isn’t there,” Mother nodded. “One wants to have some revenue that’s more than the crops bring in.”

  “If one wants to stay a landowner, anyway,” I said glumly. “And I don’t want to be a vassal, Mother!”

  “Well, of course not. Nobody does.”

  Grandmother and Grandfather don’t mind, I thought. But their situation was different. They worked for us; they didn’t have to live with some landowner family that didn’t love them.

  “You could always be ours,” Mother said gently, as if reading my mind. “But I’m guessing you would rather have your own land.”

  I nodded emphatically. Being vassal to my parents would be almost as intolerable as being a vassal to anyone else. True, I would take my share of my family’s status with me when I married. True, they could gift me with any more they wanted me to receive. But my parents had three children to worry about, and one would be in much more dire need of status than me.

  “Here.” Mother plopped the second bouquet in my arms. “Go with Derrim. He sounds like the better possibility.”

  I nodded, breathing deeply. Then I choked and gagged at Derrim’s bouquet’s perfume. It was much worse than usual. k12

  Who combines spicy with acrid on purpose? I thought indignantly. Derrim, what were you thinking?

  As the daughter of a landowner, Raneh lives in a world of clearly defined roles and rules. She’s supposed to get married, gain status, become a landowner herself, and definitely not have magic. Seeing as it’s forbidden and all.

  Too bad she has it anyway.

  On top of that, a suitable courtship does not seem to be forthcoming, her younger brother is a social embarrassment, her younger sister is better at everything than she is, and . . .

  And the Ruler’s coming to visit.

  You can get it here.

 

 

  Emily Martha Sorensen, The Weeds within the Rulership

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