Heir of Thorns Read online

  Lilian grimaced. "Afraid not. The elder duke's main hobby seems to be betting on horse races, and the duchess's passions lie in gowns and needlework. I'm not averse to gowns and needlework, but it's hard to talk about them for more than a few minutes without dying of boredom."

  "Maybe you should let Duke Remington handle his parents."

  "I'll probably have to." She sighed and gazed up at me. "Stars, Deon, it's good to talk to you. I miss you."

  "You see me almost every day."

  "That's not what I mean."

  I knew. I missed her too. My heart ached with it.

  "Walk back to the castle with me, then." I nodded toward a wooden bin where I stored tightly sealed glass jars of nuts and seeds. "We can feed the birds on the way."

  Outside my private garden, the world existed in a state of tightly controlled chaos. Apprentices patrolled the palace grounds as they had for the last few days, rooting out diseased plants and burning them on the spot in small, enchanted bins. In theory, removing blight as it appeared would stop the problem from spreading, but I couldn't tell whether it was working. The gray rot kept showing up, and it kept spreading, appearing farther and farther from the palace each day.

  Lilian watched one of the apprentices dig out a diseased daylily and toss it into his bin. The fire leapt and devoured the soggy flower with a flash of light, and Lilian's lips tightened into a thin line.

  "There's got to be something we can do," she murmured.

  The same thought had played over and over in my head since I'd first discovered the blight, the words growing more frantic with each new death in the gardens.

  "At least, the birds don't seem to have noticed," I said.

  It was a small consolation, but a distracting one. Nesting season had begun, and the robins and sparrows were eager for the seeds we tossed them. They danced and pecked and flew away, only to be replaced by others who had realized what was happening. A couple of doves swooped in to join the feast, and Lilian laughed at their little head bobs.

  “Must be nice to be a bird.” Lilian tossed another handful of seeds, and an enterprising robin jumped on the fresh offering with a flap of its wings. A tiny chickadee hopped along behind, gathering up the crumbs the other birds had left behind. “They get to choose their own mates and live wherever they want.”

  “No hands, though,” I said. “They have to use their beaks for everything. That’s got to be inconvenient.”

  “I guess that would get old after a while,” she conceded.

  “But I wouldn’t mind being able to fly.”

  “Might make up for the lack of fingers.”

  She threw the last few seeds to the birds, who gobbled them up and eyed us, waiting for more. She began walking toward the palace again, and I fell into step beside her. Her hand slipped into mine, and I squeezed.

  I’d take hands over wings any day.

  I dared to hold on as we wandered through one of the butterfly gardens full of daisies and goldenrod and milkweed. She was so much smaller than me, the golden crown of her head barely reaching my nose, and her fingers delicate under my touch. It would be easy to think of her as a soft, decorative thing, and anyone who did so underestimated her at their peril. I made a silent wish that Duke Remington would appreciate every facet of his bride, from her optimistic spirit to her vast knowledge of botany and literature to the sense of compassion and duty that colored her every choice. He would never know what she’d sacrificed to be his wife and the queen Floris needed. Even so, I hoped he’d recognize her generosity and love her for it.

  As if he’d been conjured by my thoughts, the Duke of Thornton’s head appeared beyond a stand of rose bushes. I dropped Lilian’s hand, and a moment later, the rest of him emerged, striding toward us with purpose.

  “My darling,” he called. He held out a hand as he approached and offered me a wide smile. “Mr. Gilding, how are you?”

  “I’m well, thank you, Your Grace.” I shook his hand and bowed my head.

  Lilian, her face a little flushed, smoothed her riding skirts. “Garritt, I didn’t think I’d see you again until supper. Papa said he was going to show you the armory first.”

  “So he did.” Duke Remington held out his arm, and Lilian took it. “We also had a wonderful conversation.” They moved down the walkway, and I lingered behind to give them room, but the duke glanced over his shoulder. “Walk back to the palace with us if you like, Mr. Gilding. The whole kingdom will know what I have to say soon enough.”

  I fell into an awkward step just behind them.

  “I told your father how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know you,” Duke Remington said. He paused, took Lilian’s hand, and raised it to his lips.

  My face heated, and I looked away until he laced her arm back through his and resumed walking.

  “As neither we nor our parents have raised any objections from our week together, your father and I agreed it’s time we move to the next step of our betrothal.”

  I couldn’t see the duke’s face from behind, but it was clear from his tone that he was wearing an enormous grin. I gritted my teeth together and stared straight ahead, past Lilian and the duke, and toward some imaginary point in the far distance.

  “You mean—” Lilian started.

  “Announcing our engagement.” Enthusiasm bubbled from his voice. “Your father has already arranged to have our photographs taken tomorrow so the newspapers can share the good news on the third of the month.”

  “So soon!” Lilian said.

  The duke didn’t catch the hesitation in her words. How could he? Lilian had been trained in diplomacy from infancy. But I heard it, and I bit my tongue to stop myself from interrupting.

  This wasn’t my conversation. This wasn’t my decision. Lilian wasn’t my bride.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” The duke glanced over his shoulder again. “And, no doubt, the palace will be glad to know they can start planning the wedding.”

  “I’m sure the heads of staff will be glad for all the advance notice you can give them,” I said as if we were talking about something other than the end of the world.

  “You are pleased, aren’t you, my dear?” the duke said, looking down fondly at Lilian.

  She smiled, and only I saw the tightness at the corners of her eyes. “How could I be otherwise?” she said. “This is exciting news for all of Floris.”

  “I hope you don’t mind that your father and I made the decision without you,” he said. “He assured me you would have told him if you weren’t ready to proceed with our marriage.”

  Lilian hesitated for the briefest of instants before patting the duke’s arm. “My papa knows me well. Have you told your parents yet?”

  I couldn’t stand another second of this.

  “Excuse me,” I blurted. They turned, startled, and I bowed deeply enough to hide my face. “I have to stop by one of the tool sheds. Please continue without me, and congratulations on your engagement.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gilding,” the duke said brightly.

  “Thank you, Deon,” Lilian murmured.

  It was everything I could do to walk away without breaking into a run.

  2nd April

  I signed the bottom of the Flower Festival map and handed it back across my rarely-used desk to the Horticulture Council secretary. He tucked the paper neatly into his green leather folio.

  “Here’s a copy for you to keep.” He was a tall, thin young man who hadn’t quite grown into his knees and elbows. He reminded me of myself: tasked with important responsibilities and anxious to perform his tasks well.

  I accepted the paper, which showed the palace’s display areas, sales tables, and warehouse assignments. Each of our reserved parcels of fairground space was outlined in red ink and labeled Palace in a tidy scrawl.

  There were so many of these little rectangles, each one destined to be filled with horticulture displays or crates of tulip bulbs for sale. A week ago, the thousands of details that ensured each flower and staff member would end
up in the right place at the right time had overwhelmed me. Now, I wished that was all I had to worry about.

  The secretary shuffled his papers and pursed his lips. Finally, I cleared my throat.

  “Is there anything else?”

  “No,” he said abruptly, then, as if he’d had to dare himself to ask, he added, “I don’t suppose you can tell me anything new about the blight that’s been affecting the kingdom?”

  I bit back a sigh. I couldn’t blame him for asking, but I rather wished I’d thought to have cards printed up informing people that asking was as pointless as trying to identify the disease was turning out to be.

  “We’ve got all our best minds working on it,” I said. “I’ll share anything I learn with the Horticulture Council, as I hope they’d share with me.”

  It was nothing, as answers went, but the secretary put his hat back on and shrugged as if to say he’d had to ask.

  “That’s what the king said at his meeting with them yesterday,” the secretary said. “Or so I hear.”

  I held out a hand to stop him from leaving. “King Alder met with the Council?”

  “Yesterday.” The man frowned a little. “Didn’t you know?”

  “I must have forgotten.” I waved the paper he’d handed me. “So much to think about. Slipped my mind.”

  The minute the secretary left and closed the door behind him, I slammed the paper down on my desk. Why had King Alder gone to see the Horticulture Council? He hadn’t talked to me about all this, and I’d been trying to get an audience with him for days. He was aware of the problem, clearly.

  Sticks and stones, I had to be doing something wrong if he didn’t even want to talk to his Head Gardener about the blight. Or maybe he just knew that I’d kissed Lilian a few days ago, and that was reason enough to avoid me.

  Lilian had been right. We should have run away. Even if we managed to stop the plague spreading across the kingdom, it seemed like I might not have a job here for much longer anyway.

  Before I could get my composure back, someone knocked on my office door, then opened it without waiting for an invitation. I stood and prepared to remind whichever of my staff members it was that they shouldn’t just barge in even if they did think a spotted garden slug would do my job better than me, but the words died on my lips.

  “What are you doing indoors on a beautiful day like this?” Hedley asked. He laced his thumb behind one of his suspenders. “Thought I taught you better than that.”

  “Am I glad to see you!”

  I greeted him with a big hug and invited him to sit down. Sliding into my chair on the other side of the desk was surreal. These roles were supposed to be reversed. He was supposed to be in the big chair, and I was supposed to be the one coming to visit him.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place,” Hedley said with a chuckle.

  The office was as bare as if Hedley had just moved out, the only proof of my presence the scattered pile of papers on my desk and the bottle with black ink smeared down the side.

  “Can’t say I spend much time in here. I keep meaning to get a houseplant or two, but I haven’t been able to get one of those clever Forge lamps yet.” The office had one window, but it sat in the shadow of another wing of the castle for most of the day. There wasn’t enough light to keep so much as a common ivy happy. The office of Hedley’s day had been filled with greenery and lamps that simulated sunlight.

  My office would eventually look like his had, assuming I didn’t get thrown out on my ear first.

  “I didn’t think you were going to be here until closer to the Festival.”

  Hedley’s silvery eyebrows drew down. “Afraid I couldn’t wait that long,” he said, resting his hands on his stomach. He’d always been a muscular man from years of hard work in the gardens. In retirement, his wife’s good cooking had softened his frame and given him the start of a belly. “I came to the capital yesterday to see this blight for myself. In the ground, not just in that specimen jar you brought to me.”

  “It hasn’t gotten as far as Goldenrod yet, then?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Seems it’s only a matter of time.”

  I sighed. “We’d be fools to think otherwise. What have you learned?”

  “Problem’s worse than I feared,” he said. “I’ll admit I hoped the newspapers were blowing things out of proportion.”

  “I wish that’s all it was.”

  “Would you permit me to examine the palace grounds?”

  I leaned forward. “Of course. Please.”

  “Only I don’t want you to think I’m overstepping my bounds.”

  “Stars, Hedley.” I ran a hand through my hair. “Overstep all you like. This situation is beyond me. It’s beyond any of us.”

  “You sure Jonquil isn’t prepared to solve the whole thing with a wave of his hand?”

  Hedley’s face didn’t change, but his eyes twinkled. He knew the garden staff as well as I did, probably better, and Jonquil’s moods had never been all daisies and sunshine.

  “I threatened to fire him,” I admitted.

  Hedley laughed and tapped the edge of the desk with a closed fist. “Oh, I’d have liked to have been there for that. How’d he take it?”

  “Not well,” I said. “He’s been worse than usual since you left, but the stress of this past week’s been getting to everyone.”

  The light in Hedley’s eyes faded. “It’s not just the staff,” he said. “Everyone’s being hit by this blight.” He rubbed his short, well-trimmed beard. “These flowers we grow, they’re not just Floris’s main export. They’re tied to the happiness of the people.”

  “We’re all happier surrounded by plants,” I said. “Especially ones that aren’t doing their best to die on us.”

  He shook his head. “No, it’s more than that.” He let out a long breath and fixed me with his gaze. “Much more. About eighteen years ago, the people of Floris were miserable.”

  I raised an eyebrow. It seemed like an odd way to begin a story, but it was clear he was starting one. He leaned back in his seat and settled in, fixing me with his gaze.

  “You likely don’t know much about it, because folks don’t like to talk about their mistakes. But Floris was full of mistakes. So were the rest of the kingdoms.”

  I remembered that from my history lessons. The kingdoms had been prone to disagreements, from diplomatic standoffs over trade embargoes to outright wars. That had all changed shortly after King Alder took the throne. He had reached out to leaders of other nations and proposed friendlier relations between the kingdoms, and they had been receptive.

  I knew that. Everyone did. But I wasn’t about to interrupt Hedley just so I could tell him that.

  “We didn’t have a Flower Festival back then,” he continued. “No point. Nobody wanted to come to Floris, and nobody from Floris wanted to let foreigners in. Besides, everyone was in such a bad mood in the other countries that they weren’t about to spend their money on frivolities like flowers.”

  He scoffed a little. Flowers weren’t a frivolity, every Florian understood that. Beauty was critical to happiness, and nature was the balm of every spirit. That message was our gift to the world—a message that we shared at every Flower Festival.

  “Then, things changed.” Hedley drummed his fingers on his stomach and watched me. “It was sudden. Floris had always been full of greenery, but when the king and queen married, the flowers bloomed like we’d never seen. The colors grew more vivid. Blossoms hung from trees for months, then grew into the juiciest apples imaginable. The fragrance that filled the kingdom…” He trailed off and pursed his lips a little. “Well, you wouldn’t be aware of how different things became. You live with that sweetness in the air every day, and you’ve never known any different.”

  He was leading me somewhere with all this. I narrowed my eyes.

  “Why did it happen when the king and queen married?” I said.

  Hedley tapped the side of his nose. “That’s an interesting question, isn
’t it?”

  “And you think the blight is making people unhappy again?” I said. “Like they used to be?”

  He sat, waiting for me to form my own conclusions. I tilted my head and searched his face for clues. He believed what he was saying, that much was for sure. And he’d believed what he’d said about a curse.

  “You think the flowers are being cursed, and that’s making everyone miserable?” I said. “Who would be that upset at our kingdom?”

  “Maybe no one,” he said. “Maybe we weren’t cursed. Maybe we got blessed.”

  He nodded toward me, and I remembered something else that had happened eighteen years ago. I frowned at Hedley, but he was still watching me in silence, waiting for me to connect the dots.

  “I showed up right after the royal marriage, too,” I said. “That feels odd, doesn’t it? Like too much of a coincidence?”

  He raised his eyebrows just slightly, and I couldn’t tell whether he was interested or had already formed these conclusions himself.

  But that couldn’t be right, either.

  “More likely, it’s all just coincidence,” I said. “King Alder married Queen Rapunzel and just happened to inherit the throne a few months later. He started building relations with other kingdoms, and someone in Floris thought he was a good enough king that they could drop a baby off on the doorstep and trust it would be taken care of. Floris didn’t change because of magic. We just got a good king.”

  “Also a possibility,” he said.

  “You don’t believe it, though, do you?”

  He shrugged and laced a thumb behind one of his suspenders. “Haven’t decided yet. That’s part of why I’m here. I need to see this blight for myself, maybe see the queen.”

  “Good luck.”

  He squinted a little. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, good luck.” I couldn’t stop the frustration from leaking into my voice. “The queen won’t see anyone. Not even Lilian.”

  “Makes it all the more important that I see the spread of this disease for myself.” He clapped his hands onto his knees and stood with a soft groan. “I don’t suppose you have time to show me around? All worries of blight aside, I’d like to see what you’ve done with the place.”