Heir of Thorns Read online

Ash shifted from foot to foot, a constant, restless movement that annoyed me. “We were supposed to have an entire display. The fire garden takes up an entire booth every year. It’s one of the highlights of the festival. There’s nothing left.”

  “I can see that.” Immediately, I regretted my tone. I was tired, and their fear inflamed mine. I took a deep breath. “We’re going to have to cancel the fire garden this year.”

  “We’ve already arranged for the Draconis Fireflame plants to be brought in,” Ash said. “What are we supposed to do about that? It’s too late to cancel; they’re already being transported.”

  “I don’t know.” I ran a hand through my hair. “We can still have the Fireflames. Just… put them in a different display. There has to be some gilded goldenrod still alive around here somewhere. Change the theme from fire to treasure.”

  “The goldenrod’s gone,” Rue said quietly. “I’ve already looked. It was supposed to go in our display.”

  My heart raced, and I couldn’t blame it all on the coffee. I wasn’t usually given to anxiety, not like this, but it was hard not to get alarmed when the world was falling to pieces all around me. I forced myself to count to five before I spoke again.

  “Give me some time to think about it,” I said at last. “We’ll figure out something to do with the dragons and the space. Maybe we could do an educational booth on the different types of compost we use in the gardens.”

  Rue nodded, although it seemed more like she was trying to encourage me than like she actually thought it was a good idea. Ash narrowed his eyes at the devastated garden as if he could revive it with the power of his stare.

  I had hardly left their garden when Chervil accosted me. I tensed up as soon as I heard his voice. After Jonquil, he was one of the hardest to get along with. He’d wanted my job, and his resentment of my youth and position was impossible to miss.

  “I need to speak with you,” he said without preamble. “Burning the blighted flowers isn’t helping. My apprentices have wasted enough of their time on a lost cause. I’ve pulled them back to help me work on the flowering herbs that are left.”

  I frowned and kept walking. Every step hurt, but the pain was still less than I usually felt from trying to have a face-to-face conversation with Chervil.

  “We can’t stop burning the plants,” I said. “For all we know, that’s the only thing stopping the blight from spreading faster than it is.”

  “Jonquil says otherwise. He thinks burning the plants is a lost cause, and he tells me you all but admitted you agree.”

  Irritation flared. “I said I don’t know for sure,” I said. “That doesn’t mean your apprentices can just stop.”

  “It’s a waste of their time.”

  I stopped and turned to face him. “What do you do with any other kind of blight?”

  His mouth twisted. “Destroy the infected plants. But--”

  “That’s right. And we have infected plants.”

  “Burning them doesn’t seem to--”

  “I’m not going to risk the contagion spreading any faster than it is.”

  “My apprentices are tired.”

  “I’m tired,” I snapped. “We’re all tired. My ankle is sprained, and I shouldn’t be walking on it, but we have a Festival to prepare for.” He opened his mouth to argue, but I kept going. “Yes, everyone is putting in extra hours. Yes, we’re all worried. Yes, there is no guarantee that destroying these plants is helping. And no, you’re not permitted to just stop doing it. Put your apprentices back on burn duty, or I’ll find someone else to supervise them.”

  He glared at me, and I glared back at him until he looked away like one of Lilian’s puppies after it had been caught misbehaving.

  “Yes, sir,” he muttered.

  “Thank you.”

  He walked away. Guilt and anger and frustration bubbled inside me. I had a feeling I’d handled that all wrong. Or maybe I’d handled it all right and it didn’t matter because everything was going to die anyway.

  Unless we found a way to stop it.

  The tiniest hope still burned inside me. In spite of everything--in spite of the death and the hopelessness and the sight of the queen sitting there while decay crept up her hair--the outcome of this disease was still undecided.

  As long as a single plant remained alive in the kingdom, there was the possibility of restoring our future to something resembling our beautiful past.

  But I couldn’t just choose that future.

  Not alone.

  I couldn’t run, not without blinding pain, which meant sneaking into the castle and hightailing it to Lilian’s quarters was out of the question.

  Which left me back at my foolproof plan of harassing the women of the Florian royal family via their windows.

  I squinted up at the many rectangles that marched along the palace wall in an orderly line. The glass reflected the morning sunlight, obscuring anything that might have been within. It was still early; chances were good Lilian was taking breakfast in her rooms. Lilian preferred breakfast in the small conservatory adjoining her sitting room, although sometimes she ate in front of her bedroom fireplace if she’d been up late the night before.

  She never ate breakfast in bed. She hated the crumbs.

  The conservatory jutted out slightly from the rest of the building. Its windows were placed closer together, and only narrow frames separated the large panes. I stepped back, made my best guess, and took aim.

  The pebble bounced off the window with a light clink. I waited, but nothing changed. I tossed another stone, this one a little larger, and winced when it hit the glass. The window held up, though, and it only took a few more pebbles before one of the panes tilted outward, and Lilian’s face peeked out.

  The concern on her expression faded the moment she saw me.

  “That’s one way to do it,” she called. A slight smile danced at the edges of her lips.

  I held out my hands in a shrug. “I can’t come in. I figured you might be able to come out.”

  Lilian’s expression hardened. “You can’t come in, my left ear. Have you really not been in the palace since he threw you out?”

  I shook my head. “The guards stopped me when I tried. Your duke’s taking my banishment pretty seriously.”

  “He’s not my duke. I mean, he is, but that doesn’t mean I have to like him right now.” She sighed, and then, in typical Lilian fashion, she tried to see the best in everyone and added, “I’m sure he’ll come around.”

  I didn’t say anything. There was no guarantee the duke would change his mind about me--and anyway, did it even matter? Their engagement had been announced. The photos had been published, and the alliance between the two prominent families was all but secured. The only thing left was to set a date.

  “I need to talk to you,” I said. “Somewhere private.”

  Lilian pursed her lips and tilted her head. “What did you do to your ankle?”

  I glanced down. The cloth I’d wrapped around the joints had come untied. Besides that, the swelling felt like it had to be visible from the moon.

  “It’s a funny story,” I said. “I never plan on telling it to anyone.”

  “You’ll tell it to me.”

  My stomach did a little flip at the smug confidence in her voice.

  “Never.”

  “I’m coming down.” She closed the window partway, then opened it again. “Give me a few minutes,” she called. “I’ll bring a salve for your ankle. Where should I meet you?”

  “Come to the little storage shed by the gardenias and peonies.”

  Something like pain passed over her face. There weren’t many peonies left, or gardenias. Still, she knew where they were supposed to be blooming.

  “Don’t let anyone see you,” I added. “The last thing we need is someone seeing us together. Forget the palace--the duke will kick me right out of the gardens.”

  “If Garritt tries, he’ll remember who his princess is very quickly.”

  The threat had no te
eth. The king had left the duke in charge, and, for some reason, the idiot guards had decided that was enough reason to listen to him instead of their princess. Still, knowing Lilian was ready to ride to my aid on a white charger made me smile.

  “Just don’t get caught,” I said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “Deon?” she said as if worried I was going to run away before she could speak. I couldn’t leave quickly, not with my foot like this. And I wouldn’t have anyway. I never left first if I could help it, not if the other option was watching her grow smaller as she walked gracefully across the grounds or seeing that last glimpse of her golden hair as she disappeared around a corner. Or, in this case, getting in one final glimpse of her perfect, rose-blushed face.

  “Lils?”

  She drew her eyebrows together as if thinking seriously about the words that should come next. I waited, my heart in my throat.

  “I miss you,” she said at last.

  I bit back a grin. “Then come down and see me.”

  “No, Deon, I mean…” She trailed off, then shook her head in annoyance. “I mean, I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Lils,” I said.

  “All right, then,” she said. “I just wanted to make that clear. I’ll be down in a minute. With the salve. And a pastry.”

  “You do love me!”

  It was a joke, but one colored with so much truth that I wanted to kick myself in the damaged ankle the second the words were out of my mouth. I gritted my teeth, hard.

  “I’m an idiot,” I added.

  “You were born that way,” she said. “It can’t be helped.”

  Her eyes twinkled, and everything inside me leapt and twisted and fell all at once.

  “Just bring the salve,” I said.

  “And the pastry?”

  “Always the pastry.”

  The shed door creaked open, letting in a slice of morning sunlight. Lilian slipped inside and blinked. The only windows in this shed were a high horizontal slit in the wall on either side, and it seemed to take a few moments for Lilian’s eyes to adjust to the relative darkness.

  Then she furrowed her eyebrows.

  “That’s not where you’re sleeping.”

  I patted the blanket-covered pile of manure sacks next to me. “Have a seat, Your Highness.”

  “What’s under there?”

  “Unicorn poop.”

  “Deon.”

  “Lils.”

  I stared at her, fighting the laugh that wanted to erupt from me at the look on her face. She narrowed her eyes at me, trying to decide if I was serious. I lifted a corner of the blanket to reveal a burlap sack printed with the words Woodland Stables Finest Unicorn Manure in dark violet letters.

  Lilian’s nose wrinkled a little. “At least it smells all right.”

  “That’s why I picked this pile,” I said. “We’ve got another shed of steer manure, and it’s not nearly so nice.”

  Delicately, she sat on the makeshift bed next to me. She pulled a small jar out of her pocket and smoothed her pale blue skirts over her knees.

  “Let’s see that ankle.”

  “I’d rather have the pastry.”

  She smirked and took a wrapped package from her other pocket. I reached for it, and she held it up and away from me.

  “No fussing when I put on the salve,” she said.

  “I can put it on.” The thought of Lilian touching my ankle made heat rise to my face.

  She raised her chin and eyebrows in a stubborn expression. “Give me your ankle,” she said sternly. “No fussing about the smell.”

  “What does it smell like?”

  “Deon?”

  She held the pastry away from me, the threat unmistakable. I collapsed my shoulders in defeat.

  “Fine.”

  “Give me your ankle.”

  My stomach flipped. I lifted my foot and angled my body toward her, careful not to touch her immaculate skirts with my dirty boot.

  She grabbed my leg and plopped it across her lap, then handed me the paper-wrapped package. The sweet scent of cinnamon and apples filled my senses, mingling with the faint lavender scent of the manure beneath us.

  I ate while Lilian carefully removed my shoe and thick woolen sock, then unwound the fabric that bound my ankle and pushed my trouser leg out of the way. My skin thrilled at every touch of her slender fingers.

  She opened the jar of salve. Instantly, the sweet scent of the apple pastry was replaced with an acrid herbal odor that seemed like it was trying to claw its way up my nose.

  I recoiled. “Sticks and stones, that’s awful.”

  Lilian grabbed my leg and pressed it firmly into her lap. “Hold still.”

  She dipped her fingertips into the foul mixture and massaged it into my ankle. The salve tingled wherever it touched, first hot and then cold, and it stained my skin with streaks of deep, muddy green. It stained Lilian’s fingers, too, and when she was done and had capped the jar, she considered her fingertips with a calculating expression and then wiped the lingering salve off on one of her petticoats.

  “My maids are going to murder me,” she said lightly. “How does that feel?”

  “Better,” I said. “I think.”

  Although it was impossible to tell whether the gentle, comfortable throbbing in the joints was due to the salve or just a relic of the delight of being touched by Lilian.

  My face grew hot, and I realized with a jolt that I was staring at her. She bit her lip and stared back.

  Stars, she was beautiful. The strain of the last few days had paled her skin and added lingering lines of worry at the corners of her eyes, and even so, she was so lovely it almost hurt to look at her.

  She giggled, and my skin flushed even hotter. Was it possible to get a sunburn just from blushing? If so, I was in trouble.

  “Thank you,” I said, too loudly.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Stop looking at me.”

  “No.” She leaned forward, blue eyes intense. “You’re the nicest thing I’ve seen all day. Especially when you turn red like that.”

  “I’m not red,” I said as if objecting to reality would do anything to change it.

  She laughed. The bubbly feeling in my chest subsided, and so did her smile. We gazed at one another. Her lips parted slightly, the rose pink of them gleaming under the thin coat of perfumed beeswax she used to keep them soft. Her lashes trembled.

  I pulled away.

  “I can’t get too close to you, Lils.”

  “I know.” She drew back, too, and settled her hands tightly in her lap. “Stars, Deon, I’m sorry. I keep thinking I’ll be all right, and then I get close to you, and…”

  She swallowed. She didn’t need to finish the sentence. I knew how it ended, with butterflies in my stomach and tingles spreading across my skin.

  “You still want to run away?” The words escaped me before I had the chance to think them through, and my breath caught after the last one as I waited for her answer. A tantalizing hope glimmered at the edges of our lives, a hint at a future where happiness might be within our grasp.

  Her chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. “I want to,” she said.

  The but was there as loudly as if she’d said it. I smiled a little if only to let her know I loved her anyway.

  “I would. Honestly, if things were different, I would.” She glanced at me, and a rueful smile twisted her lips. “Or, at least, I like to think I would.”

  I knew what she meant. Whatever our hearts said, Lilian and I shared more than just our love for one another. We also shared a sense of duty that ran as deeply inside us as the roots of an ancient oak.

  “I can’t leave so long as Garritt is in charge.” A shudder passed across her face, so faint I could have tricked myself into believing it wasn’t there. “Deon, it’s awful. He’s controlling everything. He’s gone to all sorts of meetings with the Horticulture Council, and he’s talking about firing the Head Cook because he doesn’t like that she trained in Badala
h instead of Floris, and he’s just awful to the housekeeping staff. He wasn’t like that the first few days, but then Papa told him he was in charge, and he’s just turning into this hideous person. He’s always sweet to me, but he’s not particularly civil to my maids.”

  Her mouth tightened to a thin line. I winced inwardly. No one who wanted to be in Lilian’s good graces could get away with treating her maidservants with anything less than respect. She had no patience for people who were unkind to the palace staff.

  “Have you talked to your father?”

  “He won’t see me,” she said. “I haven’t got the faintest clue what’s wrong with him, but he barely looks at me, and he’s started taking all his meals with Mama, who’s still locked up in her rooms.” Her voice shook at the last word, and she clenched her jaw. I reached across the space between us for her hand. She squeezed mine tightly enough to all but crush my fingers, and I stroked the back of her hand with my thumb.

  “And on top of that, all the flowers are dying,” she said, then shifted to look at me straight-on. “I’m not blaming you for that.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just that everything seems to be falling apart all at once.” She turned to face me, and worry etched deep lines into her forehead. “Mama’s sick. Something’s wrong with Papa. The entire countryside is turning gray. You’ve been thrown out of the palace, and even if you hadn’t been, we’re still not free to marry.” She made a frustrated sound, something between a growl and a curse. “And Garritt is swanning around like he owns the place as if nothing matters but all his newfound power.”

  My stomach turned more to lead with every word. It was a grim prospect, all the worse for its truth.

  Lilian wiggled closer to me and rested her head on my shoulder.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she said in a small voice. “It’s like everything is dying.”

  I dared to put my arm around her. She gave a contented little sigh and snuggled in closer as if I could actually provide her with any protection in this terrifying new world.

  I couldn’t even keep my flowers from dying. How was I supposed to protect a princess?

  “Hedley thinks it’s all connected,” I said.