No. I won’t fail. There was a time when I could fall from great heights with nothing but a sheet of fabric to catch me and get ten inches from the floor before stopping myself. A time when I was the only person I could rely on. If I’d just given into the fall, I would’ve been impaled years ago. But I am not that girl. I am a Flower, just as Rayce once said, and I can weather any storm.
Chapter Twenty
Marin sits cross legged on her bed in the tiny room we share, leaning up against the stone wall, her pillow stuffed in her lap. She’s wrapped her hands around it, clutching it in death’s embrace and yet, she somehow still manages to look more refined than I am, curled up in a little ball on my bed like a cat. No matter how hard I try or how long I lie down, sleep will not come.
Rayce’s accusations repeat in my head. I turn over the events that got me here, replaying them on an endless loop behind my closed eyelids, but I can’t see how it would have played out any differently, and even if it did, it doesn’t excuse Rayce’s willingness to just write me off.
“So let me get this straight.” Marin pulls me from my torturous thoughts. “The Gardener stabbed himself, told Rayce you did it, and Rayce believed him?”
“Yes,” I breathe into my pillow. “That about covers it.” I clench my eyes shut, trying not to let the frustration of it all destroy me. The wiggle of my mattress shifting to accept new weight followed quickly by the comfort of nimble fingers on the back of my head helps calm my breathing. Her touch reminds me so much of Fern’s that I have to take a moment to collect myself in the false darkness of my own mind. Glancing up, I follow the line of Marin’s arm all the way up to her gentle brown eyes.
“Don’t worry, Rose,” she says. “We’ll figure out a way to prove your innocence in all of this.”
A knock on our doorway interrupts any plan we might have come up with. My stomach twists with hope. Maybe it’s Rayce. Perhaps he has cooled off after our last conversation and reflected on my words enough to realize that I didn’t do what the Gardener accused me of.
The light blue curtain serving as our door moves and my hopes are crushed when Kyra, Piper’s young sister that I rescued a few months ago, peeks her head through. Her long, black hair spills over her shoulder, her green and pale pink robe making her thin frame appear even smaller.
“The shogun called an emergency meeting,” she says, her dark eyes darting to Marin. “He requested your presence.”
The entire walk through the tunnels, I try to reason what would cause Rayce to call a meeting like this. It has to be something to do with the information Arlo reported back. The question is did he find the Varshan army or something else?
Kyra leads us into a small opening in the same hall where Rayce’s room is located. The pleasant scent of freshly cut oak tickles my nose from one of the only cleanly crafted tables I’ve seen in the rebellion base. Four of Rayce’s captains sit around the table already, talking quietly amongst themselves. The older man with his long hair in a topknot stops speaking midsentence when he sees us enter.
He looks at me for a second, his sharp brown eyes taking in my appearance. His mouth dips into a slight frown and he clasps his fingers together in front of him as he leans back in his chair. “It seems that we’re to entertain all ideas today, even if they come from some of the less seasoned among us.”
The others mumble their dissent as Kyra heads to the back of the room where Piper sits, three of her white-cloaked ghosts swarming around her, the swift sound of quill to parchment filling up the silence now that the chatter has stopped. Though Piper’s dark eyes cut to us, she says nothing for or against us being there.
No sooner do I pull my legs up to sit with them crossed in the chair does Rayce walk into the room, ending all of the whispers with his presence. I try not to focus on the fact that he probably doesn’t want to see me. The last few days wear heavily on him, his mouth pressed into a hard line, and bags settle under his eyes like they’ve always been part of him. His long tan shirt remains untucked and wrinkled, echoing restless nights, and the two topknots on his collar hang loose.
He drops a pile of parchment onto the table with a loud thud and leans over it, resting both of his palms flat on the wood. His gaze flicks over everyone in the room, stopping when he finally notices me. I stay pinned underneath the weight of his eyes, transported back to the moment he and the rest of his council came in to pass judgment on me. At least then, I had a few friendly faces in the room. I had Oren. The corner of Rayce’s mouth twitches and for a heart-stopping second, I worry he might ask me to leave. I’m not sure I could handle that.
Finally, his eyes move away from me and I can breathe. “I’ll get straight to the point because we don’t have a lot of time. We’ve received word from Shing that confirms our suspicions. Varsha has managed to scale the Blue Gate and is heading for the capital. He made it clear in his last correspondence that he will not have the availability to check in with us often, but that we need to assemble a force and come up with a plan quickly to assist them in a battle with Imperial City. This might be our one and only opportunity to strike at our enemy with reinforcements.”
Rayce’s words send a shockwave through the room. Everyone breaks out in questions at once, voicing their disbelief. It’s understandable, though his words leave me speechless.
Varshans haven’t openly stepped foot in Delmar for over ten years, and the two kingdoms have all but ignored each other for over a hundred years. The last clash of Delmarion and Varshan metal was what gave my great-great-grandfather the opportunity to seize the throne. My father used to tell me the story of our ancestors’ success before bed, painting descriptions of a grueling battle, of my great-great-grandfather guarding the old king with his very life, but he was unable to stop the flow of fate and the king fell to a Delmarion blade. My ancestor managed to fight off the invading force, claiming victory for Varsha, and was put in the old king’s stead at the final request of the dying man.
Father would always end his story the same way. He would take my hand between both of his, lean down, and kiss my forehead. His thick black beard would tickle my cheek.
“We were granted the chance to rule on a dying man’s breath,” he would say, “and by the divine knowledge of the Great Creatress. Never forget, my sweet daughter, that as we gained everything, if we are not vigilant, it can all be taken away.”
I blink, banishing his ghost to the back of my mind, and sit up straight.
“Varsha is in Delmar?” I ask. “Do you really believe we have a chance to end this war if Varsha lends you aid?”
He nods curtly. “That’s what Long, Chin, and I have been up all night trying to figure out.”
The captain who spoke when we first walked in gives a curt nod, wiping at his bloodshot eyes.
Rayce begins unrolling a few pieces of parchment, spreading out detailed maps of Delmar and Imperial City and scrawling sheets filled with what look like the frantic notes of a madman.
He looks up toward the back. “Piper, have you made any breakthroughs on your research of Borenite as a healing agent? That could help swing the battle in our favor.”
Though her voice isn’t nearly as loud as the others, everyone seems to stop speaking when Piper responds. “Besides your original accounts of the mineral healing a single person, we’ve had no indication that it can be used for healing properties. So far, the only thing we’ve noticed is that it has a similar property to Zarenite, glowing when it’s in a colder environment. We’re currently working to see if we can harness its coolness as a way to counteract the heating mechanisms in Zarenite, but that research is as of yet inconclusive.”
He nods. “I was hoping to utilize it in the field, but we don’t have time to wait. If we don’t strike with Varsha, we will lose our window of opportunity. We’ve come up with a way to infiltrate Imperial City and set ourselves up so that by the time the Varshan army is ready to attack, we can open the gates for them. But the plan hinges on the hidden path our prisoner spoke of, which he
isn’t willing to provide.”
His words send a chill down my spine that I can’t ignore. Nothing this important should rely on the Gardener.
“What? No!” I don’t bother hiding the panic in my voice, but as every eye turns my way, I wish I had. “Isn’t there another way?”
“Having the element of surprise will ensure us a swift victory with the least amount of casualties. We wait until the Varshan army is in place, slip in using the Sun soldiers we bought loyalty from, set up in key positions around the city and open the gates for the other army. This is the way we will find victory. My decision is final.”
Piper sighs. “And how do you expect to gain the prisoner’s information? Has he changed his terms?”
“No, but we’ll find a way.” The way Rayce speaks leaves no room for disagreement. He drops his finger on the map. “No matter what he says, there is always something else he will want.”
“What are his terms?” I ask.
“Nothing you can provide,” Rayce says.
“I know she isn’t intelligent, but don’t lie to the girl,” Piper says. “He wants you to beg for his forgiveness in exchange for his cooperation, and I implore you to make yourself useful and do so.”
Make myself useful? As if the past few months I haven’t been useful. What does she call digging the arrowhead out of Rayce’s back? Everything I’ve done up until now, I’ve tried to be useful. The sharp edge of the wood presses into my palms as I grip the table in front of me to keep the welling tide of anger inside, and my sight narrows smaller than a sword’s tip.
Remind him why he wanted to trust you in the first place.
I take a deep breath, trying to keep from kicking something. “If that’s what will help the rebellion, then I’ll do it. I still don’t think it’s wise to trust anything the Gardener says, but if an apology will help keep everyone safe, then I won’t argue.”
My words are met with more silence and gazes that could dissolve me into nothing. In fact, I wish they would melt me so I could sink from my chair to the floor and not have to bother getting up. My heart pounds in my throat and I risk a glance at Rayce.
After a long moment, he breaks the silence. “No, I forbid it. You can’t be trusted near him. We’ll find a way to get that information, but you are not to go near the prisoner again.”
His order should make me feel elated. This is what I wanted, right? Not to have to see the Gardener, not to have to grovel in front of him. Besides Rayce giving me permission to end his life, this was the best outcome. But as Rayce forbids me from this simple task, panic floods my entire body.
This is a clear way I can prove my loyalty and I have to take it.
“If he wants me to apologize for something I didn’t even do, I will.”
“I said no.” His head shoots up at my protest, his eyes daring me to continue. “We’ll find another way.”
Only a few weeks ago, he might have whispered those same words to me and made my heart skip because he would have said them to protect me. Now, he’s saying them because he doesn’t trust me, doesn’t even want to give me a chance.
Which is too bad. Arlo took his shot by leaving to try to find the Varshan army and gave the rebellion crucial information. Now I’m going to take mine.
I sit in silence the rest of the meeting. Voices chatter in the background, but I’m not even in this room anymore. My mind tries to map out the base with my limited knowledge. It’s clear by Rayce’s statement I won’t be allowed back in that cell through the door, but that isn’t the only way in.
That patch of light always shining down on the floor has to come from somewhere. All I need is to figure out where and to find fabric long enough to bridge the gap from the opening to the ground below.
Chapter Twenty-One
After the meeting, I enlist Marin to help with my half-formed plan, grabbing Calla and Lily to help enact it. We stop by Oren’s office and I peel off a rough outline of the entire rebel base from his wall and a small map of Imperial City, in case everything goes well. Using the drawing of the mines as a guideline, we begin to walk the upper levels, trying to sort through all of the holes in the ground to roughly where the prison cell should be. I’d never noticed them before, but now that we’re looking, we find them peppered all over the ground, letting in light.
“I think I’ve got it!” Lily leans down, peering into a hole about the size of my waist.
Above her, light pours through from another hole in the ceiling. I look up and see multiple holes cut in the stone all the way to the surface. According to the map I took, the miners had used holes like this as sources of light in the otherwise pitch blackness of the underground. We all rush over to her, avoiding the water droplets feeding down from the surface.
It’s just big enough for me to slip through if I twist my shoulders the right way. Calla and Lily help me tie the ends of the fabric we borrowed from several doorways onto the ends of a stash of rope Marin provided. It isn’t pretty, but it will serve its purpose and keep me from falling.
Marin clears her throat. “You’re sure you want to go through with this?”
I nod. “Yes, I have to do this. I need to remind Rayce why he wanted to trust me in the first place.”
She leans over and hugs me tightly. “Very well. I believe in you. You can do this.”
While we finish that task and tie one end to a thick rock, Marin hurries down to distract the guard on duty.
Calla stares at me, her eyes boring into my face as she cradles the bundle of tied blankets in her arms. “Are you absolutely certain you want to do this?”
No, but I can’t tell her that. Even if I get this information for Rayce and prove to him that I’m loyal to the rebellion, there’s still the fact that trusting the Gardener’s word is a death sentence.
I squeeze Calla’s elbow. “I’m sure. I don’t want to do this, but I need to, for the rebellion and for myself.”
Calla opens her mouth to respond, but Lily butts in. “Then we’ll be supporting you from right up here. We know you can do it.”
I give her a tight-lipped smile and signal Calla to drop the fabric down through the hole. If only I had that much confidence in myself. My heart stammers as I pull off the stunner from my hip and hand it to Lily, forfeiting my safest form of protection from the Gardener. Hopefully I won’t need it. I’m giving him exactly what he wants. The soft fabric gives between my grasp as I grab it and take a deep breath to suck in my stomach then kick off my shoes.
Coolness tickles the bottoms of my feet as I plunge them through the hole, out into the open air. The edges of the hole grip my hips as I scoot inch by inch through it, wiggling my body around like a worm.
For a moment, I cast the world below me in complete darkness as I push my upper half through the small opening, arching my shoulders and wrapping my feet around the fabric in case I lose my grip. Another heartbeat and I’m free from the floor above, suspended maybe two hundred feet from a makeshift aerial fabric strip. For a second, all of the problems piled on my shoulders disappear, just like in the Garden, as the air kisses my skin, promising a freedom I still haven’t been able to find. Light pours in, illuminating my form like a spotlight in the Garden. It casts a large version of my shadow on the wall, exaggerating each twist as I slide down the rope.
Below me comes the slow thunder of a single pair of clapping hands. I risk a glance down and see the Gardener pushing himself up from his alcove. I hurry down, dropping the last five feet to land on the balls of my feet. Before he can get too close, I jump back, slamming my hand into the wall. The Zarenite in it awakens, lighting up the stone with green veins, and a second later, Calla and Lily pull the fabric back up. I won’t need it to escape since I plan to walk through the barred door with the information Rayce so desperately needs.
“Did you come to practice your routine, little Flower?” the Gardener asks.
He moves toward me, and though his gaze remains at my eye level, right now he seems much more like the showman I always
cowered away from than the broken shadow he’s become here. Perhaps it’s because he reminded me of what he’s capable of.
“Spare me your games, Jin.” My voice fakes a confidence I don’t feel. “You know why I’m here.”
“Is it to stab me again?” A sickening smile spreads across his face, deepening the shadows over his eyes. “Because we’ll need to wait for the shogun to get here before we do that.” He looks back to the iron bars. “Which reminds me, where is your shogun and why did you decided to drop in from the ceiling? Is someone in trouble?”
My fingers reach for a stunner that isn’t there.
“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” I say.
A clatter at the bars rings out in the cell, sending both of our gazes toward it.
Marin’s voice echoes through the bars, full of strain. “Hey, I was talking to you! It’s rude not to pay attention when—”
“There’s someone else in the cell!” yells a male voice, but I’m too blinded by the beam of light to see into the darkness. “Alert the shogun, quickly!”
I’d hoped Marin would buy me a little more time, but it’s too late for that now.
“No?” the Gardener says. “I have no idea, hmm?”
My breath comes out in a shaky wave. “I’m here to find out if you have the information you promised Rayce.”
I turn away from the commotion of the entrance, my gaze boring into the Gardener’s pockmarked face. He must have dropped three robe sizes during his imprisonment. Where there was once the shape of a grape, now stands a cucumber, but his shrinking waistline does nothing to repair his soul. His is still rotten to the core.
Now that the guards have been alerted to my presence, I’ve only got seconds. The Gardener studies my face, trying to figure out my angle.
“If you mean the secret entrance, little Flower, then yes, I do know.” A triumphant smile spreads like disease across his face, sending goose bumps all down my arms. “But there is a price for my knowledge.”
War of the Wilted Page 19