Chapter Twelve
"You are without a doubt the worst purchase I have ever made."
Lily's vision returned slowly, streaked with darkness at the pain she was in. The first thing she remembered was Amranth's body lying beside the water and the thought brought such a stab of pain to her chest that she groaned.
"I don't know. That cravat you're wearing was clearly a pretty big mistake."
"Silence, weed! I should have had your vocal cords cut decades ago. Maybe I'll make it a birthday present to myself this year."
Lily realized the dark lines across her blurred vision were not caused by the head injury, but were in fact bars. She was in a cage. Slowly, her vision resolved itself. King Turlabon stood just beyond the bars, grinning cruelly.
She was back in the Garden of a Thousand Flowers, in the grove of Turlabon's caged brides. Dahlia was in the cage beside her, baring her teeth at Turlabon defiantly.
"Do your worst!" she hissed, "As though I need words to insult you when you make a mockery of yourself just getting dressed in the morning."
"You ugly little aphid!" Turlabon seethed, "If I wasn't so set on watching you wither, I would strangle you myself."
"As if you could!" Dahlia gave a bark of rough laughter, "You mean you'd have one of your lackeys do it! I doubt you'd have the strength to crush a dandelion."
He snarled and surged towards Dahlia's cage.
"Amranth," Lily demanded, interrupting their fight as she sat up, clinging to the bars of her cage, "Where is he?"
Turlabon curled his lip in disgust at the name.
"Dead," he answered bluntly, "I had him killed on sight. I didn't become king because I'm an idiot you know. Do you think I'd bring him in alive, knowing what he can do?"
"King Turdblossom would rather imprison helpless women." Dahlia interjected. Turlabon struck the bars of her cage hard enough to shake them.
"Silence, insect," he hissed, "I've tolerated enough insolence from the both of you. But you!"
He turned on Lily, who tried to muster Dahlia's defiance but couldn't quite manage past the dragging sorrow that had seized her heart entirely.
"Never have I been so disrespected, not even by this weed!" Turlabon said, pointing at Dahlia, "I paid an exorbitant amount for you! More than any concubine should command! And not only to reject me, you seduce my best soldier into running away with you and force me to put him down!
Do you have any idea how much time I spent training that disgusting cross breed? And then you have the audacity to bond with him. Don't try to deny it. Anyone could smell it on you.
Why anyone would bind themselves to a weed like that is beyond me. Unless your purpose was to ruin yourself for me. I could never bind myself to the mate of a cross bred weed. You've succeeded in making yourself completely useless. Congratulations."
"Then why am I still alive?" Lily asked, leaning her head against the bars as her heart throbbed with pain, "Just kill me and get it over with."
"Oh no," Turlabon shook his head, laughing, "I won't give the luxury of a quick end to someone who's disrespected me this way. You will remain here, to wither slowly in this cage.
Maybe I'll even let my men make use of you. I don't usually share what's mine, but since I never properly laid my claim on you and you've proven so useless anyway, I think I'll make an exception. You're going to die in that cage, human. And you, weed."
He turned back to Dahlia with a nasty grin.
"You are going to watch it happen. Maybe that will teach you a lesson about defying me."
With that, he turned and swept away out of the grove, leaving Dahlia and Lily alone. Lily sobbed, curling up around the hole in her chest. Amranth was gone. She'd known it was a possibility, but it had been so sudden, and she had been left alive without him. How was she supposed to bear that? Surely, she would die of heartbreak long before starvation.
"Do you really want to die?"
Lily looked up as Dahlia spoke, tears hot on her cheeks.
"No," she sobbed, "I want him to be alive and here with me again. But what else am I supposed to do?"
"Fight," Dahlia hissed, shaking the bars of her cage, "Defy him! If you roll over and die now, you'll have let him win. Never let him have his victory over you. If you do, die still spitting in his face. Die your own person."
"What's the point?" Lily asked, "You've been defying him for a hundred years. It means nothing to him."
"What it means to him doesn't matter," Dahlia scoffed, "He doesn't matter! I don't defy him because of anything I want from him. I defy him because of what it means to me. It means I still haven't given up hope. As long as I'm alive, as long as I'm still fighting, anything could happen, anything could change. You never know what might happen tomorrow, but once you've given up you can't take that back. So don't give up!"
Lily bowed her head, wishing she could believe Dahlia's words. But she did know what would happen tomorrow. She would be in this cage, slowly starving, possibly being used by Turlabon's warriors, a thought which made her shudder with more horror than the thought of dying.
At least if she was dead, she would be where Amranth was again. She leaned against the bars of her cage and pulled her knees up to her aching chest. She wished she could put down roots like the other caged women, and sleep forever...
Lily soon learned the rhythm of the days for the women of the Garden. She was woken in the morning by a misting like a fine rain. Not enough to soak her, but enough to make her damn and uncomfortable and certain that there would be mildew eventually.
This was breakfast, she supposed, sucking moisture from the fabric of her dress. The other women didn't need food, and this was all the water they required. Lily realized she might die of thirst before she starved. She found it difficult to gather the energy to care too much about that fact.
"Are you awake? I saw you move."
She raised her head from the bottom of her cage and saw Dahlia staring at her keenly.
"Humans don't go dormant, do they?" she asked, "I don't know much about your species."
"We don't." Lily answered tiredly, "We just die. I'll probably be gone in a week."
"Unacceptable." Dahlia replied, "Doesn't that bother you? Just laying down and dying? Where is your spirit? Would your Amranth want this for you? He would want you to fight! To live!"
"There's nothing to fight for." Lily said, rolling to turn her back to the other woman, "All the insults and anger in the world won't open this cage."
Dahlia let the subject drop and things were quiet for a while longer. Singing soon filled the silence, the distant sound of the wives and concubines waking and greeting the day. All Sahrians sang as part of their daily rituals. The women sang a dozen times over the course of the day, having little else to do but tend the silent flowers of the Garden.
Around the middle of the day, the sun reached the shaded grove and Lily was left feeling uncomfortably baked, unable to move away from the light which Dahlia soaked up so eagerly to fuel her photosynthesis. How little she moved probably helped it to sustain her, but Lily imagined it still must be a little like constant near starvation. She couldn't imagine how Dahlia endured it.
The singing grew louder and, suspicious, Lily sat up, as a retinue of wives paraded through the trees, led by Cabbage Rose.
"Good day, Lily." Rose inclined her head to Lily in a curtsy that was mostly implied, "Such a shame to see you here. I had very high hopes for you."
"Very sorry to disappoint you." Lily replied, too tired to be more than mildly annoyed by Rose's condescending tone.
"And you, Dahlia," Rose's saccharine expression turned sour as she looked at the cage next to Lily's, "I see you're still refusing to accept dormancy with any dignity."
"And miss seeing your smiling face every day?" Dahlia's laugh was ripe with bitter contempt, "I would surely wither."
Rose turned away from Dahlia with a scowl.
"We've brought you some things to make your internment here more comfortable." Rose said gesturi
ng the other women forward, "The girls were very concerned with how short your stay is anticipated to be. We hoped to decrease your suffering as much as possible."
Dogwood and Aster brought embroidered decorative pillows and a blanket, pushing them through the bars. One of them handed her a datapad.
"It's not connected to the internet of course," Rose said, "But there are a number of excellent books on it to help you pass the time."
"You know if you brought her food, she might last longer." Dahlia pointed out. Rose ignored her.
"We will come to see you every day." Rose said, "When we come to tend all the dormant ones. If there's anything you need, simply ask and we will be delighted to help. Within King Turlabon's restrictions, of course."
"The only thing I want is to be out of this cage and back with my husband," Lily replied, "And you can't bring me that. So please just leave me alone."
Rose huffed, muttered about ingratitude, but she left Lily alone, guiding the other woman as they made their way around the other cages, pruning the overgrowth and checking for mold or parasites on the dormant women, keeping them as beautiful captive trophies for the king. Lily felt nauseous.
"Madame Rose!" Dogwood called as she examined one of the dormant women, "I'm afraid this one has root rot."
"Uhg," Rose shuddered, "She always was an unhygienic one. One of the lower families, you know."
She swept over to the cage, pulling a set of brass keys from her dress. She unlocked the dormant flower's cage and she and the other women carefully uprooted her, disentangling her roots from the soil with gentle fingers. They carried her out in solemn silence, and Lily wondered if she would ever come back, or if this was the final fate of the caged women.
"It's good to see that there's still some spark in you." Dahlia said once the other wives had gone, "You haven't completely given up yet."
Lily rubbed at her chest where her heart still felt like there was a cavernous hole in it. Maybe that was just what it felt like when half of your soul was dead. She wanted to give up. She wished that she could.
She worried about when Turlabon might send men to break her, but it didn't come the first day, or the second. By the third, she was too weak to care. Maybe he'd changed his mind and decided to keep her jealously to himself after all.
She lay on the bottom of her cage, too hungry and desperately thirsty to move. She'd never felt so empty. And she knew it would only get worse. The ache in her chest persisted, this absent place where Amranth should have been. She would see him again soon, she reminded herself. She wasn't going to last much longer here.
She closed her eyes, feeling the little energy she had beginning to fail her already. In that spinning blackness, she could almost see herself somewhere else. Back in Elder Keeler's cabin, when she'd been recovering from her allergic reaction. She could almost see the ceiling above her as though she were still lying on her back in that bed.
God her chest hurt. It burned like fire. And it felt less now like an absence in her heart and more like a ragged hole in her torso. Keeler's cabin was so clear around her. She could almost hear the Elder's voice.
"Hang in there, sapling. She's still alive. You can feel it, can't you? She's calling out for you. So don't go yet. Stay here for her, Amranth!"
Lily's eyes shot open as the pain in her chest rapidly receded to just a dull ache again.
"He's alive," she rasped, her voice weak and her throat dry as she struggled to sit up, clinging to the bars of her cage.
"I thought you were gone for good that time," Dahlia said from her cage, her expression creased with concern, "You can't keep going quiet for so long."
"He's alive," Lily said again, fire in her eyes for the first time in days, despite her haggard exhaustion, "I can feel him. He didn't die."
"Your Amranth?" Dahlia asked, eyes widening, "You think he still lives?"
"I know he does," Lily gasped, "He's hurt, but I can feel him."
"Then you had better stay alive," Dahlia said with a fierce grin, "You'd better fight, escape this place, go to him!"
"I have to," Lily wheezed, almost too weak to move, clinging to the bars of her cage, "I have to."
"Can you reach me?" Dahlia asked, stretching her arm out through the bars of her cage, "Just your fingertips are enough. Come on, reach for me!"
Lily, confused, obeyed, her arm trembling as she stretched to reach the other woman. As their finger brushed, she felt a jolt like being shocked. Energy rushed into her, making her skin tingle in its wake as she was all at once woken from her near stupor. Her hunger and thirst were still present, but they faded all at once, giving Lily the strength to sit up.
"What was that?" she asked, baffled. Dahlia was shaking her head like she was dizzy.
"A gift," she said, "I've given you a bit of my energy. It'll keep you going a little longer. In return, I want your promise that you're going to fight. That you're going to help me escape this place."
"I will," Lily, awed, didn't even hesitate, and her determination grew as she saw Dahlia's grin, "I will! We're going to get out of here!"
"That's the spirit!" Dahlia cheered, "I knew Turlabon would mess up and put someone with some courage in the cage next to me eventually. Here's what we're going to do..."
Chapter Thirteen
It took several days to plan, through which Lily weakened again. She struggled to stay conscious and fight even as her hunger and thirst dragged her down.
Rose and the other wives came by around midday for their usual check of the other women. Lily, weak with hunger, leaned against the bars and trembled with exhaustion.
"Please," she begged as Rose drew near, reaching out for her, "Just a little water. If I don't get some soon, I'm going to die. Please, I'll do anything, just don't let me die like this. I have to stay alive. I have to..."
Rose, who had been staunchly ignoring Lily's begging, finally turned as Lily fell silent, collapsing against the bars.
"Has she passed out?" Dogwood asked nervously, "I never knew humans were so delicate!"
"She might be dead," Dahlia said, gripping the bars of her cage, "She's already lived longer than most humans would without water. She told me when she was first put in there, humans usually only last three days or so without water."
"The misters have been running twice a day as normal," Rose huffed, "That's good enough for everyone else."
"You need to check on her," Dahlia insisted, "I'm sure Turlabon doesn't want her dead this soon. He had all kinds of plans for her, remember?"
"It does seem quick for what he usually does." Rose considered it for a moment, and then moved closer, bending down near Lily to check her pulse.
At once Lily sprang to life, shoving Rose hard with all the strength left in her. Rose toppled backwards with the force of it, directly into Dahlia's cage.
Dahlia was waiting to catch her, her arms through the bars already. Her arm tightened under Rose's jaw to hold her in place, her other hand pressing a wickedly sharpened thorn to the other woman's throat.
"Alright," Dahlia said as Rose struggled against her choking grip, "I've had about enough of this place. I'm sure you all have too. Not just the wives. You concubines lurking in the shadows too, wasting your lives looking after them. And I know you must be tired of answering to this harpy. Well congratulations. We're all leaving."
"Stop it Dahlia!" Dogwood was in tears, "Turlabon will kill you for threatening Rose! Just let her go before this gets any worse!"
"She's right, there isn't any escape from the Garden." Aster looked bleak with hopeless misery, "We've all seen what happens when you try."
"We've never all tried together." Dahlia pointed out, "Because Rose kept you pitted against one another, scrambling for her approval. Turlabon can't stop all of us! But Lily and I are leaving with or without the rest of you."
She rummaged in Rose's dress with the hand holding the thorn until she found the keys, which she shook at Dogwood.
"Open Lily's cage, now," she demanded, "Or I'm going
to cut Rose's throat. See if I don't. It's all I've wanted to do since Turlabon married her."
Dogwood, shaking, only stared at the keys without moving. Suddenly, a concubine, not a Sahrian but some mammalian species like a great cat, slunk forward out of the shadows, shoving Dogwood aside.
"I'll do it," she said, "I was conned into this place like the human. I've had enough."
"Good!" Dahlia crowed, handing over the keys, "From the moment you decided to fight, you were already free. Today we take back what always should have been ours! Our bodies, our freedom, the futures we were promised as children! We are no one's but our own, and we never were!"
As she spoke, the feline woman was unlocking Lily's cage. Lily, weak from hunger, stumbled free. Rose, who Dahlia was still choking with one arm, at last passed out.
Dahlia loosened her grip to check that the other woman wasn't faking, then dropped her, instructing the feline woman to watch her while Lily, taking the keys, unlocked Dahlia's cage next.
"Here comes the nasty bit,” Dahlia muttered, lifting the bunched petals of her skirts. Her legs were withered from a century of stasis, a thousand roots growing down from them, trying to force her into stasis.
Though Dahlia ripped them out by the handful every day, a few had still taken hold, and Lily cut at them quickly as she wrapped an arm around Dahlia and began lifting her out of the cage. This was why Dahlia had never tried to escape alone, no longer able to run on her own feet.
Lily, stumbling under her own weakness, helped Dahlia to stand anyway. Dahlia's body groaned like the limbs of a tree in a terrible wind, creaking and straining as she forced it out of the position it had held for a century. Lily could see the pain on her face as she grit her teeth and bore through it.
"Neither of us is strong enough to do this alone." Lily said, worried, as she held Dahlia up.
"Good thing we're not alone," Dahlia replied, smiling, and looked out at the other wives, and the concubines who were gathering beyond them, "How many of you are with me? We have a small army here if you fight with me. Enough to take the castle. Enough to take your lives back! Fight with me, and I will show you a wondrous thing."
Alien Romance: ESCAPE: Bride Of The Beast: Scifi Alien Abduction Romance (Alien Romance, Alien Invasion Romance, BBW) (Celestial Mates Book 5) Page 9