by Alicia Gaile
After shuffling her papers like a deck of cards, she pursed her lips in a brave smile.
“Certain colleagues of mine believed I was being paranoid. I was—for lack of a more original term—silenced. Well, three years have come and gone, and GrainGro has been spread over every inch of growing soil held in the the name of the crown. It was a mistake, ladies and gentlemen. For the success of this yield, we’ve rendered every single growing field barren.”
Herodes made a gesture and Raziela half rose as the guards nearest him started toward the stage, but Castien seized her elbow in a merciless grip.
“What do you mean the nutrients from the soil are gone? How do we bring them back?”
“Is SIAR Labs working on a solution for next year?”
“How long will the soil be affected?”
A flock of questions took flight. The frantic cries were as harsh as cawing seagulls. Dr. Laninga raised a hand to signal for silence.
“Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where there is nothing more SIAR Labs can do. But there is someone who can.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a half-eaten mango. The crowd was large and not everyone could see what it was, but those nearest the front gasped and some even shot to their feet.
“Change is part of the natural order, but not all changes are for the best. SIAR Labs is full of the greatest minds in Phalyra, but all we’ve managed to prove is that genius is no replacement for the Mother Goddess.”
“Enough!” Herodes slammed his fist on the arm of his throne. “I will not sit here and listen to this treason! Arrest her—and bring me that fruit!” His guards started for the podium. Dr. Laninga paled but held her ground.
“If I were you I’d listen to the Dr.” Osee’s voice rose above the noisy crowd as he leapt onto the cement base of a lamppost. He held up another mango and waved it high so that everyone could see. “After all, what exactly do you have left to lose?”
He lobbed the fruit high and it disappeared beneath a pile of people scrambling to get it before someone else could snatch it up.
“You can keep listening to this King, who’s done nothing but lead us to the brink of extinction, or you can go back to the old ways when these lands were green and fertile.”
“The choice is yours.” Barak stood next to him guarding one of the duffle bags stuffed with mangoes. “In the meantime, there’s more where that came from.” He unzipped the bag and poured the mangoes out at his feet. The crowd surged toward them roaring in shock. Barak jumped onto the base of the lamppost next to Osee to avoid being crushed.
BANG! One of Herodes’ guards fired a warning shot into the air.
“The reason we’re in this dire straight is because of that ‘Goddess.’ Anyone caught praying to her is a traitor and will be incarcerated.”
“Your pride brought us to this. If there is no hope for us, then how dare you try to outlaw what little comforts are available to us!” Lady Pomona surged to her feet. Thamar hovered behind her, daggers drawn.
“There is room in the dungeons for you too!” He stabbed his finger at her, but a helpless anger twisted his face as he accepted it was something he could never unsay or undo.
Lady Pomona lifted her fist in the air.
“As the legal wife of this man, and as your queen, I invoke the right of Polemarch. If you have had enough of this faithless regime that has brought us nothing but division and pain then let us put an end to it today! Join me in insisting that this man step down.”
A cry rose up in agreement but Herodes men trained their weapons on Lady Pomona. The King slashed his hand, ordering them to lower their weapons, but as the crowd surged toward them, half of them refused to listen.
Cursing vividly, Castien launched himself off the roof, skidding down the steep gables to land in a rolling tumble that propelled him back onto his feet without losing any momentum. Raziela rushed to the edge of the roof, watching him carve a path toward the stage. He was a whirl of knees and elbows, disarming citizens and guards alike. Still something was off. Where was the clipped efficiency he’d used to dispatch Bulderic? The man rushing to protect his mother was a lumbering mass of muscle and swinging limbs.
Another shot cracked. Raziela ducked as a chunk of roof erupted several feet from where she stood.
Thamar threw herself over Lady Pomona, shielding her and shoving her back into the crowd. Castien jerked his mother into the mob, and she melted into the sea of bodies as Thamar dragged her away from the weapons of the King.
Two soldiers held Dr. Laninga between them, and apart from digging in her heels, she wasn’t putting up too much of a fight.
Castien clambered onto the stage and kicked out the back of the knee to the guard on the left. He crumpled. As his companion fumbled to help him, Castien’s fist slammed into his face so hard he went spinning away. Armelle materialized in front of the stage, wending her way through the scrambling bodies like a fish swimming upstream. Castien handed Dr. Laninga down to her.
“Don’t let them get away!”
Herodes drew his sword, but he was hidden behind a line of three guards standing with their pistols drawn.
“Seize him! Shoot him! Don’t let him get away!” His guards exchanged glances, but no one fired.
Castien leapt from the stage to run straight for the King.
He hadn’t taken three steps when a sword pommel slammed into the side of his mouth. Blood spurted and his head jerked hard. Raziela drew her sword, her heart roaring for vengeance. How had he not seen the blow coming? The man was right in front of him!
Seeing him immobilized, the soldiers rushed to surround him. He had to dodge a barrage of fists, kicks, and grabbing hands to get away again. But when he went running off down a side street with his arms stretched out in front of him to feel his way Raziela realized what was wrong. He couldn’t see.
37.
He was looking at the world through a lens slathered in grease. Worse, it was as if he wore blinders that prevented him from seeing any farther to the right or left than his cheek. Soon he would be nothing but a target for his father’s soldiers and a liability to his team.
Sprinting along the winding city streets, Castien experienced a fear that he hadn’t felt in years. The guards were several paces behind him and losing ground, but one stumble or wrong turn and he’d lose his lead.
He had just rounded a corner when two men jumped him. He spun with his hand on his knife, but while he caught the descending blade of the one on his right, the other drove his fist into the side of his brow.
The fight was short and brutal. Castien might have stood a chance if one of them hadn’t slipped a rope around his neck and drawn the noose tight. He stopped fighting. Knowing the competence of his father’s men, an opportunity to break free would present itself.
Kephas emerged from the shadows of a nearby building.
“Honestly, little brother, I thought you’d put up more of a fight. I suppose worshiping that witch has made you soft.”
Castien said nothing. Conserving his air for breathing was more important than saying something to get under Kephas’ skin.
“Show us where the Tree is, Castien. It’s a shame I couldn’t just ask you man to man. But you proved where your loyalties lie.” Kephas jerked his head in a signal for his men to bind Castien’s hands.
The one good thing about being taken prisoner was that his brother’s men did the hard work of transporting him to Temple Hill. They threw him into the back of a horse-drawn cart and took him to the base of the hill. After that they made him march. When he stumbled or slipped on the uneven ground, they took it as a sign of resistance and jerked him upright again. He could’ve done without the cuffs, kicks, and elbows, but they were nothing more than annoyances.
His temples pounded from the strain of trying to make sense of the blurred shapes around him. He cast a mutinous look at the sky. This could all be over if Naiara refused to transport them to her realm.
A cool breeze washed over him, an
d his body sagged with defeat. He closed his eyes. Even the small movement caused the straining muscles in his eyes to ache.
“You’re a heartless shrew, Naiara,” he muttered under his breath.
The smell of the gardens greeted him, the perfume so fragrant and welcoming he wanted to sink into it like a blanket. He opened his eyes. Shock slammed into him harder than any of the soldiers kicks or blows.
Raziela’s tower had completely collapsed, crushing a corner of the orchard. Everywhere he looked were large chunks of brown and gray.
A shriek lifted the hairs on the back of his arms. Three flaming comets streaked out of the sky. Castien lifted his face to the phoenixes. He hoped they incinerated everything in sight.
“Now!” Kephas shouted.
Gunfire crackled and the flaming birds exploded in three puffs of smoke. Self-disgust swelled inside Castien until he thought he’d throw up.
It took a barked order from Kephas to keep several of the men from running off to gorge themselves on the fruit still growing in the remains of the orchard.
“So where is it, Castien?” Kephas rounded on him.
Castien sank onto a large chunk of crumbled wall. Stall. It was all he could do until either Raziela or the Goddess came to his rescue.
He shrugged.
“I don’t know. I was only here for a day. Not long enough to gain the girl’s trust.”
“Don’t pretend you have no feelings for her.” Kephas waved the idea aside. “I saw the way you looked at her. I’d never have thought it possible, but the siren must have cast her spell on you.” Castien bristled at the insult, but he knew Kephas was trying to goad him.
“She’s been here for a century. Do you really believe she’d just reveal her secrets to the first traveler who stumbled through her lands?”
“Search everywhere!” Kephas held up a hand to stem Castien’s excuses. Castien had the feeling his brother wasn’t too upset by the prospect of exploring every inch of the enchanted garden. But when a cloud passed over the sun, Kephas barked at his men to hurry.
A light breeze picked up, pulling at Castien’s hair. It wasn’t the hurricane winds that had blown him through the portal, but it was relentless enough that it blew his hair into his face.
“Fan out. You two! Bring him. We’re going to search through here.”
Rather than suffer the indignity of being pushed and pulled by soldiers whose heads barely reached his chin, Castien got to his feet without prompting. He stumbled over a patch of debris his foggy vision couldn’t pick out of the rocks and ruins strewn everywhere. With every step, his vision worsened. Time moved faster here, he reminded himself. Perhaps his vision was deteriorating faster too.
“You could help,” Kephas snapped. Castien let a smile rip across his face. He held up his bound wrists.
“Untie me and I’ll be happy to.”
“If you’re not going to do anything useful then stay over there and keep out of the way. If you so much as twitch, my men will shoot you, is that understood?” Kephas was enjoying himself. Castien ignored him and went to sit out of the soldiers’ way.
The wind kept badgering him, ushering him toward one of the undamaged stone walls. The ground was uneven and his depth perception threw everything off. He reached out to brace his bound hands on the wall. The relentless breeze disappeared. He didn’t need to be hit over the head again to know a sign from the gods when it presented itself. There was something there the Goddess wanted him to see.
For a deity who took offense at every little infraction, she certainly had a cruel sense of humor.
Squinting didn’t bring any details into focus. His field of vision was narrowing. He pinched the bridge of his nose, willing his body not to desert him. But when he looked up again, all the color had been sucked out of his world.
Something brushed against the back of his neck. He jumped and instinctively drew a knife from his belt. When he turned, there was no one there, but the tickling sensation followed him. He reached up and caught the trailing fronds of a willow. Annoyed, he snapped off the branch.
“I wish I’d been with the others in the Temple that night....” Castien froze. Raziela? He straightened slowly.
“Did you hear that?” Kephas held up a hand. Castien wished he could silence the voice, but not knowing where it was coming from, he stood helpless as his brother came closer.
“It’s so lonely here...” There was an echoey quality to her voice, as if he was listening to it through a seashell. It seemed to be coming from the willow branch. Feeling ridiculous, he lifted it to his ear.
“Sometimes I wish I was there with the others in the Temple that night. At least then we’d be together—even if it means being together in death...”
Whisper your secrets to a willow, and it will carry them within their wood. He tipped his head back to pinpoint where the rest of the tree was. Its fronds hung over the wall from the other side.
Kephas snatched the branch from Castien’s hand and held it against his ear too.
“The willows!” He drew his sword and clambered over the wall. His velvet robes scraped against the rough stone, but he didn’t notice, too eager to hack at the nearest tree until one of his guards could bring him a battle ax.
Soon, the rapid thunk of metal against wood became the pounding heartbeat of the garden. Soft screams went up like steam rising from a kettle with each deep stroke. Castien grimaced. Where was Raziela’s prickly dryad friend, Caprea? If she was the spirit of a willow, what would happen to her after Kephas and his men cut down the grove?
“She shows me his face. Seeing what he’s capable of, what if my training and study isn’t enough? What if I can’t stop the Shadow Striker when he comes?”
He staggered. She had known who he was?
“If I fall, the Goddess will seal the garden for good and the way to Vitales will be shut—” The voice broke off abruptly.
“Try that one next!” Kephas ordered, pointing to the next tree. Thwack!
When the words started again, this time they came in the voice of a child.
“I don’t want to be here! I miss Phalyra! I want to go home!”
His heart, which Castien had never given much thought to before, shattered. For over a hundred enchanted years she had poured out her soul to these trees.
His brother’s men tore into the willows, tearing open the bark that housed Raziela’s deepest secrets and most private thoughts.
Castien slid to the ground, letting her confessions fill his world as his eyesight faded. He didn’t know how much time passed. Her voice grew older and stronger, her confessions turned from grief to insecurity, to boredom, to wry apathy.
“Pathetic, isn’t she?” Kephas asked from his left. “Actually believing her goddess cares a thing about her. And to think, she lounged up here in luxury while the rest of us scrounged and starved.”
But it was when she spoke of him that he really listened. Piecing together the fragments, he realized she’d seen glimpses of him here and there for years. She’d seen him coated with blood, killing, maiming, fighting. Thinking of the man she must have seen, he wondered how she’d managed to look him in the eye while concealing her disgust.
“He’s coming. I know he is. Why else would the Goddess show him to me again and again? But he’ll never breach the garden...He’ll never find the door—” Again the message cut off as if a hand had been thrown over the speaker’s mouth.
Castien gave a hollow laugh.
“Well, you’re right about that, Raziela.” Even if he spent the next thousand years combing the place on his hands and knees, there was no way he’d ever uncover her hiding place.
“I have served the Goddess for as long as I can remember, but for the first time I don’t know if this is where I belong. I wish...I wish I could have gone with him...”
“Well, at least you’ll die knowing that your feelings weren’t unrequited,” Kephas sneered. Then came the soft slither of metal sliding out of its sheath. Castien closed his eyes
. If he died here, it would be as close to heaven as he was likely to come.
“I don’t think he saw me open the wall in the garden. He was too far away to see which stone I touched—”
Castien winced. She must have th0ught her secrets could never be uncovered. And here they were ripping through them as though they were written in a diary with ink.
Kephas moved in close behind him. Castien stiffened. The world would be better off if he just let the blade do its work. Every good thing he touched he only ruined.
“When this is over, I’ll find out where you stashed her. I’ll make her pay for keeping this place all to herself.”
Castien spun, catching his brother’s wrist before he could drive the knife into his spleen. Though he couldn’t see anything, he still had the superior strength, speed, and skill. The problem was, he had no way to know where the others were.
38.
It was bedlam.
Guards drew their weapons as men, women, and children threw whatever they could get their hands on at the SIAR Labs banner strung above the podium. The shouting echoed in the enclosed market square. Barak and Osee were swarmed with people snatching and grabbing at what was left of the fruit.
“You did this to us!”
One of the King’s guards flung himself in front of the King just as piece of cobblestone flew. Ilya. Raziela recognized the mole between his eyes.
She put her foot on the edge of the roof and eyed the distance to the ground. The guards firing at her had been forced to turn their attention to protecting the King. She jumped.
“Look! Up there! Lord Ardelean’s daughter!”
A semi-circle formed around her when she landed, as if no one knew whose side she was entering the fray to join. She lunged for a guard who was forcing a woman away from the stage with his fingers around her throat.
“Kill her!” King Herodes was forced back by his own men as they tried to usher him into the palace, but at the sight of Raziela fighting to shield the frightened people from his soldiers, he doubled his efforts to break through their formation.