“You can rest easy now,” one of them chuckled. “Off to a life of luxury in the Garden.”
“It should have been death,” the second one grumbled.
“The Garden’s worse,” the first argued.
I couldn’t ask questions even if I wanted to. The judge’s spell would keep me silent until I had passed the reach of his magic, and there was no way to tell when that would be. My jaw ached. My legs and shoulders ached. Everything ached; from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
Death would have been a relief.
No more loose ends.
No more conspiracies.
No more secrets.
No more shame.
But there would be no relief for me.
A black wagon with barred windows drawn by two gray horses rolled toward the iron gates of the citadel.
The first guard pushed me through the gate and I winced as my jaw unlocked and I could finally draw a proper breath.
“A wagon?” I choked out. I had expected to be spelled away, why would the Summer Throne waste a wagon on the likes of me?
“No magic in the Garden, girl,” the second guard growled. The sword strike that had scarred his face had taken the tip of one pointed ear with it. He was probably a veteran of some forgotten war I had never heard of—a great soldier reduced to guard duty… or a shitty one who had been given this post as a consolation prize for his service. Whatever his story was, I didn’t like the way he looked at me. He was the one who thought I should have been dead... I’d remember that ugly face.
The driver leapt down from the wagon and opened the barred doors. The first guard shoved the butt of his spear into the small of my back and pushed me toward the wagon.
“You’re carryin’ traitorous goods tonight, Beddon,” the second guard laughed. “Better go quick before they change their minds.”
The driver eyed me curiously and I looked down at my boots instead of meeting his judgemental gaze. I’d had my fill of stares and whispers.
“Who is she?” the driver asked.
“Who is she?” the first guard snorted as he pushed me into the wagon. He snapped his fingers and the enchanted chains snaked out and threaded through iron rings that had been affixed to the wooden floor of the wagon box. There were no seats, and The chains wrenched me down to the floor roughly. I fell in a heap and the chains tightened around my torso once more.
“This is Maeril Orilana,” the guard said. “She doesnae look like much, but she came within an inch of murdering our prince.”
The guard spat on the ground and glared into the wagon at me. The driver slammed the doors shut and I heard the clatter of the chains that he wrapped around the handles. He murmured a spell over them, and the chains that held me down tightened a little more as his magic rippled through the vehicle.
“She doesnae look like a murderer,” the driver said.
“They never do,” the first guard said. “Get ye gone.”
The driver turned his curious face away from the barred windows and I felt the wagon shift as he climbed up into his seat once more. His whip snapped over the back of the gray horses and the wagon lurched as they leapt forward into a quick trot.
I stared through the barred window at the dark pines that rushed by and caught the barest glimpses of the star-filled night sky between their thick branches.
There was a reason I didn’t look like a murderer.
I hadn’t tried to kill the prince.
And my name wasn’t Maeril Orilana.
But none of that mattered now.
Chapter Two
The Black Garden holds all the most dangerous flowers in the Seelie and Unseelie kingdoms. Murderers. Thieves. Rapists. Poisoners. Schemers. Plotters against the throne and pretenders to the crown… And now me.
The secrets of both kingdoms withered behind those ivy covered walls.
The guard had been right. I would have been better off dead.
It had seemed impossible, but the weight of my sentence and the weight of the sorrow I carried had overwhelmed me, and as the carriage rumbled over the pitted dirt roads to the edge of the Golden Kingdom I had slept.
But my dreams were a kind of torture all their own.
My sister’s face, covered in blood, hovered in my mind, and her choked screams echoed in my ears as I ran through twisting stone corridors in a vain attempt to escape the nameless, faceless creature who pursued me. I could hear its heavy footsteps and smell its foul breath, but I couldn’t escape. Couldn’t not get away. Every breath I took was ragged in my throat, and my chest was tight with pain and sorrow, and every inch of my body was made up of raw nerves and barely contained screams.
I forced myself awake. It was a struggle to open my eyes and I shook my head to clear the image of Maeral’s contorted face from my mind. It didn’t matter what I did, she was imprinted on my eyelids, and I knew that every time I closed my eyes I would see her agonized face and hear her calling my name in the dark.
My waking life had become a nightmare—why should my dreams be any different?
The wagon stopped abruptly and I was thrown to the floor despite the chains that held me in place. I struggled to get to my knees and groaned at the pain in my feet and ankles. If my feet ever touched the ground again, walking would be painful.
I looked up through the barred window and squinted at the brightness of the early morning light. We had come a long way during the night, and from the look of the dark, ivy-covered stones that loomed over the wagon, the driver had not wasted any time in delivering me to my destination.
The
