Chapter 4
Chapter
Four
THE GARDEN
Elias led her from the dungeon, keeping in step on her right and matching her slow pace.
Trapped in a strange limbo between her old life and this new one, Sylvi tried sifting through her many warring emotions—grief for the time they lost, hope for the time they still had—attempting to make sense of them and the questions she wanted to ask.
But there was no easy way to ask any of them, so she continued cradling her arm and thinking on the unbelievable.
Famine had taken Espa Brus in the months following the death of the king, and given the cursed ground, most people living within its borders had long since moved on.
It was only within the last year that the curse had spread further across the continent, breaking into the mountains where she lived in the north and desert region in the west. There seemed to be no end to the curse.
And yet, in the heart of it, a lone pear tree thrived.
The mysteries of the curse were not coming together neatly. Not yet. The one thing she did know, however, was the certainty in her bones that Elias was still Elias. He was no demon remade or a boy lost to the curse.
He was just Elias, the boy—now the man—she was destined to wed since her ninth birthday.
“I mourned you, you know.” The words left her easily, and she glanced up at him, remembering the first time they met.
With no shortage of nerves, Sylvi lightly grabbed his forearm, unperturbed by the scales beneath her palm.
Her broken arm, still blessedly numb thanks to the pear tree’s healing, allowed her to drop her other arm to her side.
“It was awfully rude of you to let me assume you were dead.”
Elias’s lip curled in distaste. As if I would allow anyone to kill me.
“I didn’t mean literally dead, you silly man.” The Elias she had grown to know would not have torn his father’s heart from his chest unprovoked, and she had feared the demon within had finally won. “I thought you had succumbed to the curse. That you weren’t whole any longer.”
I am hardly whole. A heavy pause weighed between them. I have never been whole.
“Nonsense. You seem whole and present to me.” He tensed beneath her hand, but Sylvi ignored it. “You’ll be pleased to know that the years away have not broken me, and I am still far too chatty.”
I am…pleased.
Her cheeks warmed and she failed to fight off a grin. “I also wanted to say thank you for taking care of Arve. He was foul person.”
Was he your husband?
“No,” she answered quickly as they turned down a long corridor, one she remembered leading to the great hall and courtyard. “However, his brother, Viggo, was forcing me to marry him, and I may or may not have run away from the ceremony.”
Elias’s frame shifted, on edge. I will kill him as well.
She grimaced. “I admire your enthusiasm, Elias, but there is no need—”
His head will join his brother’s on a pike outside the gate.
“You are being rather dramatic.” Sylvi patted his forearm lightly in reprimand before gripping it firmly once more. “How are you able to speak to me like this? If you made me create that ridiculous tapping system for no good reason, I will be quite cross.”
I am uncertain. Each time the curse progresses, I’m given more gifts by the darkness.
Elias bent his arm and settled her hand at the crook of his elbow.
A quick glance revealed a faint blush overtaking the human flesh of his face.
Our chats were the only attempt anyone ever made to communicate with me.
I do not think you appreciate the enormity of what you did for me back then, Lady Sylvi.
A comfortable silence fell between them, and she found herself leaning into his warmth as they walked.
She did not think Elias appreciated the enormity of what he’d done for her either.
The door to the courtyard was something Sylvi would never forget no matter the amount of time that had passed.
King Iverr had never let his son out of the castle.
Confined to the cage or the dungeons, the four years their relationship grew had always been on the other side of iron.
The only concession the king had made in her time at Castle Mourem was to have Elias moved to the courtyard.
Still enclosed in his cage, but outside in the sun.
She ground her teeth. With age, she saw what Iverr had done.
He’d given a stupid girl with grand ideals a concession, an illusion of power in a situation she did not truly understand.
After months of begging, determined for Elias to drink in the sunlight, Iverr had given in to that single request. She never asked for anything else until the night everything fell apart, and likewise Iverr never gave.
“I haven’t seen it in so long,” she said, somewhat nervous, and ran her hand along the deep grooves carved into the wooden door. “What do you wish for me to see here?”
Elias glanced down at her but remained silent. Now that she knew he could communicate beyond taps, she found herself annoyed.
Patience. His mouth stretched into a smirk. A devious one, just like when they were young. You will soon see.
Her eyebrows lifted. “You can read my mind?”
Perhaps.
She hummed and turned up her nose. “I do recall informing you some years ago that it is unacceptable to keep secrets from your betrothed.”
He stilled again. Betrothed?
“Yes, you silly man. Of course.” If Elias thought she was ever leaving his home again, she would have to have a word with his demon.
Short of him killing her and removing her from the worldly plane entirely, Sylvi knew she was in Castle Mourem to stay.
They’d already missed so much time. “Unless you married another?”
I did no such—
“Did you enter into a contract with another noble house?”
Elias gave her a narrow-eyed look. You know I did no such thing.
“Since our marriage contract was never officially dissolved, I suppose we are to wed.” Sylvi smiled, and she meant it.
Having been moments away from marrying a truly vile man, the prospect of marrying her childhood best friend brought warmth to her otherwise chilled body.
“If you wish to have me, of course. If freedom is what you wish to have instead, I would never deny you that.”
Before he could come to any sort of conclusion, she decided to show him a bit of mercy. Elias had never been particularly forthcoming with any emotion beyond anger, and it was likely his brain left him entirely in the wake of her hopeful, and likely delusional, proclamation.
She tugged on his arm. “I would like to see the courtyard now.”
As you wish. With eyes like rubies, shining with an intensity she’d never before seen, Elias opened the courtyard entrance.
The land outside Castle Mourem had been a sea of death.
No plants lived anywhere nearby, and they had been dead for so long, their remains had become one with the dirt.
Skeletal trees stretched all the way to the horizon, jutting into the sky in haunting memory.
It was this image that Sylvi imagined beyond the door.
Instead, she was greeted by a sea of green.
Ivy crawled up the trellis along the courtyard walls, the ends falling from the top in a leafy waterfall. Lilac and potentilla shrubs, full and lush, filled the courtyard with soft purples and yellows. Heat burned the backs of her eyes at the sight.
She crouched down, loose soil pressing between her toes, and felt along the flowers of a mature lilac shrub. Her magic slipped into the plant, asking for permission to take, and it gave. The warmth flooded her arm, focusing on the break close to her wrist.
“How…?” All thought left her mind, replaced instead by intense confusion. All the plants grew in brass pots, which likely contributed to their survival, but she still had too many questions.
Elias did not answer her feeble attempt at asking, and the low hum of the plant’s magic flowing into her body filled the space instead.
After receiving magic from two lilacs and one potentilla, Sylvi stood to her full height, pain-free and heart swollen in gratitude.
There had to be at least thirty plants in the courtyard, and all of them had thrived in her absence.
“I don’t understand. How are all these plants alive when the rest of the kingdom can grow nothing? ”
His hand slipped along hers, and she gripped his fingers.
You. A heavy pause filled the silence and she could not breathe. I cannot kill you. Any part of you. And I would stop anyone who tried.
“You’ve tended to all of these plants for seven years?” Sylvi’s chin quivered, her heart and mind overcome.
She had lived in the mountains since they’d fled the castle, wondering all the while if Elias not only lived but thought of her.
If he did survive and his demon hadn’t swallowed him, had he thought she abandoned him?
Did he think she ran in fear of him? Had he thought her a heartless teenager, running away from the only friendship he’d ever had?
Even if he had thought those things, she realized, he had never given up on her return. If he thought she would never go back to him, the lively garden around them would likely be dead.
It wasn’t until he brushed her hand with his thumb that she remembered his new ability. He’d likely heard everything running through her head just then.
I have never stopped hoping you would return, Elias said, voice soft in the confines of her mind. The only true life I know, have ever known, has been you.
Sylvi smoothed down the front of her new gown, strangely light. Her time in the courtyard and walking Castle Mourem had been something she’d only dared to hope for in her dreams for so long, she had to keep pinching herself to make sure she wasn’t asleep.
The garden was real.
Elias was real.
Elias. She ran her fingers through her hair, self-conscious.
In the years since the fall of the Espa Brus, he had certainly grown up.
Sure, he had literally grown taller and filled out his frame, but emotionally?
Elias had never been so composed…so assured.
Confident, even, but with an air of vulnerability that reminded her of the boy he’d once been.
She arranged her hair over her shoulders—now loose and clean thanks to a well-deserved bath—and adjusted the skirts of her gown. Elias had given it to her, an old relic from his mother’s armoire.
What did he think of her?
Did he find her beautiful?
The moonlight poured into the room through the stained-glass, attempting to coax her to bed and sleep.
But sleep would not come easy this night, she knew, for her mind could not settle.
How could it in circumstances such as these?
Espa Brus was not lost. Elias was still whole. The curse could still be broken.
She could still have the ending she’d wanted since she’d met the boy in the cage.
Sylvi ran her fingers along the glass and the outside chill bit back.
The people of the mountain had pitied her in the four years she traveled between them and Castle Mourem.
They did not understand how her father could commit her to wed a cursed boy, no matter their duty to the king.
When her betrothal was announced, it was as if she’d died.
A funeral for a living girl, a quiet goodbye in the snow.
They did not know Elias. They did not know her. He had been her closest friend and she did not fear him. She had loved him—she’d told the king as much the night everything changed.
And now that Elias was a man? She feared those feelings had only grown stronger with absence and time.
I cannot kill you. Any part of you. And I would stop anyone who tried.
The garden came to mind again. If Elias could not kill any part of her, including the plants she’d made when they were children, that was presumably a new development. He had killed the first bean she’d grown into a sprout for him, after all.
Then again, this inability to kill any part of her could simply be a choice, which made more sense to Sylvi.
He’d chosen to kill her sprout when they were nine because she’d asked after his magic.
Elias never killed anything else she grew after that, once she’d wedged herself so far into his life he never had a chance.
“He didn’t know me when I grew the first sprout,” she whispered to herself and looked at her palms. “So Elias could kill me, truly, if he wished to…”
But he wouldn’t kill her. Others? They would receive no such mercy. Arve and Tor had found out the hard way.
I cannot kill you. Any part of you. And I would stop anyone who tried.
Something about Elias’s statement hung on the edge of her subconscious. His reluctance to kill her she understood. They had been close once. But to give into his demon and kill for her…to become the demon he loathed? Why would he feel the need to make that declaration—
Cold gripped her body and squeezed. The mystery of that fateful night swelled within her.
Maybe there was more to the king’s death that she previously believed. Maybe Elias had been trying to tell her something.
Sylvi licked her lips, mouth dry, and set for the door. Elias might have saved her from Arve, but there were too many questions without answers. The unyielding need to know was making her jump to conclusions, and she’d rather get the truth from him instead.
Once upon a time, they had been all each other had. But before she allowed herself to welcome him back into her heart, she needed to know the depths of his.