Chapter 11 A Secret for a Secret
A Secret for a Secret
The tea doesn’t work. I follow the gardener’s instructions, crushing the petals just like he said and pouring warm water over the blue blossom until the steam kisses my face. But all it gives me are dreams I can’t wake from.
Fire. Screaming. My sister’s voice, lost in the flames.
When I wake in a cold sweat, Marb is waiting for me. I stare out my window in confusion as morning sunlight streams in.
“Did I miss the ball?” I ask. Suddenly realizing I slept through the night, I frantically run to my wardrobe and rifle through the gowns for the torture device I left hanging there.
“It’s been postponed,” Marb answers distractedly as she alights on the bedside table and begins meticulously organizing my breakfast, laying an orange slice on a napkin next to a scone, a single poached egg, and a glass of milk.
“What? Why?” I blink in surprise. “Until when?”
“Tonight,” she chirps, ignoring all but the last question. “May I help you dress, my lady?”
I nod, though I’m no less lost. Postponed? But the entire keep must have been preparing for this night for days. Whoever this cursed king is, his every whim is obeyed without warning or hesitation. And it’s clear that no one dares question his reasoning.
I spend most of the day wandering the keep, exploring the grounds, and searching the gardens for the infuriating bastard who gave me a tea that only dragged me deeper into my nightmares.
By late afternoon, exhaustion finally wins, and I manage to get a few hours of real sleep. But dreaming in daylight only makes it harder to rest once night falls.
Hours later, I’m lying in bed, wide awake. Despite the plush pillows and velvet sheets, I can’t settle in. I toss and turn. My skin still prickles with residual magic, my muscles ache in unfamiliar ways, and my mind won’t stop reeling.
I need air. Space. Silence that doesn’t feel like it’s pressing in on all sides.
So I slip barefoot into the corridor and let the night swallow me whole.
The keep is too warm, too quiet. The chatting and laughter of the other brides is dampened behind closed doors.
They seem content to stay in, but my room feels more like a gilded prison than a lavish refuge.
I’m not used to such luxuries, but they also don’t impress me.
I see them for what they really are. Nothing here feels real; nothing smells like home, like horses and hay and herds of cattle.
I drift down the empty hallways through an archway veiled in ivy and wander into the gardens, where moonlight bathes the world in silver.
It hangs low in the sky, half-hidden behind the mist, its glow catching on twisted iron trellises and crumbling statues.
Vines strangle old marble. Wild roses spill across gravel paths like blood.
The scent of dew and rot clings to everything.
It’s haunting—and heartbreakingly beautiful.
I meander past rose bushes and overgrown herbs until the thorns give way to something strange: a stretch of garden still alive. No, not just alive. Thriving. Lush green leaves, heavy blooms in jewel-toned hues, moss-covered benches untouched by decay. The contrast is jarring.
“Looks like the tea didn’t work,” comes a voice behind me.
I spin around, eyes wide.
“Didn’t mean to startle you, Fire.” A warm smile darts across his lips.
The nickname should feel flippant. But there’s a kind of reverence in it, a gentle hush behind the teasing tone, as though the word itself means something sacred.
I straighten, heart still pounding. “I wasn’t expecting company.”
“Neither was I,” he says, smiling faintly.
He kneels beside a bed of wild thistle and begins trimming the overgrowth with deliberate care. He moves like someone born of the earth itself, patient and grounded. Yet everything about him feels like danger dressed in a quiet disguise.
As the silence grows, I blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. “Your tea is awful.”
He chuckles. “Clearly.”
Embarrassed, I stare hard at the roses, searching for something else to say. “Why are these gardens thriving while the rest of the keep seems to be crumbling?” I ask.
He plucks a vibrant red rose and offers it to me. I take it, and the scent drags me back to my mother’s garden. To sunlit mornings with Kat. To a safety I haven’t felt in years.
My throat tightens. I look down, clutching the bloom like an anchor. “Thank you,” I whisper, turning to leave, to escape the swell of emotion I didn’t come here to feel. The rose trembles in my grasp. I should walk away before such a small act of kindness completely undoes me.
“You volunteered, didn’t you?”
I stiffen. “Word travels fast,” I reply evasively.
He chuckles. “When you live in a cursed castle populated with less than a hundred souls, yes, word travels fast.” His tone is light, but something in it intrigues me. A faint bitterness, like he knows too well how gossip can commandeer the truth.
“What can you tell me about the king’s curse?” I ask. “No one’s given me a straight answer. And with the ball getting delayed, I need to know what I’m up against.”
He pauses mid-motion, his fingers still brushing the soil.
“It’s the reason the keep is shrouded in mist,” he says at last. “The reason the stone crumbles and the halls decay. Everything here is dying…” He glances at the rose in my hand. “Everything except this. The garden. It’s the one thing I refuse to let die.”
“I see.” I swallow, unsure what to say. “Well… your gardens are beautiful. The most beautiful I’ve ever seen.”
That earns me a smile. Damn those dimples.
“I’m glad you enjoy them,” he says. “No one else has in years.” He hesitates, as if weighing something. “Stay as long as you like. I’d welcome the company while I work.” He nods toward a stone bench tucked beneath the tree.
I glance at the bench. Then at the shears in his hand. At the dirt beneath his boots.
“If it’s all the same to you,” I say, “I’d rather help.”
His brow lifts. “Help?”
“Keeping my hands busy calms my mind.” I gesture toward the rosebush he’s working on. “Sitting still isn’t really my strength.”
For a beat, he studies me—measuring, considering. Then he huffs a quiet laugh. “I know the feeling.”
He reaches into his pocket and produces a second pair of shears, the metal worn smooth from use. He offers them to me, handle first.
“You can prune this one,” he says, nodding toward a thick, overgrown bush nearby. “Careful of the thorns.”
Our fingers briefly brush as I take the shears. The contact sends a strange warmth skittering up my arm.
“Wouldn’t dream of being careless in a place like this,” I mutter.
He smirks and returns to his work.
We fall into a companionable rhythm—snipping, rustling, the soft scent of crushed leaves and earth rising around us. Dirt works beneath my nails. My shoulders loosen. The tight coil in my chest eases just a little.
After a minute, he speaks again, his tone all stone and steel. “So,” he says, not looking at me, “what kind of fool volunteers for the Bloodmoon Trials?”
My breath catches.
Did he just—?
I glance up, meeting his gaze over the hedge. “What kind of fool spends his life tending a garden no one else cares about?”
One corner of his mouth quirks.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to—”
Then, to my surprise, he laughs. “Didn’t mean to what? Be sharp with me? Angry? Sad? Trapped here? And apparently immune to the blue flower tea?” He ticks each accusation off like he’s reading a list I never wrote down.
I say nothing. I don’t need to; he already knows, anyway.
“All of the above, then,” he murmurs, pressing his palm into the earth beside him.
The silence stretches between us. Somehow, it’s comfortable, though still heavy with everything left unsaid.
“I’m sorry the tea didn’t work,” he says softly. “I hoped it would. I’m immune to its effects, too. That’s why I come here when I can’t sleep; it helps quiet my mind. Maybe talking would help you.” He looks at me as if he’s offering something more than conversation. A truce? A thread of trust?
I hesitate. Can I trust him? He hasn’t hurt me yet, but nothing in this place is as it seems.
“Tell you what,” he says. “For every question you answer me, I’ll answer one of yours.”
A fair trade. And I have enough questions to chew a hole through my sanity.
“A secret for a secret?” I ask, leaning in.
He flashes a knowing smile. “Something like that.”
I nod, and he waits for me to speak, but I’m not sure where to start.
After a moment, he begins instead. “Why did you volunteer?”
I glance down. My fingers tighten around the stem of the rose.
“My sister. I promised our mother before she died that I’d protect her.
So… I made a deal.” The words taste like smoke and ash.
The memory of Kat’s face when she realized what I did still haunts me.
The look in her eyes when she said she’d never forgive me.
His gaze softens. “I’m sorry.” And somehow, I know he means it.
I gather my courage. “What happens to the women who come here? The ones who survive the crossing? Does anyone ever win? What happens to the ones who don’t?”
“That’s four questions,” he says, one brow lifting, “and yet they all share the same answer.” He holds my gaze, his voice low and measured. “Whatever happens next… depends on you.”
So it’s up to me? I frown. That can’t be right. Nothing about this has felt like it’s under my control, not since the moment I took Kat’s place.
He reads my doubt in the silence. “My turn,” he says, interrupting the torrent of my thoughts. “What are you most afraid of?”
“I don’t know.” I roll one shoulder uncomfortably.
He raises an eyebrow. “No one is without fear.”
I exhale, a faint smile tugging at my mouth. “Fine. When I was little, I was afraid of the dark—like most kids. Then, after I broke my arm falling out of an apple tree, I was afraid of heights.”
I can tell he’s trying to hide his amusement, and it only makes me more aware that I still haven’t really answered the question.