Dart stared across the garden to the millennia-old myrrwood in the center. It appeared more a grove than a single tree. As a myrrwood spread its branches outward, roots would drop from the tips, which upon reaching the fertilized soil would form secondary trunks supporting the tree as it reached out yet again with new branches, growing wider as it grew taller. It now covered a thousand acres. A single tree had become a forest.
“Besides marking Chrism’s land,” Jasper had instructed, “the myrrwood also represents the Hundred. Lord Chrism was the first to place his roots in the land here, grounding and settling. And by his example, other gods followed, spreading new roots across the Nine Lands of Myrillia.”
Dart had walked under the edges of the famous tree. It was gray barked with leaves so darkly green as to appear black in all but the brightest sunshine and so dense that she imagined one could walk beneath its woven branches in the fiercest storm and still stay dry. Under its canopy, she discovered a natural colonnade of arched bowers spreading deep into the garden, a place where lovers met for secret trysts and whispered promises were always kept. It was said that at the center, near the tree’s true trunk, the Heartwood, the bower lay in eternal midnight, lit only by glowing butterflits that nested throughout the branches. But no one could say for sure. It was sacred to Chrism himself. A private sanctuary. None but the first god was allowed near it.
Dart dreamed to see such a place. But now it would never be. She forced her eyes away, upward, denying herself even the view of the garden.
Last night’s storm had passed, leaving behind an achingly blue sky with only the occasional high cloud. Even the air was warm with the promise of winter’s end and the beginning of spring. But all Dart felt was a numbing cold, cheerless and dank, that seemed to have settled at the base of her spine. She shivered where she sat.
“You’ll be fine,” Laurelle said, reaching over to pat her hand. “We’ll both be fine.”
Dart could sit still no longer. She stood up abruptly, startling Laurelle. “I’m going to take a bit of air,” she mumbled apologetically. “Before Matron Shashyl coops us back up in her lessons chamber.”
“We won’t have much time . . .” Laurelle began to climb to her feet.
“I think I need a moment alone,” Dart said, backing up a step. “Do you mind?”
Laurelle could not keep the wounded look from her face, but she nodded and settled back to her seat. “Shall I wait for you here . . . so we’ll go together to meet the matron?”
Dart nodded. “I won’t be gone long.” She turned to the curve of stairs that led from the terrace to the gardens. It felt good to be moving, even if it was aimless.
And she wasn’t entirely alone. Pupp crawled from beneath the table, passing ghostily through Dart’s abandoned seat. He had sensed his mistress’s mood and kept himself scarce. But where Dart went, he must follow.
Dart felt a stab of irritation. Though she loved Pupp with all her heart, a part of her wanted to flee from him, to run as fast as she could from all of this.
She reached the edges of the Eldergarden. Cobbled paths wended throughout the vast botanical. Dart strode under an opening arch of ginger roses smelling sweetly with their early blossoms. She chose a path framed by low hedges, keeping to the sun. She passed manicured patches of purple sylliander and wild sprays of rosy-pink narcissus. Small wooden bridges forded stone streams, the waterways dotted below with green lily pads and heavy-lidded flowers. Flashes of aquamarine could be seen in the water, small minnowettes and a few larger carp.
Dart found her footsteps growing ever faster. She hurried along paths, crossing one way, then another. Pupp kept with her, but it was not her ghostly friend from which she sought to escape. It was her own skin. Tears rose to her eyes, blurring her vision.
Her steps became a stumbling trot. The edges of her skirt snagged upon the occasional thorn or snatching bramble, but she ran faster. Sobs shook through her.
She wanted only to keep running. She would not even let the garden wall stop her. She would continue. Banishment was certain. Or even worse punishments: dungeons, chains, whippings. But her worst terror was that the violation in the rookery would be repeated. Even now, the certain doom of this day felt the same. She had no control over her fate.
Her flight through the gardens was not so much an escape as a way to grab back some semblance of power. She could flee, keep running, disappear into the low, shadowed streets of Chrismferry, and never be seen again. It was banishment . . . but it would be by her own hand, not another’s.
She raced along a path that was gravel rather than cobbles. It was one of the older sections of the garden. Here, the beds ran wilder, overgrown, and the occasional fishpond or stream was coated with green and moved sluggishly, if at all. Trees reached higher, spanning the path. Shadows thickened.
Her feet began to slow. She passed a crumbled line of stone that bisected her path. One of the old garden walls. Over the many centuries, the Eldergarden had grown, spreading south from the river and castillion, requiring old walls to be knocked down and new ones to be raised farther out, continually consuming a part of the central city. It had happened twenty-two times over the four millennia, according to Jasper Cheek.
Dart crossed through the stone row and entered an ancient section of the garden. She was surprised to find the branches of the myrrwood stretching over her. She glanced behind.
The castillion’s nine towers, the Stone Graces, formed a half-moon, cupping the vast Eldergarden within the palm of their battlements. Each tower rose twenty stories, yet only the tops could be discerned between the trees.
Dart found herself frozen in place, pulled in two different directions. A part of her heart begged for continued flight, to escape while she could, but a part of her felt drawn back, to face her responsibilities, to not abandon Laurelle without even the kindness of a good-bye. But deeper still lay a fear of what awaited her beyond the walls of the Eldergarden. The city was an unknown that still terrified her. Would she toss herself to its mercies without hope of redemption?
Before she could make her choice, voices intruded, drawing her attention back to the shadowed bower of the myrrwood. They were accompanied by laughter, as merry as the dappled wood. A small party approached.
Though Dart had broken no rules, she feared being spotted. She searched quickly for a hiding place. Pupp merely sat on his haunches, tongue lolling, his stumpy tail wagging.
She retreated through the broken wall, finding a tumble of blocks on the far side to shelter behind. A few steps away, Pupp nosed through a bit of fiddleleaf shrubbery, hunting a scrub mouse that had scampered from Dart’s toes.
The voices drew nearer, two people, a woman and a man. Laughter continued to trail them. Lovers on a picnic, Dart imagined. Oh, to live a life where such simple pleasures were allowed. She hunkered down lower as they came to the breach in the wall.
They stopped. Dart peered through a crack in the rockery. For a moment, Dart thought it was Laurelle. Wrapped in a brown velvet cape, the girl bore the same fall of ebony hair, the same creamed skin. But as she turned her face into the sunlight, she was clearly a few years older, and not as fair of features, though her beauty still far outshone Dart’s. Her lips parted as she tilted to accept a kiss from her companion.
He, in turn, could have been the young woman’s father. Older by far, his black hair was touched by white at the temples and in a narrow streak, like a lightning strike, across his crown. He was dressed in a brown riding cloak with knee-high boots, coat open at the collar to reveal a deep burgundy silk shirt. Nobility, for sure.
They kissed for several breaths. The woman leaned against the wall, only an arm’s length from Dart’s cubby. The man ground into her, one hand reaching beneath the cloak to grope. He found what he sought and suddenly broke the embrace, stepping back.
His hand came free from the woman’s cloak. A long dagger lay in his palm. “Did you think us so easily fooled, Jacinta?”
The woman gasped, then crouched s
lightly.
The man examined the weapon in the sunlight. Its blade was black, a shadow given substance. It ate the light, rather than reflected it. “A blade blessed in Dark Graces . . . brought here of all places. To the heart of Chrismferry. And you thought we wouldn’t know?”
Jacinta straightened, but her voice lowered to a poisoned edge. “We’ll stop you . . . all of you, by any means, foul or fair.”
Her words built storm clouds upon the other’s brows. He leaned closer to her. Even hidden behind rock, Dart sensed a font of power in the man. His eyes snapped with lightning. “Who sent you? Who supplied you with this?” He shook the dagger at her.
She laughed, but not the merry sound from a moment ago. She sounded much older than she appeared. “That you will never know!”
Before he could answer her challenge, Jacinta lunged at the man, grabbing for the dagger. He misjudged her intent. She snatched at his wrist, not to wrest the weapon away, but to hold his grip firm. With a kick off the wall, she hurled herself forward, onto the blade.
“Myrillia will be free!” she shouted as the dagger struck home, into the hollow above her collarbone.
Dart saw it all, biting on a knuckle to keep from screaming. She watched the man fall away, yanking the dagger free. Blood shot out—and a spat of flame, chasing the retreating blade. The woman fell to her knees and then face forward to the ground.
As her body struck the path, her cloak collapsed in on itself. A billow of ash and smoke swirled up, filling the gap in the wall. It was all that was left of the woman named Jacinta. Flesh turned to dust.
Dart didn’t escape the backwash of ash. In one breath, it filled her nostrils—what was once the woman’s flesh.
A racking gag escaped her. She could not stop her revulsion.
Knowing her presence could be hidden no longer, she fled back to the path. The empty cloak lay in the wall’s breach, the gap still smoky with the cloud of ash. A dark shape moved beyond it.
The man with the dagger.
If she couldn’t see him clearly, there was a good chance her features were shaded, too. Perhaps she could escape unknown.
A shout chased her. “Stop!”
She ignored the command, thumped over a small bridge, and dodged behind a hedge. Ducking low, she ran to the hedgerow, attempting to keep out of direct light.
A pounding of boots on the bridge sounded behind her. He was closing fast, having no need to hide. Dart straightened and sprinted down the row. From behind, dressed in her plain bonnet and skirt, she would appear no more than a scullery maid. She prayed it would be enough to keep her unknown.
“Fear not, lass! There is no reason to flee!”
Mayhap the man was right. From the exchange, it was hard to say who might be the wronged party. Had it not been the woman who had thrown herself on the dagger, her own dagger, one blessed in Dark Graces? Was such a death murder? Still, Dart sensed dread matters afoot in their dealings, matters in which she had no wish to become embroiled. She had enough secrets to bear. A single more would break her back.
She searched for a crisscrossing of paths, praying for some fast turns to lose her pursuer. But she had fled back to the younger sections of the garden, to the cobbled paths. Here the shrubs were low, and the trees spindly and still leafless from winter. Her heart pounded in her ears . . . or was it the man’s boot steps?
The garden flew in a blur around her. The path took a sharp jag to the right, away from the castillion. Dart felt a sob build in her chest. She was lost. The castillion loomed before her, but she could not find the set of paths that led back there. Cutting straight through would only get her trapped by hedges or bogged down in the deeper ponds. She had to stick to the paths.
With her skirts flying around her ankles, she rounded past a whistledown bush. A shape suddenly loomed into the path before her, a dark shadow.
She screamed, but her momentum was unstoppable. She crashed into the figure. She scrambled and kicked to be free of the other’s arms as they sought to catch her up. He held something in his hand. The cursed dagger!
She cracked a knee up into the man’s groin.
A loud oof followed, and she was free, stumbling backward.
Only now did she truly see her attacker. He was as tall as the man who had accosted the woman in the gardens . . . but much younger. No more than five or six years older than Dart. The young man was dressed in simple rough-spun breeches and shift, gripping a small spade—not a dagger.
“Skags, girl, what the naether is wrong with you?” he asked, half-hunched over. “You came close to unmanning me there.”
Dart balanced between relief and shame. It was one of the groundskeepers. His hair was cut to the shoulder, deep brown, like the rich loam of the gardens. His eyes were as green as its ponds.
“I’m sorry,” she said, stepping closer and half-turning to check the paths behind her.
They were empty. Only Pupp danced on the cobbles, bouncing a bit, ready to run some more, his molten skin shining bright in the sunshine.
“I . . . I thought someone was . . .” Dart let her words die and shook her head. “I think I got myself lost. I was trying to find my way back to the castillion.”
“I can take you back to the maid’s drudgery, if you’d like.” He carefully straightened. “That is, if I can still walk.”
Relieved at his offer, Dart glanced down at her stained and scratched skirts. She must appear to be a low maid. “Thank you, but I need to reach the overlook terrace.”
He studied her up and down, one eyebrow cocked. “Truly . . . the overlook?”
“Yes,” she said, more sharply than she intended.
He shrugged and stepped around her. He reached for her elbow. She sprang away, having to force herself not to swat at his hand. She didn’t want to be touched.
“It’s back this way,” he said, letting his arm drop.
She followed him from a couple steps away. He smelled of the plants he had been weeding, a spicy musk that bordered on sweet. She found herself moving closer, studying him. His back was broad, his shift clinging to his muscular shoulders. He could probably carry her all the way back to the terrace without raising any sweat on his brow.
She pushed such thoughts aside and turned her attention to the gardens around her, watching for any sign of the dark man. But the sun seemed to have warmed all menace from the Eldergarden. Pupp trailed them both, eyes fiery, a lightness to his step.
They continued down a maze of paths. The keeper spoke quietly, a comforting sound, relating details about various plants. “The jackawillows will be blooming in another moonpass,” he said, pointing to a small tree leaning over a pond, branches weeping to the water’s edge. Small buds hung from tiny stems, like the heads of drowsy children. “They open as large as fists and appear in every hue of a rain’s bow.”
He sighed.
By now, Dart had crept up even with him. She found his voice comforting.
“You never did tell me your name,” he said. “If I might be so bold.”
She considered lying but found she could not. “Dart,” she finally said.
“Ah, like the dartweed,” he said with a deep laugh. “I’ve punctured a finger or two on that thorny, yellow-headed invader.”
She bristled, reminded of the teasing back at her old school.
“You have to respect that weed,” he continued, oblivious. “It appears a tender, fragile shoot, but at its heart, it’s as tough as the strongest stranglevine and blooms despite adversity.”
He glanced over to her. Tall for her age, she stood only a couple fingers shorter than him. His voice cracked with wry amusement. “A fitting name, I’d say.”
Unbidden, a blush rose to her cheeks.
“Ah, here we are,” he said, turning away, saving her from embarrassing herself. He pointed a hand forward.
Dart spotted the familiar arch of ginger roses. Beyond the garden’s edge, up on the terrace, Laurelle stood at the rail . . . alongside Matron Shashyl. The matron wore a
deep scowl as she searched the gardens below. With sudden trepidation, Dart realized how late she was. And in all the terror of the gardens, she had forgotten what lay ahead of her on this day.
“There you go, lass,” the groundskeeper said. “I hope to see you again sometime.”
Dart doubted that would ever happen. She would surely be cast out before the sun rose on the next day. She hurried forward. “Thank you,” she mumbled as she passed.
He followed her to the arch of roses. She hurried up the curving staircase, holding her skirt’s edge up to keep from tripping. Laurelle and Matron Shashyl had noticed her approach. They crossed to await her at the top of the steps.
“Child, do you know how long we’ve been waiting?” Matron Shashyl asked, fists on her wide hips. She grabbed Dart by the elbow and hauled her up the last step. “And on this day of all days!”
Laurelle hovered on her other side. “Dart, what happened to you?”
Her friend’s words drew the matron’s attention to the condition of her skirt. Its hem was stained and wet. Tiny rips frayed its edges.
“Is this how you care for items left in your charge?” Matron Shashyl shouted. “I should strip you bare right here and march you straight down to the laundress, have you explain to Mistress Tryssa how your clothes came to such a sorry state.”
Tears rose to Dart’s eyes. She hated to show such weakness, but the day had worn her too thin. First the broken repostilary down in the Cache, then the revelation that she was to meet Lord Chrism, and now the terror of the gardens. “Leave the girl be,” a familiar voice said behind her from the stairs. “She’s had a bad fright.”
Matron Shashyl’s grip on her elbow snatched tighter. Before Dart could turn, the matron dropped to her knees, tugging Dart with her. Dart fell amid a tumble of skirt. She landed on her hands.
Laurelle looked confused until the matron waved her down, too. With her brows knit together, she lowered slowly, careful of her own skirt.
Matron Shashyl bowed her head. “Lord Chrism.”