Eden Conquered

  The whispers howled.

  A tree snapped. Screams floated up from the village. A tunnel of air appeared in the sky and was descending. The anger in the tunnel rang in her head. Filled her heart. Burned inside her gut.

  “The underground passages,” she yelled. She thought about the comfort of being alone with her twin where no one in the Palace of Winds could find them. It was the only time she could roam far from him and still be certain he was safe. It was the time when the need to be skilled enough to defend him was turned into a game. When she first decided to teach herself to throw knives, Andreus ducked whenever she lifted her hand and kept doing it long after she could hit everything she aimed at because he knew it would make her laugh.

  In the tunnels, they laughed. They also sat in the quiet, happy to have only each other for company.

  They had been a team.

  “Very good!” the woman in front of her yelled. “Now hurry.”

  The whispers faded in her mind, and Carys realized the trees were no longer bending as if ready to snap. Instead the branches were swaying to a gentle breeze.

  Carys’s foot slipped on some loose rocks, and she half slid down the steep hillside. Her stomach swooped as she fought to stay upright.

  “This way,” the woman said, pointing to a small path at the bottom of the hill. It snaked around the rocky base and disappeared into a group of tall trees. Carys shivered in the icy air and followed, grateful that the snows had not yet come to this part of the kingdom. There were no footsteps to follow. They needed only to stay out of sight.

  Finally, they reached a small grove of trees in the center of which was a small wooden cabin. It was the only dwelling on this side of the hill. In the distance beyond the trees, Carys could see the dark shadow of the wall she and Garret had followed to the entrance. The one that surrounded the hillside and the land of the seers.

  The woman held the door open for Carys, then shut the door behind her, plunging them into a black void. There was the click of flint and metal, a flash, and the warm glow of candlelight lit the space.

  The woman quickly lit a number of candles scattered throughout the room, which was barely more than functional, with a narrow wooden table and two low-backed chairs to Carys’s right, a small cot and a chest on the far side, and a small fireplace on the wall between. In the center of the cot was a pair of blue-and-silver beaded slippers, which seemed far too small for the tall woman moving toward the hearth. Wood was carefully laid for a fire that started quickly when the woman touched the kindling with a candle’s flame.

  “Few know of this place. Even still, we won’t be able to stay long.” The woman removed her cloak and shook out her short cap of golden-red hair as she hung the dark garment on a peg near the door. “I am Kiara.”

  The woman sat, then nodded for Carys to take the chair closest to the hearth.

  Carys stayed standing, watching the door, stiletto still in her hand. “How did you know I would be here? How did the Captain of Eden’s Guard know?”

  “The stars told me you would come as would the lord who rode into the Village with you. He sought to gain your trust with what he felt would be a harmless ruse. He met them in the town and directed them here so that he could fight for you. He did not know the captain had sold his allegiance to another.”

  “The stars told you this?” Carys shook her head even as the words rang true in her heart.

  Kiara smiled. “It is amazing what you hear when you listen. Of course, had your lord listened to the stars, he would have seen that you cannot force trust no matter how clever the ruse or determined the heart. Your power consumes him. He wishes it to consume you. But it cannot.”

  “I don’t understand. Is Garret working with . . .”

  “You ask the wrong questions.” The seeress interrupted. “They will be searching. There is little time. I must give you the answers in my way. It is why I returned to the Village of Night after being away for so long.”

  “Why haven’t you been at the Village? I thought all seers lived here.”

  Candles flickered. The fire popped and flared as Kiara explained, “That is what you are supposed to think. Before, seers only called the winds, and described what they saw in the skies. They illuminated, without agenda, their visions. But soon, kings and emperors looked to us to circumvent the repercussions of their choices. They used us to avoid a blow from the harsh hand of fate. Our visions were warped by interpretation.” She paused. “There were reactions. Some seers were determined to fix the wrongs caused by kings. Instead, we made them worse.”

  Carys thought of her own wrongs. The guard’s blade buried in the old woman’s face when the wind gusted in the stone circle. Innocent blood, shed because Carys had wanted to destroy those who meant her harm.

  “Our sacred calling was corrupted and wars were waged. In Eden, the winds were unleashed to defeat those who marched against it. The Seven Virtues were shattered. The Xhelozi grew in number and strength as the balance between virtue and vice tilted. The Guild recognized the hand its members had in the chaos—the damage they had done. They saw in the stars the destruction that would follow if they did not heed the warnings and take their hand off the scale of fate.”

  “But the seers didn’t heed the warnings,” Carys shot back. “Seers still advise the throne.”

  “You see what you are meant to see. Power is a seductive force for those who wish to claim it for their own. Had we abandoned Eden, kings and those thirsty for our skills would have hunted us down. So, one by one we left the Village of Night behind, save a few dedicated souls who understand and champion in the true purpose of this place.”

  “True purpose?”

  “Those with talent begin their training here, but this is not where they remain. If a candidate is determined to have a true gift, they are called away from the Village and ferried to the Isle. The rest remain here fully believing they are part of the Guild, but they are not destined to read the stars.”

  Carys shifted her hold on the stiletto as she looked from the seer toward the door. “You’re saying that everyone here is a fraud, including the seers sent to advise the King or Queen?”

  Kiara looked toward the fire. She was easily two decades older than Carys, but there was something about her that seemed ageless. “When the Seer of Eden died, the Guild made the decision to choose from our ranks one with a keen intellect, but little gift for the stars or the winds. They sent him with a single vision to use as he saw fit to aid the kingdom.”

  The least powerful seer. “Someone had to notice the difference.”

  “To them there was no difference. He was powerful because that was what the Seer of Eden had always been. No one doubted his ability because the winds continued to blow. If he read the same message in the stars over and over it was because of the path the stars wished the world to take.”

  Carys frowned. “But there is a test.” Her mother spoke of it on more than one occasion. Her mother had been convinced the test and the power of the seers were real.

  “The Artis root.” Kiara nodded. “It is still given. None would believe that true seers exist without the test. Here, everyone drinks from the same well, eats from the same stores. One can cultivate an immunity to the root if one undergoes the proper conditioning. Meanwhile the truly gifted among us go to the Isle to study and perfect our understanding of our powers and wait for a time when the world will not exploit them.”

  The confession took Carys’s breath away. It was the perfect deception. No one would seek out the missing seers because they believed the seers were still among them—helping them. And it explained how someone like Imogen was able to become the Seer of Eden. She had been smart. She must have manipulated those in the Village to guarantee her selection. And when she left here, she was armed with the one vision every Seer of Eden was given and the book in which she had found the law that led Carys and Andreus to the Trials of Virtuous Succession.

  The whispers in her head grew. The fire in the hearth flared.


  “Calm,” the seeress said gently. “Take a deep breath. Wall off your emotions or you will destroy not only those around you but yourself. This is the reason the seers had to leave Eden. If we had stayed, we would have destroyed all.”

  She thought of the tunnels again and the fire settled.

  Kiara nodded, and Carys paced the small space. “I need to know who helped Imogen become the Seer of Eden. Whoever it was helped her kill the King and the Crown Prince. That person is still inside the Palace of Winds.”

  Kiara folded her hands in front of her. “When you learn the answer to this question, what will you do then?”

  “Whatever I have to in order to see that Eden is safe.”

  “You will fight if necessary.”

  “Yes.”

  “You will kill those who threaten you?”

  “If I must.”

  “Will you forgive?”

  Carys went still. “This isn’t about forgiveness.”

  “Is it not?” Kiara stared at Carys for one heartbeat. Two. Then said, “Imogen arrived ten years ago at the gates of this village. I was in the place of the seers. I only returned recently because of what I saw in the stars, so I was not a witness, but the merchant who escorted her claimed she had recently been orphaned. I am told he said he brought her to the Village because she foresaw her isolation before her family’s deaths occurred. They say the man visited her several times in the first few years, then the visits stopped. She was dedicated to her studies and became a favorite among the leaders of the Village.”

  Already plotting. Convincing them she was the right choice for the next Seer of Eden.

  “Before Imogen was chosen as the Seer of Eden, the Village of Night was paid a visit by a member of the Council of Elders. One with a long braid and a soft voice.”

  Elder Jacobs. How many times had Carys seen him twisting that black braid in his hands?

  “He came bearing a missive that held the signatures of several members of the Council requesting the next seer be young and beautiful to capture the imagination and heart of the kingdom and help give hope during such a trying time.”

  “Elder Jacobs was here?” Carys demanded confirmation, and the seeress nodded.

  Elder Jacobs had been atop the battlement walls the night her father and brother had died. She had spotted him speaking to Andreus during the Trial of Temperance moments before her brother condemned an innocent boy to death.

  “Many wish to change the course of Eden, but it is only you and Andreus who can determine which path the kingdom will take.”

  “Why tell me any of this?” Carys asked. “I thought seers did not want to interfere in the world anymore.”

  “We don’t, but I changed the history of Eden once, years ago, without understanding what I had done, and the stars have told me that I have this one chance to set it right. You see, Betrice heard the prediction I had made. Without my words she might have never become Queen.”

  Candles flickered. The fire crackled. Then everything went still.

  “You . . . know my mother?”

  Kiara crossed to the cot. When she turned back, she held the blue-and-silver beaded slippers in her hands. “These belonged to Betrice before she became Queen. She gave them to me when she left this village behind. These are the key to your freedom.”

  Uncertain, Carys took the shoes from the seer. The firelight hit the beading, but something about the jewels seemed to absorb the light instead of reflect it.

  “My mother was a seer?”

  Kiara shot a look at the door. “Lady Betrice was born with a single vision that brought her to this place. No more. No less. You were born with far more, but it is up to you to learn how to use it.”

  Carys shook her head. The whispers grew more insistent. “I’ve tried to control it. I can’t. It just . . .”

  She saw a flash of the man twisted and broken and the woman with the knife buried in her face.

  “You cannot control what is not yours to command,” Kiara said. “The air around us can do great things. But no matter how gifted you are, the wind will never be a subject that does your bidding. You must calmly surrender yourself to gain the control you seek. You must trust. To surrender to the wind in anger or fear is to unleash a power that can destroy not only your enemies, but yourself. There is no virtue when you lead with fear. There is only darkness and destruction and death.”

  Kiara cocked her head to the side and went still. Her eyes widened. “They are coming.”

  “But I still don’t know . . .”

  “You know all you must except this—your heart will be broken and when it is you will be given the keys to unlock the prison that holds you. Then only you can decide if you will be free.”

  The seeress opened the door and headed out into the cold without her cloak. Her hair and the bright white dress fluttered in the wind as Carys hurried after her.

  “What does that mean?”

  Voices shouted in the darkness. Carys heard someone calling her name. She held the stiletto tight in her right hand and clutched the bejeweled shoes in the other. Kiara led her through the trees, toward the stone barrier. The voices were getting louder with each passing moment. They were coming closer.

  The whispering in her brain returned.

  Surrender. Trust.

  She didn’t know how.

  She ignored the wind and ran toward the stone barrier between the outside world and the hill of the Village of Night with her stilettos ready. In the distance, men emerged from the trees.

  “Two paths stretch before you, Princess. One is covered in darkness. The other is in light. Your journey has been far, but you have farther yet to go. The Kingdom needs its Princess to return balance to the virtues. The darkness gets stronger without the light.”

  “And what if I fail? What if I don’t make it that far?” She was tired of hunting and being hunted. Of people she trusted betraying her. Elder Jacobs and Imogen had caused her brother to turn against her. Why should it be her responsibility to once again step forward and save him from the punishment that was so rightly his?

  “Then the Throne of Light will go dark, the virtues will stay unbalanced, and the Xhelozi will thrive. Death will ravage not only our kingdom, but others.” Kiara grabbed her arm. The seeress led her to a clump of tall, thorn-filled bushes and pointed behind them. “You will find your way out there. Go to the cluster of stones a half league beyond the wall. You will find your horse and belongings there.”

  “What?” Carys asked. “How . . .”

  “Not all knowledge comes from the stars. Sometimes it comes from those around you,” Kiara whispered. The sound of crunching leaves and shouting voices grew louder.

  “What about you?” Carys asked.

  “I have fulfilled my purpose. Remember that those who betray are often betrayed themselves, and gardens have more than one serpent among the leaves. Now go.”

  Before Carys could stop her, the seeress hurried toward the rocks and trees to Carys’s left. The voices grew louder. Another shadow emerged, this one closer than the other, and the sound of branches breaking said more were coming.

  Casting a last look in the direction Kiara headed off in, Carys plunged into the thicket. Thorns clawed her face and pulled on her cloak. She held her breath each time the branches shook as she pulled herself free and kept going. She stumbled on a root, pitched out of the prickly bushes, and fell to her knees, dropping the slippers and her blade. She gathered her things, then examined the wall behind her for the opening Kiara had promised.

  There.

  She found a section of the wall where the two sides were built one in front of the other with a narrow space between them to slide through. It was a cleverly constructed illusion where the wall appeared to be whole from just steps away. And hidden behind the thorny thicket, it was the perfect escape path for someone who didn’t want to be followed.

  She heard a woman scream. The wind inside her howled, but she refused to give in to the anger and fear as she ra
n. The cold air stabbed her lungs with every breath. Her body ached. Her mind was fuzzy. More than anything, she wished for the red bottle and the Tears of Midnight that would smooth away the pain and plunge her into oblivion. Desperately, she looked for the landmark Seeress Kiara had directed her to, while every few moments glancing behind her to see if the guardsmen hunting her were on their way.

  She spotted the rocks in the distance. Stones white as snow and black as night clumped together, reaching up to the sky.

  Her chest and throat burned. Her legs shook with fatigue.

  A rock skittered across the cold earth and Carys lifted her stiletto. Something leaped from the shadows. It rammed into her arm, sending the stiletto flying out of her hand and her crashing to the ground. She fumbled for her other stiletto but couldn’t reach the hilt before someone pinned her arms and a face loomed above her.

  Brown hair framing an angled face.

  Dark eyes staring into hers.

  Errik. He had found her.

  So she did the only thing she could. She kicked him in the crotch.

  12

  I will return.

  The script on the note was shaky, but he knew the handwriting. He would know it anywhere. But it could not be real.

  His throat tightened.

  His leg buckled, and he fell onto cold stone.

  He had seen his twin’s dead body. He had looked upon the disfigured face shredded by the claws of the Xhelozi. Blood and gore and bone framed by the almost white-blond hair—a color no woman in the court possessed save his sister, Carys.

  Andreus read the words again.

  He’d left her for dead.

  He’d won.

  But Carys was . . . alive?

  Laughter bubbled up, echoing in the stairwell.

  Someone had attacked him on the walls.