All's Fair in Revenge

Chapter 24: A Mistake

I hurried through the arched stone hall, fleeing by hundreds of blurry oil portraits and dripping, waxy candles until I reached a set of inconspicuous dark wood doors. I squeezed the latches and threw them open, a gust of wind rushing to meet me. There, across the expansive room decorated with glittering squatting chairs and carved tables low enough to set your feet on, awaited three sets of stained-glass windows stretching stories high. Double doors were set into each one. Beneath winding chandeliers, past aisles upon aisles of books, I rushed. I pushed through the butterfly doors with both hands and a sudden gust whipped my hair behind me. The gold painted stone rail stopped me from running straight off the ledge. It barricaded me at the waist.

With shaking limbs, I screamed into the abyss. I hoped I'd shake the cliff so hard it'd plummet into the Ortusalis Sea. And when that didn't work, I wanted to punch and kick and sink my teeth into Moer's foundation. I wanted to death rattle it until its neck snapped. Tears pricked at my eyes. Mucus gathered in my nose. And I heaved again and again until there was nothing left. I gagged. I choked.

When I opened my stinging eyes, a gardener with thick leather gloves and oversized clippers grimaced at me. I wiped my mouth and grunted an apology his way. When he cocked his head in confusion, I gave up and faced the doors where I came across a broad chest donning a gauzy black tunic with thin cords.

"He didn't understand you," said the coarse voice belonging to the hulking shoulders above.

"What?"

Thorne crossed his round arms. "The gardener. He didn't understand your apology." When I didn't immediately respond, he added, "You said it in Kelvian."

I returned my focus to the garden. "I know."

"Of course, you did." He stepped closer while maintaining a wide berth between us. "What's wrong with you today?"

What's wrong? The disaster that became breakfast? Getting rejected by my future husband? That you saw it? Or maybe it's that I've thrown myself into a den of vipers and am no closer to suss out which killed my sister? What isn't wrong?

And there's the problem of those pesky feelings.

Do not start. Attraction is natural. I cannot help it. But I can ignore it.

Which you've done such a great job of thus far.

The gardener clipped away the dead branches of a bush with tiny green buds. Climbing plants returning to life after a bitter cold clung to the stone wall behind him. An archway leading to more gardens lay beyond a gate. An empty fountain with a statue of three women pouring water into each other's mouths sat at its center.

"You speak Kelvian," I said after some time. I had hoped the anger churning in me would've settled. It did not. "Why do you speak Kelvian?" Druvix and Kelvia were not neighbors. We were not friends. Historically, we tolerated one another at best.

He offered a half-shrug. "I know many languages," he said in Morassai, the vernacular a of people so far south in the realm few remembered it existed. I had always been fascinated by the stories told by those who traded with the nation. The shopkeeper had described mushrooms so large its people made homes of them to Liv. But he didn't mention the plants that glowed vivid and bright in the pitch-black of Náre nights.

Few had the means to visit the southern country. Fewer spoke the language. I, Golden Healer to be, was one of them. "As do I," I answered in Morassai, switching back to Kelvian to ask, "But why? Are you a spy?"