Gardener

Chapter 9

Sounds Like Fear

I sat beneath the great oak in the ball room examining my hand with a warm bowl of water, a rag, clean bandages and a premade salve laid out beside me. I hadn't wanted to go to the infirmary and have to explain my recklessness to people who sometimes looked to me for answers. As I'd said to Kalini I was a healer and any other day I'd have healed myself, but after what I'd done for Dara the thought alone made me tired. With a grimace of pain, I scrubbed the small lacerations clean before slathering my hand in an anesthetic salve that would help me to heal more quickly. I sighed softly leaning back against the rough bark, the pain though bearable, was draining. I couldn't bring myself to struggle with the bandage, I closed my eyes willing myself to action. The fingers of my good had twitched, I didn't bother to open my eyes. Instead I dozed for a time feeling warm and safe beneath the glowing canopy of the great oak I'd grown.


The sound of the double doors, only a Gardener or her Majesty could open, closing caused me to flinch fully awake. I sheathed the blade I had drawn in the moment between wakefulness and slumber, once I caught sight of who approached. "I didn't know anyone save the Queen and her Gardeners knew how to open those doors."


Her Highness startled, turning to find me resting as I was beneath the glow of the great oak's lights, while she stood in mostly darkness. The sun had set some time ago and I hadn't fully activated the magic in the shards resting somewhere high overhead. I didn't want to be found after all. I supposed her Highness hadn't wanted to be found either, walking through a place not many entered, especially not the way she'd come. "My mother told me the secret of that door before I had enough magic to actually open it. Not because she knew that I would follow in her footsteps but because she knew I loved the gardens and would find that bit of magic enchanting..." She moved closer allowing me to see her eyes in the darkness. "I still do."


"Did she ever tell you the story?" I asked softly listening to the plants of the palace as they murmured about the goings on that day, people's reactions to the Tournament was foremost in their minds.


"About how those doors were made by the very first Gardener, how he cut down the trees and crafted the wood and put them up with the aid of the Queen and the dragons so only they knew the secret of how it worked." She smiled softly half turned away from me. "Yes I've heard the story many times, it was one of my favorites as a child. I had thought the Gardener seemed more befitting the Queen than her husband I recall..."


I chuckled softly at that, "Theirs was a marriage of politics, it was needed at the time and they loved each other...eventually."


"I really don't want eventually Manoban..." Her Highness murmured softly bowing her head.


I felt my laughter slip away as the reason for Jenae's absence from her own Tournament reached me, the voices of the plants fading, ever present but not as all-consuming as they'd been but a moment before. "Have faith Highness, your Prince...Princess or commoner will come...someone will come for you." I said unwilling to believe otherwise.


The Princess tipped her head in acknowledgement of my words catching sight of the bowel of water now pink with blood, the rag now permanently stained, the salve practically gone and the bandages some soiled, some fresh, still neatly rolled. Her Highness stepped into the light without hesitation coming to kneel beside me taking my hand in hers gently afraid to cause me more pain. "What happened? Who hurt you?"

I gazed into the fierce twilight inferno that had become her eyes and felt those saplings once more taking root in the pit of my stomach. "I can protect myself Highness," I grumbled gently but firmly pulling my hand away.

"Yes but you belong to the Queen and... I will one day be Queen." I think that was the first time she said those words with conviction.


I smiled softly as she took my hand back examining how I'd expertly salved the lacerations. "In essence you're saying that one day I'll belong to you?"