Page 33 of Untamed

I strolled in silence back to the palace.

When we made it within the front gate, I stopped outside the entrance where stakes lined the cobblestone walkway. No one had hung on the posts since Prince Lux had been flung onto one. “Juancho hasn’t killed someone like I have.”

“You were untrained, like Juancho.” Uncle Uly squared up to me. “One day, Juancho will be able to hold his invisibility all day without a glitch, just like you will one day turn the hearts of kingdoms.”

“Do I want that ability? It seems intrusive and selfish to manipulate people to favor me. The Ancient One knows that I’m a terrible person.” I hugged myself and heard the echoes of Cosme’s harsh words:You know how Beatriz is.

“It’s needed. Your gift could be a curse if you misuse it, or it could be a gift all of Giddel needs.” Uncle Uly extended his arm for me to cling onto. “It’s going to rain soon.”

I wrapped my arm around his, and we crossed into the front entrance. The moment we entered, rain poured from the skies.

“Do you trust my judgment?” Uncle Uly asked me.

A splattering of raindrops confirmed his unique ability to understand life, and so did his reading of Juancho. I touched my sleeve with the letter from Zichri, knowing Uncle Uly’s training could help me in more than one way.

I inhaled a heaving breath. “I trust you.”

He patted my hand. “Then tomorrow you’ll learn to control how you read emotions.”

Dread coiled in my belly, but I’d give Uncle Uly a chance to prove me wrong.

Chapter 14

Laude

“Have you told Beatrizabout your upcoming nuptials with Jaime?” Queen Cottia asked.

“No, I haven’t.” My curls sprang into a frizzy halo around the edges of my vision when I shook my head. I tried to wrestle them back with no success.

The sun beat down over the garden with the type of heat that instantly produced rivers of sweat. Thank the Ancient One that Queen Cottia and I didn’t have an audience to smell the aroma drifting off my body, not hers—I couldn’t smell anything from her but the flowers she handed me to put in the basket I carried.

“Laude, why don’t we go to my special garden?” Queen Cottia cut several roses and laid them in my basket. The last few days I’d spent with Queen Cottia while Beatriz took lessons had beenfull of pruning plants and plucking weeds. This was new. No one entered Queen Cottia’s personal grounds, and I mean no one.

“Yes, of course, I’ve always wanted to go into your garden and have thought about sneaking in several times but…” I swallowed the rest of my words at the raise of the queen’s eyebrows. “But yes, I’d love to accompany you.”

Queen Cottia straightened her back into her royal posture and pursed her lips. “Follow me.”

We left the rainbow of colorful flowers—so pleasing to the eye and my favorite part of the estate—as I trailed her along the snaking path into a small section with a stone barrier and metal spikes at the top of the wall. The queen slipped a key out of her gardening apron and fitted it into the lock. The metal gate opened with a squeak which elicited my own tiny squeal. All I could see from this angle was a wall of leaves just beyond the gate and more plant beds lining the walls.

“Now, Laude.” She propped open the gate with her body and gestured for me to enter. “I need you to understand that this—”

I skipped onto the stone path, ready to see if all my guesses proved correct. Did she hide a statue of a past love or have man-eating plants inside?

The queen shut the gate behind me and twisted the key, locking us inside. “Like I was saying, this has much to do withourpasts.”

“What do you mean?” My feet stumbled over a stone while my gaze still searched for something, anything that looked suspicious, but everything inside this stone prison was merely an uglier version of outside the gate. There were a few dull flowers that could pass as weeds.

“I know you and Cosme have gotten close these few months and that my son keeps several secrets from his papá and me, but I am no fool.”

Disappointment sunk into my belly, like a kid opening a candy jar only to find dust. I bit my bottom lip.

Queen Cottia put her hand on my shoulder, drawing my attention to her. “You don’t need to tell me how Jaime arrives each month or any of Cosme’s many methods of obtaining information.” She rolled up her sleeves even more. “But trust me when I say that I care about you and will miss you. I also believe Beatriz would like the opportunity to enjoy your last month here before your wedding.”

Tears built along my lash line, partly because Queen Cottia was right, I should tell Beatriz about my coming nuptials. “It’s not just about saying goodbye.”

“Please do explain.”

My gaze shot to the powder-blue sky, the dark-gray wall, and a strange plant with berries I’d never seen before. Giddel would soon no longer be my home, and yet it had always held my history, one I didn’t know. Maybe asking her the one thing I’d wondered all these years would prove a better revelation than this garden. “Why did you keep me?”

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