Page 115 of A Reign of Roses
No. No—
Three things, Arwen.
That voice in my head. My own this time. Urging myself to unclench my hands and slow my rapid breathing.
What was two? Two marble pots, both overrun with stinging nettles. I knew from myEvendell Florabook that despite the sting, that nettle could be brewed to make the sweetest summer tea. I conjured my mother, and her patience as it brewed while I waited on tippy toes for my cup.
“What ailment has you so deeply discomposed?” Ethera’s voice chimed. I knew only from the singsong tone as my vision continued to tunnel.
No words formed.
Three, three…In the heart of the greenhouse was a low tiled pool half-filled with fetid water, now sage green with algae. At its center a copper fountain of a woman with a scaled tail, long since oxidized and now matching the water’s teal hue. I tried to imagine myself becoming very small, walking through the bars of this cage, and taking a mossy dip.
By the time Ethera bent over before me, beautiful head cocked, I was actually breathing. My heart rate had slowed.
The queen was bundled in a deep vermillion fur and matching hat that looked like feather grass, with two hulking guards behind her. She frowned, drawing her hands up to her face. “Dear, are you all right? This whole endeavor has given me the collywobbles.”
Her eclectic capriciousness had surpassed grating. I glowered at her, still catching my breath. “Pity.”
She sank to her knees. “I must ask you a question, darling, and I require your utmost truthfulness.”
“Why would I give you anything you ask for?”
“I do not wish to execute you,” she said, nodding to one of her guards who knelt as well, brandishing a serrated hunting knife andsending a vicious chill down my spine. “But I haven’t the luxury of sparing you unless you do indeed answer me.”
I swallowed hard, eyes still on that jagged blade.
Ethera’s beautiful brows rose. “Have you and the king yet borne a child?”
My shock, confusion, or both must have been written clear across my face, because the queen sighed as if my expression alone served as her answer. “How truly fortuitous.”
I sighed as well. “It is? Well, we haven’t, I swear.”
Ethera nodded. “Yes, darling, for me, very fortuitous indeed. Delightful, really. For you, not quite as splendid, I’m afraid.”
Before I could shriek, Ethera’s guard wrapped a calloused hand around my blouse and yanked me into the bars of the cage. He drew his dagger back and moved to drive it through the slats and into my chest.
“Wait!” I wailed, scrambling my aching limbs backward and going nowhere. “Wait—”
I needed to buy time. I needed— “Please, I just have one question!”
The guard hesitated, and Ethera’s painfully stunning head cocked to him, gleaming hair spilling across her shoulder.
“Why?” I breathed, making use of his moment of indecision. “If you’re going to kill me, at least tell me that. Why would my life have been spared if I’d had a child?”
“Well, there would be nothing I could do about it then, would there?”
My mind reeled faster than my lips could keep up. “You are killing me to…ensure that Idon’thave a child with Kane?”
Ethera grinned again, those teal eyes surrounded by the expansive bright whites of her eyes. She clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, very good!”
Why in the world—
She was a mad,madwoman. Out of her mind.
I needed to stall her. To distract her until some kind of help arrived. Or I came up with something more clever.
And I didn’t know, even as I said, “But I have something you need…” if this might work. If she would even allow me to utter the words.
