Page 10 of The Curse of a Kingdom
A chill ran down her spine as she hugged her arms closer to her body, eyeing the walls of flowers. The pit in her stomach grew.
“Do you even know where we are going?” she asked between clenched teeth.
He tilted his face, leveling her with a glare. “I have never been here in person. Since you talk to nature, apparently, why don’t you tell us where to go before the guards are upon us?”
She reeled back, aghast. “What do you mean, you don’t know where we are?” She pointed to the wall of creepy flowers in front of them. “This is not normal. This is magic— Someone’s tracking us.”
Being in tune with nature had its perks.
His lips tightened. “We need to get out of this garden.”
“You said you’ve been here before.”
“No,youdid. I just didn’t correct you.” Listening to his unaffected tone, she would’ve thought nothing was worrying him. What gave him away were his tense shoulders and traveling gaze. He continued down the path they were walking. The sun of the afternoon highlighted his profile. A straight nose, with proud, pale lips and large black eyes.
“Wait, wait. You didn’t come to this kingdom with Arkimedes?”
“We have no time to get into semantics.”
“Oh, no. We do.” She quickened her steps, trailing him. “That changes things.”
“Does it? You told me once here, you’ll figure out a way to save him. I brought you here. So far, I’m holding my end of the bargain.” He paused, and his gaze tracked down her face. “Now, you aren’t dying. You’re welcome.”
She huffed her annoyance but chose not to dwell on his words. “Where are we, either way?”
He eyed the castle looming in the background with apprehension. “Looks like the castle’s garden.”
Her mouth dropped. “T—The castle, what?” She groaned as she looked at the marble statues between the bushes. It was carved into the likeness of someone beautiful. Were their eyes chasing them as well or was she going crazy?
This kept getting creepier by the minute.
“Why did you bring us to a castle? We just needed to land near Arkimedes, in a safe place to come up with the next move.”
“It’s not like I had a lot of time to set up coordinates,” he snapped, not pausing in his strides. “You were the one showing up to my cell, making demands and forging life debts.”
“Believe me, you were the last person I wanted to ask for any help at all.”
Devon stopped, turning to face her, and she almost ran into him. Reeling back, Nava tried to keep her distance. “Let’s call it what it is, shall we? You forced me here, and now that your pathetic plan is backfiring, you need to put the blame on someone else.”
Nava’s mouth hung open. And she wanted to tell him to go to hell, except maybe his words had hit some deep guilt brewing inside her.
“Probably have never had to work with a team before, have you, kitten?” He continued walking after her lack of a response.
She cursed that this man’s sharp tongue could get under her skin so fast. “I thought all of you Crows are supposed to be all-powerful,” she breathed as she caught up with him. “To a truly remarkable, trained sorcerer, a portal would’ve been a nuance. Especially since I was the one paying the price.”
“I hope they took something that pains you.” His tone dripped with venom, and her heart contracted at the emptiness within herself.
“At least I had something to lose. You probably only have yourself—since you even lost your brother.”
Devon reeled back, his expression shifting rapidly with fast blinking and paling skin. He pressed his lips together before his hand brushed away strands of greasy hair that had fallen over his face.
She could’ve felt the ugly grasp of guilt clutching at her, but she wouldn’t allow it. Not when Devon had done all he had the year before. Nava cleared her throat. “You said the guards are coming?”
"You know what I said, you just like to hear yourself talk."
They took a sharp corner to what felt like a maze. It was hard to see where to go when the hedges were so dense, and the sweet scent of the blooms nauseated her. She might be in the only garden in the world she didn’t like.
Something was very wrong with these flowers.
