Page 24 of Wicked Prince of Shadows
Fine.
If he thought this was going to break me, he had no idea who he’d taken. I’d worked in gardens that fought me harder than this…mostly because they were alive. Carving out beds for herbs and vegetables in a thick-rooted forest was far tougher, especially with all the risks that came from being in an actual forest with predators who could hide in the vegetation.
I sighed, dragging my hands across my face.
Entitled royal.
I tore a strip of cloth from my sleeve and used it to bind my thick hair off my neck and out of my face. Was there any chance this was a real test?
Probably not.
It was just busywork, a way to keep me occupied and pretend I had a real chance.
If he didn’t believe I was a commoner by now, he probably never would. And why would he? It sounded like the curse was lifted either way.
My death would mean nothing to him or anyone here.
A knot formed in my throat.
All right. Breathe.
I’d figured something out. I always did, and it never came about from feeling too sorry for myself unless I was working hard at the same time.
The watery sunlight beat down upon me, and I closed my eyes to collect myself. I could do this. I’d endured worse clearing rocks out of an amaranth plot with nothing but three buckets and two friends. We’d had to work hard and fast to prep in time for it to be planted. Otherwise, there’d have been no amaranth to barter or trade. Enola had offered to help pay off our debt, not understanding that we were responsible for most of the gold amaranth people loved so much. Not everything could be bought or freed with money. Sometimes the root cause had to be addressed first.
I walked to the nearest planter and knelt beside it, running my hands through the lifeless soil. It crumbled between my fingers like ash, leaving a gritty residue on my skin.
This soil needed life desperately, but there were seeds in here. I uncovered a few beneath the black vines. I had no idea what kind they were. Great. This would all just be a big test. Sighing, I buried them again.
Above me, the scrape of boots on stone made me glance up. Two guards stood at the highest tier, silhouettes against the harsh sky. One had a hand on his sheathed sword, the other folded his arms, but both were watching me intently. It looked like Six Stitches and Broken Nose.
Great. Babysitters.
"All right," I muttered to myself. If they wanted to watch, they could watch. I needed to at least cooperate for a time to get them to lower their guards while I figured out another better plan. "First things first."
If I was going to have any chance at all, I needed to understand what I was working with. I moved systematicallythrough the tiered garden, examining each planter, testing the soil, checking the withered stalks for any signs of life or seeds within the dirt. All had some. Most looked dead, though sometimes I felt a small flare of something as if it wanted to wake up.
Maybe dormant was more accurate than dead.
I wiped the sweat from my brow with the back of my hand and knelt beside another wide, crumbling planter with a large trellis that leaned out of the back. The air was still too quiet, the silence pressing against my skull like a vice. I shoved both hands into the loose ash of the soil and felt for even the faintest sign of root structure.
There was none. Just grit.
My fingers came up coated in dust, my skin stained grey. I fluttered my fingertips and murmured a few gentle words. “Alyu namu palo.” A simple life spell to test the life and health of seeds. In most plants, it would result in a small spurt or a green scent. Something sparked lightly within the soil, weak as a dying man’s whisper.
Nothing more.
But I kept trying.
The light overhead shifted, the watery sun dragging slowly across the sky like it too resented being here.
Hours passed. I lost track of them somewhere between hauling water from the crooked fountain and scraping grit from between the planter roots with my bare fingers.
I tried everything I could. Spoke my magic words and whispered spells. Dug down deep into the dry soil. Stirred what little I could salvage to loosen it. Mixed in a layer of moss and lichens scraped from the brittle tree trunks in case any of it held nutrients. And of course water. Lots of water from that awkward, uncomfortable fountain and well.
Nothing.
The seeds slept. The vines didn’t twitch. The skeletal branches didn’t even shift when I spoke healing words to them. It was as if I had no magic at all.
