Page 38 of A Rose Among Snakes (Gardens of Ruin and Revival)

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Kezara

“ C an I help?”

Enverro glanced at me in puzzlement. “Help with what? The garden?”

“Yes, the garden. I’m tired of sitting around, so I’d like to do something.”

His face pinched together. “Do you even know how to tend a garden?”

I shrugged and peered at him beneath my lashes. “You could teach me.”

Enverro faced the ground trying to cover his smile. When his blue eyes met mine again, there was still a hint of amusement shining in them. “Alright, but the second you act up you’ll be right back in this cell, and I will not give you another chance.” His tone lacked conviction, and while I planned to be on my best behavior, I wasn’t concerned about his empty threats.

“I promise I’ll behave.”

Enverro stared at me, looking like he was weighing the risks, but he unlocked my cell and bound me to the shackles. Outside once more, I needed a few minutes to adjust to the bright sun before he led me over to the garden where rows of vegetables decorated the ground. An iron stake was driven between the chains attached to my ankles, anchoring me in place.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit much?” I tried to look playful, but I was still squinting in the harsh light and Enverro snorted.

“No, because I don’t trust you.”

“You must trust me a bit, otherwise you would have never let me out,” I crooned, batting my lashes.

Enverro responded with a grunt and handed me a tool with a long handle and a flat, rectangular piece of metal attached to the end.

I wrinkled my nose. “What do you expect me to do with this?”

“It’s called a hoe. You pull it through the dirt with the flat end and cut down the weeds.” He mimed the actions.

“Ahh…” I said as I swung the tool over my head and brought it down on the stem of a carrot. I hunched my shoulders and snared my lip between my teeth.

“Careful,” Enverro said as he approached. He placed his hands over mine on the wooden handle, and standing behind, showed me how to move the tool through the dirt. “It shouldn’t take much force. The ground has been worked enough, so be gentle.”

“Like this?” Excitement zipped through my entire body, and I told myself it was the joy of being outside, not a reaction to the handsome man with his arms around me. His hands still rested on mine, but I was the one guiding the hoe.

With a nod of approval, Enverro backed up and cleared his throat, a hint of redness creeping up his neck. “That’s perfect.” He moved to the opposite end of the garden and began doing the same work.

“Enverro,” I said, raking through the soil, “Tell me about your family.”

“Why?”

“I’m just trying to make polite conversation.”

“Well, it’s not a very polite story.” I waited for him to continue, observing even at a distance the discomfort creasing the corners of his mouth. And just as I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, he said, “I grew up in Etheniar with my parents and younger brother. We lived on a small farm. When I was fourteen, we were all outside working on a hot day and I got sick from being out in the sun too long. My mother told me to go inside and lie down. I fell asleep and later woke to my father yelling over the sound of my mother’s sobs.

“By the time I got outside, it was silent. A man was standing over my mother with an axe. She was dead, and I saw both my father and brother’s bodies lying on the ground as well.

“I attacked him and while we fought he kept muttering, ‘Need more Zif.’ That told me everything I needed to know about him.”

My heart pounded in time with his strikes against the dirt. “What happened then?”

“I killed him.” His voice was steady, no hint of either pleasure or remorse.

I froze, my eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He looked up and noticed my horrified expression .

“You asked,” he said.

Collecting myself, I said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It happened a long time ago. It is what it is,” he replied, indifferently.

I went back to work. “How long ago?”

“Ten years.”

“How did you end up working for the king?”

Enverro narrowed his eyes, seeming to be wary of my rapid-fire questions, but he said, “He caught me stealing from him, and if I agreed to help him with a problem he wouldn’t throw me in the dungeon.”

“What-” I began, but Enverro interrupted.

“What was the problem? I know, I guess I should just keep going with the full story, but I don’t want to scare you again.” I threw him an eye roll, but he ignored me. “The king had a man in the dungeon he needed to have moved somewhere else, and he wanted me to keep an eye on him.”

“Actually, I was going to ask what you stole from him, but now I want to know why the king chose you? ”

Enverro’s answering smile was smug. “After I buried my family, I left Etheniar. I had no plans, I just needed to get out. I spent a year making my way through Terrune, and I ran out of money since I didn’t know where I wanted to settle yet. Eventually, I had to steal food from vendors to feed myself and I got good at it. I tested my skills by stealing more valuable items and selling them to traders .

“I got braver and braver and decided I wanted to sneak into the castle during a festival and try stealing the queen’s tiara. I was so close to escaping with it—I’d made it to the front lawn before being spotted by a guard. They closed the gate and caught me, but not without me taking down seven men first. The king came out and said he was impressed by my skills and wanted to put them to better use.”

“He entrusted a fifteen year old boy?”

Enverro squared his shoulders. “I was tall. People always assumed I was older.”

“Hmm…” was all I could come up with as I took in his height, feeling my pulse jump as our eyes met across the field.

No matter how badly I wanted to deny it, I was enthralled by the man’s life. That was exactly the kind of adventure and excitement I craved but felt like I would never be allowed to experience, especially as a woman of status. Under different circumstances, I would have thrown myself at him, hoping to get a taste of that danger and passion—and to ruffle Velian’s feathers.

Disturbed by my thoughts, I slipped back into a combative headspace. “That is quite the tale. Is it all true?”

He arched his brow. “What do I have to gain by lying to you?”

“I’m not sure, but it seems too astonishing to be real.”

Enverro bristled and said, “Well, it is.”

A thread of guilt wove its way into my chest, so I offered, “Alright, my turn.”

“For what?”

“To tell you about my family.”

“Who said I wanted to hear your story? I make a point not to get to know my captives.”

I shook my hair out in what I knew used to be an alluring manner, but seeing as I hadn’t bathed in weeks, I wasn’t sure it had the same effect it did previously. “I’m going to tell you anyway.”

Enverro grunted as he worked to pull a rock out of the soil and I told him of my childhood being raised by a father who hated me after I caused my mother’s death, pushing through the tremor in my voice to deliver the story.

“Did he abuse you?” His words were sharp.

“No, not physically. He normally pretended I didn’t exist, but when he was drunk, he would berate me for things that weren’t my fault. I learned to stay out of his way, and Velian protected me as much as he could. I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have him, honestly.” The tremor took over as my throat closed and tears fell down my face.

“I’m sorry,” Enverro said. His eyes were soft and round, none of his usual derision present.

My knees wobbled and I fell to the ground. Enverro sprinted over, catching my head before I face-planted in the dirt.

“Kezara, what’s wrong?”

“I think I need some water,” I mumbled, my head spinning. Enverro unlocked the shackles around my ankles and scooped me up in his arms like I was nothing more than another basket of vegetables. Back inside, he laid me down on the cushions and went to fetch me a mug of water. He helped me sit up and held the mug to my lips, allowing me to take in tiny sips .

“I shouldn’t have let you go outside. You’re too weak, you don’t eat enough.”

“Whose fault is that?” I smirked at him above the rim of the mug.

Enverro scowled. “Actually, the king requests that I keep captives hungry—keep them weak.”

That hadn’t occurred to me. I had never assumed there was a strategy behind the meager portions, simply that there were limited resources.

“Honestly, I give you more than I’m supposed to,” he said.

“Why?”

He tilted his head to the side and held my gaze. “I’m not a monster. Sometimes I feel like I’m a prisoner just as much as you are.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can’t say no or refuse the king. If I do, he’ll kill me.”

I nodded slowly, understanding. He was trapped, too. My heart ached for him; a young boy who had buried his family and was left to fend for himself, caught in a web of politics and intimidation, just as I was. My pulse was thrumming in my throat, and despite all logic, I felt sorry for him. It was more than sympathy though, and before it went any further I had to know the answer to something that had been bothering me for weeks.

“Can I ask you another question?”

“Perhaps,” he said, a corner of his mouth pulling tight.

“When I first got here, you said you don’t deal with dead bodies… was that because of your family? ”

He sat with his back to the bars of the cell, staring at the wall behind my head. “It was the first job the king had for me. I brought a man back here. I don’t know what he was guilty of, but it had something to do with double-crossing the king. I kept him here for a couple of days when the king suddenly showed up. He walked right in and stabbed him. He then made me load the body up into a wheelbarrow and dump him into a ravine.” He bit his lip, his gaze unfocused.

“It reminded me too much of my family’s deaths, and I told the king I didn’t want any part of that. He agreed to it, but that’s also when he told me to take a lesson from the man because he would do the same to me if I ever turned my back on him.”

I shook my head in disbelief. Even seeing the cruelty first-hand, it was still hard to reconcile that man with the beloved King of Terrune. Swallowing, I asked, “Are you going to stay a prisoner forever?”

Enverro’s eyes cut over to me. “What choice do I have?”

“We all have a choice, Enverro.”

And I choose to fight.