Page 16 of Grave Flowers

Dawn came but I slept in late, exhausted.

Sindony tried to rouse me a few times, but I waved her off.

Finally, I woke up on my own but remained in bed.

Last night hung over me. My skull pounded, even though I hadn’t hit my head, and nausea hung in my throat. Dully, I glanced down at my hand, looking at it as though it were a vase or book, an object not mine. My scar was almost translucent in the daylight trickling in despite the drapes. I turned my head away.

Brightness fell across my face.

Sindony and the other girls gathered at the window.

They whispered together and tried to peek around the drape without allowing in more light to disturb me.

They were tremendously unsuccessful. Their whispers were much too loud, and the curtain lifted and fell and lifted and fell again, making the light flash.

“Girls!”

I had to merely say the word and they jumped back from the window as one.

The curtain mercifully descended against the window, narrowing the bright light to a thin strip.

“Apologies, Your Highness!”

Sindony exclaimed.

She clamped her hands over her mouth, remembering I’d asked for quiet.

“Apologies, Your Highness,”

she repeated, this time in an exaggerated whisper.

“But Prince Aeric is in the garden, and so is everyone else.”

My heart plummeted as though it’d been cut loose from my rib cage.

Terror coursed through me.

Had the starvelings failed to adequately bury Luthien? These had never eaten a corpse before.

Maybe they’d been unsuccessful. I hurried out of bed.

“A dress.

Any dress. Quickly!”

I ordered.

Sindony came forward, Inessa’s red dress draped across her arms in a bright stream.

“Not that one.”

I rushed down to the garden.

A cluster of people gathered by the starvelings.

I could see the back of Aeric’s head.

Botanists with shovels and wheelbarrows moved back and forth from the flower bed. Annia fluttered about, wringing her hands in distress.

Cutting across the grass, I walked with my head held high, even as panic gripped me.

People saw me and stepped aside, bowing and curtsying and suppressing sneezes from the grave flower pollen as I passed.

Aeric turned around at the commotion.

He walked to me with fast steps. I stopped, certain he was going to point at me and bellow for the guards. But when he reached me, he didn’t shout, Arrest her. Instead, his arm slipped around my waist, and his other hand curved around my neck. Shock and confusion made me freeze. His lips brushed against the side of my face.

Vaguely, I felt his stubble sweep across my cheek, and he said.

“Good morn, Princess.”

I didn’t understand.

He wasn’t ordering me to be arrested.

He was … being romantic? Don’t touch him or let him touch you.

Inessa’s words blazed through my bewildered mind. I jerked back from his arms and the warmth of his lips. Glancing around, I tried to make sense of what was happening.

That’s when I saw them.

Lost souls, beauties, enmities, dragonslips, moonmirrors—all of them.

I recognized their wilted leaves and drooping blooms—and their unconventional vessels: boots, two coffins, and a chamber pot.

They were from the stall at the Oscura.

Every single one I’d seen there was now here.

Why? Did Aeric purchase them so he might use them against me?

“Not a morning soul, are you?”

Aeric asked.

I stared uncomprehendingly at him.

My scared thoughts were turned so inward that I hardly heard him.

He kept going.

“I admit, I’m not either.

In the monasterium, I was woken at the third morning hour long before the sun and at the fourth morning hour on high feast days.

Didn’t much suit me.

I’ve been sleeping past the midday ever since leaving.”

“Pardon?”

“Slumber habits, Princess.”

He sneezed.

“I’m merely speaking of slumber habits.

Is something wrong? You seem flummoxed.”

“I—I’m wondering why the grave flowers are here,”

I said.

“Are you trying to possess Radix’s gifting? When you already possess the sun and, as it seems, the wine?”

Annia poked one of the dragonslips and gasped in horror when it emitted a small puff of smoke.

I angled away from her, feeling hedged in by her and Aeric.

“You misunderstand,”

Aeric said.

He spoke softly, as though only for me.

“They are for you.”

“For me?”

“A secondary wedding gift, Princess.”

He was usually so confident, but for once, he watched me closely, a mix of hope and nervousness in his eyes.

But that wasn’t right.

He didn’t really care about impressing me.

It was an act.

“Certainly, I do think you’ll enjoy the play very much.

But theatrics last only as long they are performed.

Plays die on stage the second the curtain closes.

I wish to give you something more lasting in addition. Something that is yours alone.”

Something for me alone.

If it had been sincere, it would’ve been quite the gesture.

Wedding gifts were given to families and kingdoms, so it was a statement to give one gift to the bride herself.

But nothing was truly mine alone, this included. Aeric and I had our own objectives, and we were inseparable from them. Our actions were like a goblet of water, while our aims were ink, spreading through it until the water took its color. My betrothed was trying to get under my guard at best and, at worst, find a way to use the grave flowers to his advantage. In their weakened state, the grave flowers would be easier to utilize.

“I beg your pardon, Prince Aeric.”

Annia spoke, still distressed and sniffling.

“These flowers are quite … unique.”

She had the wherewithal not to insult me directly.

I looked from her to Aeric, trying to detect any alliance between them.

If there was one, they hid it well, a fact that made me feel even more precarious.

“I’m worried about what they’ll do to the others.

Our flowers are so beautiful.

It takes the perfect balance of care to keep them that way.

Introducing these—ahem—more intense flowers will corrupt their habitat.”

“Do not worry, Annia,”

I quickly interjected.

“I will take charge of them.

Before you know it, they will return to health and be strong enough to slay a man with ease.”

I spoke more to Aeric than Annia, smiling as I mentioned their lethality.

“But do beware.

They are teeming with poisons and powers, and I must admit … I don’t think they are fond of Acus.”

“Perhaps time will change their minds,”

Aeric said, gazing intently at me.

His excited nervousness was gone, and he regarded me somberly.

He cleared his throat.

“I must go now.

Rehearsal, of course.

The second act is in shambles.”

Neither of us said anything, yet he lingered.

Suddenly, he held out his hand to graciously take my leave.

I stared at it.

Etiquette dictated that I take it, but I didn’t wish to. Touching him would remind me of last night, of how he’d gripped me so tightly, so desperately—of how real it had all felt. Sensing my reluctance, he dropped his hand.

“I hope you enjoy your gift, Princess.”

Without waiting for a response, he departed.

He ambled easily away, but his fingers were stiff down by his side.

Right before he rounded the corner out of sight, his hand curled into a fist.

I turned back to the grave flowers.

“Get salt water,”

I said to Annia.

“Lots of it.”

“Salt water?”

Annia asked, staring at me as though I’d told her to fetch a nest of wasps.

“They require it.

Get some from the ocean if you must.”

It was a relief to know that, at least for today, I could be in the garden without her.

“Lots of it.”

“That will take my entire workforce,”

Annia protested.

She wiped her nose on her sleeve.

“We are already shorthanded.

Our handyman, I mean botanist—the one without the dazzle—didn’t show up for work.

I think he might’ve left the job altogether, though it’s a relief because I won’t have to hamper his aspirations anymore.

But I was planning hiring someone else today.”

“The hiring will have to wait.”

It took everything in me not to look from Annia to the starvelings, where Luthien was buried.

I’d gotten lucky.

Annia thought he’d simply quit, and I doubted anyone else would care that he was gone.

“Go now.

The grave flowers need it.”

Annia and the other botanists left.

I knelt among the vessels on the grass.

The grave flowers had been even more neglected than I first realized.

They were so weak that they simply listed about, as though they might collapse at any moment. Even when I got dangerously close to the lost souls and whispered outrageous compliments to the beauties, there was no response.

“Don’t worry,”

I said to them, my heart aching at their condition.

“I’ll make sure you get better, and you’ll be terrorizing me and everyone else in no time.”

A long, lanky shadow fell across me.

Yorick.

He was dressed as elegantly as ever, still in black with his gloves.

His eyes were rimmed in black powder too, but it wasn’t quite enough to hide how tired they were.

“Good morrow,”

I said, wiping sweat from my brow with the back of my hand.

“How are you?”

“Surprised to see you here, Your Highness,”

he said.

“But then, I probably shouldn’t be here either.

I don’t think we’re supposed to go back to where we”—he dropped to one knee so he was near to me as he mouthed the word murdered—“someone only last night.”

“Well, I have a reason.”

I motioned to the grave flowers.

“A gift from my betrothed.”

“Oh, to be so grandly spoiled.”

Yorick pretended to pout.

“He must truly adore you to bring these sneeze-inducing creatures here.

Hopefully you don’t mind if I stand upwind? Red noses don’t become me.”

“Not at all,”

I said, amused for a moment before returning to the perplexities before me.

“Come sit with me.”

Yorick lowered himself from his knee to settle on the grass next to me, sprawling comfortably.

“I confess, the gift did surprise me.

I have a question.

Since you live in the theater, have you seen Aeric’s rehearsals?”

“To my regret, yes.”

“Regret?”

“I don’t wish to diminish your image of your beloved, but he’s a terrible playmaker.”

Yorick held his breath as he spoke so he might not be afflicted by the grave flower pollen.

“A good play, in my humble opinion, has a theme driven by the plot.

Neither theme nor plot is present.

On top of it all, it’s long and nothing happens.

A practical eternity!”

“Oh? And it’s about the Primeval Family, correct?”

“Indeed, though I imagine they watch in horror from above.”

“Thank you,”

I said, but I was even more confused.

Aeric put so much emphasis on his play, making me wonder if there was more to it.

Yet, so far, it was exactly what he presented it to be: an amateur’s attempt at a mythical retelling.

“My pleasure.”

Yorick smiled.

“I’m glad to be of help in some way.

I must admit that this morning, I had a bit of a crisis.

I’m not so certain I’m good at anything.

I was a terrible jester, and let’s be honest, you hardly needed me at all last night.”

“You’re good at being a friend,”

I said, and I meant it.

“You didn’t hesitate at all to come help when Luthien was trying to kill me.”

“Well, you made quick work of him, that’s for certain.”

“It was all thanks to them.”

I glanced over at the starvelings.

The dirt around them heaved as the roots twisted subtly about beneath the soil.

I watched the dirt creep along.

Then I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. The garden took the shape of Luthien to me, bringing him back to life. The breeze drifting through it in intervals was like his breath, and the rise and fall of the dirt was like his chest. Every blossom facing me made me think of his eyes, watching from their petaled centers. Only none of this was right. He was dead and would never move again.

“Don’t think about it.”

I looked at Yorick. “What?”

“He tried to kill you.

You had no choice.”

“Do you think so?”

I couldn’t keep the tremor out of my voice.

All my life, I’d felt as though actions were impulses, nothing more.

Nothing less.

It was why I didn’t resent Father or anyone else for their dark deeds.

But if I didn’t resent them, why did I loathe myself so much?

“I know so.”

He took both my hands.

It was tremendously improper for a jester to touch a princess, but it was what I needed.

He held them gently, his gloves soft against my palms.

“You did nothing wrong.”

I squeezed Yorick’s hands and then shifted so we were side by side.

Gently, I rested my head against his shoulder, and he put his arm around me.

We sat in silence, one fraught with our own hurts.

New heaviness weighed on me. I glanced over at the starvelings again. Fresh guilt stung me.

Deep within the dirt was Yorick’s jester pin.

Though no one might ever find it, I’d betrayed the only friend I’d ever had to protect myself.

For the first time, I believed it.

I knew it.

There truly was good and evil, wrong and right.

It stitched the world together, and we could choose which threads to follow.

And I’d chosen the wrong one.

I spent the rest of the day working in the garden.

Annia and the other botanists returned with salt water, and they helped me transplant the grave flowers into an empty bed from their undignified vessels.

They were in terrible health, but we still wore thick gloves and beekeeping clothing for protection.

As I worked, I found some manner of peace.

Soil sifted through my fingers and dusted my hands in pearly granules.

Familiar, faint scents from my grave flowers wafted along with the breeze.

Papery petals, supple stems, and fibrous roots brushed my skin. In the short time since I’d been away from my garden of grave flowers, I’d forgotten the finer points of their details. How the lost souls turned their petals from red to black so quickly and how the beauties perked up at even the silliest of compliments. It made me miss my grave flowers back home terribly.

The peace didn’t last long.

It wore thin as the sun moved through the sky, reminding me that I was running out of time.

The wedding was in less than a week.

It seemed likely Aeric was Inessa’s killer. I couldn’t ignore the evidence, but couldn’t there be other possibilities? What if Luthien hadn’t worked alone and there were more Radixans at court? I also wondered if an Acusan might be my enemy. And I still hadn’t gotten into Inessa’s rooms. Maybe there were clues there pointing to something else altogether.

I let out a heavy sigh.

It was wise to pursue the options, wasn’t it? One of them might be right.

Still, shame needled me deep inside.

I didn’t truly believe Aeric was innocent, yet I couldn’t stop myself from hoping he was.