Frantic fists pound the chamber door, cutting Mother off.
“Your Majesties!” Jareth’s voice sounds wild and unraveling.
“Are we not allowed a single moment to bid our daughter farewell?” Mother shouts over her shoulder. “Dismiss your valet,” she says to Father, who obediently shuffles over to the door and opens it a crack.
“Please, Jareth. Surely you can manage things for a few minutes?”
“The people have set fire to the fields!” Jareth interjects.
It feels like all the air has been sucked from the room. Jareth must be mistaken. The people would never…
“Please, your Majesties!” Jareth begs again. “Tashir is burning. You must come at once.”
Mother and Father exchange a tense glance. We’ve been so consumed with our own outrage and grief, we didn’t think of the people.Our people, who are bereft about Rowenna and terrified of the Vanzadorians’ threats. They’re panicking, and who can blame them? The soil of the life they’ve always known is washing away beneath their feet.
Mother takes my hand in a crushing grip and leads me through the door. Father drops his chin and follows.
“It’s madness! I don’t know what’s come over them,” Jareth sputters the moment we join him in the hall.
“I do.” Mother mutters darkly. “A trapped weasel will do anything to escape the gardener’s trowel—even if it means gnawing off its own foot. Our people would rather watch Tashir burn than allow the Vanzadorians to take it.”
Six
The moment we open the door, oven-like heat slaps us across the face.I raise my arms, but it does little to block the snapping yellow flames and plumes of purple smoke devouring our precious crops.
“Not even the Marauders destroyed so much,” Father cries as he doubles over, coughing.
The smoke is as thick as a wool blanket, and I sputter and gag as it stings my eyes and clogs my throat.
When growing in the ground, and even after it’s been cut and dried, bagrava flowers and fruit produce a scent similar to a lily, only more potent. When heated in any way, however—be it burned, boiled, or smoked—it reeks of charred flesh. It’s a smell you can never forget—Earth Mother’s natural attempt to ensure we feed the fruit to the land, not our bellies—and one foul whiff makes my stomach heave the way it did three years ago. The last time the Marauders raided Tashir.
I can still see the robbers hauling barrows full of bagrava from the storehouse and setting them ablaze. My ears still ring with ululating cries as they danced in the smoke, reveling in an immediate fix before carrying the rest of the crop back to the Tomb Flats.
Ingesting the raw fruit produces the strongest, longest-lasting high, but inhaling the purple smoke is the quickest means of delivery. And it was more than enough to turn the robbers into manic, snarling brutes who lashed out at anything that came between them and their prize.
If we’re not careful now, the smoke will poison us too. Render us wild, erratic, and useless.
I stuff my nose inside my tunic and motion for the others to do the same.
“This will be the end of Tashir, the end of everything,” Father wails through the fabric.
“Only if we do nothing,” Mother snaps. She looks like she wants to strangle him, but she turns her attention to Jareth. “Redirect the irrigation pumps to flood the burning fields. Indira will try to stabilize the bagrava.” She looks to me, and I nod. “Salvage everything you can, and alert the other master gardeners to do the same. The king and I”—Mother casts another irritated glance at Father—“will attempt to quell the people.”
We all nod, even though quelling this madness feels as impossible as raising Rowenna from the dead.
For a terrible moment, we stand there, staring into the rippling blaze. It’s like something out of a nightmare. Dark, streaking shadows and waving torches. Terrified screams and roaring flames. Our kind, hardworking people are hurling shovels and pitchforks, destroying their own land and homes.
For you, Rowenna murmurs for the second time today.To keep you from going to Vanzador. See how they adore you?
My heart wrenches painfully, and I shake my head. As much as I’ve always secretly craved the devotion our people had to Ro, I know none of this is for me. The same way Father’s outburst wasn’t for me. Real love inspires people to be kinder and braver, to stand taller and work harder. This is explosive. Desperate. They don’t loveme. They simply can’t bear the thought of losing anything more. Like a feral dogdefending its last shard of bone.
I glance over at Mother and Father—at the exhaustion etched in their wrinkles and the fear in their grim expressions. They look every bit as broken and petrified as I feel, and it makes me want to reach out to them.
“Be careful—” I start to say.
I love you.
That’s what I wish I could say. What I wishtheywould say tome. But after divulging my secrets to Soren and allowing him to take me, it would be nothing but a blatant lie.
