“Please don’t taste the flowers,” I say, with a little groan. “The last thing we need is for you guys to be pouring out from both ends.
Ashton grins. “You ever seen anything like this in your world?”
I shake my head. “The best we had were dandelion fields. You could walk for hours. But I've never seen color like this.”
Sylvian reaches out and plucks a flower from the edge of the field and turns it over in his fingers. “Not even the high gardens had these,” he says. “They must be maze-bred. Special.”
Cassius says, “There are stories about magical plants. Most of them are not good.”
Oberon eyes the flowers like he’s looking at a nest of vipers. “If anything so much as twitches, I want you behind me,” he says to me. “We’re not losing you to a daisy.”
I want to argue, but I don’t, because I don’t mind staying close to Oberon. Instead, I draw my dagger, just in case. The second I grip it, the blade shivers and lengthens, blue-white and cold as glass. It feels good to have it in my hand, even if it makes me look paranoid.
We step into the flowers, one after the other.
The air in the field is different. It smells like honey, like crushed grass, but there’s an undercurrent I can’t place—something almost like overripe fruit. It’s soft underfoot, like walking on a bed of moss, and the petals brush against my ankles, cool and light. As we move, the flowers close behind us, hiding the path. I try not to think about how the hedge is always waiting, always ready to swallow us if we look away.
Sylvian is the first to break the silence. “If we make it out of here, remind me to build a garden like this in the palace.”
“Maybe we should pick some, just in case they’re valuable?” Ashton suggests.
“We’re not stopping topick flowers,” Oberon says, glaring, mostly at Sylvian who has already been picking flowers.
I stop to look closer at a bloom the color of ink. The center of it pulses, just a little, but it doesn’t move when I touch it. The petals are soft, almost oily. I rub my fingers together, and the skin comes away tinged blue.
Ashton sees and grins. “Maybe they’re for painting?” He dabs one on Sylvian’s nose, leaving a bright streak.
Sylvian does the same to Ashton, but picks a yellow one. “There, now we’re camouflaged.”
Oberon mutters, “You’re idiots,” but even he looks less tense.
He keeps his eyes trained in front of him, but he glances back at me every few steps.
The further we go, the thicker the flowers get. At one point, they’re up to my waist. Oberon has to slice a path, but the stems give easily, no resistance. It’s like they want us to pass.
After an hour, the fear starts to fade. It’s too beautiful to be sinister, and none of us are dropping dead. Even Oberon relaxes, swinging his sword lazily as he carves a route. Sylvian invents a game, Spot the Weirdest Flower. The winner is a spiral-shaped bloom that’s iridescent green and, when poked, retracts into a perfect corkscrew.
They talk as we walk. Sylvian asks more about my gardening, and I’m gushing as I describe how much I love my garden before I even know what I’m doing. Strangely though, all of them seem to be hanging onto my every word. Every boring, pointless word.
Sylvian tells a story about a jester who caught his clothes on fire and ended up naked before the court. Ashton adds on to talk about the time two fae started having sex on a balcony and fell off, into a party, completely naked. They were more embarrassed than hurt.
For the first time in forever, I’m not scared. I’m not thinking about death or sacrifice or whether I’ll ever see home again. All I see is the color, the way the sun glances off Oberon’s hair, the way Sylvian whistles every time he finds a new species, the way Ashton keeps looking at me like he’s planning a prank.
Oberon halts us with a hand. “We’re about halfway across, so I think we should rest here,” he says. “If this is a trap, it’s going to be at the exit, so this is the best place to stop.”
I sit in the flowers, knees pulled up, and watch the others. Sylvian is braiding a chain of petals, trying to make a crown. Ashton is weaving a garland, but keeps botching it on purpose to make me laugh. Cassius just sits beside me, hands on his knees, breathing in the scent of the flowers.
Oberon paces, sword out, eyes fixed on the horizon.
I say, “You’re allowed to take a break, you know.”
He grunts, but doesn’t stop.
Sylvian comes over and puts the petal crown on my head. “For luck,” he says.
I want to roll my eyes, but instead I just say, “Thanks.”
For a long time, we just sit. It’s the safest I’ve felt since my father died. I think that maybe it’s okay to relax. Maybe it’s okay to enjoy these fae kings and our time together, even though one day it’ll end and I’ll be back to real life.
