The Lost Garden: The Complete Series Page 2

Eris smiled and shook her head, brushing a strand of her coiled black hair away from her face. It never stayed pulled back as it should, leaving her looking constantly mussed. So different than the manageable golden hair her sisters had inherited from their mother.

  “A lesson is all, Nels.”

  “Each day is the same,” he remarked neutrally.

  She nodded. “It is the same lesson. But today will be different.” She smoothed her dress, the bright colors nothing that any of her sisters would ever choose. They preferred the subdued blues and yellows favored by their mother. Eris couldn’t stand the boring colors—probably why she enjoyed wandering the garden—and the seamstresses managed to find fabrics of much bolder colors for her.

  Nels sniffed. “Many young ladies are satisfied with lilacs or corinths.”

  Eris smiled and nodded. They were some of the first she had tried and the first Lira told her would not work. “I’ve been told lilacs do not suit me. Not bold enough.”

  Nels almost smiled. “And corinths?”

  “Too pale.”

  “So what does the mistress think you should find?”

  The questioning surprised Eris. Nels rarely spoke this much to her. Usually he simply watched her, standing along the paths while pretending to ignore her. Eris learned he would follow wherever she wandered as long as she remained in his garden, never leaving her fully alone, as if he tended to her as he tended the flowers.

  Eris shook her head. “She says I must find my own flower.”

  “And then?” the gardener asked.

  Eris shrugged. “Then I can continue with my lessons.”

  Nels harrumphed softly.

  “Until then, I search.”

  Nels looked out over his massive garden. Eris couldn’t remember a time when there weren’t flowers everywhere. Surely before Lira had first arrived in the palace—and she too young to remember, barely old enough to roam the halls without a handmaiden. With Lira’s arrival came the garden, a magnificent creation of color used to create her arrangements.

  “Currently there are two thousand and forty-one different species within this garden,” Nels went on.

  Eris knew the numbers were well into the thousands, though most were variations on similar strains. So far, she had tried over two hundred without success.

  “When the gardeners return from Baylan next week, I will have two thousand one hundred,” Nels continued.

  At the rate the gardeners collected flowers, she could spend years searching before she ever found the right flower. If she ever did. How many more months would Lira let her simply wander aimlessly? How much longer before she was deemed too slow to teach? And then what would she do?

  “It would help if you knew what you sought,” Nels suggested.

  Eris sighed as she nodded agreement. “I wish I did.”

  “Hmm,” Nels said, narrowing his eyes as he looked over the garden. He swept his hat from atop his head and cupped it over his eyes. “If color is what you seek, then there are some bright orange celias in a bed over there.” He turned. “Or, for something a bit more bold, my lady, I might suggest a brasy tolia? They have thick petals with many different, brightly colored flowers, some red, some blue, some pink…”

  Though Eris nodded, any he suggested would be unlikely to work. She’d tried following suggestions at first, asking others in the palace what she should try. Each flower suggested was beautiful in its own way, but Lira quickly rejected them. She seemed to know when Eris did not search on her own.

  As Nels seemed to consider the flowers in his garden, one of the assistant gardeners ran up to him. Younger, and with brown hair hanging long and tucked behind his ears. It slipped out as he ran. The assistant glanced at her a moment, his eyes lingering a half second longer than appropriate, before he looked back over to master Nels.

  “Master Nels,” he huffed as he approached. “There is word from Baylan, sir. There is a problem with the…”

  Nels’s face twisted and he started grumbling loudly. He shifted his hat, rolling it in dirt-stained fists, and pulled it back down atop his head so hard it strained the fabric.

  Eris didn’t stay to listen. Waving briefly to Nels, she slipped away. He didn’t even bother to look at her, which Eris found surprising, but she had no doubt he would follow. It was the same every day.

  She wandered down one of the cobbled paths and passed flowers of gold and red and orange. Some, like Jasi’s parisal, were striped, others speckled. She considered a dozen different flowers with thorns. The sharp thorns suited her irritation better than some of the softer leaved flowers, but nothing really called to her. So many seemed too similar to flowers she had brought back to Lira in the past. Eris continued on, ignoring the flowers in this part of the garden.

  Eventually, she reached a shadowed area. She couldn’t remember if she’d been here before. After this many months wandering, she no longer found many parts that surprised her, but at this point, everything looked much the same. It was hard to believe there might be a part of the garden she hadn’t visited.

  Here in the shadows of the wall was an area where the sun didn’t quite penetrate and struggled to reach beyond the tall walls surrounding the palace and its garden. The flowers were different. Some seemed subdued, their colors faded compared to the bright red or yellows she saw in the more sunny parts of the garden, but as she leaned in to look at them, she realized the colors were deeper, as if somehow thicker. The shapes of the leaves were different as well; some were nettled and thorny while others were velvety. Others were vines unlike anything she had seen before. The scents here were different, subtle and rich and tinted with a heavy earthen odor.

  This far in the garden, nearly complete solitude surrounded her. Other than her wandering, nothing moved. In most parts of the garden, bees buzzed around flowers or the occasional bird dipped toward the petals as it pulled up hidden nectar. Even Nels or one of his assistants, ever present, moved along the paths. Not here, though, not where the shadows grew.

  A few of the flowers seemed promising. One had two, large, blue-green petals, each with jagged edges and cupped like some devious mouth just waiting for a bite. Eris considered plucking one of those. If nothing else, she might scare Lira. Seeing her unsettled might be worth the time she had already spent in the garden. But as Eris reached for the spiny stem, the flower shuddered, as if twisting itself toward her. She jerked her hand away.

  Another flower had petals which bowed out before rolling back in, colors in vibrant shades of red or blue with a hint of bold green mixed in. The stem felt more like tree bark than part of a flower. Eris reached to pluck the flower until she realized only one such flower grew in this part of the garden. The idea of destroying the only flower of its kind bothered her, so she left it where it was and moved on.

  The air cooled as she moved deeper into the shade. Not just cooler, but damper as well, carrying more than just an earthy smell, like that of leaves piled up and rotting, so thick she nearly tasted it. The fragrances coming from the flowers changed; the more shadowed the garden became around her, the more she noticed a mix of bitter and spice, less of the sweetness that at times overpowered her in other parts of the garden.

  With a start, she realized she’d reached the palace wall. Had she really reached the end of the garden?

  The wall was different than she remembered. Now raised beds set into the side, wooden boxes set atop thick stone almost like stepping stones twisting toward the top. Eris had never really seen the flowers here—had only really reached the outer wall once during her searches, and then the garden had stopped nearly fifty paces shy. Either this was new or just a section she had never visited.

  Vines dangled over the sides of a few beds, thin creepers of green working down the wall coming off a thicker stem. Small buds grew on the nearest vine, barely different in color than the vines they flowered from. They smelled bitter, almost tangy, and reminded her of the ale her father’s men preferred. Near the top of the wall, a small, painted white bed worked
into the stone. Only a single strand of green hung over the edge.

  As she squinted at the vine, she realized it was not a single strand but many, all twirling about like a braided rope. Unlike the others, no flowers hung off the vine. Eris considered ignoring it, but something about the way it twisted drew her to take a closer look.

  Carefully she climbed onto one of the lower level beds, wondering if the narrow ledge would hold her weight. When satisfied it would, she jumped to the next ledge, then the next, careful at each one to step over the wooden box and mindful not to step into the still damp earth the vines sprung from.

  When almost to the top, she looked down and felt a moment of dizziness. A fall from where she stood could be dangerous. Worse than the broken arm her brother Jacen suffered after falling from his horse during a hunt three winters ago with their father, she could break her leg or neck falling from this height. Had Nels seen her, she suspected he would demand she come down. Thankfully, the gardener had stopped following her today.

  The small box holding the braided vine rested on the last ledge, nearest the top of the wall. The distance between it and where she stood was enough that she would have to jump. Even then, she wondered if she could make it in her dress; the widely flared gown would likely catch her feet and trip her when she jumped.

  Eris considered climbing back down. She could take one of the small flowers off the lower vine and bring it to Lira for her day’s attempt, but they weren’t right. The buds were too small, not decorative enough even for her. Besides, the bitter aroma was too simple for her flower.

  More than that, she felt curious.

  Bunching up her dress, rolling it up along her legs, she stood carefully. Had Nels followed her, he would have gotten a shock at this. Eris could only imagine the look of horror on her mother’s face if she learned how Eris stood atop the wall, dress rolled up exposing leg and thigh for any passing beneath. Very unladylike.

  Of course, maybe then her mother would decide her lessons with Lira could stop. Eris didn’t expect much out of them anyway. Only, that meant she’d lose her excuse for wandering the garden, and she wasn’t ready to give that up.

  Taking a deep breath, she jumped.

  And did not jump nearly far enough.

  In a panic, she scrabbled for grip along the ledge, nails painfully attempting to dig into the stone before she managed to grab the ledge tightly.

  With a heave, she pulled herself up, and stared at the painted white box. It was made of rough wood and nailed loosely together. She managed to crawl onto the ledge. She lay there for a moment, catching her breath, steadying breathing that came out in a pant.

  Pain bloomed in her hand, and she pulled it up to her face to see that she had scraped much of the flesh from one of her palms. Blood blossomed across her palm. Eris squeezed her hand shut to keep from bleeding on her dress. That, more than anything, would draw the ire of her mother.

  Now having reached the ledge, she looked over the top of the wooden box, curious what she would see. The braided vine started as many individual shoots, each stretching from the soil and growing toward the center. When they joined in the middle of the box, they twined together, twisting about each other. The vine coiled a few times in the box before hanging over the edge.

  Along the vine were seven flowers. Each petal was a different color, as if made from one of the different shoots, but all of the same shape. Petals grew long and narrow, overlapping just enough so they curved together and spiraled outward, almost like a reverse of the braided vine.

  Eris smiled. This would be the flower she chose today.

  She looked down, wondering how she would manage to reach the next ledge. From there, she thought she could manage, but the distance was more than she had gauged at first. She was stuck.

  What had she been thinking jumping to this ledge? Just to see a flower? From below, Eris had not even known there would be any flowers along the vine. Now atop the ledge, she was stranded.

  So she sat along the ledge, bare legs dangling. The cool air was a welcome sensation along her skin, stealing some of the heat the dress generated. As she looked out over the garden, the swirls of pattern to the colors were even more impressive from this vantage. Eris pushed the dress down as best she could, careful not to rub her bloodied hand on the fabric, and realized she had torn the dress as well.

  She sighed. Nothing to do but wait.

  She did not pluck one of the flowers, not yet. She would wait for Nels or one of his assistants to find her and help her down and deal with her mother’s irritation as best she could.

  Thankfully, she did not have to wait long before one of the gardeners found her. Had it been Nels, Eris did not know how she would be able to return to the garden and face him again. She could very well imagine the look on his face, stern and admonishing. Much like her mother. This gardener was younger and not schooled well enough to hide the smirk upon his face.

  “Don’t just smile at me,” she said. “Fetch me a ladder.”

  Eris couldn’t tell how old he was, only that his sandy brown hair hung down near his shoulders, covered only by a hat similar to the one Nels wore. He might even be the same gardener who had run up to Nels earlier, though from where she was perched she couldn’t be entirely certain. His gardener’s jacket, green and stained with dirt, appeared a size too small.

  “My lady?” he asked. His smile faltered.

  It would be just her luck to find a gardener with wits like Ferisa. “I can’t climb down,” she explained, choosing her words carefully as she was forced to do with her sister. “Please fetch whatever ladder you use to plant these beds.”

  His smiled returned, stretching wider. Much like Ferisa, at least he was pretty, his smile turning his otherwise plain face into something quite handsome. Once Eris made it down from the wall, she would have to make sure Ferisa and he met.

  For a moment she feared he would simply watch her sitting along the wall, but then he turned and strolled off down the garden, his wide back clearly visible. It would have been nice, she decided, had he hurried just a little.

  As she waited for his return, she could not help but look over toward the flower. The petals looked soft, almost silky, yet the flower grew from the sturdy single vine. One of Lira’s tasks would be preserving the flower. Without much of a stalk, she would have a difficult time keeping it watered. Something like that would wilt quickly.

  Perhaps she had made a mistake. As different as this flower was from the others she had selected over the past few months, at least she had some idea what those were and how to manage them. Likely as not, this flower would wilt before she even reached Lira.

  Eris stared at the flower, deciding it didn’t matter. For the first time in weeks, she had no idea what Lira would tell her about her choice.

  Chapter 3

  Eris saw Jasi first.

  Jasi stood in the hall just inside the palace. Dressed differently than earlier during their first encounter, in a long light red dress with pleats the only decoration, her golden hair pulled tight in a twisted bun atop her head. Jasi stood as if trying to mimic Lira but it only came off as mockery.

  “What were you doing?” Eris asked.

  Jasi came from the main wing of the palace. Eris frowned. That meant she’d been visiting her father.

  Jasi tilted her head, looking as if she debated answering. “I was—” She cut off as she shook her head. “Never mind. You’ll know soon enough.”

  Eris almost said something about the conversation she’d heard, but held her tongue. Doing so would only bring more questions. After what had happened with her in the garden, she had no interest in asking more questions.

  Jasi shook her head and waved her hand. “I hate to ask…but was it another wasted day?”

  Eris hid the surge of frustration she felt, careful to keep her hand clenched. Had Jasi seen her torn up palm, she would run to their mother to report. She glanced down at her dress, worried about the tear from the jump, but it wasn’t visible.

/>   “Not entirely. I got to see you twice.” She held Jasi’s blue eyes for a moment before looking away and glancing at the line of tapestries hanging from the marble walls. None really captured her eye, and she turned back to Jasi with a disinterested gaze.

  The comment set Jasi off. “You think this to be some kind of joke, but you are already so far behind. And you stopped your other lessons. I think even Mother knows you haven’t been working with the seamstresses.” She lowered her voice as she said it. “Even Ferisa has moved through the earliest arrangement lessons, knowing which colors are complementary. Now we have moved on to learning which flowers to choose for each arrangement to convey a message.” She shook her head and sighed. “I really wish you would try harder, otherwise, what will become of you?”

  “I’m sorry I can’t be more like you.”

  Jasi’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “That’s not what I mean. I can’t help it Lira thinks we all might have the gift.”

  “The gift of snobbery?” Eris could not hide the hurt she suddenly felt. Even at this, something she thought she might like, using the flowers to create a hidden language, her differences from her sisters prevented her.

  Jasi fought to keep her face serene, twisting her head and trying to stand like their mother. “An eye for color, dear sister,” she said, running her gaze over Eris’s dress. “It is too bad you have little of the gift. I mean, you have spent what—months?—searching to even begin the lessons? I took less than a week. Desia less than two…”

  “And Ferisa found her flower in days. What of it, Jasi?”

  Jasi cleared her throat, clearly annoyed at the reminder Ferisa had done anything better than her. “Yes. Right. So have you found something today?”

  Eris took a deep breath, clenching her hand, thankful she’d tucked the flower into her pocket. “I find something every day.”

  “Something useful?”

  Eris didn’t bother telling Jasi that she enjoyed the time she spent wandering the garden. Jasi would never understand anyway. Everything was a competition to her, something to win. Sometimes it was better to just be. “I am going to Lira now, if that is what you ask.”