Page 105 of The Stolen Throne
As soon as I’m outside, the chill of winter air hits my skin. Hells. I took my Tyndran coat off earlier. This is nothing like the dominion we were just in, though. Shrugging it off, I’m out into the night and into the forest surrounding the tower. I take a path that I think leads in the direction of the place where I saw movement, until the dense brush parts and I find myself at the edge of a night-kissed garden.
A water garden.
I stumble to a stop. Water is precious in Aryd, and to use it only for beauty is unheard of. The dark pools edged in frost reflect the clear, starry skies. Within the water, or more like appearing to float on top of the water, a pathway of spring-green grass swirls in spiraling loops, some with purple and white flowering plants at the centers. Winter flowers? I reach out and touch velvet-soft petals that are also rigidly formed. My fingers come away smelling of their delicate, dreamy aroma.
I drop my hand to my side. While this place is beautiful, I don’t have time for the serenity it offers.
I step onto the path. The grass is spongy but firm beneath my feet, not floating but I suspect built up on platforms from underneath. I don’t see the sunken circular space at the center of the huge garden until I’m closer. The walled-in pit is lined in plush-looking pillows with a crackling fire contained in an open stone hearth at the center. A tiny oasis of silk and fur and warmth surrounded by water. An open-air hideaway.
All the opulent comfort does is stoke the ire in me.
Because sitting right there warming herself, her salt-and-pepper hair scraped back, giving her that perpetually shocked expression I’m so familiar with…is Omma.
“Did you know?” I demand. I’m too furious to worry about lowering my voice.
Before she can answer, I’m stalking down the stairs toward her, channeling Reven. I don’t think I’ve ever been this seriously enraged at anyone. Like I can’t contain it and might lash out if I don’t.
“Did. You. Know?” My voice rises with each word. I manage to jerk to a stop, my hands fisted at my sides. The only alternative is throttling the woman who raised me. “Answer me!”
Omma’s face is a study of calm, giving Reven’s emotionless blankness serious competition as she rises from her seat. She’s only a little taller than I am. Why did I ever let her have the power over me that she did?
“Know what?” she asks calmly.
I want to hurl a pillow at her head. Or a rock. A rock would be more satisfying. “What Eidolon is? What he can do? Did you know about the curse he had placed on me as a baby? About what’s inside this?” I jerk the amulet out from under my clothes and dangle it in front of her nose.
Her shoulders go back, her chin up at an imperious angle that usually comes right before I get punished for my insolence. I’m waiting for some Omma-like come back, but as fast as she puffs up, spine going ramrod straight, she immediately deflates.
Sinking down on the cushioned seat, she puts out a shaky hand to steady herself. Even her gaze skitters away from me. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says, sounding more tired than her years. “But I have no doubt it’s bad.”
“Bad?” I cross my arms and glare at her. “The state of our people in Aryd is bad. What I’ve learned, what I’ve been through, is—”
It’s a disaster I’m still trying to stop. Like a lone tree trying to hold back a tempest.
My jaw is clenched so tight it aches. “Why did you and Grandmother, or the twins before you, do noth—” I choke on the word. Breathing in through my nose, I try to find some source of calm. “Nothing.”
Omma finally looks me in the eyes. “You’re angry.”
“You think?” I stare at her, swinging wildly between the urges to strangle her and laugh. Not an amused laugh. More like delirium.
Before I can work out what to say to that, she sighs. “I’ve been looking for you since the night of your sister’s pre-coronation celebration, when you were taken from the palace.”
Her words knock me back a couple of steps. “I don’t believe you.”
Omma’s pinched lips actually quirk in a half smile I don’t think I’ve ever seen from her. I can almost hear the rusty creak of her face trying to achieve the never-used expression. “I’ve been sneaking in and out of that palace for seventy summers, girl. You think I don’t have secrets and ways? You think I don’t have my own spies in the palace? People I trust?”
My mouth hangs open like a fish on a hook. “But…you let me believe that you…”
“That my time was done? It is.” She shrugs. “That I abandoned you and your sister? Never that.”
What is she talking about? She hated me. Resented me. Resented her own life. Was harder and colder to me than even Grandmother. I sit beside her. “I don’t understand you at all.”
Her sharp eyes might soften and dull, but is that sadness real?
“I know.” She raises a hand toward me as if she might pat my knee but stops when I stiffen and lowers it to her lap. “I raised you the same way I was raised. To do your duty to your sister and the crown, but survive, too, if you can. That means no attachments to distract you. Even me.” She makes a face. “Believe me, I know how attachments to others end up hurting in the end.”
I think I might see years of regrets and experience flicker over her face. I’m just not sure I believe it.
“I hoped that Eidolon would leave you and Tabra alone the way he had me and my sister. That maybe he was done with whatever he wanted from our family. However, I couldn’t be sure, so I did what I could to prepare you. But I…I loved you every single day.”
