The Rose Garden Detour
The kingdom ran a sightseeing program for children. It was attended mostly by noble sons and daughters, though now and then the opportunity was extended to commoner children who had earned top marks at Ecole School. For reference, Ecole School was a state academy run by the kingdom for children between the ages of eight and fourteen.
A school riddled through with every kind of corruption — and yet somehow still counted among His Majesty's finer achievements.
Establishing educational institutions and the palace tour program had done a great deal to stir loyalty toward the crown and advertise its benevolence. In any case, I was a noble, which meant I could apply for the palace tour without ever setting foot in Ecole School.
"Put my name in for the palace tour."
"You're really going, my lady? Very well, miss."
At first Jenice had fretted and begged me not to go at all, but once I explained that this was the proper, official way to enter the royal palace, she resigned herself to my sudden obsession with the place. After she left to file the application, I stood in front of the mirror. The girl in the glass was still a stranger to me.
Outwardly I was nothing more than an ordinary, adorable thirteen-year-old; underneath, I carried a grown woman's full measure of venom. It would clearly take time to adjust.
Will I really be able to pull this off?
Count Kolkos and Dayson rose to mind unbidden. My thoughts drifted on and on until they snagged on Cassion — Cassion, hunched low, head and shoulders drawn in, before Dayson. My mouth went bitter.
What if I marry Prince Cassion and he dies on me anyway?
And what if I survived, but Cassion didn't? In my past life, Cassion had vanished from the royal palace in the winter of his fifteenth year. He had believed a cure existed somewhere in the world; at fourteen, that winter, he was told once and for all that there was none, and a year later he slipped out of the palace in secret. By chance I ran into him as he was leaving, and I pressed the jewel I happened to have on me into his hand, the way one tosses alms to a beggar.
So he must have found his cure out there. But if he marries me, leaving would be impossible, wouldn't it?
My return had already changed the future. And if my future had changed, then so might his. A grim premonition coiled in my chest.
No! He's going to live. He'll be healthy again — just as healthy as he was when he appeared before me at death's door in my first life!
The Cassion I had met again was enormously tall and powerfully built; his merely standing there made the very air feel heavy. For now, I decided not to be greedy. All that mattered was that he stay alive until I came of age. And if that proved difficult — well, then I would simply make it easy.
I would shield him from Dayson's threat, and I would cure his illness. After all, in my first life he had returned healthy and come to save me right before the end — proof that somewhere in this world, a way to heal him existed.
First things first: find the cure as fast as I can and get him well.
Once a thought took root in me, it refused to stop growing. I spent the entire afternoon lost in thoughts of Cassion, and just as I was aching to see him again, Jenice came back bearing welcome news.
"My lady, your permit for the palace tour came through! They say a spot opens up tomorrow, of all things!"
"Yes!"
I hardened my resolve: I would make Cassion my husband, and I would keep him alive.
A short while later, Jenice sat me down before the mirror and began brushing my hair. In the glass sat a cute, darling little girl. Her fine golden hair rippled like wheat fields gilded by the sun, and her green eyes sparkled with all the cool freshness of a deep blue forest. Her skin was so white and translucent that a stranger might ask whether she had ever once seen daylight, and her features, arranged in flawless harmony, were lovely enough to wring a sigh from anyone who looked.
Wow. Even I have to admit — she really is beautiful.
And so I was confident.
Confident that I could make Cassion my husband!
"Clair Zero, Cieda Fair, and Diana Viola Ehrenberg... Ehrenberg?"
I had finished dressing in the small hours of dawn and joined the palace tour. The official in charge — a minor noble of the lowest rank — was calling the roll of children clustered together in little huddles. He tilted his head as he read out my name. Until just a year ago, House Ehrenberg had come and gone from the royal palace without so much as a formality. Perhaps it struck him as strange that a family like ours would bother applying for a tour.
I flung my hand into the air. Meeting my eyes, he came over and bowed politely.
"Lady Ehrenberg? What brings a lady of your house on a palace tour...?"
A stir ran through the children around us. No child, however young, could be ignorant of House Ehrenberg. Even the humbler noble children would have heard the name often enough in their parents' conversations, and the Ecole School students learned about my family in the very first lesson of their kingdom history class.
"A pleasure to meet you, Sir Paulaner of the Chamberlains' Department."
I had sneaked a glance at the name pinned to his chest. My long experience of palace life had taught me that low-ranking palace staff were addressed as 'Hey, you there' or 'I say, young fellow' — anything but their own names. Which was precisely why they treasured the sound of them, and warmed quickly to anyone who made the effort. Sure enough, Paulaner's face lit up.
"Yes, my lady. You must have visited the palace plenty of times — is there a particular reason you applied for a tour?"
Apparently the little goodwill I'd bought had brought his curiosity along with it. Paulaner pressed in with rather too much familiarity.
"Well... the palace Rose Garden is simply beautiful this time of year. I've been longing to see it, but, as you know, my parents, a year ago..."
"Ah! Forgive me, my lady."
I had let my voice trail off on purpose — I meant to stir his sympathy. Paulaner, remembering that the lord and lady of House Ehrenberg were dead, looked terribly contrite.
"Ahem. We'll be setting off now."
At a loss for how to comfort my drooping self, he raised his flag instead. He had evidently concluded that leaving me to myself was the kinder option. The children fell in behind Paulaner, and I drifted naturally to the very end of the line.
Paulaner led us along the fixed sightseeing route of the royal palace, halting at every landmark and explaining with the veins standing out in his neck. The children listened dutifully. Now and then, when some tour member asked an odd question, the rest would shoot the poor child a frosty look until the questioner shrank into silence.
Their parents drilled them thoroughly before sending them off, I see.
One of the many reasons parents packed their children off on the palace tour was the hope that some noble coming or going might take a fancy to the child and pluck them into service as an attendant. Sadly, no such luck — the tour route itself ran nowhere near the nobles' daily paths.
Can't have the noble lords put out by a few children on an outing, after all.
My thoughts slid, all too naturally, into cursing the aristocracy. A pack of layabouts who came to the palace to do nothing but idle, feast, and dance. I turned my head and gazed at Brighting Palace, rearing tall against the sky. It was said the music never ceased there, day or night — the palace had been built expressly for the current queen, Julia, and it was a hotbed of every corruption imaginable.
One of these days, I'm going to blow that place sky-high.
"My lady? My lady?"
Having lagged a few steps behind while gaping at Brighting Palace, I found the ever-diligent Paulaner calling after me. I scurried to his side.
"Your explanations are wonderful, truly. I've been to the palace several times, but I never knew any of those stories!"
Praised so earnestly, Paulaner lit up like a lamp and grew only more talkative.
Enough. Enough already.
It was all stuff I knew by heart. Still, I smiled sweetly and chimed in with agreement at every pause. And so, after a long stretch of feigning fascination and reaping his goodwill, we finally arrived at the Rose Garden.
This was where I had to slip away from the group. I tapped lightly at the back of Paulaner's hand. He lowered his gaze and met my eyes.
"Sir Paulaner, might I spend some time here?"
"Pardon? But..."
"This place holds memories of my father. To tell the truth, that's the real reason I applied for this tour."
Paulaner's face clouded. One of the tour's iron rules was that no one left the group — even a child desperate for the privy was required to move together with Paulaner, their guide. In moments like this, retreat served better than pressing. I let my eyebrows droop and said,
"If it puts you in a difficult position, Sir, I'll simply come along."
His inner struggle was written all over him.
"The memories of my father... I'll just keep them here, in my heart."
"Now, hold on just a moment."
As I moved to slip back toward the end of the line, Paulaner hastily caught me. He looked at my slumped shoulders, passed a hand down his face, and at last relented.
"My lady, you are to remain within the Rose Garden. Do you understand?"
"Thank you, Sir Paulaner! I'll sit quietly on that bench right over there — see it?"
I pointed to the bench beneath the rose bushes. Having confirmed it, Paulaner led the children away, calling back as he left the garden that the tour would take a good half day to complete and return.
Paulaner's group soon vanished from sight. I did not move; I waited for Jenice. Before long, I spied her trailing among the attendants with a bored look on her face. Even families of humble standing sent at least one servant along with each child, and the servants kept well apart from their little masters while the tour went on.
"Jenice!"
"My lady, what are you doing over here? Did you lose the others? If we hurry we can still catch up — up you get, come along."
Jenice, handling me like some lost toddler, took my hand and hauled me upright. I stood, then beckoned with a flutter of my fingers. At my signal to lean in, she bent down.
"No, Jenice. I'm supposed to be waiting here."
Jenice's eyes went round as saucers — a look that plainly asked, then why are you here? I looked past her shoulder. I couldn't say any of this in front of others, so I had waited for the attendants to disperse. They flicked curious glances at the pair of us, but none was so bold as to strike up conversation with a noble's daughter out of sheer curiosity.
The moment a decent distance opened between us and the servant crowd, I snatched Jenice's wrist and struck deep into the Rose Garden.
"My lady, are we playing hide-and-seek all of a sudden?"
"It's not that. There's somewhere I have to go."
"Go where? And more importantly, can we even find our way out of here?"
Real worry seeped through Jenice's voice — and her worry had good reason. The Rose Garden had been built to shelter the king in the event of war, a labyrinth so intricate it practically demanded its own map. With the broad, straight avenue to the royal palace left wide open, no soldier in his right mind would choose to enter the garden, granted — but I conceded the point all the same: anyone who did would lose their way, guaranteed.
None of which mattered to me. I knew the Rose Garden down to its last hedge. In my past life, I had hidden in it often — whenever I clashed with Dayson.
Not 'clashed,' exactly. More like got pummeled one-sidedly.
I smiled bitterly and quickened my pace.
"My lady, where on earth are you taking us? And what is this place?"
Jenice nattered on anxiously at my heels, until at last our destination rose before us. I decided it was time I answered her.
"Jenice, this place is... the Third Prince's Palace."