Beautiful Salvation (4 page)

The sound of metal sliding against metal rang out suddenly in the silence. It was the unmistakable sound of a blade and Aiyana whirled around, hands out in front of her. The power inside her, never having truly gone back to its slumber after her nightmare, pulsed like a living thing under her skin, eager to be set free. The sharp tips of her claws crept from her fingernails, aching to slice through something warmer than a wooden door.

“Your Majesty?”

The male voice was gentle, calm even as it asked the question. Okomi, the royal gardener, slowly stepped out from behind one of the rose bushes. His sable hair was pulled into twin braids that fell to his shoulders and his clothes were simple loose cotton pants and shirt, the dark moss-colored fabric brushed with dry brown dirt and spotted with rich dark brown soil. Aiyana’s attention fell to the heavy pruning shears he held in his hands and a wicked blush heated her cheeks.

“Okomi, I’m sorry.” She forced her lips into a smile. “You startled me.” She tucked her hands into her cloak, hoping the gardener hadn’t seen her claws.

“Forgive me, Your Highness.” Okomi bowed, his dark hair taking on a pale blue sheen under the moon’s rays. His weather-creased face wrinkled further as he raised his eyes back to her. “The days have been very hot, I thought I could get some of my work done this evening while the moon gives me enough light. I hope I haven’t displeased you?”

“Oh, no,” Aiyana rushed to assure him. Her mind whirled, struggling to think of a reason she was out in the garden in the middle of the night with no escort. “I just wanted a little space to myself. Thankfully, I managed to convince the guards to observe from the tower. Though I do feel silly with them standing there, spears waiting.” She glanced up at the window in one of the castle towers and offered a little wave to the guards she’d pretended were there.

The gardener didn’t follow her gesture. “A little fresh air can be good for the soul. It is nice that they let you wander alone in your gardens. It must be difficult being the king and queen’s only child, always surrounded by armed guards. Perhaps a little overprotected.” He inspected a rose bush, lifting a limp branch here and there. “Especially considering you are not without your own defenses.”

Aiyana’s lips parted as she stared at Okomi. She’d seen the gardener often, since the rose garden was one of her favorite places to spend the afternoon. But though they’d exchanged a pleasantry or two over the beauty of Okomi’s work, she’d never had the impression the gardener thought they were on more personal terms. Then again, she had “slipped” on occasion, and there’d been more than one person to see the claws coming from her fingers. Perhaps Okomi had witnessed it himself, and thought being a subject of the kingdom entitled him to speak freely of a royal’s curse.

“I…” She paused, brow wrinkling in thought. If propriety had been breached, it had been Okomi who’d breached it, not her. Why should she feel awkward? “Yes, I suppose it is. Every once in a while, it would be nice to have some space to myself, without the eagle eyes of the guards following my every move.” She gave a half-hearted wave at the tower, though she doubted Okomi believed her story.

“A perfectly reasonable desire.”

“Isn’t it though.”

Okomi studied her for a moment, dark brown eyes considering. “If I might be so bold, you seem troubled, Your Majesty. The flowers and I are excellent listeners.”

The roses rustled gently in the evening breeze as if they were agreeing with Okomi. Aiyana brushed off the whimsical thought and raised her hand to touch one of the roses. A sharp pain stabbed at her finger and she inhaled sharply, jerking her hand back.

“Are you all right, Your Majesty?”

“I’m fine.” A bright red drop of blood welled on her fingertip, ensnaring Aiyana’s attention. Slowly, she held her finger out over the bushes. She raised her other hand to squeeze the finger, forcing the droplet of blood to quiver and fall to the earth.

She held her breath, waiting.

“Your Majesty, are you all right?” Okomi asked again.

Nothing happened. Frustration burned in Aiyana’s veins and she closed her eyes, trying to figure out what she’d expected to happen. Something inside her had urged her to offer her blood to the land, something tickled the back of her mind, tormenting her with the conviction that the land was…hurting? Hungry?

“You should know, Your Majesty, that no one believes those nasty rumors some of the women were spreading in the village last week.”

Aiyana narrowed her eyes, all thoughts of blood and earth vanishing. “They don’t?”

“Not a bit,” Okomi assured her, raising the shears to trim a few unhealthy twigs from the bush beside him. “Everyone knows the women were letting their imaginations run away with them, reaching for old stories to add excitement to their lives. The gods will think poorly of their wagging tongues, I’m sure.”

“What did they say?” Aiyana put a little more royal authority into her voice, using the tone her mother used if she wanted to be obeyed
immediately.

Okomi appeared unfazed. “Oh, they were saying that you had a touch of the dark god in you. Some nonsense about noticing your hands and seeing claws instead of fingernails. One of them even went so far as to make up a story about how you responded to her questions before she even asked them, as if you had the Black God’s gift of prophecy.” His brow furrowed and he sniffed in disapproval. “Doddering old women had people all in a fright that you were going to change into some monstrous goddess and spill their blood to empower the land. I’m pleased you took none of that to heart.”

Aiyana stared at Okomi. It seemed like all the air had abruptly been sucked from the garden. “They thought I was going to change into some…monstrous goddess?” She tried to keep her voice light, but failed miserably. She cleared her throat. “Why… Why exactly would they think that?”

“It’s an embarrassment to us all.” Okomi lowered his shears. “Those women went on and on about how you’d been possessed by the Black God, that you had his power inside you. They claimed that you would return the kingdom to the old ways, to the days when a human sacrifice was needed to keep the land alive and healthy.” He gestured around him at the beautiful landscape. “Our people have not practiced such things in ages, and does the earth seem any less vibrant to you?”

Yes.
Aiyana didn’t bother to look around. She knew what she would see, the blooming flowers, the rich green leaves, the blackish-brown soil teeming with moisture from the last rain. But she could
feel
something different. She could feel the land…suffering. In pain, starving. Aiyana put a hand to her temple as pain throbbed at the base of her skull. At least, she thought she could.

The gardener returned his attention to the rose bush he’d been attending. “Everyone is entitled to their secrets, Your Majesty. But do not let appearances fool you. When I am not tending to the royal gardens, I am a shaman for our people.” He raised his pruning shears and snipped a few brittle leaves from the bush. He ran a finger under a dead bud, brown leaves brittle and its formerly glorious roses no more than a dark mush. “If left unattended, the rot that killed this little bud would spread to the rest of the plant. The roses would all die and the bush would wither until it was nothing but a tangled nest of briars. But all I have to do is trim this little bud and the sickness will be gone. The roses will flourish and be a testament to the grandness of this garden for years to come.”

Aiyana’s blood turned to icewater in her veins and she took a trembling step back. Power burned in her hands and she clenched them into fists, firmly holding them at her sides even as part of her yearned to leap at the man who dared to threaten her, however subtly. An image flew into her head, claws sprouting from her fingertips, fangs filling her mouth.
He would cut my power from me.
She could practically feel Okomi’s throat in her hands, feel the delicious rush of energy as his warm blood splashed the earth and spattered her face…

It would be easier,
a voice inside her head whispered.
You would not be a threat to your people. The nightmares would go.

Slowly, Aiyana calmed herself, breathing deeply until her heart resumed its normal sedate pace. “Easy to prune a plant. Not so easy with a human being.” Her voice came out hoarse, a rasping sound like wind through brittle reeds. She buried her fingernails in the folds of her cloak, blinking to rid herself of the image of ebony talons on the tips of her fingers. “Who’s to say if it’s too late, if the sickness has spread too far to be cut away and leave something worthwhile? If a person had…some sort of darkness in them, who’s to say it could be…pruned away?”

“A talent beyond my own means,” Okomi agreed, his attention still on the rose bush. He grasped a wilted petal on one of the roses and gently pulled it free. “But there is a powerful fairy that lives at the lake not far from Your Highness’ castle. She is a powerful creature of nature, and she has the power to cut the darkness from a human, to help that human’s energies to grow in more positive, beautiful ways, exactly as she would for a plant.”

Traitorous hope rose like a warm, comforting cloud inside her and Aiyana had to fortify herself against the foolish urge to rush right into the forest. “A fairy that powerful would want a substantial payment.”

“For anyone other than a princess, that would certainly be a problem.”

Gold? Would a fairy want gold for her services? Aiyana searched her memory for any old stories that told of the sort of payment a magical being might demand in exchange for their magic. “I thought fairies demanded service in exchange for service?”

“And is there some service you think she would ask of you that you would be unwilling to provide in exchange for removing the darkness inside you that frightens you so?”

Anger surged like an angry bear from deep inside Aiyana and she snarled. “I am not frightened, and I have admitted to feeling no such darkness. I—”

Okomi fumbled, nearly dropping his shears. The scent of blood stained the air, filled it with the heavy perfume of life, the gut-wrenching coppery temptation that plunged deep inside Aiyana and pulled at her guts, twisting them into knots even as her heart pounded a new, thundering rhythm. Her senses sharpened, the scent growing stronger as her gaze zeroed in on the small wound in Okomi’s thumb.

“Clumsy,” the gardener muttered to himself, clasping his other hand around the wound. Blood welled up in a fat droplet and slid down his hand.

Aiyana’s arms twitched with the urge to grab his arm, shove him down to the ground until the blood poured from his thumb directly into the earth. She wanted to drag curved claws over his throat, spill the precious coppery fluid faster until the earth was moist with his life-essence. The energy such an offering would produce, the energy she herself would reap…
 

Her feet were moving before her mind could fully respond, before she could block the cries of the land she imagined she could hear. Only instead of launching her at the bleeding gardener, her legs carried her with inhuman speed back to the secret passage. Aiyana wove around through the grove of jacaranda trees with their pale blue-violet leaves, ducked through the curtain of hanging ivy, and passed through the tapered passage in the stone of the castle wall until she was swallowed by the familiar darkness of the passageway. Okomi didn’t call out for her, didn’t try to stop her. The shaman probably knew exactly what he’d done, what effect his blood had had on her.

He must have sensed the darkness in me. He deliberately tempted me to show me what a monster I am. What a danger I am to my people.

As she rushed through the gloomy passage, Aiyana warred with herself between wanting to punish the shaman for his insolence and beg his forgiveness for the horrible things she’d thought of doing to him. By the time she arrived back in her bedchamber, she was trembling with the internal struggle and sweat had broken out over her skin.

Aiyana stumbled from the secret passageway into her bedroom, not bothering to close the entrance behind her. Her body still trembled in the wake of the adrenaline that had nearly overwhelmed her system and she practically threw herself to her window, throwing open the panes of glass so she could suck in a fresh gulp of air. The scents of the roses reached her even here, filling her senses with their perfume. She closed her eyes and focused on the peaceful aroma, slowing her heartbeat.