Dividing Eden (Dividing Eden #1)(3)
Carys felt inside the pocket for the sheath opening, then practiced sliding the blade into the concealed carrier and drawing it again. The first three draws caught on the fabric. The fourth came free without incident. With an hour of practice she would be able to draw and brandish the weapon with both speed and ease. Knowing that made the knot of anxiety wedged deep in her stomach ease a bit. It had been growing there for weeks as if trying to warn her of—something. When she’d mentioned her unease to Andreus, he’d told her she was just jumping at shadows, that she shouldn’t look for problems where there were none.
Perhaps she was being paranoid, but she liked having her blades near. With so little she could control, it was good to have command over this and to know that no one, not even her brother, was aware of the secret. To survive in the castle, a girl needed all the secrets she could get.
Out of the corner of her eye, Carys spotted Larkin poking a stick into the small fireplace. Once the end was ablaze, she began lighting candles throughout the room to chase away the lengthening shadows.
“Is there a reason you’re not using the overhead lights?” Carys asked. Every business in the town was allotted a share of the power harnessed by the windmills atop the castle towers. Seven massive windmills to represent the seven virtues of the kingdom and the power that those who lived by those virtues wielded.
Power. It came in many forms. Running the lights. Operating the water. Raising people above their stations. Ordering people to their deaths. In Eden, he who controlled the wind had the power.
“Candlelight is not as harsh as the overhead glow.” Larkin glanced at the window, then finished lighting the last candle before placing the burning stick into the fire. “Shall we move on to the next garment, Your Highness?”
“Larkin, what do I not know?” Carys asked as her friend busied herself at the wardrobe. Larkin always changed the subject when she was hiding something. When she looked away the trouble was even greater, and right now Larkin was keeping Carys at her back. “Larkin, tell me. Is there something wrong with the lights?”
Her friend turned with a sigh. “People are saying the wind has not blown as strong as it should in recent weeks, Highness, and that’s why there isn’t as much power. The shortage has caused some . . . tension.”
Tension was never a good word when it referred to the King’s subjects. When there was tension, trouble followed.
Carys moved to the window and looked up at the palace windmills. The massive structures loomed above the white walls and cut through the backdrop of a darkening sky. The sound of their churning was the accompaniment to life in Garden City. Carys could hear their pulsing hum now, but could the blades be moving less speedily than in the past? Andreus would be able to tell. He’d made studying the windmills and the power they created his life’s work. The orb—the light that sat high atop the tallest tower of the palace—used his design. The light was supposed to welcome all who wished to add their talents to strengthen the kingdom and promised safety in its glow, because the things that hid in the darkness could never triumph when there was a light powered by virtue pushing them back.
Her twin had helped build the newest light, but even he had known that the brightest orb would never banish the darkness completely—no matter how big it got or how hard the windmills turned.
Andreus would know if there were a problem with power production. Without her brother’s knowledge, all Carys could say was that the hallways and great rooms in the palace were still illuminated just as brightly by the wind-powered light. Not that it mattered. Lack of power in the palace would cause little inconvenience; down here in the city, it would lead to much larger problems.
“Where is the tension greatest?” The gown rustled as Carys turned her back to the window.
“A few of the millers have expressed some upset, but Father has given them some of our wind power allotment. That has helped quiet the loudest of the complaints.” Larkin helped Carys out of the formal gown and into the next dress. “But there are still whispers, and those whispers are getting louder with every day.”
“What do the whispers say, Larkin?”
Larkin bit her lip and sighed. “The whispers say the cold is coming. The days are getting shorter and the Xhelozi will be waking to hunt if they haven’t come out of slumber already. People are making offerings at the old shrine to keep the winds blowing—especially now that we have so few guardsmen to keep the walls safe if there is an attack.”
“I thought most people avoided the shrine.” The first of Eden’s seers had ordered it constructed to give citizens a place to appeal directly to the Gods in times of struggle—and they had, until five years ago. A cyclone had appeared above the castle, and though the seer drove the wind tunnel back into the mountains, he warned that the deadly winds had been an answer to a careless request made at the sacred site. After that, the common people stayed away. Only the most troubled were driven to visit the grove on the edge of the city.
“They did, Highness.” Larkin sighed. “But that was before, when the old seer was alive and there was enough wind power in the city. The new seer is lovely, but they wonder how someone who looks as if she can be blown over by the wind can possibly have the power to control it. Those who visit the shrine say they are trying to send her strength.”
“And those who aren’t visiting the shrine? What are they saying?”