Dividing Eden (Dividing Eden #1)(40)

All was silent. Andreus opened his arms and Carys rushed into them. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”

“I had to take the long way to get here. The guards and the Council of Elders’ pages are wandering the halls more than usual.”

Her brother hugged her gently, careful of her wounds, and she pressed her ear to his chest to listen to his heart. It beat fast but steady. At least that was something to be grateful for.

“Carys,” he said, pulling back to look at her. “What are we going to do? I can’t take part in the Trials. If I do—”

“I know,” she said. “And if we refuse, Garret will be named King. Our family will be seen as a threat to his rule.”

“We’ll end up like the Bastians.”

“The only answer is for us to leave. We have to get Mother and get out of Garden City before first light.”

“Go? To where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere no one is looking to remove our heads? If we ride to the west eventually we’ll reach the Fire Sea. We can get a boat and sail to Calibas.”

“We’ll be lucky to get out of the castle without anyone seeing the two of us. There’s no way we’ll be able to move Mother without detection. And even if we could, what then? Outride the guard when they discover we’ve gone? If we drug Mother unconscious to keep her quiet, she’ll be dead weight. If not, she’ll be trying to ride toward the mountains and the Xhelozi that have already woken for the cold season.”

“Does it matter?” she asked. “We’ll be alive.”

“You will. What about me? Wherever we go, there won’t be Madame Jillian.”

Gods. She hadn’t thought about Madame Jillian and the remedy she created at the Queen’s directive. The Queen claimed Oben suffered from chest pains, shortness of breath, and prickly weakness in his limbs. She ordered the healer to create the remedy that Andreus had used for years. Andreus always had enough to see him through several weeks, but what then? Who knew if they could find another healer or one nearly as skilled?

“We can’t stay, Dreus. Not without competing in the Trials.”

“No. There has to be a way,” Andreus said, pacing the room. “This is our home. Father would have wanted one or both of us to lead Eden—the way he did.”

“The way he did?” A bitter laugh ripped out of her. “Father didn’t rule. He did what he wanted and didn’t care if innocent people were caught in the middle. He didn’t bother to learn about the laws because he was the law. But now he’s gone and we’re stuck with laws he never troubled himself to learn about. Now that Lady Imogen has revealed them . . .”

“This isn’t Imogen’s fault,” Andreus snapped. “If it weren’t for her, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The Council of Elders would have made Garret King and who knows where we’d be. She put herself on the line and saved me.”

“Us,” Carys said, looking hard at her brother. “She saved us.” She and Andreus were a team. The fact that he hadn’t automatically thought of both of them shifted the only foundation she had. Especially after he chose Imogen over Carys two nights ago.

“That’s what I meant,” Andreus said.

Carys wished that were true and knew she could not push her doubts about the seer or her brother would stop listening. Carefully, she said, “I’m grateful Imogen intervened, but the truth is we don’t know what her motives are or why she’s given the Council leave to create these trials. There are only so many options in front of us.”

“And most of them aren’t options.” Andreus raked a hand through his dark hair and stalked to the corner as Carys thought through their choices.

“Then there’s only one thing we can do,” Carys said. They couldn’t escape the castle with their mother and there was no way the Council of Elders would allow them to live if Garret were crowned. “We’re going to cheat.”





10


“Cheat?” Andreus threw up his hands and stalked across the room. “How in the world do you intend to cheat the Council?”

“They decide the Trials we have to face, but we decide the winner.”

Andreus turned. “What?”

Carys smiled. “We cheat. According to the law, the Council of Elders has to create the Trials. We have to participate in them. The winner gets the throne. But nowhere in there does it say we actually have to compete for real. If we decide who the winner is before the Trials start, we can take control of everything. That will limit the stress on you and the time the Trials take since we can make sure one of us wins most everything.”

“Most?”

“No one will believe the Trials are real if only one of us wins every contest,” Carys said with a burst of energy. The more she spoke the faster the words tripped over each other. “We’ll make the contest look real so the Council cannot protest the results.”

“But we’ll still have to compete in public,” he said. “You know what will happen if I have an attack.”

Everyone would see that he was cursed and both he and his sister would pay the price.

“Dreus . . .”

“You should win the Trials,” he said, remembering all the times he said he didn’t want to rule. That he was glad not to be the Crown Prince. “Honestly, Carys. It should be you. You’ve studied the guards more than I have.” She’d had to in order to help him. “You’re better at anticipating the intrigue of the Council of Elders and the High Lords.” Even if it meant stepping in front of whatever trouble was coming to keep him safe.