Dividing Eden (Dividing Eden #1)(88)

Heavy.

Arms. Legs. Everything was heavy. And tired. And so cold. She shivered and cried out in pain.

Then she remembered she wasn’t supposed to cry out.

“You’re going to be okay.”

Errik had said that to her when he found her near the river, wedged deep in between three large boulders buried behind a grove of wintergreen trees. Scared. Cold. Heartbroken. Bleeding from the scrapes on her face and arms, heart racing from the screams of the Xhelozi. The scraping of their claws along the rocks. The snarls when she was certain they smelled her. And the wind that shifted the snow and the trees until she heard Errik’s voice calling to her.

He spoke of the plan for their return as he slashed her clothes and cloak. He ran his hand along the scrape on her jaw. Then across her cheek. Finally rubbing his thumb against her lip before gently gathering her aching, bruised body in his arms. The Xhelozi calls echoed against the snow. Errik held her closer with each cry. Finally, the sounds were gone—the monsters pulled back to the mountains where they belonged—and Errik slowed the horse. He pressed a soft whisper of a kiss on her lips before lifting her off the horse and drawing his knife for the second time.

The duck’s blood was warm and sticky and made her want to scream as he smeared it over her face along with strips of the inside of the bird. The smell made her want to gag, but she told herself not to move—not to make a sound. She drank the thick sleeping draught he offered to her and clung to his soft encouragement as they rode toward the gates.

The wind whispered.

Then she sighed as darkness enveloped her.

And now, Larkin’s voice soothed her as a wet cloth passed over her face.

“Keep your eyes closed just a little while longer.”

Carys wasn’t sure she could open them even if she wanted to. “Lord Errik,” she whispered. How long since he’d brought her here to the nursery where Larkin had been waiting?

“Don’t worry. It’ll grow back, Your Highness.”

“What will?” She trembled as the wet cloth passed over her face.

“Your hair.”

Water trickled nearby.

The cloth ran over her checks and forehead and eyelids again. Carys remembered Larkin helping her undress before wrapping her in a blanket and Errik saying he needed her hair. There was a servant who had died—disfigured. With Carys’s hair Errik was certain he could make the dead girl pass for her.

More tinkling water and finally Larkin said, “You can open your eyes now.”

Even though she was clean, Carys could still feel the blood caked on to her lashes. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at the shadows on the ceiling of the hidden room. Then she gazed into Larkin’s dirt-smudged face. “Maybe instead of washing me, you should use some of that water on yourself.”

Larkin smiled. “Be glad you didn’t see your reflection, Highness. You were a fright.”

“Good. That was the idea.” She lifted a hand to her head and laughed as she ran her fingers through the hair that barely brushed the top of her ears. “How do I look?” she asked, hating that she even cared. She wouldn’t normally. But when she thought of the way Lord Errik had kissed her . . .

“You don’t look like a lady,” Larkin said, putting a glass of water into Carys’s uncertain hands.

“I’ve been told that not being considered a lady is a compliment.” She smiled and waited for Larkin’s grin in return.

“That it is. But lady or no lady, we are going to have to get you dressed. Since Lord Errik required the use of your other clothes, I instructed him to bring me these.” She motioned to a stack of men’s garments piled nearby. “I figured Prince Micah didn’t need them anymore. They won’t fit as well as the others I made you, but we can work on that.”

Carys struggled to rise. Larkin moved to help.

By the time she was dressed in trousers Larkin had hastily altered and a gray tunic, Errik strode through the door. He stared at her for a heartbeat as she sweated in her ill-fitting clothes and then gave a deep bow. Then, flashing a smile, he said, “I’m happy to report, Your Highness, that you are officially dead.”

“She was a kitchen maid,” Errik explained as he opened the trapdoor and threw the bag of supplies he’d assembled down into the darkness. “Your healer was caring for her until two days ago when she died.”

Carys slid her stilettos into her belt, then wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the chill and sank down on a wooden crate. So much death.

“She had no family here in Garden City.” Errik turned to her. “And she will get a princess’ funeral instead of a pauper’s grave, Your Highness. You can feel good about that.”

There was little she felt good about right now. In an hour her brother would stand on the dais in the Hall of Virtues. The crown would be placed on his head and he would be surrounded by people who would be working to destroy him and Eden. The Council. The Captain of the Guard. Garret. Who knew how many or who would take a knee and swear an oath they intended to break.

And for the first time she wasn’t at her twin’s side to help. She clenched her fist and felt air flutter her hair. A draft. It was just a draft.

Only, she knew deep inside her that it wasn’t.

Her mother had said she was the curse. That she had given her the Tears of Midnight to keep the curse at bay.