Radiance (Wraith Kings Book 1)(2)
If the Kai royal family had gardens, Ildiko suspected they were nothing like these. She imagined all manner of strange, macabre plants twisting and swaying as they grew out of exotic soil by moonlight and bloomed with menacing flowers that hid fangs amongst the petals. One didn’t walk amongst such flora without armor. She shivered.
Her thoughts propelled her out of her room and down a short flight of stairs to a back hall leading to the gardens. Warm sunshine caressed her shoulders. Ildiko raised her face to the light and breathed deeply of honeysuckle and jasmine. The dressmaker would have a fit of the vapors when she saw the ruin done to her creation’s hem, but the thought didn’t stop Ildiko from journeying into the depths of her favorite place in all of Gaur. Besides, no one at the wedding would be looking at her hem. They’d be too busy gawking in horror at either the groom or the bride.
She strolled leisurely along a winding path that meandered past bubbling ponds filled with large goldfish as tame as dogs, regiments of poisonous foxglove in every color and hue, and clusters of orange butterfly vine draped over trellises and swarmed by hummingbirds. Willow trees hugged the shores of the larger ponds, creating canopies of green shade that sheltered ferns and silver-leafed lungwort. Ildiko had spent many a quiet hour as a child hidden behind a willow’s drape, reading a pilfered book in the dappled light that spilled through the branches.
Stately oaks dotted the landscape, their great branches of rutted bark thick with leaves. She followed the path leading to one of the giants. She didn’t visit this part of the garden often. The queen’s roses grew here, and Ildiko avoided those places the queen favored. She felt safe enough visiting today. Fantine was too busy playing hostess to her guests or counting the treasure they’d brought as bride gift. Ildiko could admire the hundreds of rose bushes planted in clusters and lines in solitude.
Or so she thought. She turned a corner and halted. A figure, cloaked and hooded in black, stood motionless next to a dense patch of thorny roses the color of blood. It turned at the sound of Ildiko’s steps. She inhaled a harsh breath. A pair of nacreous eyes, without iris or pupil, stared at her from the hood’s shadowed depth. A long-fingered hand, gray-skinned as a corpse’s and tipped with dark nails, lifted in silent greeting. Ildiko balanced on the balls of her feet, poised to flee. If she didn’t know better, she’d believe she stumbled across a demon amidst the roses. This was no demon—despite appearances—but one of the Kai. And it would be the height of rudeness for her to run screaming from a future relative by marriage.
CHAPTER TWO
Brishen braced for an ear-pinning scream from his unexpected visitor or, if he was lucky, a quieter gasp and mad dash through the hedgerow to escape him. The Gauri woman who stared at him wide-eyed with her strange gaze did neither. He’d obviously startled her with his presence in the garden. She flinched away when he raised a hand in cautious greeting, but she didn’t run.
“Forgive me, madam,” he said softly. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Most of the Kai party sent to witness the wedding and accompany the bride and groom on their return journey to Haradis had traveled to Pricid, the Gauri kingdom’s capital, a fortnight earlier. They’d had time to adjust to the Gauris’ appearances. Brishen and his personal escort had arrived only the previous day. Though he and some of his troop dealt with the Beladine humans neighboring his territorial borders, he didn’t think he’d ever seen so many repellent-looking people gathered in one place.
Thank the gods he wore a hood that hid his expression; otherwise he might inadvertently give insult to his unintended companion. She was young—that much he could tell. To the human Gauri she might be beautiful or banal; to him she was profoundly homely. His upper lip curled in distaste at the sight of her skin. Pale with pink undertones, it reminded him of the flesh of the bitter mollusk Kai dyers boiled to render amaranthine dye. Her bound hair burned red in the punishing sunlight, so harsh and so different compared to the Kai women with their silvery locks.
Her eyes bothered him most. Unlike the Kai, hers were layers of opaque white, blue ringed in gray and black pinpoint centers that expanded or contracted with the light. The first time he’d witnessed that reaction in a human, all the hairs on his nape stood straight up. That, and the way the contrasting colors made it easy to see the eyes move in their sockets gave the impression they weren’t body parts but entities unto themselves living as parasites inside their hosts’ skulls.
He was used to seeing the frantic eye-rolling in a frightened horse but not a person. If the parasite impression didn’t repulse him so much, he’d think humans lived in a constant state of hysterical terror.
The woman crossed slender arms. Despite the odd skin and grotesque eyes, she had a lovely shape and regular facial features. Brishen began to bow, eager to take his leave of this awkward situation.
“What do you think of the royal gardens?”
Her question made him pause. She had a pleasant voice—even yet not toneless, low but not hoarse. Brishen cocked his head and studied her another moment before speaking. She’d lost the frightened hare look, and while he still had difficulty correctly reading the more subtle emotions in human faces, he could tell she watched him now with curiosity instead of fear.
Had she asked him what he thought of Sangur’s armory, he might have waxed more eloquent. He shrugged. “There are plants and flowers and trees.” He paused and offered her a pained smile she surely couldn’t see within the depths of his hood. “And a lot of sunshine.”