Quiet Gardens

Chapter 1

Seven months after Hybern's defeat

The breeze was gentle and laced with the sweet smell of lilacs. The sun was warm, and all around me I could hear the sound of birdsong. Spring was a beautiful month - one I had always loved, even in my travels on the continent - but nowhere was it quite as breathtaking as in the Spring Court.

Yet there was a stillness to the air, a suffocating quiet hidden just beneath the melody of birds and the warmth of the sun. As if the sounds of spring were hushed, dampened.

I urged my horse forward, up the smooth gravel path leading to the manor house. No guards or sentries, I noted as the house rose into view ahead on the hill. Although the house was bathed in sunlight, something about it felt dark and shuttered. As I grew closer, I noted the quiet grew. My memories of this place had been positively alive with activity. The orchards - which were now untended and overgrown - had once yielded the ripest, sweetest cherries, apricots, and strawberries I'd ever tasted. The flower beds that had once been riotous competitions of bright pinks, deep blues, lush purples, and vibrant oranges were now choked with weeds. Even the horse sensed the disquiet, chuffing beneath me and skittering nervously at the slightest noise.

I reached the top of the hill, dismounting on the granite steps in front of the manor house. Just as Lucien had said, there were no servants or stablehands waiting to see to my mare or offer me a steadying hand. Instead, a bone-deep chill seemed to claw its way directly up from the stone beneath my feet and settle in my chest. The front door to the house was ajar slightly, and there were large claw marks gouged into the wood. I knew those marks; I knew who'd left them, and I knew him enough to feel the depth of despair he must have sunk into to mar his house in that way. My heart twisted in my chest, and I swallowed hard as I stepped inside.

Luciens' letters had warned me of what I would find here, but to see it firsthand was another thing entirely. The manor house was in shambles. The claw marks that had started on the door trailed through the house, etching a trail of grief into the wood moldings and wall panelings, beckoning me deeper into the house. Despite the bright, sunny day outside, inside it was cold and the air was still and damp. The house smelled faintly of mildew. Curtains were drawn over the windows and the furniture was strewn about like piles of skeletons.

I was struck by the house's similarity to a tomb. That cold feeling grew inside me like a parasite, and I wrapped my traveling cloak tightly around my shoulders.

He's dying by inches, Lucien had written to me a few weeks prior. Each subsequent letter I'd received from him in the half year since Tamlin and the other High Lords had defeated Hybern in battle had become more desperate. It wasn't until Lucien outright pleaded with me that I agreed to pay Tamlin, my oldest friend, a visit.

I have no one else to ask. Tamlin will wither away into something we won't recognize unless you help him. Unless you heal him.

He needs you.

Those three words were seared into my memory like a firebrand. I'd long hoped to hear those words, although not from Lucien, but from Tamlin himself. Even in the three centuries since I'd last seen Tamlin and the Spring Court, my heart had never faltered, oftentimes much to my own dismay. I had never been able to admit it to anyone aloud - and only very recently been able to admit it to myself - but I had left Prythian under the guise of learning more about life magic just to escape my ill-fated devotion to the hot-tempered High Lord of Spring. I'd left with the full intention of never returning, and until Lucien's most recent letter, I had held true to that conviction.

As I took a shaky breath in and followed Tamlin's claw marks deeper into the house, part of me regretted letting myself come back to this place. It felt like I was tearing at an old wound, scraping away the scar tissue and cutting into the flesh where a deep pain still lingered. Tears burned at the corners of my eyes and torrents of memories I'd long repressed flooded back to me, threatening to drown me. But I continued walking, continued searching. Room after room, all empty and hollowed out, the furniture in varying states of destruction. Deeper and deeper I went, silent and shaking, picking up the weight of new memories with each step.