I needed to think, and that meant I needed to be back in my own space as soon as possible. I knew the castle like the back of my hand, and so knew I had two options. I could go back the way I came, past the barracks and in through the door at the other end of the main castle but risk seeing more people. Or I could save myself time and irritation by going straight through my least favorite place in the entire goddamned kingdom: the royal private garden.
The place was seriously fucking creepy. According to Elaina, the healer who had for most purposes adopted me and brought me up as her own, she and my mother used to tend it for the old queen, my paternal grandmother, before she passed.
It was inside an open-air courtyard, and in those days it had been beautiful and purposeful, planted with all manner of medicinal herbs and flowers. Now it contained the most dangerous goddamned plants that anyone could possibly imagine. I’d learned about herbs and medicines from Elaina, I knew which plants were used for healing and which ones were used to cause harm. Even as a young man, I’d been completely aware of what the queen had planted there.
The royal private garden was its official name.
Bullshit.
Better to call it what it was. The Queen’s poison garden.
Queen Patara had filled it with monkshood, hemlock, nightshade. Snakeroot. Foxglove. Oleander. Every fucking plant she’d cultivated could kill a man quicker than the last. And I never spent more time there than was absolutely necessary.
But today, she was one step ahead of me. Bitch that she was, she wasn’t stupid, I had to give her that. As I rounded the corner to take the path that went straight through the middle of the garden, I saw her there waiting for me. She was trying to be casual about it, even made a fake-surprise face to say, Oh, it’s you, but I knew her game. It was a fucking ambush.
“My lady,” I growled, trying to pass her without having to have a conversation.
But her guards blocked my exit and she whirled around, placing her thin hand on my arm. She looked like death. Always had. As she’d aged, the veins in her hands had gotten more pronounced. They were bluish now, and they gave her skin a greenish tint. I’d seen snakes that looked more human.
I narrowed my eyes at her. Though I always wore a mask in her presence, I’d gotten pretty goddamned skilled at sending her leave me the fuck alone messages with my eyes.
“How is your father?” She asked.
Here we go. The bitch wants to talk.
“Dying. But he said he feels blessed that you’re not at his bedside. I think that was the word.”
She tightened her thin lips. “He did not say that.”
“What the fuck do you want, Patara?” I said.
She hated when I called her that—fucking hated it. Nobody was ever supposed to call her only by her first name. It was a crime punishable, of all things, by disfigurement by fire. Fucking hilarious. That was exactly why I did it.
If the rumors were true that she’d ordered me burned to death as an infant, I never wanted her to forget for a single goddamned second that she was responsible for how I looked—or how I acted. The fucking monster I had become. That was on her and nobody else.
She swallowed her ever-present rage, and tried to put on a kind face. Didn’t work at all.
“I’m really sorry about your father. I am.”
I inhaled hard, spotting a nearby cluster of monkshood. Strange how the deadliest plant can be really fucking beautiful.
“Can we cut the shit? I’ve got things I need to do.”
“Fine, you asshole,” she snapped, dropping the facade. “I’ve got an offer I’d like to make you.”
I stared down at her. She had dark circles under her eyes. The skin of her chest was leathery and wrinkled. Fuck almighty, I hated her guts.
“An offer.” I repeated, venom in my words as I knew nothing good was coming.
“Yes,” she said, hooking her arm around mine and leading me through the garden like we were friends. She always smelled like roses on the verge of rotting.
“I know that your father would like you to be king. But I know full-well that you don’t want to be king at all. I, on the other hand, would make an excellent leader of the kingdom. But that can only happen if you abdicate. Or, even better, refuse the crown in the first place.”
Blah, blah, fucking blah.
“I’m not hearing an offer.”
She stopped walking and looked up at me. “I could pay you any sum that you ask. Name your price, I’ll meet it. You could go across the seas. Live in bliss with all the money you could ever need. Exile is a wonderful life, or so I’ve heard. You could find some nice blind girl to suck your cock and she won’t even have to see your face when she does it. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?”