Chapter 9
The Silent Garden
The morning after the council was gray and still.The palace seemed quieter than usual, as if holding its breath. Even the air carried a different weight, heavy, perfumed, wrong.
I rose before dawn, restless. The dreams had been worse again... whispers under water, a shadow above the surface, and my own voice asking why I was still alive. When I opened my eyes, the scent of lilies drifted through the window. It should have been soothing. Instead, it stung my lungs.
Ana entered with my breakfast, her eyes ringed with worry. "You did not sleep again," she said softly, placing the tray down.
"Sleep is a mercy I cannot afford," I answered, drawing my shawl tighter. "Is it just me, or does something smell different today?"
She paused and sniffed the air. "Perhaps the wind. It came from the garden. The lilies are blooming again."
"Blooming?" I repeated. "At this time of year?"
Ana nodded uncertainly. "I saw the servants watering them last night."
My heart gave a slow, cold twist. The Queen's voice from the council still rang in my mind, soft, pleasant, and edged with the kind of smile that meant a storm was already coming.
I set my cup aside. "Prepare my coat, Ana. I want to see the garden."
The Moon Garden stretched beneath my balcony like a fragment of another world. It had once belonged to my mother. Her favorite flowers were lilies, white as starlight, fragrant even in the cold. They had withered after her death, the soil left untended for years.
But now they stood tall again, pale and perfect under the gray morning light.
I knelt, brushing my fingers against one of the blossoms. The petals crumbled at my touch, leaving a faint dust that clung to my skin. My breath caught. Lilies were not meant to disintegrate. Not like this.
"Ana," I whispered, "fetch a basin and a clean cloth."
As she ran back toward the corridor, I drew a small knife from my sleeve and cut a single stem close to the root. A faint shimmer clung to it, silvery, almost metallic. I rubbed the dust between my fingers and brought it close to my nose.
The scent was sweet, cloying, and underneath it, something bitter.
Poison.
By the time Ana returned, my pulse had steadied, though my stomach turned with quiet rage. "Do not touch them," I said. "Whatever has been poured into this soil is not water."
She stared at me, pale. "Do you mean—"
"Yes," I said softly. "Someone poisoned the lilies."
The realization sank deep. This was no random act of cruelty. This was a message.
I washed the residue from my hands, the water in the basin darkening faintly. "Bring me parchment," I said. "And a clean vial."
Ana obeyed without question.
I filled the small vial with soil and sealed it with wax. My notes came quickly and neatly:
Substance: unidentified.Reaction: metallic dust, odor faintly sweet.Possible origin: alchemical — likely from the Queen's conservatory.Intent: symbolic. Threat, warning, or test.
I paused, the last word sitting heavily on the page.
The Queen had found her answer to my defiance.
If she could not silence me through fear, she would remind me how my mother had died, slowly, quietly, poisoned under the guise of grace.
By afternoon, the wind had turned colder. I dismissed the attendants and worked in my chambers, grinding dried herbs and testing them against samples of the poisoned soil. A faint silver reaction appeared whenever I mixed it with vinegar, similar to the test I had used to identify lead in the Physician Court.
The same kind of contamination. The same deliberate hand.
When Ana returned, she found me bent over my desk, the candlelight catching the vial's shimmer.
"You should rest," she said softly.
"I cannot rest while someone plays with the same poison that killed my mother."
Her breath caught. "You mean the Queen—"
I raised a hand. "Do not say it aloud."
She lowered her head, eyes trembling. "What will you do now?"
I looked toward the balcony, where the wind stirred the dying petals. "What I must. I will trace where the poison came from, who delivered it, who mixed it, and who carried it to the garden. Every hand leaves a mark."
Ana hesitated. "You are risking too much."
"I already did, the moment I stepped into the Physician Court," I said quietly. "If they think they can bury truth in the soil, I will make it bloom again."
Night fell early, the air sharp and still. The palace guards made their rounds in the courtyard below, their torches flickering against the marble. I stood by the balcony once more, the poisoned lilies swaying faintly in the cold wind.
I pressed my palm against the railing, remembering my mother's laughter... soft, distant, almost forgotten. She used to say that every garden tells its keeper's heart.
If that was true, then this one told a story of warning and defiance, both.
The Queen wanted me silent.She would learn I had inherited not her faith, but my mother's stubborn will to survive.
I wrote one final note in my journal before I closed it for the night:
Observation: The lilies of the Northern Wing are dying. Cause: deliberate poisoning. Intent: intimidation. Response: investigation.
My pen hovered before I added,
Next step — test the water supply of the Queen's conservatory.
I blew out the candle. Smoke coiled into the dark, and the last trace of its scent mingled with the faint sweetness of dying flowers.
Far away, in the Queen's private chambers, Isadora sat by the fire with her daughter. Anaya poured wine into a crystal glass, her smile calm.
"She went to the garden," Anaya said. "Just as you thought she would."
The Queen swirled the glass slowly, her reflection rippling in the deep red liquid. "Curious," she murmured. "Her mother once said curiosity was the beginning of faith. But too much of it becomes rebellion."
"Should we watch her more closely?" Anaya asked.
Isadora's eyes lifted, calm and gleaming. "No, my dear. Let her chase her questions. The more she learns, the sooner she will stumble into her own undoing."
She raised the glass to her lips, the firelight painting her in gold and shadow. "The late Celestine believed in healing. But her daughter will learn that medicine can wound as easily as it saves."
Anaya smiled faintly. "And when she does?"
"Then," the Queen whispered, "we remind her who commands the cure."
The following morning dawned pale, and the frost clung to the edges of the garden stones. I stood by the window of my chamber, staring down at the silvery ruins of the lilies.
Something had begun.
Knowledge had teeth now, and curiosity carried danger in its mouth.
I reached for my satchel, sealing the vial of poisoned soil inside. "Ana," I said quietly, "we are going to the archives."
"The archives?" she repeated, startled.
"Yes. If I want to find the poisoner, I must first understand the past."
The wind brushed against the windows, soft as a whisper.
The same whisper that would soon lead me toward the west courier and a letter marked with a silver crest — the first sign of a man whose gaze would change the course of everything.