Foretold (37 page)

I took a step forward; I couldn’t help the emotions raging through me. “But that blade just sheared a branch because the person holding it made a mistake,” I argued, pointing at his hand.

My father sighed and moved toward a nearby bench to sit, his shoulders slightly slumped. If possible, he appeared even older. He set the knife down carefully beside him. “If I regret one death, where then does it stop? There is not enough room in a life for fourteen thousand regrets.”

His gaze, when it met mine, was pleading. It set me off balance, my thoughts spinning. I had never seen my father like this—lost and vulnerable. Even when my hands had closed around his throat after I’d won the race to succeed him as Gardener, he’d seemed so sure of life and his role in it.

“You’ve never come to watch me race in the garden, have you?”

He glanced at the collar around my neck and then away. “No. I never wanted to see you like that, Tanci.”

A rage flashed through me, heating my cheeks and causing my fingers to tremble. The achievements I was proudest of, and my father never even recognized them. Without saying anything more, I spun on my heel, trying not to wince as my leg protested, and strode from the garden.

In the middle of the night, after sleep had eluded me for too long, I made my way into the dungeons. If the keeper was surprised to see me, he knew better than to show it. He merely nodded when I demanded the list of those set to race against me in so few hours and said nothing as I ran my finger along the scrawled names. There was only one that mattered, and when I saw it my jaw clenched.

I did not bother to hide my collar as I stormed through the dungeons, and while most of the condemned turned
away when they saw me, others called out, an echoing riot of lascivious jeers.

Their time would come soon enough, I told myself as I ignored them all.

Rete’s cage still hung in its own corner, slightly separated from the rest of the cells. Only one torch still burned along the wall, and it cast a flickering shadow along his body. The first time I’d seen him his skin had been a rich darkness, but now, after so many months trapped away from the sun and fresh air, he’d taken on more of an ashen appearance that made me ache inside, though I struggled to keep my face neutral.

After all, the last time I’d been down here Rete had succeeded in humiliating me, and it wasn’t a feeling I wanted to experience again. But I’d made a promise to myself to visit with each condemned in the days before their race, and I would treat him no differently.

He lay on his side, curled around himself, with his back to me. Even as I approached, he did not move. I let my eyes devour him, tracing each knob of his long spine, watching the curve of his ribs rise and fall with each soft breath. He slept with his hands tucked beneath his chin and with one foot hooked behind the other.

In the end I found myself staring at his neck, the rhythmic throbbing of his pulse fluttering just beneath the surface. My hands squeezed into fists and I turned away, intending to leave.

“Tanci.” His voice was gruff from sleep.

It was the second time I’d heard my name used that day. I’d almost forgotten the sound of it; over the years I’d learned to respond to nothing except Gardener.

I faced him but said nothing.

He was kneeling now, his cage swinging slowly back and forth from the movement. “Are you okay?”

I had to press the back of my hand against my mouth to stifle the choking laughter I felt surging forward. For all the definitions of the word “okay,” I could think of none that applied to me. “How did you know my name?”

“I asked,” he said. “When I heard about your leg, I was worried.”

There was an edge to my voice I couldn’t control as I demanded, “You weren’t thinking about how it would buy you more time before your trip to the gardens?”

“I was thinking about you.” His words were laced with an emotion unfamiliar to me, something tender and burning all at once.

I shook my head, taking a step toward him. “Why would you be so stupid? Don’t you understand that tomorrow we race? There will be no mercy—the Emperor has planned this. My entire reputation will rest on this race—my future will depend on my making it to the execution platform first. The Emperor’s Gardener cannot show weakness, and that’s what you are to me.”

My words finally seemed to mean something to him; his breathing became more strained. Tomorrow, Rete would die by my hand.

“Please tell me you’re a fast runner,” I begged him softly. I reached out a finger and placed it against the ridge of his knuckles.

He twisted so that he gripped my hands in his. “You think your strength lies here,” he whispered. The cage tilted as he reached through the bars to trail his thumb along the ridge of my collar. “And here.”

My pulse thundered, each breath feathery light. He let his hand fall until it rested against my chest. I knew he could feel every crushing beat. “You silence your heart in order to run; you were not made to lead such a quiet life. Being the
Gardener does not make you strong, and being Tanci does not make you weak.”

I jerked away from him, but I could still feel his touch even through the silk of my tunic, the warmth from the pad of each of his fingers. As I fled through the dungeon I remembered what my father had said the day I was born:
She’ll never be strong enough
.

The only way to prove him wrong was by killing Rete, the only man who’d ever looked for more behind the Gardener’s collar.

It was not enough for the Emperor to simply resume the races; there had to be pomp and circumstance, turning what had once been merely routine into a celebrated event. He wanted his people to know that his Gardener was well again, that any courtiers who grew out of line would be pruned with brutal efficiency.

The same people who had nattered behind my back as I fled ballrooms only a few months earlier now paraded through the gardens and stuffed themselves into the spectator boxes around the execution platform. They wore their brightest colors, each of them almost shining under the harsh sun.

The air had the feel of a carnival, of the whispered excitement before the curtain rises on a new opera or play. After the race there would be more displays of the Emperor’s might with battle demonstrations in the arena and lavish parties starting early and lasting late.

It made my legs jittery, my pulse uneven and my stomach anxious. There were those who had come today to see me fail. Who would delight in witnessing the Emperor’s darling Gardener being laid low so they could continue with the empty tittering.

But if that was what they were expecting, they would be
sorely disappointed. I never stepped to the mark unless I intended to win, and that was exactly my plan that morning.

By the Emperor’s orders I was paraded through the gardens, flower petals strewn about me, so that his court could see up close my strength. I’d polished the leather of my collar that morning so it gleamed blood red in the sunlight, and my lips curled with delight when I saw the unease it caused those around me.

As I stood beneath the Emperor’s box I caught sight of the familiar face of my father, and that, more than anything else, caused my cheeks to burn. Why he’d come to this, of all races, I didn’t understand, and his expression gave no clues. I felt a fierce and familiar fire of determination blaze inside me, a desire to prove to him my worth and strength.

When I stepped to the mark Rete was already there. He was almost an afterthought to the day’s proceedings, a minor token in an otherwise grand exhibition of the Emperor’s strength.

I noticed how Rete shifted his weight from foot to foot in nervous anticipation, his fingers fluttering into fists and stretching straight again. As was custom, I nodded at him and he nodded back.

It looked as though there was something he wanted to say, but before he could open his mouth the marker was called and the race began. I did not hesitate and neither did Rete.

As always, I ran barefoot, but the soles of my feet had grown soft and every twig and pebble seemed to cut against the flesh. The bones of my recently healed ankle protested, but I’d been assured they were healed and could come to no more harm from the strain of sprinting.

I’d forgotten the exhilaration of movement, the wild joy of throwing myself so fast and hard that my legs could barely catch my body before I fell. I practically skipped through
the Stream of Sorrow, relishing the cold water kicked up behind me.

This was racing as it had never been for me before, not some duty born from a desire to prove my worth to my father, but instead a symphony of speed. I forgot everything in those moments but the song of my heart, and I followed it through the gardens that had been more a home to me growing up than anywhere else.

I didn’t know what I was expecting when I sprinted around the final curve toward the execution platform, but I knew what I hoped. I could already hear the murmuring of the crowd, and several of them gasped when I came into sight.

Everyone stared, but the only eyes I refused to meet were those of my father. I couldn’t bear to witness the disappointment that would be written so clearly across his face.

Later, I knew my name would be on everyone’s lips, but I’d made sure that the one thing they could never say was that I hadn’t run fast or hard enough. I still struggled to catch my breath as I climbed the execution platform.

The look on Rete’s face when I joined him was mostly one of confusion laced with joy and shock. He’d expected to lose and prepared himself to die by my hands. Instead the Emperor pronounced his sentence of banishment with a growl and dismissive flick of his fingers.

There would be no execution this morning, and the disappointment from the crowd was palpable. It didn’t take long for the stands to clear after that, the entire mood of the day dampened. Everyone moved quickly to the arena, placing their bets against the various warriors who paraded with tigers and other jungle cats.

I was allowed to say nothing to Rete before he was led away by the execution attendants, so I remained alone on the
platform, watching their small procession wend toward the city gates.

The sun burned across the sky and the garden emptied and still I stood and watched the dark speck of Rete make his way across the barren landscape of the world outside. Eventually I reached up to my neck and began to unlace the stiff leather, my fingers trembling at first but growing surer.

The collar fell away, and at the rush of freedom I felt almost light-headed. I stared at it in my hands, the leather still warm from my skin. For three years this had defined me, and I felt naked without it.

When I let it drop to the platform it landed with a satisfying thunk. Behind me I heard a rustling of movement and my heart quickened with terror that I’d be caught in my act of treason. A figure stood in the highest rows of the Emperor’s box, and as my eyes adjusted to the gloaming light I recognized my father.

He said nothing, the distance between us too great to do anything but yell, and that had never been in either of our natures. For a moment he was still, and then he touched his hand to his head, his mouth, his heart and finally his bare throat. It was a gesture of good-bye and a blessing for the future.

My eyes were blurred and useless but my steps were steady as I descended the execution platform and walked not in the direction of the palace but toward the city gates. As I passed through them I picked up my pace.

I am the fastest runner I know, and I will catch up to Rete, eventually.

I hadn’t expected to be back in Russia so soon. I certainly didn’t want to be.

It wasn’t that I had anything against the place. It was a nice enough country, with rainbow-colored architecture and vodka that could double as rocket fuel. I was fine with those things. My problem was that the last time I’d been here, I’d nearly gotten killed (on multiple occasions) and had ended up being drugged and kidnapped by vampires. That’s enough to turn you off to any place.

And yet, as my plane began circling for its landing in Moscow, I knew coming back here was definitely the right thing to do.

“Do you see that, Rose?” Dimitri tapped the window’s glass, and although I couldn’t see his face, the note of wonder in his voice told me plenty. “St. Basil’s.”

I leaned over him, just barely catching a glimpse of the
famous multicolored cathedral that looked more like something you’d find in Candy Land, not the Kremlin. To me, it was another tourist attraction, but to him, I knew it meant so much more. This was his homecoming, the return to a land he had believed he’d never see again in the sun, let alone through the eyes of the living. That building, the cities here … they weren’t just pretty postcard shots for him. They represented more than that. They represented his second chance at life.

Smiling, I settled back in my seat. I had the middle one, but there was no way it could be more uncomfortable than his. Putting a six-foot-seven-inch man by the window in coach was just cruel. He hadn’t complained this entire time, though. He never did.

“Too bad we won’t have time to hang out here,” I said. Moscow was just a layover for us. “We’ll have to save all our sightseeing for Siberia. You know, tundra. Polar bears.”