Page 66 of A Rose Among Snakes

“Ahh…” I said as I swung the tool over my head and brought it down on the stem of a carrot. I hunched my shoulders and snared my lip between my teeth.

“Careful,” Enverro said as he approached. He placed his hands over mine on the wooden handle, and standing behind, showed me how to move the tool through the dirt. “It shouldn’t take much force. The ground has been worked enough, so be gentle.”

“Like this?” Excitement zipped through my entire body, and I told myself it was the joy of being outside, not a reaction to the handsome man with his arms around me. His hands still rested on mine, but I was the one guiding the hoe.

With a nod of approval, Enverro backed up and cleared his throat, a hint of redness creeping up his neck. “That’s perfect.”He moved to the opposite end of the garden and began doing the same work.

“Enverro,” I said, raking through the soil, “Tell me about your family.”

“Why?”

“I’m just trying to make polite conversation.”

“Well, it’s not a very polite story.” I waited for him to continue, observing even at a distance the discomfort creasing the corners of his mouth. And just as I thought he wasn’t going to tell me, he said, “I grew up in Etheniar with my parents and younger brother. We lived on a small farm. When I was fourteen, we were all outside working on a hot day and I got sick from being out in the sun too long. My mother told me to go inside and lie down. I fell asleep and later woke to my father yelling over the sound of my mother’s sobs.

“By the time I got outside, it was silent. A man was standing over my mother with an axe. She was dead, and I saw both my father and brother’s bodies lying on the ground as well.

“I attacked him and while we fought he kept muttering, ‘Need more Zif.’ That told me everything I needed to know about him.”

My heart pounded in time with his strikes against the dirt. “What happened then?”

“I killed him.” His voice was steady, no hint of either pleasure or remorse.

I froze, my eyes wide and mouth hanging open. He looked up and noticed my horrified expression.

“You asked,” he said.

Collecting myself, I said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pried.”

“It happened a long time ago. It is what it is,” he replied, indifferently.

I went back to work. “How long ago?”

“Ten years.”

“How did you end up working for the king?”

Enverro narrowed his eyes, seeming to be wary of my rapid-fire questions, but he said, “He caught me stealing from him, and if I agreed to help him with a problem he wouldn’t throw me in the dungeon.”

“What-” I began, but Enverro interrupted.

“What was the problem? I know, I guess I should just keep going with the full story, but I don’t want to scare you again.” I threw him an eye roll, but he ignored me. “The king had a man in the dungeon he needed to have moved somewhere else, and he wanted me to keep an eye on him.”

“Actually, I was going to ask what you stole from him, but now I want to know why the king choseyou?”

Enverro’s answering smile was smug. “After I buried my family, I left Etheniar. I had no plans, I just needed to get out. I spent a year making my way through Terrune, and I ran out of money since I didn’t know where I wanted to settle yet. Eventually, I had to steal food from vendors to feed myself and I got good at it. I tested my skills by stealing more valuable items and selling them to traders.

“I got braver and braver and decided I wanted to sneak into the castle during a festival and try stealing the queen’s tiara. I was so close to escaping with it—I’d made it to the front lawn before being spotted by a guard. They closed the gate and caught me, but not without me taking down seven men first. The king came out and said he was impressed by my skills and wanted to put them to better use.”

“He entrusted a fifteen year old boy?”

Enverro squared his shoulders. “I was tall. People always assumed I was older.”

“Hmm…” was all I could come up with as I took in his height, feeling my pulse jump as our eyes met across the field.

No matter how badly I wanted to deny it, I was enthralled bythe man’s life. That was exactly the kind of adventure and excitement I craved but felt like I would never be allowed to experience, especially as a woman of status. Under different circumstances, I would have thrown myself at him, hoping to get a taste of that danger and passion—and to ruffle Velian’s feathers.

Disturbed by my thoughts, I slipped back into a combative headspace. “That is quite the tale. Is it all true?”

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