Page 33 of Beneath the Haunting Sea

“Garden.”

Another jerk of his chin. “This way, Miss.”

He walked back into the hallway, and Talia followed. They went past the empty dining room and through a door, into a short passageway that ended at another door. He stopped to unlock it, pulling a ring of keys from his belt. She eyed them with extreme irritation.

“I hope you have a lovely walk,”he said, and went off down the hall.

Talia stepped into the garden, pushing the door shut behind her. She would have hardly called it a garden—it didn’t deserve the name. It was merely a rambling rectangle of cold earth, enclosed on three sides by high stone walls overgrown with ivy. On one end marched several rows of bedraggled rosebushes sprouting knotted blossoms; on the other stood a willowtree overhanging a murky pool, limp leaves trailing in dirty water. There was a wooden hutch, which might have once housed birds, nailed into the side of the tree; now the carved doors sagged on their hinges, dirt and debris visible inside. Certainly a far cry from the Emperor’s gardens, with their elaborate fountains and overflowing lily pools, macaws squawking at her from their aviary.

Shethought of her father, taking her to see the tigers, of her mother, promising she could have a parrot of her own. She thought of Ayah, wandering obliviously through the lily gardens with a book in her hand, spectacles pinching her freckled nose.

And she thought of Eda, mocking her for her dirty feet and ripped skirts after tumbling in the dust with a new litter of hounds.

Talia paced the grimsquare of earth, wandering through the knotted roses and over to the willow. It wasn’t raining today, but the sky was still heavy with clouds. The wind blew up cool from the sea, bringing with it snatches of melody steeped in longing. She tried not to think about it.

There was an old stone bench by the pool, vines curling up its legs. Talia sank down on it and stared into the water. Lily padsfloated on the surface of the pond. A hesitant white flower, just beginning to bloom, peeked up between the tangle of green; she caught a hint of its heady fragrance, and it reminded her of Eddenahr. This pond had once been beautiful, or at least someone had tried to make it so. She wondered which of the Baronesses had tended to it—Wen’s mother, or Caiden’s. She flushed, and scolded herself.

So Wen happened to have an incredibly handsome and intriguing and courteous brother. That didn’t change anything.

Although Ayah would disagree. Talia grinned, imagining the lively discussion the two of them would have about Caiden’s many admirable qualities—lingering of course on that morning’s encounter on the stairs.

She threw a pebble into the pool, then got up and walked around the gardenagain. There was a gate in the front wall that looked out onto a graveyard, which she turned away from in a hurry. The back wall had a gate too, half-concealed with ivy, and she stopped to peer out toward the sea. She could feel it calling to her, a restless tugging at her heart.

The gate was locked, but she climbed the iron lattice and hopped down to the other side. Her promise to Ahned madeher uneasy, and she glanced back.

The house loomed above her, grim and dark, ivy creeping up the weatherworn stone. She could certainly understand why people thought it was haunted. But she didn’t see anyone watching her, so she turned toward the sea again and started down the path winding away from the garden.

She’d only gone a few paces when she found a door set into the hill.

It was obviouslyancient, made of carved stone. Two chains stretched across it, looping through iron rings on either side of the door and clasped tight in a heavy padlock that hung in the center.

She wondered what was inside. A temple? A crypt? She leaned forward to examine the carvings in the stone, worn by centuries of wind and weather and partially obscured by the padlock and chains. But she still recognizedthe Tree, huge and beautiful, its branches curling up into heaven. Around its base stood people wielding spears and battling the towering gods, who lashed lightning at them. A woman knelt at the very base of the carved door, her head bowed, weeping.

She could feel how ancient this place was, as if the power of the gods themselves was woven into the door, or bound tight behind it. She imaginedshe saw glints of light flying up from the carving like sparks from a smith’s anvil.

The sudden thud of hooves in the sand shook her from her reverie. She looked down to see a lone horse and rider galloping along the shore: Caiden, his dark hair wild in the wind, stark against the mingled gray of sea and sky. The flock of starlings whirred inside of her. Why was he allowed to go down to the seaand she was not?

“Talia?”

She jerked around to see Wen standing on the path above her, his spectacles perched precariously on his nose. There was ink on his fingers, and the top few buttons of his shirt were undone, his cravat absent.

She didn’t snap at him for using her first name, or yell at him for following her, just nodded to the stone door. “What’s down there?”

The muscles in his faceclenched, and he shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Nothing is shut away behind a heavy chain and an iron lock?”

“Leave it alone, Talia. Please.”

“Why are there so many secrets here? Why won’t anyone give me a straight answer?”

He considered her, his blue eyes huge behind his spectacles. “The Ruen-Dahr is centuries old. There used to be a temple here, and that door is a remnant of it. But it’s inruins now—it isn’t safe to go inside. That’s why it’s locked up.”

She doubted that was the whole truth. “A temple to the Tree?”

“Yes.”

“Then people do believe the Tree was here, once.”

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