Longeye Read Online Free PDF Page B

sharper, now.
    Becca cleared her throat. Benidik, she thought. Benidik had promised. She did not believe that the Fey woman cared—she would not believe so much of any Fey again. But Benidik . . . might be careless. She had been in Zaldore's train, which meant she was no friend to Diathen the Queen. It might be that Benidik would see advantage to herself, in letting the evidence to Altimere's crimes slip away.
    "I ask," she gasped, her voice odd and breathless, her eyes on the sweep of purple flowers, recalling promises made in the throes of passion. "I ask that I be placed in the care of the High Fey Benidik. Until such time as the Queen has need of me."
    Behind her, Sian laughed. "You do not circumvent the will of a Queen so easily, Rebecca Beauvelley! My problem Diathen has declared you to be and my problem you shall, I fear, remain, until such time as she declares elsewise. Gather your things, now, and quickly."
    It had, Becca told herself, been worth the asking, though she might have known Sian would refuse her. She forced her feet to move again on the path, and raised her hand to wipe at her cheek, unsurprised to find that it was wet.
    Sian is not an ill friend, Gardener , the tree or trees said for the second time. She is canny, and strong, and sometimes wise.
    " Sometimes wise?" Becca muttered, forcing her feet to move again on the path.
    She is yet young.
    Her feet faltered again as Becca approached the season wheel she had planted in an attempt to demonstrate a proper cycle to what she had then thought of as the intelligence of the place. Like the rest of the garden, the summer plants showed sere and brown. The plants of the other three seasons, however, showed as hale and hardy as if they were in the peak of their growth.
    "There is a process ," she said, speaking to the trees as if they were a peculiarly backward 'prentice. "Seedlings begin; they grow, leaf, blossom, give fruit if that is their nature, fade, and fail. They do not spring forth and stand tall in all the strength of their youth until they are struck down."
    "What would you teach them?" Sian asked, stopping beside her and considering the wheel in her turn.
    "The orderly progression of the seasons," Becca said with a sigh and a shake of her head. "To have all and everything bloom at its own discretion is—unnatural!—and in the end, dangerous. For plant and Fey alike," she added, for the trees' benefit. She turned her head slightly, considering the side of Sian's face. Comely, as the High Fey were, and if her skin was somewhat tanned, it was smooth and unlined. Surely, Becca thought, she was too young—but so had Altimere seemed youthful.
    "Were you in the war, Engenium?"
    Sian laughed. "Wind and wave! The war was done and the keleigh in place long before I had accumulated kest enough to braid my hair, much less fight!" She sobered, met Becca's eyes and shook her head. "Not many of the Elders remain. Donaden, Altimere, Sanalda—"
    Becca cringed, the smell of blood suddenly overpowering the sweet scent of growing things.
    "Art well, Rebecca Beauvelley?"
    She shook her head, swallowing hard. Compelled or not, she was surely not about to confess the murder of one of the few remaining Elders.
    "I am frightened," she said, instead, which was only the truth. "What if the Gossamers try to hold me?"
    "Now, I knew there was a reason that I asked to accompany you," Sian said, her voice sharper than humor might call for. "And soon we shall know. It appears that you are expected."
    The door into the kitchen was open. Becca's steps faltered, even as the voice of the tree spoke inside her head.
    The lightless ones approach, Gardener .
    Indeed, they did, and she saw them as never she had before—clearly. Not as ghostly gloves, but as pale, bloated shadows from which velvet-tipped tentacles waved softly.
    A scream rose in her throat; she gritted her teeth, but not before a soft whimper escaped. The Gossamers paused, their aspect suddenly tentative, as if they