Garden of Madness by Tracy L. Higley

Author:Tracy L. Higley
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2012-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Tia’s feet carried her onward while her mind and emotions careened around a thousand shadowy corners. Down, down into the depths of the palace, then the chest-heaving climb to the seventh tier of the Gardens. The revelations of the morning took their toll. She was strangely winded when she reached the locked door, and her fingers shook so frightfully she could barely get the key into the lock.

She slipped onto the upper tier and let her gaze tumble over the knotted trees and snarl of flowering plants. Her father was not to be seen, and from their vantage points beneath, no guards would see her here. She could be alone with her thoughts.

A measure away from the door, she dropped to the paving stones beside a tangle of wild spearmint and wrapped tight arms around her drawn-up legs, hoping the constricted position would ease the disquiet in her stomach. It did not.

Below her, a pool filled slowly from the rock-cut channel, the water gurgling against a slimy sheen of algae. The odor of fertilized earth hung heavy in the air.

Amel is my brother.

Enough. She would think no more on what might have been. She had learned the truth before there was anything to regret.

The old gardener, the only one entrusted with the maintenance of the Gardens now, hobbled along one of the lower tiers, his white tunic bobbing, blurring among the plants.

Pedaiah has been in love with me.

This second revelation, following hard on the first, was no less shocking. She set her chin against her knees and remembered his hateful words. Anger. Aversion. Polluted.

The words were like sharp stones pelting her skin. She could not allow herself to feel, to bleed, to be destroyed by the gift he offered and then ground under his heel.

A slight breeze rustled the palm-tree branches in the air high above her, and they scratched and hissed against each other. If her father were whole, Pedaiah would be executed for such a speech.

But her father was not whole, and her mother was not innocent, and she had no one in this palace or in this world who truly cared for her.

Nor could she trust anyone. Amel had whispered to her of Shadir’s plotting, of danger to her nephews, of her mother’s involvement. Was any part of it true?

Kaldu’s death, Shealtiel’s death—were they even related? Think, Tia. All of it seemed muddied now. What did she know with certainty?

She forced her thoughts back over the events of the past weeks.

Shadir plotted to bring down her father. He was not in league with her mother, and had taken Amel—a son of her father—into his confidence. He must reveal Amel’s parentage at the right time and put him on the throne.

In the meantime, her mother fought against this with her own plan. Marry Tia to her Median cousin. Tia saw the logic at once. The two kingdoms joined, with her at the center. Zagros and she would be sovereign over Media and Babylon both, the bond strengthened. Perhaps even more than a treaty.

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