He Dethroned His Queen, Now He Wants Her Home novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: What He Pulled Up

Alaric's POV

I did not sleep.

At three in the morning I got up off the daybed and left Linnet asleep in the big bed with the cat on her feet.

I went down the back stairs and out into the courtyard.

It was cold and clear.

The lavender bed ran the length of the east wall, ten yards of grey-purple, still in flower in the frost.

I had planted it the spring after the wedding.

I had planted it with my own hands because a girl in a river had smelled of something sweet on the bank, and I had wanted to give that smell a place to live.

I knelt at the end of the bed and put my fingers in the earth.

My right palm was still stitched under the bandage.

I took hold of the first plant by its stem and pulled.

It came up with a long tearing sound, and the roots hung with soil.

The smell rose around me, heavy and sweet.

For eleven years I had loved it.

Now it made my stomach turn, because it was the smell of Biscuit's burned mouth, and of Verity's sleeve, and of every morning Linnet had come to breakfast with her face closed and her hands flat on the cloth.

She had never told me why.

I had never asked her.

I pulled up the next one, and the next.

The bandage on my palm soaked through.

I did not stop.

Plants lay in heaps on the flagstones by the time the sky went grey.

"You'll want gloves," said a voice behind me.

I looked up.

The royal vet stood on the path in her grey coat, holding two pairs.

"I couldn't sleep either," she said. "I thought you might need a hand."

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