After reading a chapter or two more of the book, Aeric realized suddenly that it wasn't holding his interest very well anymore.
So far, the only thing he'd discovered to be consistently interesting was the garden. He hadn't failed in that regard yet, and he hadn't even fully explored the whole place, either. To add to that, he was starting to develop a headache. Fresh air would probably help.
He left the room and followed the same route he'd been taking since arriving to get into the front hall. For the first time, he heard the sound of multiple voices coming from the various rooms that branched off from the large room. Finally, the palace didn't seem abandoned.
He prayed no doors would open as he made his way across the hall to the greenhouse door.
The voices continued, uninterrupted as he hurried to the door and ducked through. No one appeared. He breathed a sigh of relief as soon as he was safely in the humid, warm environment of the exotic plants and glass walls of the greenhouse.
He kept going at a more relaxed pace now that he was out of probable discovery range, and he was soon walking through the garden.
He decided to take a different route than usual, and he veered off to the left, down a narrower path bordered on both sides by tulips growing as thick as weeds. An occasional vine-covered tree cast patches of shade over parts of the gravel path.
A bird startled by his appearance took wing and frantically flew into the blue expanse of sky.
Several other birds from nearby perches heard its escape and followed suit.
After a few minutes of walking, he came to a crossroads. At the fork was the largest tree he'd ever seen. Its bark was a glistening silver-white and the leaves were a dark, glossy green. The boughs were each as wide as trees themselves, and the leaves had to be a couple of feet long at least. It stretched up so high into the sky that the topmost branches were completely lost from sight.
It was certainly unlike anything he'd ever seen before.
He shook himself from his awed observation of the towering tree and picked a path at random.
He was closest to the rightmost path, so he headed that way and continued to wander around. Every time he turned, he simply walked down a random path. He had no direction in particular that he wanted to head in, nor any destination to reach.
He looked up at one point and realized that he was getting very close to the towering wall of blue rock that was the cliff at the rear of the castle, and he steered his steps away. He didn't want to hit a dead end.
His little detour led him into a wide, grassy grove. The ground was covered in pale pink blossoms from various fruit trees scattered around the space. The tiniest purple flowers he'd ever seen covered the grass like sprinkles, mixing with the pink of the fruit blossoms.
Another bird was startled from its perch, and it flew noisily to a tree that wasn't even much further away. It thought it was safe, but if he was a skilled bowman and he had the weapon with him, he could have easily shot it out of the tree to cook up for his supper.
He smiled to himself. The bird was much too small to hunt at any rate. It probably just had bones and feathers on its tiny little body. He never had been and never would be much of a hunter, anyway.
He ambled around the grassy area before discovering another path off in a different direction. Ferns and some sort of bright yellow flower he'd never seen before were covering either side with dense growth. Out of every place he'd yet seen, this place seemed the wildest. But when he peered closer at the foliage, he saw that they were all neatly trimmed back and kept at bay. No dead leaves were present in the whole place. He wondered how the gardeners managed to keep it so spick and span.
Thinking of gardeners, he didn't recall seeing any. Except for Ryall, of course. Was it possible that she was doing all of this by herself? Surely that would be quite impossible.
But as he continued on, he never saw a single soul. Even Ryall seemed to be missing.
Time passed quickly as he kept walking, and he tracked the hours by the setting of the sun. It was grazing the tops of the trees when he found himself at a familiar location. He heard the faintest trickling of water coming from what he now knew to be the mossy spring on the other side of a familiar wall of roses.
On a whim, he got onto his hands and knees and squeezed his way through the tunnel.
To his surprise, he seemed to fit better this time. He risked moving his head up to look, and sure enough, the trailing thorns that had snagged him last time were gone. They had been pruned away. He could clearly see the bright green flesh where the wounds of the trimming had not yet healed.
He could only thank Ryall, but he couldn't understand why she would ever do such a thing. This seemed like a sort of secret place, and seeing as she hadn't cleared away a path or a gate or anything into the mossy clearing, she clearly wanted it to stay that way.
And if she wanted it to stay a secret, then he would have thought she might have pulled more thorns down into the path so that he could no longer fit through.
He shook his head and crawled onwards until he was able to stand up in the midst of the roses. The moss was still spongy and welled up with water wherever he put weight on it. He attempted to brush off some of the damp, dead rose leaves from his knees as he straightened up.
A glint of golden brown caught his eyes and his gaze snapped up. Ryall was there, sitting on the bench with her arms crossed over her chest. Her eyes were locked on him, and their gazes met as he looked up. One of her eyebrows was raised in an expression of what he assumed was annoyance.
"Oh- I'm so sorry. I can leave." He blinked away the look of shock that he knew was plastered on his face. He felt his cheeks grow warm as she let out a laugh.
"You should have seen the look on your face, princey boy. As if I were a wolf going to charge you." She continued laughing, the almost musical sound contrasting sharply with the harshness she always carried in her voice.
"I didn't know you were here." He defended himself haltingly. Even to his own ears, the defense was weak. He tried to gather his thoughts, but the warmth of his face was distracting him.
"You're, uh, turning a little red there, Kellen." Her face was split in a wide grin as she leaned back on her perch. Her hair was just as wild as always, but today it was pulled into a huge knot near the top of her head. In all his days, hers was the messiest bun he'd ever seen. Half of her hair wasn't even tied up, and tiny ringlets of curls fell down on her forehead and near her ears.
He couldn't think of anything to say, so he just stood there, feeling terribly awkward.
"Would you like to sit?" she asked, scooting to the end of the bench and giving the seat beside her a few hefty pats.
He nodded wordlessly and walked over to sit down, his feet sinking into the moss with each step. His shoes were soaked by the time he got there.
"Can I ask you a question?" he asked her, regretting his decision to sit so near her on such a small bench.
"You just did, love." She scrunched up her nose.
"Another question." He rolled his eyes.
"Go ahead." She shrugged. Her green uniform pants were rolled up to her knees. She was barefoot, and that led him to realize that she had very small feet.
He shook his head and focused on the moss instead of on her feet. Then he realized that he ought to make eye contact, so he looked up at her. "Are you the only gardener here? I've never seen anyone else working."
"No. I'm just the one who does the most work." She winked.
"Ah..." he nodded. "And do you live in the palace, or is there a separate place where the servants have places to sleep? Or do all of you just sleep in town?" he felt a bit awkward implying that she was a servant, but he didn't know what else to call her, or her coworkers.
"All of the above. A few of the girls live in town and walk here every day. Some live in the palace servants quarters, and everyone else lives in a house at the far end of the garden. Under the cliff."
He nodded. "And under which category do you fall?"
"I live in the palace."
"So we might see each other there?" the thought filled him with more excitement than he knew was necessary, but just the image of such a rough hooligan of a girl in a place such as the palace was too priceless to fight off.
For the faintest trace of a second, her face darkened. The expression was gone so quickly that he was almost sure he'd imagined it. "Maybe."
He smiled. "What's wrong? Can you not stand me?"
She rolled her eyes. "I'm surprised anyone can."
He chuckled, and she did the same. He was probably imagining things again, but he thought that her eyes didn't seem to match the cheer of her laugh.