Free Bound by Blood and Sand by Becky Allen Page A

“I don’t remember seeing this flower yesterday. Was it here?”
    “No, Highest,” she murmured, still staring. The flower, like the fountain, glowed brightly—but that was impossible. It was
all
impossible. Stone as smooth as the fountain could reflect light, but a flower or a cactus couldn’t. She’d heard of some people who got headaches so severe that they saw strange things, but it had never happened to her before.
    “Did you plant it today?”
    “No, Highest,” she repeated.
    He frowned, but at the flower, not at her. “I don’t understand it. The flower—it
can’t
grow out here; the soil is too dry. Back home, we have to water gardens twice a day to get blossoms like this, and I know you don’t do that. The water I spilled yesterday, do you think that might have done it? That it was enough for the flower to grow?”
    “No, Highest. The flower’s grown too quickly, and it wasn’t all that much water….” She trailed off, squinting at the flower. Something about it was familiar, floating just beyond her grasp, but the thought vanished like the last rays of daylight.
    Lord Elan scowled, his mouth pulling to one side. “Well, it can’t just have appeared here.”
    She swallowed, glad he hadn’t asked her if she agreed with him. It was impossible, but it had just appeared, sometime in the hours since she’d tended the garden and had her fit. And she’d dreamed about the garden, about flowers just like this one….
    Maybe that was all it was; she’d seen the flower as she’d fainted and had turned it into a dream. But even as she thought that, she knew it was wrong. The flower
hadn’t
been there that afternoon.
    She waited for Lord Elan to ask her something else, but he didn’t, instead saying, “It must be nothing, then. Stupid of me to hope otherwise. But I want you to care for this flower, at least. Give it the water it needs. There’s only one, for now, so it won’t be all that much.”
    She nodded that she understood as the Curse accepted the order. Then he strode out, not looking back at her.
    She heaved a deep breath, relieved to have him gone. Tal didn’t come back into the courtyard, though, which meant that either he really had left her alone or he’d been pulled off to a more important task—or any task at all. Maybe Lady Shirrad had found him again. It wasn’t as if the Lady would care that Tal wanted to help Jae.
    Instead of pushing herself up, Jae crawled forward until she could reach out and brush a finger against the flower’s petals, awed. It was like something she’d seen in a dream, dancing at the edge of her memory, just out of her reach. Jostling the flower released the scent of pollen into the air, sharp and sweet, and
familiar
. But dreams didn’t come with scents, and she’d never seen a flower like this before.
    Maybe Lady Shirrad had perfume that smelled like the blossom….
    But once Jae touched it, she couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she had seen the flower before, and not in a dream. Maybe she
did
remember it from some long-ago time, when she’d been a child and the drought hadn’t started yet. But that felt wrong, too. She knew the flower, and it felt more intimate than that, as if it belonged to her alone.
    It was impossible, but as Jae stared up at the fountain that was practically writhing under the moonlight, then down at the flower in front of her, she knew that she’d created it.

“I’m not sure you’re well enough to be up,” Tal said as they walked down the corridor toward the courtyard together.
    Jae let out a huff. She’d woken him just before dawn, but they would have been up soon anyway, and the Curse would have forced her to rise and work no matter how sick she was.
    Even this early, Closest roamed the halls, preparing for the day. Jae and Tal should have been doing the same thing, but thanks to Lady Shirrad’s favor, Tal didn’t have specific orders, and Jae’s only orders were still to tend the grounds and to serve