Page 5 of The King's Man 3
She steps closer, her expression unreadable. “Be careful not to live for something that can’t be reclaimed.”
Casimiria isn’t wrong.
I start spending more time in the hidden library than I do in the garden—the very place that would help the most. But... how can I not?
I’ve found more than ancient scriptions. I’ve found writings from my forefathers. My great-great-grandfather, my great-grandfather. Their notes, their trials, their hopes. I feel part of a legacy written into these walls, and I want... I want to add to it, to keep it alive. I want healing methods to grow. I want to take what they’ve learned and push it further.
But how can that be done in this cold, forgotten tomb?
I drag myself back to the muddy patch of earth. I’d hoped for weeds at least, something stubborn and wild. But the patch remains bare. A sickly looking bed stares back at me like a dried-up puddle, mocking.
A bet starts: when will I give up? When will I start living like the rest of them, playing games to predict who will die next,scratching patterns on their skin to ward off fate, singing songs under the stars in memory of those long gone?
Lucius passes me with a sighed grimace. “You’re not growing herbs. You’re just digging a grave.”
I swallow. “Then I’ll be the one to lie in it.”
With Akilah’s quiet support, I tend the garden every morning.
By the tenth day, the laughter fades, replaced by pity.
On the fifteenth day, Akilah crouches beside me, her breath caught.
A sliver of green has broken the cracked surface. Frail. Curled, as if it’s afraid of this place. We stare at it, not moving, not breathing—afraid even that might crush it.
It does.
I stare at the bed, the withered remains, my fingers coated in soil. Maybe Lucius was right. Maybe false hope is all there can be.
Akilah leans into me, defeated. “Does this mean you’ll bury yourself in those books again?”
It’s tempting. I admit it—I even thought that exact thing. But as the sun dips low and the light sharpens along the ruined walls, something inside me flares. Something stubborn. Something alive.
“Let’s try somewhere else,” I say, suddenly inspired. “New location. Better light. Different soil.” I glance across the courtyard to Lucius, already snoring in his sunny corner.
She follows my gaze. “You wouldn’t.”
A few hours later, I’m digging in the sunniest patch of earth while Lucius bemoans his lost napping place.
By the fifth week, herbs have sprouted in neat little rows. Pale green, bright against all the grey. The whispers have ceased. In their place... something like a held breath. Like hope.
Casimiria appears beside me, humming in approval, though a shadow of pain lingers in her eyes.
“He is right about you.” Her voice falters, her breath hitching sharply. She stumbles, and I catch her before she falls. My fingers seek her pulse.
“You’ve been hiding this,” I whisper, horrified.
“It’ll pass,” she says, her teeth gritted.
Her condition is worse than I feared.
“When did you last get the antidote?”
Her silence answers for her.
I swallow, my resolve hardening. “Then we’ll find another way.”
Casimiria’s pain started weeks ago and has only worsened. That she hid it from me...
