Read Nightfall Gardens for Free Online

Gardens, I’ll need people I can trust.”
    Jonquil stopped. “What you say is true, but Nightfall Gardens cares nothing for Blackwood men, only the women. It’s a hard life for the dusk riders, and that’s exactly what your brother would become. It’s always been that way.”
    “I’m not afraid,” Silas said.
    “You say that now lad, but wait until the Smiling Ladies try to kiss you, or you’re lost in the Labyrinth with nothing but the starless night as a companion. Only an idiot wouldn’t be frightened,” Jonquil said. He and his men crouched by the fire to discuss what they were going to do with the boy.
    “It was very foolish what you did,” Lily said when the two were alone, though secretly she was pleased. “Do you think mother and father are coming after us?”
    “As quickly as they can,” Silas said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they catch up with us before Nightfall Gardens.”
    “What will happen then?” Lily asked.
    “I don’t know,” Silas said truthfully. He thought of his parents battling the three men from the north and shuddered.
    Their uncle came over. He had pulled the wolf cloak tight about him and its jaws full of teeth seemed alive. “We’ll take you as far as Eyum and then you must go back. We won’t be responsible after that.”
    “No!” Lily shouted.
    “I can take care of myself,” Silas said.
    “No doubt you can, but if you knew where you were going — ” Jonquil said to Silas, then pointed at Lily “ — and if you knew what you were asking of your brother, neither of you would be in such a rush to ask for the sacrifice.”
    There was no more sleep that night. Arfast and Skuld covered the fire and erased all signs that they had been there, while the others loaded the carriage. Silas rode with his sister inside as the carriage inched down the mountain in the darkness.
    “We should be in Eyum by afternoon. Then you can put this behind you, boy, like your father and mother. Forget that any such place as the Gardens exists,” Jonquil said.
    “And Lily?” Silas asked. His sister was ghostly in the moonlight coming through the open carriage windows.
    “She has no choice,” their uncle said. “Best for each of you to forget the other exists.”
    Dawn came hours later. The sky lightened imperceptibly, until Silas could see the trees and valley that loomed in the distance.
    The three traveled in silence. Silas turned plots in his head to save his sister, but all of them ended in defeat. Lily’s brow furrowed as she daydreamed about standing ovations and roses thrown at her feet. Jonquil brooded more deeply the closer they came to home.
    The road was little more than a washed-out rut at the bottom of the mountain. They saw no signs of life until they came upon an overturned carriage shortly before noon. It was a mail wagon used to deliver parcels from one end of the land to the other. Bags of mail were ripped open and envelopes blew in the grass at the side of the road.
    Arfast stopped the carriage and jumped down. He looked into the wagon and studied the nearby ground. “No one’s here,” he said. “I see blood stains on the seat.”
    “Bandits,” Jonquil muttered.
    “What did they do with the driver?” Lily asked.
    “Probably dragged him into the woods and killed him,” their uncle said.
    The words chilled Silas and his sister. Days ago, the worst thing that they worried about was Celeus Talbot falling off the stage drunk. They were crossing into a land that neither had ever imagined.
    The uneasy feeling only grew stronger as they approached Eyum. The houses in the village were made from the slate that was found in abundance in the valley. A stone church with a crooked spire and a graveyard that was hundreds of years old were the centerpiece of the town. They only saw one person, a farmer’s wife, leading two sickly cows down the road. She pitched a sign to ward against the Evil Eye when they passed. Silas noticed black crosses painted in charcoal on