Read The Lily Brand for Free Online

in a million little droplets, moistening her face and hands. A gray curtain closed off the world.
    Beside her, tiny shivers raced through the man’s injured body and made his chains click in a grotesque parody of a tune. But Lillian raised her face to the sky and gloried in the rain that dampened her hair. Her brown curls sprang to a wild life of their own, slipping out of her hairpins, escaping her carefully arranged ivory combs.
    The wetness that soaked the earth would render their tracks invisible within a very short time. And the drizzle itself would cloak them for the rest of their journey. In weather like this, nobody looked twice at a farmer’s cart.
    The boy swore and muttered, but the ponies seemed heedless of the rain. They trotted on, and the sodden ground swallowed the sounds of their hooves.
    Once, Lillian looked back, yet by then the château had disappeared as if it had never been. Nevertheless, she could still feel the dark menace that emanated from it, a bleakness that seemed to have seeped into the land itself. This was cursed soil, where every rose would blacken and all grass would wither.
    Lillian closed her eyes, swaying with the motion of the cart. She would not let herself think of Camille’s anger upon learning of her escape. By the time they would notice her absence, the oncoming night and the weather would have made it impossible for anyone to follow her straight away. And by tomorrow morning, she would be gone.
    If not…
    It did not bear thinking about.
    Lillian opened her eyes and found the man staring at her, his own eyes very blue. Quickly, she turned her head away. She did not want him here. Why hadn’t she left him in the garden, chained to the tree? But then… but then, she had pressed the brand into his skin…
    Her responsibility.
    She watched the indistinct shapes and shades of the gray landscape slide by, all color washed out. Perhaps they had lost their track, had entered the Otherworld long ago. Perhaps they were now forced to travel on and on, forever caught in the small cart.
    Lillian shook herself.
    Shadows loomed ahead, dark and menacing. As she looked, a forest grew out of the shadows. Untouched trees reached high, and below, bushes formed a seemingly impregnable wall. A forest, perfect for hiding, far away from the prison and the mines alike. It was as good a place as anywhere.
    “Stop,” Lillian said to the boy When he just grunted for an answer, she gripped a handful of his jerkin. “Stop. I want to let him go.”
    The boy reined the ponies in and turned in his seat. “Go on with it.” He spat. “And hurry.” The wetness had slicked his hair to his head, formed nonexistent grooves in his face so that he looked older, a man instead of a boy.
    “Go,” Lillian told the prisoner, whose chains rattled against the wooden cart. She climbed off the vehicle after him, watched as he nearly stumbled and fell. Perhaps his bad leg was hurting. She should have left him in the garden.
    Lillian slipped the necklace with the key over her head, and then she opened the ring around his neck. The metal was cool and slippery with wetness. Impossible to tell whether it was from the rain or from his sweat.
    Behind her, she heard a distinct clicking sound.
    When she turned around, the boy was holding a pistol, ready to shoot. At the glance she threw him, he just shrugged. “No need to take risks, is there? Better to get rid of that one soon.”
    So she ordered the man to turn around for her to open the shackles that bound his wrists. The flesh beneath, she saw, was scraped raw.
    It did not matter anymore.
    Quickly, she scrambled back up the cart, suddenly glad for the boy’s pistol. She reminded herself that, yes, a caged animal, turned free, might well turn against anyone who was near.
    She watched the man spread his hands, free at last, and turn around, his eyes a smoldering blue. Then the cart rumbled on, gathering speed, and his eyes disappeared behind the curtain of the rain. He