The Garden of Hope
The garden was no longer a patch of struggling vegetables behind the castle walls. It had spread — across the courtyard, across the city, across the hills. The people had planted seeds in every patch of soil they could find, in every broken pot and empty barrel and forgotten field. They had watered them with snowmelt and hope. They had tended them with hands that had once been too cold to hold a trowel.
Now the garden was blooming.
Rhaena walked through the rows of green, her boots sinking into the soft earth, her fingers brushing against the leaves. The crown was on her head, the weight was still heavy, but she felt lighter than she had in months.
The people worked beside her.
They did not kneel.
They did not bow.
They simply worked.
Corin found her at the edge of the garden.
“Your Grace, the council is waiting.”
“Let them wait.”
“The lords are growing restless.”
“Let them grow.”
“The people are asking for you.”
She looked up.
Her eyes were silver.
“Then let them find me.”
The people came.
Not in a crowd — one by one, in twos and threes, carrying baskets of vegetables and loaves of bread. They knelt before her.
She lifted them to their feet.
“I am not a queen who sits on a throne,” she said. “I am a queen who works with her hands. Rise. Stand beside me. Let us work together.”
They rose.
They stood.
They worked.
Theron watched from the shadows.
His good eye was bright.
“Your Grace.”
“Theron.”
“The Withering is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Not gone. Sleeping. The cracks in the throne have healed. The hunger is quiet. The hope is strong.”
“Because of the garden?”
“Because of you.”
Elara approached, her red hair bright in the sunlight.
“The children are healthy. The old are warm. The sick are healing.”
“The fire?”
“The fire. The garden. The hope. They are all connected.”
Rhaena looked at the sky.
At the sun.
At the light.
“The grandmother said the throne is a cage. The first queen said the throne is a seed. The last god said the throne is a harvest. I did not understand then. I am beginning to understand now.”
“What is the throne?”
She looked at the garden. At the people. At the hope.
“The throne is us.”