Read an Excerpt
Radiant Darkness
Chapter One
The Meadow
I wake to a new smell in the air, not the everyday over-ripeness of summer, but something bright and fresh, like the first spring bud bursting open. The scent is so strong, I look to see if my mother has placed a vase of flowers by my bed, but the top of my trunk holds only the usual bronze mirror and the same old red clay foxes, and the house is silent. Then I remember: my mother, leave me a gift? Not likely. She's gone to bless the fields. I decide to follow the scent and see what flower is calling to me with such a loud voice.
On the trail down to the lake, I stop and sniff, trying to decide which way to turn. The well-worn path is already toasty under my soles. Dust rises in the heat and the early-morning sun soaks into my skin as if it were midday. A tortoise plods along beside the path, one heavy foot in front of the next. He stops to nibble some rosemary leaves, releasing a burst of their sharp smell. A rustle behind me makes me turn. It's only a deer. She stares at me with huge, knowing eyes.
I can smell the leaves and flowers pulling in light from the sun, releasing their own perfume in return—roses, sage—the familiar smells of home trying to take over and distract me from their new rival. Then, suddenly, a faint branching appears in the trail. There, to my left, is a small path I've never noticed. As soon as I see it, the fresh scent grows stronger, winning the battle for my attention again, and I head up the slope in a new direction. Why have I never come this way before?
The dusty path gives way to soft grass under my feet. The trail is only thefaintest line now, a whisper of deer hooves, as I walk into the shade of linden and poplar trees, and the deep green of olive leaves on gnarled branches. The perfume is stronger with every step, and I feel like I'm being reeled in on a string. My breath grows shorter and faster. It must be the steep trail making my heart beat so hard.
Now plum trees, thick with ripening fruit, block my view. I lift a heavy branch from the trail and the air lightens, as if a hand were lifting a veil from my eyes. A meadow spreads out before me, but I barely look at it—I only have eyes for the flower beckoning a few steps away. A gentle white head bobs on a slender stalk, sweet and unassuming, like a daffodil's little sister. But her perfume blares out so insistently, I almost feel drugged, like I'm in a different world. In a trance, I reach toward the stalk, and the wind blows my hair back.
Wind? There's no wind today.
I lift my head, and my mouth gapes open. Four gigantic black horses are treading air above the meadow, pushing great gusts with feathered wings. Their heads toss atop massive, muscular necks. Behind them, a golden chariot blazes in the morning sun. A hand holds the reins. A strong, wide hand. A man's hand.
Who is he? What is he doing here?
I freeze, except for my heart: it's crashing around in my chest loud enough for the whole world to hear. What if that man hears and sees me staring at him? A shiver of fear runs down my spine.
He must have pulled on his reins because the horses are landing, their mighty hooves touching down as lightly as a sigh, black wings folding gently over strong, broad backs.
I pull my eyes away and stare at the ground as if it could swallow me up and make me invisible: the long, heavy grasses; a small frog hiding under a leaf, its chest rising and falling almost as quickly as mine.
Suddenly, two birds burst into raucous song, shattering my trance, and I remember I'm capable of moving. I edge back under the trees. Once I'm hidden again, I start running, quietly at first, then faster and faster, until I'm shoving branches out of my way and trampling right over poppies, scattering their blood-red petals across the path. A pounding, like drums, sounds an alarm in my ears.
When I reach the fork in the trail, I screech to a stop, panting and clutching my sides. And listening. But I don't hear anything, except my heart trying to break out of my ribs.
My mother is going to kill him! She's going to kill me!
But I ran, didn't I? Like she would tell me to. I barely glanced at him. So I must be imagining that bold, straight nose. The black beard framing strong cheeks. And those eyes. I'm probably making them up, those black eyes burning like coals in the hottest part of the fire.
The deer pokes her head out from behind a branch, then turns and ambles down the path as if nothing happened. I follow, but I'm seeing the texture rippling in his hair, the travel cloak draped over one bare shoulder, a hand pulling easily on the reins.
Maybe he came to visit my mother.
Ha! Seeing him must have addled my brain. My mother, welcome a man?
I lift my eyes from the trail. There's the lake, as blue and placid as ever. Ringing the lake are meadows stuffed with flowers and trees bowing heavy with fruit. And surrounding it all—I look up and there they are—cliffs, towering pink in the morning light. They're the prettiest prison walls you ever saw.
And my mother did it all for me.
When I was born, she always says, she still had festivals and harvests, and I would have been in her way. So she created this all-female sanctuary, calling to nymphs—flowers and trees, breezes and streams—and they came gladly, filling the vale with music and perfume. At first some of them were my nurses; now others are my friends.
Radiant Darkness. Copyright © by Emily Whitman. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
