Page 17

“I would like to trust you not to hurt the rose.”

The world blurred as I tried to blink back tears. For weeks, he had denied me any degree of trust, and now—to receive it so willingly—brought on a torrent of emotions.

And emotions meant tears.

But I wasn’t ready to cry. “I never meant to hurt it,” I whispered.

He stepped closer, into the middle of the doorframe. “I know. I can tell when you lie, remember?”

“But you didn’t trust me before.”

His voice lowered. “I have never allowed anyone into that cave before. That limit in your freedom, at least, was not specific to you.”

My eyes widened. “Nobody? Ever?”

He shrugged. “I let my cousins Robin and Guyan go in, but they’re both stuck outside the curse boundary now. The cave is a forbidden place because I want to protect the rose.” He glanced away.

“Did…” I almost stopped myself, but decided not to. He had to be used to me saying things as I thought them. “Did someone hurt it before?”

He brought his gaze back to mine. “I do not know. It is… suffering. I do not know if it is simply old or if it has been attacked somehow.”

“I don’t know much about roses, but maybe I can try to help it? I’m very good at growing lemons, and roses always grew easily near my lemon trees.”

A sad smile tipped the corners of his mouth. “It is kind of you to offer, but it is a magical rose. It does not respond to most things the same way a normal rose might.”

I smiled back, pleased that I knew a secret he did not. “I can see magic.”

His eyebrows raised slowly as the import of my statement sank in. “What do you mean?”

“I can see magic. If I had time to watch the rose, I might be able to see if the problem is with its magic. All I had time to notice before was the massive amount of bright magic around it, but if I focus on it closer I might be able to tell you something new. Even if I can’t fix it, maybe the diagnosis would help.”

I shrugged. “Or I could treat it like a normal plant. But if you’d like me to look at its magic, I can do that too.”

He bowed his head. “I would be grateful.”

“Maybe you would worry less if we went together?”

He raised his eyes again. “I do not worry at all. I would be honored if you let me come and watch, though. The plant is very important to me.”

I tipped my head at him, trying to understand. “You do not worry at all because I don’t want to torture you for your mistakes?”

“I do not worry,” he corrected, “because all evidence points to your honesty. I would be wasting energy if I spent it worrying about things that others want me to be upset about when I know they will not hurt me. I…”

He stepped closer, into my side of the doorframe, and lowered his voice. “I will not hurt you, either.” They were such simple words, but they thickened the air with unsaid implications. Did he mean he wouldn’t hurt me tonight? Or ever ? What if my brother came again?

“May I accompany you to the rose cavern?” he asked again.

“Of course.” I was still trying to decide what he’d meant a moment ago, but he bowed again.

“Let me go announce your right to be anywhere you choose to everyone in the Dining Hall while they are gathered for the evening meal. Then I’ll come back and take you to the rose cavern.”

He waited for me to nod before turning away and leaving the room. How would his people respond to the idea of a fae running free through their fortress? I thought of Lady Carmine who had almost thrown some kind of awful magic at me and all the glares that had met me on my first night weeks ago.

Was it silly to try to avoid all of them? I liked Mylo. And Koan and Jolter. And the dress-maker Mylo had sent. And Anna. And little Jorlan. That was six elves who had been friendly to me and only one who had really almost hurt me. Unless you counted Koan and Jolter, but they were more like confused friends.

So odds were at least six to one that most elves would be friendly too.

Still, I’d rather the king’s company through the fortress more than the risk of meeting another prejudiced elf. The theater had held at least three hundred elves—if there were three hundred people in the fortress, then odds were fifty of them would be trouble if I met them alone.

And those kinds of odds made me very happy to wait for an escort to leave the room.

Aedan returned fast enough that he could not have taken the time to eat while he was in the dining hall. He knocked on the hallway door and bowed again when I opened it.

“You don’t have to bow every time we meet,” I said. “I’m not royalty.”

He gestured down the hall. “You have a royal status in my mind.”

My heart did a quick little flip at such a sweet sentiment. It was a painful emotion, like a butterfly fluttering through a windstorm. I shouldn’t be attracted to an elf who had done the things he’d done.

But I’d already decided not to hold his mistakes against him. And he was making more of an effort to be better than I’d ever expected.

Of course, it had only been a day since his confession. A few emotional words could not prove any degree of intent.

When we turned into the dark rose tunnel, a glowing ball of light appeared above our heads and floated just ahead of us. I huffed a small chuckle and pointed at it. “This, by itself, is an excellent reason for me to have waited for you to go into your rose cave.”

“The light?” he asked. “Can’t fae gather light?”

I almost snorted. “Yes, fae can gather light, but I’m half human, remember? I nearly tripped a dozen times when I came alone.”

He tipped his head toward me, but kept walking. “Your human inheritance prevents you from gathering light?”

“My human inheritance prevents me from everything,” I muttered.

“What do you mean?”

“I have the pointed ears of the fae. And the ability to see magic. Everything else about me is human.” He would figure out that sad truth eventually, so it hurt nothing for me to just tell him.

“But your brother had magic fire?” He sounded confused.

I nodded. “Yes. He has the round ears of a human and all the power of a fae. It seems to be a very uneven distribution of power.”

He nodded slowly. “So you can’t do any magic?”

I shook my head. “Not unless you count seeing magic.” I rolled my eyes. “Though that seems to get me in more trouble than anything else.”

Aedan opened a door at the bottom of a spiraled tunnel. “How is that?”

I sighed. “I followed a trail of magic from Alastor into Hemlit and got in an argument with a drekkan. I followed a trail of fae magic into the basement after you said not to. I thought… I thought my ability to see my mother’s magic would help me find her, but instead it just brought me awful news.”

I paused to take a breath, and he said, “I am sorry.”

I stopped walking. “What?”

He took another step to stand in front of me. “I won’t keep bringing it up, unless you’d like me to, but I haven’t said this yet, and I want you to hear it from my lips. I am sorry for what I did to your mother. I am sorry for the deception, the mistake, and her death. I am sorry for what it meant for her and for you and for your brother. I will spend the rest of my life wishing I had been more patient and kind. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but I want you to know that I regret it more than anything else in my life.”

It was a short speech, but hearing the words from his mouth did make me feel better about my decision to push away the anger I felt at him. “Thank you. I… appreciate that.”

He nodded, and we continued down the stone corridors.

The final tunnel before the rose bush filled with the bright pink magic that I’d remembered from before. I slowed down to look at it closer. An abundance of magic here flooded my senses and made it hard to focus.

“Do you see something?” Aedan asked.

“Lots of magic,” I answered. “It’s hard to tell much about it because it’s so concentrated in the tunnel here. I’d like to get into the cave to try to see what’s going on.”

He led the way through the narrowing corridor until the root-bound walls were close enough for me to reach out and touch. Magic pulsed through the roots like blood in veins. It emanated away from the plant and filled the corridor.

I touched Aedan’s back, and he turned toward me. “Do you not see or feel any magic in this tunnel?”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I can feel it, but not well enough to manipulate it or diagnose anything about it. I cannot see anything besides stone walls with roots twining their way through the rock.”

I nodded and tipped my chin forward.

We stepped into the cavern. It was just as incredible as before, but this time—knowing I was here with permission—made the experience entirely different. “I wish you could see what I see,” I whispered.

He turned to me. “Will you describe it for me?”

“Of course.” I pointed at the weeping willow-shaped rose bush on an organic pedestal in the center of the room. “The rose bush looks like a small tree covered with hundreds of flowers, but I can’t even tell what color they are because there is so much bright pink fae magic glowing from the plant. It rises from the plant’s essence like smoke rises from you when you’re angry.”

He faced the plant, as if trying to see what I described. “Does it change?”

I stepped closer to the tree. “The magic flows from the main rose bush like water flows from the top of a waterfall, down a set of cascades. The movement is slow, though, like… like a sunbeam.” I grinned as I landed on the right analogy. “The bright pink magic flows like sunlight pouring across a mountain valley.”

I spun to look at the roots. “It pulses through the entire plant like blood pulses through you or I, but as it pulses, it is so strong that it seeps through the plant walls and fills the space around it. That’s why it’s so concentrated in this room and the tunnel.”

I stretched my hands out into the thick clouds of pink magic. “I don’t know why a tendril of it reached all the way upstairs into the courtyard last week—right now, it seems to dissipate at the end of the nearest tunnel…”

My words faded as a new tiny sprout burst up from the ground and grew toward my extended fingers. In less than a minute, the small shoot reached my knees. I bent down and lowered my hand to the two leaves at the top. They wrapped around two of my fingers, hugging them.

I rubbed the leaves with my thumb. “What is it?” I whispered at them. They didn’t say anything, but they held onto my fingers with an intensity that kept me still. I glanced at the king, who also stood perfectly still with his jaw agape.

I hummed my favorite growing song at the little sprout—the song I used to sing to my lemon trees. It was instinctual, a melody that came from my soul for the little plant. When I reached the chorus, I sang the words in a hushed voice.

Find the strength you need to grow,

Find a gift I offer true—

Strength and health and happiness—

Find the power inside you.

When I finished the words, the leaves released my fingers, settled into a more natural rose bush shape, and then erupted in a burst of fae magic that was even brighter than the big rose tree.

But was it really brighter ?

As my eyes adjusted to the bright colors, I realized that the difference in the two pinks was not one of brightness, but one of dilution. The pinks that emanated from the rose bush tree were not only pink.

I turned to the king. “Aedan—” I started, but he ignored me and knelt in front of the new rose sprout.

He looked up at me. “How did you do that?”

“Do what?”

He caressed one of the new little leaves with more gentleness than I’d thought he was capable of. “You made a perfectly healthy sprout. The roots from the rose tree cover all of Hemlit, but they are especially strong in Sirun—the capital here. They often sprout new little rose bushes, but for the last thirteen years, every sprout has been sick or scraggly.”

He touched the little plant again. “This one is strong and beautiful.” Awe filled his voice. “Did you use magic on it?”

“I…” Could I have used magic on it without knowing? I hadn’t seen any, but that didn’t mean much. My sight was a fickle thing, especially if I wasn’t focused. “I don’t know. I do know that after I finished the song, it released a burst of pink magic more than twice as bright as the mother plant.”

I knelt down next to him and grabbed his arm, too excited about what I’d realized to keep a more proper distance. “But Aedan. There’s more. I didn’t notice it at first because everything in here was so bright compared to the dark corridors, but it’s obvious now. The pink that is coming from the mother plant is not a pure pink. There are dark violet wisps of magic inside it. They look sinister and cruel and feel like poison. There aren’t any in this little plant. That explains why it looks healthy to you…”

I pursed my brows together. “Though it does not explain why this plant doesn’t have any if the mother plant does.”

He placed a hand over the one I’d rested on his forearm. “Your song.” His voice caught, and he turned away from me. After a moment, he turned back. “You sang strength and health to it. You purged it of a poison.”

His warm hand over mine caught my breath. He wasn’t acting at all like a king tonight, and it made him terrifyingly attractive.

I suddenly realized I was holding his very powerful arm, and… he was holding my hand. Leather and cedar scents filled my head, and the heat that had first caught my breath now spread ac ross my arms, making it hard to focus. “What kind of poison?”

His green eyes held mine. They were filled with so much hope and approval that it made my head swim. Did he not hate fae now? Or was it just me?

“Magic poison,” he whispered. “My aunt believes the unhealthy sprouts are the work of fae who killed my parents—that it’s tied to Radira and you. But she also believes you are evil… and I know she is wrong about that.” The air between us charged with his simple declaration. He knew I was not evil?

My eyes burned as I refused to let the tears fall. A powerful king telling me I was not evil should not make me cry. My voice fell to mirror his volume. “How do you know that?”

He gave my hand a soft squeeze. “It is obvious to anyone willing to ask it honestly. I am sorry I refused to look before. I…”

He blinked and drew a shaky breath. “I confess I am not accustomed to apologizing or asking for things.”

I smiled. How many people had actually heard this king apologize? “Do not let that stop you. You are doing it wonderfully.”

A grin spread across his face—a strange cross between something hesitant and something feral, like it hadn’t been allowed on his cheeks before, but it wanted to run fierce and free. “Am I?”

I nodded, unsure if he was responding to me or asking something more.

He swallowed, and that feral smile turned more anxious. “Callista, would you please sing to my rose tree?”

Sing to his rose tree? Would it help? Could I purge it of whatever dark magic was swirling through its roots?

He squeezed my hand again. “I know I don’t deserve your help, but this rose bush protects all of Sirun and—in some ways—all of Hemlit. Its magic also strengthens and protects me, though, so I’ll understand if you don’t want to help it.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t let a plant suffer poison if I could help it, regardless of who else benefited. But—”

I met his eyes. He was so hopeful that I worried he did not understand. “But I cannot say that it will help. I’ve always sung to plants, and I’ve had many die before. If there’s magic in my song, I’ve never been aware of it.”

“I will be grateful for any attempt you make, whether or not it works.” His voice had turned husky, like perhaps he, too, was fighting a tendency to tears tonight.

I swallowed and squeezed his arm before moving away from him. “Let’s see what happens, then.”

He followed me up to the rose bush and stood beside me as I wrapped my hand around a branch, carefully dodging thorns. “The magic is so thick here,” I told him, “that I can feel it like waves cresting against me.”

He brushed a leaf with his thumb. “I can feel it too, but I cannot see anything besides the plant.”

“It’s so concentrated, that it looks like water at the top of a waterfall, just bursting with bright pink energy. But interspersed throughout it, like a foreign wisp of smoke inside a cloud, are tendrils of dark violet-colored magic. It feels fae, like the pink, but also different, like it’s malevolent and intent on destruction.”

Aedan raised his brows. “Are we touching it?”

I nodded. “It’s everywhere the pink is, but much less abundant, so I didn’t notice it until I compared the pink in the new sprout to the pink everywhere else.” I let go of the tree and faced him. “I don’t know if singing will help or not.”

“I know,” he said. “I won’t blame you if it doesn’t.”

I turned back around and reached for the branch—

“Stop!” A new voice interrupted. I spun to see who was talking, but Aedan ran in front of me, blocking my view… and taking a forceful hit of concentrated, powerful, dark purple magic.

Magic that had been heading straight for me.

When it hit Aedan, he crumpled to his hands and knees and gasped for breath.

Since when had he been willing to protect me? Since the day you first met him, a snarky voice in my head answered.

“Step away from the rose tree,” a tall newcomer commanded as she raised a threatening hand. I’d seen her once before—in the courtyard on my first day in Sirun. She’d appeared friendly then. Tonight, though…

Tonight she was attacking.

Aedan jumped in front of me again, and smoke started to rise off his body.

“Aedan,” the intruder instructed, “do not burn the rose tree!”

“Then stand down,” he said in a low, menacing tone. “She has come with me. You should not be here.”

“She has twisted your mind,” the woman said, “tricked you into trusting her so she could destroy the rose. It will weaken your magic!”

“Aunt Acantha,” he growled. “Drop your magic and leave this cavern.”

Aunt Acantha? Would he really attack his own aunt to protect me?

She stepped closer. “I am trying to protect you,” she hissed, “from a viper dressed as a sheep! I don’t know what she has done to your mind, but I will not let her destroy you!”

The smoke rising from Aedan thickened until small flames danced like a halo around his body. How did the heat not burn him?

That was a question for later… that and the way his magic vibrated like his aunt’s, and the way they both harmonized with the fae magic in the tree.

“She is not here to destroy anything.” Aedan’s voice carried the timber of the drekkan, and the threat of violence. I did not want to see him strike his aunt down out of fear for me. If the weight of my mother’s accidental death made him want to surrender his own life, what would a deliberate death of someone he knew do?

“Then take her away from this place,” Acantha said. “That is the closest I will come to compromising.”

Aedan growled again. “You have no right to tell me—”

I interrupted by whispering, “She doesn’t want to fight you. It’s not worth it, not here.”

He caught my eyes in his emerald gaze. “You are worth it to me,” he ground out.

Every emotion I’d ever possessed rushed through my chest in a flurry of uncontrolled chaos. I was worth something to him. But what? Did he care about me? And if so, as what? Another subject to protect? A sister? A friend? Something… more?

Acantha’s jaw dropped. “When you made that announcement at dinner, I worried that she had manipulated your emotions and decisions. I followed you here, and now I see that I should have been much, much more afraid.”

That wild grin from earlier crept back on his face. He turned from me to Acantha. “You should not let your fears dictate your actions, Aunt.”

He used my words. If my emotions had been chaotic before, they were unfettered anarchy now. He quoted me to instruct his aunt in kindness. And the glint in his eye told me he knew exactly what he had done.

He spread his arms to his sides and the flames blinked away. “But as a gesture of goodwill for both of you,” he said, “I will drop my magic first and we will all leave together.”

She dipped her head, and he guided me out with a hand between my shoulders. As we walked closer to his aunt, he kept his body between hers and mine. When we passed the last tendrils of smoky pink magic, he paused.

The tunnel had grown wide enough that two people could easily fit abreast, but he pulled me behind his aunt while blocking me from her with his body like a shield. Acantha stopped and turned to see what he was doing. With both of us facing him, he raised a hand to the stony, root-bound wall.

An instant later, a wall of magic fire burned from the floor to the ceiling of the tunnel, completely blocking anyone from entering the rose cavern.

He glanced at me but then focused his attention on his aunt. “Nobody is to enter the rose cavern without my explicit permission.”

Her chin twitched in a tiny nod. “I’ll set a guard.”

His eyes narrowed. “Set two.”