Prologue #3
Mara whirled around to see the masked figures racing into the woods, spears in hand.
They crowed gleefully, as if there weren’t a titan pummeling the beach or a chimaera chasing after them.
One of them easily dispatched the small wolfish chimaera with a sharp kick to its side. The creature yelped and went flying.
And then Mara realized that these masked figures were women.
She was close enough to see their bodies in the roaring firelight and caught a rose tattoo flashing on a shin here, a shoulder there.
A chill climbed up Mara’s arms. These women were Roses, and none of them were attacking Mara or the other recruits.
They certainly looked menacing, with their masks and their jerky movements, like they were performing some strange dance.
Mara’s first instinct was to lunge for one, fell her, and steal her spear.
But it was all a show, she began to comprehend. None of them had used their spears on the recruits. And that woman had kicked away the chimaera as a normal person might a ball.
A sentinel. Mara’s heart jumped in recognition.
She ran after the woman, ignoring the warning cries of the other recruits.
The woman raised her spear and crouched as if to strike, but Mara kept running, then slammed to a stop right in front of her.
May all your thorns drip poison. The phrase emerged from the hazy memories of those long days in the barracks when she had wished for death.
She had heard some of the others talking about it, including Petra, before they’d become friends.
It was a thing the Roses said to one another before battle—a wish for blood, for victory, for a safe return.
Mara reached out and grasped the woman’s forearm. Her nerves fluttered, but she thought of her father and held on to her courage.
“May all your thorns drip poison,” she said, her voice small but strong, and when the woman raised her mask and smiled, her face streaked with paint and her cropped blond hair soaked with sweat, Mara couldn’t help but smile back.
The woman grasped Mara’s other arm and squeezed, gentle but firm. She looked several years older than the recruits. “And may your bones always know the way home,” she replied with a keen look. “I’m Brigid.”
“I’m Mara.”
“Oh, I know. We’ve heard about you.”
Mara bit back her delighted questions and instead said breathlessly, “Will you help us?”
The woman grinned. “We thought you’d never ask. Just tell us where to go.”
Then she turned and whooped over her shoulder—a battle cry, Mara realized, her skin prickling with excitement—and the other Roses shed their masks, tossed them joyfully into the trees, and followed Mara back onto the beach, spears raised to defend her.
Following me, following me, Mara repeated to herself as she ran. Letting herself grin felt like unlocking a secret door buried deep in her grieving heart. They’re following me.
“Any elementals here?” Mara called over her shoulder.
“Here!” one of the women cried.
“And here!” shouted another.
“Go distract the titan. Keep it away from the humans, don’t let it near their raft.”
“And the rest of us?” asked Brigid.
Mara shot her a smile. “We’ll take care of the chimaera.”
She couldn’t stop smiling. These women at her back, these women flying across the beach at her orders—they were all so strong and fearsome, and they were all Roses. Like she would be. Like she was.
May your bones always know the way home. As Mara whirled into battle, flanked by hollering Roses, the fleeting thought came that maybe, if she couldn’t return to Ivyhill, the priory wouldn’t be such a terrible prison after all. Maybe, someday, it could even feel like home.
It was the last thought she had before a great inky blackness swooped across her vision—jagged and dark, like feathers spread wide—and the world around her disappeared.
***
When Mara came to, she was in the trees.
High in the trees. The stars were closer, the air quieter.
Quickly she assessed her surroundings: she was on a sturdy wooden platform affixed to a pine’s thick trunk.
An Olden pine, fatter and taller than any she had ever seen.
The cold air brushed across her skin with a sensation like someone was painting her with silver fire.
On her tongue, the taste of smoke. Olden magic, ripe and swollen.
And she was not alone.
A dark figure perched on the platform’s edge, looking out over the world.
“I need your help, Mara,” it said.
The Warden. Mara recognized her at once, though her voice was deeper now, rounder, like bells so huge and old that their chimes could shake the earth.
The Warden raised her long feathered arm. Feathered, with curling talons and iridescent bird down that gleamed in the moonlight.
Mara’s breath caught. The Warden had transformed into her avian form, as Roses did during battle. Real battle, against real Olden enemies. Mara wondered what it looked like when a Rose transformed from woman to bird. She had always wondered.
Mara approached the Warden slowly, her heart beating at the back of her throat, her mouth dry.
She thought of her father’s voice. She would fear, but she would not be afraid.
Fear could be helpful; it warned, it advised.
She forced her racing mind to slow down and observe.
Yes, here was the Warden, crouched on the platform’s edge like one of Ivyhill’s grinning gargoyles.
Her gown was gone; in its place was the naked skin of a pale woman and the feathers of a great dark bird.
Her hair flowed loose and wild. Fierce black feathers framed her golden eyes.
Owl. The resemblance was obvious.
The Warden was pointing down at the beach below. Tiny bonfire, tiny darting shapes. A faint chimera yowl. The answering holler of a Rose.
“You did well,” the Warden said. “Look at all of them fighting together. Seasoned Roses and raw recruits. Fresh little buds. They’re frightened, yet they fight.
” The Warden’s head swiveled unnaturally as she turned to stare at Mara.
“You did that, Mara. You gave them orders, made them brave. Instead of desperately fighting everything that looked like an enemy, you had the nerve to ask for help. Many would have died without you. Now all of them live. How does that make you feel?”
Mara pried her gaze from the scene below and forced herself to meet the Warden’s unblinking stare. “Proud,” she replied. Her blood ran hot and fast under her skin. “And happy.”
“Happy. Do you enjoy violence, Mara?”
“I am a warrior. A hunter.” Like my father before me, she thought, with a pang of homesickness. “I’m good at fighting. I like doing it.” She paused. She sensed that it was wise to be careful. “And I’m happy that everyone survived the trials. We’ll all be Roses now. Isn’t that right?”
The Warden cocked her head. “Fierce child. The trials have only just begun. Look, out there on the water. What do you see?”
Mara obeyed. Waves churned at the shore, where the elemental Roses battled the titan. Beyond that, a raft drifted steadily across the water. When Mara squinted, she saw a single figure atop it—a girl with auburn hair.
Petra.
Mara’s stomach turned. “I don’t understand. Where is Petra going? Why is she alone? I told her to take the other humans out onto the lake.”
The Warden did not answer.
Mara looked to the pier, and what she saw froze her blood.
The other four humans—the girls Petra had been tasked with protecting—remained huddled on the pier’s edge, abandoned.
Mara’s sharp sentinel hearing brought her a desperate sound.
One of the girls on the pier was calling after Petra with a sob in her voice, pleading with her to come back. Petra had left them there.
“Petra is very brave,” Mara said calmly. She did not feel calm. “I don’t know why she left the others, but there must be a good reason. Maybe she’s going for help.”
The Warden hummed quietly. “These are Olden forests. Help is rare and comes at a cost.”
“She’s trying to distract the titan, then.”
“That titan doesn’t care about one lone girl when he has a whole beach full of people to entertain him.
Perhaps,” she added delicately, “Petra thought too many girls would sink the raft, or that she was safer on her own. One girl on a raft is surely less appealing to a titan than four girls stuck on a pier.”
“She’s just afraid,” Mara offered. She curled her fingers around the ends of her sleeves. “There’s nothing wrong with fear, and of course she’s afraid. You’re making us fight monsters.”
“True. But I don’t see you paddling away, leaving the others to fend for themselves.”
Suddenly Mara’s anger returned. This wasn’t fair. She turned to glare at the Warden. “I could be down there helping them, but you brought me here instead. Why?”
For a moment, the Warden was still. After a moment, she said quietly, “The binding magic that ties me to my duty as Warden, and ties all of my Roses to their duty and to me, is ancient and unkind. It is hungry. It needs blood to do its dark works. And no one has died yet today. Thanks to you, Mara, everyone is safe. Look, even now”—she nodded at the water—“the titan’s attack is subsiding.
The chimaera are dead. And away across the water floats Petra the coward.
Listen to the others beg her to return. How frightened they are. ”
Mara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You do. The trials are meant to cull the weak. Weak hearts poison the magic we must use to fulfill our duty, to serve our queen.”
An oily slick of dread curled inside Mara’s stomach.
“What should we do, Mara?”
The Warden’s voice was gentle, patient, sad. It brought Mara no comfort.
“She was kind to me,” Mara insisted. “I won’t do anything to hurt her.”
“Even if that means others might hurt instead? Even if binding her to us weakens our magic? Even if making her one of us means it will be harder for us to protect our country?”
Mara hesitated. Words stuck in her throat, words she refused to speak.
The Warden sighed. She stretched her sinuous neck, shifted her weight. Her slender feathered feet ended in black talons as thick as Mara’s wrists.
“Very well,” she said. “We’ll bring her back to shore. But I hope, Mara, that as the trials continue—and they will continue, for as many nights as are required—you will make the wise choice, for all our sakes.”
Mara looked up at her stern visage, feeling small and cold. “But why must I choose?”
“Because you are strong,” the Warden replied, “and the binding magic will therefore relish your decision. In thanks, it will bolster you. You and your fellow recruits will enjoy a particularly steadfast connection. You’ll grow into a mighty squadron.
Someday you may even be the soldiers who save us all.
” The Warden looked out over the water, tracking Petra’s raft with her golden eyes.
“Is that blessed chance to save your country, your queen, something you would give up, all for the sake of one cowardly little girl? To save her, you would welcome rot into our bloodline?”
To that, Mara had no answer. Her mind turned and turned, looking for the right thing to say, the right thing to feel, to do. She worried it might go on spinning forever.
The Warden sighed once more and opened her wings. “Come, child. The next trial awaits. Remember what I have told you.”
Mara could not protest. She couldn’t even recall her father’s voice. She stepped into the Warden’s feathered embrace and hesitated, unsure where to put her hands.
The Warden’s laugh was harsh. “I have lived lifetimes in this world. A few pulled feathers won’t pain me. Hold on tight.”
Mara obeyed. The feathers were black silk against her palms.
“Will I have to be the one to do it?” Mara whispered. “After I make the choice. Will I have to be the one who hurts her too?” Her cheek pressed against the warm skin right above the Warden’s downy breasts. The scent there was familiar, maternal. Mara pushed hard against the rising thoughts of home.
“What do you think the magic that binds us would most enjoy?” the Warden asked. Bitterness soured her voice.
It was a question that needed no reply, for the answer was obvious.
Mara closed her eyes tight. She would not cry, she would not cry.
The Order’s old magic, she suspected, would scorn her tears.
She locked her shaking legs around the Warden’s feathered hips and held on tight as the night air rushed around them.
Their flight was silent, swift. Below, on the beach, the bonfire still burned. Roaring. Waiting.