Chapter 4
The Warden called me into her office a few hours after we returned to Rosewarren.
Nesset brought me the message this time.
I was helping our healers tend to the human refugees the other squadrons had rescued from Two Bluffs and Oakvale.
The earthquakes, the storms, and the onslaught of Olden hostiles—chimaera, specters, a trio of furiants that had used their power to hurl boulders as big as houses—had left the towns in ruins.
Dozens were dead, many of the survivors were severely wounded, and we’d lost two Roses from our rescue squadrons—two littles Danesh had been training for the past eight months.
The ten Roses who’d been stationed at Graystone were dead.
The eight recruits Caralind and I had saved were the outpost’s only survivors.
Nesset came to me in somber silence. The infirmary reeked of blood, and one of the dead littles had been a favorite of Nesset’s—Gertrid, a wiry northern girl with a talent for spear-throwing.
“The Warden wants to see you,” Nesset said quietly. Her dark eyes were clouded from crying. Her rough gray-brown skin, sewn together with flowers and moss, looked patchy and raw, as if something had scraped layers of bark off a gnarled tree. Maybe Nesset herself had done it.
I looked away. I couldn’t see the Vilia without thinking of Gemma, who had saved her from her abusive revenant masters. How fiercely Nesset loved my baby sister. If Gemma died, would she peel off every scrap of her skin to show her grief? Would I do the same?
I took the Warden’s summons from Nesset, crumpled the square of paper in my fist, and strode away from her, ignoring the curious gazes that followed me as I passed through the crowded rooms. By the time I knocked on the Warden’s office door, my mind was clear, my throat paved with stone.
I stood before her desk with my hands behind my back, staring straight ahead—past her, past the wall, past the priory and the Mist. I imagined nothingness. I was a blade, polished and ready, waiting for the breach bells to ring.
The Warden watched me for a long moment. “Caralind told me what happened at Graystone,” she said at last.
That was all it took to sweep away my calm and rake me open. Petra’s dead face flashed before my eyes. Then it became the face of the dead nymph child, golden and stained with ashes. I gritted my teeth, clasped my hands together more tightly.
“Yes, Madam.”
“Her report was startling, to say the least.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“She has been punished, of course, and will continue to be, for going against your orders. If she had followed them, our two recruits would still be with us.”
Another image: two terrified little girls running toward me, reaching for me, their faces dissolving into ashes right before my eyes.
I nodded briskly. “Yes, Madam.”
Silence fell, and then the Warden sighed. “Mara, look at me.”
I obeyed, keeping my expression carefully blank.
“My brave, strong girl.” Her face was full of pity. “Caralind said you carried the child’s corpse out of Graystone. Why? She was dead.”
My surprise rattled me. Foolishly, I hadn’t expected the question, but of course Caralind had told her this detail too.
I’d held a dead child’s body in my arms without realizing it.
I’d looked at her face and seen Petra’s.
I was sure I’d said Petra’s name aloud. I must have looked like a madwoman, covered in ashes and staring down at the ghost of a girl I’d killed twelve years ago.
Surely Caralind had heard the tale of my trials. Even Roses liked a good scary story.
“I’m not certain, Madam.” I resisted the urge to scratch an itch on my left temple.
“I can only assume I was in a state of shock. The two recruits, the way they died…” My voice caught.
Suddenly, in my memory, each of the two recruits was Petra, and it was her face dissolving into ashes, her screams of agony snuffed out like candles.
I shook my head, looked down at my boots, cleared my throat. “They made me think of Petra. I was caught quite off guard.”
I don’t know why I confessed such a thing, but once I said it, I couldn’t take it back. I stood there, tense and miserable, until the Warden sat back in her chair with a little hum of concern.
“For the next two days, you’ll be off duty,” she said after a moment.
I jerked my head up to stare at her. “No, Madam, please—”
“I’ve made my decision, Mara. For the next two days, you will rest, you will eat, and nothing more. No training, no patrols.”
The thought of being relegated to my room for any time at all, much less two whole days, horrified me.
I needed to keep moving—tending the wounded, counseling the frightened recruits, comforting any Roses who needed it in the wake of our newest losses.
There were duty rosters to look over, patrols to complete.
The ruins of Graystone—and of Two Bluffs and Oakvale—would require excavation and retrieval procedures to ensure that no survivors remained trapped in the rubble.
“Sector Three is vulnerable,” I protested. “We stopped the first wave of hostiles, but more will come, and Topthicket is a mere twenty miles away. The Mist will reach them in days, maybe hours. They’ll need—”
“What I need,” the Warden said, talking over me, “is for my best soldier to rest. You’re no good to me right now.
What if, instead of picking up the body of a dead child, you’d picked up your sword, swung it through Caralind’s neck, and not realized what you were doing until you heard her head hitting the ground? ”
I bit the inside of my bottom lip. “I’m not ill, Madam.”
“You’re not well either. And I understand.” Her expression softened, as if she’d let go of some internal lever, and all at once I could see her weariness, the lines of age in the taut, pale skin around her eyes. “Ours is a hard life even in peacetime. And now…”
She let the words hang for a moment, then stood and closed the packet of papers on her desk with a quiet snap.
“Rest, Mara,” she said, and then she turned to look out the window behind her desk, her arms folded across her chest. “I can’t lose you. And if you won’t take care of yourself, I’ll do it for you. Dismissed.”
It was a kindness, I suppose, and I was glad that she’d seemed more like herself than she had in the Stillhouse, but nevertheless, I left feeling like a scolded dog.
Somehow I reached my room without anyone trying to talk to me.
I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling, but that was no good.
Everywhere I looked—the ceiling, the walls, the sketches stacked beside the easel in the corner—I saw the recreation of Ivyhill I’d begun years ago, when I turned fifteen and was given my own room.
Whenever I had a spare moment, I added to the mural: a bird here, a sprig of ivy there.
My chest tightened with sadness so overwhelming that it became anger. I turned off the oil lamp on my bedside table, but darkness was no help. I knew it was there, somewhere past the black: the house I was born in, the home to which I could never return.
Suddenly I couldn’t be in the room any longer. I sat up, still dressed, and grabbed my coin purse. My skin was roiling as if it weren’t skin at all but a sheen of upset insects instead. Skittering, clicking their shiny sharp mandibles.
When I felt like this, only two things were sure to settle me. One was training, but that was no good. Someone would spot me and report me to the Warden.
The other lay in Fenwood.
***
Long ago, I’d resolved never to love another person—not in a romantic way, at least. That sort of love invited heartbreak I couldn’t afford.
I’d done it once before, at seventeen. I’d fallen for an older Rose, Crellin, who’d taught me about my body with gentle patience.
She had made it clear that our arrangement was purely physical, a way of releasing tension, and that I should have learned these things long ago.
Doing so was a matter of practicality and safety in our line of work.
But I was seventeen and stupid, and of course I had fallen hopelessly in love with her.
Then, on a mission to the Old Country, I’d lost her.
One of the four Olden Winds—elusive, nebulous beings that spent most of their time in the skies—had swooped down to attack us, furiously howling some insult about the foolishness of trespassers.
Not that the changeable, territorial Winds ever needed a reason for their violence.
This one flew down upon us like a hurricane, picked up our squadron in one mammoth iridescent fist, and threw us through the forest. Crellin slammed into a rocky hillside and cracked her head open.
I was the one to find her broken body, and once I returned to Rosewarren and finally stopped crying, I resolved never to love again. I’d kept to that resolution ever since.
But a purely physical exchange with someone I’d never see again was safe enough, and a dependable remedy for an unsettled mind when I wasn’t in the mood for violence.
***
The town of Fenwood was the closest settlement to the priory, and long ago, the Order had come to an agreement with its citizens: our protection, our reinforcement of the nearby Mist, in exchange for their discretion.
This arrangement worked marvelously well.
As a Rose, I could go to Fenwood and do anything, seek anything.
No one would question or stop me, and they would keep their judgments to themselves.
Locals impressed the importance of these rules upon visitors, and visitors delighted in being able to sell Roses their bodies, their drugs, their information, all without consequences.
Over time, humble Fenwood had become a treasure trove of secrets and illicit delights, if you knew where to look.
That night, I entered my favorite tavern, the Black Stag, wearing a hooded cloak simply out of habit. I could have strutted through town wearing a bright red gown and crowing my intentions for all to hear, and no one would have batted an eye.
I made straight for the barkeep, a woman named Imelda whom I’d known for years.
She could look at someone—even a visitor she’d just met—and know immediately whether they were looking to bed a Rose.
They came from far and wide—thrill-seekers of a sort.
Collectors. It was an honor to be chosen by one of us, one of the grandest boasts a person could possibly bring back to their friends.
And if the Rose transformed into a monster halfway through?
Even better. What would that feel like? Would they somehow become a monster too?
Imelda had exquisite taste and knew my own quite well. She took one look at me, then nodded toward one of the room’s far corners.
“That one over there,” she murmured, hardly pausing as she wiped down the countertop. “He’s been waiting around for hours. Sweet man, despite his looks. Sailor, I think.”
I followed her gaze to the hulking man crammed behind far too small a table. He had ruddy skin, rough from the wind and sea, dark hair, a strong jaw. When I got closer, I saw that his fingernails were clipped and clean.
Good enough.
I took him to my usual room upstairs and wasted no time, which I think surprised him. But I’d been wet since I left Rosewarren, and I felt almost feral with impatience. It wasn’t the act itself that aroused me; it was the promise of the relief that would come after. The buzzing, liquid quiet.
His hands shook when he touched me, as if he couldn’t believe his luck.
His fingers brushed against the rose tattoo that spanned my right thigh, then traveled up my torso.
In the small mirror on the wall, I caught a glimpse of my lean, pale muscles, my long dark hair, his erection, his big hands palming my breasts.
“Gods,” he rasped, “you’re beautiful. What’s your name?”
“No names,” I bit out, and then I tugged on his arm, bent over the bed, and looked back over my shoulder. “Hurry up. Please,” I added.
He obeyed at once—put his meaty hands on my hips, thrust into me from behind.
I fisted the bed’s quilt and closed my eyes.
A mistake. Behind my eyelids were roaring flames, screaming girls, the memory of Petra’s flesh giving way to my blade.
Nesset, howling with sadness, peeling off her gray skin in long strips.
Gemma and Farrin—dead, flayed, dismembered, disemboweled.
My whirling mind was a festival of violence.
“Harder,” I commanded. “Faster.”
The man hesitated, panting. “Are you sure?”
“You won’t hurt me.” I pressed back into him, taking him deeper, making him moan.
Immediately he grabbed hold of my hair and drove into me so hard I cried out—in pain, in delighted surprise.
My eagerness encouraged him, and he kept going, more confident now.
Sharp, hard thrusts, his hands digging into my flesh, his groans buried in my hair.
He was big; I’d be tender in the morning, probably bruised.
But that was what I wanted. That kind of pain I could bear.
This time, when I closed my eyes, I saw nothing but welcome warm blackness.