6. The Rose
Chapter 6
The Rose
“ I swear to the moon, stars, and sun if you don’t silence yourselves in the next three seconds, my daggers will do it for you.”
“Oh come on, Briar,” Marcus groaned, letting his copper-covered head fall back in boredom. “What are we supposed to do? Just ride along listening to the frogs croak and the birds sing?”
“Better the birds than you two.” At least the birds sang on pitch. “Keep the melodies in your heads so I can keep what small shred of sanity I have left today.”
I should’ve been grateful they’d stopped bickering, unlike the first five hours—five long hours—of our journey, but I wasn’t. Their off-tune screeching was so ear-splitting, that every creature in a ten-mile radius probably scattered for cover as we approached. If I couldn’t have silence or civil conversation, I’d choose the bickering instead.
The journey had not gone as expected, to put it mildly. We’d walked through the portal and entered a meadow full of bright green grass and flowers. It stood in stark contrast to the dim, murky Sorrowood we needed to cross to reach our destination. The longer we walked the more I expected someone to pop out from behind a tree and reveal we’d fallen prey to a cruel enchantment, cursed to wander a never-ending path for the remainder of our days—or something equally dramatic.
It’d been hours since we began winding through the swamp, and as we continued east per Lucas’ instructions, I saw nothing but more trees, vines, moss, and marsh ahead. I could only hope we were heading in the right direction. Giving this new pack a reason to doubt me before I’d even arrived was not what I’d consider a positive start.
“You should be happy we’re here to keep you company,” Naomi said with her nose tilted slightly up in the air. “If they hadn’t moved up the cut-off date, we’d have to wait until next year, and then you would be traveling through this hell hole alone.”
“Oh, no. The horror. How would I have survived without your aid?”
She rolled her eyes at my monotone reply, but she didn’t comment further. Marcus, on the other hand, wasn’t ready to end the conversation.
“Do you think that just because you, Isaac, and Grayson have always been the three chords in a power braid, the rest of us aren’t just as capable? We’re your pack mates too, and a Beta should know better than to treat her pack like a burden.”
I pulled Isis’s reins and brought her to a halt. He didn’t notice at first, he was looking off into the trees until Naomi elbowed him in the side to get his attention.
“A burden?” I asked. “Tell me, Marcus, other than wishing the goddess had blessed you with an ounce of self-awareness to know your gifts, or rather lack thereof, what have I done to make you feel burdensome?”
His pale cheeks flooded with color, and he tripped over his reply. “I mean, maybe the burden was a bit harsh. I chose the wrong word.”
I tilted my head to one side. “Then what is the right one?”
“Let’s just forget it, Bri,” Naomi said nervously. “Marcus is just irritable from the long ride. We all are.”
“No. Let’s not forget it. Your brother claims my behavior is unbefitting of a Beta. I’d like to better understand his complaint so I can remedy it in the future.”
“You know what I was trying to say.” His eyes shifted between his sister and me. Mine stayed fixed solely on him.
“I don’t, so why don’t you explain it to me.”
“Look, I just meant that when the three of you are together, it’s like the rest of us don’t even exist. It’s always Grayson, the golden heir leading the way with you trailing after him, and Isaac hovering close behind you like you’re the little sister he has to watch over in case she gets too close to the fire.”
More like he was afraid I’d conjure, and play with it.
“So by being close before they left, we treated the rest of you as a burden? Have I ever ignored a request from you?”
“Well, no,” Marcus said.
“Have I ever put your safety at risk?”
“Of course not.” He shook his head at the thought.
“And who was it that met with you at dawn to train for three months straight when you were falling behind in hand-to-hand combat?”
“You, but —”
“And who spent hours scouring the woods around the compound with you to find Naomi’s pet hedgehog when you accidentally let it out?”
“You almost lost my —” We both ignored her.
“It was you, Briar.”
“That’s right. It was me. So what exactly have I or have I not done to make you feel like a burden?”
He said nothing.
“Nothing? Then is the problem truly how I treat my pack mates or is it your own jealousy?”
He huffed and reeled his head back. “I am not jealous.”
His sister looked him up and down. “Yeah, sure you’re not.”
“Oh, like you’re one to talk. Your face turns green every time you look at Briar next to Grayson.”
“That’s not true!”
“You are dying for him to pay attention to you the way he pays attention to her.”
“Well, he certainly hasn’t paid attention to her lately, has he? So what could I possibly be jealous about?”
“Oh, I don’t know, how about —”
“We should keep moving.” I cut them off before they could say more. Both serpents looked at me. One’s face grew more flushed, and the other’s drained of all color.
“Briar, I —”
“Just leave it, Naomi, and let’s get a move on. I’d like to make it there while we still have daylight to travel by.” I squeezed Isis between my heels and continued down the path. The twins muttered accusations at each other for a few moments longer before falling into utter silence. It wasn’t as blissful as I imagined it would be. The air was tense with things unsaid.
Grayson had only been home a handful of times since starting at the Academy. The first was for the winter solstice. I’d barely been able to eat the week leading up to his return. I’d had to make up a story about picking some bad berries in the forest to keep Isaac from asking too many questions about my behavior. I did my very best not to fixate on his impending arrival, but all I could hear when I thought of him were the words he spoke to Lucas in the breezeway before he’d left. The words I’d give anything to go back and avoid overhearing.
But there was no going back.
I stood beside his parents with a smile painted on my lips and tried not to flinch when he walked through the portal. The first thing he did after greeting Ivy and Lucas was to sweep me into a hug and spin me around with such force my feet hovered above the ground.
He acted the way he always had during that visit, but I noticed things I’d been blind to before. Things like the way his smile lost a fraction of its brilliance when I walked in a room, or the twitch of his lips when we were sent on an assignment together. The signs were obvious once I started looking for them.
I’d kept what distance I could without calling attention to the change. I stopped seeking him out in my free time. I didn’t take the seat next to him at meals, or ask him to spar with me during training. A tiny part of me had hoped I had misheard him before and that, when I stopped looking for him, he’d come to find me instead.
He hadn’t.
“Do you smell that?” Naomi’s question drew me out of my retrospection. I looked over to see her nose, scrunched in disgust. Her brother’s head tilted up and he sniffed the air before grimacing. It took the scent a few moments longer to find me, but once it did, it sent a chill racing down my spine.
“Is there an animal carcass nearby?”
“There has to be. What else could smell like that?”
It smelled of death: tar, with the subtlest hint of brimstone, and I felt no small amount of ill ease at encountering the second for the second time in as many days. I knew that smell. I’d once woken surrounded by it in a field of ash. A second death was too coincidental, but like I assured Fenrir, it couldn’t be what I thought it was. They were gone—I knew they were gone. It wasn’t possible, but what else could it be?
Were they watching us? Have they finally found me? I scanned our surroundings for the glint of orange eyes watching behind brush and through leaves of the trees, but saw no trace of them. No. I was safe. The water by the deer and Fenrir’s paranoia were getting to my head after a poor night’s sleep.
They were dead.
No one was looking for me.
I was safe.
“Just keep moving,” I instructed. “The odor will pass.”
They continued grumbling about the smell and speculating. What kind of rot could cause it as we moved forward? It grew more pungent with each step.
We rounded the bend in the path, and that was when we saw it: a wolf, or at least, what was left of one. It was nearly torn in half, its entrails strong between its torso and flank.
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Naomi jumped from the carriage bench and retched into the bulrush plants surrounding the bog. Marcus gagged but remained seated, and I was just doing my best to look disgusted rather than relieved. I’d been wrong; a carcass could cause that type of smell after all.
“What could’ve done something like that to a wolf? Naomi asked when she returned to her seat. “They don’t make for easy prey.”
“Yeah, but they’re usually in a pack,” Marcus pointed out. “Even the strongest predator is vulnerable alone.”
“Exactly. There’s always another threat,” I said, as we passed, its mangled body. “Sadly, it seems he found one bigger than him.”
“Well, I hope we get to the Academy before we meet ours,” Marcus said under his breath.
“There isn’t going to be?—”
A roar interrupted Naomi’s reassurance as a chimera landed on the path not twenty feet ahead of us. I groaned and unsheathed my sword.
“You just had to say it, didn’t you?”