The Rose Society

  “We’re fine,” I say, sounding harsher than I mean.

  Magiano gives me a look to let me know he doesn’t believe me. He opens the door wider and steps inside. His long braids are matted from the storm, and streaks of water still glisten on his skin. He brings in the scent of rain and ocean. His gold hooped earrings shine in the light.

  It takes me a moment to realize that the mercenary has followed him into the room. He closes the door behind him. Then he turns to us and nods a quick greeting. He’s tall, his shoulders broad and his skin pale, perhaps from exhaustion.

  “That was almost more effort than you’re all worth,” he says. “The ports are a mess today. Word has it that the new Beldish queen arrived in Kenettra today too. A great deal of water traffic is being diverted here to Merroutas.” He raises an eyebrow at Magiano. “So, thank you for adding to the madness.”

  The new Beldish queen. I think back to the way Lucent occasionally talked about the Beldish princess, and how fond she was of her. What if the Beldish queen was a Dagger patron? If she’s now in Kenettra, what are the Daggers up to?

  “We may have some explaining to do when we reach port again,” the mercenary continues. “I guarantee you word about the Night King’s death will have spread to Kenettra by then, and Inquisitors will be checking every ship that docks today.”

  From under his shirt collar, I catch a glimpse of a faint gray marking. “I’m sorry for the trouble,” I decide to answer. “Thank you for your help.”

  “Never thank a mercenary,” he replies. He glances at Magiano, who is busy squeezing water out of his braids. “I was paid.”

  “You didn’t really think I stopped by the Night King’s court to only steal a single diamond pin, did you? I picked up some bags of gold on my way out.”

  The mercenary crosses his arms, then introduces himself. “Sergio.”

  “Adelina,” I say.

  Violetta smiles when he looks at her. “Violetta,” she says. “The sister.”

  She manages to coax a smile, even a laugh, from him. “No need for humility,” he replies. “Magiano mentioned your power.” At that, Violetta blushes pink.

  Magiano nods at him. “You must be one of the Night King’s former men. Yes?”

  Now I notice the many knives strapped to Sergio’s belt, the dagger tucked into his boot. Battle scars on his arms. “Yes,” Sergio says. “I was one of his mercenaries. You’ve heard the stories, I presume. Ten thousand of us, so they say, although we really number closer to five hundred.” He smiles again. “We just manage to give an impression of many men.”

  “Why are you helping us?” I ask.

  “No point in serving a dead man, is there? I’m sure several of his men are fighting over his vacancy right now, although I’ve no interest in ruling an island.” He tilts his head in Magiano’s direction. “He tells us you are the White Wolf, and you’re looking for allies. Is it true that you ran the Night King through with his own sword?”

  And you loved it so, the whispers in my head say without warning, their little voices full of glee. I swallow hard, forcing them down. Even though my powers are still weak, I answer by conjuring an illusion of a shadow before us, transforming it into a faint semblance of Sergio. I note the look of awe on his face before I pull the illusion away. “Yes,” I reply.

  Sergio regards me with renewed interest. “I’m not the only mercenary on board,” he says. “A dozen others among the crew are as well. Some of them even think you are ruling Merroutas right now.” He pauses and I notice a slight shift. “The Night King kept us in decent coin, though. What can you pay?”

  Magiano looks on with a small smirk. “Ten times what he gave you,” I reply, making myself as tall as I can. “You’ve seen what I can do. I think you can guess at how powerful I can make my followers, how much I will reward them for their loyalty.”

  Sergio lets out a low, mock whistle, then glances sidelong at Magiano. “You never told me she was rich.”

  “I forgot.” Magiano shrugs.

  “And you think her words carry weight?”

  “I’m following her, aren’t I?”

  The corner of Sergio’s mouth tilts up. “So you are.”

  Beside me, Violetta is concentrating on Sergio in a way that can only mean she’s studying his energy. “You’re an Elite, too, aren’t you?” I ask.

  He nods once, casually. “Perhaps.”

  “You create storms.”

  He stands a bit straighter. “I do.” He pauses to glance outside the tiny porthole, where the rain is still coming down. “It’s proven useful enough to the Night King, stealing from stray vessels and in turn destroying pirates that try to take from him. Still, storms require time to begin and end. We’ll have rough seas tonight.”

  The boy who could control the rain. It must be him. Raffaele had never explicitly told me what happened to him, only that the Daggers refused to keep him. I thought they killed him—but here he is, alive.

  “I’ve heard of you,” I say.

  He snorts once. “I doubt that.”

  “I used to work for the Daggers too.”

  He stiffens immediately at the mention of the Daggers. My heart leaps a little. I was right. “You’re the boy who could not control the rain,” I press on.

  Sergio takes a step back and regards me with a suspicious look. “Raffaele talked about me?”

  “Yes, once.”

  “Why?” Sergio’s entire demeanor has changed—all traces of amusement have disappeared from his face, replaced with something cold and hostile.

  “He mentioned you as a warning for me to master my power,” I reply. “I thought they killed you.”

  Sergio’s jaw tenses as he turns to watch the storm. He doesn’t answer me. A long moment of silence passes before he looks back to me again with a shrug. “Well, I’m here,” he says stiffly. “So you thought wrong.”

  A sharp pain pricks my heart. Raffaele might have told Enzo to do the same thing to me. How can someone so gentle be so cold? Perhaps Raffaele was right on my count, at least—Enzo had refused to hurt me, and his decision destroyed him.

  “Raffaele wanted me dead, you know,” I say after a while. “In the beginning. He cast me out after . . . Enzo’s death. I came here to Merroutas in search of other Elites, to put together a team of my own. I want to strike back at the Inquisition for all that they’ve put us through. We could be a team that far outpaces the Daggers. And together we can succeed.”

  “Are you saying you want to seize the throne?” Sergio asks.

  I weave a brief illusion around me, trying to emphasize my height and stature, making myself as regal as I can. If I’m going to recruit more Elites, I’m going to need to start looking like a leader. “I told you that I could pay ten times what the Night King paid you. Well, this is my proposal. The Kenettran crown’s treasuries would make the Night King’s pale in comparison.”

  Sergio gives me a skeptical look. “The Kenettran crown is guarded by the Inquisition.”

  “And I killed the Night King with his own sword.”

  Sergio considers my words. The silence ticks by, eclipsed only by the sound of rain and howling wind. He could have worked well with the Windwalker, I find myself thinking. I wonder if Lucent was sad about his absence. I wonder if the other Daggers even know that Sergio is alive. I wonder about his history with the same people I once knew.

  “I’ll think about it,” he finally replies.

  I nod, but I already know his answer. I can see it in the gleam of his eyes.

  Teren Santoro

  You sent for me, Your Majesty?”

  “Yes, Master Santoro.” Queen Giulietta sits on her throne and regards him with a calm look. He drinks in her beauty. Today she is in a loose sapphire gown, the train so long that it trails down the top of the stairs. Her hair is pulled high on her head, revealing her slender neck,
and her eyes are large and very, very dark, framed by long lashes. Her crown reflects the morning light filtering through the windows, making tiny rainbows on the floor of the throne room.

  She says nothing more. She’s angry.

  Teren decides to speak first. “I apologize, Your Majesty.”

  Giulietta considers him with her chin resting on her hand. “Why?”

  “For my public disgrace of the Beldish queen.”

  She doesn’t reply. Instead, she rises to her feet. She tucks one of her hands behind her back, and with her other hand, she waves forward one of the Inquisitors waiting along the walls. “You were unhappy with Queen Maeve’s gift to me,” she says as she walks.

  Raffaele. Teren suppresses a jolt of anger at the reminder that the malfetto whore is now being held at the palace. “He’s a threat to you,” Teren replies.

  Giulietta shrugs. When she reaches him, she looks down at his bowed figure. “Is he?” she says. “I thought you and your Inquisition had him properly chained.”

  Teren flushes at that. “We do. He will not escape.”

  “Then he’s no threat to me, is he?” Giulietta smiles. “Have you found the rest of the Daggers yet?”

  Teren’s whole body tenses. The Daggers were the perpetual thorn in his side. He had cut off the funding of so many of their patrons. He had tortured malfettos affiliated with the Daggers. He had narrowed down their potential location to nearby cities. He knew their names.

  But he hadn’t succeeded in capturing them yet. They had scattered to the winds, until yesterday. Teren swallows hard, then bows lower. “I’ve sent additional patrols out to hunt them down—”

  Giulietta holds up a hand, stopping him. “A dove came in this morning. Did you hear?”

  Teren was too busy this morning with the malfetto slave camps to receive news. “I haven’t yet, Your Majesty,” he says reluctantly.

  “The Night King of Merroutas is dead,” Giulietta replies. “Murdered, by an Elite called the White Wolf. Whispers about her have spread everywhere.” She fixes Teren with a stare. “She is Adelina Amouteru, isn’t she? The girl you’ve repeatedly failed to kill.”

  Teren stares at a vein in the marble floor. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  Teren hears the Inquisitor return, and the telltale sound of metal blades dragging along the ground. “The Night King was our ally in Merroutas,” Giulietta says. “Now there is chaos. My advisers tell me that the city is unstable, and we are vulnerable to a Tamouran attack.”

  Adelina. Teren clenches his teeth so hard that he feels like he might break his jaw. So, Adelina is in Merroutas, across the Sacchi Sea . . . and she had killed the city-state’s ruler. Even as he seethes at the thought of her becoming a real threat, something about her ruthlessness calls to him. Very impressive, my little wolf. “I swear to you, Your Majesty,” he says. “I will send an expedition there immediately—”

  Giulietta clears her throat and Teren stops talking. He looks up to see the other Inquisitor approach the queen. He holds a nine-headed whip, each head tipped with a heavy, razor-sharp blade. This is Teren’s custom whip. Teren sighs in relief at the same time that he winces.

  He deserves this.

  Giulietta folds her hands behind her back and takes a few steps away. “I was told you halved the rations of the malfettos, against my wishes,” she says.

  Teren doesn’t ask how she found out. It doesn’t matter.

  “Master Santoro, I can be a ruthless queen. But I have no wish to be a cruel one. Cruelty is to hand out unjust punishment. I will not be unjust.”

  He keeps his head bowed. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “I wanted the camps as a visible punishment that the rest of our citizens can see, but I’ll not have hundreds of rotting corpses outside my walls. I want submission from my people, not revolution. And you are threatening to undo that balance.”

  Teren bites his tongue to keep himself from speaking out.

  “Remove your armor, Master Santoro,” Giulietta says over her shoulder.

  Teren does as she says. His armor clangs, echoing, to the floor. He pulls his tunic over his head. The air hits his bare skin, scarred from countless rounds of punishment. Teren’s pale blue eyes glow in the chamber’s light. He looks at Giulietta.

  She gestures at the Inquisitor holding the bladed whip.

  He lashes Teren’s back with it. The nine blades strike him, ripping into his skin. Teren chokes down a cry as familiar pain explodes across his body. The edges of his vision flash crimson. His flesh opens before it immediately starts to heal. But the Inquisitor doesn’t wait—he whips the weapon down again as Teren’s skin struggles to stitch itself together.

  “I’m not punishing you because you were disrespectful of the Beldish queen,” Giulietta calls out over the sickening sound of blades slashing Teren’s flesh raw. “I’m punishing you for disobeying me in public. For making a scene. For insulting the queen of a nation we cannot afford to fight again. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty,” Teren chokes out, as blood drips down his back.

  “You do not make decisions for me, Master Santoro.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “You do not ignore my commands.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.”

  “You do not embarrass me in front of an enemy nation.”

  The blades dig in deep. Teren blinks back the unconsciousness creeping at the edges of his vision. His arms shake against the marble floor. “Yes, Your Majesty,” he says hoarsely.

  “Stand up straight,” Giulietta commands.

  Teren forces himself to do so, even as the gesture makes him scream. The Inquisitor whips the blades across his chest and stomach; his eyes fly open as they slash deep. This blow would have killed him instantly, if he were a normal man. For Teren, though, it merely brings him onto his hands and knees.

  The whipping continues until the floor beneath Teren is slick with a film of his blood. The scarlet streaks across the marble make circular patterns, punctuated by Teren’s handprints. He concentrates on the swirls. Somewhere, high above him, he knows he can hear the gods murmuring. Was this punishment from Giulietta, or from the gods?

  Finally, Giulietta holds up a hand. The Inquisitor stops.

  Teren trembles. He can feel the demonic magic of his body laboriously bringing his broken flesh together again. These wounds will leave scars for sure—the cuts made too quickly over skin still not healed, over and over. His blond tail of hair hangs over his neck in sweaty strings. His body burns and aches.

  “Rise.”

  Teren obeys. His legs feel weak, but he grits his teeth and forces them to steady. He deserved every last bit of that punishment. As he stands up straight, he meets Giulietta’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” he mutters, softly this time. The apology of a boy to his lover, not an Inquisitor to his queen.

  Giulietta touches Teren’s cheek with her cool fingers. He leans into her gentle grasp, savoring it, even as he trembles. “I am not cruel,” she says again. “But remember this, Master Santoro. I only ask for obedience. If that is too hard, I can help. It is easier to obey without a tongue, and easier to kneel without legs.”

  Teren looks into her deep, dark eyes. This is what he loves about her, this side of her that always knew what had to be done. But why did she not immediately give the order to punish Raffaele? He should be executed.

  She has not, Teren thinks, with a painful surge of jealousy, because she wants something else from him.

  Giulietta smiles. She leans closer, then presses her lips to his cheek. Teren aches at her touch, her warning. “I love you,” she whispers. “And I will not tolerate you disobeying me again.”

  The Cliffs of Sapientus are said to have formed when the god of Wisdom cut the world of the living from the world of the dead, sealing his sister Moritas forever away. The jagged edges look the most majestic dur
ing sunset, when golden light hits them and paints long shadows across the land.

  —A Guide to Traveling through Domacca, by An Dao

  Adelina Amouteru

  Enzo visits me in my nightmare tonight.

  It is evening, and the lanterns in the corridors of the Fortunata Court are already lit. Laughter floats from the Daggers’ underground cavern, but Enzo and I make our way up the steps to the courtyard. Out here, the night is silent. This is the night after the Spring Moons, I remember through the haze of my dream. After we attacked Estenzia’s harbor.

  Enzo and I kiss in the courtyard, oblivious to the light rain falling all around us. He walks me back to my chambers. But in my dream, he doesn’t bid me good night and then leave. In my dream, he comes inside with me.

  I don’t know if my power is at work . . . but I can feel his locks of dark hair against my cheeks, can sense the ripples of heat that his touch sends through my body. His lips brush past my ear, then touch my jaw and my neck, working their way steadily downward. I sit on the bed and pull him closer until we are a tangle of limbs. This is where we first met, after all, when he came to sit beside me and offered me a chance to join the Daggers.

  Now his face stays buried against my skin. Currents of heat rush through me until I think I might burn alive. His shirt slips to one side, exposing his shoulder. Is he really here? Am I really in the Fortunata Court, in all its former glory? My finger traces the ridge of his collarbone. He sucks in his breath as I tug off his shirt, then run my hands down his chest. He pushes against me. This is real. It must be.

  This is what could have happened that night.

  “I love you,” he whispers in my ear. And I am so enveloped in my dream, so lost in his trail of kisses, that for a moment I let myself believe it.

  Enzo pauses. He coughs once. I turn my head enough to see the angles of his face in the darkness. “Are you all right?” I ask with a smile. My arms reach up to wrap around his neck and pull him closer.

  Enzo stiffens, then coughs again. His brows twist into a knotted line, and he frowns. He pushes away from me and sits in a hunched position on the bed. His coughs come again and again, until he can’t seem to stop. Spots of blood stain the sheets.