The Rose Society, Page 20

  Maeve looks up and around the arena’s top row of seats. “Remember the signal,” she tells me, holding two arms up and out to her sides. “If you see any of the others give this signal, you must take me out of the arena. Do not waste your time waking me from my trance.”

  I bow my head in the best imitation of Raffaele I can do. “Yes, Your Majesty,” I reply. I pause to look at both ends of the arena’s stone path. Maeve’s brothers are watching me down here too. I can see them now, barely noticeable in the night, and now and then I can see the gleam of their arrow tips fixed on me.

  Maeve pulls the hood from her face. Rain soaks her hair. She takes a deep breath, almost as if she were afraid of what will happen next. She is afraid, I realize, because I can feel the fear building in her heart. In spite of everything, I recall that she has only ever brought her brother back from the dead. We are all venturing into strange territory.

  “Come closer,” she commands me.

  I do as she says. She gives me a long look for the first time, her eyes lingering long enough that I start to wonder whether she can see through my disguise. She pulls a knife from her belt.

  Maybe she does know. And now she will kill me. I lean hesitantly away, ready to defend myself.

  But Maeve instead beckons me forward again. She reaches out and grabs a lock of my soaked hair. In one deft move, she slices a length of the lock off.

  “Give me your palm,” she says next.

  I hold one hand out at her, palm facing up. She murmurs for me to brace myself, digs the blade into my flesh, and makes a small, deep slice. I flinch. My blood wells against her skin. The pain sparks something inside me, but I force it back down. Maeve lets my blood drip on the strands of my cut lock.

  “In Beldain,” Maeve says, her voice steady and low, “when a person lies dying, we send a prayer to our patron goddess, Fortuna. We believe she goes to the Underworld as our ambassador, to speak with her sister Moritas and vouch for the life she wants to take. Holy Fortuna is the goddess of Prosperity, and Prosperity requires payment. This is what I did when I brought my brother back—a ritual prayer.” Maeve’s brows furrow in concentration. “A lock of your hair, drops of your blood. The tokens we give to bind a dead soul to a living one.”

  She bends down on one knee, then presses the bloody lock against the stone. The blood smears against her fingers. She closes her eyes. I feel her energy grow, dark and pulsing. “Every life I pull back to the surface takes a piece of my own life,” she mutters. “A few lost threads of my own energy.” She turns her eyes up at me. “It will take a piece of yours too.”

  I swallow. “So be it.”

  She falls silent. All around us, the storm rages on, whipping at Maeve’s cloak and throwing fresh rain into my eye. I squint against it. Up on the arena’s top row, a silhouette with curls of hair turns toward us. The Windwalker, perhaps? She makes a subtle gesture, and a moment later, the wind around us dies down, pushed back by a funnel of wind that shields us in its center. The storm’s gusts rage in vain against the Windwalker’s shield. Maeve’s cloak drapes back down behind her, soaking in the rain, and I wipe water from my face.

  Maeve bows her head. She stays still for a long moment. As I watch, a faint blue light starts to glow from under the edges of her hand. I can barely see it at first. But then the light begins to pulse, growing in strength from a faint, narrow outline to a soft glow that stretches all around her hand. Overhead, a streak of lightning brings with it an instant clap of thunder. It echoes around the arena.

  A surge of fear emanates from Maeve now. I feel the change like water to a parched man, as intense as the storm. In order to reach the Underworld, one must gain the permission of she who walks the Underworld’s surface, Formidite, the angel of Fear, the same deity I’ve seen before in my nightmares. Somehow, I know that Maeve must be at that surface now, seeking a way in.

  Something starts to pull from the depths of the arena’s lake. No, deeper than that. Deeper than the ocean, something that stretches all the way down, past the world of the living and into the realm of the dead. A darkness, something I have only sensed before in dreams. Threads of energy in the mortal world are infused with life, even the darkest, most twisted threads. But this new energy . . . it is something else altogether. Threads that are black, through and through, lacking the pulse of life and ice cold to the touch. My mind coils away from it—but at the same time, I hunger for it in a way I’ve never felt before.

  This energy feels like . . . it belongs to a part of me.

  Maeve shifts to press both of her hands against the ground. Out in the lake, the waters turn choppier. The waves crash against either side of the path, sending white foam up into the air. The energy from deep in the ocean starts to surge upward. It pushes past the barrier between death and life, and I gasp as the darkness permeates the water around us, staining the water with something not of this world.

  A balira surfaces from the depths of the lake. It gives a cry of distress, then pushes itself up out of the water and launches into the sky. Its wings soar over my head, sprinkling a trail of ocean water across us. I shield myself. Salt water mixes with fresh rain on my tongue. Another balira follows after it, and their absence sends the water churning violently. A large wave crashes against the path, spraying us both.

  The glow under Maeve’s hand now wraps all around her body. The energy in the water has changed too . . . to something familiar. So familiar. I recognize the touch of these threads. There is fire in them—that which aligns with diamond—an intense, ferocious heat that I’ve only ever associated with one person.

  Maeve’s eyes open. They look glazed, as if she were not really here. She leans forward to where the stone path meets the lake, and dips her arms down into the water. Water drips from her chin. She cringes, from pain or fear or strain. Her teeth clench harder.

  Then her arms surge out of the water, pulling on something invisible.

  And the ocean bursts open.

  The waves of the lake explode, sending a jet of water high into the sky, level with the top of the arena. Thunder roars overhead in the same moment. As I look on in awe, the jet of water bursts into flames. Water rains down on us.

  The water is hot.

  Fire races all across the surface of the lake. It rages in whirlwinds, funnels of flames twisting and turning to meet with the wind and sky. The arena, so dark a moment ago, is now alight with scarlet and gold, and heat pulses across the surface, scalding my skin. I shield myself against the brightness.

  The flames form a circle around the water before where we stand. There is too much fire. I feel an overwhelming urge to run away, but instead I force myself to keep concentrating. It won’t be long now.

  A silhouette rises from the surface of the water.

  The water parts for him, and fire rushes in, engulfing his body. He tilts his head up to the sky, taking a deep gasp of air, and then bows, his shoulders hunched, kneeling over the water. Flames lick at his limbs, but don’t burn his skin. Slowly, he rises to his feet in the middle of the water. Flames rush around him, as if eager to be reunited with their master. His dark hair is wild and unruly, hiding his face from view. His clothing is still the same, exactly what he wore when he died. Blood stains the front of his doublet. Flames engulf his hands, curling around him in spools of golden heat.

  When he opens his eyes, they are pools of blackness. Leader. Prince. Reaper.

  “Enzo,” I whisper, unable to look away.

  It is Enzo, truly him, here.

  Maeve turns to me from where she crouches, and holds out a hand to me. A net of threads whips around my heart, ice cold, linking me to Enzo. I stagger forward, then dig my feet into the stone path and push back. I feel as if these new threads would yank me straight into the water.

  “Do not resist it,” Maeve commands.

  The threads twist, growing tighter and tighter until they seem like they will suffoc
ate me. My own energy responds to the darkness in Enzo. Then something cleaves together. A new bond has suddenly formed, made of threads from the Underworld, a tether that links me to him.

  We are bound. I know it as instinctively as I know how to breathe.

  Enzo walks toward us across the water. His face is turned toward me now, recognizing our bond, and I cannot bear to look anywhere else. He is exactly how I remember him . . . all except his eyes, which stay as black as empty sockets. Concentrate, I continue to repeat to myself, but it becomes a constant drone in the back of my mind. I wait as he draws closer, until he steps from the surface of the lake onto the stone path. Fire surrounds us. The heat coming from Enzo goes straight through me, scorching my insides. What a familiar feeling.

  I can’t believe how much I’ve missed it.

  Enzo stops a foot away from me. Fire loops around us, closing in and rising higher until it forms a funnel up into the air, so that it seems like we are the only two people in a world of flames. He looks down at me.

  It takes a moment for me to realize that the water running down my face is no longer from the rain, but from my tears.

  Enzo blinks twice. The black pools in his eyes swirl and fade, until they reveal the whites of his eyes, the familiar dark irises and scarlet slashes. Suddenly, he seems less like a phantom risen from the Underworld, and more like a young prince. His strength leaves him. He falls to his knees. There he crouches, shaking his head. The flames surrounding him vanish, leaving a circle of smoke, and the arena comes back into view, the lake returned to dark, stormy waters, the rain still pouring down in sheets.

  I kneel too. I reach out with slender hands to touch Enzo’s cheeks. Enzo lifts his head weakly to look at me, and suddenly, I can no longer hold back. I pull Enzo toward me, then touch my lips gently to his.

  A second. No more than that.

  The kiss ends. Enzo searches my gaze. Somehow, he sees straight through the illusion.

  “Adelina?” he whispers.

  And that is all it takes to undo me. Raffaele’s face disintegrates into my own, revealing silver and scars. My shoulders hunch in abrupt exhaustion. It feels like all the energy in my body has been sucked away, leaving nothing but the strange, otherworldly threads that now bind me to my prince. I’m exposed before the entire arena, and I don’t care at all.

  “It’s me,” I whisper back.

  They waged war for decades, never realizing that they were fighting for the same cause.

  —Campaigns of East and West Tamoura, 1152–1180, by Scholar Tennan

  Adelina Amouteru

  The Beldish queen reacts first. She has never met me before, but somehow, she knows who I am.

  “White Wolf,” she says. She tries to get up, but she’s still too weak from using so much of her power. She spits out a curse, then glances at the young man standing beside her. Her brother.

  “Tristan!” she shouts.

  The boy turns to me. I can sense the dark energy building in him, something far more terrifying than anything I have ever felt within me. My darkness is a blanket that shrouds the patches of light in my heart. But this boy—his darkness is his heart. There is no light anywhere.

  His eyes turn black. He bares his teeth and rushes at me.

  The speed at which he moves is dizzying. One moment he stood a dozen feet away—the next, he has reached me and holds a flashing blade over his head. I’m going to die. No one will be able to rescue me in time. I glance at Enzo, but Enzo has hunched over on the ground, barely conscious.

  Tristan slashes at me. The blade cuts deep into my shoulder. I shriek—pain blossoms in me and I stagger back. My illusions ache to lash back. But I am so weak, drained from my disguise as Raffaele, that all I can do is throw a thin black veil at him. It vanishes into smoke.

  “Enzo!” I reach for him. He stays crumpled in a heap on the platform.

  Tristan reaches me. His hands close around my neck. I fall backward and hit my head hard on the platform. Stars burst across my vision. He’s choking me, pushing down hard with blind, blank rage.

  The only thing that saves my life is Maeve. As I struggle, Maeve’s voice reaches my ears. “Do not kill her!” she shouts. There is a frantic note in her words, and in a flash, I realize why.

  If they kill me, Enzo’s only link to the living world, then Enzo will return to the Underworld.

  Tristan stops immediately at Maeve’s call. Instead, he whirls, his attention shifting to where Enzo lies. The sudden realization that my life isn’t in danger hits me. My advantage. As Tristan turns to pick up Enzo, I stagger to my feet, clutching my bleeding shoulder, and flee off the stone path.

  I’m only halfway when a blast of wind hits me hard, then lifts me high into the sky. I struggle in vain. The Windwalker’s work. The world around me spins—I think I see flashes of dark robes among the arena’s seats, the Daggers moving against me and heading down to where Enzo and Maeve are. Where are my Roses? My mouth opens in a scream as the wind suddenly cuts off, sending me plummeting down toward the arena’s rows.

  A new current of wind stops me several feet from the stone seats. It flings me to one side, leaving me to tumble along the stairs. I stop there, breathing hard. As my vision clears, I see a Dagger approaching me, her curls tied back high on her head, her face hidden behind a silver mask that sends a ribbon of fear slicing through me. The only part of her face I can see are her eyes, flashing in fury at me. Lucent.

  “You,” she snarls. “What have you done with Raffaele?”

  I can’t think. Visions flash before me—I’m not sure if they are real or if they are illusions. Memories of Enzo kissing me in the rain shift into an image of him with his black eyes, staring through me as if searching for his soul. I tremble like a leaf in the wind. He recognized me through my illusion. How did I give myself away? How did he know?

  Another figure hops nimbly down by my side. He puts a protective arm out in front of me. It’s Magiano.

  He flashes his savage smile at Lucent. “Sorry for that rough landing,” he says, tilting his head close to me. “But I have a prince to steal for you.” Then he braces himself and hits Lucent with a blast of wind.

  Lucent’s eyes open in surprise, but she manages to catch herself in time. She leaps backward, then rides a current of her own wind to the bottom of the steps. She prepares to attack us—but Violetta stands up from where she’s crouching nearby. My sister narrows her eyes.

  Lucent gasps. She steadies herself, then blinks in confusion. She tries to pull together a curtain of wind, but nothing happens. Fear sparks in her, and I reach hungrily for those threads. They shimmer in a halo around her.

  Magiano laughs a little. A dagger gleams in his hand. “Why so surprised?” he taunts. He lifts a hand down toward the arena, where Enzo is still kneeling on the platform, and calls the wind to pick him up. Then he lunges at Lucent with the blade drawn.

  I scramble to my feet. Just standing up feels like an overwhelming task. My head spins, and cold sweat covers my forehead. Below, Enzo lifts onto the wind, and I feel the bond between us move with him. It pulls at the insides of my stomach, making me simultaneously nauseated and excited. What does our new connection do?

  Lucent pulls two short swords from her belt. She crosses them as Magiano hits her, and the clash rings out over the storm.

  A black shadow falls over me. Overhead, Gemma appears on the back of a balira. The balira lets out a sharp, furious cry. I’ve never heard such a sound before from these gentle creatures. Its eyes gleam in the night, and it lunges down toward me. A sharp stab of anger surges through me at the sight of Gemma. I chose to spare you earlier. How dare you turn on me. If I had my power right now, I would attack her. The balira’s rage feeds me, returning some of my strength.

  The balira spins so that its giant wings swing down toward us, threatening to send us flying through the air. A hand clamps down on my arm. It�
�s Sergio. “Get down!” he shouts, then shoves me aside. I throw my hands over my head and curl up as small as I can. Above me, Sergio sidesteps enough to let the tip of the fleshy wing swing past him. He grabs its edge. It yanks him into the air, and as the balira starts to soar up again, Sergio glides up from where he dangles from the wing.

  I yank out the dagger at my belt. Almost immediately, though, the weapon unfurls right before me and vanishes into thin air. The Architect. Michel’s here. I whirl around, looking for him. At the last second, I see him rushing down toward me from the top of the arena’s stairs, my dagger now in his hand.

  Energy builds in my chest again. I reach for him and lash out.

  I don’t have enough strength to envelop him in pain, but I can fool him with my tricks. A quick replica of myself materializes and lunges at him with a scream. I scramble out of the way as Michel skids to a halt on the stairs, startled by the illusion of me. I rush up to him, take advantage of his hesitation, and grab my dagger out of his hands.

  Then I wrap my arm around his neck and hold the blade to his throat. “Move, and I’ll kill you,” I snap at him. Then I raise my voice over the storm. “Stop!” I shout.

  Farther down the stairs, Magiano and Lucent break from their duel for an instant. Lucent glances up at me through the rain. She’s breathing heavily, and one of her wrists looks bent at an unnatural angle. She has her powers back now, but she’s not using them.

  Violetta makes her way up toward me. She holds a hand up to the sky, where Gemma’s balira soars by. She clenches her jaw and makes a fist. The creature shudders. Gemma lets out a faint cry as my sister yanks her power away. Her balira shudders—she struggles with Sergio. Then she loses her grip altogether on the balira. I can tell the instant it happens, because the beast suddenly starts to dive toward the water.

  Gemma seems to regain control at the last instant. The balira pulls up. It slides one of its wide wings underneath Enzo. Water sprays as the balira’s long tail hits the lake.

  “Let him go,” Lucent shouts at me.