Chapter Six: Rose

The pale gold mountain rose unexpectedly out of the desert. It looked remarkably sturdy amid the shifting sands and sparkled magnificently in the high-noon sun.

It was so bright Rose had to squint at it but the sight was a welcome one. They had been riding for hours. Miles and miles of sand, punctuated by only the undulating dunes. She had never been so exhausted. Her thighs hurt, her back ached and she was drenched in sweat. She had been so focused on not falling off the horse as it raced through the desert, she hadn’t let herself think about how frightened she was of what lay before them.

Or how frantic everyone back at Anadawn must be. She could imagine all too well how fiercely Willem would be interrogating the guards and the punishments he would be doling out. Whenever the Kingsbreath was in a fury, all of Anadawn quaked. And someone always paid for it.

And then there was Celeste. She was certainly in a panic! She would chase down Rose herself if given half the chance, and likely do a far better job of finding her, too … But Rose couldn’t think about her best friend right now. Or Anadawn. She couldn’t afford to let herself fall apart. She had to stay focused and alert.

Storm carried them to the base of the mountain, where four arched openings tunnelled into the rock. Shen hopped off the horse and offered his hand to Rose.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, but as her bare feet hit the blistering sand, her knees buckled.

He caught her before she hit the ground. ‘Steady there.’

Rose glared at him. ‘Do you always talk to women the way you talk to your horse?’

‘You should be flattered. There’s no one in this world I respect more than Storm.’ Shen’s gaze sharpened and his face grew suddenly serious. ‘You look as if you’ve caught sun fever.’ Rose froze as he pressed the back of his hand to her brow. ‘The forehead goes red first.’ He traced his finger along her cheekbone, making her breath catch in her throat. ‘And the cheeks go white.’

He dropped his hand, trapping a curse between his teeth. ‘I should have made sure your face was covered. I didn’t realize how little time you’d spent in the sun.’

Rose took a step away from him. ‘I am not as delicate as you seem to think. I spend plenty of time in the sun. I am often in my gardens.’

‘All the same, you should drink some water. Come, there’s plenty inside.’

It was blessedly cool inside the caves. The light that filtered in from the entranceway cast a glimmering kaleidoscope across the walls, while sparkling clear water pooled in a natural basin at their feet. ‘I’d recommend drinking from higher than Storm does,’ said Shen, just as the horse ducked her head and drank greedily from the pool.

Rose eyed the basin with disgust. ‘You want me to drink alongside your horse?Using my hands?’

Shen cupped his hands and drank deeply. ‘This water is the cleanest in Eana. It trickles all the way down from the Mishnick Mountains, which are just north of—’

‘I know where the Mishnick Mountains are,’ she snapped. ‘They belong to me.’

‘Well, so does this desert but you don’t seem to know a thing about it …’ Shen ran his fingers under the water and then raked them through his hair, smoothing the wayward strands from his face. ‘It’s the only fresh water for miles around, so drink up or expire, Princess. It’s up to you.’

Rose reluctantly rolled up the sleeves of her nightgown and rinsed her hands in the water. ‘Oh! It’s so cold!’ And it tasted divine – cool and clean and fresh – though she was mindful not to show it.

Shen watched her carefully. ‘Admit it. It’s better than the water you drink in that stuffy old palace.’

‘You sound as proud of this water as you do of your horse.’

He grinned, crookedly. ‘Desert horse, desert water, desert guy … all the best you’ll find in Eana.’

‘Oh, please.’

He ducked for another sip of water and Rose’s gaze slid over his shoulder, to where the walls were covered in strange symbols.

A gasp stuck like a fishbone in her throat. ‘Witch markings!’

They were little more than a mismatch of lines and circles grouped together but Rose knew them for what they really were. These same markings had stained the palace walls the night her parents had been murdered. And though they had been long scrubbed from the stone, sometimes when the morning sunlight flooded the palace, she could trace the shadows the ink had left behind.

She tried to yank Shen away from them. ‘Get back!’

When he didn’t move, she leaped in front of him and raised her arms above her head. Fear guttered inside her as she waved them back and forth, and then in circles, while blowing air out in fierce puffs. ‘Gone! Gone! By the will of the Great Protector, be gone!’

From the corner of her eye she could see Shen staring at her in alarm. ‘What are you doing?’

Rose briefly halted the ritual to glare at him. ‘I suggest you stay behind me if you know what’s good for you. Everyone in Eana knows this is how you ward off a witch’s curse.’

Shen raised an eyebrow. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever heard of this … precaution.’

‘Well, you are lucky you’re with me.’ Rose summoned another bout of courage and puffed her cheeks up. She began to swing her hips, her arms spinning wildly above her head. Having never been confronted with such fresh witch markings, she couldn’t tell if it was working or not but she was starting to feel dizzy, and she took this to be a good sign. She wished for Celeste with a sharpness that stung her heart. Whenever they chanced upon faint witch markings in the palace, they would do the witch-warding dance together. Twirling and spinning and huffing until their fear faded into laughter. With her best friend, Rose felt brave, as if she could face anything. Do anything. But Celeste was far from these cursed desert caves. And worse – she was protecting an insufferable bandit, who hardly deserved it!

Shen tucked his hands behind his back as he moved around her. ‘So, you’ve seen this little dance work, then? Seen it ward off witches?’

‘Of course not! The palace guards would never let an actual witch near me.’ Rose shuddered at the very thought. ‘They’d kill them on sight. As they should.’

Shen’s face darkened. ‘So, it’s true, then. You support the witch killings?’

Rose stopped dancing. She met his gaze, unflinchingly. ‘I support the protection of my people.’

Shen’s mouth was a hard line. ‘Tell me, Princess, how do your impressively competent guards sniff out these witches?’

Rose stiffened at the sarcasm in his voice, but she would not let herself be baited by it. ‘You should know. Everyone in Eana is taught how to spot them. They are loners, mostly. Often without family and friends. They fear the water, and cannot stand too long in direct sunlight,’ she said, reeling off all the things she had learned about witches over the years. ‘But the simple truth is, if you watch a witch long enough, they will always reveal their craft. After all, they cannot resist the allure of their own dark magic. Evil always seeps out, sooner or later. That’s why at Anadawn, even suspected witches must be severely punished. Willem says it’s important to set an example, to warn the rest of them to stay away.’

‘Does he now?’ said Shen, dryly.

Rose returned her gaze to the witch markings. ‘I had a seamstress several years ago, who kept pricking me with her needles when taking my measurements. The first time, I thought it was an accident. The second, I wondered if nerves had made her fingers tremble. And the third, well … the third time it happened, I had no choice but to report it to Willem. And he confirmed my fear.’

Beside her, Shen was still as a statue. ‘Which was?’

‘That she was collecting my blood for some sort of witchcraft!’

The bandit didn’t even blink. ‘Was she killed?’

Rose faltered. ‘No. I … I asked that her life be spared. She was so young and frightened, and well, I couldn’t be sure … She refused to admit it. Even when Willem interrogated her.’ She scrunched her eyes shut, trying to weather the awful memory, how her complaint had spiralled out of her hands, how quickly Willem had leaped on it, his protectiveness of her consuming him like a terrible inferno. ‘Such a punishment … it didn’t seem right to me.’

‘So, it appears you have a heart, after all.’

‘Do not mistake mercy for weakness,’ Rose warned, at the hint of his smile. ‘Willem ordered her hands chopped off so she could never curse anyone again.’

His smile dissolved. ‘Nor earn a livelihood.’

‘It was necessary to protect my people.’ Rose’s voice shook as she recalled how she had sobbed to Celeste after it had been done. Even now, her guilt for what had befallen the seamstress still lingered. ‘The Protector taught us that magic belongs to the earth. To Eana. When we take it for ourselves, the land suffers. Witches are selfish. They only care for power and they don’t care who they hurt to get it. They make the crops fail. They cause the rivers to flood and the bays to freeze over.’

Shen snorted. ‘I believe you’re thinking of winter.’

Rose went on, undeterred. ‘They steal children from their beds. They curse lovers to ruin. They cast plagues in towns and villages. They are evil, every last one of them.’ She turned back to the cave wall, staring at the symbols with a renewed hatred. ‘My first act as Queen will be to finish what the Great Protector started a thousand years ago, when he first set foot in Eana. Soon, the witches will be nothing but a distant memory in this country and my people will finally be able to sleep soundly, knowing they are safe.’ She pointed accusingly at the markings, fear inching up her throat and cracking her voice. And I will never have to worry about meeting the same fate as my parents.’

‘I’m sorry you lost them at such a young age,’ said Shen, turning back to the basin. He rinsed his hands, taking care to scrub the dirt from his fingernails.

Rose looked down on him. ‘Be sorry for what the witches did. One of them sliced my mother’s throat when I was only seconds old. She poisoned my father. If it wasn’t for Willem, she would have killed me, too. He caught her holding the very knife she’d used on my mother over me.’

Shen’s jaw twitched. ‘What did he do to the witch? Drown her? Burn her? Dance at her?’

‘She got away.’ Rose soured at the thought, an old fear curdling in her stomach at the idea that this witch might still be out there somewhere, waiting to finish what she’d started. And you’re old enough to know what happened next. Her cruel-hearted cowardice doomed her people to war.’

‘Lillith’s War.’ Shen looked up at her. A shadow moved behind his eyes. ‘Named for your mother. Who was a witch herself. An enchanter, right?’

Rose glared at him, the heat of her anger flaring in her cheeks. ‘My mother was a reformed witch,’ she said, practically hissing the word. ‘She gave up her magic to be with my father. But the witches couldn’t forgive her. That’s why they killed her.’

Shen curled his lip as he straightened. And then your soldiers killed thousands of innocent witches.’

‘There is no such thing as an innocent witch.’

He folded his arms. ‘I would wager there’s no such thing as a reformed witch.’

‘You have nothing to wager but your arrogance. You may keep it,’ snapped Rose.

Shen brushed past her, and had the gall – or perhaps flaming stupidity – to trail his fingers along the symbols. ‘The witches won’t bother you here,’ he said, with such certainty Rose almost believed it. ‘The truth is, there used to be a kingdom hidden away in the heart of the Ganyeve. Traders would come and rest inside these caves on their way to find it. These markings aren’t a curse. They’re just memories, symbols that say “I was here”.’ He dropped his hand, and his voice became very quiet. ‘And now they are not.’

Rose had never heard this story before – which meant it was most likely untrue – but she couldn’t help the sudden nearness of her curiosity. And the hushed reverence in Shen’s voice had caught her attention, too. And what happened to this fanciful kingdom?’

‘One day, the desert swallowed it.’

‘What a grim fairy tale.’

‘It’s no fairy tale, Princess.’

Rose let out a short, sharp laugh. ‘The country of Eana has only one ruler, and she is standing before you. Not to mention, nonsense of this sort has never been written about in Anadawn’s long-standing historical records, which I have read many times, by the way.’

Shen shrugged. ‘Perhaps the movements of this desert have never been any of your business.’

Rose blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

‘You are excused,’ said Shen, as he returned to the trickling waterfall.

Rose fumed in silence. She had to remind herself that the ravings of a lowly bandit meant nothing to her. But as she drank, she couldn’t shake the uncertainty that his words had sown inside her. This was her kingdom, not his. She should know all its hidden places and secret tales, no matter how outlandish they were.

‘Follow me when you’re done seething,’ said Shen, as he turned from the water. Rose glowered after him as he wandered deeper into the caves with the lazy confidence of a bandit who knew she had nowhere to run.

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