Chapter Twelve: Rose

Rose awoke, soaking wet in Shen’s arms. For a heartbeat, everything was still. Almost peaceful … And then she remembered.

‘Put me down, you … you … scoundrel! You witch! You scoundrel witch!’ She thwacked Shen’s bare chest, kicking her legs wildly to launch herself free.

‘Have it your way, Princess.’ Shen dumped her back in the pool.

Rose landed with a splash, her feet scrabbling against stone as she waded backwards.

‘Would you really rather drown than be saved by a witch?’

‘I’m not drowning,’ said Rose, breathlessly.

‘Well, not any more. You’re welcome.’

Rose began to do the witch-warding dance again, splaying her arms and sending water everywhere as she hopped from foot to foot.

Shen pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I don’t know who taught you that ridiculous dance, but I assure you, all it will do to a real witch is entertain them.’

‘And you apparently know all about real witches. Being one yourself!’ The words chattered through Rose’s teeth and she realized she was shivering hard.

Shen sighed. ‘You’ve had quite a shock. And we’ve been in this water long enough. Let’s get out.’

‘If you think I’m going anywhere with a lying, sneaking WITCH—’

‘I never lied to you,’ said Shen, sharply. He paused, then added, ‘Although I will admit to the sneaking part. And yes, I am a witch. But more importantly, so are you.’

‘Stop saying that!’

‘Or what? I’ll make it true?’ He cocked a dark brow. ‘Tell me you didn’t feel your gift when you healed me just now.’

Rose crushed her traitorous fingers into fists. The tingling sensation lingered. She took a deep breath, as if she was going to start shouting again, swearing it wasn’t true, that she couldn’t possibly be one of them. But then the fear that had haunted her as a child came rushing back. In her worst nightmares, Rose would dream of power bursting from her like an inferno, blazing through her blood and her bones, until she woke, screaming for her mother. Perhaps, some small part of her had always known there was magic slumbering inside her, waiting to wake up and unravel her careful life.

‘No,’ said Rose, violently shaking her head. ‘I can’t be a witch! I won’t be! Witches killed my parents. Witches started the war. They are the cause of every bad thing in Eana and once they are all gone there will finally be peace and prosperity and … and … and … what are you doing?’

Shen was sloshing towards her, his dagger glinting in his hand. Before Rose could pull away, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close.

Rose screamed as he curled her fingers around the hilt of his knife. Then she realized the blade wasn’t angled towards her. It was pointed at him. At his chest. And she was the one holding it. His other arm tightened around her waist, trapping her against him.

He stared down at her through thick, dark lashes. ‘If you are still so intent on killing the witches, why don’t you start with me?’

All the air left Rose’s body in a single breath.

Shen tugged her closer, until the dagger point met his skin. A bead of blood slid down his chest. ‘Do it.’

Rose tried to drop the knife but he curled her hand inside his, holding it steady. ‘What is one less witch to you, Princess? At least have the courage to kill the first with your own hand.’

Rose was trembling so badly, her teeth were chattering. A trail of blood marked a line down Shen’s chest, and the sight of it made her want to scream. Her magic roiled and thrashed inside her. It felt as if the blade was piercing her own heart, and the same blood was pooling in her throat.

‘No!’ she heaved. ‘I don’t want this! Let me go!’

Shen dropped his arms and stepped away from her.

Rose staggered backwards. ‘I would never, I could never …’

‘Kill a witch?’ Shen’s smile was blinding in the dark. ‘That’s what I thought.’

Rose felt as if she might faint all over again. Carefully, she laid the dagger aside and pulled herself up and out of the hot spring. She wrapped herself in her cloak and gazed down at Shen. ‘Would you have really let me kill you?’

‘If you had wanted me dead, you could have done it,’ he said, as he hopped out after her. He grabbed the dagger, dangling it by the tip. ‘This blade would have gone straight into my heart.’

Rose was silent, then. The bandit had placed his life in her hands. With a blade pressed to his chest, he had looked past everything she stood for as a Valhart, who hated witches more than anything. Rose would rather rip her hands off than use them to harm him. To harm anyone. And somehow he had known that before she did. He hadn’t seen the princess; he had seen the healer.

She thought of how naturally the craft had come to her just now, how right it had felt when she healed Shen. There was no fear – only purpose, and the spark of something that felt very much like joy. It was too late to go back. Rose had felt the awakening of her magic like a flare inside her and no matter how hard she tried, she knew she would never forget it.

‘I had a feeling you didn’t really want me dead,’ said Shen. ‘Lucky thing I’m always right.’ Then he smirked. ‘Speaking of wanting. You must have reallywanted to heal me. With any of the five crafts, desire is the most important part.’

A sudden flash of heat crawled up Rose’s neck. All the kind thoughts she had been having about him evaporated. ‘I am engaged! I should have stabbed you when I had the chance, you arrogant, insufferable—’

He raised his hands. ‘I didn’t mean you wanted me. I meant you wanted to healme.’

‘I wasn’t even thinking.’ Rose plucked her nightgown from the rocks and shook the sand off it. ‘I just wanted the blood to stop. It was making me sick!’

‘You must have a whole lot of natural power in you to have healed me so quickly,’ Shen went on, undeterred. He let out a low whistle. ‘Just imagine what you could do with a little training.’

Rose ducked behind a cactus and slipped her nightgown over her head. ‘I’d rather not.’

When Shen didn’t answer her, she peeked her head around the cactus. He was already dressed and sitting atop the horse. He really was lightning fast. ‘Did you know all this time? That I was one of them?’

‘I wondered if you might be an enchanter. Like—’ he stopped, abruptly.

‘Like my mother?’

‘Yes,’ he said, after a beat. ‘Like your mother.’

‘The Kingsbreath had me tested for her craft when I was a child,’ said Rose, in a quiet voice. ‘Repeatedly.’

Shen’s frown was sharp and sudden. ‘Tested? How?’

A shiver passed through Rose. All those hours spent crawling through the dirt in the gardens on her hands and knees. Willem Rathborne pushing her face into the muck under every new moon, studying her for even the barest flicker of reaction – of magic. When that didn’t work, he would pack the dirt between her chubby little fingers, closing her fists with his until her fingernails cracked, while the palace guards looked the other way. ‘It will be over soon, Rose, darling,’ he would murmur, stroking her hair as she sobbed. ‘It hurts me just as much as it hurts you.’

Each time, when it was over, Willem would let her plant a rose. One for every test she passed. One for every day she proved she was a Valhart.

‘I’m prouder of you now than I’ve ever been, Rose.’ He would pull her close, then, and press a kiss into the crown of her head, and Rose would close her eyes and thank the Great Protector for the blood in her veins. That she was not an enchanter like her mother. ‘You are the jewel of my heart.’

By the time she was twelve, she had a rose garden. And Willem Rathborne never pressed her face to the dirt again.

‘Rose?’ called Shen. ‘How did he test you?’

‘Thoroughly.’ Rose fastened her cloak and stepped out from behind the cactus. ‘That’s all you need to know.’

Shen was silent, then. Unsettled. ‘And if you had inherited her magic? Then what would he have done?’

‘Does it matter?’ said Rose, because the truth was, she didn’t know. She had always been too frightened to let herself imagine it.

‘He’s your guardian. The way he treats you matters.’

‘Sometimes his fear takes over him. It changes him, and he can’t help it,’ said Rose, defensively. She thought of how addled Willem had become in recent months. He was always looking over his shoulder and jumping at his shadow on the walls. Something was eating away at him, and there was nothing Rose could do to stop it.

‘What will he do when he finds out about you?’ Shen interrupted her thoughts, pulling her back to the oasis. ‘Will he turn on you, too?’

Rose tried to swallow the new flicker of fear inside her. ‘I suppose when you take me back, we’ll find out.’

He glanced at the dawning sky. ‘We should get going.’

Rose looked up at him. ‘You are the thing I am meant to fear the most.’

‘You are the thing you fear the most.’ His face softened. ‘And are you really so scary?’

Under the paling moon, everything seemed different. But Eana, blessed Eana, was still the same. ‘I am Princess Rose Valhart, heir to the throne of Eana,’ she said, more to herself than to Shen. And no matter what had happened in the desert, or inside her, that wouldn’t change.

Shen extended his hand to her. ‘What if you’re more than that?’

Rose stilled. All her life, she had been the princess, an orphan raised to be Queen. To be good and gentle and gracious, to marry and beget heirs that would strengthen her kingdom and its alliances. She had never imagined she could be more than that … that anyone would ever want her to be more than that.

An eternity seemed to pass, Rose staring at Shen’s hand as if she might find a map of her future in it. She thought of Anadawn melting into the distance behind them, of Willem pacing his room in worry.

She thought of the moment when she pressed her fingers against Shen’s thigh and sewed his skin back together. Seamless. As easy as breathing. It hadn’t felt vile, or wrong. It had felt, well … magical. And even though she knew she shouldn’t, a small part of her had enjoyed the feeling.

Rose slipped her hand in Shen’s. ‘What if I don’t like what I find?’

‘What if you do, Princess?’

Rose squeezed her eyes shut. She was afraid of that even more.

Shen was silent as they rode, his eyes glazed in thought. Rose kept turning her hands over, looking for tell-tale signs, something she could have missed during all those years in her tower, waiting for her life to begin. They felt like the hands of a stranger now.

Witch, witch, witch.

The word tumbled around in her brain.

You are the thing that killed your mother.

You are the thing that killed your father.

As morning dawned and the sun peered over the horizon, the terrain began to change. The dunes were finally flattening out. The sand had stopped shifting, Storm’s hooves thumping along the packed earth. In the distance, at the edge of the desert, an enormous tree climbed towards the sky. It was the biggest tree Rose had ever seen, with gnarled and twisting branches that reached out in every direction, as though to gather up as much space as possible. It creaked as it swayed, a distant wind fluttering in its leaves. It seemed as though it was overlooking the entire desert.

Overlooking them.

The back of her neck began to prickle. She didn’t know where they were or how long they had been travelling for, but she knew with a chilling certainty that she did not want to go any closer to that tree. Or to the strange shadows rising beyond it.

‘You’re taking me to the witches.’ An old familiar fear awoke inside Rose. They were close enough now to see that the mighty tree marked the beginning of a dark forest. She could almost sense the witches skulking in the shadows, waiting for her. ‘They’re in that wood up there, aren’t they?’

Shen cleared the cobwebs from his throat. ‘That’s the Weeping Forest, Princess. And there are no living witches to be found there.’

Rose loosed a sigh of relief.

‘It’s the dead ones who will want to make your acquaintance.’

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