Page 27 of The Rose in the Shadows

I tried to follow him, stamping on the water, but each step grew more strained as if I were being pulled down. I felt stiff fingers wrap around my ankle abruptly, and I yelped, straining to see into the darkness of the water beneath me. Had I imagined it?

“Hello?” I called, searching for the man who had somehow disappeared into the darkness.

When I finally stepped onto land once more, I stumbled into another cavern. The walls were shrinking in on me.

“Is anyone here?” I cried.

The caverns opened with a rush of chilled wind. I stood in front of a giant iron gate, locked tight. The Mark on my chest burned as I looked at it, and I clutched my tattoo in surprise. I had only a moment to notice that I wasn’t alone before the giant beast approached me.

It was a mammoth of a creature, standing high above me with dark black fur and three heads, each barking down at me. Their teeth were razor sharp, each one the size of my head. Slowly, the middle head dipped low, meeting me at eye level before running a tongue over its teeth. I felt his breath on me, blowing the hair back from my face. He snarled once, the sound of it ripping through my core and knocking me from my feet.

I screamed.

Chapter Eight

Iwoke to Nessira shaking me violently. She hovered over me, one knee propped onto my bed, her eyes wide in concern.

“What is it?” I gasped, barely aware of the fresh tears on my cheek.

Geia stood in the corner of my room, her hand pressed to her mouth in shock. Her fingers shook slightly.

“You were screaming, my lady,” Nessira told me, her voice low.

She pulled away from me, brushing her hands over herself to smooth her skirt. I sat up slowly, my head and body aching from the night before. A wave of nausea flooded through me, and I shuddered.

“Bad dream,” I muttered, frowning upon seeing my training clothes folded on the end of the bed. The last thing I wanted to do at that moment was climb another mountain.

Geia noticed my hesitancy and hurried into the foyer, quickly bringing back a tray with breakfast and a tall glass of brown juice. I looked down at it suspiciously, and Nessira tsked at me.

“It’s for your stomach,” she told me. “Trainer Ryla is expecting you within the hour, so eat up. Geia has already prepared your bath for you.”

I grimaced as I sniffed the brown juice, but chugged it down nonetheless. It wasvile.I gagged helplessly at the muddy texture, but it did, in fact, help my stomach. Before I knew it, I was out of bed and hurried into the bath.

The day went by ever so slowly. Ryla dragged me back over that mountain to test whether pain could evoke my powers. She started by whacking my arms and the back of my knees, then even escalated so far as to slice down my forearm with one of her blades. I had screamed at the sudden agony but was powerless to move the dagger from her grasp.

So hunger, anger, fear, and pain were all ruled out as potential triggers.

Finding the emotional catalyst for my power was starting to feel impossible.

After declaring the day to be another failure, she deposited me in the palace infirmary, where a nurse of House Asclepian, the God of medicine, healed my wounds. The process had been painful, more-so than even getting the wound in the first place, but it was truly marvelous.

Iris came to my room later that afternoon, nursing a headache and not bothering to hide the dark circles under her eyes. She curled into my bed and filled me in on the rest of the party. Highlights included Rankor winning the title of worst dancer and Iris sneaking away with both a male and female Descendant from House Angerelia. We sat gossiping together through the afternoon until Lorelai, Rankor, Camilla, and Kent joined us for dinner in my sitting room, where we all sat talking until the early morning hours.

My days at the palace all began to fall into a similar routine which, for the most part, wasn’ttoobad. I actually enjoyed myhistory lessons with Hansel. The old man could be a grouch, sure, but the history felt so fantastical that, at times, it was like reading stories. Stories of Gods who accomplished impossible feats and gifted their children with just a fraction of that glory.

Every so often, Hansel would take a break from criticizing me to pause and slowly nod. Those nods told me I was doing well. I was learning at an acceptable pace. And while I didn’t know why I felt such a burning need to succeed in this role the Dragon had forced on me, I appreciated those nods.

I wasn’t, however, finding the same success with my powers.

Each day, I got more desperate to find the trigger to draw out my magic, but I went home feeling entirely hopeless each afternoon. Ryla was getting frustrated with me. She forced me to run laps over the mountain until I was ready to fall over from exhaustion, but there was no magic. She made me read sorrowful stories that made me weep openly, but still there was no magic. She took me to see live plays that evoked excitement and passion, butstillthere was no magic.

“Is it normal for it to take this long?” I asked her one day after she had provided me with unsolvable mathematics problems to inspire embarrassment.

“No girl, usually children master their trigger before they’re even walking! Using magic is as natural as moving an arm. You are simply failing at the most basic of tasks.”

That certainly had inspired embarrassment.

My visits with Iris and Lorelai provided me with some joy to make up for that frustration, though. I didn’t quite know what their jobs at court consisted of, but I suspected watching over me had become one of Iris’ responsibilities. On the days when they were busy, Dimitri accompanied me to the palace gardens as Clay had promised he would. I would walk between the rows of roses, often just stopping to stare at the castle in frustration or look out on the mountains in longing. I didn’t even know what Iwas longing for, though. After all, I still didn’t know if there was a home waiting for me outside of the castle grounds.

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