Page 13 of Twin Crowns

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 yourimpressively competentguards 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. Thesecond, 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 besure....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 spiraled 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 care only 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 sank into a crouch, trying not to wince as he cleaned the bleeding wound in his leg.

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 over me the very knife she’d used on my mother.”

Shen’s jaw twitched. “What did he do to the witch? Drown her? Burn her?Danceat 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 cruelhearted 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 areformedwitch,” 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 stood. “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?”

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