Page 46 of Never the Roses

“Make a list of any supplies you need,” she offered, “and I’ll see what I can fulfill. I won’t send you away empty-handed.”

“But youwillsend me away,” he replied, seeming truly distraught. “Is there anything I can say or do to change your mind?”

“No,” she answered, not unkindly. “It’s simply time.”

Despite her weariness, Oneira barely slept that night—and not for thinking of how she could have slaked her body’s needs with the obliging Tristan. No, as she lay amid her nest of pillows, her animals sleeping soundly around her, Oneira gazed up at the starry sky turning in its slow wheel, and thought about Stearanos Stormbreaker.

She’d spent the remainder of the afternoon and all evening sequestered in her dome, copying over the book on rose cultivation until her eyes blurred, wishing viciously that she knew a spell for replicating books. There were no such spells that anyone knew of, contributing to the rarity and value of the things. Back in her academy days, the librarians had often railed against that lack, urging the students to adopt the goal as a personal project. That sort of effort would never be helpful for wars or acquisition of the sorts of things wealthy clients would hire them to do, however, so no one ever took up that particular torch.

Now she felt the librarians’ pain. What she should do, she reflected repeatedly, was abandon trying to cultivate the Veredian roses, full stop. That would be the wise decision. She could uproot the roses, return them to the ancient gardener—where they arguably belonged—and return the books to Stearanos, forever severing any connection to him.

By doing that, she could backtrack to where she started, unwinding the coil of this treacherous path where one thing had led on to another. If only she could so easily unlearn what she now knew. If only she could erase the imprint of his mouth against her still-tingling lips, undo their conversations, unsee him, unknow him. Rid herself of any sense that he lived in the world.

As restful as eliminating all memory of him would be, she also knew she wouldn’t do it even if she could. Those moments she’d shared with Stearanos shone with a radiance that she couldn’t bear to give up. Never had she felt as vibrantly alive as in his presence, whether verbally sparring with him or companionably chopping vegetables.

It made no sense, but there it was. She would never see him again, but she would treasure those memories. And she would keep her roses, devoting herself to nurturing them in lieu of growing any sort of connection between Stearanos and her. That was in line with her original objectives, and she liked that vision of herself: living alone and silently, puttering in her garden, growing roses and eating simply, while Stearanos seduced women and fought wars, far from her silent white walls.

That was another aspect of Stearanos and his life that she should very much bear in mind. She didn’t care whether his king would be attacking the Southern Lands, beyond a gut-deep loathing of what the war would bring the world. And that was clearly the plan. His careful nonanswer confirmed it. Still, Oneira had no loyalty to the queen, no interest in thrones or governments. If she’d learned nothing else from all her years of service, she’d grown to understand that all rapacious rulers werethe same. They all pleased only themselves, took as much for their own self-aggrandizement as they liked, slaked their own desires at the expense of everyone else.

The people who truly suffered from the wars of the nobility were those who gained nothing from them. And those people she could do nothing to protect. She’d learned that, too.

But Stearanos… Once he plunged himself into fighting his king’s war, he’d be covered in metaphorical blood, freshly spilled. He’d reek of death and the agonies of the dying—all the things she’d fled. She would not be able to be around him. That much was clear. Even if she could get past everything else, she did not take the danger of being seen as betraying the queen lightly. Part of the terms of her retirement had been a vow not to act against the queen in any way.

No, Oneira would continue on the path she’d forged for herself, clearing her own trail through a wilderness of conflicts and competing priorities. She would live alone and quietly, until she was ready to lay herself upon her bier and be done with this life. Or enter the Dream forever.

Same and same.

And yet, though she absolutely believed in the correctness of her resolve, as the boundaries of consciousness blurred with sleep, the longing Stearanos had stirred in her returned full force. She’d thought that part of her, the desire to touch and be touched in turn, had long since died, along with so many other, softer aspects of her humanity. But it seemed she’d only been slumbering and now found herself tossed in a tumult of erotic awakening.

In time, those needs would dull again, and die a peaceful, final death.

In the morning, she went down to send Tristan on his merry way. Before the day had lengthened, she would have regained the peace and silence of her solitude, if nothing else. She hadn’t felt loneliness as something painful until Tristan arrived. Once he was gone, she’d return to that place where longings did not plague her. She would make sure of it.

“I must throw myself on your merciful understanding,” Tristan said by way of greeting, looking harried, sullen, and beseeching all at once. “I’m afraid Galahad has pulled up lame.”

Oneira held herself still, beyond irritated by this development, and also suspicious. Quite convenient, when Tristan so clearly didn’t want to leave. But she accompanied him to the stable, only half listening to the poet’s tale of going to Galahad first thing, ready to groom him and saddle him for the day, only to find him favoring the hoof on the side that had been injured. Tristan had tried walking Galahad to work out potential stiffness—knowing very well he’d overstayed his welcome, for which he apologized profusely—but he was greatly concerned that attempting to go any distance today, even with Tristan leading Galahad, would only injure the horse further.

Oneira quelled her doubts and annoyance as she examined Galahad for herself. After all, the gelding didn’t deserve her ire. He turned his head, snuffling at her, and she gave him a bit of apple she’d tucked in her pocket for him as a farewell gift. She ran her hands over his flank, using passive magic to sense what went beneath the skin. The scratches were healing nicely, but the ligaments in his haunch had become inflamed, hot and tight beneath her touch. He barely put weight on that leg, just resting the hoof on its point, and when she encouraged him to walk in a circle, he hopped rather than use it.

Letting out a long-aggrieved sigh—the only emotion shewould allow herself to show—she turned to Tristan and managed a smile.

“You’re right,” she said. “Galahad cannot travel today. Probably not for several days. I’ll look up a poultice to brew, something to relieve this inflammation.” She did not point out that Tristan should have been exercising Galahad more over the last couple of days, as that should have occurred to her, too. She’d been too long out of practice in dealing with horses and poor Galahad had suffered for it. As Tristan expounded on his relief and gratitude, she soothed the gelding, feeding him another bit of apple. “We’ll get you fixed up, you’ll see,” she whispered to the horse.

He nickered and bobbed his head, as if in agreement, or perhaps in a bid for more apple. As Oneira turned to go back to the house to find a recipe for an appropriate liniment, she spotted Adsila, perched on a beam overhead. The kestrel cocked her head, the ring of gold around the obsidian glinting, as if in warning. Frowning to herself, Oneira wondered at it, walking back to the house and listening to Tristan’s assurances that he’d be a helpful and invisible guest.

25

Oneira didn’t visit. Not that night, not the next. Stearanos told himself he wasn’t surprised, but had more trouble convincing himself that he wasn’t disappointed.

The cagey sorceress wouldn’t capitulate easily. That much had been certain from the beginning, even when she was only an anonymous thief. Still, he’d half believed he’d convinced her to at least engage in a friendship with him. They’d had that much, an unexpected gift, and he knew in his bones that she’d recognized that, too.

And then, the passion between them… How could she fail to recognizethat?

Perhaps she had and ran scared of it, frightened of how that overwhelming desire could immolate the people they’d been. If she didn’t have the vision to see that they’d emerge from that fire as new people, people they wanted to become, then she deserved her loneliness.

That’s what he told himself. Over and over.

Better that than acknowledging the bitter and far more likely truth, that she was happily indulging in her uncomplicated and youthful poet. Eager to please her and no doubt endowed with the stamina to do so, Tristan had probably erased any thought of Stearanos from Oneira’s mind. Stearanos could understand that, even wish her well, be generous in his heart and mind for her. He wasn’t at all bitter about it. That’s what he told himself. Over and over.

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