Page 39 of Never the Roses

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Stearanos exercised his patience, following along as Oneira gave him a painfully thorough tour of the garden. She was deliberately stringing him along, building suspense, knowing what he most wanted to see and making him wait for it. That was fine: two could play that game. Besides, the academy he’d attended drilled patient stoicism into every student. The magic-worker who couldn’t silently observe while waiting on a glacially slow alchemical reaction, or who couldn’t make a still pond of their mind to allow for the perfect clarity required by meticulous spellcasting, would never reach the highest echelons.

Oneira would know that about him, so this was all an elaborate tease, more of her subtle flirtation. For flirtation it was, he was sure of it now. From the first taunting theft, the first cryptic note and exchange of books, she’d been sniffing him out, knowing full well who he was and curious to know more. Perhaps despite herself, but she was as fascinated by him as he was by her. So he could bide his time and see where this went.

What he didn’t understand was what she saw in that pretty puppy of a poet. He snorted to himself. See? He could string words together, too. The young man was charming enough, Stearanos supposed, and handsome in the traditional way the court ladies seemed to like, but he wasn’t worthy of a woman like Oneira. Stearanos couldn’t quite fathom the attraction for her.

Or, perhaps he could. After all, women were no different from men that way. Oneira had been alone, for longer than she’d beenretired, if her life was anything like his, and he’d bet a chest of gold he couldn’t afford that it was. The opportunity for uncomplicated affairs with admiring lovers who had no idea how easily they could be incinerated or stranded eternally in the Dream didn’t come along often. In truth, Stearanos couldn’t recall the face of the last lover he’d bedded. She’d ended up afraid of him, he remembered that, the stink of her fear overriding all else that he could recall about her.

Oneira wasn’t afraid of him—even when she should have been—and that made her excruciatingly attractive. He wanted to swat away that annoying gnat of a poet, simpering at her, completely ignorant of the dragon beneath Oneira’s attractively freckled skin. But he bided his time. He could be patient.

He could also find out everything about the lad, as he still didn’t trust thatTristan—there was a name for you, and surely not one his parents had thought to bestow on him—had ended up at Oneira’s doorstep by accident. Still, after he’d questioned and probed, even Stearanos had to admit that Tristan was exactly what he seemed. Not terribly bright, full of tales and youthful artlessness, intent on seducing Oneira. The worst sins Stearanos could lay at Tristan’s feet were that he was likely as attracted to Oneira for her lonely wealth as for her beauty, and that he was dreadfully silly.

In his favor, Tristan was clearly bored by plants, easily distracted by pretty much anything else, which left Stearanos plenty of opportunity to dazzle Oneira with his own knowledge. Or, if not dazzling her, precisely, at least connecting over their shared interest. When they reached the new rose bed, Oneira turned to Stearanos with glowing excitement he knew he reflected. He felt as if he’d come to a sacred site, greedily taking in the sight of the three rosebushes. Veredian roses, as he lived and breathed. He’d nearly despaired of ever seeing any alive for himself.

“They haven’t quite recovered from the transplanting,” Oneira explained, lacing her fingers together and actually wringing them, the first sign of real concern he’d ever seen from her. “And with that storm…”

“They’ll recover,” he assured her with confidence, quantifying and qualifying them from where he stood. “Their vitality is excellent.”

“You know that?” she asked with what he could only call professional interest. She clearly wanted to ask more, but couldn’t with Tristan lurking nearby. He simply nodded, allowing her to see the faint sparkle of magic in his eyes.

“They’re ugly things, if you ask me,” Tristan put in, and Stearanos had to stop himself from saying that no onehadasked him. “More sticks, twigs, and thorns than anything. Where are the roses?”

“They bloom only at the winter solstice,” Oneira informed him, her obvious delight overriding all else. “That’s part of what makes them special. When all the rest of my garden is sleeping, these will bloom for a few days only, on the longest nights of the year, bringing scent, color, and life to a dark and frozen world.”

Stearanos caught the longing in her voice and wondered at it. What plan did Oneira have for this retirement of hers? Or was it less of a retirement than a full retreat from a life she could no longer bear to live? He suspected the latter and, more, fully understood the impulse. Lucky her that she’d found a way to do it. He longed to ask her more about how she’d obtained the roses, though now that he knew his thief for an oneiromancer, that answer was obvious. She’d used the power of the Dream to travel to distant Vered. He still wondered what technique she’d used to take them. The rose bed had no magic to it—he double-checked, assessing it every way he knew how—so it must have been she’d done everything manually. He very much wanted to know if she’d gotten advicenot to use magic. The book hadn’t said so, but why else make that choice? But, with ignorant Tristan thinking his lovely Lira nothing but a wealthy, lonely recluse, Stearanos could hardly introduce the topic of her using magic or not.

They went back to the kitchen and ate an excellent lunch, the freshly baked bread fragrant with rosemary from Oneira’s garden, all of the fruits and vegetables bursting with liquid sunshine. Stearanos couldn’t remember the last time he enjoyed a meal so much, even with talkative Tristan dominating the conversation, now that the dull topic of gardening was out of the way.

Finally, Stearanos said that he must go, Tristan halfheartedly protesting and practically shoving him out the door. Oneira offered to walk Stearanos to the beach—and pointedly suggested that Tristan go check on his horse. Stearanos was greatly relieved by this, as he didn’t trust himself not to pitch the poet off the cliff if he tried to tag along.

“Did you make these steps?” he asked her as they descended, and she gave him a surprised glance.

“I didn’t think that would be your first question once we were alone,” she said. “Yes, I did, with magic, of course.”

“Of course. Spectacular work.”

She gave a slight smile. “Something I dreamed up.”

“And the pink sand beach?”

Gazing out over it, she huffed out a breath. “Another bit of whimsy—though it was easier. I used bits of shell already here, colored them with a particularly vivid dream I borrowed, and simply… concentrated the two together.”

“‘Simply,’” he echoed.

“Well, you would know that ‘simple’ is a relative term,” she allowed.

He waited a beat, for decorum’s sake. “And the roses?”

“Nowthatis what I thought would be your first question.”She flashed him a wider smile, that glow in it that she got when talking about the roses. He couldn’t help returning the smile, the expression stiff on his face, making him realize how little he’d used those particular muscles in recent years. It also struck him how bizarrely companionable the moment felt, especially given how they’d begun. But then again… perhaps not. They’d truly begun this strange relationship when Oneira stepped out of a dream and into his library and took that particular book solely because he was interested in it, as she explained.

As she related the tale of using the Dream to find the roses, the ancient gardener she encountered, how she’d followed the instructions on using no magic to cultivate the roses, he let her enthusiasm wash over him, like a freshwater shower taking away months of campaign grime.

It was good to talk about these simple things like roses—however rare and extraordinary—and gardening, to have made soup together, to be in her house, with its peace and silence. Even with Tristan’s chatter, the essential quiet of the place had permeated everything, settling into the core of him. It made him believe in something, though he couldn’t quite grasp what it would be.

Still, listening to the details of Oneira’s quest for the roses, he found he no longer minded that she insisted on keeping the book. Of course she should have it. And, also of course, he was desperately jealous of her roses, wanting them for himself. Wanting her for himself, too, if he was honest. Two things that could never be.

“You say that the gardener knew who you were?” he asked, focusing on the academic, the quantifiable aspects of her story, not this odd mutual love of these exotic, nearly unobtainable roses that were indeed undeniably ugly for most of the year.

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