Page 104 of A Reign of Roses
I cracked my neck, lighte accelerating down my limbs. I spread my palms against the cluttered space in a show of violent power. Tendrils of shadow and diabolical thorns danced around my palms. “Then this will be quite unpleasant for you.”
“Kane—” Arwen snapped.
Oleander’s pale eyes cut around the room in dismay. The sewing frame. The rows of half-stitched books. The stained smock. Back tothe sewing frame again…His life’s work. His entire existence. Everything that made him—here in this room, and soon to be annihilated.
He opened his mouth in anguish. Then closed it again, trying, fighting,strainingto come up with something that might save his precious, irreplaceable work.
Arwen stepped closer and murmured, “Please, don’t do something you can’t take back.”
But I’d already gotten what I’d needed. I crossed the room toward the sewing frame and heaved it off the counter.
Underneath sat the tan ledger. Same golden embossed font as Niclas’s. Same printed “Southern Legion” across the front. Same pages and pages of names.
Except these ones weren’t real.
Arwen took a step back. “How…”
“Thank you,” I said when I faced Oleander once more. With a flick of my wrist, his dark shackles misted.
He palmed his wrists and feet, thin lips clamped together in thinly veiled wrath. “Leave my home.”
“Of course.”
We walked out of the house into the cold, clear day and toward Griffin and Mari.
“You’re just going to leave him?” Arwen asked. “He’ll go straight to Ethera.”
“No,” I said coolly, brushing my hair back from my face. “He won’t.”
Not only had I spent centuries learning what terror could do to keep a man in check, but he was also an Amber Kingdom loyalist. A man who sided with the impoverished south that was so morally andvisually similar—and so geographically close—to his homeland. He hated me, but only as much as he likely hated the Scarlet Queen.
“You didn’t have to threaten the man,” Arwen huffed as her arms tightened around the ledger. “I could have gotten it out of him. I’mfromAmber. I have empathy. That can be an incredibly powerful motivator.”
The winding street went on and on. Stark in some places under the unfiltered sunlight, but shadowed in others, lorded over by the looming faces of the vast, silent homes.
“As can fear,” I replied.
28
Arwen
By the time we arrived,Queen Ethera’s palace was lit by a dusk sky of bursting blue, blushing peach, and bruising violet. Kane’s cruel-king demeanor was back in full force and I couldn’t tell if that was a reaction to the morning’s events with Oleander or another layer of protection when entering an unpredictable situation such as this.
His usually wavy hair was pushed slightly out of his face by that dark crown of twined thorns, his sleek, sable finery and stacks of glinting rings more menacing than elegant. His lethal scowl and bored eyes somehowstillmade me want to sink to my knees before him and watch that jaded gaze unravel.
I tried to convey just that as armored guards in leather breastplates guided us through a pruned hedge tunnel and two decorative hallways that led to a tearoom. That I didn’t blame him for what he felt he’d been forced to do with Oleander. That I was grateful he’d found a way to retrieve the ledger without hurting the old man or his many books.
Kane only offered me a soft dipping of his chin as we sat at a fine table covered in white lace and little baby-blue bows. The room more closely resembled a sweetshop, or maybe a nursery.
None of us spoke while we waited for the Scarlet Queen.
Mari’s eyes were fastened to the eastern wall of the parlor, where a towering gilded sculpture of an elm tree sprouted so tall it grazed the domed ceiling. Constructed with vines and leaves dipped in gold, the monument was piled with books—vivid with color, some with bright white spines, others sunny yellows or rich blues. By the roots of the sculpted elm tree, all the novels wedged between branches and in the hollowed-out trunk were stained black.
Griffin appeared more concerned with the significant number of guards that crowded the room alongside us. His brutal eyes slid along them over and over again. Counting, measuring. Sizing them up. I wasn’t sure why—they were all mortal. But there were about two dozen of them and only four of us.
Still, the Scarlet Queen’s tearoom didn’t strike me as an arena for violence. The ceiling was painstakingly painted to depict a lush, scenic meadowland, replete with rolling hills each dotted with daffodils. The white columns supporting the domed, picturesque scene above were carved with intricate detailing. An oversize floral couch lay atop warm maple floors. And the room’s little details were all in lovely feminine colors: lampshades of dusky mauve, mismatched pastel yellow knobs on drawers, and candy-pink throw pillows.
Across from the table where we sat stretched a sprawling bow window divided into four equal segments that split the garden view. Outside rolled snow-flecked grass, pruned rosebushes, and robust, emerald-green hedges. A marble fountain, and some kind of wrought-iron arch sprinkled in winter holly adorned the garden, too.
