Page 19 of A Reign of Roses
And landed with acrackatop the capsized wheelbarrow.
The pain that radiated through my back and side was nauseating. So much so, I rolled over and heaved twice into the fresh, new snow. Nothing came out. I hadn’t eaten in days.
If I didn’t reach Carrus before sundown, I’d have to kill my dinner with my hands.
I stood on weak legs, body screaming, and scanned the dim morning on the mountainside.
No wraith. No creatures.
Just a sprawling, hostile ocean of stark white snow.
As I trekked, dawn slipped into early morning, and unfamiliar sunlight blanketed the simple mountain pass in prismatic, near-blinding white. That unfiltered sun—the clearing of those soupy, constant clouds—meant I was drawing closer to the capital. I traipsed farther, willing my legs not to collapse in relief or fatigue.
On and on, through billowing, gentle clouds like freshly spun cotton, and down trails that I’d noticed were now marked by droopy-headed snowdrops. And then…cobblestone. Sturdy, merciful cobblestone.
And cheery brick storefronts. The scent of hot breakfast rolls, and gardens of crocus and hellebore. The temperature now a pleasant winter chill, with snowflakes that melted along my sleeves. Genially grunting oxen with wings drifted through the skies above—jolly patrons with satchels of groceries at their saddles.
Finally,blessedly, I’d arrived in Carrus.
The floating kingdom’s capital was like a wonderland—a jolly, bustling town of wooden cottages and flowerpots and cozy brick chimneys. All built into the tallest peak of the kingdom’s floating mountains.
I ducked under an archway overflowing with bunches of ethereal winter hydrangea, each leaf dripping icicles that sparkled like clean diamonds. The ancient temples I passed were gilded by golden sunlight. Elegant swans drifted under their tea bridges and across glittering, clear ponds.
And while I appreciated the safety that came with candy-pink clouds and ruddy-cheeked children, each dainty, snow-tipped flower or winged animal…all of it only made me think of her.
I had the disturbing thought somewhere between a cart selling warmth elixirs and a sprawling ice plain tinged by the afternoon light that if I were left alone too long with my thoughts anywhere, I’d suffer similarly. Every brunette tree would conjure her hair. Every ray of sunlight, her generous power—
By the time I reached Carrus’s sky docks—the wide planks held by sturdy, white rope and burnished supports—my mood was almost as wrecked as my body. The port, which hung staggeringly in midair, was hewn of some shiny white stone and dropped right off into violet sunset clouds. Burly dockhands helped townsfolk bundled in so much fur they looked like precious packages onto woolly, winged oxen—luftalvors—which took off into the skies below, one after another. Each luftalvor in flight sent senseless envy through my bones and an aching where my wings used to sprout.
“Excuse me,” I called over to the stationmaster, though it came out like a grunt. The man’s eyes cast down to my feet, and I realized my boots had lost their soles. “I need to sail for Onyx Kingdom.”
The gruff man that turned had thick hair and an even thicker beard, with the dry, cracked lips and dulled eyes of someone who’d spent the last three decades whipping through arid skies.
“We don’t fly there,” he said, as if I should have known as much.
“I have coin. I’ll pay triple your going rate.”
“I said,” he grumbled, turning back to his luftalvors and their low, fussy bellows, “wedon’t fly there. Now get. No peasants loitering on the docks.”
It didn’t seem worth explaining to him that, despite my overall disheveled, frozen appearance, I wasn’t a peasant, and in fact had more coin to offer than he’d know what to do with.
“How can I get to Willowridge?” I said, each word a true effort.
“Nobody in Carrus will fly you there,” he growled between the impenetrable bristles of his beard. “Onyx’s nasty creatures will eat these guys out of the sky.” He motioned back at the fluffy white luftalvors in their pen behind him. Two of the winged oxen gave me plaintive looks and a third shuffled over, feathered wings brushing against coiled fur as it licked its friend’s face. “Maybe the captains in Sleetcliff, but I can’t say for sure.”
“Where is Sleetcliff?”
The stationmaster coughed up a wad in the back of his throat and spit it onto the iridescent white stone at his feet. “About a fortnight from here.”
My teeth fused together. “Can one of your captains fly me to Sleetcliff?”
“We don’t fly there.”
“Where the fuckdoyou fly?”
“Watch yourtone,” he snapped, drawing a gleaming dagger from his scabbard. I reached for my own. I’d make this simpleton crawl on his knees andbegto fly me anywhere he’d be allowed to keep his balls.
My fingers grasped around nothing and my heart sank. Right, no dagger. No sword.
