Page 20 of Among the Burning Flowers
Marosa, wake up. A whisper in her ear, sharpened by dread.Listen to me. You must be very quiet.
What is it, Mother?
We are going to your uncle in Rauca. I will explain once we are safe.
She was sixteen again, in her old bedchamber, and her mother and Denarva were braiding her long hair into a cap, refusing to answer her questions, faces pinched in the dim light. Soon they all wore linen smocks and aprons, like the launderess, and carried heavy cloaks and packs disguised under bedsheets.
Now they were stealing through the palace with Denarva uq-Bardant, the Ersyri handmaiden, and they could only risk one candle, so Marosa could hardly see where they were going. Her mother kept a firm hold of her, and they had to be quick, there was no time to lose—
And there were the guards, waiting for them.
Marosa snapped awake, soaked in sweat, Priessa fast asleep beside her. Slowly, she sat up and drank from the cup of sleepwater by her bed.
It had been nine years, but the memories were as sharp as ever. Shaking the locked doors of her room, screaming for an explanation. She had no idea why they had been sneaking through their own home in the dead of night, or why her mother had believed that none of them were safe. After three days of fear, a guard had slipped a note under her door, written in Ersyri.
I did it to protect you. Do not anger or defy your father. If he asks you to deny me, obey him, but know that you are my world and my heart. Stand firm, like a desert rose, and you will yet be queen. My dreams for you could sow the whole of Edin with undying roses.
Marosa still had that faded note, tucked into the alcove where she kept the pendant. It was the last time she had ever heard from her mother.
A week later, Lady Sennera Yelarigas had released Marosa from her room, sat her down, and told her why her motherwas gone. Queen Sahar had fallen in love with a servant. She had planned to elope to the Ersyr with him, forsaking her duties as queen consort of Yscalin. And when caught in the act, she had ended her own life, too ashamed to face her court.
Much later, Marosa had learned that Aryete Feyalda, Third Lady of the Bedchamber, had been the one to betray the plan. Sahar had confided in her, and she had gone to the king, to stop her from taking Marosa. For her loyalty, Aryete had been given a small castle.
But Marosa remembered no secret lover. There had only been the three of them. Perhaps her mother had planned to meet him at the Gate of Niunda.
Sometimes, in her fevered dreams, Marosa was sure Denarva had fought. She thought there had been smokeless fire; that she had smelled burnt hair and flesh; that the oily black walls had glistened with red. But that had surely been a figment of a mind deranged by fear.
Denarva – kind, bold Denarva, a consummate hunter, always quick to laugh – had been executed for abetting treason. After a trial, Sahar would likely have been exiled, had she not ended her own life. Under normal circumstances, Marosa would have been permitted to see the body, but her father had forbidden it, claiming the sight of the corpse would disturb her.
There was not much ground to be spared in Cárscaro. Most of its dead were buried on the Great Yscali Plain, in hallowed ground where rosemary grew. But royal bones were not interred beneath the flowers. Instead, they rested in black tombs in the Palace of Salvation.
Queen Sahar had not been given that honour. She was an adulterous traitor, whose conversion to the Six Virtues hadclearly been either lax or dishonest. Perhaps she had even been a spy.
Marosa had never learned what happened to her body. Better not to ask. Denarva’s had been hurled into the lava, leaving her soul to roam for ever, with no way to enter the heavenly court.
The sleepwater worked quickly. As Marosa drifted off, one last picture crossed her mind. Not something she had witnessed, but a scene she had fashioned herself, in her nightmares. Sahar knotting her bedsheets together, then writing the note by the light of a candle.
Hanging from the ceiling like a leaf upon a tree.
****
Marosa woke again, slower. At first, she thought the trembling of her bed stemmed from her own body, racked by one of her shaking fits. They came from time to time, when she had nightmares.
But no, it was the Palace of Salvation that was quaking.
Marosa rose and unlatched a window. Across the city, the torches in the streets were aflicker. The Cárscari shouted as the Tundana glowed and spat. Even from high above, she could hear them.
‘Marosa—’
Priessa had woken. She tried to draw Marosa away from the window, but Marosa resisted, her gaze soldered to the city, as a rumble stemmed from the Spindles. It echoed in her very bones.
‘It’s so loud,’ Priessa murmured. ‘Is Mount Fruma erupting?’
‘We are doomed if it is.’ Marosa spoke with a strange calm. ‘We will not get away in time.’
Far below, people were rushing towards the Gate of Niunda, the ancient door to Cárscaro. The stone arch marked the beginning of the only paved and safe path to the ground.
‘Fear not,’ Marosa said. ‘The Palace of Salvation has never fallen. It will hold.’
