Page 7 of Crown of Roses
“No, no.” Maeve held her head to her chest and shielded her from the damage. She eased herself into a sitting position, and cradled the girl in her lap. With her head and back propped up against the remains of a wall, Maeve began to sing softly in an effort to soothe.
“Beyond the shores, o’er the sea,
There’s a land where magic blooms and grows.
But n’er will be, the power of the thee,
Until comes back, the one whom she chose.”
A prickling sensation crept down Maeve’s spine and she tilted her head up just enough to see Casimir looking down upon her. “What?”
His gaze was penetrating, but he shrugged and sheathed his sword. “I didn’t know you could sing.”
She wasn’t sure if he meant it as a compliment or not and was considering responding with a sarcastic remark, when a woman’s voice cut through the air around them.
“Cara!” A woman tore down the cobblestone street, her skirts hoisted in both hands. “Has anyone seen my daughter? She’s only three! Cara!”
“Mama!” The name burst from the girl, and Maeve watched as the child scrambled out of her lap, and jumped into the arms of her mother. “Mama! Mama!”
The woman held the little girl fiercely, then her gaze fell to Maeve. “Thank you.” Tears sprang to her grief-stricken eyes. “Thank you so much.”
Maeve offered a small smile. “It was the least I could do.”
Rumbling thunder rolled in from off the coast of the Gaelsong Sea, and the clouds overhead shifted and stirred into the makings of a spring storm. Humidity clung to her skin, and the air was heavy and damp. The first few droplets of rain splattered against her arms and she tilted her chin up to catch some in her mouth. Sprinkles of rain cooled her heated skin and soothed her parched throat. She blinked as one drop, then two, stuck to her lashes and slid down her cheeks like tears. Slowly, the light mist turned to a steady downpour.
At least the rainfall would wash away the blood, the stains of assault.
“Come on, Maeve.” A strong hand locked onto her elbow and hoisted her to her feet. She found herself looking up into Casimir’s hooded face, his eyes cold. Furious. “We need to get back and brief the queen on what happened here tonight.”
He didn’t mean that, of course. It was just his way. To make Maeve feel as though she was valued, like her opinion mattered. He would be the one informing her mother of what they witnessed tonight. Not her.
“What are we going to do about that?” She nodded to the chasm, to where the realm still looked as though it had been split in half. A scorch of black death had torn through the center of the city, destroying all that was green and living. Decay and rot marked its path. It pulsed with life. With death. With magic.
“I don’t know.” He jerked his head toward the castle and they started up the Ridge. “But if we don’t stop it soon, it’s only a matter of time before it consumes all of Kells.”
Saoirse fell into step beside them. “What do you mean?”
Casimir glanced over at both of them, his dark eyes unreadable. “It’s spreading.”
“So,” Saoirse drawled and pretended to file her fingernails with the edge of one of her blades. She was perched on Maeve’s bed with one leg crossed over the other. “Are we going to talk about what happened?”
Maeve twisted her hair back behind her, then secured the curls in place with a couple pins. She had just finished washing the grime and filth of battle from her hands and face, when Saoirse knocked on the door. “Which part? The part where some old crow pretended to be a fortune teller, predicted horrible things about my fate, then tried to attack us? Or the part where the realm broke open and our city nearly fell?”
Saoirse cocked one brow straight up. “All of it?”
“Okay.” Maeve blew out a breath, dropped onto her bed, and crossed her legs beneath her. “Let’s talk about all of it. What do we know?”
Saoirse laughed but it was harsh. It grated against the walls of Maeve’s bedroom. “Practically nothing. We don’t know where the chasm came from or how it formed. We also don’t know why. And Captain Vawda is certain all of those creatures are fae because let’s face it, what else could they possibly be?”
Maeve smiled thinly at the use of Casimir’s proper title. She was the only one allowed to call him by his given name.
“Madam Dansha, or whatever it was…” Maeve started but Saoirse cut in.
“Definitely fae. You saw how she turned to ash with one strike, and speaking of one-hit wonders—” she glanced pointedly at the dagger strapped to Maeve’s thigh, “that’s one hell of a blade you’ve got there. It cut straight through them. Like they were nothing.”
Maeve’s hand drifted to the smooth leather hilt, to where the blade that glittered like rainbows was tucked safely away, but always within arm’s reach. Saoirse had seen her train with the dagger, but neither of them had seen it perform in battle the way it did tonight. “Yours didn’t?”
“No.” Saoirse eyed the one in her hand. Black leather wrapped the hilt, and where one side of the blade was the color of onyx, the other resembled diamond dust. She flipped it into the air, caught it by the tip, then rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “It wasn’t as easy as it was for you. We were having to strike multiple times just to slow them down. Only the hit to the throat proved fatal.” She sheathed her blade to her waistband. “All of which reinforces the Captain’s theory of those monsters being fae.”
