Page 91 of Crown of Roses
Unwelcome emotions seeped into her, leaving her reeling with doubt. Confusion. Uncertainty. And most importantly, trepidation.
Maeve walked into her bedchamber and shut the door soundly behind her, determined to block out all the noise, all the racket and chaos of what she was about to undertake. Her palms slid against the solid wood, and the intricate carvings pressed into her skin. A shuddering sigh escaped her, and she let her forehead come to rest on the door.
What everyone failed to see, what none of them understood, was the entirety of their plan fell upon Maeve’s shoulders. She had to be the one to seduce answers from Rowan. Her blade had to deliver the killing blow to Parisa.
All of it fell to her.
All of it, for her people.
And after what she’d said to Rowan in the Autumn woods, she wasn’t even sure if she’d ever see him again. There was a good chance he would hate her for giving up on him, for hurting him with nothing more than harsh words. She didn’t even know how to find him.
“You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders, Princess.”
Maeve’s heart lurched, and when she spun away from her door, there was Rowan, with the uptick of a smirk on his devilishly handsome face.
“Rowan.”
“Did you miss me?” He spread his arms wide, but she kept her body planted against the closed door.
“You’re here.” She eyed him coolly. “I didn’t think you’d come back.”
“Neither did I,” he admitted.
Her mouth fell open but he recovered quickly. “That is, I didn’t plan on it. I know you think I’m a bastard, and that I’ve made no efforts to help you find the anam ó Danua.”
“You’re not wrong.” She crossed her arms, and focused on his every move. On the way he kept the movements of his body easy and light. How he carefully tucked his hands behind his back as he approached her. “Why are you here?”
“I found something.”
“Oh?” She wasn’t sure how useful anything he had to offer could be, unless it was a manual on assassinations.
“This.” He brandished a book and held it out to her. The leather binding was worn, a mottled brown shade, and the lettering had long ago faded with age. Embossed on the top were two daggers, crossed over one another, and they looked painfully familiar.
“What is it?” she asked, hesitant to reach for it.
“A book I found. In Parisa’s library.” He shifted on his feet, looking uncomfortable in his skin. “It contains information on your Aurastone. And…the High King’s Astralstone.”
Her fingers itched to snatch it from his grasp, to devour every word the book had to offer. There’d been no mention of the Aurastone in any of her books, and she didn’t even know the Astralstone existed until recently. But a vision of something flashed through her memory. It was foggy, and when she reached for it, the images gradually cleared. It was when they were in the Fieann Forest, when Rowan pulled her from the clutches of the Hagla. There’d been a gleam of something. Like twilight. Or moonlight.
“You had the Astralstone in the forest.” Her gaze darted from the book in his hands, to his eyes. “You used it to save me. Against the Hagla.”
He nodded once. “I did.”
“And it belongs to Tiernan?”
“It does.”
Maeve considered this, even as more questions burned in the back of her mind. There was so much she wanted to know, so many things she wanted to ask. Who made the daggers, where were they from? Why does Tiernan have one, and how did Rowan get it? Did Tiernan find his in a lake as well? Those last few questions, however, could only be answered in person. The book wouldn’t give her such information. She reached out and he placed the book in her hands. The old tome vibrated in her grasp, reverberated with an ancient kind of magic.
“Thank you.”
“Maeve,” he warned, but there was no malice.
“I know, I know.” She waved him off in dismissal. “You don’t want my gratitude. But in exchange for this book…I can think of something to give you in return.”
He took another slow, purposeful step toward her. “Is that so?”
“Yes.” She held his gaze and refused to lose her nerve. If she wanted to get information from him, it was only fair of her to give him something, too. At least this way, they were both benefiting from the bargain.
