Page 23 of Fortress of Ambrose
Eleven
Nore
Nore could feel the lurking dead gaining on her and Yagrin as the gates of Chateau Soleil came into focus. She kept looking back. And each time, Yagrin eyed her warily. Others only saw the dead as oddly placed shadows or looming dark clouds unless their eyes were trained.
“We’re almost there. Relax,” he said, as if he could tell she was a knot.
When their feet found the paved path to the gates of Chateau Soleil, the dead stopped. She rushed to the iron wall around the estate, with Yagrin on her heels. She expected them to continue their pursuit, but the dead lingered at the edge of Darragh Marionne’s property.
“What is it?” Yagrin asked, gazing up at the trees to try to make sense of the shadows.
“Do you know how we get in?” she asked, ignoring his confusion. The more she told him about the dead, the closer she got to the truth ofwhyshe was so willing to help find the Scroll. She didn’t need him putting any dots together.
She studied the perimeter of the estate. The Chateau was nothing like she remembered. The gate spindles were taller than she recalled and overgrown with thorny black roses. Right up on the gate, she could hardly see the mansion behind it. She gave it a nudge, and the world darkened more, like a storm cloud had moved in.
More dead had arrived. She could feel stares on her skin.
They circled like hungry sharks, but they still didn’t move past the estate property line. The dead might have found a way to leave the Ambrose grounds, but they couldn’t cross onto another House’s property. She tried to exhale, but the knot in her shoulders cinched. Who knew what her brother was doing, how he was able to stretch magic to influence their ancestors? How had he gotten them to leave Dlaminaugh in the first place?
“Nore?” Yagrin gazed right past them. “Are you alright?”
“Just worried we won’t get inside.” She tugged on the knotted vines around the gate.
The thicket of roses shifted.
“Watch out,” Yagrin said with an outstretched arm.
Her body felt rigid, then it ached, at the warmth of his arm against her. She stepped aside, creating a generous distance between them. It was difficult enough to keep her memories at baywithouthim so close. Dark magic coiled in his hands, and her heart skipped a beat. She’d never seen him actually do magic before. And she’d only ever seen a small drip of the magic from her fingertip twice—once when her mother poisoned her and the next time when she accidentally disintegrated her gloves at Darragh Marionne’s tea party. Toushana sprang up in the air from his palm like a snake charmed by a song.
“Never been around a Dragun before, I see.”
She straightened. “Ambrose doesn’t put out many Draguns. The few we have on security are kept on the perimeter of the grounds. Any protection we need, the ancestors provide.”
Shapeless shadowed bodies shifted restlessly on her periphery, and her pulse picked up.
Yagrin eyed their general direction warily before raising a brow at her. “Spoken like someone who really loathes their house.” The branches swallowing the iron gates grew at the brush of dark magic. Their spiked stems slithered around the iron, thickening, tightening. Dark flowers deepened their blossoming, and new sprouts appeared. The gate grew harder to see as the plants took over it. Yagrin scowled. Nore kept an eye on thehovering dead, watching them as if they were on the other side of a glass that wouldn’t shatter.
A voice cut through the brush.
“Closer, so I can see you clearly.” The voice was familiar. Like Darragh Marionne’s but with a higher pitch and a rolledr.
“Closerrrr.”
Yagrin approached, and a warning stuck in Nore’s throat. Darragh was dead. These were her black roses. She was superstitious about them. Goose bumps rose on Nore’s skin. But the voice?Audior magic.
Yagrin reached for the gate.
“Wait!” But before he heard her, the roses coiled around his wrist. The thorns had him bound to the iron within moments.
“Do something,” he forced out, trying but failing to fend off vines now wrapping themselves around his chest.
Nore scrambled, trying to remember all she could about the roses. Darragh was the only person she knew who held to the old wives’ tales about them. Nore pulled at the dregs of her memory. She’d studied up on them in order to harvest a few for the bouquet she left for Darragh in apology at the end of last Season. Cutting them was no easy feat.
Death.
The roses were supposed to attract death and allow whatever living souls were close a chance to get away. They could not be damaged by magic. They were territorial and took over any other plant nearby. They were aggressive. Competitive.He has to appear defeated.
“Yagrin, prick yourself. Draw blood.”
