Autumn Rose

  “And chri’dom called her a necromancer? You’re quite certain?”

  “Completely.” She looked it.

  “Eaglen?” my uncle eventually conceded after his lengthy cross-examination.

  The old vampire got up from his chair and limped toward the bed. He was showing his age, compared to the last time I had seen him, that was for sure. But if his body was aging, his spirit wasn’t. He sat down on the bed and bounced a few times, his short legs leaving the floor every time.

  “Oooh, squeaky,” he commented, grinning in an old-man-making-a-dirty-joke sort of way, and then cleared his throat. “I think chri’dom could very well be right. Searching her mind, I have already found that she is having necromantic-style dreams of the present. It wouldn’t surprise me if she can soon see past events, and perhaps see the dead, too.”

  “I’ve seen some of those dreams, in my own visions of her,” Autumn offered.

  “But what’s this tied thing?” I asked, feeling like the only person in the room who was mystified at that statement.

  “Surely you have heard of Contanal’s last prophecy? Of the relations between the second Heroine and another? He maintained that it didn’t just end with the second Heroine, but who knows . . .” Eaglen trailed off.

  The way his eyes shuttled between Autumn and me was so pointed a blush traveled right up her cheek, from her neck to the roots of her hair.

  “It seems Violet Lee and Kaspar Varn are tied. They both share a telepathic communication, too, in the form of an embedded voice containing the personality of the other . . .”

  I zoned out to watch Autumn’s intent, purposeful expression. She was absorbing every last bit of information, storing it up, and with every nugget her mind—blocked off but oozing emotion—grew more and more confident. She was born for this. She has been raised for this. I hoped, somehow, the stress and power of her new role would perversely be the thing to fill the gaping hole in her heart. Because, evidently, I wasn’t enough on my own.

  “So, to conclude, it seems we have a tied young necromancer Heroine on our hands, whom chri’dom is presumably trying to murder by sending a note telling my king that her father orchestrated the death of our dear Carmen,” Eaglen summarized.

  I could see what Autumn meant by bleak. I gripped her hand and she squeezed it back.

  “No disrespect meant, Eaglen, but we need to tell her she’s a Heroine and get her out of the second dimension, quickly, before anything happens,” Autumn said, in the same tone of assumed authority she had used earlier. It was slightly deeper and slower than usual, and sounded even more British for it.

  Eaglen flinched a little. Though he had no official ranking—titles didn’t even exist until he was middle-aged—he commanded a lot of respect for his age and power. He didn’t like orders, that much was clear from his slightly gaping mouth.

  “But, my Lady Heroine, we can’t afford to meddle in fate too much. I fear we have already, and we don’t want to risk destroying the Prophecy by running too much off course.”

  “But she might die!”

  “It is better for her if she finds out she is tied as you have envisioned. If we are too hasty, we may also drive a wedge between Violet Lee and Kaspar, because they are apart at the moment, as I explained earlier. We need them together, as Contanal prophesized!”

  “So . . . what do we do?” my uncle eventually asked after some silence.

  The room remained silent, and I could sense it dividing as gazes flicked left and right. I agreed with Autumn: we couldn’t afford to put Violet Lee in danger. But I knew the older occupants of the room would side with Eaglen. They were stuck in their ways and afraid of fate.

  Eaglen spoke up. “We wait. But not long. The weekend after the Ad Infinitum celebrations, the Varn children go on a hunt. This year they plan to take Violet. I will gain you entry with the guards; we shall say you are visiting me. Perfectly legitimate, given our connection. Stay close to her, and to him. Make sure they bond, and nudge them a little if they don’t. Check that she understands and knows of the Prophecy, and bring it up if she doesn’t. When she is alone, tell her what she is. But Kaspar must not know—”

  “Why?” Autumn demanded. She glanced back at me, and I was surprised by the slight tint of angry black at the edge of her irises.

  Eaglen got up and walked around the bed, placing the four posters and a chest between himself and Autumn. “Because Violet must find my late queen’s letter, and Violet must nearly die, and Kaspar must turn away from her, because sometimes a man must almost lose what he has to realize what he has. See? You leave the dimension, your king will send men as late as we possibly dare, and voilà. We have meddled with fate as little as possible. This is how I have seen it.”

  “You’ve seen all of this? Then it supersedes what Autumn saw! Why didn’t you say?” my aunt almost shouted from the corner of the room. “Lords of Earth, seers!”

  Eaglen shrugged. “Eh, dramatic effect, I suppose. I’m going to enjoy my power, until this young whippersnapper starts outwitting me at every turn.” He threw a hand out toward Autumn and brushed his beard over his shoulder, laughing. “Now, the best-laid plans cannot be made on an empty stomach, so forgive me if I return to my home dimension for a spot of AB-negative.”

  He went to leave the room, full of dumbstruck Sage, but Autumn called out to him.

  “You can’t order me about, not anymore.”

  Without turning back toward us, he paused. “No, but fate can.” And with that, he limped away.

  It was several more hours before my family and the medics were content to leave me and Autumn alone. A maid remained, tidying and arranging the many flowers and gifts that had been brought to Burrator from Autumn’s home. We had intended to bring her parents, too; they had refused. Not even their daughter’s coma would entice them to face the Athenea.

  “The flowers look nice in this room, with all the light,” Autumn commented, spreading her hands across the sheets to flatten them. “Make sure they are well fed,” she called out to the maid. “I would like them to be taken to Athenea.”

  I didn’t dare tell her that hers was the only room that looked nice now. The rest of the house was full of boxes, dust sheets and spells casting furniture into storage.

  I shifted my chair closer to the bed as the maid curtsied and withdrew. “You seem okay,” I began tentatively.

  She didn’t look at me. “Of course I am. Why would I not be?”

  “You’re a Heroine, and you tried killing yourself three days ago,” I said slowly, for a brief, heart-stopping moment wondering if she even remembered.

  “A mistake,” she countered.

  “A m-mistake?” I choked, before crawling onto the bed and straddling her outstretched legs, which were beneath the comforter. “Accusing people of doing things they can’t control is a mistake. Cursing at somebody is a mistake. Willfully draining all your magic into someone else after being told it is suicide? That is not a mistake; you can’t reverse it just by saying sorry.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, I am sorry.”

  I clapped my face into my hands. “You are so impossibly stubborn!”

  “And you’re bossy. Which is worse?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re having counseling the minute we get home.”

  “Ha!” She swatted my hands away from my face. “See? Bossy! You always have to tell me off, or suggest this or that. Maybe I don’t want that.”

  I planted my hands on either side of her head on the pillow. “You want me though. Your eyes give you away.”

  “I don’t want a control freak.”

  “You’re a Heroine now, and soon everybody will know it. Things are going to change; I’m not an imbecile,” I admitted sadly. “I’m afraid for you. Of how you’ll cope with the change. And I cope with it by micromanaging, a mini-king if you like.” I let out a hollow laugh and she smiled, too. It was no secret the apple had not fallen far from the tree when I was conceived.

  She reached forward a
nd cupped my cheeks in her hands, a thumb tracing my scars. Her eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn’t read in her own features. “We are in the hands of fate now.” She leaned forward and her lips met mine. They were cracked and spiced, tasting of the butternut squash she had wolfed earlier.

  It was a brief, chaste kiss, but the desire rushed through me all the same. It was a little too intense, a little too pleasurable; it was disturbing to realize that I would chain her, control her, keep her in that glass cabinet as an ornament if that was what it took to have her. I’m not supposed to feel that. I’m not supposed to view her like that!

  Her lips suddenly parted and her tongue traced my own lips, but I pulled abruptly away, chuckling, partly with relief that something so trivial had destroyed the hold. “I hate to break it to you, but you haven’t brushed your teeth in three days and you smell like a rogue elf on a vamperic diet.”

  She pressed her hands to her mouth and then grumbled before jerking a knee up and sending me sprawling onto the floor with a burst of magic. “Then I’m sure the floor tastes better,” she said, smirking above me. “Meanwhile, I shall have a bath.”

  She waved a casual hand in the direction of the bathroom, and I heard the distant sound of running water. When that was done, she pushed the heavy comforter and sheets back from her legs and rolled onto her stomach, her head hanging over the side of the bed, supported by hands under her chin.

  “How is the floor, loyal subject of mine?”

  Sitting up, I swung a leg around so it rested flat to the floor but tucked under the other bent leg, where my arms rested. “All the better to look at you, my Lady Heroine.” She scowled. “Shall I bow down, my lady? Prostrate myself for you? Massage your feet?”

  “Quit it,” she snapped, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “It doesn’t suit you. You were born to rule.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Whoa . . . dangerous. Nobody was supposed to make references to my elder brother’s aversion to his position of heir apparent; it was like an unspoken rule. Then I remembered what she was.

  “Quite right,” I agreed, getting up onto my knees and meeting her gaze just a few inches from her face. She retreated a little. “Now, don’t you have a bath to take?”

  She nodded and got up. I scrutinized her every move. Her hand reached around to her spine, but other than that she was strong and steady on her feet, so I strode past her and into the bathroom. It was warm inside and the mirrors were just beginning to drip with condensation. The bath was about half-full, and covered with soapy bubbles.

  “Do you ache?” I called back.

  “A little. My back is stiff,” she replied in a pained voice that spoke of more than stiffness. Why does she have to hide everything? I thought as she used the brand-new toothbrush.

  I picked up a few of the aromatherapy oils on the shelf and began pouring them beneath the waterfall faucet. Instead of taps, a large wooden shelf protruded over the roll-back lip of the tub, hot or cold water, depending on the dial you turned, tumbling from it. The sound of the water hitting water sent a chill right up my neck.

  I uncorked the oils and let them flow under the rushing stream. Once I was satisfied with the cocktail, I cast a small healing spell until the water of the bath started to gurgle and churn.

  She waited behind me, one arm tucked across her waist and under her armpit. Closing the distance, I moved her arm and wrapped my own around her back, pulling her in. Even gently running my hand down her spine, I could feel the knots lining its length. Easing my fingers between them to disguise the way I wanted to hold her in place, I found her gaze.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again, understood?” I shook her, and she flailed in my arms like a rag doll, wide eyes downcast in silent guilt. “I swear I’ll have you locked up if I even suspect you might do it. I need you. It’s my duty to look after you.” I was still shaking her.

  Her eyes narrowed, all jesting from earlier gone. “You can’t order me about. Not anymore.”

  “Watch me,” I said, removing my arm so I could cup her cheeks to kiss her. In a heartbeat, she had set me stumbling back a few paces and stepped away herself. Her hands flew down to the hem of her long cream nightgown, brushing her knees, and lifted it. I froze midscramble, eyes glued to the stitching as it moved higher and higher, up the spiraling length of the scars on her thighs, past a pair of white panties, and then all of a sudden was yanked over her head.

  Her expression, which had so clearly said “Watch me,” changed to a lip-biting seeking of approval. She stood in just her underwear, a traditional Sagean tank top of sorts. The cups surrounding her breasts were made of lace that twisted into strings and loosely crisscrossed around her waist to her back, ending just at the top of the waistband of her panties. It left nothing to the imagination.

  “Fuck,” I groaned. How in two years had those curves appeared? She was perfect. Utterly, utterly perfect.

  She folded her arms across her chest and blushed deeply, mouth immediately parting the moment I had cursed. “I should . . .” She turned slightly so her shoulder was in line with the bath. “I can order you around. Out!” she finished, shrugging the other shoulder toward the door.

  It took me a few seconds to tear my eyes away from her chest. “You mean we’re not equals?” I said in a tone of mock shock, meaning it as a joke. Her lips pursed and I began edging away, passing through the door and collapsing onto the couch in the reception room.

  “No,” I heard her mutter. “Definitely not.”

  UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

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  ..................................................................

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Autumn

  We visited Varnley, the home of the vampire court. I watched the love between Kaspar and Violet, which I had seen in my visions, play out, and I ached with them when they couldn’t touch. And I told Violet Lee about her fate, on top of Varn’s Point.

  Those memories seemed to be the only images that weren’t obliterated by the sudden terror of placing a foot onto the floor of the hallowed halls of Athenea. That and Violet Lee’s expression as I pulled away from our embrace in Varnley.

  Utter abandonment.

  It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl about to face her almost-death. It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl destined to lead her people into peace. It was not the weakness you wanted to see from a girl whose love was about to leave her to die.

  And even as I longed for her to be better able to face what was coming, I knew it was not a strength I possessed myself.

  Athenea . . . Athenea is the most beautiful country on this Earth. It is a place of the Earth, and for the Earth, and of the people of the Earth. It is a haven, a name, a family, a set of values that permeates my blood and yours, child. It is emerald slopes and snowy mountains, salt water and fresh water, forests and valleys, palaces, mansions, schools, and industry. It is a mere speck on a map, but if you sit in the maerdohealle, its great hall, then all creatures are your friends, and all are your enemies. Yet Athenea . . . Athenea remains peace personified.

  We left the second dimension in a whirl of cloaks amid the fading shouts of vampires. By the time they realized how they had been duped, we were gone. I had never crossed the borders without an escort—somebody actually holding me—but I arrived, not a second later, in the first dimension, two feet away from Fallon.

  He gave me the once-over and then began jogging along the road we had materialized on. I knew it wasn’t far to our destination. In front of us, looming fifty feet high, was a wall, faintly yellow, totally smooth, and utterly impregnable. It was the inner wall of Athenea—the last defense encountered before you entered the sacred heart of the kingdom, where the palace, university, and top-ranking nobility were all situated.

  The road was wide, straight, and without markings—there was no need, because cars were banned beyond the second wall. At its end was a wrought-iron gate as high as
the wall and as intricate as it was intimidating. Into its metal were worked the Athenean crest, leaves, trees, flowers, and maple leaves. Between the bars there hung a faint blue glow: the inner dome-shield.

  It was up to this impressive spectacle we ran, but Fallon darted to the left, into a long, low building at the road’s edge. I swallowed, hard.

  Here goes nothing.

  Inside, the building seemed a lot larger, partitioned off into sections and offices with glass walls. At the front were several large desks, security scanners for baggage and full-body scanners, too. A sign above the desks very clearly read, in Sagean, English, French, Romanian, and the many other languages of the dark beings: CHECKPOINT A—HIGH SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY.

  The nervous fluttering in my stomach only got worse. I don’t have my passport, or any documents! Nobody had told me I would need them. I thought they would just let us in because of this whole mess!

  I was relieved when Edmund appeared from a corridor just at the moment the border clerk sitting behind the desk looked up, wide-eyed, and combined getting off his chair with a bow. The chair, on wheels, skidded away and hit the glass partition behind with a thump.

  Edmund raced up to his booth, yanked down the hoods of our cloaks, and pulled us both into a bone-crushing hug, one of us wrapped in each of his arms. Without saying another word, he let us go, helped us out of our cloaks, and handed passports to us both.

  The room and all its occupants—border controllers, Athan, wall guards, militia—had fallen silent the minute my cloak was removed. For one long minute I thought it was my outfit: thick but ripped tights, shorts, and a tank top—the only old clothes I had, and the only clothes I didn’t mind ruining in Varnley. Once they had taken a long look at me, they turned to one another, and then all sank into hesitant bows and curtsies. Then I realized.