“What was that heavy sound for?” Beana demanded.
Rose Red sighed again. “Sometimes I wish . . .”
“Yes?”
“Sometimes I wish we could go back to the way things were. To the mountain. We were lonely, sure. But we were happier then, weren’t we? With old Dad to care for, and our cottage to keep, and no one to . . . to . . .”
She could not finish her thought. How could she bear to say it? No one to look at her like she was a monster slavering to eat their children. No one to startle in fright whenever she entered the room. No one to whisper about her when she’d gone.
She tugged at her veil, adjusting it so that it would not slip off, pulling out stray rose thorns and dropping them to the dirt. Beana’s gaze was fixed upon her, and she did not like to meet it. She knew exactly what her goat was about to say.
“We can go back, Rosie.”
Rose Red shook her head.
“We can,” said the goat. “Your master will provide for our journey. He’s said so before. He won’t keep you here against your will. We can go back to the mountain. It was foolish to have let him talk us into returning in the first place. Have we really done him any good?”
Rose Red did not answer. She plucked thorns from the long stems, rubbing her hand over the smooth bumps left behind.
“He’s more distant than ever, hardly the boy you once knew,” the goat persisted. “You rarely see him, and when you do, you rarely speak. He’s not your responsibility, sweet child. He never was. And it was wrong of him to place such a burden on you, asking you to come back to the lowlands. It’s dangerous here.”
Beana stopped herself. To continue would be to say too much. There were some dangers it was best to keep the girl unaware of.
To the goat’s disappointment, Rose Red said nothing but opened the pen gate and ushered her pet inside. “Rosie?” said Beana as Rose Red closed and fixed the latch.
“I cain’t leave him, Beana,” said Rose Red. “He needs me. He came back and found me because he needs me. I know it’s foolish to say it, even to think it but . . . but, Beana, I’m the only friend my master has. Though he rules the whole kingdom, he needs me still.” She bowed her head, gazing at the bundle of green under her arm. “Yet there’s little enough I can do for him.”
The goat watched as the girl made her way back through the gardens to the Eldest’s House. She felt helpless, and for a moment she cursed the shaggy coat and hooves she wore. “It’s tearing her up,” she muttered as she lost sight of the girl. “This marriage of the prince’s. It’s tearing her to pieces inside. Light of Lumé above, I wish we’d never met him!”
A shadow passed over the sun.
Beana shivered and looked up, squinting. That was no cloud. Perhaps a bird. But it must have been a large one, an eagle even, to make that shadow.
A moment later, she thought she caught a familiar scent on the wind. A scent of poison and of anger. But it vanished, and she told herself it was nothing more than the remnants of the Dragon’s work.
After all, Beana had bigger things to worry about.
Festive music began to play as the guests of the Eldest arrived and filled the new hall to celebrate their prince and his bride to be. Women in gaudy colors danced with men in silken garments, and their smiles flashed as bright as their jewels, so determined were they to rejoice and forget the nightmare in which they had so recently lived.
Prince Lionheart met Lady Daylily at the door and gave her his arm as support when they entered. Each wore a smile that outshone all the paper lanterns, but they did not look at each other. A great cheer rose up from the assembly, drowning the music.
A burst of fire lit the Wilderlands for an instant. A few moments later, a dragon began to climb the gorge.
About the Author
Anne Elisabeth Stengl makes her home in Raleigh, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband, Rohan, and a passel of cats. When she’s not writing, she enjoys Shakespeare, opera, and tea, and studies piano, painting, and fencing. She studied illustration at Grace College and English literature at Campbell University. She is the author of Heartless and Veiled Rose.
Heartless
Veiled Rose
Moonblood
Resources: bethanyhouse.com/AnOpenBook
Website: www.bethanyhouse.com
Facebook: Bethany House
Anne Elisabeth Stengl, Veiled Rose
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