by R Cavanaugh
“Hey, what’s this?” Nightsky asked.
“It’s called the start of something wonderful,” James said, looking up at Rose and placing a strand of her black hair behind her ear.
“Not what you two are up to. What’s this?” she said and was looking down at something that had fallen from Rose’s sack and was bringing it over to the couple.
“Oh,” Rose said impassively, “I found that on the island. It lit up, and so I ultimately used it to find that clearing.”
James had suddenly frozen and was staring from Rose to Nightsky to the object that Nightsky now held in her mouth. He had this strange look on his face that was a mixture of awe and complete shock.
“James?” Rose was looking concerned, especially as he sat up, causing her to wrap her arms around his neck to steady herself while being on his lap. He then held out his hand as if he wanted to see it.
“Are you OK?”
“Yah,” he said in a distant voice, “never better.”
Nightsky, seeing the gesture, carefully placed the object in his hand, and it was as he held it that Rose got her first good look at it. It was some sort of headdress, and it had these delicate curves with emeralds sticking out in random places.
“Wait a moment!” Rose said in shock and quickly got up and ran over to grab the painting that she had saved in haste.
There it was in the painting: the tiara everyone was looking for, and yet it was there, in James’s shaking hand. The Tiara of Emerald Thorns.
“Where did you say you found this?” James said. He too was now standing up and looking at her as she continued to hold the painting. He was still smiling a strange smile.
“On that island,” Rose said breathlessly.
“That makes sense,” he said, and he was now right in front of her, holding the headdress in both hands carefully. “Only royalty can get on that island.”
“Really?” Rose breathed, but what she wanted to say next was lost as James carefully placed the tiara on Rose’s head. He stood back with the other two and his smile widened.
Rose turned to look in the small mirror that stood in the corner of her tent. What she saw shocked her. She couldn’t believe how closely she resembled those figures of her that were painted in James’s home. It just looked normal, for some strange reason.
Then, without a hint of warning, James grabbed hold of her arm and led her out of her room, through the rest of the tent, and out of the tent, with Nightsky and Valor right behind.
“Everyone!” he cried, and they all looked at her in shock.
Rose suddenly felt very conscious of every person looking at her.
“I give you the true ruler of Aquamarine: Rose Smaragaid Heartington, for she wears the Tiara of Emerald Thorns.”
“All hail Rose of Aquamarine!” Valor called.
“Hail Rose!” they cried.
Oh, you are in deep now, Rose, she thought and stared at them all.
Chapter 29
Following the Leader…Wherever She May Go
Somewhere in the Forest of Promise
Rose was riding Nightsky at the head of an army now ready for battle. She was now accustomed to wearing the headdress that James had put on her head only three days previous. What she wasn’t accustomed to yet was leading.
Leading was a lot harder than following. It required her to always be thinking and analyzing, whether she wanted to or not. It also came with competition, as she had, in the space of a minute, kicked a bunch of people down a step. Her ideas had to have reasoning or they would be instantly shot down by Evan, who hadn’t really liked her much to begin with, she felt.
Her appearance mattered greatly now. People expected her to look a certain way, and that was the biggest pain in the butt of all.
“How’s it going up there?” Nightsky asked quietly and concernedly.
“Oh, you know,” Rose said halfheartedly, “slowly.”
“Do you want to walk?”
“Yes, please,” Rose breathed in relief.
It was with that she stopped and allowed Rose to get down.
“Thanks,” Rose said, rubbing Nightsky’s neck for a second and, dressed in her armor and boots, she began to walk beside her.
She knew without looking that there were people behind her that had done the same. It was as if whatever she was doing was the right thing to do. It felt like some perverse game of “Mother May I?” or “follow the leader.”
“Rose.”
It was Evan, who in spite of her recently found situation, continued to treat her like the ground he was walking on most of the time. She almost liked him for that; at least he hadn’t changed toward her because of all that happened.
“Rose,” he said again.
“Yes, Evan.”
“We should be reaching the edge of the forest soon,” he said stiffly from atop his horse, and Rose caught a glimpse of Allegiance near him. “When we do, I think we should stop and make camp to discuss our next move.”
“You think so?” Rose said, looking straight ahead and trying to stand her ground, “Because I thought we should stop just before the forest ended so that we could stay undercover.”
He looked surprised, but pleasantly so, and nodded in agreement.
“I think that would be wise also,” came Nightmare’s voice, and Rose looked around and saw Vengeance sitting atop him gracefully.
“That’s settled, then.” Nightsky whinnied and shot a look at the others that meant “Get lost.”
“You know how you could help me out?” Rose said, pretending to think aloud and looking at Nightsky, “You could be a little more polite.”
“Bah,” Nightsky replied to Rose’s remark, “they are upset because they are now below you, and I am reminding them of that fact.”
“Well, I need their help as much as I need yours, so please just keep it civil once in a while.”
“Very well.”
Rose and Nightsky continued to walk along in silence until the forest became thinner. The trees seemed to be getting younger as a whole, and light was peeking through in more and more places, casting a greenish hue along the ground. Rose knew this to be a sign that it was about to become a unforested area.
“Let’s stop,” she said to Nightsky, who nodded and halted.
The rest of the army slowly did the same as orders were quietly given to do so. Rose sighed, and in her head she thought, “Mother, may I stop? Yes, you may.”
“I think we should stop here for now and figure out our next move while we get rested.” Rose had no sooner finished when they all dismounted or began to unpack things. Tents were unloaded, and people and creatures began to erect them. Since “the big discovery,” as she called it, she had acquired her own tent, but she did miss the other women with whom she had shared her last one.
Once her tent was erected, a table was placed in its center and usually would start out empty as it was now. However, within a short while, it was covered in maps and charts, even a few books.
The other thing that came to pass in all of this whirlwind was that she was frowned upon for aiding in the setup and therefore found herself standing around and annoyed.
“I’m going to see where we are,” Rose said to Evan, Vengeance, Aphra, Liam, and James.
“We know where we are,” Vengeance snorted in reply.
“Well I don’t. And I want to see it with my own eyes, thank you.” Rose had whispered this in a way that they all could hear her.
“I’m coming,” Nightsky said ruffling the feathers of her wings and following Rose out of the tent.
“Me too,” James and Valor said, setting off after them.
Rose was already trekking through some of the tented areas, where there were many “Your Highnesses” and “Ma’ams,” but that came with her new situation. Some people even bowed, even though she wished they wouldn’t.<
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“Where are we going, anyway?” James said, out of breath from catching up but smiling all the same.
“Just to the forest’s edge,” Rose said and looked back at him. “I want to see if Rachel’s directions have proven accurate.”
“Why?” he said. Clearly he was shocked by her cautiousness. “Don’t you trust her?”
“It’s not a matter of whether or not I trust her as a person,” Rose said as she continued to walk at a breakneck pace, and they had long since left the camp.
“No,” Nightsky said huffily and trotted a little forward, “it is a matter of direction.”
“It falls in the same category there, sweetheart,” Valor said in a quick response to her snide remark.
Suddenly and without warning, Nightsky turned right around, and Valor almost walked right into her.
“What did you call me?!”
“I said—”
“Look!” Rose called, cutting them both off and standing between two trees.
“What is it, Rose?” James said, sprinting to her side, and his jaw dropped.
There, right where Rachel said it would be, was the door to the trasicore breeding center and their point of entrance. The door had to stand fifteen feet tall, and the copper hinges and bolts had been exposed to weather for so long that they had turned a turquoise color. It was made of some kind of dark wood, and the handle was nowhere to be seen.
“Rachel said that there was a stone right at the foot of the door that would allow it to open,” James whispered, and Rose could tell that he was, like her, barely breathing.
“Yah,” Rose whispered.
“Yah,” he repeated.
“I can’t believe that it’s really here,” she breathed, her heart pounding. This meant that their plan would maybe work, but it was a big maybe.
“Rose,” James said softly, touching her arm, “we should return and tell the others we’ve seen it.”
“Yah…yah, you’re right,” she said and quickly turned away from that horrifying place.
They began walking back toward Nightsky and Valor and paused beside them.
“It will be quicker if you two ride,” Valor said and allowed James to climb on top of him.
“Very well,” Rose groaned. It wasn’t that riding Nightsky wasn’t a great honor; it was. She was just tired of riding at the moment.
“Come, Rose,” Nightsky said as Rose approached her, allowing her, too, to mount her.
The journey back was indeed much shorter than the journey there, and Rose wasn’t sure that was a good thing. She dismounted Nightsky and told her she could go and do what she wanted, that she would come find her if she needed her.
“Thanks,” Nightsky yawned. “I think I will go and sleep for a while.”
“Yay, me too,” Valor said to James and quickly trotted to catch up to Nightsky and then walked a little behind her.
“I think he likes her,” Rose said, grinning at James and giggling some.
“What?!” James said excitedly and smiling as if to discredit what she was saying. “No, he’s just protecting her, that’s all. He isn’t in love with her or anything.”
“Uh-huh,” Rose said slyly and looked at James as they walked up to her tent, “just like you with me. Right?”
“Huh?” James said in shock but straightened himself out as they arrived at her tent.
The others had clearly been busy creating battle plans and discussing the possibilities of what could be done. The charts on the table were facing all sorts of directions, and each held a different battle plan. Each one could hold the potential of victory.
“We’ve seen it,” Rose said and came to stand by Evan, and her voice had drawn all eyes upon her.
“Seen it?” Aphra said questioningly, her brow furrowed in frustration, and she stood straight up to get a better look at her.
“We have seen the door that leads directly into the castle,” James said, looking at them all. “The one that the king most likely won’t bother to guard.”
“How do you know he won’t?” Liam asked, looking bemused and smirking. “Where’s your proof of that?”
“Our proof is in Rachel’s statement about what’s behind the first set of doors,” Rose said, starting to lose her cool a little.
“Yes, we know,” Vengeance said, rolling her eyes and standing up to get a good look at Rose. “We heard her story, but don’t you find it a bit far-fetched? I mean, she was tortured in some way to make her believe that a trasicore tried to mate with her.”
“How do you know that isn’t the truth!” Liam said, practically shouting at her. Daggers were forming in his eyes.
“Calm down, Liam,” Evan said quietly, glaring at his sister. “Keep your opinions to yourself, Vengeance, for the rest of us believe her.”
“So in that case, do you believe that James and I saw the door?” Rose said coldly and looked right into Evan’s eyes.
“Yes, I do,” he said, and then he went from looking at her to returning his focus to the charts and maps. “I just don’t know what use the information is.”
“I’ll tell you what use it is,” she said, finding her spine and coming to within inches of the table and leaning so that she was right next to him, “We can go through that door and take them from the inside.”
“I think that they will notice an army running into that one door, Rose,” he said in a focused tone, and then he looked up at her and shook his head. “We can’t all use that door.”
“So create a diversion at the front and let a small group go in that door,” Rose said, throwing up one hand and letting it come down hard her hip. “Find some way to get their attention so that I can get in.”
“You!” they all cried in shock, and James was looking concerned.
“Yes, me, and a small party of people to help me,” she said calmly with a sense of direction she wasn’t used to hearing in her own voice. “I’m the one who needs to stop him. It should be me.”
“Yes, but Rose, you’re the only distraction that will get Igneous’s attention,” Aphra said calmly but looked nervous as she said it. “How do we distract him if we need you to do it?”
“Simple,” Rose said shortly and looked out the tent at the tent next door to hers, which held Rachel MacNeil. “You find someone who looks enough like me from a distance and parade her around as me.”
“It seems as though you have someone in mind,” Evan said to her, now standing up and behind her.
“I think you should give the task to Rachel MacNeil.” Rose turned from looking at him to look at them all, with her eyes stopping on Vengeance. “I think she’s earned some over-the-top care. Don’t you?”
“She would be a good fit, as none of them have seen you up close yet,” Liam whispered as if it were a secret.
“Yah,” Aphra whispered, “we could go to the front and have her lead us there. It would take a day, at most, from here.”
“Once there she could act as if she were giving the orders, and they would be none the wiser,” James said, grinning slightly.
“Right,” Rose said and looked at the others, happy to finally have them on her page. “Then I’ll enter the door that night and take them by surprise.”
“I’m going with you,” James said quickly.
“No,” Rose said, shaking her head. “No, James, I want you to go with Rachel. It will be more believable if you are with her.”
“No, I’m going with you to keep you safe.”
“James,” Rose said, holding back her tears, “if this diversion is to work, you can’t go with me.”
“But—”
“I’ll go with her, James,” Aphra said, patting his back.
“Me too,” Vengeance said quickly, and her vote to go was backed by Evan’s assurance that Don and Devin would gladly go as well.
“We will take
a small group with us as well, don’t worry, James,” Rose said kindly, placing her hand on his arm. He looked up, and he looked on the verge of tears.
“James,” Evan said in a fashion that said an order was on its way, “wake up all those not staying to go through the door. We’re leaving tonight.”
“Give me a minute,” James replied, not taking his eyes off Rose. His stare didn’t even waver as they left the tent.
“Why, Rose?” he said. His voice was cracking, and he turned away, ashamed to let her see him in this state, it seemed.
“Because,” she said, choking on her own words, “it is the only way.”
“Then,” he said, turning around; he grabbed her arm carefully and pulled her close to him. “You must promise me that we will be together after this.”
“No matter what happens, James,” Rose said, placing her head and hands on his chest and feeling his arms wrap around her, “I will find you, and I will always love you.”
She looked up at him, and he placed a kiss softly on her lips and let her go. He walked toward the exit of the tent, and just as he reached it, Rose knew she had to tell him.
“James!”
“Yah,” he breathed, looking at her.
“I just wanted to tell you,” she said, barely breathing. “I still can’t believe how lucky I am to have met you.”
Chapter 30
Across the Way
Heartington Castle, Decorus Regnum Corset
“Sire!”
Who could that be at this time in the morning? Igneous thought darkly, and he sat up. There was more knocking at the door. More like banging, he corrected himself, standing on the cool floor in his bare feet and wearing only his pants.
“Sire!”
This had better be important, he thought, striding over to the door and opening it.
“What?” he said coldly, and the guard before him jumped slightly.
“Sire,” the guard breathed heavily and looked more than slightly frightened, “Exotius has returned to bring you important news.”
“Really?” he said slowly and in a tone that was filled with disbelief.