Black Rose

by Bone, K. L.

  It had been four years since the last of her father’s ashes had been placed within the large marble structure and two years to the day since her mother had chosen to join him in death. She sat before the tall statues surrounding her for a long time, offering silent prayers to the Gods above. Yet these scattered visits always ended the same way. “Why?” Mara asked the question which could never be answered. “Why did you leave me?”

  She turned toward the stone which bore her mother’s name. “Why? Why did you leave me all alone?” Her hands dug into the dirt, lowering her face to the ground. She sat there a long time as she cried. “You left me,” she shouted for the dead alone. Then, someone touched her shoulder.

  Her eyes flew open to find Edward kneeling beside her. “I thought you might be here.” She looked at him and the single glance was all it took. “I’m sorry,” he said gently. “There are no answers. I wish I could tell you why, but…I can’t.”

  Mara turned from the tomb with deep bitterness. “I know why. He left her alone and the isolation was unbearable. She was all alone.”

  Edward reached forward, lifting her gaze. “You speak as though you know.”

  A shiver slid through her and she spoke in a voice thick with emotion. “Don’t I?”

  “Princess.” His gaze was deep. “What are you saying?”

  “She knew that she would never love again. No one—not even me. She was alone.”

  “But you are not.” He moved his hands to grasp her arms just below the wrists, commanding her attention with his touch. “Do you hear me, my Lady? You are not alone.”

  “Am I not?”

  “No,” he said and pulled her close, wrapping his arms around her slender frame. “I…” He drew a sharp breath. “I don’t know what I would do without you.” She began to shiver in his arms. “Please, Mara, you are scaring me.”

  “Everyone leaves,” she answered through tears.

  “I won’t.” He rose from the ground, forcing her to his feet. He stared into violet eyes. “I love you, Mara. Do you hear me? I love you and you will never be alone.” He pulled her into his arms again, running a hand through her long black hair. “ego adsum, mea rosa. I will not leave you. I will never, never leave you.”

  Mara had been fourteen when Edward had sworn to end the loneliness which consumed her life. And only nineteen when he would embark upon the quest that would force him to break every promise he had ever made, condemning her to the life her mother had chosen death over being forced to endure.

  Edward had taken her back to her rooms that night, disregarding every hint of protocol as he laid the Princess upon the bed and pulled her to his chest. She clung to him, oblivious to the fact that Garreth had entered the room and taken silent watch in the far corner. “It’s okay,” Edward whispered, cradling her against him to place a gentle kiss upon her brow. He held her for a long time before her breathing finally slowed to the steady rhythm of sleep.

  “What happened?” Garreth asked quietly as he moved to a chair beside the bed.

  “She went to see her mother.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “No.” He traced a hand gently through her long hair which trailed down her back. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Garreth slowly shook his head. “I wish I knew.”

  “She’s so young. I wish I could take her away from here.”

  “Yes…but the Queen would never allow it. She is still a Princess. I try to stay here as much as possible. Though, as a member of the guard, it is difficult.”

  “Yes.” Edward nodded. “We could bring her into the circle for a while. Move her to the chambers between ours.”

  “A Princess of the blood living in a circle of guardsmen? You can’t be serious.”

  “I don’t know what else to do. Does she still train with the swordmaster?”

  “Every day.”

  Edward nodded. “I will take over her training myself. I will devote more time. I will…” He tightened his arms around her, fighting to keep his words a whisper. “Garreth…I can’t lose her and if we don’t do something…” He shook his head.

  “Careful, Edward. She is a Princess. You could be in trouble for simply lying here like this.”

  “She cannot be alone. She won’t survive it.”

  Garreth drew a deep breath and said simply, “I know.”

  That had been the beginning of her official training for the Royal Guard. She was moved from her royal suites into the Captain’s section of the palace. It was against the majority of protocols, moving her into a chamber of men. However, the Queen either had no issue with the move, or did not care enough to offer an objection. It was here, under Edward’s watchful eye, that Mara continued to learn the true ways of the sword and fell into a regular routine. He, along with Garreth and Phillip, worked together to train her not only in combat, but also to instill within her an appreciation for the codes they were sworn to live by. Honor, truth and valor were among the highest, along with the value of living a life of service. Embracing these core values had, more than anything else, been the key to Mara’s will to survive even in the darkest of days—the notion that her life belonged to a purpose greater than herself.

  Mara was the youngest to ever enter formal service into any Royal Guard. Garreth had been enraged when, at only sixteen, she had requested formal admittance. “You’re too young to know that this is the life you want,” he had raged at her. “You’re a Princess! Think of what you would be giving up. Your title, your wealth, your privilege. For all you know, you might be Queen one day. You cannot join the Guard at sixteen!”

  She spent the next year in a futile attempt to change her cousin’s mind. When Edward finally asked her why she was so insistent on joining the guard now instead of waiting to ensure that this way of life was what she truly wanted, she gave an answer from the heart. “I was lost,” she told him. “That night you found me by my parents’ tomb, I had every intention of joining them. But then you came and gave me a reason to go on living. This guard, this way of life, saved me.” She leaned closer into his eyes. “You saved me, Edward, and for the first time, I feel that I have something to live for. I want to fight, to live, to breathe for honor and truth and all the rest of it. I know that this is the only way I want to live.”

  Edward had not initiated her into the Guard that night. He may not have for many years, except that, only a few weeks later, the Queen called her to the Royal chambers. “I think it is high time we remove you from those ghastly chambers,” she was informed by her royal aunt. “You are a child no longer. A Princess of the Blood cannot live among the men as you do. It is improper. Finding you a royal match will be difficult enough even without such tarnish.”

  Mara had held her tears in check until she reached her rooms where Phillip found her. No sooner had she finished repeating the Queen’s words then he went to find Edward and Garreth.

  “For God’s sake, just give her the initiation vows,” Phillip advised.

  “She is too young,” Garreth repeated, replaying the same old argument.

  “Yet not too young for the Queen,” Phillip pointed out. “I hear rumors of a Muir Court Prince heading our way. Could it be that he is coming for her? If she is old enough to be forced into a royal wedding, then surely she is old enough to choose a different way of life. I fear that if we do not let her choose now, the Queen will choose for her.” He turned towards Edward. “After all the years you have spent teaching, are you really going to take away her choice?”

  Edward exchanged a glance with Garreth before turning to face her. “You are a Princess of the Blood,” he said to her. “If you choose to join the guard, it is a title you will bear no longer. You will surrender everything that goes with it—wealth, title, rank and ultimately, your freedom. You will surrender all of it and will be expected to sacrifice everything for those to whom you are ordered to serve. Do you understand, Princess Mara? Your life will not be your own.”

  She looked him in the eye, reviewing each of h
is words slowly as she searched his gaze. In a breath barely above a whisper, she said, “The Queen would see me locked up alone, in a tower, before giving me to a man of her choosing. How is that life my own?” He parted his lips, but when no words came Mara continued. “You promised you wouldn’t leave me alone. Please, Edward, don’t let her. I can’t bear it. I want to be with you. I just…please.”

  Edward nodded and took a step closer, shortening the distance between them to a single pace. “If you join the Guard, Mara, it will be a hard life; one of pain and sacrifice, but…” he reached out and caressed the side of her face, “you will never be alone.”

  “Then please,” she begged, “let me take my vows. Before it’s too late.”

  He searched her violet eyes, and for one moment, she thought he might refuse her. Then he suddenly leaned forward and kissed the cheek his hand had caressed only moments before. “Mara Sethian,” he said, dropping her title, “welcome to the Royal Guard.”

  Chapter XX

  Lady Sandra paused as she stepped inside the dark room, allowing her eyes to slowly work their way across the large chamber. A black desk stood against the wall immediately to her right, topped with several piles of neatly stacked papers. In the center of the far back wall was a large, four-post bed covered in thick wool blankets. Her eyes lingered on each item as she wracked her memory, but she could find no recollection of having ever been there before.

  “My Lady.” The deep, masculine voice forced her attention to the farthest side of the room. Edward stood dressed in all black. His pale skin seemed almost translucent as he stood before a roaring fire. “My Lady,” he said again, taking several steps towards her. “You’re…” He paused as recognition began to dawn. “You’re the one.”

  A slight shiver ran through her. “Please,” he said, motioning her closer. “It is much warmer by the fire.” She stepped forward until she was close enough to feel the warmth of the fire on her pale skin. As her gaze focused upon the flames, it was not to desolate chambers of torture that her mind wandered, but to a very different memory.

  “There once was a magical knight,” her mother’s voice rose from an all but forgotten dream. “He was brave and strong. He will protect you from all harm.”

  “My Lady?” Edward’s voice brought her back to the present.

  She turned from the flames to face him. “My Lord, I needed to see you. I needed to know that you were…” Her voice again trailed and she asked, “Do you know who I am?”

  “No, my Lady.”

  “Have we ever met…before?”

  His eyes searched her, tracing their way up and down her body. “Not to my knowledge.”

  She turned back to the flames and could almost see her mother sitting within them. Her long dark hair, the ruby lips that never smiled. There was so little she could recall of her mother. She was little more than a vague image and an air of sadness which Sandra had been too young to understand. “A hero with a fierce soul and eyes of night.” The long-forgotten words rose from the deepest recess of her memories. “He will protect you.”

  “My Lady,” Edward’s deep voice eclipsed her mother’s. “Will you tell me your name?”

  “Sandra.”

  “It would seem that I am in your debt, Lady Sandra. What I don’t know, is why.” He took a step closer to better see her face in the light of the flames. “What would you have of me, my Lady?”

  “When I was young, I was in an accident. I have very few memories of my past. And of those I have, fewer still exist outside of a few stories.” She drew a breath and turned to face the flames, unable to look at Edward as she continued. “When I was a little girl, my mother told me stories about a hero—a knight in shining armor. Late at night I used to pretend that he was watching over me, guarding me while I slept. I had terrible nightmares, and storms often raged across the night sky. But when my mother told her stories, I always felt safe, protected.

  “My mother spoke of a man who knew no fear. Who helped those around him without so much as a thought to himself. A man so strong and brave, he could only exist in the realm of dreams.” She drew a trembling breath and forced herself to face him. “Yet, here you stand.” She searched his gaze. “I don’t know what these memories are or what they mean. I don’t know what happened to you that night. But…I have dreamed of you my entire life.”

  “Forgive me, my Lady. I don’t understand. Of what memories do you speak?”

  She drew a shallow breath. “I…I saw you. Lying…”

  “Yes,” Edward answered. “You saved me.”

  “No,” she replied. “Not that one, another. I saw you on a bed with a woman.” Her voice grew small, haunted. “She held a silver blade and you were…”

  No sooner did she speak than that horribly angelic laughter seeped into the room. She shook her head vigorously, desperate to clear the echoes from her mind. “You…you were screaming.” Her breath became shallow. “I have seen these vision…nightmares. I…” She searched his gaze

  “How do you know this?” A touch of anger fueled his voice. “Who are you?”

  “I don’t know. I remembered nothing, nothing but a few vague images…whispers in the dark. Until I saw you, lying on that table.”

  “How do you know this?” he asked again.

  “I don’t know, please…” Tears of frustration and fear filled her vision. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why this is happening. I don’t know why I am seeing these things.” Her gaze lowered to the floor as tears began to fall. “Help me. Please. I’m afraid.” That angelic laughter slid back into the room, growing steadily louder until it was all she could hear, could feel, could breathe.

  Edward leaned forward and grabbed her, pulling the young woman against him. Jerked back to reality by his touch, Sandra realized that she had dug her hands into her own arms so hard she had drawn blood, which had prompted Edward to grab her. “I’ve got you,” he said gently.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s alright. You’re safe.”

  “Can you help me?”

  He stared at her and it was only then, holding her in his arms, that he caught the full weight of her gaze. He raised his right hand from her arm and brushed a long strand of her hair from the side of her face. “Your eyes are so…” He leaned closer. “Who was your mother?”

  “I…I don’t really know. She died when I was very young and my memories are…scattered.”

  “Anything you can remember.”

  “All I know is that she was beautiful. Soft spoken, a gentle touch and…sad. She was always sad.”

  Edward gave a slow nod. “Her eyes,” he asked. “What color were her eyes? Do you have your mother’s eyes?”

  Sandra’s tears ceased. She closed her eyes, attempting desperately to focus upon the long-lost memory. She sat at her mother’s feet, playing with the edge of her blue, satin gown. “A hero,” her mother whispered, “unmatched with a sword, with eyes dark as night. He will always protect you, my darling—always.”

  “She was beautiful,” Sandra said with a startling realization. “With long, dark hair and sad, violet eyes.”

  Chapter XXI

  Mara sat at the desk, pouring over the papers spread before her. Multiple requests had arrived over the last few days, everything from politicians to movie stars requesting bodyguards from among the elite of the Rose. Once, Kings and Queens would have traveled hundreds of miles to beg for such favors, swearing titles, fealty and even kingdoms for help from the famous Black Rose. That was no longer the case in this new world where technology disrupted old traditions and one’s solemn promise lasted only as long as the speaker could find another to utter the same words to.

  Mara shook her head in disgust before finally putting pen to paper, authorizing the requests of both the American President and a joint request from several members of the European Union. She tossed aside those from the more Hollywood types, whose names meant as little to her as any other member of the nameless billions now populating the w
orld. “I miss the days of Kings,” Mara said with a sigh. “So easily is wealth mistaken for nobility. These people get the slightest taste of wealth, and suddenly believe they are entitled to be privy to the elite of the immortal world! Like buying their way into their own isn’t enough. We were Gods when their ancestors were carving their names on cave walls! And they think to buy my loyalty with thin strips of paper which they claim to possess the value of gold!” It was an argument she had had frequently with her sub-commanders.

  Not that gold was not important, or that the Black Rose didn’t have its fair share. As a group, the Rose held titles to the former holdings of the Muir Court. In fact, there was a possibility that her small, elite force had wealth to rival both the Ciar and Arum Courts. The wealth was spread strategically among vaults, and yes, even banks across America, Europe and Asia. Her guard was also paid handsomely for their services, though it was a fact that continually made Mara’s stomach churn. This ‘false gold’ as Mara referred to modern forms of wealth, was a shadow of the respect that was once given so freely to members of her court by the mortal world. “We are no longer Gods,” she was continually forced to remind herself. “And one day soon, will be no better than hired guns.”

  Her rant was interrupted by a knock at the door followed a few moments later by the appearance of Jonathan. He was shorter than the majority of her guard, standing only 5’6”, with closely cropped brown hair and matching eyes. He took several steps into the room and then slid to a knee in a time-honored bow before his Captain. Mara pushed the papers to the side of the desk and then stood from her straight-backed chair and addressed the man who had served her for just over two hundred years. “Yes?”

  He rose from his kneeling position, but was still required to tilt his neck in order to meet her gaze. “I came to ask if you had seen the requests of Guardship which had arrived while you were away. But,” he motioned to the crumpled papers laying at the foot of her desk, “I see that you already have.”