by Bone, K. L.
He stared at her for what seemed a long time and then said, “I’ll watch over him, Mara.” Those words, spoken so long ago, had now become yet another in a long line of broken promises.
The group continued down the dirt path in silence until they eventually emerged into the small garden where not even weeds had been able to thrive. rosae immortals survived at every court, though they thrived at few. The Black Rose was one of those few. Unlike the scattered bushes of the Ciar Court, the transplanted roses thrived here, as though sustained by the power of the Guard which had been named exclusively in their honor. They climbed the taller shrubberies and trees, their thorns piercing deeply into the other plants upon which they clung.
It had always been a dark affair, the black roses upon the deep green vines laying against the grey backdrop of the mountains. Yet as they rounded the familiar corner, the entire party froze. In place of the familiar black petals, every rose in the garden, was the color of freshly spilt blood. “By the Gods!” Mara whispered. “Is this what you have come to tell me?” She took several steps forward, still not sure if she could believe her eyes. “Are the roses in the Ciar Court…”
“Violet,” he answered. “The roses in the Ciar garden are violet.”
“They haven’t been violet since she died.”
“Or red, since the night you took your vows.”
“I don’t understand…” She forced herself to turn and face Garreth. “What is going on?”
“Let’s go inside and talk.”
She nodded and the group turned back towards the castle. When they entered the chambers, Mara led them up several flights of the spiral staircase until they emerged into one of the large guest rooms on the upper floor. Mara walked to the back of the room where a series of chairs sat before a massive unlit fireplace. Each of them took a seat in the large, velvet chairs.
After everyone was settled, Mara drew a deep breath and said, “Okay, Garreth. I’m listening.”
Garreth began to speak, quickly recounting the arrival of the young girl and his discovery of violet roses along the palace grounds. “Wait,” Mara inquired. “You are saying that this young woman shows up and suddenly, the roses begin to change color?”
Garreth nodded. “According to Nolan, the girl threw herself over Edward’s body when he was being whipped. Took the brunt of a few blows before they were able to stop, effectively ending his torture. Yet, when Edward was asked why the girl would have done such a thing…”
“Edward said he had never seen Lady Sandra before,” Nolan finished for him.
“I don’t understand. Why would she do that for a stranger?”
“I am not certain,” Nolan continued. “However, the Princess did not seem herself that night; not in any way. She seemed lost, confused and when they pulled her away, she started screaming, in Latin no less. I didn’t understand much of it, but I did distinctly hear her say the words: sanguis rosarum.”
“The Blood of Roses,” Mara translated. hic iacet sanguis rosarum.
“Garreth had the same reaction, but…I’m afraid I don’t understand. What does it mean?”
It was here that Mara grew silent, her posture straightening in her chair. The last time she had seen that many red roses had been the day Edward had returned from the Queen’s mission. sanguis rosarum. “Please, Mara,” the young knight asked. “Can you tell me what is going on?”
“It’s none of your concern,” she answered, anger slipping into her tone. “Garreth, why did you bring him here?”
Wait for me, Edward had pleaded. The red roses had vanished from the garden the day he left. And again, the day she had sworn herself to the Black Rose. Why were they returning? Another form of torment for the woman forever trapped in her isolation. I will have them torn from their very roots, she vowed silently. I will burn them as though they had never existed.
“Mara, we need to tell him about Liza.”
She started at the Princess’ name, rising from the chair to gather her full height. “Like hell I do! He’s naught more than a child. A child I specifically instructed you to keep away from here.”
“It is too late,” Garreth stated. “He is involved now. He’s been involved since the first stroke of the whip landed on Edward’s back.”
She glared at him and then turned to walk towards the glass doors leading to a large balcony. She stepped into the cool air, the previously still wind now rising in the form of a cool mountain breeze. She took a deep breath, trying to drive back the overwhelming emotions which threatened to crawl along her skin. “He doesn’t need to know!” she all but hissed at Garreth as he followed her onto the balcony.
“Mara, I’m sorry, but…something is happening here. The roses changing color, the Arum Court moving against Edward, the appearance of this woman; something is not right, you know it is not.”
Rage filled her eyes. “I’m assuming that you already started this story?” She turned her gaze upon the younger man. “Did he tell you, Nolan? That is strictly forbidden to speak of such things? To even speak her name! What the hell did he tell you? Some sad story about the Captain and the young girl he left standing in the garden? How he left me, broke my heart.” She stepped closer, pausing mere inches from him. “Do you pity me now, Nolan? The poor, broken Captain of the desolate rose?”
“No!” he said hurriedly. “Not at all. I asked him about Edward. I saw the way you looked at him; the way you risked everything to get him away from King Mathew. I…I just asked him.” He shook his head. “I just want to understand what happened. Please, my Lady, please tell me.”
Mara drew a deep breath and finally asked, “What has he told you?”
Nolan turned to Garreth, who produced the thick, leather-bound book. “I see,” Mara replied. “So everything, then.”
“No. I’ve only read the beginning. Enough to know that you were orphaned as a child and that Edward initiated you into the guard at seventeen.”
Mara turned from both men and moved her gaze to the high mountains where the sun was just beginning to lower itself from the sky.
“Mara.” Garreth moved to her side speaking softly. “I know how hard it is for you to talk about this.”
“No, you don’t.” The anger fled her voice, replaced by a deep sadness Garreth knew all too well. “How could you possibly know what it is to live, to breathe, to exist, without your heart? Without your soul? I avenged her; but even that wasn’t enough. The price of honoring my vow,” her lungs gave a slight gasp for air, “the cost, was his love. I swore, I would never see him again. I would never open that door. But, Garreth,” she turned to give him pain-filed eyes, “I couldn’t let him die. I couldn’t let Mathew…how could Mathew do that? I don’t understand. He knows. He saw the fight. Why would he do it? Him and Edward and roses…what is happening?”
Garreth looked at her with sorrow. “I don’t know, Mara. But I think, I truly think…that the answer lies in the past as you always suspected it would.”
Chapter XXIV
“You must understand that I have always loved Edward,” Mara stated in a haunted voice. “I loved him when I was five years old and he told me that he would one day teach me to be a knight, in spite of my father’s protests. I loved him when I was seventeen and he initiated me into the guard. I loved him when he kissed me in the garden. And yes,” she drew an unsteady breath, “when he professed his love to Liza, I loved him still.” She closed her eyes, a cool mountain breeze nipping at the edge of her gown.
“Anything you can tell.”
“Nolan,” Mara replied slowly. “I loved Edward as the Queen plunged a blade into his chest. It…all of this, comes back to that night. I loved him so much, that I stood by and let him sacrifice himself for Liza. Because I understood, Nolan, the cost of the love that he had for her. The cost of a love that ravages the soul, and breaks every piece of your heart until you know, it will never again be whole. I loved him as he lay upon the bed, shattered and broken. I…” She shook her head, returning her gaze to the su
n setting slowly behind the massive mountains from her balcony. “I have loved Edward all my life. I loved him then, I love him now, and I will love him the day I draw my last breath.” She gave a slow nod before turning back to meet Nolan’s eyes. “Liza died over eight hundred years ago, and I still wake up in the night and hear her screams. They will haunt me until the very last star falls from the sky.”
Nolan remained silent, allowing Mara to continue in her own time. “When Liza was young, she had terrible nightmares. Edward was walking by her room one night and heard her cry out in her sleep. He woke her and stayed by her side, promising Liza that he would watch over her while she slept. He was always kind to children, myself included – once upon a time.”
A small smile crept over Mara’s haunted face. “The Queen was highly intolerant to her daughter’s dreams, so it became a private duty which Edward took upon himself to check on her every night before she went to sleep. When he was sent away by the Queen, he made me swear that I would continue to…what is the modern term? Tuck her in at night. He told Liza that I would now keep away her dreams, and I was the best he had ever trained.” Mara shook her head, “It didn’t matter though. Liza cried herself to sleep every night for a month after he was sent away. It was a sorrow that we shared, and was perhaps the key to the bond we formed.”
“What was she like?”
“Liza?”
“Yes.”
Mara’s lips formed a thin line. “Liza was the sweetest child and most genuinely beautiful woman that ever walked this earth. She had long black hair, moonlit skin, and violet eyes with just the slightest hint of silver.”
“Sounds like you are describing yourself.”
“Yes, a fact I am reminded of, every time Edward looks at me.”
Nolan tilted his head and raised his hand as though wanting to offer comfort, but was uncertain if such an offering would be accepted. Mara stood perfectly still. Nolan lowered his hand back to his side. “Liza had an innocence about her that was incredibly rare among even the youngest of the courts. She saw the best in everyone she met. To meet her was to consider yourself blessed, and it had nothing to do with her royal rank. I suppose that we were all in love with her, in one way or another.”
“When Edward was sent east to carry out the Queen’s plans, there were no phones to call, no letters to be carried. No one knew if he was even alive, let alone of his whereabouts.”
“How long was he gone?”
“9, 224 days.”
“So that would be…” Nolan paused, attempting to do the math.
“Twenty-five years.” Mara answered before closing her eyes.
“Wait for me,” he had asked. A request she had complied with for twenty-five years. How many nights had she cried herself to sleep, longing to see the dark depths of his eyes just one more time? How many mornings had she awoken calling his name to find that it had only been a dream? Then the sheer horror of learning of all he had been through during those years. The two decades he had spent in…
“Mara,” Garreth’s words brought her from her memories. “I am sorry, Mara.”
She turned to face him. “What do you want from me? Do you want me to say we broke each other’s hearts? Don’t you see, Garreth? There is no forgiveness. For the years he spent trapped in that hell? For standing aside while he was he was tortured. For loving him when I should have been…” She turned her neck in a full circle as she drew a deep breath. “I can’t relive this. Please, Garreth.” He raised a hand as Nolan had done, but where she had rejected the touch of the younger man, she allowed Garreth to gently pull her forward, surrendering herself momentarily to his embrace.
“I am sorry, Mara.” He had known this would be hard for her, but he had no idea that the wounds would be this raw, this fresh. It had been centuries since he had seen her so fragile. She pulled away and walked out of the room without another word. When she finally reached her chambers, she slammed the heavy door behind her and then sank down to the floor with her back firmly against it, burying her face into her hands, sliding her fingers into her dark hair.
“Wait for me,” he had asked. “I will come back.” Yet he had never had. Held in captivity by another court, it had been Mara who had eventually come for Edward, an event after which he had never been the same. Haunted by his endured torments, he would wake in the night, physically shaking from his dreams.
“It is okay, Edward,” she would whisper as she soothed him.
“Mara?” He reached out a hand and touched the side of her face. “Mara, is it really you?”
“Yes, my love.” She placed her hand on top of his and pressed it more firmly against her cheek. “Please,” she pleaded, “talk to me.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“Yes, I do. I want to help you.”
“I…it was…” He shuddered against her. “I can’t. Don’t ask me. Please don’t make me.”
She moved more securely into his arms, eventually sliding down to settle against his chest. Her heart ached at his pain as he struggled with daemons that were not hers to face. The nightmares continued over the many months, though after the first few nights, their meetings became intertwined with the duties required by their rank within the Royal Guard. Theirs was a romance of public discretion, lest the Queen decide that she was unhappy with the match.
Blinded by her relief at Edward’s return, she barely noticed that she was not the only one overjoyed. Edward’s frequent appearances with Liza seemed nothing out of the ordinary. After all, the Princess had known him as a child, and seeing Liza also meant seeing Mara. It took the better part of a year before Mara realized that the Princess had a more serious crush on Edward than she realized.
Then the day came that she was walking the grounds and heard Edward’s deep, masculine laugh. It caught her off guard, as laughter was something not frequently heard from the Queen’s Captain of the Guard. He was haunted by his time away, still steadfastly refusing to tell Mara what, exactly, had happened to him in those long, twenty-five years.
Yet it was on a spring afternoon in the garden not unlike the day Edward had kissed her that Mara finally realized she had lost him. They were walking around the garden in a sea of red, violet and white roses which formed an intoxicating aroma around the two lovers. “How is Liza today?” Edward inquired.
“Same as yesterday. Though, I do think that the Queen is far more excited about the upcoming ball than our young Princess. She does not seem that excited.”
Edward laughed. “No, she is not fond of the attention, is she? Reminds me of another Princess I once knew.”
Mara shuddered. “Can you blame her? Hundreds coming to ogle her like some prize to be won. I would not want her position for all the world.”
“She seems to be dealing with it well enough,” Edward interjected. “She is certainly not the child that I left behind.”
“Yes and no. She is not technically a child, but there is a certain innocence about her.”
Edward nodded. “Yes, I’m not sure I have ever seen anyone so willing to see the good in others.”
“Naïve.”
“Yes, but a naivety that I would not have any other way.” A smile appeared upon his normally stoic face and his eyes seemed to glaze over as he stared at a cluster of red roses mingling with a wall of ivy. “She is so gentle and kind; youthful and innocent. I could not image trying to change that about her. It would be…tragic. She is everything you and I are not.” His smile widened. “It is one of the reasons I love her.”
The words were carried on a breeze, and it took several moments for them to reach her. She turned to him in confusion. “Love her? What do you mean?” She expected him to laugh it off, to say he meant it in a clearly platonic way. However, his startled expression told a far different story.
One glance was all it took. “Oh.” Her eyes closed as she drew a deep breath then opened them slowly. “You mean you’re in love…with Liza?”
Edward became so still that one would not hav
e known he was real if he had not been speaking only a moment before. “You’re in love with Liza.” This time, it was not a question. She stared at him silently for several moments. Then a rough sound escaped her lips—between a chuckle and a choking gasp. “Of course,” she said in disbelief. “The young Princess whose happiness I am bound to protect.” She stared directly at the man before her. “The one woman, the only woman, in the entire Kingdom, you cannot have. How could you not be in love with her?”
“Mara.”
“No,” she interrupted, her laughter ceasing as anger took its place. “No, I waited for you. For years, I waited. For…for decades!” Mara’s heart began to thump through her body. Her gaze trailed blindly along the garden walls as her mind attempted to comprehend. She couldn’t focus. Then, finally the words escaped her lips. “You don’t love me. By the Gods.” Her body began to tremble as she forced her eyes to travel back towards Edward’s. She repeated the statement. “You don’t love me.”
His lips parted as though to speak, but words faltered as he caught her violet gaze. Her eyes burned, yet no tears rose to cool their surface. She sounded childlike as she asked, “What have I done?”
“Done?”
“To make you not love me? What did I do?” Silence lay between them as she searched his eyes for answers that did not exist. Her body began to shake more violently than before. “I waited... You asked me to wait….I…I don’t…” The world spun. Her heart pounded ferociously, physically jerking her body with every beat.
“Mara.” Edward found his voice. “I do love you. It’s not what you—”
“I don’t believe you.” Her voice escaped in broken pieces. “You don’t…don’t…” She swallowed and it hurt. “I did everything you ever asked.” Her voice began to increase in volume. “I was a Princess. I gave up everything, everything to be with you. You said you loved me! You asked—no—begged me to wait.” Her words became laced with bitter laughter which she was neither able to control nor let subside. “Twenty-five fucking years!”