by Deanna Chase
“This is why it’s important to study with someone who knows what they’re talking about instead of relying solely on books.”
A book you gave me and told me to study. Maribel bit back her retort, giving in to the plea in Corrine’s eyes. She graciously accepted the new book the witch offered her, gripping it tightly to keep from giving in to the urge to whack the old biddy with it. Corrine practically ran inside the cottage without so much as a backward glance at Maribel and the witch shuffled after her. For a heart-stopping moment, Maribel thought Corrine was going to crash into the doorframe, but she managed to twist at the last moment and stumble safely into the house.
Again Mother Briar appeared unperturbed by Corrine’s worsening state. She strode into the house with the meandering gate of someone who hadn’t a care in the world, leaving Maribel to glare at her back. Her ire went unnoticed as Mother Briar shut the door behind her.
Alone again, Maribel let out a breath of resignation and trudged with her book over to the plants the witch had indicated. It didn’t take long to identify the plants as blue elderberry and she plucked some of the flowering tops to prepare a tea later. The book said such a tea would ward off a cold, and though Corrine didn’t have a cold, Maribel guessed it wouldn’t be long until she or her father caught one. It was one of those things that came from working outdoors all day—something Corrine didn’t have to worry about.
Smothering the nip of guilt that bit her at that last uncharitable thought, Maribel was about to close the book when she spotted a particularly beautiful bloom filling a page in her peripheral vision. She opened the book and flipped through the pages until she found the flower that had caught her eye.
“Rose of the Mist,” she read aloud. “A rare and beautiful bloom that shines gold in the sunlight. One of the rarest flowers known to man, the Rose of the Mist is said to endow those who consume a tea steeped from its petals with the radiance-absorbing qualities of the rose itself.”
A flare of excitement burned fast and bright, briefly stealing her voice. She quickly scanned the rest of the page, her hopes rising higher and higher with every paragraph. A Rose of the Mist had been found in a part of the forest between here and the main village of Sanguenay less than ten years ago. If there’d been one then, perhaps there were more.
If I could make Corrine a tea from that rose, all she’d have to do is sit outside in the sun and she’d never feel weak and exhausted again!
Slamming the book closed, Maribel slumped back against a resilient young sapling. Nervous energy twitched over her skin like creeping vines and she fidgeted in her makeshift seat of tender leaves. There was no way she could go on a journey today. She had to get back home and start preparing dinner so her father had something to eat after he came in from the fields. And then there were all the chores she’d been forced to abandon so she could accompany Corrine here. There wasn’t time to go wandering around the woods searching for the rose.
“Tomorrow,” she promised herself. “I can find it tomorrow.”
Waiting for Corrine to finish with the witch was pure agony. The usual pleasure Maribel found in these spare moments, searching for herbs to cook with that had nothing to do with eating and everything to do with flavor, failed her. All she could think about was that rose, the difference it would make for Corrine.
“I’ll need to fix some food that will last a day or so, something that won’t spoil while I’m gone.” She plucked a raspberry from a nearby bush and chewed as she thought. “I don’t have time to dry any meat. Bread would be all right, and there’s always vegetables—”
The door to the witch’s cottage opened and Maribel’s thoughts ground to a halt. Corrine and Mother Briar were talking as they left the cottage, their voices hushed, too low for Maribel to make out the words. Maribel tucked the book against her body and dashed over to Corrine.
“Corrine! Come on, we have to go. Mother Briar, may I borrow this book?”
Corrine stared at Maribel as if she’d grown a second head and Mother Briar’s stern features pinched in confusion.
“Yes, take the book,” she said finally. “Study it and return it when next we meet.”
“Thank you!”
Maribel barely remembered her sister’s injured hand in time to keep from grabbing it and dragging her sister off. She glanced down at Corrine’s palm, impressed to find it covered in shiny pink skin, all traces of blood and blackened flesh gone. The fingers of the hand were curled into a half-claw, but the improvement was undeniable. She snatched up Corrine’s good hand and hauled her sister off Mother Briar’s front porch.
“Come on!”
“Maribel, slow down,” Corrine wheezed, yanking her arm from Maribel’s grip. She stopped with her hands on her hips, her chest heaving as she fought to regain her breathing. Her dark hair fell in wild disarray around her shoulders, the natural curl doing its best to survive against the tugging fingers of the wind. “Why are you in such a hurry? Is missing one afternoon of chores really such a setback?”
Maribel bit off the urge to point out that she was, in fact, doing the chores of two people and that an afternoon made an incredible difference. Just get the rose. Everything will be fine if you can get the rose. “I don’t want Father to worry about us,” she said instead. She waited for Corrine to catch her breath, shifting from foot to foot as her nerves urged her to run ahead. The picture of the rose hung in her mind, whispering promises of how much better life could be if she found it.
“Father will be in the field until dark,” Corrine pointed out. She waved at the sky, still gloriously bright. “We have plenty of time.”
“But I left that book in the field, the tomatoes still haven’t been weeded, and I need to get dinner started if it’s going to be ready to eat by the time Father comes in.”
“If you keep running like this, we’re going to relive your little trip down from the well when you were eight. Remember that?”
Maribel winced, slowing down to wait for Corrine. “How could I forget? That stupid duke’s son, what was his name? Jack? I never should have let him goad me into that race down the hill.”
Corrine grinned. “You did win.”
“Technically, neither of us won since neither of us had any water left in our buckets after the tumble down the hill. Though I suppose since Jack ended up with his scalp split open and I just had a few bruises, I did come out better off.”
“Maybe someday I’ll race down a hill. On purpose, I mean, not falling down because I had an episode on a steep slope.”
There was a wistfulness in Corrine’s voice that tugged at Maribel’s heart. She opened her mouth to respond, though she had no idea what to say. It hadn’t really occurred to her that Corrine wanted to do those sorts of things. Corrine hated to run.
Awkwardness swelled between them and Corrine put on a burst of speed, as if the pressure was too much. Her gait was uneven, hindered as she tried to run with her injured arm still cradled against her stomach, but though she tilted a bit, she didn’t fall.
As they rounded the top of the hill that marked the northern boundary of their land, both girls came to a sudden halt. A strange man was riding away from the farmhouse, his stern features and plain clothes unfamiliar. Their father stood on the path to their front door, rooted to the spot, his graying brown hair tousled by the wind and his gaze locked on a crisp parchment he held open in front of him. If he hadn’t blinked, Maribel would have worried he was suffering one of Corrine’s episodes. It was eerily similar to Corrine’s posture when her sickness held her prisoner in its grasp.
“Father, what is it?” Corrine scurried the rest of the way to their father’s side, injured hand scrabbling at her skirts to try and hold them up as she went. Her eyes widened as she abandoned the skirt to point at the official port master’s seal on the message. “Father?”
Their father slowly raised his cloudy blue eyes, the hand holding the letter beginning to tremble. “A ship. It… One of my ships…survived. It…came into port.”
Corrine twitched and a small sound halfway between a gasp and a squeak escaped her throat. Maribel snared an arm around her waist in time to keep her from sliding to the ground, grunting as she took her sister’s full weight. Corrine’s eyelids fluttered as she clumsily tried to get her legs under her. It took her two tries to speak.
“What… What does this mean?”
“It could mean nothing, it could mean everything.” Their father rolled up the parchment, his eyes avoiding the paper as if the mere sight of it raised his hopes so high it hurt. “I must go to the harbor. I need to see for myself if this is truly my ship, if its cargo is safe. If it is…” Tears glistened in his eyes. “My daughters, we may be able to get back what was lost to us.”
Corrine burst into tears and threw herself into her father’s arms. He gripped her tightly, mouth moving in a silent prayer. He gestured for Maribel to join them, lips pressed together as if too emotional to speak. Maribel offered a feeble smile as she allowed her father to gather her into the shared embrace. There was a strength in her father’s body that hadn’t been there the last time he’d hugged her, as though the thought of going back to their old life had revitalized him. Meanwhile, Maribel’s stomach had fallen out and suddenly the last thing she wanted to think about was dinner.
He’ll sell the farm.
Images paraded through Maribel’s mind. They would be back to high society, back to the endless social functions and false niceties, back to having servants to do all the work Maribel had only recently realized she loved doing. She would be back in tight-laced gowns, restricted from activities that might damage her fine clothes. There would be parties full of people—people who had shown their true faces in the wake of her family’s misfortune, but who Maribel would be forced to socialize with nonetheless if they returned.
The thought of facing all those people again, the ones who had abandoned Maribel’s family in their time of need but who would welcome them all too willingly once they were once again rich enough to deserve respect… It turned her stomach.
Selfish wretch. Maribel buried her face against her father’s shoulder, the rough material scratching at her wind stung cheek. This is exactly what Corrine needs, what she’s prayed for. How dare you begrudge her this moment?
“All right, all right.” Their father pulled back, his eyes shining with excitement. “I will bring you both something wonderful. Tell me what you want, anything!”
“A new dress,” Corrine answered breathlessly. “My old ones are so worn, and they don’t fit me properly since we’ve been starving out here. I want something with silk and lace, something that will let me remember what life used to be like when we were happy.”
Her sister’s words stung. Maribel had worked hard to learn to cook, had slaved over a hot fire for months trying to perfect her recipes, digging in the forest for herbs that would bring rich flavors to the food she cooked for her father and sister. Yes, there’d been that first winter, but Corrine certainly hadn’t “starved” since then. Maribel had actually dared to hope that her culinary skills had gotten quite good, perhaps enough to appreciate. Only compared with starving, apparently, she thought bitterly.
“And, my Maribel, tell me what I can get for you? Would you like a new dress too? Jewelry perhaps?”
“I don’t need anything, Father,” Maribel said meekly. “Really, I don’t.”
Corrine’s face twisted like she’d swallowed a live toad. “You think I’m selfish for asking for a nice dress. You think I should be grateful for what we have here, that I’m a spoiled child for wanting pretty things when there’s no reason to have them out here.”
“No,” Maribel protested quickly, hoping she sounded more sincere than she felt. “No, that isn’t it at all.”
“Then you would like a dress as well?” her father prompted.
Maribel tightened her hands into fists, trying to smother her frustration. A dress. What on earth could she want with a new dress? Another uncomfortable entrapment to hinder her in her chores, a reminder of the wretched life waiting for her with the nobility, a life she’d escaped and was now doomed to go back to? She didn’t want a dress. She didn’t want anything, damn it!
Her grip closed around the book she still held and inspiration struck. “No! No, it’s just, there’s something else I want more.” She hefted the book up and flipped to the page with the rare rose. She held it up for her father and pointed at the picture. “If you can find this in one of the florist shops or perhaps at an apothecary, then it will be as expensive as ten gowns.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid I’m the one who’s asking for too much. But they grow wild as well, perhaps you will see one during your travels?”
Her father examined the picture. “A dress for my Corrine and a rose for my Maribel. I will do my very best.”
He handed the book back to Maribel and headed back to the farmhouse. “I must prepare for the journey now, I want to leave immediately. That ship is sitting in the harbor, I don’t want to leave it there for one second more than is necessary!”
Corrine threw her arms around Maribel and hung there like a sticky cobweb. “Oh, Maribel, it’s almost over. I can feel it, everything is going to be better now.”
Maribel hugged her sister back as guilt ate her alive from the inside out.
Chapter Two
Something is burning.
Daman wrinkled his nose at the thick, woodsy scent of smoke slowly filling the air around him. For a moment, he wavered, torn between holding on to his meditation and finding out where the scent of smoke was emanating from. It had taken him hours to work this far into the meditation, hours to feel anything even resembling calm. He was very nearly at the end, the most difficult part, the part where he always failed. That moment where he would have to call up an image of the witch who had stolen his life and hold her in his mind without feeling anger or hatred, or the uncontrollable urge to destroy—
A memory erupted like an iron spike through the bedrock of his concentration, shattering the calm, meditative state he’d fought so hard for. His temper burst forth like hot lava exploding from the earth and he hissed, blood heating with his fury. It was like coming out of the water after a long swim, taking a deep breath after holding it for far too long. His eyes flew open, his clawed hands flexing as he scanned the room with quick, sharp glances, searching for the intruder who had so easily shattered his efforts and left him wallowing in the suspended fury that had been his permanent state of mind for the last year.
At first he saw nothing. He examined the crimson pillar candle nestled in a gold plate on the stone floor in front of the rug he’d curled up on to meditate. The flame wavered as if something had stirred the air, but remained smooth, resting calmly on its wick. No black smoke danced above the flame.
Daman swiveled in place, muscles protesting as they were forced out of the position he’d been holding for the last two hours. He rolled his aching shoulders, the thick lines of scales trailing down his neck and over his shoulders tugging as he tilted his head from side to side. As he worked the tension from his taxed muscles, he followed the scent of smoke. Someone had invaded his home, his privacy. When he found them, they would find out why all living creatures had fled his property, why he was the only being left on this entire damned estate. His claws ached, sharp white crescents itching to bury themselves in the intruder. The fangs folded against the roof of his mouth tingled, ready to drop into position.
A small spout of flame caught his peripheral vision and he focused on the large fireplace on his left. Thin tendrils of black smoke twined through the air above the remains of the last fire he’d lit in the hearth during the final days of winter. The brownies that crept in to clean his house in the wee hours of the night didn’t dare to enter this room, and he certainly didn’t care enough to do it himself. A flash of silver disturbed the shadows, something metallic reflecting the dim light of Daman’s candle. Another tiny spout of flame bathed the logs, licking at their sides, coaxing them to glow with a faint orange radiance
.
“Who’ss there?” Daman twisted to fully face the fireplace, the scales coating the coils of his lower body silently sliding against the thick rug underneath him. He flexed the muscles of his tail, drawing himself up higher and leaning until he formed a large ‘S’ as he peered at the fireplace from his new vantage point.
A tiny rounded head poked up from behind the logs. The meager light provided by Daman’s candle was more than enough for his sharp eyesight to make out that the creature was reptilian—a snake? The beast blinked beady black eyes, pink tongue flicking out like a sliver of pale pink ribbon.
“I wasss trying to light a fire. It’sss freezing in here.”
“It’s warm enough.” Daman tilted his head, eyeing the small creature peering unfazed at him from the hearth. “Who are you and what are you doing here?”
The creature slithered out from its nest of logs, its thin body sliding over the glowing embers as if the searing heat meant nothing. The scent of burning oak rose from its path as it loosened bits of the logs, sending tiny showers of sparks into the air behind it. It paused on the stone hearth then twisted its head around, sending another blast of flame at the logs. Finally, they caught, the small but steady glow of embers catching into cheery flames that formed a nest for the smoking logs. The snake nodded its satisfaction and continued to glide over the floor toward Daman. Something glittered on either side of its body, a faint iridescence.
Wings.
“You’re a cuelebre.” Daman didn’t bother to keep the surprise out of his voice, though his annoyance kept his tone sharp. “What are you doing in Sanguenay? Shouldn’t you be in Meropis?”
“Yesss. At leassst in Meropisss, they know that firesss are not jussst for winter. Ssspring isss not ssso far along that the night’sss chill doesssn’t lassst far into the day.”
“I’m not cold.” Daman’s tail lashed behind him, striking something metallic. The sound of metal hitting the wall clanged against Daman’s nerves. Another sound that suspiciously resembled hard wax being crushed ratcheted his frustration up even more. So much for the meditation candle. “It’s my home, so I don’t heat it unless I feel there is a need. I certainly don’t keep it going for the comfort of guests I don’t have—or want.”