The first rain began to fall, landing in his hair, on his face. It felt cool and fresh. It was a rain that might wash away the last of the Dragon’s smoke. Liberated roses bloomed everywhere. Old marble statues, knocked from their pedestals, were gaudy with blossoms. And up ahead, the poor, broken ruins of Oriana boasted curtains of climbing roses, which drank in the rain and nodded their dainty heads at the approaching king and his son.
Oriana was destroyed. But when the new palace was built, it would be more beautiful by far, and this garden of roses would surpass the old one.
“I’ve been thinking about the name of the new palace,” Felix said as he and his father, swiftly dampening, hastened toward the sheltering ruins. They ducked into a doorway, the cat just behind them, shaking his wet paws and grooming his soggy tail.
“Is that so?” said Fidel, wiping rain from his beard. “Well, I suppose we’re going to have to come to an agreement on it sometime. What ideas do you bring to the table, then?”
“I’d like to call it Imraldera.”
Fidel gave his son a sidelong glance. “It’s an unusual name. What language is that?”
“An old one.”
“What does it mean?”
“I don’t know,” said the prince. “But I think it’s pretty.”
And the cat looked up from his grooming, growled, and lashed his tail.
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, Veiled Rose, and Moonblood. Heartless won a 2011 Christy Award.
Tales of Goldstone Wood
* * *
Heartless
Veiled Rose
Moonblood
Resources: bethanyhouse.com/AnOpenBook
Website: www.bethanyhouse.com
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Moonblood (Tales of Goldstone Wood Book #3) Page 37