The Tears of the Rose

by Jeffe Kennedy

  “Do you ever hate her?” I panted a little, feeling as if I couldn’t take a deep breath. “Salena? This was all her plan. As if she’s some witch reaching from beyond the grave, making us dance the way she wanted.” Like those performers had made the servants dance. I gritted my teeth at how horrible that had been.

  “Yes.” Ursula surprised me and nodded when I searched her face for the truth. “I wonder what kind of woman could have planned to use her daughters as weapons against her greatest enemy. Who married him. I think sometimes that she had no heart.”

  “And Andi has stepped into her shoes.”

  “We all have.” Ursula looked grim. “Each one of us, in our way. And in our father’s, continuing this thing they started long ago.”

  “It’s not right.” Something felt very tight inside me.

  “No? Tell me, then, future Queen of Avonlidgh—what are your plans for this child? Shall we set him or her free, to grow up in ignorance, perhaps fostered with a nice sheepherding family in Noredna or some fruit growers in Elcinea?”

  “I should.” A contraction bit down with dull teeth and I gritted through it, keening. The wind howled outside, mocking me. “It would be a kinder life.”

  “I’m not sure anyone gets that.”

  “No.” I tried to catch my breath and thought of Ash and his many scars, inside and out. With a deep pang, I wished for him to be there with me. It resonated, expanding out and suddenly snapping. Fluid gushed hot between my thighs.

  Ursula jumped up. “Are you okay? You look . . . pale.” She pulled the covers away and, hardened warrior that she was, still gasped. “Danu, you’re all over blood. I’m fetching Marin.

  “I’ll tell you the truth later—we need to focus on getting you through this. Don’t make me lose you, too.” She looked so fierce, love and panic drenching the air in the room, that I had to smile.

  “Yes. You will tell me the truth.”

  She stopped, hand on the door latch, head bowed. Then she nodded.

  The rest of the day and much of the night flowed in and out of my memory like a badly knitted blanket made of different yarns. This one Ursula, alternately cajoling and browbeating me. The steady thread of Marin, saying all would be fine, though her face grew increasingly pinched with concern, the winter rime smell of fear tingeing the room. Dafne wove in at some point, coming and going, bringing me icy water from the deep wells, cinnamon sugar in her calm support.

  Hugh was there, summer gold and blue, wrapping me in love, and I remember talking to him. Ursula tried to tell me he wasn’t there, but Dafne shushed her. It comforted me to have him with me, as I felt my body weaken. Had he felt this way, too? The steady loss of blood and, with it, life.

  As the hours passed, bringing despair and no babe, I wished desperately that I’d made Ash stay with me. I could have commanded it, and he owed me for giving him his greatest desire. He damn well should have come to Windroven to see me through this birth. He wouldn’t let me die, no matter how much he hated my power over him.

  I began pleading with him at some point, to help me. Saying that I was sorry for being cruel and vain and heartless.

  But I didn’t want to die. Surely Ash wouldn’t want me dead.

  I was dying, though. Perhaps my daughter with me. That broke my heart most of all.

  Another hand on my brow, this one sparking warm with tingling magic, and I opened my eyes to see green ones gazing into mine—but lighter. Like the leaves of spring, like new apples. Like life.

  “Ash?” I think I made no sound, but he nodded.

  “It’s all right, my sun, I’m here.” His voice, gravel grinding together, sounded sweeter than one of Wyle’s lullabies.

  “I’m dying,” I whispered, too weak to speak louder. “I know you hate me, but will you save my daughter? Take her to Annfwn for me.”

  “I won’t let you die.” He sounded angry. “I would have been here long since, but . . . never mind. You sleep. Remember the stable and your wounds then?”

  “Yes. You healed me. And I wanted you so much I couldn’t stand it.”

  “Shh. There are others here. I’m going to heal you as I did then.”

  “Don’t let the others see you—it’s not safe.”

  “Don’t you worry. The babe will be fine and so will you.”

  “If you have to make a choice, save my daughter instead of me.”

  “Don’t you worry,” he repeated. “Sleep now.”

  I seized his wrist, surprised at my own strength. “Promise me.”

  He turned his hand, wound his fingers through mine, and dropped a kiss on the back of my hand. “I promise, my sun. But I won’t let it come to that.”

  When I awoke, for a moment I thought I’d lost track of time. Ursula slept in the big chair next to my bed, snoring softly. Was she there to make sure I wouldn’t go to the cliffs to dig out Hugh’s body?

  No, that was ages ago. Why was she here?

  And then the babe in her arms cried a little and my breasts ached, dripping moisture. I reached out and must have made a sound, because Ursula’s eyes flew open and she leapt to her feet, child still curled protectively against her, naked sword flashing in her other hand.

  Dafne, on the other side of the fire, struggled blearily out of her chair. “What? What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Ursula reassured her. “She’s awake.”

  They came to me, Dafne helping me to sit up and plumping pillows behind me. Ursula laid the infant in my arms with a proud smile. “Your son, Amelia. Strong and healthy. And hungry as a horse.”

  “A son?” I stared at him, uncertain.

  “Yes. A son,” she affirmed. “And he’s perfect.”

  I opened my nightgown—fresh, white and not bloodstained, so they must have bathed and changed me—and he latched onto my breast with a ferocity that made me gasp, my nipple tender and sore. Ursula laughed softly. “We’ve been helping him nurse from you while you recovered, so he knows the way well. Marin said it would be better that way—for both of you.”

  “How long . . .”

  “It’s been four days since you went into labor,” Dafne informed me. “Nearly two since he was born.”

  “I’ve been asleep for two days?” I echoed, horrified.

  “You needed the rest,” Dafne said, in the same soothing tone.

  I looked around the room. “Where’s my daughter?”

  Ursula kept her face inscrutable, not a flicker of response, but Dafne looked away and bit her lip.

  “Daughter?” Ursula shook her head and pointed at my son.

  “You had a boy. Just as Lady Zevondeth said you would. There he is. The next High King.”

  “I was supposed to have a daughter. Where is she?”

  “Andi was wrong. So much for prophecy.”

  “No. That can’t be right. Did I have both—a son and a daughter?”

  “Ami, I don’t understand what you—”

  “Tell her.” Dafne’s voice didn’t sound like her, nearly strident, shredded with emotion. “Tell her now or I will.”

  “Tell her what?” Ursula’s voice rose, too, and she stood, hand going to the hilt of her resheathed blade.

  “The truth about her daughter!” Dafne looked almost unhinged, her face distorted in the candlelight, and I realized she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “We agreed that—”

  “No!” Dafne screeched. “I never agreed. Tell her the truth.”

  My heart splintering into wild, frenzied pieces while my son suckled happily, a red-gold fuzz of hair gleaming with the candlelight, I looked between them. “One of you tell me. Next words out of your mouth.”

  Ursula’s shoulders sagged and she sat again. “Ami—” she started, and her voice cracked. She cleared her throat, struggling. It occurred to me that lately she’d been the bearer of all my bad news. “Your daughter was born, yes. Born first, in fact. But she didn’t last the night. I’m sorry.”

  I swallowed that information, choked it down
past that steadfast ball lodged in my throat, hoping it would stay there. The grief, the despair, the sheer soul-shattering unfairness of it all, ground together. And grew beyond control.

  It would not stay down.

  I pulled my son from my breast and wordlessly handed him to Dafne, who took him and soothed his protests.

  The ball sprouted thorns, ripping its way down as it sank into my chest, stabbing hotter, with relentless ferocity. Then it unfurled, like a flower that had been tightly budded all this time, fertilized in grief and despair. It opened, tearing me apart inside, and all those tears I hadn’t shed flew in all directions.

  I wept like the surf, an endless surge of salt water dashing itself upon the shore. I cried until I had nothing left. Until I was an empty husk.

  I cried until I disappeared.

  29

  Something nudged against my breast and I tried to push it away.

  I was dead.

  Why wouldn’t they let me stay dead?

  But the something rooted at me with demanding animal cries and then latched onto my nipple with painful determination. I pushed again at it, but my hand was trapped.

  “Stop it, Amelia,” came a stern voice.

  I opened my eyes to sunshine so bright it hurt. Dafne sat cross-legged on the bed, my wrist pinned under one of her knees as she held a baby to my engorged breast.

  No—not just any baby. My son. I blinked at her and everything flooded back, leaking out of my eyes. As if, now that I had started weeping again, I’d never stop.

  “I know,” she said, face somber, cinnamon eyes moist. “But your son needs you. We need you.”

  “Let me up.”

  With a dubious look, she moved her knee off my wrist, keeping a hand on the babe, lest I dash him to the floor like some maniacal creature.

  I pushed myself up, my mind clearing like the crisp blue sky out the window. Pulling my son close, I found a better position for him. He wrapped a chubby fist in my snarled hair and stared at me with Hugh’s summer-blue eyes. Something turned over in my heart.

  Maybe I wasn’t completely dead.

  “How long was I asleep this time?”

  Dafne shook her head infinitesimally. “Not that long. It’s only midmorning and we . . . last talked in the middle of the night.”

  “Where’s Marin? And Ursula?”

  “Those are longer stories.”

  “Tell me everything. I can handle it now,” I added, when she didn’t answer right away.

  “You were in labor all day and into the night, when the blood loss began to seriously worry Marin.” Dafne got up and poured me some water, handing me a glass. “Which reminds me, you’re to drink as much water as you can. You need to replenish, especially when nursing. You were feverish, hallucinating. Talking to people who weren’t there. If Ursula could have used her sword on them, I think she would have.” A ghost of a smile dusted her lips, but her eyes were haunted, echoing the harrowing ordeal.

  “Finally Marin said that we had no choice but to cut the babe—babes—out, that the alternative was to wait until you had died and that was more dangerous. Ursula threatened to cut her throat first and they were arguing when this wildman burst into the room—drenched from the storm and demanding to see you.”

  “Ash,” I breathed his name like a prayer. “I thought maybe I dreamed him.”

  “It seemed like a dream. Marin and I knew who he was, even without the monk’s robe, but Ursula nearly killed him on the spot. Would have, too, if he wasn’t so amazingly fast with that blade of his.”

  “They fought?”

  She nodded, eyes wide. “Until Marin threw a bucket of well water on them and told Ursula he was a friend and possibly the only hope of saving you.”

  The babe let go of my breast and started fussing at me. I switched him to my other breast, nodding at Dafne to continue.

  “Ash made us all leave the room, which Ursula hated and Marin insisted she do. Frankly, I don’t know how Marin convinced her. We three waited in the sitting room. He let Marin in, finally, but told us to stay outside. I thought it might kill Ursula. She doesn’t wait well.”

  “No, she doesn’t.”

  “Then Marin called us and Ash was out cold on the floor. You were sleeping, but looking as if you might live, and the babies”—her voice caught and she smoothed it—“both babies were squalling up a storm.”

  “Both.” I looked down at my boy and he returned my gaze with solemnity, his disgruntlement gone.

  “A boy and a girl, one fair-haired, one dark. We cleaned them up and Marin settled them into their cradles. Ursula had some of the footmen carry Ash to a guest room, to rest.”

  Good on Ursula.

  “Where is Ash now?”

  “Still sleeping. We’re getting worried.”

  “He has to sleep, after healing.” Still, I would have to check on him, when I could face the world again. “What happened then?”

  “It was nigh on dawn by then, so Ursula said we’d wait to announce the births until after the sun rose. We were exhausted.” It sounded like an apology. She paused, eyes shadowed as she stared at the memory.

  “Tell me.”

  “We all fell asleep right here. Marin by the cradles, Ursula in the chair, and me on the floor. When we awoke—it could only have been a few hours—the girl babe had died.” She lifted a shoulder, but a tear rolled down her cheek. “Just died in her sleep.”

  “Oh.” Replete, the little boy had fallen asleep. So pink and healthy, with his round, soft cheeks. It didn’t seem possible that his twin sister had died, just like that. But then, I hadn’t believed Hugh was dead until I saw his corpse. “Did you see her?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Tell me how she looked.”

  “Like him, only with black hair”—she gestured at the boy sleeping in my arms—“very much the same in size. She seemed just as healthy. But Marin said sometimes babies fail suddenly that way. And the labor was so long and difficult that—”

  “No,” I said, losing patience, “how did she look dead?”

  “I—” She faltered, as she so rarely did.

  “Don’t be squeamish. Did she look like she was sleeping, for instance, and only when you touched her you knew, or—”

  “She looked as if she’d shriveled,” Ursula said from the doorway. “Like a fruit left too long in the sun, with the water dried away. Is that what you want to hear?”

  She seemed more like a blade than ever. Angular, with her edge dulled by fatigue, guilt, and grief. Also, she had that look in her eye, as when she feared I’d throw myself from the cliffs.

  I returned her bottomless stare evenly. She imagined that it hurt me to hear it, but she didn’t know how little of my heart I had left. “Yes. It is. Thank you. I’d like to be alone now.”

  “Ami—”

  “I won’t do anything rash. Just, please, Essla.” My voice broke over the rising tears. Maybe I had more heart to wound than I’d thought.

  She flinched at me using the old pet name. “We’ll be back in a little while.”

  Dafne took the baby from me and they both left without another word. I stared up at the roses on the canopy, pink promises of life everlasting from Glorianna. It all seemed so wrong. Could this be all? No daughter with the mark. I should have used the doll’s head to check the boy. I still could.

  Maybe Andi had been wrong and he would be the one. Something of all this needed to make sense.

  Feeling surprisingly strong and healthy—no wonder Ash still slept, with that toll of saving my life—I untangled myself from the sheets and made my way to my desk. In the drawer where I kept her, the doll lay.

  What I needed was inside the body. Look there.

  I hadn’t asked Andi what she’d needed, what she’d found. But I needed help now, if only to understand. Maybe I could change the course of things somehow. Hadn’t Andi? Altered things for us all and now queen of her destiny. Taking the doll out and smoothing the red-gold floss of her grimy hair, I ge
ntly turned her over and picked apart the threads I’d placed there. In the back of my mind, it seemed my mother lingered, her scent blending with the dried-rose-petal stuffing, her own fingers sewing this doll. A last gift to me.

  Nothing in there but the rose-petal stuffing. I dug it out gingerly and spread the petals—some whole, some no more than mauve dust—across the glossy wood of the desk. Some, it seemed, were darker than the others. With age or petal variation. Though the rose Dafne had pressed for me, preserved between the plates of glass and sitting on the desk, showed no such darkening. I picked out the darker ones, sliding them together like puzzle pieces.

  Blood? Yes, they were stained with it. My mother’s blood—it had to be.

  Remembering how my blood had unlocked the spill in Zevondeth’s chambers, I put all the darker petals into a cup and added cooling tea from the pot that had been left nearby. The dried flakes swirled, rusty red eddying up from their faded pink.

  On impulse, before anyone could return to stop me, I drank it. If I didn’t die of poisoning, Ursula would kill me.

  I sat in the chair and prayed to Glorianna to appear, as I’d fancied She had when I was a girl.

  Instead of the goddess, however, with her pink rays of light and tumbling roses, another woman took shape from the sunlight coming in the windows. Long, dark hair flowed around her like a cape, glinting with deep red reflections of the firelight. I thought she was Andi for a moment, her eyes the same stormy gray, but she was different. Older, more careworn.

  “Mother?”

  “An echo of her, yes. I am more of a message. A letter, if you will, that only you, my baby Amelia, can read. This is a little piece of myself that I carved away and left behind, once I knew I wouldn’t be able to live to see you grow. That might be my greatest regret—and I have many—that you might not remember me at all.”

  “I remember,” I said through my tears. “I always said I didn’t, but I do. And I . . . saw you sometimes. I thought you were Glorianna.”