Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel

by Abigail Gibbs

  Tee sat down on a rock, and I worked on calming Infanta down. Nothing I did—stroking, sugar cubes, muttering in Sagean—worked. She could not be moved. I glanced back for Edmund, beginning to feel my own anxiety levels rise. I was good with animals, and she was well trained. But Edmund wasn’t there. He was up on the cliff top, gazing across plains I couldn’t see. Before I could enter his mind, he had entered mine.

  “Autumn, block-hex mists! Go!”

  Infanta whined, and I hurried to tell her to go, because I didn’t dare ride her. She took off in a panic—she would find her way back. Tee had jumped up and was leaning forward, ready to run, though she could have no idea what was going on. I grabbed her wrist and took off at a sprint, hoping to buy us a few seconds in which I could calculate whether Tee was light enough for me to lift so we could fly. Glancing back, I realized we had no hope.

  It wasn’t a mist. It was a fog bank, rising as high as the ash sky, a wall of gray and water. Edmund had been joined by Alya and Richard, and all three were casting, repelling it with a wall of fire. But it seemed to just spread wider.

  Tee had frozen, mouth parted in a silent scream of terror.

  “Autumn, leave the girl and get out of here!”

  But I couldn’t leave Tee, and I yanked her off the path and into the mossy trails between the gorse, heading away from, rather than along, the edge of the hex. I could hear Edmund shouting, and glancing back again, I realized the entire fog bank had buckled into a bow shape, totally avoiding the Athan and instead extending in a claw toward us. I set fire to the gorse we ran past but it was to no avail: this was magic beyond even the Athan.

  The path suddenly dropped away from below our feet and we were plunged into peat and mud. With that, we were immersed in the silent terror.

  “Tee,” I whispered, struggling to stand with mud-covered boots. “Keep hold of my hand and stay quiet.” Once I was upright, I helped her stand and pulled her back to my chest, wrapping both arms around her shoulders with a hand in hers. The human slayers had not fared well in this hex. Neither would Tee.

  Edmund had taught me a couple of discreet spells for just this situation. One by one, tiny flecks of light, like fireflies, blinked into existence in a circle around us. I could barely see them, but it was enough to keep the hex away from our faces so we could breathe; light, even in its most minute form, was safety.

  And there we stayed, waiting to be saved, or found . . . found by whatever was hiding in the gray landscape.

  The only sound was of our breathing. None of the hex reached our lungs, but the total, utter silence was enough to send anybody mad . . .

  “A Katerina circle. Advanced stuff.”

  Putting Tee behind me, I whirled around. “Nathan?”

  The Kater lights around us burned brighter until they resembled tea lights, and the Extermino who had once been human stood outside them, unable to move closer.

  “What do you want? Who are you with?”

  He looked remarkably well and at ease, given the fact that he had turned just weeks before. His hands were in his pockets and his scars were smooth and gleamed, though they were an awful color. Even his clothes were kempt: his pants and shirt were pressed, and his corduroy jacket looked expensive.

  “I’m here to speak to you, my lady, and I came alone for that purpose. But I suppose I can put up with your little friend.”

  His accent was less thick and his enunciation had improved; not only that but he pitched forward in a fanciful bow that verged on mocking.

  The spell that I released the moment his eyes looked toward the ground did nothing. It was absorbed by a shield pulled in tight to his body, and he stood up straight again, smirking.

  “Play nicely, Duchess. We’re friends.”

  “We’re not friends. We never were.” I took a discreet step back, cursing the shards of slate that cracked beneath our feet, wishing we were still in the lowlands with the mud. “Who are you with?” I demanded again.

  “As I said, I’m alone.”

  “No, you’re not. Nobody could create a hex as powerful as this alone.” I was buying us time, talking my way through the seconds until the Athan found us.

  “I can, and more. chri’dom is an exceptional mentor.”

  He flattened his hair, still very curly but folded back away from his forehead now to reveal the scars that were oddly blue in color, more gunmetal than pure gray. They were extremely thin and twisting; perhaps even more curled than my own. He was everything I did not expect from a turned human: healthy, powerful, calm, handsome.

  “So you’re his puppet now.”

  “His protégé.”

  “Is that the lie they used to convince you to turn?”

  “You are such an opinionated girl. You should learn not to be. I gave my full and informed consent to turn, completely aware of the risks and the manifesto of the Extermino. So save your preaching for the corruption of your court.”

  He tried to look me straight in the eye as he spoke, but I refused to meet his gaze. “The Extermino don’t have a manifesto. They just kill people. You saw that in Brixham! You saw how they killed—”

  I faltered over my words as he threw his head back to laugh and opened his mouth wide so I could see the fleshy, ribbed roof and the set of teeth that had miraculously straightened. “Of course I saw it. It was for my benefit.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was a test. chri’dom wanted to see if I could handle death, and if I was loyal enough to him that I would be prepared to make you feel awful over it all.”

  Tee let out a wail more animal than human, and I wrapped an arm around my back, letting her take my hand.

  “You mean . . . you were allied with them that early?” I searched the ground for answers until it hit me. “Iceland?”

  He nodded and clapped his hands. “Well done, it took you a while. I agreed to turn while visiting . . . and that’s why I came. To tell you why I did it.”

  Impatient, I waved my other hand for him to continue. He came all the way from Iceland to tell me this? I didn’t know whether to be reassured or to resist the false security he might be luring me into. “Just say what you have to say and go, Nathan.”

  “I turned because the Extermino do have a manifesto, a good one—”

  I scoffed.

  “A manifesto and an agenda that could help people like you, Autumn. It could help ease the relations with humans so others like you don’t have to suffer hate and discrimination at the hands of people like Valerie Danvers and her.” He pointed at Tee.

  “Tee and I are friends, she has never done anything—”

  “And I appreciate your precious Athenea trust in fate and prophecy to solve things, but what is going to happen is unnatural. You shouldn’t have to suffer as you’re going to. There are other ways of achieving the same goal.”

  The Kater lights winked on and off as the magic in my veins surged in anger and frustration. “This is stupid! They’re using you to get to me and to the Athenea; the only thing unnatural in this whole equation is chri’dom! He’s a nutcase!”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll be interested to see if you think the same after you come to us and meet him.”

  “I will never join the Extermino!”

  He came forward and touched the nearest Kater light with the tip of his middle finger. It went out. “And what’s more, you will come of your own free will. It’s a waiting game, Autumn. And we will wait however long it takes, which I suspect won’t be long.”

  He touched another and another and I began backing away fast—how could he have the power to extinguish a Katerina circle? He’s like a newborn child! I took deep breaths, gulping down clean air and storing it for the madness I knew was coming.

  “You will have the blood of the dead on your hands, Autumn Rose, and they will only become more stained. How long do you think your conscience could last? A year? Two years? Because we can make it stop.”

  “You’re crazy, Nathan!”

&nb
sp; “Tell me I’m crazy in a month.”

  And he was gone, and the air exploded like fireworks into flames. Tee screamed and I spun and wrapped her up, hoping and praying the Katerina circle had left a big enough cushion of air to protect us. It was hot; really hot, and the mud on our clothes caked and fell away as earthenware shards while sweat dripped down my face and into Tee’s hair. I don’t know how long we were in that fire . . . it felt like minutes but must only have been seconds, because when the fire died we emerged unburned, gasping for air but unharmed. I had never been so glad to see the barren moor.

  I heard shouts of my name and reached out with my mind until I found Edmund and Fallon, then guided them toward the ditch we were in. Fallon reached us first and went to pull me into his arms, but I pushed Tee into them; feeling how weak she was, he picked her up and carried her over the crest of the hollow. I followed.

  There were Athan everywhere—maybe twenty of them—and the group was a little way up the path from the pond.

  “It was Nathan,” I told Edmund as he ran up to us. “He said he was alone.”

  “He’s not,” he corrected, eyeing me over for injury then turning his attention to Tee. “She’s going into shock.”

  He guided us back to the group and wrapped Tee up in his jacket as Tammy rushed to sob over her cousin. “We need to get her back. Autumn and the princes, too. We’ll fly.”

  “Can’t we dimension-hop?” I offered, concerned about how fast Tee was deteriorating. She was shuddering so violently she needed Tammy’s help to just stand.

  “Burrator is on lockdown,” Alya said, trying to take Tee from her cousin, who held on to her like the younger girl was her last possession.

  “We’re taking Lisbeth, too!” Alfie protested, getting off his horse and taking the reins of the one his girlfriend sat astride.

  Edmund snapped around to confront the prince. “She’s not the one they’re after. She’s safe.”

  “We don’t know what’s out there!” Alfie said, voice rising as he gestured wildly to the moor beyond the circle of Athan. “I’m staying with her.”

  “Then you will jeopardize her safety and that of the humans!” Edmund snapped, grabbing Alfie’s arm and jerking him away from the horses.

  Lisbeth’s horse reared a little, and Alfie hissed, but he was no match for Edmund’s strength.

  “Al, he’s right. I don’t fly as fast as you; I’ll slow you down. If we stay together we put other people in danger. Go. I’ll look after the others,” Lisbeth agreed.

  Five of the Athan suddenly set off at a bolt; the rest pulled their circle in, closer to us. Richard and Alya, Tee in her arms, stood at the ready.

  “Fly fast and low,” Edmund instructed, a hand still tightly fastened around Alfie’s arm as the prince put up one last fight. “Follow the contours of the land. We’re less likely to be spotted that way.”

  I quickly passed Lisbeth and found Jo, hoping my eyes could convey how sorry I felt for putting her in such danger. Unknown danger. A danger we could only define as being created by madmen.

  She put on a brave face and reached down for my hand. I gave it to her and she squeezed.

  “Ride like a Valkyrie, rafiki,” I said, drawing a smile by using her old school nickname.

  “And you fly like the wind,” she replied.

  With that, I threw myself forward rather than up and flew in a close group beside Fallon, Alfie, and Alya carrying Tee, surrounded by Athan. Edmund had not been joking when he told us to fly low; we were no more than a meter off the ground, and when it rose in a mound so abruptly that I didn’t have time to adjust my course, my feet would dip into wet moss and grass. The wind rushed in at every opening in my coat, even through the buttonholes, and the sweat that had collected as a layer between skin and clothes in the fire turned icy. My magic, torn between flying faster than I ever had before and keeping me warm, was draining like I was slurping it through a straw.

  And then there was the sense that, just beyond the ridges of the valleys and shallow tors we sped past, something was waiting. Though I knew a group of Athan had plowed on ahead to check our path, I still expected to collide with a waiting Nathan every time we dipped below the horizon.

  But there was no Nathan, and no Extermino; they might as well have never been there, for all the life we encountered as we flew back to Burrator. Just as I began to see stars dance in my vision, we shot through the first set of double gates into the estate, and my feet were back on firm ground.

  Edmund looked positively relieved at our safety, but quickly recovered. “Shut the gates!” he roared once we were back in the main estate. But the guards didn’t need telling. We were locked in.

  “What about Lisbeth?” Alfie demanded.

  Edmund had taken my wrist and was quick-marching me back to the mansion, muttering that I needed to see Prince Lorent. “They won’t be back for some time,” he said without even looking back. I did glance back. Alfie hadn’t moved from the gates, hands on his head, running them down from hair to cheeks.

  “We don’t know what’s out there!” Alfie continued, beginning to chase after us. I tried to shoot him an apologetic look, but his gaze was fixed on Edmund’s back. Fallon went to put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder but recoiled when Alfie sent a pulse of magic his way.

  “My colleagues are with them. They’ll be fine.”

  “And what use are you lot against them? They’re creating spells that make your magic as useful as a vampire’s!”

  We came to an abrupt halt and I was flung in a semicircle as Edmund turned on Alfie, the two men nose-to-nose. “Watch what you say, young prince. I’m under no royal obligation to keep your pretty English rose of a girlfriend safe, don’t forget.”

  Alfie’s eyes spattered with red. “Are you threatening me? I could have you banished for that,” he hissed.

  I didn’t want to be witness to this scene. I had never seen Alfie angry, and seeing Edmund so cruel . . . I didn’t understand. Fallon hovered, as unsure as I was.

  “And you think anybody cares about you with all that is going on? Don’t be so narcissistic.”

  Alfie curled his lips in disgust and then opened his mouth to respond, but Edmund cut him off.

  “This is a very different world from the one we lived in six months ago. And in this world, there are people that matter and people that don’t.”

  Like a dog on a leash, I was led back into the mansion and commanded to wait in the entrance, Fallon at my side, as Edmund summoned the head of the house. I watched the scene of chaos in catharsis, as though it were a play, absorbed by it and pitying it but never fully part of it. Edmund stormed off; servants crossed from one room to another carrying blankets and hot drinks that I could only presume were for Tee, who had disappeared with Alya. I heard Alfie’s shouts minutes before he burst through the doors and his voice boomed through the house, demanding the attention of his father and Chatwin, cursing Edmund.

  “I’m leaving!” he spat, rounding on Fallon. “There’s no way I’m staying until Christmas. I won’t put her at risk for damned family or duty!”

  I realized my breast was heaving. Alfie was leaving? I glanced sideways at Fallon and he gave the smallest of nods, standing just as still as I was; just as paralyzed and frozen during his cousin’s outburst. What is there to say? Will we survive here much longer, ourselves?

  “I hate this hellhole! I hate this fate-forsaken place, and this fate-forsaken situation!” Alfie took a few rasping breaths and his gaze fell to the ground, that of a man defeated. A few drops of water appeared on the marble. “Fate forbid anything happen to her,” he rasped, breaking for breath between each tortured syllable. “Fate forbid!”

  I think it must have been a prayer, because he haphazardly made his way toward his father’s study, the resolve and power of his shouting dissolved into those two frail words that he muttered over and over, submitting his stooping body to them. The clock told me that I was only in the presence of the king’s brother for half an hour as I r
elated what had passed between Nathan and me. It felt like so much longer because we waited on news of the rest of the group. When I reached out for Jo’s mind, there was nothing. Edmund reassured me that was due to the lockdown; a shield that separated husband from wife, as the princess was still in Athenea.

  Edmund burst in just as I finished my narrative. “They’re just over the hill.”

  I glimpsed Alfie skidding across the entrance hall and, taking Fallon’s hand, ran after him. It was a long run to the northern gate and I was already exhausted; it wasn’t long before Fallon was tugging me, though I felt a welcome burst of energy pass into my hand from the older, stronger prince, who glanced back and smiled reluctantly. We slammed into the inner gate, gripping its bars and panting, watching as the outer gate inched open cautiously.

  The guards were lining up and shouting about Extermino being spotted, and we waited as the seconds passed. Then I felt it: magic, strong magic, shields and curses, moving fast toward us. Whose it was—the Athan’s or the Extermino’s—was impossible to tell.

  I could hear the sound of hooves sinking into the heath and the panicked whines of the horses; I could feel the wave of fear rushing toward us like a tidal wave, stripping from the ground every other emotion. And then they appeared over the crest of the hill, racing down from its summit.

  They were being chased. Chased by greyhounds of men, tall, fast, lithe, and snapping at their tails with spells the Athan were repelling easily—thankfully—with shields. But the Athan couldn’t shake them, and I watched, paralyzed, as I came to the gradual realization that they were so hot on the group’s heels that the guards would have barely any time to close the outer gate between them . . . and in they would follow, trapping our friends in a death pit.

  Helpless behind Burrator’s dome shield, the three of us and Edmund could only watch as the guards attacked the Extermino with black and gray curses that the latter repelled like child’s play.

  I thrust myself as far into the bars of the gate as I could, as though to urge the group forward, my knuckles brushing the very shield that held us in safety and them in danger. They were near enough now that Jo had fixed her gaze on me and was pushing her horse to its death.