Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel

by Abigail Gibbs

  “The flowers look nice in this room, with all the light,” Autumn commented, spreading her hands across the sheets to flatten them. “Make sure they are well fed,” she called out to the maid. “I would like them to be taken to Athenea.”

  I didn’t dare tell her that hers was the only room that looked nice now. The rest of the house was full of boxes, dust sheets, and spells casting furniture into storage.

  I shifted my chair closer to the bed as the maid curtsied and withdrew. “You seem okay,” I began tentatively.

  She didn’t look at me. “Of course I am. Why would I not be?”

  “You’re a Heroine, and you tried killing yourself three days ago,” I said slowly, for a brief, heart-stopping moment wondering if she even remembered.

  “A mistake,” she countered.

  “A m-mistake?” I choked, before crawling onto the bed and straddling her outstretched legs, which were beneath the comforter. “Accusing people of doing things they can’t control is a mistake. Cursing at somebody is a mistake. Willfully draining all your magic into someone else after being told it is suicide? That is not a mistake; you can’t reverse it just by saying sorry.”

  She crossed her arms. “Well, I am sorry.”

  I clapped my face into my hands. “You are so impossibly stubborn!”

  “And you’re bossy. Which is worse?”

  “It doesn’t matter. You’re having therapy the minute we get home.”

  “Ha!” She swatted my hands away from my face. “See? Bossy! You always have to tell me off, or suggest this or that. Maybe I don’t want that.”

  I planted my hands on either side of her head on the pillow. “You want me though. Your eyes give you away.”

  “I don’t want a control freak.”

  “You’re a Heroine now, and soon everybody will know it. Things are going to change; I’m not an imbecile,” I admitted sadly. “I’m afraid for you. Of how you’ll cope with the change. And I cope with it by micromanaging, a mini-king if you like.” I let out a hollow laugh and she smiled, too. It was no secret the apple had not fallen far from the tree when I was conceived.

  She reached forward and cupped my cheeks in her hands, a thumb tracing my scars. Her eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn’t read in her own features. “We are in the hands of fate now.” She leaned forward and her lips met mine. They were cracked and spiced, tasting of the butternut squash she had wolfed earlier.

  It was a brief, chaste kiss, but the desire rushed through me all the same. It was a little too intense, a little too pleasurable; it was disturbing to realize that I would chain her, control her, keep her in that glass cabinet as an ornament if that was what it took to have her. I’m not supposed to feel that. I’m not supposed to view her like that!

  Her lips suddenly parted and her tongue traced my own lips, but I pulled abruptly away, chuckling, partly with relief that something so trivial had destroyed the hold. “I hate to break it to you, but you haven’t brushed your teeth in three days and you smell like a rogue elf on a vamperic diet.”

  She pressed her hands to her mouth and then grumbled before jerking a knee up and sending me sprawling onto the floor with a burst of magic. “Then I’m sure the floor tastes better,” she said, smirking above me. “Meanwhile, I shall have a bath.”

  She waved a casual hand in the direction of the bathroom, and I heard the distant sound of running water. When that was done, she pushed the heavy comforter and sheets back from her legs and rolled onto her stomach, her head hanging over the side of the bed, supported by hands under her chin.

  “How is the floor, loyal subject of mine?”

  Sitting up, I swung a leg around so it rested flat to the floor but tucked under the other bent leg, where my arms rested. “All the better to look at you, my Lady Heroine.” She scowled. “Shall I bow down, my lady? Prostrate myself for you? Massage your feet?”

  “Quit it,” she snapped, but the corner of her mouth twitched. “It doesn’t suit you. You were born to rule.”

  I hesitated for a moment. Whoa . . . dangerous. Nobody was supposed to make references to my elder brother’s aversion to his position of heir apparent; it was like an unspoken rule. Then I remembered what she was.

  “Quite right,” I agreed, getting up onto my knees and meeting her gaze just a few inches from her face. She retreated a little. “Now, don’t you have a bath to take?”

  She nodded and got up. I scrutinized her every move. Her hand reached around to her spine, but other than that she was strong and steady on her feet, so I strode past her and into the bathroom. It was warm inside and the mirrors were just beginning to drip with condensation. The bath was about half-full, and covered with soapy bubbles.

  “Do you ache?” I called back.

  “A little. My back is stiff,” she replied in a pained voice that spoke of more than stiffness. Why does she have to hide everything? I thought as she used the brand-new toothbrush.

  I picked up a few of the aromatherapy oils on the shelf and began pouring them beneath the waterfall faucet. Instead of taps, a large wooden shelf protruded over the roll-back lip of the tub, hot or cold water, depending on the dial you turned, tumbling from it. The sound of the water hitting water sent a chill right up my neck.

  I uncorked the oils and let them flow under the rushing stream. Once I was satisfied with the cocktail, I cast a small healing spell until the water of the bath started to gurgle and churn.

  She waited behind me, one arm tucked across her waist and under her armpit. Closing the distance, I moved her arm and wrapped my own around her back, pulling her in. Even gently running my hand down her spine, I could feel the knots lining its length. Easing my fingers between them to disguise the way I wanted to hold her in place, I found her gaze.

  “Don’t ever do that to me again, understood?” I shook her, and she flailed in my arms like a rag doll, wide eyes downcast in silent guilt. “I swear I’ll have you locked up if I even suspect you might do it. I need you. It’s my duty to look after you.” I was still shaking her.

  Her eyes narrowed, all jesting from earlier gone. “You can’t order me about. Not anymore.”

  “Watch me,” I said, removing my arm so I could cup her cheeks to kiss her. In a heartbeat, she had set me stumbling back a few paces and stepped away herself. Her hands flew down to the hem of her long cream nightgown, brushing her knees, and lifted it. I froze midscramble, eyes glued to the stitching as it moved higher and higher, up the spiraling length of the scars on her thighs, past a pair of white panties, and then all of a sudden was yanked over her head.

  Her expression, which had so clearly said “Watch me,” changed to a lip-biting seeking of approval. She stood in just her underwear, a traditional Sagean tank top of sorts. The cups surrounding her breasts were made of lace that twisted into strings and loosely crisscrossed around her waist to her back, ending just at the top of the waistband of her panties. It left nothing to the imagination.

  “Fuck,” I groaned. How in two years had those curves appeared? She was perfect. Utterly, utterly perfect.

  She folded her arms across her chest and blushed deeply, mouth immediately parting the moment I had cursed. “I should . . .” She turned slightly so her shoulder was in line with the bath. “I can order you around. Out!” she finished, shrugging the other shoulder toward the door.

  It took me a few seconds to tear my eyes away from her chest. “You mean we’re not equals?” I said in a tone of mock shock, meaning it as a joke. Her lips pursed and I began edging away, passing through the door and collapsing onto the couch in the reception room.

  “No,” I heard her mutter. “Definitely not.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Autumn

  We visited Varnley, the home of the vampire court. I watched the love between Kaspar and Violet, which I had seen in my visions, play out, and I ached with them when they couldn’t touch. And I told Violet Lee about her fate, on top of Varn’s Point.

  Those memories seemed to be t
he only images that weren’t obliterated by the sudden terror of placing a foot onto the floor of the hallowed halls of Athenea. That and Violet Lee’s expression as I pulled away from our embrace in Varnley.

  Utter abandonment.

  It was not the strength you wanted to see from a girl about to face her almost-death. It was not the strength you wanted to see from a girl destined to lead her people into peace. It was not the strength you wanted to see from a girl whose love was about to leave her to die.

  And even as I longed for her to be better able to face what was coming, I knew it was not a strength I possessed myself.

  Athenea . . . Athenea is the most beautiful country on this Earth. It is a place of the Earth, and for the Earth, and of the people of the Earth. It is a haven, a name, a family, a set of values that permeates my blood and yours, child. It is emerald slopes and snowy mountains, salt water and fresh water, forests and valleys, palaces, mansions, schools, and industry. It is a mere speck on a map, but if you sit in the maerdohealle, its great hall, then all creatures are your friends, and all are your enemies. Yet Athenea . . . Athenea remains peace personified.

  We left the second dimension in a whirl of cloaks amid the fading shouts of vampires. By the time they realized how they had been duped, we were gone. I had never crossed the borders without an escort—somebody actually holding me—but I arrived, not a second later, in the first dimension, two feet away from Fallon.

  He gave me the once-over and then began jogging along the road we had materialized on. I knew it wasn’t far to our destination. In front of us, looming fifty feet high, was a wall, faintly yellow, totally smooth, and utterly impregnable. It was the inner wall of Athenea—the last defense encountered before you entered the sacred heart of the kingdom, where the palace, university, and top-ranking nobility were all situated.

  The road was wide, straight, and without markings—there was no need, because cars were banned beyond the second wall. At its end was a wrought-iron gate as high as the wall and as intricate as it was intimidating. Into its metal were worked the Athenean crest, leaves, trees, flowers, and maple leaves. Between the bars there hung a faint blue glow: the inner dome-shield.

  It was up to this impressive spectacle we ran, but Fallon darted to the left, into a long, low building at the road’s edge. I swallowed, hard.

  Here goes nothing.

  Inside, the building seemed a lot larger, partitioned off into sections and offices with glass walls. At the front were several large desks, security scanners for baggage and full-body scanners, too. A sign above the desks very clearly read, in Sagean, English, French, Romanian, and the many other languages of the dark beings: CHECKPOINT A—HIGH SECURITY CLEARANCE ONLY.

  The nervous fluttering in my stomach only got worse. I don’t have my passport, or any documents! Nobody had told me I would need them. I thought they would just let us in because of this whole mess!

  I was relieved when Edmund appeared from a corridor just at the moment the border clerk sitting behind the desk looked up, wide-eyed, and combined getting off his chair with a bow. The chair, on wheels, skidded away and hit the glass partition behind with a thump.

  Edmund raced up to his booth, yanked down the hoods of our cloaks, and pulled us both into a bone-crushing hug, one of us wrapped in each of his arms. Without saying another word, he let us go, helped us out of our cloaks, and handed passports to us both.

  The room and all its occupants—border controllers, Athan, wall guards, militia—had fallen silent the minute my cloak was removed. For one long minute I thought it was my outfit: thick but ripped tights, shorts, and a tank top—the only old clothes I had, and the only clothes I didn’t mind ruining in Varnley. Once they had taken a long look at me, they turned to one another, and then all sank into hesitant bows and curtsies. Then I realized.

  “Oh, I . . . Oh,” I murmured. This is odd. This is very odd.

  Edmund came to the rescue. “No time. We need to get them through security quickly; the king has requested to see them ASAP.”

  The king? Now? The thought sent my nerves into the cosmos.

  I had no time to dwell as both my British and Sagean passports were checked, thumbprint scans taken, pockets emptied, and forms filled out. One of the questions was “How long do you intend to stay in Athenea?” I responded with N/A.

  Edmund and Fallon were fast-tracked through with their identity cards and retina scans, something promised to me before the week was out, and, eventually, I appeared alongside them. My passports were handed back, along with a temporary visa, the first paragraph of which I read.

  “This document grants the holder, the Lady Heroine Autumn Rose, duchess of England, temporary residence; security clearance level A; amnesty; and safe passage through the kingdom of Athenea, so long as his majesty King Ll’iriad’s good grace prevails.”

  I looked down at it in a sort of awed stupor. Athenea. I am really back in Athenea.

  “Welcome home, my lady,” said the smiling border official. Next to me, Edmund nodded in silent approval.

  Fallon, smudged with dirt, boots dusted with pine needles, and smelling of a mixture of the two, held out his hand for me to take.

  “Now to deal with Father.”

  We took to the air to cross the vast inner circle of Athenea. Quickly Edmund led us away from the road, flying over the woods—a less scenic route to the palace. When it abruptly appeared I was disappointed; we were entering from the side, a view that didn’t do justice to the beauty and enormity of the building that was home to a royal family and thousands around them. Instead, far to my left, I could see the cliff the palace had sprung from, and three floors up the balcony attached to the maerdohealle.

  As we landed on the massive stretch of lawn that separated trees from golden stone, our pace immediately picked back up to a run. Though I didn’t dare slow down, I wondered if Fallon’s legs were burning as much as mine, and if Edmund would carry me if I pretended to trip and fall. I didn’t test the theory.

  We reached a small door tucked between the farthest wing of the palace and the cliff, and slipped through it unchecked by its guards. Inside, the passage was bare and clinical, piled with crates of fruit on the left side.

  “Service entrance,” Edmund explained, answering my unspoken question. “There are court journalists and gossips outside the main entrance.”

  He weaved left and right, taking abrupt turns and occasionally climbing steep, winding staircases. I was left with the distinct impression of a maze. The close walls pressed in on my chest, and my breathing got shallower and shallower, until at the summit of the second ascent, I doubled over, heaving.

  “Where’re . . . we going?” I managed.

  “The maerdohealle. The king wants to see you both immediately.”

  “In this state?” I spat before doubling over again for a coughing fit. “We stink!” I tried to choke out, but it came out as “W’ink!”

  Edmund got the meaning. “There’s no time to wash. Come on!”

  I grabbed the end of the handrail before he could drag me away. “No. I can’t. I just can’t. I’m not ready, I can’t face the king. I don’t know what to say—”

  My chest had a mind of its own. I was sucking air in at a furious rate but none of the oxygen seemed to get to my slowing heart or panicking brain. My limbs felt like deadweights and I could hold myself against Edmund’s tugging without even trying.

  “Give us a moment, Edmund, please,” said a terse voice as I was guided to sit on the top step. My vision was tunneling, but I could just see Fallon kneel down in front of me.

  “No. No panic attacks today. You’ve done too well this weekend.”

  I wrung my sweaty hands and groaned between breaths because my chest was hurting. “The king! I can’t, I won’t, you can’t make me, I’ll—”

  “Hush,” he soothed. “Now breathe, from your stomach, here.” He placed a hand at the bottom of my ribs. “In, hold for two, and out for five. Feel my hand rise, I’ll count . . .”
<
br />   And he did. One to two, one to five, over and over, tens and tens of times, until my diaphragm ached from the effort. But my mind was clear, my heart rate had dropped, and the pain had receded.

  “Now, we’re going to go in there, together, and we are going to face my father, not the king, together.” He moved his hand from my stomach and cupped my cheek. “Can you do that for me?”

  I nodded.

  “And as to the clothes . . . you’re a Heroine, and you can rock whatever trend you like. So no issue there. Understood?”

  I nodded again.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, taking my hand and pulling me up. We strode straight past Edmund, who looked at us like our scars had changed color.

  I can do this, I can do this . . .

  My feet began to drag as we emerged from behind a tapestry, which hung a little away from the wall to allow a person to pass. We were in the main palace, on the third-highest hallway surrounding the front cloister, which divided east wing from west; the maerdohealle sat in between. I peered through the arched stonework. On the two higher and lower passages, Sage walked: servants in black-and-gold garb; students in deep navy blue; and noble people, gentry and councillors, in their finest, most extravagant outfits.

  Edmund reemerged and led us around the cloister to the wide plaza at its far end and the even more impressive set of double doors, white and gold. On each side stood two manservants and armed guards; in fact, there were guards everywhere. More than I ever remembered there being. They peered at me expectantly in the tempered light, and straightened with a soft ringing of metal as Edmund and Fallon passed.

  A manservant who didn’t even look fully fledged yet nervously flattened his lapels and shyly smiled at Fallon and me. The fact that he looked more terrified than me was somehow reassuring.

  “Is the king ready?” Edmund asked.