THE ROSE MARK
BLACK ROSE SORCERESS, BOOK 1
CONNIE SUTTLE
SUBTLEDEMON PUBLISHING, LLC
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Characters and Places Appearing in this book:
About the Author
Also by Connie Suttle
Copyright © 2017 by Connie Suttle
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1-939759-43-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-939759-43-6
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
As always, this book is the result of collaboration. If it weren’t for the support of my editor, my cover artist and my beta readers, it would be less than it is. All mistakes, as usual, are mine and no other’s.
Cover Art by Renee Barratt @ The Cover Counts
For Walter, Joe, Larry, Sarah, Lee, Dianne, Mark and Debra.
Also for Travvis, and those who miss him.
CHAPTER 1
P ast
Kerok
I recall very little about that day, other than the massive explosions that killed many around me, including my beloved escort.
They tell me I stepped away from the battlefield with her lifeless body in my arms and deep wounds cleaving my face, chest and legs. A friend tells me he has no idea how I was still standing, and that I walked deliberately until I was clear of other bodies before stepping to my father's garden.
There, I lay my burden down for the last time, while others shouted somewhere in the background. The healer came, but I don't remember his presence—I was lost in grief and pain—enough that he swore I should have died from it.
Even now, I cannot say whether it is a blessing that I lived, or the curse I believe it to be. My love died with my black rose that terrible morning, and it may take my entire life, as long or short as that may be, to deal with her loss.
P resent
Sherra
We belong to the King—those of us with the black roses tattooed on our left wrist, directly over our pulse. As if every beat of our hearts reminds us that we are not our own. Those around us know it, too, and are reluctant to come close.
Ten gold coins were paid to my father when I was tested young and then tattooed. Another ten will be paid when the vehicle arrives to take me away. That is the full worth of our lives, as short as they will become.
In the King's library, The Book of the Rose says to honor the tattooed women.
More than anything, I want to spit upon its pages.
Any girl who wears the tattoo is never befriended, as our deaths are already assured.
Yes, there are tales of some who survive, but I'd never seen any of them. That led me to believe that tales were all they were—with no real survivors.
All those women who were found with talent—the fire burning within them—were culled and taken to the warriors, to provide more energy. Energy that the warriors would then use to defeat the barbarians across the ocean of sand.
Women with black roses on their wrists are emptied of their power by those warriors, who care not that they die a shrunken husk.
The King also has no care for these—his subjects who give their lives to repel the vicious hordes in their destructive machines of war.
"We fight with what we have," he always says.
What we have are the warriors with the fire within them, who draw more fire from the women who serve them.
Until they die.
The thought of running away is foolish.
The thought of taking a lover before they come for us—also foolish.
We must be untouched when they arrive to collect us; else it is a quicker death when they test us again.
As for running—there is one thing worse than having a black rose on your wrist. That is for the enemy to find you and see the black rose on your wrist. Your death will be slow and excruciating at their hands.
P ast
Sherra
My tenth birthday had come and gone unremarked by my father, who was visiting his friends when I returned home from my lessons. Pottles wouldn't know it was my birthday either; I'd never told her.
Nevertheless, she'd welcome me into her small home and talk while I cooked whatever she'd haggled for in the market.
Her back door was little more than rough boards held together with string and bits of rusted wire, while the front looked marginally better—that's where she bought and sold pots and utensils from those in the village and outlying farms.
Metal was hard to come by; therefore, used pots were prized, even if they'd been repaired and the handles replaced many times.
"What's this?" I'd walked in the back door, through the small, two-room home and out the front door, which was open to allow the afternoon breeze to cool the house. I was asking about the wooden crate blocking the front door—the one filled with junk that Pottles had purchased while I was still in class.
I'd asked her many times to wait until I could see what was brought to her—Pottles was blind and could only feel what she bought with fingers and hands rough from harsh living over sixty-nine years.
"I think you should look through it and tell me what it is," she said. "The farmer was very poor and needed a cooking pot."
"Well," I squatted next to the crate to look. "Two pottery cups, one chipped," I set those two out of the way first. "Four wooden spoons that need sanding," I set those beside the cups—too much handling would result in splinters in fingers, I decided. "Three loose-weave sacks that smell like potatoes," I laid those out. "A bunch of carrots," I set those in a special place. Carrots were good raw or cooked. "A cabbage," I added, setting the small head next to the carrots. "And a book."
"A book?" Pottles frowned. "Why would he trade a book to a blind woman?"
"No idea."
"Is it something you want?"
I hadn't really looked at the title—the book was small, with thin, fragile pages. The title had disappeared from the cover long ago, and the lettering was almost worn off the spine, too.
"What does it say?" Pottles asked.
"It's almost worn off," I touched the spine with my fingers, as if that would make the letters clearer.
I jumped and almost dropped the book when a shock went through me, and I fell backward off my knees and onto the dusty doorstep. It took a moment to get the fire-vision out of my brain.
The Rose Mark had been printed in white letters on the spine and the cover, far in the past. If I hadn't touched it, I'd never have known what it was.
"It looks like a book of tales," I improvised. "Like Varnon tells on feast day."
"Hmmph," Pottles expressed her opinion of the book. "If you want it, keep it."
"Thank you," I breathed and hastily stuffed the small book in a trouser pocket. I'd work out why the book had shocked me later, when I had time to consider it fully. "Do you want me to put the carrots and cabbage on to cook?"
"Yes. I have a bit of meat from the butche
r—add that and we'll have soup for supper."
"I will."
"Set the other things back in the crate. I'll decide what to do with them later."
"Yes, mum."
Ten years later, after I'd read that book so many times I'd memorized most of it, I placed it carefully in a clay pot, sealed the lid on it with my fire and then went looking for a safe place to bury it. I'd learned when I was fifteen that the book was forbidden, and others like it had been confiscated and burned long before my birthing.
P resent
Sherra
"You only need one set of clothes," my father snapped at me as I laid things on my narrow bed. "As an honored one with the mark, they'll provide for you."
He intended to sell my things the moment I was gone.
I wouldn't be back for them; we both knew that.
Honored.
What a false pile of horse dung.
Outcast and ignored—if you were lucky.
So far, I'd been extremely lucky that way.
"It's coming," I heard a boy's voice in the street. He meant the truck coming to collect me. Snatching up the patched and threadbare leggings and tunic off the bed, I stuffed both into a cloth bag and turned away from my father.
There would be no tears from him; only a hand held out for ten gold pieces when I boarded the vehicle.
There would be no good-bye either—from him or anyone else in the village. They'd said good-bye to me eighteen years ago, when I was two and cringing from the pain of the needle as a Diviner’s artist tattooed a black rose over my pulse.
T he journey to North Camp was hot and dry—as dry as the ocean of sand four hundred miles away, where the enemy's border lay. Or so I'd heard.
Sixteen women rode in the vehicle with me to the training camp—ours was one of four that dotted the King's lands, one for each direction. All those camps were built for a single purpose—to train the warriors and the women who'd serve them.
When we passed the high, wood and metal gates into North Camp, a sigh escaped my lips.
My life was over; my body merely hadn't realized it, yet.
K erok
I stood with Merrin as the trucks rumbled along the dirt road between stunted evergreen trees. This year, the crop of young women was sparse. The King was discussing a raise in the payments to common folk if they produced a daughter who'd wear the black rose.
Already, common boys outnumbered girls, and there was no immediate relief for that malady. Boys with the warrior's gift were becoming almost as sparse as the black rose girls.
The idea that we should breed the two had already been suggested.
The King always said not yet.
Soon, I think his mind would be forced to change, or we'd fall to the barbarians. Yes, it would be barbaric to breed those able to fight the enemy.
Falling to the enemy would be worse.
Sacrifice a few to preserve the many, as those who'd proposed the idea had said. I couldn't say whether it was a good idea, or merely an expedient one.
Blank, empty stares from the young women on the next truck rumbling through and raising dust forced a sigh from my lips.
Marked early—for service and death.
For most of them, anyway.
Sherra
"Undress, leave your clothing in this pile and go straight to the showers. I want the stench of the villages washed off you in half an hour."
I and my fellow trainees stood inside a tile-floored, low-ceilinged building that housed communal showers on one end and a laundry on the other. The scent of washing soap and starch blew through the open area, announcing that laundry was done here every day instead of once a week.
The woman who spoke wore no rose tattoo. Instead, a solid block of black ink covered her left wrist. She was short, wide and angry as she shouted at us, her close-cropped, brown hair bristling as her eyes narrowed at us in disgust.
I understood then that the clothing we wore would not be washed and returned to us; it would be burned. I'd caught the stench of other piles burning as we were ushered from the truck into the long building.
The training compound was huge; large enough to house and train fifteen cohorts. Dry grass and dirt made up most of it, with fences made of posts and strung wire forming large rectangles to separate the buildings housing the cohorts.
My group was one of six cohorts, and none of the six was full, if my guess were correct. A cohort could hold as many as fifty; I doubted many of the six had half that number.
So far, I'd barely made eye contact with anyone else, including the woman who barked at us as if we were thieves assailing her house. Bowing my head, I watched my numb fingers automatically untie the strings at the throat of my tunic.
"You'll find soap, a cloth and a comb in the showers. Use all of them. Clean your hair well. If we find insects, the hair will be shaved from your head. After the shower, comb your hair and leave no tangles, as it will be cut at your shoulders and kept at that length. Do you understand?"
Nobody spoke.
"I said, do you understand?"
"Yes, Lady," several of us murmured.
"Good. I expect a response when I give orders. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Lady."
"Good. Go clean up. You stink. All of you."
"Yes, Lady."
Small, pale-brown tiles covered the three-sided cubicles of the showers, which were lined up one after the other. No doors were provided, but why should they be? We were nothing compared to the warriors, and no private space would be afforded us. A mere fuel source was all we were; why should we have privacy?
The water in the shower was tepid at best—the boilers were overworked to bathe so many at once, in addition to providing water for the laundry. I'd combed my hair before leaving my father's house, but I stood in front of the dull, metal mirror on one wall and dutifully combed it again after washing it three times.
A shower was a luxury only afforded twice a week in the small village where I'd lived with my father, as water was scarce and precious, there. This shower was far from a luxury in my mind, as it marked me further as an outcast.
Some of us wept as the water enveloped our bodies, hoping the sound of the spray would hide our sobs. At least the tears went down the drain with the soapy water, whether sobs were muffled or not.
K erok
"Don't." I held up a hand to keep Merrin from speaking his thoughts. He'd been prepared to speculate on which girls we'd end up with. We and many others had gathered at the top level of the high seats surrounding the main training field, to watch as the young women were marched out after showering and dressing in their uniforms.
All were clad in training fatigues provided by the Crown—sand-colored and loose, for ease of movement. Extra tunics and trousers would be issued, just as the male trainees wore.
This camp trained women only; the warriors were trained elsewhere. It made it easier to keep virginity intact until the women were assigned to a warrior. Afterward, if they were so inclined, sex could be offered between those two, but only between those two.
With their hair cut to the tops of shoulders, most of the trainees looked the same. Wet-haired, thin and mostly ignorant, the latest cohort lined up as the Bulldog shouted at them. Hers was the last of the cohorts to make it to the field, too. The Bulldog liked to cause a stir every time, either choosing to go first or last.
The women were required to learn how to read and write before their arrival at a designated camp. Most villages barely spared them that much. I heard that several villages were reported during the last training period, because they hadn't bothered to teach the black-rose girls.
Some warriors, like Merrin, had steeled their hearts against these, knowing they'd be instrumental in their deaths. They were merely curious, because of the connecting. They looked forward to convincing their black rose to have sex with them—with great pleasure.
The Bulldog's shouting drew my attention back to her cohort; every woman's eyes were trained on her as
a result—they likely didn't realize there were warriors lining the top benches, watching all of them.
"Small batch for us this time," Merrin observed. "I heard East Camp got twice as many."
"Hmmph," I grunted.
"Maybe a few good ones. Depending on washouts, not every warrior may get a black rose."
He always said that. "Think they'll last more than a few seasons?" he added.
"Shut the fuck up," I growled.
"Yes, Commander."
Sherra
Already, my drying hair had begun to curl and now looked much shorter than shoulder-length. It didn't matter; several others had curly hair, too. We'd been lined up naked after drying off and marched through a line of drudges who handed out shirts, trousers, unders, boots and socks.
The barking woman instructed us to dress quickly and form six lines to march onto the training ground outside.
Only a few women had shaved heads after a thorough inspection; they'd also been given treatment for scalp infestation, so they wouldn't infect the rest of us.
Still, we hadn't spoken to one another.
Like the villagers I'd left behind, we knew we were dead already; it was merely training and battle that waited until death claimed us.
The Rose Mark: Black Rose Sorceress, Book 1 Page 1