Suddenly Mara’s anger returned. This wasn’t fair. She turned to glare at the Warden. “I could be down there helping them, but you brought me here instead. Why?”
For a moment, the Warden was still. After a moment, she said quietly, “The binding magic that ties me to my duty as Warden, and ties all of my Roses totheirduty and to me, is ancient and unkind. It is hungry. It needs blood to do its dark works. And no one has died yet today. Thanks to you, Mara, everyone is safe. Look, even now”—she nodded at the water—“the titan’s attack is subsiding. The chimaera are dead. And away across the water floats Petra the coward. Listen to the others beg her to return. How frightened they are.”
Mara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“You do. The trials are meant to cull the weak. Weak hearts poison the magic we must use to fulfill our duty, to serve our queen.”
An oily slick of dread curled inside Mara’s stomach.
“What should we do, Mara?”
The Warden’s voice was gentle, patient, sad. It brought Mara no comfort.
“She was kind to me,” Mara insisted. “I won’t do anything to hurt her.”
“Even if that means others might hurt instead? Even if binding her to us weakens our magic? Even if making her one of us means it will be harder for us to protect our country?”
Mara hesitated. Words stuck in her throat, words she refused to speak.
The Warden sighed. She stretched her sinuous neck, shifted her weight. Her slender feathered feet ended in black talons as thick as Mara’s wrists.
“Very well,” she said. “We’ll bring her back to shore. But I hope, Mara, that as the trials continue—and they will continue, for as many nights as are required—you will make the wise choice, for all our sakes.”
Mara looked up at her stern visage, feeling small and cold. “But why mustIchoose?”
“Because you are strong,” the Warden replied, “and the binding magic will therefore relish your decision. In thanks, it will bolster you. You and your fellow recruits will enjoy a particularly steadfast connection. You’ll grow into a mighty squadron. Someday you may even be the soldiers who save us all.” The Warden looked out over the water, tracking Petra’s raft with her golden eyes. “Is that blessed chance to save your country, your queen, something you would give up, all for the sake of one cowardly little girl? To save her, you would welcome rot into our bloodline?”
To that, Mara had no answer. Her mind turned and turned, looking for the right thing to say, the right thing to feel, to do. She worried it might go on spinning forever.
The Warden sighed once more and opened her wings. “Come, child. The next trial awaits. Remember what I have told you.”
Mara could not protest. She couldn’t even recall her father’s voice. She stepped into the Warden’s feathered embrace and hesitated, unsure where to put her hands.
The Warden’s laugh was harsh. “I have lived lifetimes in this world. A few pulled feathers won’t pain me. Hold on tight.”
Mara obeyed. The feathers were black silk against her palms.
“Will I have to be the one to do it?” Mara whispered. “After I make the choice. Will I have to be the one who hurts her too?” Her cheek pressed against the warm skin right above the Warden’s downy breasts. The scent there was familiar, maternal. Mara pushed hard against the rising thoughts of home.
“What do you think the magic that binds us would most enjoy?” the Warden asked. Bitterness soured her voice.
It was a question that needed no reply, for the answer was obvious. Mara closed her eyes tight. She would not cry, she would notcry. The Order’s old magic, she suspected, would scorn her tears. She locked her shaking legs around the Warden’s feathered hips and held on tight as the night air rushed around them. Their flight was silent, swift. Below, on the beach, the bonfire still burned. Roaring. Waiting.
Chapter 1
It was a rare quiet morning at Rosewarren, dawn only just beginning to brighten the windows and the air crisp with the coming winter. A beautiful morning, really, if one cared about such things.
I did not.
I stormed out of the priory and strode across the grounds, the frosty grass crunching beneath my boots and my blood burning bright with fury.
I had just come from the infirmary, where I’d left one of my fellow Roses, Cira, with Nanette, our head nurse. Cira was fifteen and strong, far more resilient than her reedy frame would suggest, and the wound in her shoulder was minor. Nanette wasn’t concerned; neither was Cira. Injuries were to be expected. We were Roses, after all, and our country was at war.
But in the twelve hours since the arrow had pierced Cira’s shoulder, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the man who had fired it.
Just before I entered the stables, I threw an irritated glare at the nearby Middlemist. Its soft light that morning—a silver glow beneath the rising dawn—felt like a cruel taunt. I hadn’t seen it so tranquil in months. Not since before my sisters and I freed Talan from Kilraith,before any of us knew that the late Queen Yvaine had been a godly being called Ankaret.
Before the war that now governed our every decision, every meal, every hour.
