Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

I walked to the outskirts of town, where I could catch a boat out to Baszia. On my way through the city streets, I passed a congregation of Vitarus’s acolytes kneeling in the streets, praying over piles of burning leaves. At their front was Thomassen, Adcova’s head priest and devoted follower of Vitarus—a tall, thin man in his mid-fifties with kind eyes. He was the same age my parents had been, but looked much older these last few years. It must take a toll, spending all this time trying to understand why your god turned against you.

He gave me a faint smile as I passed, which I returned with a curt nod.

He had been good friends with my father, once, so he had always been kind to Mina and I. Pitied us, maybe. Funny, because I certainly pitied him, kneeling in the ashes he fed his god, while his god only gave him more ashes in return.

I continued to the outskirts of town, where I found a ship headed across the channel to the city. The journey took hours, and my stomach had become unaccustomed to sea travel, but when I stepped foot on the docks it was all worth it.

I inhaled a great deep breath of the city air—air that seemed to smell of books and excitement and knowledge… mixed, maybe, with just a hint of piss. I’d spent six years here, studying at universities and libraries. Right now, it struck me with staggering force just how much I had missed it. Even the buildings, tall and majestic, spoke of history—many of them had been erected a thousand years ago.

Farrow was, as I knew he would be—as he always was—in his study, a little room tucked in the back of the university archives. And, as I knew he would be, he was happy to see me. The brightness of his grin when he looked up to see me lit a little spark of guilt in my chest.

I shouldn’t be doing this. Shouldn’t be putting him in danger.

But he was one of the most intelligent people I knew, and I needed help.

Farrow was tall and slender, with ash-blond hair that he constantly had to push out of his eyes and silver glasses that were always a little broken. He had a way of bending his whole body up with interest in whatever he was working on, and that was exactly what he did as I set up my lens in the center of the room, folded over at the very edge of his chair as I projected those beautiful blood flower petals onto his chalk-smeared wall.

His eyes widened, and he crept a little out of his chair to look closer. He barely even breathed.

I did always so appreciate that about Farrow—his unabashed amazement at the world around him. When I first met him, as a young student, I had loved that he embodied what I myself so wanted to express but couldn’t. Men from upper-class families were welcome to be openly delighted by their craft. It made them interesting and eccentric, committed and passionate. When women did it, it made us vapid.

I had seen Farrow amazed many, many times. But never so much as he was now. He rose, circled the room, squinted at the blood, then eventually returned to his chair and sagged into it, running his hands through his hair as he peered at me from behind askew glasses.

“Great gods, Lilith, what is this? What am I looking at?”

I swallowed. I didn’t want to say the word, not aloud. It would only put Farrow at risk—more than I already had by coming here. There was a reason I had brought it here, rather than asking him to come visit our cursed town.

Selfish of me. I knew that.

“If I could distill this somehow,” I said, “how would I do that? This property?”

“You would need magic, probably.”

“What if I couldn’t do that?”

Farrow frowned. “Why would you not be able to do that?”

I eyed my lens. The projection had been up for longer than I’d ever allowed myself to look at the samples at home. I feared that at any moment, the magic would recognize the nature of what it analyzed. Magic was fickle and temperamental, just like the gods.

“Could there be a way to do it without?” I asked. “By scientific rather than magical means?”

Farrow seemed confused, which was reasonable. Science and magic were often two parts of the same whole—each complemented the other, their methods often inextricable.

“It would be… it would be hard. Maybe impossible. Bring it to one of Srana’s temples. See what the priestesses have to say about it.”

“I can’t.”

A wrinkle formed between his brows. His amazement had faded. “Why, Lilith?”

My teeth ground. I swept the runes from the table in one abrupt movement just as the lens began to smell faintly of smoke. The room went dark as the projection flickered away. Even in the dark, I could feel Farrow’s stare, hard and piercing. Gone was his childlike amazement. Now he seemed only concerned.

Of course he was. I had come here because he was one of the smartest men I knew. Could I really expect that he wouldn’t figure out what was sitting right in front of him?

“Thank you, Farrow,” I said. “I appreciate your—”

I turned to the door, but he caught my arm, gripping it tight.

I looked down at his long fingers around my forearm. Then up at his face. His concern now overtook his expression with the same enthusiastic verve that his joy had minutes ago.

That was Farrow, of course. Feeling everything. Showing everything.

“Tell me what this is,” he said.

I shook my head, and that was answer enough for him.

“It’s one of them, isn’t it? Alive and dead at once. I thought it at first but then I thought—you couldn’t have—” He swallowed, his fingers tightening. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I couldn’t. I had always been such a bad liar.

His expression sank with realization. He went pale. “What are you doing, Lilith?”

I pulled away, his judgment burying deep in my gut. “I’m doing what I have to.”

But with Farrow, once questions started, they never stopped. “How did you get this? How—” Another wave of realization. “Him? You went to visit him? By yourself?”

“I did what I had to do,” I hissed, again. I struggled to hide my annoyance.

Did he think I didn’t know that it was stupid? That it was dangerous?

He whispered, “You want to inject people with vampire blood?”

I spun around. “Sh.”

His mouth snapped closed. Our eyes both flicked to the ceiling—to the sky beyond. The gods, after all, were always listening.

I drew in a deep breath and let it out.

“It won’t be that anymore by the time I’m done with it,” I said quietly. “I’ll make it into something different. Into medicine.”

He shook his head sadly.

“This is dangerous.”

“I will make sure it doesn’t hurt them.”

“Them? What about you?”

I couldn’t dampen my frustration. “So what?” I snapped. “We’ve prayed. We’ve used the arts of the White Pantheon. We’ve given Vitarus every offering for ten gods-damned years. We have listened to the scholars and the priests and the acolytes and the sorcerers. We have tried the magic of every god, including the one that damned us. What the hell else can we do?”

“I’m worried about you, Lilith,” he said, softly, and I wanted to laugh at him at first, because what good was worrying about me and my pitiful remaining months of life compared to the fate of an entire city?

He drew a little closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth of his skin, our faces now just a couple of inches apart.

“I’m worried about you,” he said again, more softly—more tenderly. “Stay. We’ll figure something else out together.”

Stay. It wasn’t the first time he had asked me that, the first time he’d offered me that word with his breath close enough to warm my mouth. Stay.

And just like the last time he’d said it, I was tempted. There was a certain comfort in Farrow. I liked him. I trusted him. I knew how he kissed, how he touched, how he felt within me. I spent so much time thinking about every muscle in my body, my face, figuring out how to present them appropriately to the world. Despite all that effort, most people still didn’t like me much, but Farrow always had. And when he told me, We can figure it out together, I didn’t believe him, but he made me want to. And that counted for something, didn’t it?

But it was unfair to Farrow to let him love me the way he wanted to, or to let myself love him with the fractured pieces I could offer him. He always wanted more than I could or wanted to give him. It is, after all, a waste to love a thing that will soon be gone.

I pulled away from him and picked up my bag. Farrow looked at it, and I knew he saw how well packed it was—packed enough for a much longer journey than the one back home.

“Are you going there now?” he asked, alarmed.

“Yes.”

“Lilith.” He sounded hopeless, broken. I didn’t want to turn back, but I did anyway.

“Stay,” he said again. “Please.”

“What are you afraid of?” I said. “That I’ll fall into the darkness? We’re already there. We’ve been there for years, and we’re only falling deeper.”

I did not add: And I’ve been there since the day I was born.

I shook my head. “It’s too late, Farrow. It’s too late.”