Six Scorched Roses (Crowns of Nyaxia)

The faceless person stood there silently.

Or maybe it wasn’t a person at all—just the suggestion of one. He—she? It?—was only a silvery outline in silhouette, the edges of its form streaks of painted moonlight, and the core of its body nearly clear. I could see the forest straight through the center of its chest—straight through the center of its face. It was nearly as tall as Vale, though willowy, its limbs thin and slightly formless, only a suggestion of bones and muscle.

Vale looked totally unmoved.

“I told you not to come back here,” he snapped.

If the form was capable of either hearing or understanding him, it showed no sign. Instead, it simply held out a hand. A single letter sat in its palm.

“I don’t want that,” said Vale.

The form did not move.

Vale groaned and snatched the letter away.

“Fine. There. Now go.”

The figure started to fade, and I watched wide-eyed, eager to see how it would leave. But Vale just slammed the door shut, and the look on his face made me startle.

He looked… irritated. More than irritated. Irritated was how he had felt with me when I first showed up at his door. This was an even harder expression, his jaw tight, his fist clenched around the letter, now crumpled in his fingers.

“What was that?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

“Was that Nyaxia’s magic?”

“Was that—what?” He looked at me, blinking, like he’d been so lost in his thoughts he’d forgotten I was there for a moment. “Oh. Yes.”

“So that’s from your home.”

He scoffed. “My home.”

“From Obitraes,” I clarified.

“Oh, I understood you.”

I paused. “Well, you’re upset,” I said, mostly to myself.

“I’m—” He stopped short, whirled to me, snapped his jaw shut. “Yes. Yes, I’m upset.”

What was I supposed to do? Not ask?

“Why?”

“Why?”

He turned his back and paced, and I got the distinct impression that he wasn’t really talking to me anymore.

“I’m upset because they won’t take no for an answer. Because I’m not doing this. I’m not going back to Obitraes. I’m not going to help put some—” His lip curled. “Some nobody on my throne. I’m not going to lead another losing war. I am not going to do any of those things, mouse. Not a single one of them.”

I looked to the letter in his hand. Now completely crushed in his fist.

He let out a long breath and straightened. “I’m—I apologize.” He seemed a little embarrassed. But he shouldn’t have been. I didn’t mind seeing him with his guard down.

“Is that what that says?” I said. “They’re asking you to return to the House of Night?”

“Yes, and it doesn’t seem to matter that I’ve told them no, many times over.”

“So, why do they keep asking?”

He let out a light scoff. “Because no one else would help.”

“Because the top two generals in the House of Night are dead.”

Vale blinked, mouth tightening with an almost-smile. “Yes. But just as well, because those bastards wouldn’t have helped them, either.”

“Who’s… them?”

“No one worth talking about.”

“But why do they need you?”

I assembled the pieces of our previous conversations and my sparse knowledge of Obitraen history.

“You’re Rishan,” I said. “And the Hiaj are in power now. Does that”—I nodded to the letter—“mean that there might be a change?”

The expression of surprise on Vale’s face was unmistakable.

Confirmation.

“Your people are attempting to retake the throne.” I was pleased with myself for putting this together, the same way I was satisfied when I solved a difficult equation. “And they’re asking you to come back and—”

“And help them lose a war,” Vale snapped. “All in the name of some bastard king.”

I had never seen him like this. He looked like he was crawling out of his skin.

“You don’t like this man,” I said. “Or, uh… woman. Person.”

Who was I to make assumptions?

“He’s… not king material.”

“You’ve met him?”

“A long time ago, yes.”

“And you didn’t like him?”

“I—” He seemed to be at a loss for words. “I wouldn’t bow to him. No one would bow to him.”

I stared blankly at him.

“What?” he snapped. “You look as if you’re about to tell me I’m wrong, so go ahead. Do it.”

“Right now, your people are not in power. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“And what does that mean for them?”

A muscle feathered in Vale’s neck. He didn’t answer right away.

“Are the Hiaj fair rulers?” I asked.

He let out a short scoff. “Fair. Of course not.”

An unpleasant, unflattering understanding settled over me. My lips thinned. My mouth tasted sour, like it always did when rude words I shouldn’t say were lying in wait.

I said, curtly, “We should finish our work.”

I started to turn, but Vale caught my shoulder.

“Say what you’re going to say, mouse.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

I stared at him, unblinking. I didn’t know what to make of the way he was looking at me—like he actually wanted to hear my opinion.

Or thought he did.

Keep your mouth shut, I told myself—but I’d never been good at listening to my reasonable voice. He’d jabbed at something I tried to hide, a frustration that now surged faster than I could stop it, and I wasn’t even sure why.

“It’s just… something being difficult is not a good reason not to do it.”

He pulled back, offended. “It isn’t about it being difficult.”

I tried to hide my skepticism and apparently failed.

“It isn’t,” he said. “It’s about principle.”

“Principle?” I choked out a humorless laugh. “Your people are asking you for help and you’re refusing because of principle?”

“It’s just not the way things—”

“My sister is dying.”

I blurted out the words in a single rough breath.

“My sister is dying and my whole town is dying, Vale. And everyone else thinks that we can hope or pray or dream our way out of it. They’re just like you. They’re refusing to seek better answers because of principle. Because it’s just not done. And every second they waste time waiting for a stupid dream is another lost life. That is someone who is the most important person in the world to another, somewhere.”

Vale didn’t blink. And I didn’t know why, but I couldn’t stop talking. The words just poured out of me.

“I know what it feels like to be helpless,” I ground out. “You don’t. You don’t know what it feels like to be surrounded by five men and know you can’t stop them from hurting you. You don’t know what it feels like to see the people you’ve grown up with wither and die. You—”

You don’t know what it feels like to watch yourself die.

I stumbled over that one.

“And I can’t blame anyone for bad luck and misfortune,” I said. “But if I ever knew that someone had a chance to help them—had a chance to save even one of those lives and denied it—”

I blinked and saw my sister, slowly grinding away into dust—my lively sister who was everything I was not, who was life when I had always been death, who was warmth when I had always been cold. My beautiful sister who deserved to thrive so much more than I did.

I hadn’t stopped to breathe. When I did, it was a jagged, ugly sound, broken with an almost-sob.

Vale had gripped my shoulder. His thumb rubbed my skin, right at the boundary of the neckline of my dress. Something about that touch steadied me. It was a comfort, a reassurance, and a question.

My face was hot with embarrassment. I shouldn’t have said any of that. It was uncalled for.

Vale’s other hand came to my cheek, and when he pulled back, his fingers were wet. He looked down at that for a moment—my tears on his knuckles—then back at me. I straightened and stepped away from him. I felt unsteady. Drained.

He was calm now, too. Just looking at me. Thoughtful.

“I’m sorry—” I started.

But he said, “I want you to show me my blood.”

I did as he asked. We had to go into three different rooms before we finally found one with a wall clear enough for my instruments. I blew out all the candles and set up my lens. A part of me didn’t even want to risk using it here—they got expensive after awhile, and if this one broke too, I’d really have to scramble for the money for another—but it seemed important to grant Vale’s request.

I wanted him to see in himself what I saw of him every day. The beauty of it. The miracle of it.

When his blood bloomed to life over the wall, I drew in that same little inhale. I did it every single time.

Vale’s expression was utterly still, save for a very, very slight widening of his eyes. He slowly leaned forward to rest his forearms on his knees.

“So this is it.”

“This is it.”

“Why does it look like that? The dots?”

“That’s your blood at its basest level. Very, very small.”

He made a low, unconvinced sound in his throat.

“And what is special about it? Different?”

I rose and went to the wall, examining his blood up close like I had so many times before. “See how it moves? It’s different than human blood. The color, too. The shape. It deteriorates differently.” He didn’t speak, didn’t stop me, so I found myself slipping into my own enthusiasm—explaining to him all the ways his blood differed from that of humans, all the little ways the magic of his nature and his goddess imbued it. All the ways it defied death.

Afterwards, he was silent for a long time. “You believe this,” he said, at last. “That it could help.”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Vampire blood has never helped anything.”

I looked back to the projection on the wall. I needed to take it down, and fast. The machine would start smoking at any moment. But I touched the wall—touched the curve of each flower-petal shape.

“Your blood is…”

Gods, it was so many things.

I settled on, “It could save us.”

I was lost there, in that projection, until Vale said, “That’s not true.”

I turned back to him. He didn’t look at the blood. Only me.

“You,” he said. “You are saving them.”

He said it with such conviction, such certainty, that I did not know how to respond. He rose, hands clasped behind his back.

“Whatever you need,” he said. “My blood. My books. My knowledge. Anything. It is yours.”