Autumn Rose: A Dark Heroine Novel (39 page)

“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.”

Autumn

W
e 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 the 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 . . .”

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.

“Yes, sir,” the boy replied, and the other servant manning the door turned and placed his fingers around the handle.

“Are you ready?” Edmund repeated, to me this time. I ran a hand through my hair to catch any wisps, and then took Fallon’s outstretched hand.

“Yes.”

Together, with Edmund behind, we waited as the doors swung outward.

The sheer size of the
maerdohealle
was enough to take any creature’s breath away. The entire Manderley mansion would fit comfortably into its polished marble center; the chimney tops wouldn’t even graze the arched, cathedral-like roof, and only the uppermost windows would be level with the two-tier balconies that ran around as a continuation of the cloister hallways at the room’s edge. The left wall wasn’t a wall at all; below the balconies several tall arches led out onto yet another terraced balcony, which overlooked the grounds we had flown across. Below us was a long staircase that flared at the bottom; opposite, at the far end of the room, there was another staircase descending from the lowest balcony, which split into two small staircases; in the hollow they created there was a raised dais upon which sat a throne, large enough for two people. And on it two people sat.

On the balconies and between the pillars, under the arches and in the enormous space in the center, people were packed, row upon row, all gazing up at us. A room full of so many mouths should not be able to fall silent, but it did.

But as we stepped out of the shadows, there was no mistaking the gasps—and the mutterings.

Fallon squeezed my hand and we rushed down the steps, boots clunking against the veined marble. The crowd at the bottom tripped over their own feet to move back for us, and as we pressed forward, a few of them sank confidently into bows, while others hesitated, gazing around for a cue.

“That can’t be her!”

“She is so old—”

“Spitting image of the late duchess.”