Autumn Rose

It’s just a dream, I told myself as the scene gradually came into a blurry focus, pillars disappearing into the darkness as I moved towards the source of sound, though really I wished to get as far away as possible.

Two trees stood close together like prison bars, and between them I could see the outline of a figure, grotesque and hunch-backed with the hair and skirts of a woman; it was from this creature, thrusting itself against the tree, attacking it, that the sounds came.

Shards of bark floated to the ground like sawdust as its pale skin met with the trunk, drops of blood joining them from a set of fingertips drooping towards the forest floor.

But as I slipped between the two trees, I realized the horrible truth that the gloom had concealed.

It was not one figure, but two: a man with his back to me, hunched over the collapsing form of a woman, her torn skirts bunched up around her thighs; it was onto her, and not the tree, that he forced himself.

I circled them, trying to move closer but never managing to close the distance. Instead, she came into sharper focus, and I could see how her hair was so dark it neared black, and how her eyes shone a disturbingly familiar colour: violet, glossy because she sobbed.

The rest of her face was in shadow. But I could hear her pain. I closed my own eyes, wishing to blot away their forms with darkness, but their outlines were burned onto the back of my eyelids. Only then did it occur to me to scream. And I did. A horrific, dreadful, spine-chilling scream that was not my own as it chased around empty hallways, echoing.

I woke to the sound of the whistling kettle downstairs. Though my clock read seven, I did not move. Another one. Worse this time. I closed my eyes, trying to merge the dark and tangled curling hair of the woman I had just seen with the straight, sleek hair of the girl whose image I knew to be Violet Lee’s. I hoped it was a struggle because they were not one and the same.

I knew there was no way I could face school. Sliding out of bed and pulling a dressing gown on, I approached my mirror to see what damage needed to be done. Not much. I look awful. My eyes were already puffy – I must have been crying in the night – and my nose and cheeks were red raw from the cold the evening before. My hair, too, was a mess.

Shuffling into the kitchen, I saw my parents unpacking papers from files. I continued shuffling towards the fridge, allowing my slippers to screech against the tiled flooring. I contemplated adding a cough for effect, but my father was already blocking my way; hand on my forehead, feeling my temperature.

‘You’re freezing, Autumn.’ He took another look at me. ‘I think you should stay home from school. You must have caught a chill from being out in that rain yesterday.’ Out of the corner of my eye I could see my mother narrowing her own eyes.

I knew I should put up some sort of protest myself for authenticity. ‘But Father—’

‘No disagreeing. Just blame the mean prince for it all,’ he joked, but his eyes, also puffy, told the real story. He bent down to kiss the top of my head and turned me by my shoulders so I faced the hallway again. ‘Now back to bed with you.’

They were going out for the day and as soon as I heard the front door shut, I changed into fresh clothes and cleaned away the smudged leftover make-up from under my eyes. Then I curled up on my window seat and watched the people who lived on my road beginning their days, shifting dustbins around, starting cars and herding schoolchildren along the pavement. Opposite, the fisherman’s son threw lobster pots into the back of his truck, stamping his cigarette out with his boot.

‘You were right, Fallon Athenea,’ I whispered. ‘I do want to live as a human.’

It took a lot of willpower to go into work the next day. But I knew that having to cancel for my detention had put me on very thin ice with my employer, and it was the only café on the harbour willing to take on a Sagean teenager.

The air was still damp and speckled with rain, but I walked into town anyway. The bus wasn’t an option as I was running low on money – I had no access to my wealth without my parents’ permission; they certainly weren’t going to give me an allowance – and I needed what I had left for the bus to and from school if the weather turned bad again.

As I walked, I passed the newsagents and paused, scanning the headlines of the tabloids and local newspapers. There wasn’t even as much as a hint about the Athenea, and royals would have made the front page. I had already checked the broadsheets at breakfast. Again, there had been nothing. The injunctions are working so far then.

The closed sign was still up on the door when I got to the café. Inside, my boss glowered at me from where she sat working out pay slips and all was quiet behind the counter. I lowered my eyes and hoped she was angry because I had missed work for my detention, and not because of what had happened last time I had a shift.

Sophie was working again and when I entered the kitchen she backed behind Nathan.

There were no pleasantries this morning.

‘You didn’t answer my texts again,’ Nathan accused.

I halted and stood my ground in the doorway. ‘You gave those humans hope when you knew I couldn’t save that man!’

‘I was just trying to help,’ he countered.

‘You made me look awful. School has been hell!’

‘Sorry,’ he mumbled, but didn’t really sound it.

I shrugged and went out to prepare the café for opening. Even though seeing the man’s dead body had been an all too horrible reminder of the death of my grandmother, it wasn’t the death that bothered me, or even the appearance of the Extermino. It was Nathan’s reaction … it hadn’t been him that day, and it hadn’t been him in the kitchen just now. He was too callous, and not the light-hearted person he usually was.

But when I went back to the kitchen he had recovered.

‘C’mon, enlighten me then,’ he said, leaning on the edge of the sink. ‘What was so important on Thursday that you ditched us all?’

‘There is a new guy at school—’

‘Oh, there’s a new guy, is there?’ He brushed his shaggy hair out of his eyes, and I saw they were full of mischief.

‘A new Sagean guy I had to tutor.’

The sheen on his eyes faded and he faltered. I wasn’t surprised. One Sagean teenager around here was more than enough for the human population to cope with. ‘Anyone we’ve heard of?’ He glanced towards Sophie, who had stopped shifting plates around to listen.

I didn’t answer, feeling my teeth close around the tip of my tongue.

Nathan noticed. ‘You Sage and your privacy. Seriously, who am I going to tell? I’m a computer geek who dropped out of uni. I have no friends. And you won’t tell, will you, Soph?’

Sophie blushed and shook her head, but when I caught her eye, she returned to the crockery.

I sighed. ‘He is of a higher status than me.’

His mouth fell open, comprehension dawning, and then he promptly swore. I didn’t need to give further explanation. Nathan was the only human outside of my family who had known about my title – he had ‘accidentally’ found my supposedly deleted Wikipedia page – and more importantly, he knew where it put me in the ranks. He waited until Sophie had left the kitchen before he spoke again. ‘What the hell? Here? Which one?’

‘No. I’ve said too much already.’

He fell back against the counter, gripping its edge very tightly. ‘Aren’t you pleased? They’re supposed to be heartthrobs, aren’t they?’

I laughed dryly, gathering up the baskets of salt and vinegar to put on the tables. ‘I think every other girl at school is pleased. I’m not.’ He smiled in confusion. I continued, lowering my voice. ‘If the press find out about this, and they will eventually, then I will be dragged in too. Can you imagine what a field day Arn Etas would have if they found out that I work in a café?’ It was only part of the truth, but I certainly wasn’t telling him what I knew the Athenea were hiding about my grandmother.

His smile faded. ‘What’s so wrong with that?’

He followed me out as I organized the tables and flipped the sign over to Open. He continued to trail after me as I scooted past Sophie back into the kitchen, waiting for an answer.

‘I’m a duchess, Nathan, not a maid,’ I muttered, then stopped. ‘I don’t particularly like this life; it’s near impossible for a Sage to live around here, but I am content with it as long as I am out of the spotlight.’

He shook his head, making his muddy blond fringe bounce as he screwed up his nose. ‘I swear you should’ve been born human. But anyway, what are you so down about? Just don’t have anything to do with him. And if he gives you any trouble, just tell him you’ve got a friend who is a purple belt in karate who will beat him up.’

I looked his wiry build up and down and raised an eyebrow. ‘Or I could just hex him.’

‘Or you could do that. And anyway, cheer up, Valerie just came in,’ he said, peering out of the kitchen.

I groaned. What a way to round off the week.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Autumn

I succeeded in following Nathan’s advice, partly by skipping school, until Thursday. I couldn’t completely avoid the prince, of course, and still greeted him each morning in tutorial and in history and worked – silently – next to him in English literature. But he didn’t press for my company and I began to think that I had made my stance on him clearer than I had thought when he had driven me home.

I woke up Thursday morning with the prospect of after-school textiles period, and therefore a whole room of gossiping girls. The hype around the prince had still not died down and even I had to admit he had incredible patience considering how he was effectively stalked by half the student population. The paparazzi seemed like a better bet compared to that.

We were let out late from the lesson before lunch and coming out, I found that most people had already eaten. Thankfully, the canteen had finally got their act together now that there were two Sagean vegans in the school and there were plenty of sandwiches left. I grabbed one, paid, stuffed it into my bag and made the walk of shame through the seating area to the exit. From one of the circular tables inhabited by the football and rugby teams, the prince caught my eye and raised his hand, as though to motion me over. I quickly looked away and sped up.

Tammy and the others were on the field, making the most of the reappearance of the sun, and that was where I was headed. I easily made my way through the mingling students – they had always parted for me before, but now they stumbled and moved with a kind of disbelief, as though I couldn’t be who the prince said I was.

‘Freak! Oi, freak!’

The call came from the other side of the quad. I told myself to keep walking.

‘Fur-reak!’

I closed my eyes briefly. Valerie Danvers. I was surprised she hadn’t approached me earlier, considering the new material the revelation concerning my title must have brought her.

‘Hey, useless! You let that man die on purpose, didn’t you? You basically killed a man! Just like the last guardian killed Kurt!’

Keep going. Ignore her.

‘Oi, duchess! You too much of a snob to talk to me now? Duchess, where’s your granny? Go on, tell us where your granny is.’

Keep walking. She will get tired of it eventually if you ignore her.

‘C’mon, don’t be a spoilsport, I only asked a question.’

I bounded up the steps to the field, walking as fast as I could.

‘Is your granny dead, freak? Did they murder her?’

My breathing shortened. I was almost running.

‘Did they kill her ’cause she’s a freak like you?’

My tongue ran across dry lips, blood hot.

‘Fucking witch, she deserved to die.’

Sticks and stones, she always said. Sticks and stones.

‘Mortana!’ The curse left my lips before I could stop it, accompanied by a writhing ball of molten energy which had been stewing in the sweat of my hot palm, fighting against my clawed fingers to find its way to her skin. As I closed my hand around empty air, I felt hot blood run like a drink down my throat.

But the spell never reached her chest. A shield sprung from midair, reaching over Valerie and her friends as a globe that rippled as my magic met with it. The curse, blue in the air but black as it fanned out across the shield, searched for a hole in the defense; finding none, it surrendered itself with the sound of a shattering glass, and gradually, the barrier faded into nothingness.

There were gasps and even a few screams, and I knew that all over the field, people had sprung to their feet in shock. To the left of us the headmaster stood frozen to the spot, extremely pale and sweating. The teaching assistants on the other side stared at Valerie and her friends. Nobody moved but the prince, who lowered his outstretched scarred hand and glowered at me. I tried to look at him. I tried to form something resembling shock or remorse on my face, but it would not come as I watched Valerie, feeling sparks jump between my fingers.

‘Go,’ he snapped as though I was a servant to be bid about. My eyes flicked towards him and straight back to Valerie. I did not move.

‘That’s an order, duchess.’

Courtesy in respect to rank; loyalty to Athenea; strict adherence to the Terra Treaties.

My feet began to move. I tore my gaze away from Valerie and watched the ground in front of me instead. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her square up, her fists clenching.

‘Don’t so much as move an inch towards her, Valerie.’

My eyes snapped up to the prince and his expression softened. I focused on him and not the other students as I walked, faster and faster, wanting to break out into a run and get myself out of there because I was afraid of what my anger would do next. I tripped down the steps and heard the thud of the prince’s feet behind me.

She deserves to die.

My breathing hitched and the anger exploded against my ribs and sank into the pit of my stomach. If he hadn’t been there, a personification of Athenea’s authority, I would have turned straight around and finished her off.

All of a sudden, the prince grabbed my hand and tugged me along the path behind the hall building. He led me right around until he found a secluded corner, and without noticing how muddy the ground was, pulled me onto the grass.

‘She’s not worth it,’ I heard him say as I was spun around so my back was against the wall and he faced me, arms folded, lips pursed. I registered the blackening anger in his eyes, but it was nothing compared to my own. My breathing would not slow and I could still feel a burning in my palm where sparks leaped around. Dancing on my tongue were several curses that would at least put her in hospital.

‘Autumn, you’re not in control, you need to—’

Animated voices sounded around the corner and he hushed mid-sentence, waited for them to pass, then switched to Sagean.

‘Aclean. Calm down. Take deep breaths.’

I closed my eyes, forcing air into my lungs, waiting for the anger to seep away. I tried not to think of her; I tried not to think of anything, to become numb, but it was impossible with the sound of his breathing, husky and more erratic than my own. Listening to it, I felt the fury ebb away to be replaced with shame. Shame, then fear, as the full realization of what I had just done hit me.

The previous guardian at Kable had been banished for accidentally wounding – fatally – a student. But I had intentionally tried to injure a human. The Terra set out a far worse punishment for such a crime. Death.

I slowly opened my eyes. He was stood in the same position, but this time the composure had disappeared.

‘Are you out of your mind?’ he suddenly exploded after a minute of silence. His arms unfolded and flew into the air beside him as he took a step towards me. I shrunk away into the wall. ‘Do you have any grasp on what you just tried to do?’

Each time I inhaled my breath split in two and my lower lip began to tremble as I shook my head. ‘It was an accident, she provoked me—’

‘How long has she been bullying you?’ His right hand slammed against the brick wall beside my head and his face moved closer to mine.

I glanced at his splayed fingers nervously. ‘W-what?’

‘You’re a Duchess; you were not brought up to lose control so easily. She must have been filing away at your patience for you to do this. How long?’

I kept shaking my head, looking at his shoes to avoid the fire in his eyes. ‘A year, maybe.’

‘Since you arrived?! Why haven’t you reported it? I heard what she said. That was more than bullying, it was racism!’

‘It’s nothing.’

‘Nothing?’ he repeated, raising his left hand and closing his forefinger and thumb so they were almost pinching. ‘Autumn, you came this close to blowing her to pieces! This close to breaking the Terra! I won’t report you, but if that curse had hit her there would be no sheltering you.’

I blinked back the tears in my eyes, feeling a mixture of relief and horror, because his words were true. There was no hiding when the Terra were breached. There was no mercy in the law courts, because they were the only thread that suspended us in a state of peace with the humans.

‘I know,’ I whispered. ‘I know.’

He closed his eyes briefly and groaned, placing his other hand on the wall the other side of my head. ‘Do you have a death wish? Because what you just did makes it seem like you do.’

‘I-I’ I couldn’t answer and neither could I shake my head. Instead, I ceased my attempt at holding back the tears. They slithered down my cheeks and plummeted as I hung my head.

‘Autumn?’

My bisected breathing became rasps, and the rasps sobs. There was no stopping the misery now. I knew that much. It was an insatiable beast, but its touch had become silken and light over the summer as hope had surfaced. But that had been a deception; soft strokes to entice. It was back. Yet. Though it was a cold demise, it was not a product of mine. No. It had been caused by him. The prince.

‘Autumn Rose? Tell me you’re not being serious?’

Now that brief moment of flattery in the car the week before disgusted me, because it was he who had dragged up so many things that I had learnt were better buried, for my own wellbeing and sanity.

‘Please?’

I could not say anything.

‘Autumn, a death wish? Do you mean you want to take your own life? Mortalitas voltana?’ His face crumpled and his hands closed around my shoulders, shaking me slightly.

I raised one shoulder, intending to shrug, to look nonchalant, but couldn’t summon the energy to do any more; to deny what he said.

‘No? You’ve thought about it then?’

I gave a small nod.

‘B-but why? What is it? Is it your grandmother?’ He shook me even more and when I didn’t answer, pulled me into a crushing embrace. I sprang back before my sobs heightened, tripping over my own feet to put as much distance between us as possible. ‘Autumn? What is it? Tell me!’

It’s you! I wanted to scream, and I would have if it had been completely true. But it wasn’t. It was everything.

‘E-Extermino. Not saving that human man … V-Valerie. Your stupid orders about my grandmother! I hate your stupid orders!’

Through my blurred, frantically blinking eyes I could see him watching me in horror as I backpedalled, summoning the magic still brewing after Valerie’s words and took to the air.

Let me be numb again, I thought. Let me bury the depression as best I can. Burying is better than this.

The wind slapped against my cheeks, bitter and stinging. But behind my closed eyelids, it was not air making contact with my cheek, but a hand. Once, twice. Hard enough to leave an imprint.

‘Stiffen that upper lip, child! Kindness only comes when you are strong because when you grow up the world will fall on your shoulders! You are my heir; how dare you cry? How dare you be so weak? How dare you lose your mask?’

CHAPTER TWELVE

Fallon

I did not let out a breath until she was high in the air, a retreating speck. Around me I was aware of voices, incoherent interference in the distance, as I struggled to switch my mind back to English – whether those voices were those of human minds or tongues I could not tell. I could barely even think.

Suicide. Any fool could see that she was not happy. But there was a huge cavernous cut in emotion between unhappiness and … and … that. Between dejection and despair; between discontent and utterly losing the will to even live.

A surge of adrenalin passed through me. There was no way she should be alone; not in the state she was in now.

I tossed my bag from my shoulder; it disappeared before it reached the ground. I was meant to have a math lesson that afternoon, and catch-up afterwards, and leaving would mean abandoning my car until the next day, but none of that mattered. School wasn’t why I was here.

Knowing she wouldn’t hang about I took to the air in pursuit, praying she intended to go home. But when I’d risen far above the campus, there was no sign of her and when I expanded my conscious out, hoping to touch upon her own, I found nothing. Making a split-second decision I headed over the river, wondering how she could have disappeared in less than half a minute.

When the town came into view, I searched for the church and graveyard we had passed when I had dropped her off. To my complete relief, frantically walking though the graveyard was the young duchess. I waited until she had passed through the gate in the dry stone wall and then dropped to the ground behind the church tower.

She didn’t hang around once she reached the lane – though she didn’t push herself as far as her magic would allow, but moderated herself to a jog. I took after her as quietly as I could; cursing the crunch of the gravel path and opting for the grass verge instead, weaving between the graves. All around, wilting flowers lay in mildewed jars.

I halted at the gate and waited for her to reach the top of the hill at the path’s end, where I could just make out the cottages and their tiny doors giving way to the vast branches of a maple tree. When she crossed the summit, I broke out into a jog too and quickly emerged at the turning she had directed us to the week before. On the other side of the road, I could see her diving between the unruly shrubs in her yard and hear the slam of a front door.

I let out a sigh of relief, but it wasn’t enough. I couldn’t let her be alone, not with those thoughts running through her mind.

Yet when I reached the opposite sidewalk, something made me pause. There were no gates, or guards, or lodges, but I was acutely aware as I passed the sign bearing the avenue’s name that this was her territory, and that I was trespassing. It was like being a kid again, trying to steal apples from the crown orchards; they were not fenced and we were never told not to go there, but we knew that what we were doing was wrong.

I took a few cautious steps and glanced around nervously. It had been a long time since I had walked around a neighbourhood alone and unguarded.

I stopped when I reached the edge of her front yard. It wasn’t an unpleasant house – it was quite charming in a small, rustic sort of way – but it was hard to believe that the duchy of England, with all their wealth and property, lived here; much easier to imagine the field day the paparazzi would have if they knew the details of their lifestyle choice.

I gripped the pointed post of the white picket fence. It was common knowledge the House of Al-Summers had always rejected pomp, but this … this I had never expected.