Read Roses Online

Authors: G. R. Mannering

Roses

Roses

G. R. Mannering

Sky Pony Press
New York

Copyright © 2013 by Georgia-Karena Mannering

All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

Sky Pony Press books may be purchased in bulk at special discounts for sales promotion, corporate gifts, fund-raising, or educational purposes. Special editions can also be created to specifications. For details, contact the Special Sales Department, Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018 or
[email protected]
.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

Sky Pony® is a registered trademark of Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.®, a Delaware corporation.

Visit our website at
www.skyponypress.com.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mannering, G. R.

Roses / G.R. Mannering.

pages cm

Summary: “A darker retelling of Beauty and her Beast, set in the fantasy land of Sago amid a purging of all the magics in the land”--Provided by publisher.

ISBN 978-1-62087-988-7 (hardcover : alk. paper) [1. Fantasy.] I. Title.

PZ7.M31516Ro 2013

[Fic]--dc23

2013027916

Printed in the United States of America

Map of the Western Realm illustrated by Danielle Ceccolini.

In memory of Richard Hayton

Contents

Part One

CHAPTER ONE
  The House of Rose

CHAPTER TWO
  The Youngest Daughter

CHAPTER THREE
  The Baby with Amethyst Eyes

CHAPTER FOUR
  The Nanny

CHAPTER FIVE
  The Circus

CHAPTER SIX
  The Little Beauty

CHAPTER SEVEN
  The Child with Amethyst Eyes

CHAPTER EIGHT
  The Incident with Eli

CHAPTER NINE
  The Threat in Sago

CHAPTER TEN
  The Danger

Part Two

CHAPTER ELEVEN
  The Journey

CHAPTER TWELVE
  The Hillands

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  The Sister

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  The Temple

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  The Winter

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  The Girl with Amethyst Eyes

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  The Dreams

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  The Matchmaker

CHAPTER NINETEEN
  The Woman with Amethyst Eyes

CHAPTER TWENTY
  The Gray Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  The Proposal

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  The Red Rose

Part Three

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  The Beast

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  The Enchanted Castle

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  The Prisoner

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  The Forbidden

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  The Library

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  The Voices

Part Four

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  The Thaw

CHAPTER THIRTY
  The Ball

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  The Chapel

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  The Nightmares

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  The Corridor of Mirrors

Part Five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  The Blackness

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  The Return

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  The Attack

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  The Magic Bloods

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  The Dead

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  The Spell

 

Acknowledgments

Part One

She panted into the chilled air. Snowflakes fluttered around her like ashen butterflies, clinging to her lashes and to the hood of her thick cloak. Champ, her warhorse, tore through the night’s darkness with clouds of warm breath, and his flanks heaved after the rush of the ride.

Before them in the enchanted quiet stood a castle. It was just as it had been described to her, and she grimaced slightly, for she had hoped that it was not real. The snowflakes whirled around its facade without settling, brushing against the latticed windows and marble arches. It was vast and rich with numerous turrets of coppery bricks that appeared to rise higher and higher until they were lost in the white of the snowstorm. Its outline flickered against the magenta sky and shifted under her gaze, as if it almost was not there.

She swallowed hard and pressed her heels into Champ’s sides. The pair made no sound as they approached the gates; the blanket of snow muffled all noise, and Champ’s hooves sank deep into its cushioned whiteness. He flicked his ears. She knew that he did not want to approach, but they could not turn back. She leaned forward and laid her cold, raw hand on his sweaty flank to reassure him.

She was not surprised when the iron gates swung silently open of their own accord. She gritted her teeth as she urged Champ on and reminded herself that she was saving the life of a man who had once saved her own.

As the gates clicked shut behind them, she heard the distant roar of a beast.

C
HAPTER
O
NE

The House of Rose

W
hen she was born, the midwife screamed. It was a reaction she was later familiar with. A child with amethyst eyes, silvery skin, and white hair is abnormal in Pervorocco. The combination is startling and with the later addition of a surly demeanor, she became quite frightening.

But even in babyhood, with the gentle air of innocence, she had terrified the midwife. The young woman held the pale, slippery bundle in her outstretched arms and screamed. The silver skin was so light it was almost translucent, and mauve webs of veins glinted beneath its surface in the shadowed room. The baby was unnatural and freakish to an olive-skinned, dark-eyed race of people, and the midwife’s fingers began to tremble. At that moment the bells at the nearest temple clanged to mark midnight.

The midwife immediately thought the bundle a gypsy’s child, a sorcerer’s child, a cursed child—born at the bewitching hour to steal her soul. She looked up, intending to thrust it into the arms of the
mother, but the mother had vanished. This produced a second scream.

A doctor darted into the room and scanned the beds of dying patients in the yellow glaze of the oil lamps. His eyes finally alighted on the last bed in the corner, where a midwife stood alone, clutching a ghostly child, and he pressed his thumb and index finger together instinctively in the sign of the gods before immediately reproaching himself. Nobody believed in the gods anymore.

“What is it?” he asked, moving reluctantly toward her.

The midwife blinked, but did not answer. She vaguely knew the doctor, as she knew all of the staff at the paupers’ hospital, but names were never shared. There were too many dying people for such trivialities.

The baby began twitching and moaning.

“What is it?” he repeated, wiping his damp brow. Though it was the spring season, Sago was muggy and hot. It would remain like this through all four seasons—the heat never ceased.

“It is . . .” the midwife trailed off, lost for words.

“Where is the mother?” the doctor asked.

An empty bed with unsoiled sheets stretched tightly over a straw mattress stood before them without the faintest indent to suggest that someone had lain there, let alone given birth.

“She was here,” the midwife gasped. “She was here . . . I’m sure of it.”

“Where is she now?”

“I . . . I do not know.”

“What did she look like?”

It would not have been the first time that a mother had given birth and then tried to escape the paupers’ hospital without her child. In the suffocating throng of downtown Sago—the capital of Pervorocco—children were an unnecessary expense and the shantytown orphanages were overflowing.

The midwife creased her brow and licked her chapped lips as if to explain, but then a vacant look passed across her face and she stared off down the ward.

“I do not know,” she said at last.

The baby began crying louder and its tiny, translucent cheeks turned red. It was the red of blood and not the rosy blush of a normal child. The doctor had treated a few Rurlish in his time—a pale, fair race—and yet none of them had looked silvery like this beast.

“How long have you been on your shift?” he asked.

Other books

For Life by L.E. Chamberlin
Codename Winter by Ross, Aubrey
Brad (Threefold #2) by Sotia Lazu
Fly With Me by Chanel Cleeton
Melting the Ice by Loreth Anne White
Blame It on the Rodeo by Amanda Renee
Sara's Song by Sandra Edwards


readsbookonline.com Copyright 2016 - 2024