Page 1 of The Rebel and the Rose
Part I
Centuries of man-made dark,
Will shatter with a lightning spark.
The storm will choose new saints to crown,
Where three stone towers crumble down.
For one who’s not content to wait,
The will of magic denies fate.
They will grasp for their own gain,
For greed thrives where power rains.
Yet not all magic weighs the same.
Beware the maker in this game,
Another chosen by the land,
Will act as destiny’s right hand.
Old Valterre will soon divide,
When sword and rose come to collide.
Alliances will be betrayed,
And the Kingdom of the Saints remade.
THE LAST PROPHECY OF ORIEL BEAUREGARD, SAINT OF DESTINY
The Storm
The storm pounded Fantome with a fury that shook the entire city. Even the river trembled. The sky wept and thunder roared, as though it had something vital to say. Up north, where the oldest university in Valterre overlooked the sprawling capital, a young scholar listened intently.
Prince Andreas Mondragon Rayere sat on the windowsill of his dormitory with his forehead pressed against the glass, watching the sky thrash. For years he had waited for this night, and now, at last, it was upon him.
This storm.
This spark.
This grand changing of fate.
He grinned as he hopped off the sill, fetching his rain cloak from a hook on the wall. Shrugging it on, he slipped out into the stone hallway. Oil lamps flickered encouragingly as herushed down the corridor, swinging around the corner and taking the stairwell three steps at a time. Outside, the storm raged on, and yet the hallowed halls of the Appoline University were eerily silent. The other scholars had tucked themselves away for the night, to read alone in their bedchambers or snatch another hour or two of research in the companionable warmth of the library.
Andreas had spent so many sleepless nights studying among the towering stacks, he could picture every gilded spine in his mind’s eye, had even moulded the cushions of his favourite wing-backed chair to his liking. All those years of dogged research, chasing the lost words of Saint Oriel felt like mere days now. Here and gone in the blink of an eye.
He had arrived at the Appoline University almost six years ago to the day. A pampered prince of barely sixteen, with soft hands and starry eyes, nine trunks of fine clothes and polished boots, and enough books to build a replica of the Aurore Tower in his bedchamber.
He was a scholar now. His room was littered with hundreds of journals, the feverish scribbles of his findings gathering in an endless swell of parchment. The pads of his fingers were permanently stained with ink, his fair hair had grown long and unkempt, and all his boots were scuffed from long walks in the woodlands that surrounded the university.
From the day Andreas had stepped out of the royal carriage and onto the steps of the Appoline, he had spent every spare moment immersed in the lives of the saints, tirelessly researching the fragments of the last prophecy of Saint Oriel, piecing them together like a jigsaw.
He hoped this was the night he’d been waiting for.
