Page 10 of The Rebel and the Rose
Stalking onwards, he headed towards the slow-swaying trees, where the frozen lake reflected the pallid sky. The first time Ransom had come here over six years ago, as part of a negotiation trip with Dufort, there were swans in this lake.
Two of them.
He had stood in this very same spot, thinking of his mother and his sister, Anouk, as he watched them gliding back and forth on the water.
Now the lake was empty, and Ransom was thinking of someone else. Closing his eyes, he could almost scent her on the wind – a whisper of lemon blossoms and, just beneath it, the barest hint of gunpowder. He could almost feel the ghost of her standing beside him, looking into the same lake. Humming. Plotting.
He snapped his eyes open, finding his own reflection staring back him.
Seraphine.
What are you up to?
Something flickered at the edge of his vision. A flower glowing on the ice. Frowning, he trudged round the edge of the lake to reach it.
It was a golden rose. Artificial and perfect and perched on the ice as though someone had left it there just for him.
Steadying himself with a whip of shadow, he reached over the sheen of ice to pluck it.
His fingers tingled, the familiar brush of magic drawing a sharp inhale. It shot through him like a ray of sunlight, licking the Shade from his bones and shredding the shadows around him. The rose crumbled. The stem first and then the head, falling away in petals of gold and amber, until, for the briefest moment, it looked like a flame kissing the palm of his hand.
Shining flecks of ash sifted through his fingers, and then they were gone, too.
Struck still at the edge of the lake, he stared down at his own reflection. There was a wildness in his eyes now, a wildness beating in his chest.
Sera hadn’t just been here; she had left a calling card for him.
An invitation to a new game.
His smile curled, slow and lethal.
Saint Oriel was not yet done with them.
Chapter 3Seraphine
The mountain wind whistled in Seraphine’s ears as she pitched forward in her saddle and vaulted across the treeline. The last of the pines fell away as the land spilled out before her, the rolling meadow seeming to go on and on. In the far-off distance, the towering Silvercrests clustered together like craggy elders, their stony peaks crowned by the last dusting of winter’s snow.
Not long after returning home from Aberville, spring had exploded across the secluded mountain village of Halbracht in a riot of blooming colour. Sera had been starving for it, eager to gulp down the warm air while the sun tanned her face, scattering freckles across the bridge of her nose.
Sensing her restlessness, Paola Versini, Theo’s aunt, had lent Sera her horse before leaving for the city with their first trialshipment of Lightfire, a modest crate of two hundred vials. After spending weeks on the road visiting smugglers, Sera had jumped at the chance to ride away her stress and take a break from official Order business for a couple of hours.
She rose to her haunches. ‘Yah! Fly, Trapper!’
Trapper was like an arrow beneath her, the black stallion’s strides lengthening with ease. Welcoming the giddiness of this fleeting freedom, she inhaled the scent of the wildflowers as she trampled them, letting the wind thread her hair like soft fingers. For the first time in months, her mind emptied of all thought and worry. There was only the thunder of hooves, then – the joy of riding so pure and simple, it bubbled into laughter.
Bunching the reins in one hand, she flung the other out wide, grinning at the cloudless sky. With her long blonde hair streaking through the air behind her, she imagined she was flying like one of the hawks overhead, the world whipping past in whorls of blue and green and gold.
The sudden spike of joy roused the magic in her soul. It flared to life, filling her with a familiar rush of warmth.
Maker, it whispered, as if saying hello.
Not now. She shoved it back.Not while I’m riding.
Sera tightened her hold on the reins. A wooden fence edged into view. Beyond it, stood the large red barn where Theo was working side by side with Othilde and some of the other smugglers they had convinced to join their cause. Grinding and mixing the heaping vats of Lightfire, perfecting the bulk recipe they had been poring over for months.
‘Faster!’ cried Sera.
Trapper obliged, his hooves flying so swiftly they barely touched the ground. Her magic grew hotter, the well inside her tunnelling deeper.
