Page 110 of The Rebel and the Rose
‘You will tell no one else about this conversation. You will simply disappear from here, as though you had never come to Marvale at all.’
Seraphine, called that distant voice inside him.You have to warn Seraphine.
But the cry soon faded, lost to the dazzling brightness of the prince’s magic as he leaned close – much too close – and said through those pearly white teeth. ‘Nowgo.’
So Ransom did.
Chapter 28Seraphine
The storm was here again, howling like a beast. Lightning shattered the blackness, illuminating a sky full of heaving purple clouds. They pressed in from all sides, the white stone floor shaking under her slippers. Looking down at herself, she saw the pale blue of her prayer robe had been drenched to navy, the wool clinging to her sopping skin. Vaguely, Sera knew this was not her body, but the dream was as real to her as a memory.
And she was trapped inside it.
A bolt struck, much too close. In the spiral of flashing light, she saw she was standing at the top of a tall white tower.
Prayer tower, some distant part of her whispered.
But the storm was so fierce, and the stones were tremblingunder her feet. She didn’t want to be here tonight, by herself, and so far from her sisters in the priory.
But tonight is my vigil. I must give thanks to Saint Alisa.
Thunder roared, and she fell to her knees, her shaking hands coming together in prayer.
Saints, she was so very frightened.
Why had Mother Madeline made her come up here tonight?
Couldn’t their prayers wait for the sky to settle?
Wouldn’t the sick of Valterre last until dawn?
It was madness climbing the tower when the sky was in such a state. And she was madder for doing it. Where was her backbone, that crucial sense of survival that had got her this far?
Run, you fool.
Run, before the storm takes a bite out of you!
Her inner voice grew as loud as the wind, urging her to return to the winding steps that would lead her back to earth. To safety. It was late now, and the others would be asleep. She could slip in through the back door and hide under her bed, like she used to when she was a child. Honoria was such a heavy sleeper, she wouldn’t even notice.
A fine mist gathered around her. The lightning was so close now, it raised the hairs on her arm. Fear won out. To hell with Saint Alisa, and the enduring sorrows of the sick. They only ever prayed for the rich ones anyway. She turned to run, tripping on the first of the five hundred stone steps. The world spun, the clouds so close, they dizzied her.
Don’t look down.
Don’t look up.
Ten steps, and then ten more.
Quickly, now.
The storm is at your back.
The next strike turned the world silver. She stumbled again, her knees meeting hard marble. Scrabbling to her feet, she reached blindly for the railing. She was screaming now, cursing madly, but she didn’t care. She had far bigger worries than the hard rap of Mother Madeline’s cane.
There came a dull ringing in her ears, and beyond it – utter silence. The sky raged but she could no longer hear it. Then a ragged pain in her back, like a hot poker skewering her spine. She couldn’t feel her feet. She looked down, just in time to see the tower cleave, the steps falling away beneath her.
She fell too. So storm-struck she couldn’t hear her own scream, not the heavy thud of her body landing on the sodden earth, or the hail of white stone as it buried her.
When death came, she reached for it with both hands.
