The Secret World of Briar Rose(5)
“Godmother Dahlia,” she murmured, “will I still become Briar Rose?”
She waited for an answer as the faerie pursed her lips. Long ago, the godmothers discussed plans to disguise Amelia as a humble orphan. They feared that the demon Malicine would sneak into the castle on Amelia’s eighteenth birthday and trick her into pricking her finger on a spindle. It might be easier, they suggested, if she lived as an ordinary girl among the other forest nymphs. A girl by the name of Briar Rose.
“No, my dear,” Dahlia said apologetically. “Your father didn’t think it would be a good idea.”
Amelia held her breath so that her chest would not deflate. Hiding her disappointment, she bid the faeries goodbye and retreated to her bedroom. For the rest of the evening, the godmothers would likely chatter about the new queen or potential suitors who could break Amelia’s curse. They wouldn’t know that such matters were far away from the princess’s mind.
In her head, she had already envisioned this life they planted long ago, watered the seeds and watched them grow into a cottage nestled deep in a far-off forest. It would be a fraction the size of the castle, but there would be a garden of sunflowers, a front porch where she’d share tea with forest animals, and windows that let sunlight cast in sideways.
In another life, Amelia would rise with the sun and sleep with the stars and never feel alone.
She would be happy, rather than someone only pretending to be in their portrait.
CHAPTER 3
COLD WATER STUNG Corin’s skin as she splashed her face beside the river. Fat bruises the size of berries bloomed on her cheeks, and her left eye was swollen shut after the soldier had beaten her. But she was used to looking like crap, and really, she was more concerned that Elly had nowhere to return. If her sister tried searching for their ramshackle house behind the railroads, she would find only a mountain of rubble and an army of soldiers who would sooner protect land than their own people.
When most of the blood and grime washed off, Corin limped down the rocky path by the river’s edge. The water had turned to a muted gray, reflecting the dull clouds of a washed-out sky, though most of the riverbank was covered in dead leaves and weeds that grew along the edges. Autumn should have killed her memories of this place alongside the trees, yet reminders lingered on every corner. The soft murmur of stream that once lulled Corin and Elly to sleep in their tent. The patch of grass where their friends lay freshly washed clothes to dry under the sun. The gritty pile of rocks that children collected to skip across the water. That time felt like the closest thing to peace, which was why Corin shouldn’t have expected it to last at all.
She passed by the area where she had last seen her friends, marked now by churned mud and shattered stone. The commune moved their tents along the river trail throughout the seasons to avoid capturing soldiers’ attention, but she remembered the place she’d stayed the night she left for good, the gentle slope of wildflowers her boots had crushed to death when she fled under the moonlight. A year was enough time to turn her friends to dust, but she couldn’t stop smelling charred flesh as if she’d been with them.
She quickened her pace to leave them behind. Dryness thickened her throat like the scream she swallowed every morning after waking up. When she thought it would come up again like bile, she steadied herself at a wooden pole. Her blurred gaze fixed itself to something simple: The mud on her boots. The scattering of gravel. The curved lines of chalk on the rocks’ surface.
The familiarity of it struck her. Most of the drawings had faded from rain, but she recognized the rough scribbles of white and the uneven bumps of paint. She had taught Elly to soak chalk in water to create a paste, and had seen her sister cover sidewalks with drawings. The day before they left the commune, despite Elly’s protests, Corin had stamped them out. At least, she thought she did.
Corin knelt down to turn over the rocks. Each drawing revealed underside was a tiny stab of betrayal. There were ruffled petals colored in white, as if in mid-bloom, and broad circles that spiraled around a stem like full moons. A few of the stems turned into wavy lines, which Corin guessed were locks of hair, a childish depiction of a flower crown worn by a girl. Except, to Elly, these were not ordinary flowers, and this was not an ordinary girl.
Anger pulsed against Corin’s temple as she kicked the rocks into the river. She had told her sister to stop listening to fairy tales. That stories were shared to placate and distract from reality, but they would never be tools to survive in it. All this time, she feared Elly would die in the crossfire of soldiers, be snatched by men with leering eyes, keel over from hunger and poverty. But she hadn’t lost Elly to any of those things.
In the end, her sister had run away to chase the most dangerous thing of all: hope.
? ? ?
SUNSET BLED INTO the mountainside by the time Corin reached Gyldan’s borders, and she understood then why a castle had been built here centuries ago. The rocky terrain overlooked the surrounding forests, and if any god had favored her enough to have her born in wealth, she would have wanted her windows to oversee the towering trees and changing colors of the leaves as well. But the castle was long gone, rumored to be buried with its sleeping princess, and the only sight left was dead foliage and patrolling soldiers. They stood along the border with rifles and sharp eyes, keen to pull the trigger if they spotted Corin as they would any animal.