Silver Skeletons: Book 3 The Rose Tree Chronicles

Chapter Four: The Future Looks Dim...

"The Sovereign and his Parliament of the Kingdom of Noelle hereby hold that 'Property' is an object or living thing that a Person purchases or trades for ownership of as per the Trade Laws of Noelle. Once a Noelle citizen has purchased or traded for the possession of Property, that citizen owns the object or living thing and may do with it as he or she wishes. Thus, that citizen dictates what the object or living thing does and speaks for it. Furthermore, a Slave is, by definition, Property."

Rein sighed heavily, but slowly all the pieces came together to form a very important picture. At least now she was aware of who was on Nadia's side and who was not. However, revealing whatever plot Ariana and Rallian were concocting could be dangerous depending on who she revealed such information to.

Then there was the case of the Rose Tree. Somehow it changed overnight; the night after Nadia's first day as a slave. Suddenly a realization came over Rein. After having gone over the different observations Polaris and Wendell had made of the Rose Tree, Rein felt excited about the changes. She knew exactly what was happening there, but she still had to learn whom she could trust with such information, or whom she could trust period. Now that she gradually began to understand all these events, it would be nice to have an ally with whom to work, if not to get Nadia to the palace, to at least set her free.

Since the king seemed to be highly emotional and likely didn't respond well to logic, Rein's first thought was to learn about how Polaris's mind worked. Hopefully he didn't make the Rose Tree's transformation a priority over locating Nadia. She found his bedchamber as soon as he left it, which slightly frustrated her as she had just missed him. She was about to follow him to wherever he was headed until she realized that this might be a good chance to search around his room and learn a bit about him that way. Since she had recently overheard that Polaris was pure human, she concluded that he would spend most of his time at his desk studying, so that was the first place she approached.

Rein landed on top of his mahogany desk where she found a black feather quill and inkwell, a decorative dagger, a few books stacked on top of each other, a journal that had been left open, parchment covered with handwritten notes beneath everything, and a glass filled halfway with a foggy liquid. Rein climbed over the clutter and stood in front of the glass to look through it and then attempted to peer into it from the top. Immediately she recoiled, having not expected such a bitter stench of vinegar. What use was a glass full of vinegar?

Rein continued with her investigation and stepped over to the journal, which Polaris had left open to the page where he began his Rose Tree research. At this point, he had mainly written notes on the symptoms of the Rose Tree and hypotheses on what could be happening with it: climate change, fairy magic, typical omen – omen of what? Why? A warning? A warning of what? Clearly Polaris was as lost as Wendell on this one.

Curious, Rein flipped back a page to look over what else Polaris had studied before the Rose Tree: such as the king and queen's dream, which she took the time to read.

"So that's how they knew about Nadia beforehand," Rein said aloud. "Fascinating."

She continued to turn back more pages to find that Polaris had also been studying the Continent Islands, what creatures might live on Bellua, the Monturian Islands and the tribes which inhabited them, such as letmonians: a creature that is quite literally a living skeleton. There was even a name for a specific letmonian whom Polaris had studied: Drake. Rein assumed that the letmonian sketches she observed in the journal must be sketches of Drake. In fact, there were many scribbles in this journal about letmonians. Due to the excessive focus on this creature, Rein desired to learn all she could about them. Unable to resist, she took the time to read about how letmonians are very much alive, mortal, and have quite a short lifespan; how they tend to reside in tropical climates; how they reproduce during a ceremony over a pile of bones and their children possess pieces of the parents' bodies and souls. They consume only liquids such as milk, water, sap, juice, and so forth, simply by touching it in some way since nutrients are absorbed through their bones. Of course, too much of anything is bad, so letmonians cannot bathe for lengthy periods of time or even stand in the rain for too long lest they die by over-consumption.