Of Blood and Roses

Chapter 3

Four days later, I was watching as the rising mountain peaks of the Golden Mountians grew taller until they blocked everything from sight. Snow already dusted their edges, long fingery lines extending to the earth. The hands of Angels, our priestess would say. Reaching down to protect the Angelicans from the enemy.

Garnette. The Golden Mountains ringed our border, creating a natural barrier between us and the Angel-haters.

We had been moving through the countryside for some time. There had been nothing in sight but long stretches of farmland, workers out cutting down the last of the stalks in order to prepare for the winter.

"We're almost to the pass."

I jumped, having grown so accustomed to the long stretch of silence I could almost imagine I was in my carriage alone. Lady Sabine wasn't looking at me; her gaze fixed on the mountains. Her expression was fixed, the hard lines of her jaw and cheekbones from stone. "It has been ages since I passed through here."

Despite not wanting to indulge her, I found that a spark of curiosity burned at the back of my mind, no matter how I wanted to ignore it. Questions had been building for days now.

I sighed. "You've been to Garnette before?"

We swayed in the carriage, its wheels turning below us as the driver maneuvered the horses around a bend in the road. She shook her head.

"No. Cristaney. I was born there."

Unlike Garnette, relations between Cristaney and Rosailles had always been mostly pleasant; a memory of an old alliance between warrior Queens that had been wrought during the trials of the Great Wars.

Though her revelation only created more questions, I kept them to myself. "I heard it is beautiful there?"

Sabine's lips curved in a small smile as she looked out the window. "It is. Much warmer than Rosailles. At least it was in my hometown. Sometimes it would rain and storms would roll in off the south sea for a few months, but most of what I remember is the bright, beaming sunlight. I was only a child then. I've spent most of my life in Rosailles, watched over by Our Great Mother."

My gaze dropped to her pin. Though the Goddess was still worshiped in Rosailles, along with the three eyed Matron called upon by some communities in the northern provinces, most people in the capital spoke to the Great Queen Mother and her Angels.

 I considered Sabine, finding myself curious about how she came to be the woman that she was. Did she have a family back in Verenice that would miss her? How long had she been working at the palace?

"That must have been hard. To leave so young."

The smile slipped from Sabine's lips, her gaze dark and penetrating as it met mine. I couldn't help but blush and look away. I was so used to people not meeting my gaze, it felt more intimate than Sabine likely intended.

"True, but it is even harder leaving Rosailles now. I know it better than I knew Cristaney."

I glanced again at her pin. It was easy enough to figure out why she was leaving. Rosailles might have been home of the Angels, but orders from the Queen were seen as orders from the Angels themselves.

I bowed my head a fraction. "As the Angels wish."

"The Angels always know best," she replied, a slight edge slipping into her voice as if perhaps she didn't believe what she was saying. I studied her a moment, but her expression was impassive.

 I furrowed my brow, returning my gaze to the window and watching as the mountains swallowed us whole.

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