Painted Roses

The End of Beauty

Rosalia reached home just in time to see Luka's carriage drawing up ahead of her. She almost fell out of her carriage to get to him before anyone else – one of her sisters or a gossipy servant.

She didn't need any of them interfering, hiding what she knew from him for her own benefit was bad enough – she at least needed to get something out of it.

She latched onto his arm as he reached the bottom of the steps and he jumped, pulling back, as ever uncomfortable with surprise contact.

"Rosalia," he said, shocked, looking at her.

"Welcome back, have you spoken to anyone?" Rosalia asked, looking around wildly as if Beldon might appear out of thin air beside them.

"Excuse me? No, your rider caught us on the road back and we came straight here, are you alright," Luka said, frowning at her. "Why? What is it? Is Beldon alright?"

The question made her internally cringe but she nodded regardless. "He's not at home at the moment but I need to speak to you."

She pushed him up the steps, her servants following with luggage and confused expressions.

The door to her father's office opened as they reached the entrance hall and Antoinette raced out, horror in her eyes.

"Bel!" she shouted, stopping when she saw the pair, looking around for Beldon. "Where is he? Luka, didn't he meet you?"

"No," Luka said, stopping, his muscles tensing under Rosalia's hand. "What is it?"

"You haven't heard? Of course you haven't. Where is that fool?!"

She spun away, running back into the office – so unlike her usual unruffled demeanour – and the doors slammed behind her, her raised voice filtering through the wood.

"What is going on? What happened to Bel?" Luka asked, looking at Rosalia.

"Nothing," she said, pulling him towards a front parlour, "he's just being... difficult."

"Difficult how?"

"Stubborn."

"He's always stubborn, how is this different? Rosalia." Luka dug his heels in and she had no chance of moving him with her strength against his. "Rosalia what is going on?"

"Luka, I need your help, I need to discuss something with you first, if you do that, I will of course tell you. But please."

Luka narrowed his eyes at her, his jaw locked. She was completely depending on his usual pampering of her – as she was Beldon's favourite sister. But he tolerated her more than most people only because she was Beldon's favourite sister, and that luxury only took things so far with the fearsome Luka Rose.

It held this time however, he walked forwards and took a seat, crossing his long legs and looking at her.

"Alright, what do you want to know?"

Rosalia pulled the poems from her purse and set them in front of him.

Luka leant forwards to the table, scanning the words and his brow creased in confusion.

"How did you come to own these?" he asked, his voice low.

"Kilan sent me this one," Rosalia said, pointing to the Lucinda poem. "Apparently it is known as a story amongst Storytellers as a poem that relates to a curse."

Luka's eyes flicked up to hers. "And this one?" he asked, pointing to the poem about him. "How did you come by this?"

Rosalia took a breath, sitting down. "It was given to me," she said – the words not sitting very comfortably on her tongue was she wasn't entirely lying either.