Cin d'Rella and the Golden Apple : Circle of the Rose Chronicles, Book 2

by S. J. West

  This isn’t the first time Ruby and I have fought one another. While we were at the academy together, Thorn Everly would often pair us up to spar. The only problem with growing up together and having the same teacher for so long is that you both know each other’s favorite attacks and counter moves in a fight. I try to keep this in mind as Ruby pulls her daggers from her boots and takes up a shielded fighting stance with both of her weapons positioned in the middle of her torso with her left hand slightly forward and knuckles out.

  I immediately rush her with my own daggers because I need to force her to the side of the road. Our prime objective here is to move Ruby’s squad out of the way so Gus can drive the van over the bridge and back to the Guild. Ruby’s goal is clear enough to me. If she can, she’ll kill me. Her attacks are swift and target my most vulnerable areas in close, hand-to-hand combat: my throat and abdomen. Once our fight has taken us off to the side of the road, Gus guns the van’s engine as he prepares to cross the bridge. Ruby must hear it too because she raises the dagger in her left hand in an attempt to run it across my face at eye level. I presume she’s hoping that the threat of her rendering me blind will distract me enough to forget about the other blade she’s thrusting toward my gut. I choose to do something that she wouldn’t expect me to in a fight. I simultaneously drop both of my daggers.

  The split second of surprise on Ruby’s face gives me enough time to cross my arms, grab each of her wrists with both of my hands, and twist her arms until her back is against my chest. I push Ruby forward to pin her between the waist-high guardrail of the bridge and me. Her left arm is bent at an awkward angle, and if I pull a little bit harder, I can break it.

  As she squirms to get out of my hold, I yell, “Stop moving, Ruby! If you don’t, I’ll break your arm!”

  “Do it!” she dares me.

  I pull on her left arm tighter, but I don’t break it. I keep her pinned until after the van rushes past us. I turn my head to watch it cross the bridge until it’s on our side of town.

  Now that my mission is complete and I have Ruby at my mercy, I take the opportunity to ask her the one question that’s been on my mind since I saw her.

  “Why are you here, Ruby?” I ask. “How can you work for the Princes after all the years you spent training to be a Thorn?”

  “Deciding to work for them was the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” she says vehemently, tossing her strawberry blonde hair to the side as she turns her head to look back at me like a rabid dog. “If you had been thrown out of Shadowspire, this is exactly where you would have ended up too, Cin. They molded us into fighting machines and then threw us away like garbage. Screw the Thorns, Cin, and screw you and your squad!”

  Out of nowhere, the end of one of Gretel’s black battle batons whacks Ruby on the left side of her head, rendering her unconscious.

  “I’ve been wanting to do that for years,” Gretel says with a sense of gratification as I place my hands underneath Ruby’s arms and gently lay her down on the ground by the guardrail.

  “She’s just hurting, Gretel,” I say.

  “Are you seriously feeling sorry for Ruby Levard?” my best friend asks in disbelief.

  “How would you feel if we hadn’t gotten any votes from the Thorns?” I ask her. “That’s like getting a slap in the face. I’m not trying to justify her decision to work for the Princes, but for someone as prideful as Ruby, I can understand why she’s here.”

  “I guess,” Gretel says, turning to look out over the river. It’s no secret that Gretel has always hated Ruby and her “I’m better than you” attitude. I should probably feel lucky that she didn’t do something worse than knocking Ruby out cold. Gretel returns her gaze to mine. “The other members of her squad are knocked out too. I figured it was better to leave them like this than have them follow us across the bridge.”

  “Good idea,” I say. “We should start walking over to the Guild to make sure the guys made it there safely.”

  Gretel gives me a shrewd look. “By the way, did sitting in Coltan’s lap give you a little buzz on the behind?”

  Gretel laughs when I scowl back at her.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumble as I look over to the other side of the bridge.

  Both Scarlet and Isabel are pulling the rest of Ruby’s squad as close to the two-and-a-half-foot steel railing as possible in case any vehicles travel across the bridge before the girls wake up.

  “Oh, come on, Cin, you know I’m only joking,” she tells me as she places her batons into their holders on her back. “This is the first time you’ve ever had a boyfriend. I’m allowed to pick on you a little bit.”

  “I wouldn’t call Coltan my boyfriend,” I say since I don’t believe our relationship has gotten to that point yet.

  “Then what is he to you?”

  I hate to admit it, but Gretel’s question stumps me.

  “I’m not sure yet,” I confess. “I need more time to figure it out. All I know right now is that he’s important to me, and I think we’re meant to be in each other’s lives.”

  “You sound so sure of that. Do you mind me asking why?”

  I debate on whether or not I should tell Gretel about seeing the apparition of Coltan’s mother at the funeral. When Isabel and Scarlet join us on the bridge, I decide to tell my friends what happened because I need someone to talk to about it.

  “Let’s get to our side of town,” I tell them. “I need to tell you all something that happened at the funeral, but I don’t want to take the chance of one of these girls overhearing me.”

  “Ohhh, a mystery,” Scarlet says, intrigued by my words. “Let’s go then, so you can tell us what happened.”

  As we walk across the bridge, I ask Gretel, “Did you happen to get the name of the new girl in Ruby’s squad before you knocked her out?”

  “Nah,” she answers. “I do know she’s not a mage, and her fighting skills were mediocre compared to mine. She clearly hasn’t been trained properly, but she tried her best. Unfortunately for her, it wasn’t good enough.”

  “Kacey fought like a rabid beast,” Scarlet states, sounding shocked. “I think she would have killed me if I had given her the chance.”

  “Yeah, Amber was the same way,” Isabel says, looking distressed that our former classmate would be out for her blood.

  “If I had let my guard down, Ruby would have killed me for sure,” I tell them.

  “They’re just jealous of us,” Gretel says, rolling her eyes. “We’ve all known for years that only one of our squads would graduate. It’s not like what happened was a surprise.”

  “Still, it must have hurt not to have at least one Thorn vote for them,” Isabel says, mirroring my own words to Gretel not that long ago. “That would have upset me.”

  “Me too,” Scarlet agrees. “But like Gretel said, we all knew only one squad could graduate. Even Lolo knew her squad wasn’t going to make the cut. That’s why she arranged to get a job at the Guild before the votes were even cast.”

  “She was the sensible one out of that group,” Gretel says as our feet finally touch down on our side of town. She stops walking and turns toward me, which makes Isabel and Scarlet stop too. “So spill, Cin. What do you need to tell us about the funeral?”

  I swallow hard and lead my friends to a bench behind the library that looks across to the Prince side of town. I’m not sure how my friends will react to what I have to tell them, but after a few seconds of delaying, I determine it might be best to treat it like ripping off a bandage and do it fast.

  “I saw the ghost of Coltan’s mother,” I say as I closely watch their reactions to my secret.

  None of my friends say anything. They simply look at me like I’m the one who’s a ghost.

  “Did you say you saw a ghost?” Gretel finally asks after the initial shock wears off.

  “Yes,” I reply, doubly confirming it with a curt nod of my head. “And she spoke to me.”

  “What did she say?” Isabel asks, leaning forward in
her excitement.

  I go on to tell them what Sela Prince said to me in as much detail as I can remember.

  “I wonder what she meant by saying Coltan’s dad has information for him about something,” Gretel ponders. “It seems odd that his mom didn’t tell him herself while she could have.”

  “Apparently, it’s something she only wanted him to know after she passed away,” I say.

  “It’s going to be a little hard for his dad to tell him anything now that Coltan will be living at the Guild,” Scarlet points out. “As far as I know, Edward Prince never leaves his side of the city.”

  “I suppose he could write him a letter,” I say, studying the spires that pierce the sky where Edward Prince reigns. “I’m sure he’ll figure out a way to get the information to Coltan.”

  “I’m more interested in what she meant about the Prince family being ‘chosen’ to divide the city,” Scarlet says. “Chosen by whom and for what purpose?”

  “I’m not sure,” I reply. “I intend to ask Maximus about it though. Coltan’s mom said he would be able to tell us the real history of the city.”

  “That should be an interesting conversation,” Gretel says. “Have you told Coltan that you saw his mom’s ghost?”

  “No,” I say, kicking a rock next to my feet. I watch it tumble over the pavement before it cascades down the riverbank and into the water below. “I wanted to talk to Maximus first to see if it was a side effect of wearing the ring.”

  Isabel gasps as if she has had one of her brilliant ideas. Her eyes are so wide they reflect the river behind me, but then a look of uncertainty shrouds her expression.

  “You thought of something. What is it?” I ask her.

  “When you were on the island,” she begins, “you were changing into a revenant, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, hoping she’ll expand on her idea. “Do you think some of their traits are still inside me?”

  “I’m not sure about that,” she says as if my idea isn’t the crux of the matter. “In order to heal yourself, you had to drink Ari’s blood. Blood that came from her heart.”

  “All of that reading you do is finally paying off!” Gretel says, looking impressed with our book-loving friend.

  “You think Ari’s magic was passed on to me through her blood?” I ask. It is a logical explanation if Maximus tells me seeing ghosts isn’t an effect of the ring.

  “That does make a lot of sense,” Scarlet agrees with a thoughtful tilt of her head.

  “Do mermaids have the power to see spirits?” I ask our resident scholar.

  “I’m not sure,” Isabel replies with a shake of her head. “There isn’t a lot known about mermaids. Most people never see one, much less talk to one, and from what Ari told you, it sounds like she was the only mermaid who got trapped here with us by the curse.”

  “Maybe the books Coltan gave the Guild have some more information in them about mermaids,” Scarlet suggests. “That’s where he found the prophecy about Ari, right?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Does anyone else think it’s strange that the prophecy was in there?” Isabel asks.

  “What do you mean?” Gretel says.

  “Well, doesn’t it seem a little odd that a prophecy about a private agreement between the sea witch and Ari somehow made it into one of those books?”

  “From what Ari said, it seemed like she made the deal with the sea witch before the curse was cast,” I say. “Maybe someone came across the sea witch and she told him or her about Ari.”

  “That seems like a bit of a stretch,” Gretel says, sounding skeptical.

  “I realize that, but do you have a better suggestion?” I ask.

  “Let’s suppose that your hypothesis is true,” Isabel says. “That same person would have had to write it down in the book Coltan read, which brings up even more questions. Who wrote all those books, and how did they know so much about ancient artifacts, prophecies, and potions? I mean, is it me, or is something not adding up here?”

  We all stare in silence at the river, contemplating.

  “Let’s go to the Guild,” I tell the others. “We really need to speak with Maximus about all of this to see what he has to say. I doubt he was chosen to be the head of the Circle because of his good looks. He must have access to classified information.”

  By the time we make it back to Kane Hall on the Guild grounds, we find Coltan, Maximus, and Gus each flipping through the pages of one of the Prince books in the study.

  “Have you found anything interesting yet?” I ask as we stride into the room.

  Maximus instantly stands from the chair behind his desk to walk over to us. Both Coltan and Gus abandon their books on the chairs they were sitting in by the fireplace to join us as well. The rapid desertion of their books leads me to assume that they were simply finding ways to distract themselves while awaiting our return. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for any of them to leave us on that bridge, but it’s what needed to be done to preserve the precarious peace between us and the Princes. If Maximus had become involved in the confrontation, he would have crossed a line that could have toppled our city.

  “I take it everything went as expected with Ruby and the other girls,” Maximus says as he comes to stand in front of us.

  “We handled them easily enough,” I reply as Coltan and Gus walk up to join in on the conversation.

  When I look at Coltan’s shoulder, I notice Anwen is curled up in a fetal position sound asleep against his neck.

  “Wow,” I say at the sight of the two of them together. “I’ve never seen her sleep during the day. She must feel really comfortable with you.”

  “Maybe she tired herself out by talking so much in the van on the way over here,” he replies as he holds back a chuckle about the experience. I presume he doesn’t want to laugh out loud because it might wake Anwen up from what looks like a peaceful slumber.

  “I think Anwen needs to teach us how to wrap people around her little finger,” Gretel says of our friend. “She might be smaller than the rest of us, but she’s quickly becoming one of the most important.”

  “She’s so tiny and innocent,” Coltan says in amazement. “You can’t help but feel protective of her.”

  I totally agree with Coltan’s sentiment because I felt that way about Anwen when we first met too. Her diminutive stature and innocent personality make her childlike in a lot of ways. If you add in that she lost almost everyone who ever meant anything to her in her life, it’s a wonder that she’s able to stay so upbeat and loving.

  “Were you able to find that verse you were talking about?” I ask Coltan.

  “Not yet.” He gestures toward the piles of books in frustration. “The books got all jumbled up in the move. It’s going to take me a little while to figure out which one I saw it written in.”

  “Do you have any idea who wrote all the information in these books?” I ask him. “Could it have been a family member?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” he says, leaning over to pick up a book. He opens the front cover. “There are no authors listed anywhere, and my mother didn’t seem to know either. She told me that our family has always had the books but that the origin of their contents is a mystery.”

  “Why don’t you all try to help Coltan find the book he’s looking for?” I suggest to my squad. “I need to speak with Maximus in private for a moment.”

  The girls immediately understand why I want to pull Maximus aside to converse with him. For one thing, I don’t want Coltan to know that I spoke to his dead mother yet. I need to discuss it with Maximus first and figure out where that particular ability came from. Was it a one-time event? Will I be speaking to ghosts on a permanent basis? These are questions I need to try and resolve for my own sanity’s sake.

  “Come on, Coltan,” Gretel says, tugging on a sleeve of his white dress shirt. “Let’s see if we can find that book.”

  While Gretel and the girls draw Coltan away toward the stacks of books scattered around the stud
y, Maximus and I step out into the hallway and walk down to his sitting room. When we step into the room, a sense of comfort washes over me because the place is filled with warmth from the brown-and-beige color scheme on the furnishings to the huge stone fireplace centered between two sets of large-paned glass and dark wood doors that lead out onto a veranda overlooking a picturesque flower garden behind Kane Hall.

  After Maximus closes the door behind him, he turns to me and motions toward the couch in the room, silently suggesting that we both sit there while we talk.

  “What’s wrong, Cin?” he asks as he takes his seat beside me.

  “I saw Sela Prince at the funeral,” I tell him.

  Maximus furrows his brows and gives me a hard look.

  “Do you mean you saw her body?” he asks, assuming there was an open casket before she was placed inside the crypt.

  “No,” I say, wringing my hands in my lap. “I mean I saw her ghost or spirit or whatever you want to call it. She spoke to me, Maximus. Did the ring you gave me give me that ability?”

  Maximus frowns for a moment. His reaction gives me the answer even before he begins to shake his head.

  “The ring only gave you the power to be invisible to those around you,” he tells me. “Is this the first time you’ve seen a spirit?”

  I nod. “Yes. Isabel suggested that since I drank the blood from Ari’s heart, that it might have given me the power to see dead people. What do you think? Or could it be because I was so close to becoming a revenant on the island?”

  “I think Isabel is probably right,” he says. “Since a mage’s magic is localized within the heart, it’s reasonable to assume that the magic Ari was given by the sea witch was stored there also.”

  “Speaking of Ari,” I begin as I work up my courage to tell him something the mermaid said that I’ve avoided talking about with anyone, “when she found out that I survived a revenant bite, she said that had to mean I was more than human. According to her, regular humans die as soon as they are bitten. Do you know why I didn’t, Maximus?”