Page 48 of Ash and Roses
After exhausting all other options, I come to a stop just outside a pair of rose-covered doors. The last time I came here, he’d screamed at me to leave, but after what happened yesterday…
I push the door open as carefully as I can and poke my head through the small space. At first I don’t see any sign of him, but then I glimpse movement by the altar in the center of the rose spiral. His back is to me, but the subtle tensing of his shoulders tells me he’s aware of my presence. I guess I should be relieved that he isn’t outright screaming at me.
“Quinn?”
For a long moment, I go unanswered. I consider leaving because he’s made it clear that this is no place for me, but the ever-so slight tremble that runs through him gives me pause. It’s not the fierce jerk of pain I’ve seen grip him before, nor is it the chill of an icy breeze.
I try again. “I know you don’t want me here, but—”
“It’s fine,” he says, cutting me off. “I think I’ve been waiting for you.” He turns to me, and there’s a look on his face that I can’t quite place. It’s not unfriendly, but it’s not exactly welcoming either.
I step through the door and let it fall closed behind me. The garden is just as breathtaking now as it was when I was here briefly. The air is far cooler than it was then, but the roses don’t seem to suffer for it like the other flowers around the valley. “You’re not planning to sacrifice me on that altar, are you?” It’s a joke, but there’s a thin layer of genuine concern behind the question.
He laughs softly, and with it some of the tension leaves his shoulders and the air between us. “It’s not for sacrifices.”
“So what’s it for?” I feel like this is something I have no right asking, but curiosity gets the better of me.
“I’ll show you.”
I follow the spiralling path until I reach him in the very heart of the garden. Once again, my shawl rests atop the stone altar. I keep silent as he strokes a hand over the coarse hair and down the length of it.
“Her name was Klarissa,” he says finally, and his words sting like the lash of a whip. Why did it never occur to me that the wolf that attacked during the Lunar Hunt was one of Quinn’s people? I couldn’t have known when I first arrived, but after witnessing the change for myself…
“I didn’t know.” I want to say more, but the words don’t come. It’s as if a shock-induced blockade has formed in my throat, and I can’t squeeze a word past it.
“That’s why I got so upset when you were… You know.” When I waswearingher.
“I don’t know what to say. I’m so sorry. She attacked me, and—”
“I don’t need to hear the details.” There’s no anger in his voice, but rather an absence of emotion. Wolves rarely attacked during the hunt, but Klarissa was far from the first. How many of his people has he lost this way?
“Will you tell me about her?” I regret the words the instant they escape my lips, but Quinn doesn’t seem to mind them. In fact, I can almost swear his lips turn up in the slightest of smiles.
“She was a lot like you, actually.”
“Highly intelligent, with a great sense of humour?”
He flashes me a sidelong glance. “Too stubborn for her own good. She was a risk-taker. I guess she carried that with her into this form.”
“You seem like you were close.”
He shrugs. “I enjoyed her company, but it wasn’t anything more than that. The curse made sure I didn’t see anyone very much, but she had a way of making me feel a bit less lonely.”
So he and I both lost someone recently. Even if she wasn’t a lover to him, it’s obvious he cared for her. I wish he’d just told me so that I didn’t fight him so hard over wearing the shawl. I know why he didn’t, but my heart hurts just thinking about him and Tess and Ruben and who knows who else having to see me wearing what remained of someone they knew.
My eyes sting and I can’t suppress the feeling before a tear slides down my cheek and drips onto the altar below. Quinn brings a hand to my cheek and wipes the trail away. “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry. I just—” A sob rips through me before I can finish.
“I didn’t tell you this to make you feel bad. I was going to do this before you woke up, but instead, I’ve been standing out here for hours.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you to see the one beautiful thing that comes with this curse.”
Before I can ask, he waves a hand over the altar, and the fur ignites. I jump back, startled by the sudden appearance of flame, but his hands steady me. I watch, mesmerized, as the unnatural flame engulfs the pelt and then, after only a few seconds, burns itself out. Only a small pile of ash remains atop the altar.
“How did you do that?” Quinn can’t be mageborn. He’s never used magic before, and I’ve never heard of a sorcerer doing something like this.