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her chambers,” he replied. He turned to his left and headed down a
different corridor. The walls were painted bright blue, lined with the
golden-framed portraits of elegant men and ladies of past eras. When he came to
Sandra’s large wooden door, he knocked gently.  Moments later the door
opened and he entered the chambers beyond.
    The
room was large with walls painted in the same royal blue that filled the
hallways. Lady Sandra sat before a huge fire on the far side of the room in a
gown of deep green velvet. A leather-bound book sat in Sandra’s lap, which she
closed at his entrance. “My Lady,” the Captain said to the future Princess.
“You asked to see me?”
    “Yes.
I want to know more about the man who was being punished. Who is he?”
    “He
is the Captain of the Ciar Royal Guard.”
    “Yes,
but…I want to know more.”
    Regald
moved toward a large couch which stood across from her and took a seat upon the
cream colored cushions. “Edward has served as Captain to the Ciar Queen,
Clarissa, for roughly twelve hundred years. He has trained more members of both
the Arum and Ciar Guard than anyone. He also trained several members of the
Black Rose.”
    “Including
Mara?”
    Captain
Regald tilted his head and leaned slightly forward. “You know Mara?”
    Sandra
tensed and moved to cradle her head in the palm of her left hand. The vision of
a tall woman with long black hair and violet eyes flashed before her. Then just
as quickly, it vanished. “She is the Captain of the Black Rose Guard, is she
not?”
    “Yes,
my Lady.”
    “I…”
She wracked her brain, but the image refused to return. “No. I suppose I do
not.”
    “Well,
her identity and position is far from a secret.”
    “Sometimes
I know things and I am not sure why.”
    “It
is to be expected. We know that your memories are scattered at best. Remember,
my Lady, I am the Guard who found you.”
    Sandra
remembered little before waking up in the wings of the Arum Court healers. She
had been found severely injured, wandering through the forest. She had almost
no memories of her past. 
    “I
saw him,” Sandra confessed to the man who had spent the past two hundred years
watching her from afar, as though finding her had somehow made him responsible
for her safety. She had been grateful for the watchful eye, and upon becoming
engaged to the Crown Prince, had shyly asked the King if he could oversee her
protection detail. The King had consented and Regald had spent the past few
months splitting his time between and the King and future Princess. 
    So
it was to Regald, and not her fiancé, that she offered her confession. “I saw
him.  Edward, I mean. I saw him, or at least…I think I did.”
    “Saw
him?” Regald questioned. “Do you mean…you remembered him?”
    “Yes.
No. I’m not sure. It was like a dream. Only it was more like a nightmare. What
she did to him was…it was so awful.”
    “She?”
    Sandra
turned her gaze back towards the bright yellow flames. “There was a woman in a
rose garden.” She shook her head. “No, there was a rose garden, and then there
was a woman in a room of stone the color of obsidian. She was hurting him.”
    “A
rose garden?”
    “Yes,
full of red and violet roses.”
    “Red
and violet? Are you sure?” 
    She
nodded. 
    “The
Court roses have not bloomed in those colors for centuries.”
    Sandra
closed her eyes and searched her memories. She found only darkness.
    “I
need to see him.”
    “My
Lady.” Regald cleared his throat. “Captain Edward is no longer here. He has
been returned to his court.”
    “The
Black Rose came for him, didn’t she?”
    Regald’s
eyes widened. “How did you know that?”
    Sandra
shook her head and turned her deep blue eyes on the Captain’s. “I don’t know.”

Chapter VII
    Nolan
knocked on the door to Mara’s borrowed room, down a few hallways from the
Captain’s chambers. “Come in,” Mara called from behind the silver stone. The
door opened with a soft