The Tears of the Rose Read Online Free PDF Page A

uneven auburn shag. “Danu—you sound like you’re five, not eighteen.”
    I gasped, outrage filling me, and threw the teacup at her head with an incoherent scream. She plucked it neatly out of the air and I found myself gaping at her. She’d always been fast, but I hadn’t seen her hand move. Giving me that look , she poured more tea into the cup and set it on my tray.
    â€œThis is the second time I’m cutting you slack, Ami. This is a horrible thing for you to go through, and I know it’s our fault for always spoiling and petting you. Still, you’re going to have to find it in yourself to come through this. I can only do so much.”
    She turned and closed the door behind her with a soft and significant click.
    Furious, I hurled the teacup at the door, enjoying the satisfying smash of the delicate ceramic. For good measure I followed it with the plate of stupid toast. Then I flung myself on my pillows, willing myself to cry.
    But the tears refused me.
    I was as dry as stone.

3
    T hree days later—at least I managed to delay an extra day—we left for Ordnung.
    Ursula always gets her way. I might as well have tried to stop a stampeding bull. None of my protests swayed her. She insisted she had reasons for me to make the journey. But by the way her sharp eyes rested on me, I knew she mainly wanted to keep me off the cliffs.
    And in the dark of night, when the wind howled, I could admit to myself that she might be right to worry. The irrational thoughts plagued me. Hugh couldn’t be alone among those stones, with the weather so cruel. It’s only his body, I told myself, staring up at the flickering shadows that turned the cheerful rosettes into death’s heads. He doesn’t feel it. He’s gone.
    Still, I saw the desolation in his summer-blue eyes, wondering why I didn’t come for him.
    I tried praying to Glorianna, but She was as silent as She’d always been.
    Like crumbling mortar, my rational mind gave way, bit by bit, until by dawn, I felt wrung out and exhausted with the effort not to go to him. Then the sickness rose and I never wanted more to die. It made getting through the nights that much harder. That’s why I delayed only one extra day, to prove I could.
    Ursula was right to make me leave. Not that I’d ever tell her that.
    The morning we left, I paid a farewell visit to Hugh’s tomb. High Priest Kir accompanied me, to bestow a last blessing, as he and Old Erich planned to accompany us to Ordnung. His strange assistant followed behind. Thankfully he wore that deep cowl as before, keeping his head bowed to spare us the sight of that disfigured face.
    Ironically, the sun had chosen that day to shine in the cold winter sky, and the wind, though never gone, blew with teasing pulls of my hair—almost gentle, hinting that spring might indeed arrive someday. We went early, the rising sun at our backs, then lost behind the bulk of Windroven.
    The tombs felt none of the warmth. Already Hugh’s matched the others—the stones in the arch of his crypt as worn, equally limned with frost. For a panicked moment I wasn’t even sure which was his. The morning sick—as if it felt my fear—swirled up, and I fumbled for one of the mint candies that seemed to help. I might not have Ursula’s dignity or responsibility, but I’d be mortified to barf on the High Priest’s pink slippers.
    Kir’s assistant, however, went unerringly to one farther down than I’d thought. Clutching the wreath of Glorianna roses they’d given me, I trailed behind, ready to tell him that he was wrong. But then I saw the mortar marks, the bits and crumbs leading to the sealed door.
    My legs wouldn’t hold me, so I knelt, pretending to a reverence that eluded me while Kir chanted Glorianna’s blessing for the dead. Instead, I counted the archways, so I could find Hugh’s again when we returned. It’s not