The Tears of the Rose by Jeffe Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page A

preparations at the altar.
    When I looked again, he was gone.

4
    â€œW ho is that?” I asked Kir, who frowned a little, losing his count in the infusion of Glorianna’s wine.
    â€œMy assistant, Your Highness. I believed you’d seen him before, but perhaps in the, ah, aftermath of Prince Hugh’s tragic passing and your extreme grief—”
    â€œNot that.” I gave rein to my irritation. Better than letting the sorrow take me over at Kir’s careless words. Just when I thought the edge had dulled, it swamped me, a wave wanting to drag me off the rocks at Windroven, cold, bitter, and irresistibly powerful. “I mean what is his name? His background.”
    â€œAh.” Kir smiled, composing his features into that beatific expression he favored. “These things are not known to me. He is of the White Monks.”
    I’d vaguely heard of that order, over in far Nebeltfens, but I couldn’t recall why they sounded familiar. A special cult of Glorianna?
    â€œAnd that means?” I prompted Kir, who had to conceal his frustration at losing his count again. “You can leave off on that—I don’t care for the full ceremony tonight.”
    â€œBut, Your Highness, if you wish to pray in the Temple, then—”
    â€œTell me about the White Monks.” I didn’t care if I sounded like a spoiled drama queen right then. Especially if it got me the answers I sought.
    â€œThey consecrate themselves to Glorianna’s service very young. They give up their names, their previous identities, all the better to make themselves vessels for Glorianna’s pure and holy presence.”
    â€œWhy are they called the White Monks—for the robes?”
    â€œThe robes are secondary, Your Highness. The White Monks spend the first three years of service under a strict vow of silence, and the name of their order reflects the stillness and purity they believe that brings. Many never speak again.”
    â€œBut this one does.”
    â€œDid he speak to you? He rarely does.”
    â€œHe did.”
    Kir looked at me expectantly and I nearly said how impertinent—even rude—the assistant had been. Then closed my lips over it. But you won’t do that, will you, Amelia? He’d called me by my name and I hadn’t noticed. How odd.
    â€œI hope he didn’t bother you, Your Highness. You’re something of a legend among the younger priests—in truth, among the older ones, also. This one asked to accompany me in my journey here, but I trusted his taciturn nature to restrain him.”
    â€œI’m a legend? Restrain him from what?” A flutter of pleasure threaded through me, the first since I’d heard the tragic news from Odfell’s Pass. I used to feel this, it seemed ages ago, when some troubadour sang a new song composed to me. Though I would never have told Hugh so, in my heart of hearts I’d missed it. Windroven is well off the traveled routes. And nobody writes poetry about wives.
    â€œThey see you as the incarnation of Glorianna, Your Highness.” He bowed to me, a deeply respectful and ceremonial gesture. “Her avatar, sent to us in our time of need, to combat the demonic forces that threaten to tear us asunder.”
    My heart rose, painfully. “The Tala.”
    He nodded. “Already they tore Princess Andromeda from our breast, leaving a gaping wound for their poison to flow in and rot us from the inside out. You fought to save her.”
    â€œI did.” How did he see what no one else had? “I fought for her with all my might. And so did Prince Hugh.”
    â€œWhich is why she killed him.” He made the sign of Glorianna, a circle in the air. “Like a viper at your bosom, she struck at you, attempting to destroy you, also. But Glorianna protects Her avatar. She’s blessed you with the child who will save us all.”
    â€œShe will?”
    â€œ He will.” Kir made the circle