Last Petal on the Rose and Other Stories Read online

  THE LAST PETAL ON THE ROSE

  and other stories

  By Stephanie Rabig

  Copyright © 2019 Stephanie Holding

  All rights reserved.

  For Mariee Juárez, 19 months old.

  For Angie Valeria, 23 months old.

  For Wilmer Josué Ramírez Vásquez, 2½ years old.

  For Felipe Alonzo-Gómez, 8 years old.

  For Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin, 7 years old.

  For Darlyn Cristabel Cordova-Valle, 10 years old.

  For Carlos Hernandez Vasquez, 16 years old.

  For Juan de León Gutiérrez, 16 years old.

  The Last Petal on the Rose

  "It's over!" Mariska cried, pulling her stepson into her arms. "Janos, it's done!"

  Janos hugged his stepmother back, unsure which surprised him more; the news, or the physical contact from Mariska. Normally she and his brothers barely acknowledged him at all, much less pulled him in for a hug.

  But then, it wasn't every day that a war that had been raging for the past year came to an abrupt halt.

  "What happened?"

  "We captured their Queen's son, and a truce was signed right away," she said, a wide grin on her face. "They're bringing him up to the castle now."

  "Why?" Janos asked. "If a settlement has been reached, then--"

  "Leverage, Janos," she said, and there was the condescending smile he was used to. "We're to keep him here from now on. That was your father's idea," she said proudly. "If those brutes act up again, we'll send them their Prince's head. Come on. Let's go watch the parade! Ambrus and Abel are already there."

  Janos winced at the idea of being at a celebratory parade with his family. The last time that had happened, Ambrus had offered repeatedly to lift him up onto his shoulders so that he could see properly, while their father had roared with laughter. But given the circumstances, perhaps all of them would be too distracted to spend much time teasing him.

  It was something he could never understand, how two tall, robust, golden-skinned people like his father and mother had produced him along with the twins. He had been sickly since birth, still walked with a limp from an illness that had tried to warp his very bones when he'd been a boy, and no matter how much time he spent in the sun, his skin insisted on darkening in random spots rather than all over.

  Mariska grabbed his hand in one of hers and lifted her heavy skirts slightly with the other, running down the hall toward the front doors. Janos scrambled to keep up with her, nearly tripping and trying to focus harder on keeping his feet moving properly when she cast him a derisive look.

  It was over, he thought as they burst through the front doors and looked down at the city below at the throngs of cheering people who lined the streets. The war was actually over.

  The guards were at their sides in an instant, one of them taking Janos's elbow to help steady him as they hurried toward their spot at the end of the parade route. Janos almost told Vernat to let go, that he didn't need the help, but in the end stayed silent. Vernat had been guarding him and his family since he was an infant; no matter what Janos said, he would always see the skinny, ill boy with the body-rattling cough.

  They reached their spectator's box and Mariska greeted the twins with a pleased grin and a kiss on each of their cheeks. King Lorand pulled her to his side, and then continued speaking with Burchard, the Chief of the Military, a tall, broad-chested man with a tight-lipped smile.

  "Janos," Burchard said, when he caught sight of him edging into his place in the box. "Haven't seen you in a long time. Volunteer for any more fights lately?" he asked, casting a conspiratorial smirk around to his father and siblings, who all laughed.

  Ordering his face not to darken with shame, Janos tried not to remember the feeling of humiliation he'd gotten when the war had first started and he'd volunteered for one of the battle divisions. He had no head for war strategy as Ambrus did, no skill at combat like Abel, and he wasn't confident enough in front of crowds to give rousing speeches like Mariska. So when he had asked his father for permission to join the fight itself, to train, to teach his body how to be something other than clumsy, he had expected and received a shrug of approval.

  He'd had high hopes of what military training would do for him. Of finally finding a skill for himself, of coming home a hero.

  Instead, he'd lasted in training camp for two weeks before Burchard had evicted him out of pity, telling him that he would not be responsible for the death of a King's son, however useless.

  "Of course I did," Janos said now. "Why else do you think they surrendered so quickly?"

  Burchard laughed and clapped him on the back, which nearly sent him sprawling over the edge of the box and out onto the ground. "Gods love you, boy. Might not have an ounce of strength but you do have your sense of humor."

  And a good thing, too, Janos thought. He'd discovered over the years that people made fun of him less if he made fun of himself first.

  Then the sound of the crowd rose to a roar, and his father moved to the front of the box. The others followed, leaning over the side in their eagerness to get a look at the prisoner.

  The man stalked around the cage he was being carried in, and despite the fact that Janos knew how sturdy those bars were—the cages were stored in an underground room of the castle, which he had first explored when he was ten—he was still abruptly nervous for the guards surrounding it.

  He had never before seen another person without their shirt on, not in public. Most people would no sooner show themselves out here without a shirt than they would appear without pants. Considering that, Janos expected the man to be cowering, trying to cover himself. The fact that he was pacing around instead spoke of the fact that this state of undress was normal to him. Janos had heard, of course, that the warriors off to the west were barely human, fighting with their hands and with blades rather than long-distance weapons like their own bows and arrows, and that they ambushed soldiers with such savagery that there was barely enough left to bury. So he had realized vaguely that they wouldn't fight in the crisp, clean uniforms and polished shoes that he saw the soldiers here march in, but seeing the evidence in person was a little overwhelming.

  More than a little, he amended, as the guards brought the man closer, and he looked directly at their box.

  "Where will he stay?" Mariska whispered. "I don't like the thought of him being on the castle grounds, Lorand. Look at the brute. He'll kill us all in our sleep given half the chance."

  "No need to worry," he said blithely. "He'll have run of the First Castle, which will be guarded day and night. You won't even know he's there. Unless, of course, you'd like to join one of the tours I'll hold," he said, grinning.

  "Tours?" Mariska asked.

  "For the Lords and Ladies, and eventually anyone else who can pay for the privilege of seeing an enemy combatant face-to-face. We will be surrounded by guards, of course, but enough people are curious that I think we could make quite a bit of gold from this."

  "I'm curious," Janos admitted, as the guards marched the cage past their box and onto the castle grounds.

  "And curious you'll stay," King Lorand said. "The guards will protect everyone, yes, but I'm only sending in people who can run if need be, Janos."

  "I can—" he began, and then realized the futility of it and fell silent.

  *~*~*

  The first tour wasn't held for almost two weeks. Up until that point, they were still preoccupied with the celebrations after the war's end, Lords and Ladies and dignitaries from villages at the other end of the Kingdom coming to the palace for a visit. The feast lasted for six days straight, the kitchen workers barely having time
for sleep before they were called to another shift; the servants did their best to keep the rooms of celebrating guests clean before they returned to them, inebriated, and sullied them again; music rang throughout the halls day and night.

  Janos, well aware that he wouldn't be missed at the party, stayed up in his room and alternated between reading and looking out the window, staring across the grounds at the First Castle.

  It had been abandoned decades upon decades ago when this superior home had been built, and much of it had been boarded off. Not that that had stopped him and the twins from exploring, until the fateful day when he had stepped on a crumbling stair and fallen, breaking his wrist in the landing. After that, every entrance and exit had been secured off, and Janos was doubly sure that was true now that the ruins held a prisoner.

  Still. He couldn't help but wonder if his old secret entrance had been found. He'd never breathed a word of it to his brothers, after all, and it wasn't something that sat out in plain sight like a door or a window.

  Of course, he would tell his father about it. Whether it was well hidden or not, such a thing wasn't safe to have around anymore, considering.

  But first, he wanted a look for himself.

  He watched a large group of Lords and Ladies, along with the King himself, follow the guards into the First Castle. Nearly an hour later they came back out, talking and laughing, and he went downstairs to hear what they had to say.

  "There will be another tour soon?" a Lord asked, taking a small, white-iced pastry from a tray offered by a passing servant. "My wife is still out on her horseback ride and insisted I wait for her to go see the prisoner. We have to leave for home tomorrow afternoon, so..."

  "Another tour in the morning," the King said. "And you won't be disappointed! We didn't even have to send the guards to bring him to the main room for inspection; he charged right at us!"

  "I thought he would kill one of the guards! It was terrifying!" Lady Fenna exclaimed, though she was clearly enjoying herself. "Mariska, you simply must come with us tomorrow morning."

  "I'll think about it," she said, though the tight smile on her face told Janos she'd already made up her mind. Come morning, she would suddenly 'feel faint' or come up with a different excuse until eventually people stopped asking.

  "Doubt you'll get as good a show tomorrow, though," Lord Hartmann said. "He won't charge at any of us again, not after the guards dealt with him."

  "That's assuming it's capable of learning from its mistakes," the King joked.

  "Is it true that they drink the blood of their enemies?" a Lady asked, her voice timid but the light in her eyes lending her soft face a ghoulish appearance.

  "True!" one of their Generals said. "Seen it myself! Some of them will go so far as to sharpen their own teeth before battle. And the human sacrifices..." He shuddered for dramatic effect. "Their gods are beastly, bloodthirsty things, and to appease them they'll kill their own children. Or those of their enemies, should they get the chance. They sacrifice the first-born child of every new year, to appease their gods. Once, when we pushed further into their territory, I saw—"

  The Lords and Ladies gathered around him, asking more questions, oohing and aahing at the details he gladly handed out. Janos left the ballroom, unnoticed by anyone, and headed back up to his quarters again.

  The castle doctors had insisted on seeing the man when they'd brought him in. Whether they needed to see him again now, Janos didn't know. He doubted that his father would have let the guards beat the prisoner too severely—they needed to keep him alive to continue using him as leverage, after all—but then again...

  It didn't seem right, he thought. To keep someone so far away from home, all by themselves.

  And if his father knew he'd even entertained that thought for an instant, he would banish him. Refinement was to be praised, he well knew that. But weakness?

  The prisoner wasn't starved or kept completely in darkness. Janos watched sometimes as guards brought in food and drink, and several of the rooms upstairs were lit with a candle's warm glow, more than enough to read by. He wondered if the guards had thought to bring in any books.

  Janos left his quarters and headed outside, waving to the guards, who were more than used to seeing him wandering the gardens at night. Instead of looking at the stars or at the night-blooming flowers, he made his way to one of the gardening sheds. Pushing aside a rack of tools, he pulled up three floorboards, revealing a tunnel.

  It had been after his broken wrist had finally healed that he'd discovered this passageway. He'd gotten back into the First Castle through a window that hadn't yet been blocked off, and poked around in the lower levels. To his surprise, behind an old pile of linens, he had found a door, barely visible, no more than a few cracks in the stone. He had pushed it open and eagerly followed the tunnel, reaching up at the end of it to find himself pushing up part of the floor in one of the gardening sheds. For a time after that he'd gone out to the First Castle every night simply because he could, exploring every nook and cranny and trying not to think too much about what would happen if he found another crumbling stair. When he didn't appear at meals, would anyone even think to look for him out here?

  Which was again a valid question, he thought as he pulled the boards down after him, settling them back into place. No one would be doing any gardening at this time of night, and even if someone came into the shed, all they would see was a rack of tools moved just slightly away from the wall. It was doubtful they would even take notice of the misplacement.

  He hurried along the tunnel, patting once or twice at the familiar stone walls. After he'd explored the castle to his heart's content, he'd started inspecting the walls here. He'd found etchings in the stone, small carvings of animals, or names scrawled. He wondered if the people who'd written these things had done so out of boredom—had they hidden down here?—or simply because they felt like it after using this tunnel day after day. The gardening shed hadn't always been there; several buildings had been knocked down over the years. Perhaps the tunnel had once led from the First Castle to a fortress of some kind, or perhaps it had even once led outside the protective barricade, so people ambushed inside the castle had an escape route. He had looked through the library for any information about previous incarnations of their grounds but hadn't found much. Details about such things were probably in papers kept in the King's private quarters, and asking for them would only reveal his secret.

  Janos paused as the tunnel began to tilt downwards, his fingers searching the carvings in the stone until he found the one he himself had left. He'd carved his mother's name, Valeria, on the first anniversary of her death. His father had turned it into a Kingdom-wide Day of Mourning, during which no one was to work or celebrate anything else or wear a color other than gray. He had carved her name, wishing that he had had the courage to tell her about this tunnel. Valeria would have worried for him, yes, but she also would've been fascinated by the evidence of all the other people who'd traversed the passage over the years.

  Leaving her name behind for the moment, Janos hurried his steps, smiling in anticipation as he neared the entrance into the First Castle.

  He shouldn't be feeling excited, he thought. This was an unreasonably dangerous idea, after all. His father and the Lords and Ladies had come in, yes, but they'd gone with a phalanx of armed guards surrounding them. If he was caught...

  He wouldn't be. He remembered this place too well; knew every crevice in which to hide, remembered how any footstep echoed from the walls. The candle he carried could provide some illumination, but the moon was full tonight, and part of the First Castle's roof was crumbling. Moonlight would be more than enough for him to see by.

  Janos finally reached the end of the passageway, and rested his palm against the stone slab.

  All he had to do was push it forward.

  He hesitated, knowing that this was the last possible second at which to turn back. There were a multitude of things that could go wrong, and for what? The chance to see
someone from the western lands? In all probability, he wouldn't see him at all; getting close enough for that would be too great of a risk.

  Despite this knowledge, he couldn't help himself. The curiosity was too strong.

  He pushed the door open.

  The sound of stone scraping against stone made him grit his teeth, and as he held the candle out in front of him to illuminate the underground room, he half-expected to see a dark shape rushing toward him. He stood perfectly still for several long moments, waiting for footsteps or some other sign that he wasn't alone.

  Nothing.

  He crept out of the passage, leaving it open behind him. The gap was narrow, virtually invisible in the shadows. His heart began to pound as he moved further and further away from it. This castle was as familiar to him as his own bedroom, but even after his fall, when Ambrus and Abel had yelled frantically for help, there'd never been so strong a sense of danger here.

  Janos slowly moved upstairs, listening so hard that he was certain that if a sound did come he'd jump completely out of his skin. None did, and he found himself out in the expansive main room for the first time in over a year. The moon was still visible through the myriad gaps in the ceiling, and he delighted in the sight of it, the sight of the stars.

  Remembering which windows had candles burning, he walked upstairs, setting his weight down on each foothold gingerly, half-expecting the stairs to crumble underneath him any second. Once he reached the third level, he snuck down the hall, taking a quick peek into each lit room, expecting to find the prisoner staring at the door, waiting for him, as tense and ready for battle as he had been when he'd been carried through the villages in a cage.

  But when Janos finally caught sight of the man, there wasn't a hint of fight about him. He was leaning against the wall next to a window, his head resting against his forearm, which was braced against the stone. His eyes were closed, and his skin, so much of it visible, was marred with cuts and bruises.