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Chapter One

After a morning spent sorting through the previous Champion’s library, both Soren Armitage and the aide lent her by the Chancellor were so dust-laden that they were beginning to blend into their surroundings. Grey hair to match grey eyes, Soren thought, tucking usually black strands behind her ears. A grey life.

Without warning, the door crashed open, and the nearest pile of books lost its tenuous grasp on balance and slid into a heap. Three other piles slumped after it, puffing out dust redolent of old paper and slowly decaying binding. Soren sat back with a grimace, while her assistant for the day, Halcean, lived up to her red-headed nature by colouring hotly.

Oblivious, Aspen Choraide whisked into the room and stopped in the centre of the resulting tumble: a handsome blonde set off well by white and icy-blue linen. In all the poisoned throng of the Court, this was Soren’s closest excuse for a friend, an apprentice mage not even willing to risk his position with open partisanship while he tried to coax his way into the new-minted Champion’s bed. Soren was by turns infuriated and tempted by his trifling. At least he managed to laugh with as well as at her.

Today he was overflowing with excitement, well above his ordinary benign enthusiasm for life. Almost vibrating. “There’s a rose!” he said, barely able to get the words out for the sheer delight of them. “A rose!”

“What of it?” Halcean asked, a decided snap to her voice as she rose out of the dust cloud he’d set off. She glanced pointedly about the room, which was festooned with carvings of roses.

“The Rathen Rose!” Aspen shouted. “There’s a rose!”

He waited for their reaction, but Soren could only stare.

“That’s impossible,” Halcean said.

Making an exasperated noise, Aspen grabbed Soren’s arm and pulled her to her feet, knocking the few remaining piles left and right. Soren, who tried to set certain limits to her treatment, attempted to free herself, but Aspen only tightened his grip and so she quickened her pace rather than be dragged across Fleeting Hall. The doors to the throne room were thankfully closed, but there were plenty of passers-by to witness their progress.

It was a brief trip, for the Garden of the Rose was only a short distance left of the Champion’s rooms – directly opposite the Hall of the Crown. But Fleeting Hall was a palace hub, always busy, and by the time they’d reached the sunlit paving of the Garden a dozen or more people trailed them, scenting drama.

“There!” Aspen tugged her beneath an arch into the sunlight and flung a hand in theatrical accusation. “What did I tell you? Impossible? It’s impossible to miss!”

It was indeed. Wound around the grey stone pillars and creeping across the exposed arches of the Garden of the Rose was the Rathen Rose. The leaves were small, black-green, and hid countless thorns. Today, for the first time in two centuries, it bore a flower.

“Sun’s Mercy,” Halcean managed, staring but making no attempt to approach. She would know the reputation of the Rose. Even Aspen in his excitement did no more than stand at the very edge of the garden.

Soren, her heart knocking against her throat, walked slowly forward and the double handful of people who had crowded to see stepped back to give her room. It was almost respectful. At that moment, she knew that everything was going to change.

For all she’d tried to make the best of being the most important nonentity at Court, uselessness irritated Soren, and she’d been looking about for change. But for there to suddenly be a Rathen? To be Champion in more than name?