Corruption of the Rose by S.J. Sanders

Author:S.J. Sanders [Sanders, S.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-10-25T18:30:00+00:00

Chapter 18

Rose stretched carefully, aware of a heavy presence pressed against her back. The bed she lay on felt unfamiliar, and the warm scent of male filled her nose. Not just any male… Saris.

His soft fur brushed her skin as she moved against him, wiggling back into his embrace. His arms tightened around her and his muzzle burrowed deeper against her neck with a grunt. Rose turned around in his arms until she was facing him, her head angled up as he tucked his muzzle down, his yellow eyes glowing softly at her in the low light of the strange bedroom. A short distance away she could make out the shadowy form of her plant on a nearby table. Clearly Saris was not expecting her to return to the workroom.

“Something feels different,” she murmured. “Something inside me has changed.”

He didn’t say anything. He just regarded her silently as she examined herself. She didn’t look any different. She just felt different. As if something clicked into place.

Shouldn’t she feel at peace and enlightened? The Masters certainly appeared that way.

She didn’t feel any internal conflict, but she didn’t feel particularly peaceful or serene. There was just a calm that she knew could dissolve easily into a storm and an alertness that accompanied her unnatural hungers and yearnings… But for once, it didn’t cause any concern for her. Everything that had seemed so different from what had been considered acceptable within her training, and had agitated her with that awareness, had settled completely. All that remained was calm acceptance.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “This wasn’t how I expected it to be.”

A sharp grin stretched across his face, but she shook her head in confusion.

“I was certain that this was something that took a lifetime to complete. Or at least a number of years.”

He shrugged without concern or interest in the expected time frame. “Everyone progresses through the various steps at different rates. Calcination and dissolution can be harder on some mages because they cling strongly to what they think they know. Being on the mountain here forces you out of it far more, as you are forced to confront the darkness of this place and your own darkness within you. That conflict always breaks us down to our truest selves… and the greater the conflict, the stronger the impact is.”

“But dangerous,” she muttered, acknowledging the one thing that he had told her from the start, her thoughts returning to the skulls. “Is that why you never remove the remains of the failed mages from the workroom—so that they would serve as a reminder?”

Saris’s brow dipped as he considered her words. “Yes and no. The reminder of their presence was a reminder of my failings as well as a reminder to other mages. It felt disrespectful to move them from their place of slumber until Darthar’s heir took control of the castle. Although I lead the lupi, send out my elemental spirits to work on my behalf, and safeguard the castle—and even take

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