The Rose Society (The Young Elites 2)

Giulietta leans toward him. One of her hands rests on his stomach, then runs up his chest to the hollow of his neck, leaving a trail of heat across his skin. Teren’s heart beats faster, and for a moment, he forgets what they were talking about. She brushes her lips past his. He leans into the kiss eagerly, bringing a hand up to the back of her slender neck, drawing her toward him.

Giulietta pulls away from him. Teren finds himself staring into her deep, dark eyes. “Starving slaves don’t make good slaves, Master Santoro,” she whispers, stroking his hair. “You aren’t feeding them enough.”

Teren blinks. Of everything she should be concerned about, she is asking about the welfare of her slaves? “But,” he starts, “they’re expendable, Giulietta.”

“Are they, now?”

Teren takes a deep breath. Ever since Prince Enzo’s death in the arena, since Giulietta officially took the throne, she has been pushing back against his original plans. It is as if she had lost interest in what he thought was her hatred for malfettos.

But he does not want to argue with his queen today. “We are cleansing the city of them. For every malfetto that dies, we’ll simply replace him with another, brought over from a different city. My men are already rounding up malfettos in other—”

“We are not cleansing the city of them,” Giulietta replies. “We are punishing them for their abomination, for bringing misfortune down on us. These malfettos still have families within the walls. And some of them are unhappy about what’s happening.” She nods in disdain at the tent flap. “The water in their troughs is filthy. It is only a matter of time before everyone in these camps falls ill. I want them to work themselves into submission, Teren. But I don’t want a rebellion.”

“But—”

Giulietta’s eyes harden. “Feed and water them, Master Santoro,” she commands.

Teren shakes his head, ashamed to be arguing with the Queen of Kenettra—someone so much purer than he. He lowers his eyes and bows his head. “Of course, Your Majesty. You’re absolutely right.”

Giulietta smooths the folds at her wrists. “Good.”

“Will you see me tonight?” he murmurs as she rises from the divan.

Giulietta casts him a casual glance. “If I want to see you tonight, I’ll send someone to fetch you.” She turns away and leaves the tent. The flap slaps closed behind her.

Teren keeps his head bowed and lets her go. Of course he lets her go. She is the queen. But a sinking feeling weighs down his heart.

What if I upset her, and she finds someone new?

The thought sends pain through his chest. Teren pushes the image out of his head and rises to grab his shirt. He can’t stay here—he has to move, to go somewhere and think. He dresses in his layers of armor. Then he steps out of the tent and nods to the guard stationed outside. The guard nods back, pretending not to know what happened between Teren and his queen.

“Round up my captains,” Teren says. “I’ll be at the temple. Have them meet me outside, so we can discuss today’s inspections.”

The guard bows immediately. Teren can tell he’s too afraid to stare into his pale blue irises for long. “Right away, sir.”

Temples to the gods are built against the wall at every mile, their entrances marked by looming stone pillars with wings carved against the ceiling. Teren heads for the nearest one on foot, ignoring the horse tied outside his tent. Mud splashes his white boots. When he reaches the temple, he makes his way up the steps and into the building’s cool recesses. The space is empty this early in the morning.

Inside, the twelve statues of the gods and angels line both sides of a straight marble path. Plates of jasmine-scented water sit at the path’s start. Teren removes his boots, dips his feet in the water, and walks along the path. He kneels in the center, surrounded by the gods’ eyes. The only sounds in the temple are the occasional clinking of chimes hung outside the temple’s doors.

“I’m sorry,” Teren finally says. His eyes stay turned to the floor, their pale, pulsing color subdued. His words echo between the statues and pillars until they fade away, incomprehensible.

He hesitates, unsure how to continue.

“I shouldn’t have questioned my queen,” he adds after a moment. “It is an insult to the gods.”

No one answers.

Teren frowns as he talks. “But you have to help me,” he continues. “I know I am no better than the malfetto wretches out there in the camps, and I know I should obey Her Majesty. But my mission is to rid this country of malfettos. The queen … she has so much love in her heart. Her brother was a malfetto, after all. She doesn’t know how urgently she needs to destroy them. Us.” He sighs.

The statues stay silent. Behind him come the tiny footsteps of the priests’ apprentices as they replace the plates of water and jasmine. Teren doesn’t move. His thoughts wander from Giulietta and the malfettos to the morning in Estenzia’s arena, when he’d run his sword through Prince Enzo’s chest. He rarely dwelled on those he killed, but Enzo … he can still remember the feeling of the blade pushing through flesh, of the prince’s terrible gasp. He remembers how Enzo had collapsed at his feet, how flecks of bright red blood dotted his boots.

Teren shakes his head, unsure of why he keeps thinking about Enzo’s death.

A childhood memory comes to him, of golden days before the fever … Teren and Enzo, still little boys, racing out of the kitchens to climb to the top of a tree outside the palace walls. Enzo was first, being older and taller. He reached down to offer Teren a helping hand, pulled him up, and pointed toward the ocean, laughing. You can see the baliras from here, the little prince said. They unwrapped leftover cuts of meat from the kitchens and skewered them onto the branches. Then they sat back and watched in awe as a pair of falcons swooped down to grab the food.