Chapter 8 – Whispers in the Rose Garden
The summons had bought us one day of grace.
One day before Cedric moved the trial, one day before the council would convene and strip Evelyn of title, lands, and (if the prince had his way) life.
We spent it in the rose garden at dawn.
Officially the academy gardens were closed until the first lecture bell. Unofficially the head gardener had once served House Clermont and still kept a spare key for the duke's daughter.
Frost silvered the gravel paths. The roses (black hybrids bred by Evelyn's mother years ago) stood like silent sentinels, their petals closed tight against the cold.
We walked side by side, no regulation three paces now. Our breath mingled in small white clouds.
Evelyn stopped beneath an arch heavy with frozen blooms.
"I used to come here when I was small," she said quietly. "Before everything. Father would lift me so I could smell the black roses. He told me they only opened for people who refused to bow."
She reached up and touched a furled bud. Ice cracked beneath her gloved fingertip.
"I believed him."
I watched her profile (sharp, beautiful, heartbreaking).
"And now?" I asked.
She turned to me. The rising sun caught the crimson of her eyes and turned them to fresh blood.
"Now I intend to make the entire kingdom learn the truth of that story."
A promise. Not a boast.
I nodded once. "Then we start today."
She tilted her head. "We have already started."
"No," I said. "Today we stop reacting. Today we strike first."
For the first time since the library, Evelyn smiled (small, wicked, real).
"Tell me."
I stepped closer until the hem of my cloak brushed her skirts.
"Cedric needs the council vote tomorrow to be unanimous. Three votes can still be bought or broken: Duke Southmarch, Countess Eltaire, and Archmage Veyron. Southmarch hates the queen for bedding his son. Eltaire's granddaughter is engaged to a northern baronetcies heir. Veyron owes your father a life-debt from the border wars."
Evelyn's eyes narrowed in calculation. "You want to turn them before the trial."
"I want to make the trial irrelevant," I corrected. "If even one vote fractures, Cedric cannot declare open exile without looking tyrannical. The north will have time to mobilise."
She was quiet for a long moment, breath fogging between us.
"You learned all this in three days," she said finally.
"I learned it in three nights," I answered. "Sleep is negotiable. Your life is not."
Something softened in her face (something that made my chest ache in ways I refused to name yet).
"And after the council?" she asked.
I met her gaze without flinching.
"Then we disappear."
Her breath caught.
"Disappear?"
"Tonight," I said. "Before the vote, before the guards come to drag you to a cell. We vanish from the academy. We ride north under false names. By the time Cedric realises you are gone, half the kingdom will be between you and his assassins."
Evelyn stared at me as though seeing the shape of a future she had never dared imagine.
"Leave everything," she whispered. "Title, manor, name—"
"None of it matters if you are dead," I finished. "And everything can be taken back later. With interest."
She looked back at the black roses, then at me.
"You would abandon your place here for me?"
I took her gloved hand and pressed it over my heart so she could feel the steady, murderous beat.
"I have no place," I said. "I have a purpose. And right now that purpose has your name written on every heartbeat."
The frost around us seemed to still.
Evelyn stepped forward until only a breath separated us.
"Then let the kingdom keep my title," she said, voice low and fierce. "I will forge a new one in fire and northern steel. And I will do it with you at my side."
And then, before I could draw another breath, she rose on her toes and kissed me.
Not a polite courtly brush. Not a test.
A full, deliberate, claiming kiss: cold lips warming against mine, gloved hands sliding up to cradle my face like something precious, her body pressing close enough that I felt the tremor running through her (rage, relief, want).
My mind went blank.
Every instinct that had kept me alive (scan for threats, catalogue exits, never lower your guard) shattered like thin ice.
A maid does not get kissed by her lady.
A blade does not get chosen back.
Yet here she was, kissing me like I was the only solid thing left in her world.
I made a sound (small, helpless, nothing like the assassin I was supposed to be) and my hands rose of their own accord, hovering an inch from her waist, afraid to land, afraid this would vanish if I touched.
Evelyn felt the hesitation. She pulled back just enough to meet my eyes, crimson bright with sudden uncertainty.
"Rin?" A whisper, almost frightened. "Did I—?"
I didn't let her finish.
I surged forward and kissed her again (harder, desperate, pouring six years of silent devotion and three lifetimes of restrained hunger into it). My palms finally settled at her waist, dragging her flush against me as if I could fuse us together and never let the world pry us apart.
She made a soft, shocked noise against my mouth (then melted, fingers tangling in my hair, kissing me back like drowning and finding air).
When we finally broke apart, both of us were breathing like we'd run for miles.
Evelyn's cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen, eyes wide and a little wild.
"I—" she started, then stopped, searching my face. "You truly…?"
I rested my forehead against hers, still trembling.
"I have been yours since the first moment I opened my eyes in this world," I said, voice rough. "I just never dared hope you might want—"
She silenced me with another kiss (softer this time, reverent).
"I want," she whispered against my lips. "Goddess help me, I want."
The frost around us glittered harder, as if the garden itself had been holding its breath.
"Tonight," she said again, but now the word tasted different (like a vow between equals, not mistress and blade).
"Tonight," I echoed, and this time I was smiling (small, fierce, unstoppable).
Let the academy wake and scheme and sharpen its knives.
In eight hours the duke's daughter and the woman who loved her beyond reason or rank would ride north together, hearts racing in tandem, black roses frozen behind us and an entire future burning ahead.
Together.
Finally, undeniably, together.