Spring time in Rosailles was always my favourite.

It was when the flowers bloomed. They sprung free from the ground, reaching up to the sky in rows of wildness encompassing entire meadows, taking over gardens. Everything was awash in light, the sun brightest first thing in the morning through my chamber windows. When I was a child, I would wake early to escape the castle, often with Darren and Elliotte, and sometimes Blanche.

Until we didn't.

Back then sometimes Mother would spend more time on me. It was still usually to chide me or shape me into what was "becoming" of a princess. But still, when I look back, it was when she treated me most like her daughter.

I remembered how my skin was usually so full of freckles they would join together, leaving my nose so pink it would peel. "You need to act proper," Mother would say. "You will be the Queen of Garnette one day," her lips would be pursed, her eyes, just like mine, hot with temper. "You need to behave."

But as angry as she was, I missed that side of mother now. The mother that cared enough to come and speak to me herself. After I stopped misbehaving, Mother stopped coming to chide me, the distance yawning wider over the years.

On this day in particular Elliotte, Darren and I had escaped the palace. It was a day right on the cusp of summer when it only rained at night, the leaves and grass covered in a damp dew first thing in the morning. It tended to sodden my skirts so I would steal my brother's breeches. Back then each day had been an adventure.

The world behind the palace was one full of bursting meadows in the spring. Tall emerald trees the glowed in the morning sun, cool shadows curling at their feet where we could rest after running through the wildflowers.

It was said this was the place where Queen Roselle had held off the Garnetti during the Great War, the place in the pictures where everything was soaked in blood. But it had been years since then, the sacred place claimed back by nature.

We ran through it, yelping and calling to one another. We splashed through a stream that curled through the trees, getting lost in the shade. I still remember running through the trees from the boys in a game of the Great Mother. Darren had been named Queen for this round, and if he saw us we would be dead on sight. The game was won either when the Queen found all her enemies or was evaded long enough that they gave up.

I was not about to let Darren win.

The sunlight dappled the ground through the swaying trees, making the forest glow. I cursed it, drawing into the shadows, tucking my red hair into my shirt the best that I could. I had lost on more than one occasion because of how it stood out amongst the green. But today the blossoms colored everything red and pink and purple. I grinned. I knew just what to do.

Somewhere behind me, I heard twigs snap. Darren's tread was clumsy and awkward as he kept his gaze focused around him. I stepped lightly, careful of where I put my feet, moving in the opposite direction of where I heard my pursuer. I snuck through the trees until I came to a small clearing, a tree at its center. It was an old thing, its trunk almost three times the size of the trees around it.

I remember looking up at the massive thing, not thinking of it as our sacred Divine Tree, where it was said the Angels first touched the earth when they descended from the heavens hundreds of years ago. It was before Magierre even existed. When the Angels walked the earth, took to its skies, and sang in its forests. Before war and hunger had ravaged the Angel's lands. Before humans outnumbered them.

No, I looked at the tree, a sly smirk spreading across my face. It was in full bloom, as it did this time every five years. There would be a festival in a few days where we all gathered and lay painted red roses at its base to celebrate the Day of Angels. Its dark green leaves swayed overhead, red berries sparkling amongst them like sparkling jewels. If I climbed it and hid amongst its bows, even if Darren glimpsed my hair, I would blend in with the red.

The base of the tree was smooth, thick branches hanging low overhead. I jumped, latching on. I panicked for a moment swaying in the open.

If Darren came across this clearing right now, I would be dead and my plan along with it. I kicked in the air, my bother's too-big boots loose on my feet. I found purchase on the tree and I used the leverage to pull myself up on the branch.

I stood, wobbling before climbing up. Higher, and higher, until I was safely nestled in the leaves, the sharp scent of wood, and the sweetness of the berries surrounding me. I eyed them. They were ripe and red, but I knew better than to eat them: one taste and I would be dead. The berries of the Divine Tree were used to craft some of the most lethal poisons used in the wars.

Down somewhere below, I heard the crunch of leaves. I held my breath, trying to ignore the slight hum gathering along my arms and legs.

A whisper brushed my ear, but I paid it no mind, craning my neck to peer down below. The tree rustled softly as another breeze danced around us, curling through the branches with long spindly fingers. A red curl escaped my shirt to fall into my face, fluttering around me. But I dared not move to tuck it back.

Ophelia.

I stiffened at my name. The voice had been soft, yet low. It hadn't sounded like Darren, too feminine, but at the same time just deep enough that I couldn't rule out a boy. A shiver ran up my spine but I dared not breath.

Ophelia. Rose Blood. Queen.

The voice was louder, a whisper right next to my ear. My hair moved, like it was unsettled by a breath. My skin crawled.

That hadn't been Darren.

I still heard him down below. I whipped around, holding tightly to my branch. All I saw was the thick wood of the tree, shadows crawling along it and the leaves danced in the wind.

My heart raced. What was that? Though I couldn't see anything, the heavy sense of a presence still lingered around me. Like wings enclosing me, caging me in, suffocating--

"Found you! You're dead!"

Chest heaving, I looked down. Darren stood there, smiling widely up at me. Elliotte stood beside him, sandy brown hair flopping over his eyes as he tried to brush it away. It took me a moment to remember where we were.

"I win!" Darren shouted, punching his hands into the air in triumph. "You can't beat my Queen!"

My chest was heaving. My blood was pounding. The voice moved from my right to my left, like it was moving, surrounding me. My body shook, panic taking over.

Elliotte grabbed Darren's shoulder, halting his victorious friend. "Something's wrong."

Darren's grin faltered and they both looked up at me.

"Ophelia? You can come down now. You lost. I found you."

I couldn't move. Each limb was locked in place. A touch feathered down my spine.

"Ophelia," said the voice clear as day. Only it wasn't the same voice from my memory—the voice of the Angels, it was a different voice. Pierre's voice. "Come to me. Speak to me. Set us free."

I stumbled, finally able to move as I pushed myself from the branch, feeling like I was falling from a vice-like grip. My foot missed the branch below, and I fell, everything going black.

*

I woke with a start. The memory vivid in my mind just like it had happened all over again. I let out a rattling breath, blinking into the dark of my room.

It was the first time the Angels had spoken to me, or at least the first time I had heard them so clearly. There had always been noise in my head, the world louder for me than it was for others, but after that day, when I had fallen and broken my arm, things had changed.

I stopped going out into the meadows behind the palace with Elliotte and Darren, and I had started to make sense of the noise. Distinguishing the whispers around me as what was of this world, and what was from another. What was my Gift, and what wasn't.

Come to me. The sweetened words lingered in my mind. I remembered, of course how the Angels had said them.

Why had the voice changed to Pierre's?

I stared at the sweeping curtains around my bed trying to calm my racing pulse. The ghost of his lips were on mine again, pressing down and down until I couldn't move, couldn't breathe. I gasped in a breath, hands clawing at my throat as I gasped in air, waiting for my heart to slow.

It happened sometimes, this burrowing sense of dread. Often when I thought of that day, I clenched my covers, trying to think of something—anything else. Around me the curtains shuddered slightly, and I heard a small thump as a door closed.

Not just any door. My door, the one to my chambers.

My heart stuttered again. It echoed next to my eardrums as I dared not breathe. The gossamer curtains fluttered, moving so I could see past them. A dark figure moved in the shadows, barely discernible through the din. Pitch black shadows seeped into my room, the moonlight disappearing from my window.

I squinted. The figure was tall, their movements sure, precise—like they had walked in this room many times before. They did not approach my bed, but paused before it, several paces away. In the faint light, I glimpsed a corkscrew curl escape their hood as they turned to me.

I let out a relieved breath. It was just Sabine.

What was she doing in my chambers at night?

I went to call out to her, then paused. Why was she here in the middle of the night? I let my eyelids fall half closed, so that if she could see me, she would still think I was asleep. Her jaw was set, a tension around her dark eyes, two black pools beneath her hood. Like it was her, and not me, who had just seen the memory of a ghost.

What was Sabine up to? There was something more going on, something both she and Darren weren't telling me.

She stared at me for several moments, and I did my best to keep my breaths steady even as my mind raced. I knew of the secrets back home. The soldiers trained in both battle and other things. Sabine was a decent handmaid, but her defiance had always been at odds with her position. Why would Mother send me such a handmaid?

Unless she wasn't a handmaid at all.

Sabine swept through the room, moving closer to the bed. Her steps were whisper soft. If I had not been awake, I would never have known she was there. She stood beside my bed, and I could see her features more clearly now. She studied me a moment, parting the curtains. I had to remind myself to not hold my breath. I closed my eyes and waited.

A whisper filled the air, but this time not from an Angel. I strained my ears, but I couldn't make out what she was saying. The air unsettled around my face as she let the curtains fall shut. I waited a moment before looking again, just in time to hear the soft thud of the servant chamber doors closing.

I sat up, staring at the door. Darren had lied to me in the gardens. That had been Sabine. And Sabine was not a handmaid. She was a soldier. A spy. One my mother had sent along with me. A shiver ran down my spine. If anyone found out I had brought a spy with me, whether I claimed to know about it or not...

Sabine had a right to be worried. I had not been sent here just to marry the prince. Everything had been a lie.

If Mother had sent me to Garnette with a spy, it was to get intel. It made sense really, if I quieted my unease about the whole thing. Though we had infiltrated the borders, I was the first person willingly allowed inside their court. It was an opportunity. One my Mother had not passed up. This war was still not over.

And Mother, a Rose Queen, would never stop fighting. Even if it endangered me in the process.