Rowan by Josephine Angelini
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As usual, I dream about people dying. But this time, they aren’t getting pulled apart by the Woven. This time people are killing each other, and I’m at the center of it. I’m just standing there while a sea of savagery heaves around me. I have no weapon, and no witch inside me. I am defenseless. That’s not what terrifies me, though. What pulls me up from sleep is knowing that I started it.
I was never supposed to be on this side of the war. There was never supposed to be a war to begin with, because Lillian and I were going to change everything. It didn’t turn out that way. In fact, I think I made it worse, which is probably why my guilt chases me around in my dreams.
Spilt milk. I’m done crying over it. Done crying over Lillian, over my father. Just done with all of it. I’m finally ready for this war.
I was born Outland. Bad grammar, I know, but when you’re born Outland you don’t say, “I was born in the Outlands.” That’s how city folk talk. And, yeah, I’ve been living in the cities since I was seven, but how does that old saying go? “Give me a child until he is seven years old and I will hold his heart forever”? From my experience it’s true. I may have lived a pampered life as Lord Fall, Head Mechanic of the Salem Coven, for over eleven years, but I still remember. The Outlands hold my heart. I wake fully, opening my eyes, thinking, my heart is held.
I roll over in bed and see pink clouds framed in the skylight over me. Rising at dawn is in my blood. It used to drive Lillian crazy. She loved to sleep in on the weekends but I never got the hang of it. Sleep has never been easy for me, not like it is for city folk. I’ve never met an Outlander who couldn’t wait to open his eyes and see the day. To know he made it through one more night.
Morning was when I liked Lillian best, even if she did snarl at me and throw pillows at my head. Her hair a mad tangle, her eyes puffy; she looked terrible in the morning and for some reason I loved that. I loved how she looked before she put on the gowns and jewels and makeup. Before she put on her title. Sometimes I wonder if I could have found a way to keep her like that—my rumpled, red-nosed, morning Lillian—maybe I could have found a way to stop the war. Found a way to stop her from destroying the two people I loved most. Da and her.
I bathe and dress quickly. I put on my simplest clothes—simple, but they’re still of the finest materials. Strange how plain clothes are somehow always the most expensive. There’s no point in trying to dress down, really. Everything I have is still the best. Lillian gave me more finery than I know what to do with. I’ve been quietly liquidating the jewelry, accrued income, and extensive property and channeling it into Alaric’s cause. Blood money never washes clean, but it gives both Alaric and me a twisted thrill to know some of Lillian’s wealth is being used against her.
On my way out the door I poke my head in Da’s room and whisper, “Osda sunalei.”
I don’t know why I still say good morning to him. His spirit isn’t here. It never really was. He didn’t feel at ease sleeping in what was to him a giant room. I look at his narrow bed—the smallest I could find—and think how he used to say he felt like he was drowning in it. He stayed here maybe twice a month at most, even though I got a special pass allowing him to stay within the Salem walls after dark. He forced himself to do it, too, for me.