The Shattered Rose
Disclaimer: All direct speech (but no prose) is lifted from the books. Characters don't belong to me.
The hunters feasted with their Pecosa hosts, memories of the failed negotiations temporarily behind them. For the night they forgot about the war, the vamages, the Scorcher that they'd come seeking information on, and talked through the night of family and friends. Of bravery and honesty. And sharing stories of epic love.
They were sat around the fire, Aaron, Sam and Rose, with a good number of Pecosa and the Salvador Hunters. Ryan and Zhi-Jiya were beside each other, the latter playfully swatting her boyfriend's hand at his lack of enthusiasm for enduring the various tales of love he was being subjected to. Ella and Keena, the Pecosa storyteller, were egging each other on, while Kyran sat slightly apart, his eyes on only Rose.
"I think love in real life can be just as exciting as in stories." Ella said, smiling. "Just imagine being caught up in an epic love story with the only person you can't be with. Thrilling, no?"
The entirety of Salvador was stood just inside the Gateway, staring at the mage who they'd ate, slept and hunted beside for an entire year.
Kyran. The Hunter so skilled that he could bleed an Elemental in the ring. Now they knew why.
He was the Scorcher, the son of Hadrian, terror of the realm.
"Kyran?" Rose's shattered voice echoed as she stepped forward past the crowd, staring at Kyran wide-eyed with disbelief. "Why... why aren't you saying anything?"
The son of fire stood frozen in place, the cocky grin blasted from his face at her words. His head dropped, and he could only stand there, dumb, as her world crumbled about him.
"Kyran? Say something. Tell him he's lying!"
"Rose." Their eyes met, brilliant green on soft brown, and Kyran heaved out her name, struggling to break through his speechlessness.
"Each to their own, I guess," Rose replied to Ella. "But I wouldn't want an epic love story of my own. I'd be happy with just a simple romance. I don't see the allure of falling for someone I can never be with. I mean, what's the point in that?"
The love stories were just that, after all. Stories.
"What if you fall in love with the very person you can't be with?" Kyran asked with a grin, speaking up for the first time.
"I won't," Rose replied. "I'll make sure I go for someone that is suited to me."
"Why should I believe you?" her trembling voice asked.
Kyran paused, before closing the distance between them, taking her hands in his as he stared deep into her eyes.
"You don't have to believe anything I say," he whispered gently detaching one hand to lovingly caress her cheek, "but if you can, believe this and this alone. Believe that I can't stand the thought of anything happening to you."
Rose shuddered at his soft touch. She closed her eyes and leant forwards into the fugitive's embrace, certain that he was going to match her movement and kiss her, but to her disappointment Kyran only pulled back. By the time her eyes were open again, he was redressed in his Lurker's robes, the hood lowered over his face. Before Rose could process the moment they'd just shared, never mind his stark warning, Kyran had disappeared into the trees.
By the next day, she was pleading with Aaron, begging him to tell her why she couldn't just hate Kyran like everybody else.
"I have a story that's different." Keena said. "The tale of Mirza Sahiba."
Even Rose, who'd spoiled the endings to the last two love stories that Keena had proposed, hadn't heard of that one. Shrugging, she let the Pecosa go on.
Keena held them spellbound as she laid out the scene; of the childhood friends who grew up to fall in love despite the disapproval of their parents. She sang of how Sahiba's father arranged for her to marry another man, and of how she then taunted Mirza, her beloved, to prove his courage and snatch her away from her wedding and her groom. She told of how Mirza rose to the task, skilful and daring, stealing his love away from the gathered family and friends to ride off into the sunset together.
And finally, she spoke of the reaction he so easily provoked, and the dire fate that befell the besotted couple.
"Sahiba's brothers, humiliated by Mirza's bold actions, set out to follow Mirza, but he was already far ahead, out of their reach. Eventually, there came a time when Mirza and Sahiba had to stop to rest. As Mirza lay under the shade of a tree, exhausted from the day's events, he fell asleep. Sahiba rested with him. She awoke to find her brothers in the distance, racing on their horses, trying to catch up with them. Sahiba knew that Mirza was an accomplished archer. He would not miss his target. If he shot at her brothers, they would die. So before waking Mirza up, Sahiba took Mirza's arrows and broke each one in half."
At the empty click of his guns, Kyran's eyes darted around the field, frantically searching for answers. He found them at the mouth of the cave, wherein the Blade of Adams still sat buried in the stone, in the form of a tearful Rose. Unlike Aaron, who'd sprinted to his brother the moment the first shots rang across the snow, she simply stood there, watching silently, as the blood ran down from the gunshot wound in his shoulder.
Skyler advanced, backed up by his Hunters, the smoke still rising from his gun as he mentally placed his next shot. But even as the avenging Avira approached with his retinue, Rose ignored them all. Her gaze rested only on Kyran's, no flicker of surprise or remorse sullying her perfect face. Her shaking body confessed regret that this day had come to pass, but none for the action itself. Standing there, lips unmoving, still holding eye contact with the love she had betrayed, she wordlessly reached into her pocket and removed... something.
As her fist unclenched, a trail of silver bullets rolled off her sleight fingers and fell to the white ground without a sound.
"She wanted to protect her brothers," Keena continued. "Sahiba thought she could get through to her brothers. She thought that maybe, if she begged and pleaded, her brothers might change their minds. But her brothers didn't understand. They didn't listen. They charged at the defenceless Mirza with their swords drawn. Although Mirza fought with all his might, he was one against several. He was killed."
"The woman in black cried day and night at Mirza's grave and warned all to never do what she did: never betray the one you love."
"He saved your life," Ella said, her voice firm. "He didn't have to do that transfer when you were attacked by a hell hound, but he did. Any time there's any danger, Kyran has always reached out to protect you, whether by the fire ring he conjured in Balt, or the force of air when we were attacked by Hadrian.
"Kyran is my enemy. I want him held accountable for everything he's done wrong. He deserves to be punished. But he didn't deserve your betrayal."
With that, Ella strode back to the cottage-turned-prison where their caged and tortured foe was strung up in agony. Rose was left behind her, tear stained cheeks glistening in the sunlight, completely, utterly, alone.
"You don't kill yourself over a girl, or a boy for that matter, who you've only known for five days!" Rose protested. Romeo and Juliet? Antony and Cleopatra? Please. The storytellers knew nothing. "Correction: you don't kill yourself for anyone, at all, ever. Love demands sacrifices? That's not right."
The girl lay on her back, her long, brown hair tossed loosely at either side. Her eyes sat unblinking in their sockets, staring eternally upwards towards the heartless sky.
"ROSE!"
Her name stretched across the realm, one unending syllable of loss and loyalty and love. The harrowing call chilled the air around them as the very earth seized up in shocked horror at the girl lying broken on the floor.
The burning sun halted its advance across the sky; limbs stayed their motion and silence overwhelmed the scene. Time and mages alike stood still in their tracks, save for a rush of black hair, the unstoppable force, bending his unrivalled power to in a futile effort to prevent that which had already come to pass.
The effort that, as everyone but the boy knew, was in vain.
At her side, Kyran knelt, his black eyes stained with a thousand tears, seeing only his epic love, her bloodstained face, and the bullet with his name on it buried right between her eyes.
Some claim that bullet buried itself in her breast, not her forehead. But you do know people love with their brains, not their hearts, right?
A/N: On rereading RTE ch 28 (the Pecosa talks) after finishing the series, I'm seriously worried about Rose.
Theory Pros: Everything else Rose scoffed at that night has come to pass, and enough people want Kyran dead that the opportunity to take a bullet for him will probably come around.
Theory Cons: Authors normally give the main pairing a happy ending, and I already thought Rose was certain to die when she, Kyran and Aaron went to talk with the Influence (I mean, you're off to bargain with that thing famous for demanding great sacrifice, and you bring your girlfriend along? How naive can you get?)
Likelihood rating: 7 (with Kyran making a deal with the Influence to bring her back rated at Likelihood 5).
(Likelihood ratings will be nominally out of 20, from 0/20 impossible to 20/20 certain, but I won't rate anything higher than a 10 because I'm probably wrong on most of what I guess here).
My next guess will probably be about the series finale (Hadrian / Kyran showdown).