Page 1 of When Roses Burn

PROLOGUE

Seth

No Man’s Land.

The dead space of desert and waste at the center of the kingdoms. At one time, it was a lush land full of green grass, rolling hills, and vibrant buildings. Demigods ruled it, but it teemed with eternals of all kinds.

Now it was a forbidden, barren land of sand and ruins that rose like the skeletal fingers of the dead from the ever-shifting tide of desert. The wind howling across the bleak hellscape whipped up sand until it abraded the skin and eyes of anyone foolish enough to wander into it.

Only the eternals fleeing from the law, their families, ones seeking a thrill, or those simply looking to live outside the confines of the kingdoms came here. From the moment my father told me it was forbidden, I was determined to find a way to enter it.

I succeeded in doing so every week from the time I was ten years old. I’d dart amongst those skeletal fingers as they snagged at my clothes and hair while I sought shelter from the sand.

Eventually, I’d escape into the ruins buried beneath the earth. There, I’d climb through the remnants of the palace, the buildings of the old town, and through the tunnels and pipes of the abandoned water systems.

Being there was reckless and dangerous, but that was what made it fun. If my father found me, he’d skin my ass, but that didn’t keep me away from the endless tunnels, empty ballrooms, and abandoned stores. Nothing would do that.

It was in No Man’s Land, when I was ten and she was nine, that I first saw Briar’s head poking over the top of an abandoned pipe crisscrossing the forsaken city. I frowned as she disappeared and footsteps scampered toward another pipe.

I should have left then. If I were caught here by the wrong eternal, it could mean my death, but curiosity kept my feet planted.

While I’d seen the eternals gathered in some of the other rooms, playing games, gambling, drinking, and betting on who would win in the cage, I’d never encountered anyone in the tunnels.

These passageways were my secret place to explore and lose myself. I wouldn’t give them over to anyone. Plus, I was a shifter… we didn’t run from others.

When a giggle came from the shadows, I found myself irresistibly drawn toward whoever hid there. Creeping forward with all the stealth of my shifter heritage, I traversed the fractured aqueduct beneath the city.

I edged around a jagged piece of stone as a head popped up again. I didn’t know what type of eternal the young girl was, but she wasn’t a shifter. I would have sensed that, and I didn’t recognize her or her intriguing, strawberry and eucalyptus aroma.

She ducked down and clapped a hand over her mouth as she giggled. Then her eyes traveled to me and widened when she spotted me standing in the shadows. Her smile vanished, then returned, then slid away again when I simply stared at her.

Dark espresso-brown hair tumbled around her shoulders, framing a sweet, innocent face and plump cheeks. Full lips, the color of the deepest red rose, pursed as her intriguing, sea green eyes twinkled.

But the longer we stared at each other, the more her unease grew until she glanced around nervously. She looked ready to bolt, but I didn’t want her to leave. Despite considering these tunnels mine, I was lonely, not only here but also at home.

“I’m Seth,” I blurted.

She rose a little to reveal the purple dress that swirled around her ankles when she walked. “I’m Briar.”

She looked more like a perfect, beautiful rose to me than a thorn, and while I was too young to understand it, I felt an undeniable pull toward her.

“Would you like to play?” she asked.

I looked around at the underground, barren wasteland where I’d spent many solitary hours exploring the devastated city. It might be fun to investigate it with someone else; plus, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to her.

“Yeah.”

And that simple question and answer changed everything.

Over the following years, we’d meet once or twice a week to explore the tunnels, crawl through the underground rooms, and examine the city destroyed centuries before sand buried it.

We ran through the palace rooms, dashed in and out of the outlaws and forgotten who barely acknowledged our existence. These eternals were looking to be left alone and didn’t want to be bothered with a couple of kids. They had no stake here, no territory, and they didn’t seek to defend it.

At first, I avoided all areas where other eternals gathered, fearing that someone would tell my father I was there. After meeting Briar, she would cast a glamour over both of us. It was never much, as she wasn’t very strong yet, but she changed our hair, eye color, and faces enough to make us appear different when we ventured into other areas.

Over time, I learned that Briar was the daughter of the queen of the dark sorceresses and sorcerers, and she discovered my father was the alpha shifter and the last dragon shifter. While the night casters, as the dark sorcerers and sorceresses were also known, were not well-liked by shifters, and vice versa, that never damaged our friendship.

Initially, we didn’t discuss such things. We simply savored our freedom from the confines of our heritage as we ran through the shadowy tunnels.