Sanquadia is the name of the world's finest rose, as well as being the storied summer country. Women and men of the poorest villages look to the hills with longing, and speak of the day when they will rejoin their brethren over the glass mountains. What lies there is nothing short of myth and magic, fairies and sprites, wood nymphs weaving black lotus petals into their long hair...
-excerpt from "Merlin's Legacy", author unknown
It started with a lazy tiger, prowling a bell jar cage with savage growls, raking a claw across the bars whenever a foolish human dared venture near. Heero's father roared his displeasure in open court when it was carried in by four huffing messengers, all of whom bore severe scratches on their hands as proof of their loyalty to the giver. Their lifeblood ran down their arms, staining their shirts red, leaving a trail of it across the bridge over the moat, up the winding staircase, and into the solarium, where nobles gathered to fan themselves with their power and drink dandelion wine.
It was a dark beginning to the youngest prince's eligibility. Tradition demanded nothing less than a full year's courtship and several large fortunes spent on wooing with gifts of jewels, crates of spices, chests of the watered silk that had once adorned all the palace windows. Sanquadia was rich with gold, and those aspiring to marry into the family had to prove their equal wealth.
"Take that thing away," said Odin, pointing a finger heavy with the thick gold of oligarchy. His fellow rulers and brothers, Zechs and Treize, turned their faces away. It was his son. He would do as he pleased.
"As he always does," the court gossips would whisper behind their fans. It was late summer, and it made Odin more suspicious than usual, for plotting ladies behind the in-season fans were as dangerous as knights overtly wielding a sword. "He's stopped even listening to Lord Zechs and Treize, for all they're worth." Zechs was the general of the armies, and Treize the captain of the navy. They were, naturally, barbaric men who had a taste for blood, rather than those who had taken up the necessary duties to preserve Sanquadia's peace. Women would make the sign against evil, a cross in the air over the chest, when they went by, whether they were enjoying an early morning stroll, or in pursuit of some criminal.
That was the Year of the Rose. Sixteen years, an entire life cycle before, Odin's youngest child had been born in times of famine and disease, born out of the whispery veils and laughing caresses of the perfumed harem. Those had been dark days. The fourth son, Heero was raised out of the influence of the public court.
"Lord Odin has learned from his mistakes," they said, and perhaps it was true, or perhaps there were still cold lessons to be learned. Either way, the rains came back and the locusts vanished mere weeks after Heero's birth. The fourth child, who stood to inherit nothing, suddenly became everything when Quatre was discovered gone the morning of his seventeenth birthday. There had been, some said, plans to announce his betrothal to Jacob of Manchuria, a fierce warrior who never tired of antagonizing the hill people that lived along his border.
Trowa, the second son, the quiet one with a mask of blood beneath his unerring expression of boredom, found himself in the position of eldest and future Head of the Triumvirate. Wufei, once the future commander of the navy, became the one who would succeed Zechs as general of the armies.
Heero, the fourth turned third, the last and unwanted turned savior, would lead the kingdom's fleet of proud ships. Or so tradition went, and tradition in Sanquadia was as sacred as the red rose blooms that decorated fashionable clothing, the plates at dinner, the scabbards of swords. They scaled the walls with the brutal efficiency of invaders with clubs and arrows.
A week after Quatre disappeared from the castle, Heero stopped speaking. "Not that it matters," said one noblewoman, "since his voice is nothing pleasant. What an ugly monotone! Not like Lord Trowa, who makes the heavens weep with his alto." One by one, Lord Odin brought experts and witch-doctors, herb women, medicine women, shamans, and one by one, they were all beheaded for failing. Heero was thirteen.
Three years later, the first gift from Asia Minor arrived, soaked in blood, trailing a rose stem that would touch the entire household by the time it had bloomed.
End Prologue
Bianca
Please send comments to: weirdsisters@hotmail.com