A Royal Rose

Chapter Ten

Entering her mother's house, she slammed the door in a rage. Rose’s mother was sat legs crossed on the sofa next to a roaring fire in the grate. “I reckon that large bang was something you’ve done with the way you stomped in here, next time. Don’t take it out on my front door!” Aine said as she brought a china cup to her lips and took a sip. Aine’s hair was wrapped up in a top bun and stray bits of hair stuck out everywhere.

“Where have you been today?” Rose asked, trying to change the topic and avoid answering Aine’s suspicions.

“I’ve been doing some Duchess duties, and then they got interrupted as I had to start tending to Merula, he's got some sort of plastic wrapped around his foot” Aine replied, “Where have you been?”

Rose thought for a moment, before sitting down at the end of the couch her mother was on and decided to tell her an abridged version of events “In a nutshell, Mara caught Phineas and me. She’s furious with me and challenged me to a…wand fight? If that’s the right word. I need to hone my magic skills as I meant to push her over, disarm her, anything but instead made some of the ceiling fall down in front of her. Oops! Worked in my favour though as I escaped her…”.

Aine’s eyes widened and said with a sigh, “Oh dear. Why Phineas, didn’t he tell you they were married? Surely that was a bad move… you know Mara’s got issues, especially with us”

“Why does someone that hate you live next door to you?”

“This is the posh part of the Holt apparently. We’ve got the bigger trees, the more floor space. This house has been in our family since the Holt was founded. Phineas lives with his parents. His mother is a frail woman now, his father is a governor to the Holt, and he is the man who owns the factory where all the wands of the Holt are made. Phineas comes from money. I assume they live around here because if they didn’t, they would live in a poorer area. I doubt either of them would be pleased with that, from what I’ve seen of the couple they have ideas of grandeur!”

“I really don’t want to run into her unprepared mother. She’s crazy, she even beat up Phineas!” Rose told her mother.

“I better teach you some defence moves, then. I don’t want her using your inability to perform basic spells against you. I had hoped we could have done your learning gradually, but I don’t think that’d be wise right now. I think you’ll need to have a crash course in magic. I don’t want you getting hurt. I’ve waited all this time to have you in my life and now you are being targeted” said Aine.

“Honestly, I’m okay. I’m just worried about bumping into her again without knowing what to do. I’m pleased you and I will be working on my magic skills. I was terrified, I didn’t have a clue what to do” replied Rose, relieved that she was going to be able to defend herself in the future.

The two women spoke at length about defensive tactics, some were more difficult sounding than others, one even Aine admitted was hit and miss with herself and her own skills. Aine showed her the correct posture to make sure that the power from the wand didn’t push her over. One that Rose struggled with to begin with was the way to make a beam of energy come out of the end of her wand. The energy could do whatever was wanted by the Fae who cast it. Aine suggested that Rose should practice making a fire in the fireplace, using the technique she’d just taught her.

The two women stood next to each other, “Your posture is fantastic, c’mon you can do it!” her mother exclaimed.

Aiming her wand with precision; Rose could feel the power that came out of the end of her wand, a small orange beam of light shot out, filling the empty fireplace with roaring orange fire.

“Well done darling!” applauded Aine, hugging her daughter with delight. Rose beamed, happy that she’d done the most complex thing with her wand to date. “That’s one of the more intricate wand skills to learn, you can use that one to defend yourself too, it is multi-skilled… although it can be deadly, so use it with caution. Also, have a look at those books on the shelf. They are full of old knowledge and defence material so make sure you give them a thorough read” Aine recommended. Rose wandered over to the bookshelf that her mother had spoken about, the shelf was packed with brown leather-bound tomes with gold lettering for the titles. She took a selection of books from it, the dust moved from the top of the books as she lifted them off, they were quite heavy so she moved them as quickly as she could to the sofa.

“Where do I start with this lot?” Rose asked her mother, pointing at the large, dusty books.

“I’d start with the book at the bottom of your pile first” Aine suggested, surprised her daughter had taken so many books. Rose knew that they would take a long while to read one book – let alone the four she had picked up. She knew, however, that next time she met Mara, she wanted to be as ready as she could.