The Lost Rose

Chapter 15

- What do you mean ivy? Jacob had asked him.

- It's everywhere. We are trying really hard to get rid of it but it comes back and grows really strong.

- How long has it been happening?

- For a little more than a month I'd say.

- Alright, just do you best.

- Oh, and one last thing your majesty. It's a little strange but with the ivy we saw some flowers growing with it.

- What kind of flowers?

- Roses your majesty. And they had a lot of thorns. Really strange roses...

- I see. Thank you for telling me, Uncle Jacob had told him before the gardener had left.

And the last thing he had said and what stuck with me was:

- So, it was true after all. Oh gosh, Keira how I wish you were there.

What did my mother have to do with it? He had mentioned Keira. My mother, his sister, the former queen of the south.

He seemed pretty shook by what he had just been told. "It was true after all", what can that mean?

And roses... why roses? Just like my name?

At this instant, a pretty bad idea crosses my mind.

If I could find more information in his office. Maybe he has some documents, papers, letters about anything that involved me. I know I shouldn't do it and I feel kind of guilty but I have this deep feeling that there are way more things that I don't know about him and this place and about me too.

I quietly leave the dining room and tiptoe along the hallway, in the hall and towards the end of another hallway to his office.

I carefully open the door and once I'm inside and close the door behind me, I start looking.

I start with his desk drawers, papers, documents.

All I can find is stuff about the kingdom, politics, everyday problems, logistic.

- He must have documents about me, I say at loud. If he has been searching for me for so long, he must have collected information about me.

I search in his library, maybe he hide something here. But I lose hope when I don't find anything. On top of that, everything is so organized here, I'm afraid he'll notice if I move a single thing.

I sit back on his chair and close my eyes, sighing.

- This is pointless, I tell myself. I should go.

I'm starting to give up and decide to leave the room when I'm stopped dead in my tracks as I feel a sharp pain in my head.

I press my hands on my forehead, feeling the cool touch of my skin on my burning forehead.

It's almost like I can hear distant sounds, voices, whispering in my ears.

Here. It's here.

I jump in surprise but there is nobody else here. Am I actually crazy? I need to lay down.

When I look up, I see a strange painting near the door. A painting of a forest. There's sun coming from the left but the other half of the painting is in shadows.

But what surprises me the most is the thing at the center.

A rose.

I gasp at the sight of it. What is it with his obsession with roses?