The Rose Society - Marie Lu

Marie Lu

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THE ROSE SOCIETY

A Young Elites Novel

Contents

Adelina Amouteru

City-State of Merroutas: The Sealands

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Teren Santoro

Adelina Amouteru

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Teren Santoro

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Maeve Jacqueline Kelly Corrigan

Raffaele Laurent Bessette

Adelina Amouteru

Teren Santoro

Adelina Amouteru

Maeve Jacqueline Kelly Corrigan

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru

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MARIE LU is the author of the New York Times bestselling Legend series and The Young Elites. She graduated from the University of Southern California and jumped into the video game industry, working for Disney Interactive Studios as a Flash artist. Now a full-time writer, she spends her spare time reading, drawing, playing Assassin’s Creed, and getting stuck in traffic. She lives in Los Angeles, California (see above: traffic), with one husband, one Chihuahua mix, and two Pembroke Welsh corgis.

Visit Marie at marielu.org

theyoungelites

AUTHOR PHOTO: PAUL GREGORY

Also by Marie Lu

THE YOUNG ELITES

LEGEND

PRODIGY

CHAMPION

For Cassie, sisters always, no matter what

Adelina Amouteru

When I was a little girl, my mother would spend long afternoons telling me old folktales. I remember one story particularly well.

Once upon a time, a greedy prince fell in love with a wicked girl.

The prince had far more than he needed, but it was never enough. When he grew ill, he visited the Kingdom of the Great Ocean, where the Underworld meets the living world, to bargain with Moritas, the goddess of Death, for more life. When she refused, he stole her immortal gold and fled to the surface.

In revenge, Moritas sent her daughter Caldora, the angel of Fury, to retrieve him. Caldora materialized out of the sea foam on a warm, stormy night, clad in nothing but silver silk, an achingly beautiful phantom in the mist. The prince ran to the shore to greet her. She smiled at him and touched his cheek.

“What will you give me in return for my affection?” she asked. “Are you willing to part with your kingdom, your army, and your jewels?”

The prince, blinded by her beauty and eager to boast, nodded. “Anything you want,” he replied. “I am the greatest man in the world. Even the gods are no match for me.”

So he gave her his kingdom, his army, and his jewels. She accepted his offerings with a smile, only to reveal her true angel form—skeletal, finned, monstrous. Then she burned his kingdom to the ground and pulled him below the sea into the Underworld, where her mother, Moritas, was patiently waiting. The prince tried once again to bargain with the goddess, but it was too late. In exchange for the gold he’d stolen, Moritas devoured his soul.

I think of this story now, as I stand with my sister on the deck of a trading ship, looking toward the shore where the city-state of Merroutas rises out of the morning mist.

Someday, when I am nothing but dust and wind, what tale will they tell about me?

Once upon a time, a girl had a father, a prince, a society of friends. Then they betrayed her, and she destroyed them all.

CITY-STATE OF MERROUTAS

The Sealands

They were the flash of light in a stormy sky, the fleeting darkness before dawn. Never have they existed before, nor shall they ever exist again.

—Unknown source on the Young Elites

Adelina Amouteru

“I think he might be here.”

I’m startled from my thoughts by my sister Violetta’s voice. “Hmm?” I murmur, looping my arm through hers as we wind our way through a crowded street.

Violetta purses her lips in a familiar expression of concern. She can tell I’m distracted, but I’m grateful she decides to let it go. “I said, I think he might be here. In the main square.”

It is early evening on the longest day of the year. We are lost in the thick of a celebration in the city-state of Merroutas, the wealthy, bustling crossroads between Kenettra and the Tamouran Empire. The sun has nearly dipped below the horizon, and the three moons hang low and plump, ripe golden orbs suspended over the water. Merroutas is alight with festivities for the Midsummer Feast of Creation, the start of a month of fasting. Violetta and I wander through the throngs of revelers, lost amid the celebration’s rainbow of colors. Both of us are dressed in Tamouran silks tonight, our hair wrapped up and our fingers adorned with bronze rings. People draped in jasmine garlands are everywhere, packed into the narrow alleys and spilling out into the squares, dancing in long lines around domed palaces and bathing temples. We walk past waterways swollen with cargo-laden boats and buildings carved in

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