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The Key: Book 2 The Rose Tree Chronicles

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The Key: Book 2 The Rose Tree Chronicles

Fantasylast updateLast Updated : 2022-04-09

By:  J. D. BuchmillerCompleted

Language: English
16

Chapters: 21 views: 3.1K

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A naiad faces two choices: do what it takes to save her adopted mermaid daughter, or risk her life and the lives of others to satisfy her own selfish desires. Which will she choose? Empress Renée has been told numerous times to lighten up. Her negativity and oppressive nature are effecting the health of Nadia, the only heir to the throne of the Five Oceans. She is informed that if she doesn't change her attitude by the time the rose bud on the key she is given has fully bloomed, Nadia will be sent some place where she can live a full and happy life. However, this key unlocks a wonder that Renée decides to take advantage of to end a personal problem she believes will solve everything. Meanwhile, as a result of her last adventure, Rein Bow remains a wingless pixie. When she learns that the empress plans to seek out the Mystery Miracle Worker, she decides to tag along since this is who can give her wings again. Unfortunately, traveling with someone who flaunts a key which the most power-hungry of people desire provides Rein with a whole new set of obstacles. Will Empress Renée submit to her own selfish desires, or will she do what it takes to save her adopted daughter? Can Rein help the empress see the light? Or will they both suffer at the hands of the many villains after the key? "The Key" officially sets "The Rose Tree Chronicles" in motion. Here is where the ocean meets the land, a collision unwelcome by most and if all seafolk are like Empress Renée, it may not be difficult to understand why. Fraught with personal struggles and new mysterious characters, "The Key" is the spark which ignites the inferno that is "The Rose Tree Chronicles."

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    21 chapters
    Prologue: A Difficult Task Indeed
    Three centuries had slipped away, and the kingdoms on land and beneath the waves had new rulers shaping their destinies. Gerardo’s legacy was etched deeply into the hearts of the seapeople, his name whispered in reverence across the five oceans and recorded in the annals of history on land. His first son, Jaskaran, born of Mira, ascended the throne after marrying Renée, a naiad whose beauty was shadowed by a sorrow—she could bear no children of her own. Together, Jaskaran and Renée adopted a young mermaid named Nadia, welcoming her into their lives with a grand ceremony that sealed her status as imperial by blood. With this, Nadia became the sole heir to the underwater empire’s throne.But joy soon turned to quiet dread. Nadia fell gravely ill, her once-bright eyes dimming with each passing day. Renée refused to leave her daughter’s side, cradling her gently as hope slowly withered in her heart. Though the emperor and empress summoned the realm’s most skilled healers, Renée’s gaze neve
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    Chapter One: Hasty Assumptions
    The day was only hitting its peak at the Obsidian Palace where Emperor Jaskaran and his two advisors held a meeting in the grand drawing room. They reclined around a circular table carved from dark, gleaming stone, joined by a poised naiad and a broad-shouldered adaro whose powerful shark tail shimmered in the faint light.Overhead, a chandelier of pulsing glowfish cast soft, shifting light that danced across their faces, throwing deep, rippling shadows on the walls. Silver platters of spiced coral cakes and kelp-wrapped eels lay half-emptied between them, their laughter rising and falling like bubbles in a warm current. Conversation flowed easily, until a voice thundered through the chamber, cracking the ease in an instant and silencing the room like a sudden riptide.“I require a word with His Majesty! Immediately.”Jaskaran paused for a moment to eye who had dared interrupted them. When he recognized it was his wife, he breathed a heavy sigh and addressed his guests. “I apologize fo
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    Chapter Two: The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time
    Rein wasted no time preparing for another adventure outside the Maja Forest. She rode a blackbird to her little alcove in a tree, the small hole where she’d studied and slept for the past three centuries. Leaves which bore her desperate notes were scattered about her floor, mixed with piles of clothes as disheveled as the blankets on her walnut capsule bed. She dashed across her flat to her wardrobe where she snatched up her satchel, and packed only the bare necessities with haste.Rein had never fully recovered from the day when the infamous Emperor Mentir tore her wings from her back. The memory clung to her like a scar that refused to fade, one cruel moment which stretched across lifetimes. Since then, she had survived only by consuming the delicate petals of the burdania flower, a rare bloom known to keep wingless pixies tethered to life. But the burdania grew only in the Maja Forest, and fate, with its usual irony, had rooted her survival in the very place she once fled in bittern
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    Chapter Three: An Island for the Immoral
    Arcor was a lawless stretch, a haven for the world’s most devoted criminals. Smugglers bartered in its alleys, exiles claimed its ruins, and the bloodiest of pirates came here to hire their crews. It swallowed nearly the whole island, festering with a kind of chaos that earned it a reputation as the most wretched city known to land or sea.Unlike Rein, Empress Renée was unmolested on her way to Arcor, and she shored the same day as Rein was carried onto the pirate ship. Renée didn’t dare enter the city right away. She took cover in a snowed-out wood, far from the madness crowding Arcor’s streets. The beaches and ports never rested. Men shouted over the crashing surf, deals were struck with blades, and shattering laughter echoed down the salt-worn streets. From her distance, they looked feral. Savage. The empress wrapped her light gray cloak tighter around her, tucking her face deeper beneath the hood. Strands of white-gold hair slipped loose, shimmering faintly in the cold light, and s
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    Chapter Four: The Proposition
    The cabin door swung open as the two pirates who had taken Rein captive returned with the captain striding in behind them, just in time to see the glass jar teetering on the edge of the desk. The captain lunged forward, catching it mere inches from the floor.“What did ya do?” the captain scolded as he brought himself back to his feet.“We left the jar on the desk so it wouldn’t roll like that, Cap’n,” the first pirate said. “She musta did that herself.”The second pirate observed Rein closely. “She don’t look so good.”“You fools!” The captain removed the lid. “She’s suffocating ‘cause ya put the lid on the jar!” He poured the limp pixie into his hand and set the jar on his desk. “Return to yer posts, ya bottle-heads.”“Aye, Cap’n,” they both replied, shamefully.The captain laid Rein on his desk and waited for her to regain her strength. “Can ya hear me, Little Pixie?” he asked.Rein’s head buzzed in sync with her fuzzy vision. She glanced around in search for the owner of the voice
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    Chapter Five: Desperate Times...
    Rein buried her face in her hands, the weight of it all pressing in. Every species of fairy had witnessed the birth of Xyntriav, had seen the world rise from stardust and shadow. Their knowledge ran deep, carved into memory like rivers into stone. They knew the secrets most beings only dreamed of. They understood how the Cataras Springs flowed against time itself. They knew of the two keys that granted entry to the sacred waters. And they could recite, without hesitation, the locations of all three hidden passageways which led inside. Nearly every detail of the world’s magic had passed through fairy eyes.“What interest, exactly, do you have in the Cataras Springs?” Rein asked as she sat on the edge of the cigar case.“I desire to drink the waters of the Spring of Agelessness,” answered the captain.“You understand it is only agelessness you will receive, and not immortality?”“I do understand this,” he replied. “But it be agelessness I want, and not immortality. If I wanted immortalit
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    Chapter Six: The Oath
    Rein jumped back with a yelp, shrinking deeper into the trinket box. She couldn’t bring herself to look the captain in the eye as he gazed down at her with an expression on his face she couldn’t read.“There ya are, Little Pixie.”Rein had no words. The idea of begging flickered through her mind, but she pushed it aside. It would buy her nothing. Captain Tzatara said nothing either. He simply extended his hand—broad, calloused, and smelling faintly of steel and old leather. Rein stared at it, then up at him, then back again. Her pulse thudded in her ears. Finally, she reminded herself that it might be wise to cooperate. Gritting her teeth, she stepped forward.“Now, ya know I have to punish ya for that,” Captain Tzatara said as he carried Rein back to his desk.Rein hated how he spoke to her like a child—how his tone implied that he didn’t want to punish her. He played as though he was the nice guy, and it was all she could do not to scream how she wasn’t the simpleton he thought her t
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    Chapter Seven: The Key Goes Missing
    Rein perched atop the tallest mast of the Blood Omen, motionless for hours, eyes scanning the open sky. The first hour passed in quiet triumph. Finally, she was free of that cramped cigar case, free of the cabin’s stale gloom. The wind tasted like salt and iron, and the tang of fish and old wood clung to the ship’s rigging. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was real. It was freedom.By the second hour, the romance had worn thin. The sea stank of low tide, and her patience frayed with every wave. With a sigh, she pursed her lips, and let out a series of chirps and trills she had practiced for centuries. Nothing. She tried again. And again. When her throat was raw and her hope nearly gone, a seagull spiraled down from the clouds, and settled two feet from her perch. Rein tilted her head, listening. No speech, no spark of intelligence. Just a dumb bird. It would do.She rose slowly, careful not to startle it, and slipped her twine from her belt. In one smooth motion, she looped it around the bir
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    Chapter Eight: The White Castle
    The silence which followed the thundering burst seemed to last for hours, and the three trespassers almost decided to continue forward until they heard emphatic, synchronized marching. The footsteps echoed about the lair and grew fuller, louder, as though they increased in numbers. The girls and the mysterious man watched from their hiding spots as an army emerged from the far end of the city, glinting silver beneath the low light. Armor clinked in harmony with the march, each soldier moving with strict discipline: men and women both, faces unreadable beneath helms, their ranks vast.They split like a flood around a stone, each unit diverging into side streets and alleys, sweeping through every corner and crevasse. Then, as one, they halted. The air held its breath. A voice boomed, deep and commanding. It rolled over the city like a stormwind, echoing through the bones of the buildings. He was chanting. No—drilling them. The soldiers repeated his cadence, the synchronized reply of a fo
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    Chapter Nine: Where is the Key Now??
    Jaska stood in stunned silence, processing Empress Renée’s presence: a stranger who wore the precious key around her neck, and held a glowing sprite creature in her hand. Soon, a fiendish smirk stretched across his face.They had been caught, and Rein wished the empress would do something besides just stand there in stark terror. If she would at least release Rein…“Cloid!” Jaska called.The empress melted and surged into the creek, leaving Rein to fend for herself. The poor, sodden pixie darted beneath a side-table as fast as she could with her wounded leg.Cloid and Lazar rushed down the stairs right as the empress took refuge. Without hesitation, Lazar snatched an empty vase from a console table and plunged it into the stream. He came up with the empress sloshing inside. Keeping her in the vase was a tricky feat, but Cloid managed to plug the opening with a clay pot. For a moment, they thought it was over. But then, thin threads of water began to seep through the seams. The naiad wa
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