A servant notices it first. A young errand boy who spends his days moving items from one place to another, which includes unloading deliveries from carriages into the manor so that they have everything they need to survive. One morning, as he runs down the garden path, he spots an unusual sight.
"There's a rose bush growing in the garden?" Alaric asks, already heading to the garden with Corwin following him. "That's not possible."
"It shouldn't be, no," Corwin says. "However, that's the report we received from the errand boy. He thought it was so unusual, he was out of breath from running by the time he arrived to tell me."
Alaric isn't used to being surprised, not anymore. After living for so long, he didn't think that it was possible for life to have any surprises left.
And yet, Lenore seems to be full of them.
He steps outside, down the stone path lined with the brittle remains of what were once Barrowmere's pride. Once his pride, and the joy of... Elyria. The wind brushes against him, sharp with the morning chill and faint traces of rich earth. The errand boy takes him and Corwin to the location where he claims he saw a rose bush—a living rose bush. A sight that shouldn't be possible after that fateful day.
There, just off the path, is a single red bud crawling out of what should be a dead bush. It doesn't make any sense, but even the bush looks—well, not quite healthy, but unmistakably alive.
Alaric crouches, but he doesn't dare to touch this small miracle. A fragile miracle that feels like it should be a trick of the eye, if not for the fact that the errand boy and Corwin can see it, too.
Corwin crouches beside him, eyes wide in wonder. "I don't understand. The curse—nothing should be able to grow on this property. Not anymore."
"What changed?" Alaric says. He looks at the rest of the garden and the sky above the property, finding that the blight is still there—still intact. There's no reason that a bush should be revived here, especially after it's gone centuries without proper care or the chance to live.
"Well, nothing changed. The only difference has been..." He stares at the bud, stopping his words as if he's uncertain whether he should finish his thought or not.
"Tell me," Alaric urges.
"The Duchess' maid, Mary, came to request that a knight join her on a stroll around the gardens. This happened yesterday, and it's the only event that's different from the normal routine of the estate."
Lenore, as he suspected. However, her presence in the garden yesterday isn't conclusive enough. He can't prove that it's the reason a rose is trying to bloom once more, even if his heart tells him that she must be the cause.
He stands up and brushes off his clothes, although there's no dirt on them. "Encourage her to walk the gardens more often. If it takes assigning a harmless task to bring her here, so be it."
As much as he doesn't want to get his hopes up, Alaric feels the spark of long-forgotten emotions stirring in his heart. Perhaps Claude Rowanhart, in trying to insult him, had unwittingly sent Barrowmere a gift instead in his plot to keep his own daughter away from this cursed land.
"On second thought, ask her to tend to the growing rose," Alaric says. "The garden is usually part of the Duchess' duties anyway, so it's not strange to request that she oversees its care."
"As you wish, Your Grace." Corwin leaves to fulfill Alaric's order.
Alaric lingers behind, however, wondering what—if anything—this single rosebud might mean for his future.
-:-
While his day-to-day life doesn't change with the arrival of the rosebud, Alaric's nights are flooded with memories. Nightmares, really. He's used to the occasional nightmare, but these seem different. Each one has him wake up in a cold sweat, tired but unable to go back to sleep for the rest of the night.
All he can see is Elyria in his arms, her life slipping away as he's helpless to save her. Then, it's Lenore in her place. He hasn't known her long—and there's no reason for her death to leave him shaken when they're barely more than strangers—but it still hurts in a way that he can't explain. It's different from the memories of Elyria's death, but something about the idea of losing Lenore unsettles him.
With a sigh, Alaric gets out of bed and prepares for the day. The halls are dark in the night's embrace as he heads to his study, but he's walked it so often, he no longer needs light to guide him. A voice whispers in his ear, as light as a draft of air, but he knows that if he turns, no one will be there. It's simply the nature of this manor. Of the past that's trapped here with Alaric for eternity as a punishment for his failures.
Instead of sitting at his desk and starting on the never-ending work he has as a duke, Alaric rests on the plush chair set up with other seats around a coffee table for the rare occasions he has to hold a small meeting here. On the coffee table, sits a vase with Lenore's crafted flowers carefully placed in it, just like the other two vases in the room.
He closes his eyes there, slouching down in the chair enough so that his head rests on its back. The familiar ache in his eyes from lack of sleep won't go away anytime soon, and he should be putting a warm towel over them to help. But it's been a long time since he's cared about his own well-being or how dark the circles under his eyes might become.
When he goes to dinner again later, Lenore will do as she's done since these nightmares began: pretend not to notice at first, quietly gauge his mood, then gently suggest that he get more rest, as if she wishes she could command him to rest, but fears what that audacity could result in.
Alaric almost smiles at the thought. It's one of the reasons he continues joining her for dinner in the dining hall, and why he's not as upset about his lack of sleep as he perhaps should be.
It feels nice to have someone worry about him.