Page 94 of The Hopeless Romantic’s Guide to Enchantment

We were total opposites, but thick as thieves, my father always said of us, fondly. I remained the thundercloud to her sunbeam. I was prone to assume the worst, and she’d cajole me into a smile instead of a scowl.

That second winter, a cough stole first my father’s voice, then later his life. I took over his bookkeeping, for I’d always had a head for numbers, and I was good enough at it that people didn’t seem to mind so much that I wasn’t a man.

“Be careful with that girl,” my mother warned me one day, as she was drying herbs in the kitchen. She, too, had been a village maid until my father had taken one look at her in a market square and fallen head over heels for her, as if he’d taken a love potion. Perhaps he had. My father taught me numbers and ledgers, but my mother had tutored me in more arcane subjects. The prick of a spindle, and the magic that welled up, bright as that bead of blood, and how to use it. I’d taken to that just as easily.

I waved away my mother’s concerns and headed out to the meadow, where my love was waiting for me. Every day I didn’t get my wish, though, the want for it cut me a little deeper.

When she danced with the village boys in the hall during festivals, I’d bite my lip so hard it bled, a burst of magic sparking along my tongue. I’d turn down any boy who asked me for a whirl beneath the holly boughs, perhaps a little more viciously than necessary. I knew, of course, that my love was nearing the age to be thinking about marriage and babes and all of that would keep her tethered to this village. Would I be able to stand at her side? One day, would I say I’d had enough, and my mother and I would disappear in the middle of the night and head back to the capital and its anonymous bustle?

Finally, on the longest night of the year, when we were eighteen, after yet another dance finished and my love spun around the floorboards with another farmer’s son, I could bear it no longer. I took her hand and led her out to our spot in the meadow.

“If you could wish for anything, what would you wish for now?” she asked, and her lip trembled.

“This,” I said, and pressed my mouth to hers.

For a moment, I feared I’d made a mistake, but then her lips parted, her tongue darted against mine, and I was lost and found in equal measure.

We lay down in the meadow grass, and she said I smelled of gardenia. Our lips brushed, light as a butterfly’s wing, before she crushed me to her. Our fingers intertwined, then our limbs. We peeled off our clothes, reverently, and traced the outlines of each other’s bodies. I quivered as my tongue followed the curve of her breast, or followed that faint line of muscle at the centre of her stomach. She smelled of roses and sea salt. Neither of us knew exactly what to do, drawing on instincts and our own explorations of our wandering hands beneath our covers over the years. And when we cried out, overcome, only a barn owl flying across the moon was our witness.

We stayed out in the meadow, whispering until morning, our secrets and promises catching on the wind. We were inseparable after. Her parents and my mother pretended not to notice the obvious shift, but I’d still see the warning in my mother’s eyes. She’d known, long before me, that this could never last.

* * *

That summer was so perfect, I wish I could press it between sheaves of paper like old roses. All too soon, the night frost killed the buds in the fields even as my love bloomed.

I saw the petals as soon as she awoke on the first day of autumn. The chill had set in, and soon the air would crystallize to winter. The petals framed her eyes like a mask. Soft pinks and reds fluttered when she moved. Her curls had changed, the blonde now blushed. Her hands went to her face, cradling the new growths softly. She didn’t cry, but my eyes were wet, for we both knew what it meant. Magic had kindled within her.

I went to my mother first, begging for her help. I’d spill buckets of my own blood if it’d free my love, but my mother only shook her head.

“This, our kind of magic cannot undo,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m so sorry.”

My love was glory. She was the goddess. She was the Chosen.

And I was about to lose her.

While we tried to hide what had happened from the village with rumours of sickness and thick veils, the butcher’s boy spotted her after only a few days. Word spread fast.

Soon enough, we heard the palace guards would come for her at dawn. The villagers were clustered around the stone house, ostensibly to pray, but we knew the truth: they were guarding us so she couldn’t leave.

We took our time undressing each other for the last time. I tasted the salt of her skin and the tears running down her cheeks. I kissed my way down her body, seeing the beginnings of more petals on the wings of her shoulder blades and the tips of her collarbones. I ran my hands up her pale thighs, spread her open like a bloom, and kissed her until she shook and cried out. She drew me up and pressed me to the bed, her hands gripping my upper arms hard, kissing me deeply. I felt the petals tickle my skin, the softness a contrast to the desperation, and I watered them with tears of my own.

* * *

The next morning, she helped me lace my dress tight before I did the same for her. She plaited my hair, taming my curls, and kissed the nape of my neck when she was finished. I couldn’t stop the sob. She smelled even more strongly of roses.

“It’ll be all right,” she whispered in my ear. “This is what I was born for, I suppose: to bring hope to the people. To bring the rains.”

“You were born to do more than be locked up in a tower of gold and stare out at a world you can no longer live in.” My words were bitter.

She closed her eyes, briefly. “Don’t be cruel. Not now.”

I pushed her hair back from her face. The petals were thicker, their colour darker. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’ll take their prayers and turn them to prosperity,” she said. “There are worse things in the world than being worshipped.”

I’d worshipped her every day since I’d met her, I wanted to say, but the words died on my tongue.

“Will you miss me?” I asked.