32. Close to Death – Rosemary
Close to Death
ROSEMARY
There was nothing. No pulse. No beating heart. No breath. He was gone.
My hair fell over my shoulders as I bent over his still form, my fingers pressed into his chest. He couldn't be gone. I didn't bother wiping away the dampness from my eyes as I cried over him.
"Elias," I whispered, my fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic.
“I’m furious with you but I love you," I whispered, the words carrying every ounce of truth in my soul.
"I love you, Elias. Not because of what we might have been, not from some half-remembered past, but because of who you are now.
Because my heart chose you freely, completely.
I forgive you. I understand why you couldn't tell me. We can work this out. Just don't die."
The moment the words left my lips, something fundamental shifted in the world around us. Magic erupted from where my hands touched his chest, golden and warm and absolutely pure. I felt his curse shatter like glass, the dark bonds that had trapped his true nature for decades dissolving like smoke.
And with that breaking came the flood.
Memories rushed back not in fragments but whole and complete, perfect in their clarity.
Every moment we'd shared as children, every laugh, every secret glance, every instance when our souls had recognized each other across the divide of our courts.
I remembered loving him before I even understood what love was.
I remembered my mother's final gift, hiding those memories not to keep us apart, but to ensure that when we found each other again, our love would be authentic. Chosen. Real.
"I remember," I breathed, looking down at his still form with perfect clarity. "I remember everything. And I choose you all over again.”
The memories weren't just returning, they were flooding back with crystalline clarity. I remembered the feeling, the bone-deep certainty that this man was mine and I was his, written in the stars before we were even born.
And now I could feel it again, that golden thread that connected us, stronger for having been denied so long.
My heart shattered into pieces within my chest, those jagged shards cutting me from the inside.
My memories had been stolen from me, that painful fog within my mind had been a curtain erected by my own mother, and Elias had known it the whole time.
I'd lost the flower I had needed to save my sister.
Now, I had lost Elias. But as my body curled over his prone form, those memories ignited within me, making something so clear to me now.
The sacrifice the triads had spoken of, it wasn't the flower at all. It was this moment, this choice to love fully despite the cost, to break the curse through the very connection my mother had hidden to protect us both.
I placed my hands on his chest, desperately pushing my magic into him.
The gentle glow that answered was pathetic compared to the raw power I'd wielded against the unaki. Healing magic, I realized with growing horror, required life to work with. You couldn’t heal what was already dead, no matter how much power you possessed.
Nothing happened. No one would help, no one had ever helped me.
Only Elias. This fight. It was mine, and I wanted blood.
Anger, a furious rage, collided with all the pain and suffering that had been my life this past century.
The losses I'd faced in childhood, the years of failure with Briar, and now the loss of Elias brewed my emotions into a tempest. My hands dug into the dirt at my side as I roared.
With fistfuls of dirt, I stood, leveling my violent glare onto the queen.
The air churned around me. Bit by bit, my eyes locked onto hers, my body floated toward her, only the tips of my toes dragging along the surface of the earth.
"I remember you now," I said. I cocked my head, letting the dirt fall from my fingers as I pulled power from the earth. "You're the one who took everything from me."
The queen smirked. "Look who finally decided to grow some claws. Sweet, little Rosie. So pathetic and weak."
"You want to see my claws?" I snarled. "Fine."
I thrust my fists forward, flinging dirt and unleashing every ounce of power I had left. The wild magic that had destroyed the unaki earlier was nowhere to be found now. In its place was only the familiar flicker of my usual abilities, barely enough to light a candle, let alone fight a queen.
It seared through me, scorching my veins.
Dust and light shot from my palm like a beacon, but the queen lazily raised her hand, deflecting my magic with a barrier.
It fell uselessly at her feet. Disappointment barely registered before I became weightless, and a moment later, my spine slammed into the nearest tree.
The air compressed, pinning me further into the tree until my entire being groaned under the pressure.
The bark cracked behind me, and an invisible noose tightened around my neck, lifting me up the trunk until breathing became a struggle.
The queen came forward, her hand held out as if it were her choking the life from my lips.
"Like I said, so pathetic. Just like your parents and sister.
Let me tell you," she said, in a lilting tone, "when I found out that your whore of a sister had gotten her claws into my heir, I couldn't hold back.
I enacted the curse too early though; otherwise, none of you would have gotten away. "
She leaned closer until her breath heated my cheek when she spoke.
"I knew about you and Elias." She tsked disapprovingly.
"It is why I sent him to the front lines of our wars.
He wasn't my heir, so I didn't need him.
It would have been better for our court if he died.
I couldn't have him sullying our bloodlines, after all. "
The queen lifted her hand to the side of my face, trailing one long nail along my brow until she tucked my hair behind my ear.
The gesture was so much like Elias that I shuddered from her touch, my teeth gritted against the pain of being pressed into the tree.
My lungs wheezed for breath, tears slid down my face, and my fingers dug into the bark of the tree at my back.
"But then your mother and sister ruined everything," the queen continued, her voice rising in pitch.
"Your bitch of a mother cursed my sons into crows, then hid you, but not before she took away your memories so that the curse against my blood would never be broken.
I will never forget her delighted face when she told me that.
Of course, I will never forget how a moment later, I killed her.
But, do you want to know a secret, Rosie? "
My vision clouded and my ears rang. I couldn't breathe. Pain ignited within my chest and my feet kicked at the trunk, desperately searching for purchase. Even as I hung close to death against the tree, my stomach twisted at her use of Elias's nickname for me.
"The only way to break your curses was for the true mates to admit their love to one another, but don't worry, Rosemary dear. I will fix it."
A thousand daggers sliced at my lungs. My blood roared in my ears.
I couldn't see through my blurred vision.
My chest burned with an internal fire. And my head, trapped within the queen's magical hold, couldn't even lull as I lost consciousness, as the world blinked out of existence, leaving only the excruciating pain of my failure.