44. Aftermath – Rosemary
Aftermath
ROSEMARY
Six months after the queen's death, I still woke screaming.
The cottage Elias built with his own hands nestled in the former queen's private gardens, now overtaken by wild roses and morning glory climbing the stone walls in nature's rebellion.
Morning light streamed through windows designed to catch the dawn's first rays, warming polished oak floors and walls painted a soft cream yellow.
Neatly arranged herbs, lavender, rosemary, chamomile, and mint, grew outside our door; their fragrance wafting through the open casements with every breeze.
The bed was soft, the walls were thick enough to muffle sound, and I shared it all with the man I loved more than life itself. By every measure that mattered, it should have been perfect. But perfection, I had learned, was no protection against the darkness that lived behind my eyelids.
"Another one?" Elias asked, his arms already reaching for me before consciousness had fully returned to his voice. Six months of this had given him practice in reading the signs, the way my breath hitched in my sleep, the small sounds that escaped my throat before the screaming began.
I nodded, not trusting my voice yet. My throat felt raw, as if I truly had been screaming aloud rather than merely in the hellscape of dreams. The nightmare had been particularly vivid tonight, not the familiar torture of my captivity, though those still visited me regularly, but something worse.
Visions of what I might have become and could still become if I wasn't careful.
In the dream, I had sat upon a throne carved from the bones of my enemies, drunk on power and the exquisite pleasure of watching those who had disappointed me suffer for their failures.
The worst part wasn't the cruelty, it was how much I had enjoyed it, how right it had felt to hold absolute power over life and death.
"Tell me," he said gently, settling back against the pillows and drawing me close to his chest. This had become our ritual, our way of walking through the darkness together.
He'd learned not to offer empty reassurances or tell me it was just a dream.
We both knew the dreams carried more truth than comfort could bear.
"I was her," I whispered, curling against his warmth like a child seeking shelter from a storm. "In the dream, I was the queen. And the terrible thing, Elias, the thing that frightens me most is I liked it."
His arms tightened around me, but he didn't rush to contradict me or tell me such a thing was impossible. We'd learned that healing required honesty, even when the truth was ugly.
"What did you like about it?" he asked instead, his voice carefully neutral.
I considered the question seriously, because that was the only way through these dark moments. Surface answers wouldn't heal what was broken inside me, wouldn't address the fundamental fear that kept me awake at night.
"The certainty," I said finally, the words tasting bitter on my tongue.
"Never having to doubt myself or agonize over difficult decisions.
If someone opposed me, I had the power to end them.
No more wrestling with complex emotions, no more weighing competing needs and trying to find solutions that wouldn't hurt anyone.
Just pure, simple power cutting through all ambiguity. "
"And what stopped you?" he whispered, his tone gentle. "In the dream, what pulled you back from that edge?"
This was the part that always broke my heart, because it was also the part that saved me from despair.
"You," I whispered, my voice faltering on the word. "In the dream, when I looked down from my throne of bones, you were standing in the crowd below. And you looked at me with such profound disappointment. Not anger, not fear, just sadness that I had become something you couldn't love anymore."
He was quiet for a long moment, and I could feel him considering his response with the care of someone handling fragile glass. When he spoke, his words carried the weight of absolute conviction.
"Rosemary," he said, his voice soft but firm, "I need you to understand something. There is nothing you could become, nothing you could do, that would make me stop loving you. But more importantly, the very fact that you're afraid of becoming a monster is proof that you never will be one."
"How can you be so certain?" I asked, though part of me desperately wanted to believe him.
"Because monsters don't have nightmares about their own darkness," he replied.
"They embrace it. They find reasons to justify it.
They tell themselves that their cruelty serves some greater good.
" His hand stroked my hair with infinite gentleness.
"You're tormented by even the possibility of causing harm.
That's not the mindset of someone destined for evil. "
I longed to find solace in his logic, but fear ran deeper than reason.
During our final confrontation with the queen, something had awakened within me, something hungrier and more dangerous than my healing magic.
The darkness she had forced into my soul whispered seductive promises about how easy it would be to force people to make the right choices rather than waiting for them to choose wisely on their own.
"The power is still there," I admitted, my voice barely above a whisper. "What I absorbed from her when she died. I can feel it sometimes, coiled up inside me like a serpent waiting for the right moment to strike."
"I know," he said quietly, and I could hear the concern beneath his calm exterior. "I can sense it too, through our bond. Sometimes when you're angry or frustrated, the air around you shimmers with barely contained energy."
"Doesn't that terrify you?" I asked, pulling back to study his face in the dim light filtering through our curtains.
"Sometimes," he admitted with the honesty that had always been one of his most precious qualities.
"But not because I think you'll use it for evil.
I'm afraid you'll destroy yourself trying to contain it, that you'll pour so much energy into keeping it locked away that there won't be anything left of the woman I love. "
That fear was closer to my own deepest terror than I'd been willing to acknowledge.
The dark magic I'd absorbed wasn't simply sitting dormant inside me like a sleeping creature.
It was active, constantly pressing against the mental barriers I'd constructed, looking for cracks and weaknesses where it could seep through.
"I have an idea," Elias said suddenly, his voice carrying the note of excitement that always appeared when he was working through a complex problem.
"About the darkness inside me?" I asked, though I could already see the wheels turning behind his silver eyes.
"About transforming it," he said, sitting up with energy that made the mattress bounce.
"You're a healer, Rosemary. Your fundamental nature is to take poison and turn it into medicine, to find ways to heal what others might consider beyond redemption.
What if that's exactly what we need to do with the queen's power? "
I stared at him, the idea taking root in my mind like a seed finding fertile soil. "Transform it how?"
"I don't know yet," he admitted, running his hands through his sleep-tousled hair.
"But I think we can figure it out. Together.
What if instead of trying to contain the darkness, we find a way to use it constructively?
Channel it into understanding how corruption happens so we can prevent it in others? "
Hope flickered in my chest for the first time in weeks, small and fragile, but undeniably present. "You really think there might be a way? A way to transform this darkness into something useful instead of simply containing it?"
"I think," he said, leaning down to kiss my forehead tenderly, "that you absorbed centuries of accumulated evil and somehow didn't let it corrupt your essential nature. If that's not proof that impossible things are possible, I don't know what is."
A soft knock at our door interrupted us, followed by the sound of rustling paper being slid beneath the wooden panels. Elias pulled on a robe and retrieved what turned out to be a letter bearing the formal seal of the Summer Court.
"From Briar," he said, handing me the parchment before settling back beside me on the bed.
I broke the wax seal and unfolded the paper to find my sister's familiar handwriting, scanning quickly through the formal opening pleasantries until I reached the heart of her message.
"What is it?" Elias asked, noting the way my expression shifted as I read.
"Three more unseelie nobles have formally requested training at our center," I said, torn between pride and trepidation. "And apparently the Winter Court wants to establish a formal alliance for sharing magical knowledge and healing techniques."
"That's wonderful news," he said, but I could hear the question in his voice.
"Is it?" I set the letter aside, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by the weight of expectation.
"More people looking to us for guidance we're not qualified to give.
More responsibility when I can barely trust myself with the power I already carry.
More chances to fail them if this darkness inside me finally wins. "
Elias took my hands in his, his touch warm and steadying.
"Or," he said gently, "more chances to heal the divisions the queen created.
More opportunities to prove that seelie and unseelie can work together instead of destroying each other.
More students who'll carry your techniques out into the world and save lives you'll never even know about. "