Reshina
All three of us stood in the silent snowfall at the foot of Marianna’s grave. Fourteen red roses laid in the snow, marking the years since her death and the beginning of Arthur’s curse as the Beast.
Piffle sniffled into a handkerchief, and I wondered if it was for Marianna or Arthur that he mourned.
It was the Beast there beside me, not the man I knew, but the monster brought from the Veil.
I slid my hand across the Beast’s claws at his side, holding them there, giving my presence, and giving what I could.
We didn’t say a thing. By then, there was no need to. No words of mourning. No hopeful comfort in the passing of the woman Arthur had respected as his mother, but never truly loved. The Beast took a deep breath, releasing it into the frozen air, leaving a cloud in its wake.
Arthur and I had continued to argue about my presence at his mother’s memorial, but a Goddess was a Goddess and when we wanted something, we were sure to have it.
The three of us stayed for an hour. My thoughts drifted to what it must have been like for Arthur, watching the rasping sickness take his mother and inevitably take his life away from him.
It wasn’t any wonder he had begged me to stab a knife through his chest all those weeks—he’d had nothing to hope for.
But he hadn’t mentioned it in months, and I hadn’t even begun to look for another way to leave.
I leaned my head against the Beast’s arm and he shifted slightly.
He wouldn’t hurt me. He wouldn’t bite me—not now, not at the moment that mattered so dearly to Arthur.
When the hour was up and Piffle and I walked silently back inside, Arthur joined us a few minutes later, shifting from Beast to man as he came down the stairwell. I took him into my arms where we sank to the steps, and I held his head at my chest as he silently wept.
The soft scratch of the pen was what woke him.
I was busy writing notes in the margins of what looked like his most prized possession by the condition of it.
Cursed Goddess of the Veil lay flat before me, the spine cracked, the pages thumbed through so many times, they stood on end of their own accord, stiff with a few small tears.
This edition had a pale blue cloth cover, frayed at the edges and corners. It was small, something that could easily fit inside a pocket, and when I’d discovered it in his bedside drawer, I’d almost laughed aloud to see myself there.
Here was the part of me Arthur had known for years. It was the book that led us to this point where I was naked in his bed with three leftover bite marks from the Beast within him.
The moment I discovered his treasure, I’d begun reading the book, fascinated by his notes in the spaces between the pages and along the margins.
He’d annotated many—the most I’d seen in any of his books.
By the time I got to the heart of the story, I’d grabbed his fancy pen that held ink inside the barrel and had begun to add my own notes.
I knew he wouldn’t be angry about it. He consistently left me his favorite books after seven months of being his captive—asking me to add to his annotations and then return them to him.
I finished my last note, eyeing him as he stirred, his beautiful hands searching across the bed beside him.
I scooted closer, cleared my throat, and began to read.
“It was on that morning that I had come to understand change. She is a vile thing, yet you cannot stop her. Not a root from digging through the soil, not a flower from budding before it blooms. So I did nothing the day he left me but recognize the change. I accepted it and kept on living. My life was not his to break, nor was his mine. Once two lovers, we were then nothing but the past tense of the word. And though we shared a child, we did not share what was important at that time to him. An undying, everlasting love for each other.”
I lowered the book, crawling to him and sliding my legs around his torso. “You’ve written something here in the margins. Do you remember what you said?”
Arthur nodded, sliding his hands along my bare thighs and speaking low. “I would not have left her.”
I mirrored his nod. “I would not have left her.” I snapped the book shut, tossing it to the side, boxing him in beneath me with my arms. “Have you always loved me?”
“Yes,” he breathed. “And no.”
I raised a brow.
“Yes, I’ve always loved you. Your story. How you’ve woven your words in here.” He tapped his chest. “But I did not love you then as I love you now.”
“Arthur.” My voice cracked and I froze, unable to do anything but listen.
“I loved you then, but I did not know the look of you. The way you hold yourself.” His eyes narrowed and he shook his head.
“The steps you take in this realm and the one above as if you’ve lived it all.
As if this world belongs to you, not you to it, and your poise, Reshina.
I am transfixed by the mere sight of you walking towards me. ”
I opened my mouth to speak, but his hand was there, covering my words. “The way you taste. I loved you then, but I did not know the sweetness on your skin or the luscious warmth of your blood. And the way you feel beneath my hands, so supple. So soft.”
Those exact hands shifted across my skin, tracing the line of my jaw where he held my face in his palms. “Yes, I have loved you for years. And for months, I have understood what I felt then was a fraction of what I feel now. I am immortalized by you. One day, when our time is done, you will continue on in this life, and I will not.”
I jerked away in a desperate vehemence, but he followed, rising and holding me still.
“As you said, change is a vile thing, but there is good in change, too. Change brought back the meaning in my life. Change gave me someone to love—the same one I’d been writing to in the margins of my books all those years, so she could read them in my bed in the early morning hours. ”
“Don’t do this,” I begged, the first spill of a tear sliding down my cheek.
“I love you now and I loved you then. I will love you tomorrow and the next day and the next. Until I am dead, cold in my grave, and the stars cease to shine, I will love you. There will be no leaving, Reshina. I am by your side until the day my heart fails and it cannot beat in your name.”
“I cannot—”
“I know.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “I know, I know. I know you cannot love me.” He lifted his head in a smile that could light the world had he not been trapped beneath it. “I love you regardless. I know that if you could love me, you would.”
I froze.
I could not move.
I could not indicate a single release of breath or shift of my hands on his chest.
The curse had more power over me than just stealing the words from my lips. Not only was I unable to confess love, I could not show it. I could not reveal even the slightest hint of the truth in my heart.
I loved.
Of course, I loved.
The curse, meant for my father but bestowed upon me, was a diabolical thing. One of the worst I’d ever encountered in all my time as Cursebringer.
The ability to love had never left me.
The words did.
I could never say them.
Never write them.
Never show the truth of them to anyone, even my own children, just babes in my arms, looking up into my eyes as if I was all that mattered in the entire world.
Not even then.
Not now as I had come to love this man with my entirety.
Until he moved or spoke again, I was trapped within my own curse.
He searched my eyes for something. Anything. Any sign or hint of what I could have felt in another time when I was not cursed and neither was he. I stared blankly at him, screaming, rattling in my cage, begging for him to somehow see that I loved him back.
He smiled sadly. “You cannot love me. I know. And you cannot tell me how your curse is broken. I know that, too.” He laughed without humor. “Perhaps one day, I’ll break it without meaning to. I’ll kiss your elbow at just the right spot and poof! You’ll tell me how much you love me then.”
I lifted my arm, pointing my elbow towards him. “Might as well try,” I rasped.
He did laugh then, kissing it swiftly, leaving little trails of his lips. He took the other, doing the same, pressing me down into the bed, laughing with me. The curse had released me, sure that the moment of confession had passed.
He swept the hair back from my face. “I have enough love for the both of us, Reshina. I am yours for however long you’d like me to be.”
Forever, I whispered in the reaches of my mind, taking his face in my hands and pouring whatever love I could into my kiss.