8. A Final Backward Glance – Rosemary
A Final Backward Glance
ROSEMARY
After slipping my journal into a concealed pocket of my packed bag, I headed to the back bedroom and settled into the soft chair beside Briar's sleeping form.
I felt the weight of silver eyes tracking me from the woods, but with my oath to let Elias join me in the Everland Forest, there was little I could do now.
A sudden crack of thunder made me jump, and fat raindrops began pelting the cottage roof. Within moments, it had turned into a downpour. I moved to close the window when a figure emerged from the tree line, moving swiftly through the storm toward the cottage.
Elias.
He was soaked through by the time he reached the small overhang by my door, his dark hair plastered to his head, his shirt clinging to every muscle of his chest and arms. When he knocked, I hesitated for a moment before opening the door.
"Can I take shelter?" he asked, water dripping from his hair into those tempestuous, steel-colored eyes.
"You can't come in," I said quickly, thinking of Briar sleeping just a room away.
"I'm not asking to come in." He gestured to the small covered area by the door. "May I stay here just until the worst of it passes?"
I should have said no. Should have told him to find shelter elsewhere. Instead, I found myself stepping outside, pulling the door mostly closed behind me. The space was cramped, forcing us to stand closer than I was comfortable with.
"Better?" I asked, suddenly aware of how the sound of rain created an intimate cocoon around us.
He nodded, but his gaze wasn't on the storm. It was on me. "Much better."
The way he said it, low and rough, sent heat swirling through my belly. This was wrong. He was unseelie, my enemy by birth and blood. I should have been repulsed by him, not fighting the urge to step closer.
"Stop looking at me like that," I whispered.
"Like what?"
"Like you want to devour me."
His eyes darkened. "And what if I do?"
The question hung between us like a loaded weapon. I should have been horrified. Instead, I felt an answering hunger unfurl in my chest, dangerous and unwanted.
"Then you'd be disappointed," I managed to say. "I'm not some conquest for you to claim."
"No," he agreed, his gaze never leaving mine. "You're something far more dangerous than that." Elias stood, striding out into the rain as I watched.
I realized, with mounting horror, that I wanted him to try, wanted him to turn and close the distance between us and damn the consequences.
Instead, I went back inside and to the room I shared with my sister.
I opened the book Madame Eliza had held for me, not a fairytale retelling, which was my favorite type of story to read to Briar, but something more crucial. Flipping to the first page, I read aloud to my sister.
"The history of the fae began long before memory can recall..."
A steady tapping at the window behind Briar's head caused me to pause. Herb perched on the outside ledge, and when I didn't immediately open the window, he tapped even harder.
"For heaven's sake, Herb!" I complained, closing the book as I crossed the room to fling open the window. "The front window is still open for you. You don't need to disturb my reading."
His dark feathers flared as he swooped into the room, circled my shoulders, and landed on the pillow beside Briar's head, his usual spot. Nestling into the silk, his wings folded, glowing with a bluish hue in the candlelight. Somehow, he’d managed to stay dry.
Herb stared at me expectantly. When I didn't break the silence, he finally cawed, nodding toward the book.
"You want me to continue reading?"
Caw-caw!
Sighing, I pulled the book back into my lap and continued.
"Once the two fae races were one. Two sisters arrived to a land void of magic..." I read of how darkness plagued one sister's heart until she could hold it at bay no more, pulling from the land what was never hers until the balance distorted. "That blackest of nights, the unseelie were born."
I skimmed through centuries of wars and disputes until I reached the back of the book, where bold writing captured my attention.
"Over a century from the date of this publication, right as the seelie and unseelie courts began bridging the first peace negotiations in their known history, all seelie fae vanished along with their kingdom.
Anyone who ventures in the direction of their known lands has never returned.
What happened to the seelie fae? What happened to the royal family?
All this remains a mystery to this day."
Those words weighed on me like a heavy blanket.
I curled inward, closing the book with a sigh.
Briar lay in perfect slumber, unchanged and nearly as perfect as the day the curse was cast. These past months and weeks though, I’d noticed small changes.
I watched her while worry gnawed at my gut as the blue of her veins peeked through her pale skin and at the glimmer of silver within her fading blond hair beneath the candle’s gentle glow.
When she woke, would she recognize herself?
Would she even recognize me? I wasn't the child I'd been when this slumber first found her.
The throne was never my destiny, so I'd enjoyed a freer upbringing than Briar.
Hers was bound by duty, mine by adventure.
While she mastered court etiquette and honed her seelie magic, I was in the woods, experimenting with bark, leaves, and flowers.
I was the lucky one... until I wasn't.
As I reminisced about the past, my mind became foggy. Every memory grew harder to retrieve, as if I were traveling through murky waters. There were missing faces and chunks of time I simply couldn't reach. A dull pain throbbed behind my eyes, and I winced, shoving the memories away.
"Tomorrow, my journey to retrieve the daemonacus flower begins," I said to both Briar and Herb. "I know this is the path forward to break this curse. What I don't know is what will happen once it's broken. Will Briar awaken and the seelie lands reopen?"
My sister was the rightful heir to the seelie kingdom and would soon be needed at court to rebuild. As I gazed through the window at the forest, I realized I didn't want that life. I'd grown fond of this quiet existence in our wooded bubble.
Herb shifted, and one of his feathers came loose, fluttering down until it nestled next to Briar's cheek. I scooped it from the bed, marveling at how the color shifted in the candlelight. "You're going to leave a mess of these throughout our home by the time I return, aren't you?"
Suppressing a yawn, I tucked the feather into the book, set it on Briar's bedside table, blew out the candle, and collapsed onto the small cot against the back wall.
"I'll leave at first light," I said into the silence.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
His chirps sounded angry, as if he didn't want me to go.
"I don't have a choice, Herb," I said through a yawn.
Sleep found me easily a short while later.
When I woke with the first rays of morning light, I startled at the sight of Herb standing inches from my chin, his clawed feet squarely on my chest. The moment my eyelids lifted, he cawed in my face.
"What?" I growled, my voice foggy with sleep.
Herb swung his entire body from side-to-side, a vehement show of disagreement.
I shooed him from my chest as I sat up. "You don't want me to go in search of the one thing that will possibly break this curse?"
He did the dance again.
"Why not?"
He lifted into the air, flying small circles around the ceiling until he stopped suddenly, tilted his head toward the ground, and did a tailspin until he landed on the floorboards with a soft thud.
I scrambled out of bed, but before I reached him, he hopped back onto his feet, his beady gaze begging me to understand.
"Dangerous? You think the journey will be dangerous?"
He bobbed in agreement.
I sat on the floor next to him, crossing my legs as I held my open palms out.
He took three short hops until he settled into my hold.
"I know it will be dangerous, but I won't be alone. I have a companion who’s sworn to see this journey through with me and to protect me. We’ll be careful, and we’ll bring back the cure for Briar. "
Herb fell over in mock death again.
I chuckled as I set him back down. "You're being dramatic. I'll be fine."
It didn't take long until I stood ready to depart. I wore an emerald dress made of thicker material and long, brown leather boots for protection. My hair, the color of ripe wheat kissed by the sun, cascaded down my back in two thick braids.
I turned to face Briar one final time, bending to place a soft kiss on both of her cheeks. "I promise to return with the cure. I love you, sister." I straightened, pinning Herb with a serious look. "Keep her safe in my absence."
Opening the bedside table's lone drawer, I pulled out the dagger I'd had since I was a small fae child, the one with a silver moon attached to two crescents on either side carved into the hilt. How I’d gotten it was trapped deep within the fog of my lost memories.
I knew it had been during the first negotiations my parents attempted with the unseelie court.
Perhaps a gift of good faith? I just couldn't remember.
I strapped it to the thigh sheath I wore.
From the front room, I grabbed my pack and pulled my cloak from the door peg.
I threw it over my shoulders until it concealed my pack.
I stood in the doorway for long minutes, memorizing every detail of our sanctuary.
The way morning light fell across Briar's peaceful face, the herbs drying in neat bundles by the window, the worn quilt our mother had stitched with such care— that Magdalyn had one day brought to us out of the blue.
This cottage had been our refuge, our haven from a world that wanted us dead. Leaving felt like betrayal.
But staying would be the greater betrayal. I pressed my palm to the doorframe, whispering the protection spell I'd renewed every day for over a century. The wood hummed with accumulated magic, decades of love and care layered into its very grain.
I'm not abandoning you, I told Briar silently. I'm fighting for you.
Only then did I step outside, carrying the cottage's peace with me like armor against what lay ahead.
The earth knew my grief, had absorbed my tears for a century.
Now I asked it to hold my hope instead. I placed an open palm along the bark.
"In my absence through the wood, please protect what's mine if you could.
Your tender care is what I need, my call to you I hope you heed.
Shift and conceal what belongs to me, let no eyes beyond this point see. "
I felt a soft pulse of magic in answer as what little seelie magic I could harness responded. As if the trees agreed, an audible exhale thrummed as magic thickened and hummed in the space between us.
A few more beats of silence passed, and then I stood and entered the forest.