Rose Bloom, Rose Bud, Rose Blood | L. R. Lam #2
The guards arrived. Her parents were standing at my father’s threshold, their faces shining in adulation and tears. The soldiers were all glinting metal, faces hidden, swords sharp. My love clasped my hand, and I clutched her tight, but it wasn’t enough.
She left a petal behind, floating through the air to fall at my feet.
* * *
The seasons turned on the wheel. The rain fell.
The crops were good. Every dawn and every sunset, I looked towards the tower and whispered her name.
My prayer was sending her love that I hoped she felt.
I could sense her, now and again, from the blood we’d shared.
I wondered what her days were like. I’m sure they treated her well enough, but did she see anyone at all, up in that tower, her pink-gold hair growing longer, her skin erupting with new blooms of magic?
Did they see her as any thing other than a goddess?
I thought of all the human details of her – the dimple in her left cheek.
The way her right eyebrow had a slightly higher arch than the left.
The old scar on her forearm from when she’d burned it in her father’s bakery.
It’d healed silvery smooth, and I’d kissed it every time we made love.
I cupped the precious, now-dried petal in my palm. Eventually, it crumbled to dust. And I decided, there and then, goddess or not, I wouldn’t let her go without a fight.
* * *
It took another few months to decide the best way to do it.
I collected my materials carefully, spiriting them away, spending my coins, studying the old texts my mother hid at the very bottom of the shelves in the library, where she thought I wouldn’t look.
She should have put them under lock and key.
I practiced, the taste of iron on my tongue every night as I fell asleep, and hoped I had the nerve to do what it would take. I marked my route on an old map of the land, to the heart of the forest. I knew the odds were far higher that I’d die in the trying, but I had made my peace with that.
One year to the day after they took her, I fled. I waited until my mother slumbered and wondered if I’d ever see her again.
No one expected anyone to steal a flower: especially this one.
It took over a week to reach the tower. I travelled through villages and along dusty roads.
Despite the better rains, I saw so much evidence of suffering.
Spindly beggars in the streets, gnarled hands outstretched.
Hungry children. The harvests were good, but that meant more gold for the coffers of the king than any thing else.
Had the harvests ever been as poor across the kingdom as we’d been told?
I left the rolling farmlands behind and entered the forest. Even at noon, it was gloomy beneath the thick branches and dense leaves above.
I smelled loam and dirt and the beating heart of the trees.
The path was thin, and at times, I feared I’d become lost, but from that blood we’d shared, I was drawn to my love, a compass that pointed north.
Finally, late on the morning of the eighth day, the trees thinned to a meadow not unlike the one we’d found so dear.
It was dotted with so many wildflowers that the green of the grass was lost among the purple, yellow, and red.
The tower rose higher than the trees, and ferns and small blooms sprouted between the gaps in the gray, lifeless stone.
Ivy and trellises of roses climbed its sides.
The small door at the bottom was guarded by two soldiers, the reflected sunlight off the tips of their spears hurting my eyes.
There was a squat, round building next to it, where the guards must take turns sleeping.
I stared up at the open window near the top, beneath the conical roof.
There was another riot of roses in the window box, as pink as my love’s blush.
I stayed there until darkness fell, watching the guards shift in boredom.
Had anyone else ever come out this way? The forest was meant to be thick with beasts, but if they’d been there, they’d left me well enough alone.
Even the rival kingdoms might not dare, for they benefitted from the rains, too.
My heartbeat pounded my blood through my veins. I felt it in my throat, the inside of my wrists, in the tightness of my neck. I held my sharpest knife in a shaking hand.
Once I did this, there was no going back. It was my last chance, to turn around, make my way back through the woods, and pretend I never came this close to what I’d planned.
Of course, there was no going back.
I made a shallow gash on the back of my forearm, gathering the magic and my nerves.
The guards were easier than I’d anticipated. I pushed my magic at them, whispering the arcane words I’d learned from my mother’s books. Soon, the guards’ heads nodded, and as one they slid down the stone walls to either side of the door.
I had but a little magic, and blood was the key. I darted forward. A quick knife, a flash of red blood. It took the power of more blood than I’d ever needed to open the door, and I ended up draining them to the cusp of death.
Finally, the door opened with a snick of the lock and a creak of hinges. I took a deep breath and stepped into the dark.
It seemed to take an age to reach the top of the stairs. The sound of my breath echoed in the dark. I reached the top, using more of my stolen blood magic from the guards below to open this one, too, and it opened smooth and silent.
The room was sumptuous. The hard walls were softened with tapestries showing a garden of woven flowers that matched the draperies of the four-postered bed.
Flames danced in silver candlesticks that lent everything a yellow, rosy glow.
Plant pots sat on most surfaces, bursting with more blooms, mostly roses.
There were haphazard stacks of books, hoops of half-finished embroidery on an armchair.
A canvas showed the beginnings of a sketch of the forest below.
A table had the remains of dinner on golden plates.
Fruit overflowed from a bowl: a vine of fat, dark purple grapes, plums, and others I didn’t even recognize.
The richness of the room paled compared to my love. She was so beautiful, limned in the silver light of the hunter’s moon. She had unfurled, almost covered with petals. The whole tower smelled of roses.
She turned to face me, and it was like only an hour had passed rather than most of a year.
“You shouldn’t have come,” she said, and the words hit me like a knife.
She’d spoken them so softly, though, her tone thick with grief. Her lip was trembling just as it had before I’d kissed her the first time. Hope kindled in me as bright as the candles’ flames.
I held out my hand. We both knew what we risked if she left the tower. That the forests could turn to desert, that the worship would turn to hate. I would let it all burn, for her.
“If you could wish for anything, right now,” I said. “What would you wish for? Not the goddess. The woman.”
She closed her eyes, focusing within. She grew even brighter, the pale pinks deepening to crimson.
She opened her eyes and took my hand.
We turned, but a silhouette darkened the doorway, and a spike of fear choked my throat. One of the guards swayed, faint from blood loss, but he drew his sword. How had he awoken? With a strangled cry, he rushed towards me, the risk to his goddess, and I was so shocked, I froze.