Love Is Not Enough
It was very odd walking on two feet when one had spent several hours running around on four.
Arris hadn't quite shaken the urge to gallop and as he made his way to his chambers, he had to keep kicking out his leg to startle out the desire to paw the ground.
Beside him, Yvlle looked downright terrible.
Her hair was matted with blood and flopped over her eye patch, beside which was a large gash.
When she grinned, her teeth looked rusted.
"What an excellent night," she said, clinging to the stair banister.
Arris was surprised she was walking. Though this was mainly because the animalium potion she had brewed to transform them into stags hadn't fully worn off and her legs ended in hooves. In her hair, Arris glimpsed the nubs of antlers.
"You are feral," said Arris. "As if fighting a herd wasn't enough, then we had to go after a wolf?"
"He snarled at us."
"He's a wolf!"
"Admit it, you're surprised that you enjoyed yourself."
"I'm surprised I'm alive, Yvlle."
"Well, at least you still had time for flower picking," said his sister, eyeing the bouquet Arris clutched in his right hand. "Don't you think the attention should be on the bride?"
"For the thousandth time, these are for her!" said Arris, careful not to shake the tender blooms. "She'll need a wedding bouquet and I wanted it to be special."
It had taken him the better part of the night to find, select and cull the flowers to make Demelza's bouquet. He wanted something that looked like a promise … like hope. Fragile and fierce and precious.
Near the north-facing boulders of the Ulva Wyld's tangled wilderness, Arris found fire lichen, with its delicate blooms so like the flickering light of a candle.
By the shoreline, he'd found rare shrinking crab roses.
Their blooms were a vivid scarlet, but almost always hidden, for the vines were shy and scuttled away from noise in the manner of a crab.
As a stag, the shrinking crab roses had paid him no attention.
Near dawn, he'd even found a bush of slender, pearlescent cat's whiskers, fine as silver and oddly twitchy.
He'd bit off the stems as best as he could, laying them tenderly atop a boulder until his limbs transformed and he could gather them in one hand.
Usually, Yvlle scoffed at Arris's experiments and hobbies but when she looked at the gathered flowers, she almost smiled. Tenderness flashed in her eyes.
"You deserve happiness, brother," she said, not looking at him. "I'm glad you have found it."
When Arris entered his chamber, he was expecting only two things: a warm bath and a hot breakfast. There were only a few hours before the wedding festivities started and though Arris was eager to start a life with Demelza, he wanted to honor the time that had come before this moment. He expected silence. Solitude.
But when he entered his room, he found it transformed.
The wall immediately beside his door had vanished, transformed into a strange window through which he could see straight into an unfamiliar study.
A red-haired man was leaning forward in a scruffy armchair, speaking earnestly.
When Arris took another step, his heart skipped.
"Demelza."
She was listening intently to the other man, her eyes downcast. She looked withdrawn. Her red hair hung in a limp braid over her shoulder and Arris wanted nothing more than to go to her and make her smile.
"Demelza!" he called again, but neither she nor the man could hear him.
Arris's floors glowed. There was an unmistakable warning within them. As if the Castle was cautioning him to stay still. To watch.
Arris could only see the man's profile, but there was only one person this could be.
The wizard Prava. Demelza's father. There was a strange likeness between father and daughter.
Their eyes were both green, but while Demelza's were the tender green of early spring, Prava's had the look of mold.
Poison. Where Demelza's hair was the color of a combed sunset, Prava's hair looked like blood and rust. When Prava spoke, his sharp teeth grazed his bottom lip.
And yet for all the wizard's obvious monstrosity, when he spoke to his daughter, Arris heard only affection.
And it was this which sparked wariness in his heart.
"—never want you to feel trapped, Demelza," said Prava.
Arris watched Demelza touch her necklace. Her eyes shone as she defended him and briefly, Arris felt buoyant. Safe. There was the proof of her love for him, shining and fluttering against her throat. But then Prava explained that the necklace meant nothing …
It was little more than a gesture.
"If he loves fiercely enough, it can make any man a monster."
Arris wanted to shout at them. He wanted to say that it was not true … that it could never be true … but would that be a lie? He stared at the bouquet in his hands. Yvlle had sprinkled a few drops of tonic to keep them fresh and vibrant. But already they drooped.
"There is, however, a way out," said Prava.
Arris watched as Demelza's eyes widened.
In that moment, he felt as though his heart was a string pulled taut.
From the moment they met, he'd known that she had not come to this tournament for love, but freedom.
It was all that Arris wanted too. The freedom to live, to want, to dream without the brevity of his life haunting every waking moment of his days.
It was what had drawn them together and, now, it would tear them apart.
Arris knew it in the same moments that Prava said:
"Cut out his heart … and you shall be free."
Arris heard the plink! sound of a clattering object.
He watched Demelza's face go blank as she stared at something on the ground.
Then she bent, briefly vanishing from view.
When she straightened and was once more in the frame of the window, he saw that she was holding a glass knife.
How clear the blade was. How curious that his own ending might be so transparent.
So full of truth. For so long, he had questioned the intentions of possible brides, but Demelza could not lie.
And she wore the truth of her love around her neck.
He had imagined it was an ornament. But to her, it was a shackle.
She loved him. She wanted freedom. The decision she would make was clear.
It seemed that Rathe Castle was in no mood to grant him a reprieve. Perhaps it thought that hastening the inevitable was its own mercy. Demelza's wing and his own were on opposite sides of the castle, but the castle could pinch away distances in the span of a blink and that is exactly what it did.
The wall shimmered. One moment, Arris was staring at Prava's study. The next, he was face-to-face with Demelza. There was no boundary between them. From where he stood, he could smell the fog roses and billow violets that filled her chamber.
If he wanted—and, oh, he still wanted—he could easily trace the line of her neck. Her lips parted when she saw him. Her gaze fell to the bouquet of flowers still clutched in his hand. When she looked at him again, her eyes shone.
But she did not drop the knife.
"Look at us," she said. She laughed, but it came out as a sob.
Instinctively, Arris went to cup her cheek but there was something caught in his fist. Her necklace. He didn't even remember summoning it, but there it was. His only means of protection. His most terrible weapon against her. Demelza flinched.
"I didn't mean—" he said, but he couldn't finish his sentence. The truth was that Arris would defend himself. Whether that meant he'd use Demelza's greatest weakness against her to do so, he couldn't say. And the truth of that shamed him.
"I don't want to," he said.
Beneath his words lay another plea: Do not make me.
Demelza blinked back tears. "I could sing right now. I know you hate the sound of it, but I could sing and force the truth out of you. And perhaps you are being honest … and if you are, then where does that leave us, Arris? Maybe this time you don't want to dangle control over my own form in front of me …
but what about the next time? What if you tire of me?
What if someone lays a trap and you think that I mean to harm you and so you turn me into a swan before I could do anything to hurt you? "
"And how do I know you won't turn power hungry like your father?" demanded Arris. "How do I know you won't decide to free your heart and love another?" He dropped the bouquet. He wanted to laugh, but he couldn't summon one from inside him.
"Clearly, love is not enough," he said.
Demelza bit her lip. "You're right … love is not enough."
Mere seconds passed, but Arris felt each one weighing on him as if they were centuries.
"Now what?" she asked, and her voice was bitter. "Should we count to three and see who triumphs over the other? Or should we at least enjoy our wedding feast before all of this falls apart?"
The longer Arris stared at her, the more he felt his heart stretched taut to the point of snapping in two.
Several unknowns faced him. If he lost her, he did not know how he could live.
And if she remained, he did not know how long he would live.
Either way he turned, he would find neither sweetness nor safety.
There would always be an unknown. Always the ground would feel as if it were shifting …
And perhaps …
Perhaps that's simply how it was with life and love.
Arris stared at the clear blade in Demelza's hand. He reached out, not quite sure what he was doing until his hand closed over her clenched fist. The necklace was still in his grip and when he touched her, it fell over her wrist. Demelza shuddered.
"And what of trust in all this, Demelza?" he asked. "What if … what if we entrusted our hearts to one another not because we had to … but because we want to?"
Demelza glanced at their joined hands before looking at him. "What if we fail? What if we hurt one another?"
"What if we do … and what if it's still not the end? What if we spoke to each other before striking out … what if we made our own happiness?" asked Arris. A great hope moved through him. "What if we chose one another … not just today, but every day?"
"Is that what you want, Arris?" she asked. A slight tremor snuck into her voice. It was fear. And love. The sound of it was hope and it alchemized some leaden and weary part of Arris's soul to gold.
"I do," he said. "And you, Demelza? Can you live with this uncertainty? Do you want this?"
"I do," she said.
Arris did not know what fell first. The necklace or the blade.
But it didn't matter. It was lost in the sequence of other joys.
Demelza's fingers threaded through his hair in the same moment he seized her waist. Her eyes fluttered shut at the same time their lips touched.
He felt a smile on his mouth and he did not know who it had first belonged to.
All that mattered was that it existed.