Page 18 of Crowned By Roses

And for a moment, just one, I wonder…

Could we be happy here?

If we stayed long enough. If grief had its time. If the world stopped pulling on our threads. This little cottage, hearty meals, warm fires... It could fulfill us. Maybe not forever, but for a while.

But the thought is like a petal in a breeze. Lovely for a moment, then gone before you can hold it.

And I realize I have no idea what the future holds for us.

3

Rosalina

The season changes. What’s left of the Pacific Northwest’s rainy spring makes way for a scorching summer. The grass withers to spiny husks, and the sun burns away the clouds that encompass Orca Cove for most of the year. Heat as smothering as a blanket falls over the town.

Things seem to move faster here. My hair grows long, skimming the small of my back. The purple crocuses that once dotted our yard dry out, their petals falling one by one. In the distance, fishing and whale-watching boats zip over the ocean and into the harbor.

Yet I don’t seem to move at all.

I sit on the porch. Sometimes in the kitchen. Sometimes on the bed. It all looks the same to me. Like my eyes are covered in a haze I can’t blink away. Distantly, I remember what it was like to be Caspian’s thrall in the Below. Even then, the world had more color. More taste. More sound.

Here, there is nothing. And what scraps I have left fade with each rising sun.

It’s as if the world I live in has been drained of color. I remember the deep blue of the ocean, its frothy white waves rolling up upon a speckled shore. But when I stand on the porch, looking over the horizon, it appears only a black abyss. And I remember the deep green of the forest that borders Orca Cove, the firs and pines never losing their color no matter the season. But now my world is black and white.

It’s like the flash of light darting in your vision after staring at the sun too long or a broken bone that aches when it’s about to rain. A dull remembrance of something that once was that is now gone forever.

A father’s love. A home I couldn’t protect. Magic that used to sing beneath my fingertips.

Fading and fading evermore.

In a bag, hidden in the dark under my bed, there are four roses. Roots still dangle from their stems. They want to be planted. I know this in the way I know my own thoughts.

But there’s nowhere to plant them. The human world is no place for fae magic. It’s no place for my mates.

And yet here they are, forced to live in exile. Because of my failure.

One morning, I’m sitting in the kitchen, alone. Dayton, frustrated, had stormed off to go for a walk. He’d wanted me to eat something for breakfast. Apparently, I hadn’t eaten yesterday. Hunger is less of an ache than this other thing. This hanging thing. This noose of a thing around my heart.

I hadn’t meant to upset Dayton. I don’t think I even said anything to him.

Maybe he wasn’t frustrated. Maybe he was just sad. But I’m alone now. The others are…well, I don’t know. Wrenley’s probably at her job, masquerading as a human at the Seagull’s Gullet as I did for years. Except she knows she doesn’t belong there. I learned I didn’t. But that’s the biggest ruse of all, isn’t it? I should never have left. It’s where I’ve always belonged.

Mother is lying in Papa’s bed with the lights out. I know she’s there, because she doesn’t get up for more than ten minutes a day. I don’t think she’s stepped outside since she arrived in Orca Cove.

There’s a hammering outside. I think that’s Ezryn. I don’t know where the other princes have gone today.

Princes. The word feels like a cruel mockery in my head. The way she might say it. She who took everything from me.

I can’t find it in myself to be angry. It’s strange. When I close my eyes, it’s like I can see the anger, this pulsing, red heart beating above me. But I’m down below, floundering in the water, and there’s a sheet of ice between us so thick, I’ll never break through.

I think I might drown here forever.

Except when I open my eyes, I see something. I’m not sure why I see it today. Having sat here time and time again, it’s certainly been in my vision before.

But for some reason…I see it.

A tiny trowel. A steel spade, catching the light through the curtains just so. And a packet of seeds.