SHADOW OF THE FAE

Dawn smeared itself over the city in slow, sticky gradients, but the solar where Aria sat refused to admit more than a trickle of color. The room’s narrow windows were shrouded in blue-tinged frost, and every surface, from the battered inkstone to the pitted iron candlesticks, had the air of being recently exhumed. The wolf queen liked it that way; she could convince herself the world outside was in abeyance, and nothing existed but her, her papers, and the relentless itch at the back of her mind.

Her morning ritual had grown perfunctory. The tea was black, brewed with a fistful of cracked cedar bark; it stung, then settled, then left a patina of bitterness on her tongue. She liked to watch the loose leaf settle to the bottom, the oily slick of wolf-honey refusing to dissolve, a little rebellion in a cup. Sometimes she measured her resolve by how slowly she allowed herself to drink it. This morning, the tea sat untouched, cooling as she knifed her way through the day’s border reports.

The rest of the solar, never meant for splendor, had become a fortress of scrip and sorrow. She read dispatch after dispatch, each one more frantic than the last, the ink pressed so hard it scored the parchment. Eastern outpost compromised. Illusion tactics evolving. Five dead, four unaccounted. Wards failed. Scout returns at dusk; insists he crossed own tracks twice; requests disciplinary review for possible ‘memory contamination’. The words trembled with the knowledge of what the fae could do to a wolf mind, and Aria’s own nerves vibrated in ugly sympathy.

Every so often, her hand went to the iron-and-obsidian tokens scattered along the desk’s rim. They were ugly, hammered by an apprentice with no sense of artistry, but the black stone was said to nullify glamour, and the iron could ground a soul against the enchantment's edge. Aria did not believe in charms, but she believed in the power of small rituals: a finger brushing the ridged cord of a pendant, a thumb tapping the dull point of a warded nail. The tokens provided no comfort, only a reminder of how little protection her kingdom actually had.

She reached for the next envelope. The wax seal on this one was not wolf-red but a blue so deep it seemed to drink the light. Her stomach dropped even before she broke it. The letter within was perfumed, a lazy taunt, and written in the courtly hand that could only be Prince Dain’s. The penmanship was perfect. So was the venom.

To the Most Illustrious Sovereign of Wolves, it began. The rest was a symphony of condescension, couched as admiration. Your latest victories at the border have been the talk of our court. How dazzling to see such innovation in the arts of war. Please allow me to suggest a countermeasure or two, that your fine Watch need not perish so fruitlessly…

The letter grew bolder as it unfurled, each paragraph a velveted insult, each promise of ‘friendship’ hiding a barb. At the end, Dain offered the services of his own spellwrights to review your protections and suggest refinements as a gesture of “good faith.” He closed with a postscript: If your council is slow to accept my proposals, perhaps you yourself would honor me with a private parlay? I would be delighted to educate a mind so keen as yours.

Her hands shook as she read it. The tremor was barely perceptible, but she could feel the rage ratcheting her skin tighter across the knuckles. She pressed the token so hard it left a crescent in her palm, but the pressure failed to slow her pulse.

She should have thrown the letter into the fire. Instead, she traced the whorls of ink, memorizing the peculiar chemistry of Dain’s glamour: the words read like honey, but the aftertaste was always salt. She folded the letter in thirds, placed it dead center on the table, and let it become a second sun around which her other duties orbited.

She glanced at the corner mirror, more for discipline than vanity. The sight there startled her, her eyes hollowed out by sleeplessness, the dark bruise of exhaustion eating away at the edge of each cheekbone. Her hair, meant to be kept in the ceremonial plait, had become a snarl she’d barely managed to wrangle into a knot. Worse were her hands, which kept moving, twitching, as if rehearsing the shape of despair.

On the desk, the crown sat upside-down, a bowl for dead pens and broken wax. She could not remember the last time she wore it for more than an hour; the weight was disproportionate to its mass, as if the metal itself remembered every head that had buckled beneath it.

The thought sickened her, so she reached for her teacup, only to discover she’d broken the rim at some point, probably yesterday, when the latest casualty figures arrived. The fracture cut her lip, a thin bead of blood crowning her words as she spat a curse at the uncaring porcelain. She dabbed at it with the hem of her sleeve, then, realizing what she’d done, cursed herself for the wasted gesture.

The knock at the door was a shock, though she’d been expecting a runner since before sunrise. She didn’t bother to bid them enter; the guard stepped inside, face drawn and breath coming in short, apologetic gasps. “Majesty. New dispatch from the border.” He handed her the packet, then retreated to a respectful distance.

She slit it open with her fingernail, not trusting herself with the desk knife, and unfolded the sheaf. Caelan’s handwriting was unmistakable, less a script than a series of controlled stabs, each word a scar.

Losses mounting. Fae have learned the signal for shift-change, are striking just before, splitting units at transition. Many Watch now doubt their own senses. Recommend limiting patrols to veteran pairs only, no fresh recruits, none alone. Requesting immediate recall of last week’s relief column. Morale is low; many claim to hear the Queen’s voice in the trees at night. Some don’t trust it’s you.

Aria felt the cold drain from her fingers and collect somewhere in her lungs. The feeling was not fear, but the sense that the world had gone off-script and nothing could be returned to how it was. She looked at the signature, Draven, and traced it with the edge of her nail. The urge to write him back, to say something fierce or stupid or simply human, surged and fell, battered by the certainty that if she let herself feel for even a second, she would never be able to finish the day’s work.

The guard stood awkwardly by the door, as if he feared being glamoured by her mere presence. “Anything else?” she asked, voice so even it felt borrowed. He looked at his boots. “The cooks say you’ve not eaten in two days, Majesty. The servants ask if you need an herbal draft to sleep.” She almost laughed. “Tell them I am attended by the best alchemists in the city, but if they can produce a draught that erases memory for an hour, I’ll knight them on the spot.” The guard went red at the ears. “Majesty,” he said, and fled.

Alone again, Aria pressed her palms to her eyes, hard enough to bring sparks. She forced herself to inhale, to slow the mad wingbeat of her heart. If she didn’t, the next council session would eat her alive.

On the edge of the desk, just where she could reach it without looking, was a small obsidian figurine in the shape of a running wolf. A present from Caelan, back when the worst problem they’d faced was the city’s refusal to pay its tithe. She cupped it in her hand, then set it upright, facing the window. The simple act, unremarkable to anyone else, felt like a declaration of war. With her free hand, she picked up the tea, ignoring the blood-stain on the rim, and drank. It tasted cold, metallic and final.

Aria closed her eyes and reached out, as she sometimes dared, along the tether she knew connected her to Caelan. The soul-call was nothing so dramatic as the stories claimed; it was more a pricking of the skin, a sudden memory of his scent or the scratch of his beard on her throat, the knowledge that, somewhere, he was still alive. She tried, now, to summon it, letting her breathing slow, picturing him standing at his command table, arguing with reality as only he could.

Nothing. The link was there, taut as ever, but no message returned. She stayed like that for a long time, a half-living statue, until the chill in the room began to seep up from the stone into her marrow. Only then did she push herself upright, dump the items onto the table in order to slide the crown onto her head, and gather the morning’s documents into a single, unsteady pile.

In the corridor beyond, the castle was beginning to wake, courtiers and messengers and distant blood kin already scenting the day’s weakness and planning how to exploit it. Aria Vale walked out of the solar, jaw set, eyes rimmed in darkness, every part of her rehearsing the story of a queen who would not flinch, even as her fingers trembled on the warded handle of the door.

~~**~~

The small council chamber had been designed for crisis: every angle sharpened to reflect scrutiny, the lamps hung low to deny the comfort of shadow. This morning, the benches were filled with the anxious musk of sweat, hope, and coming betrayal. Aria arrived last, as tradition demanded, but no one bothered to stand or hush. The rules were already being rewritten.

Mira slid into her customary place at Aria’s right, the only friend in the room who still believed in caution over spectacle. Across the oval table, the junior nobles, Kellen, Sira, and a clutch of their closest, clustered with the nervous density of pups scenting a wounded alpha. The old guard was sparse now, Thorne retired to his bed or the bottle, and even the Seneschal seemed a shade thinner, his ceremonial staff gripped not in authority but for balance.

A servant laid a tray of morning broth at the head of the table. Aria ignored it, preferring the familiar ache of hunger over the dulling comfort of hot food. “Let us begin,” she said, her voice too strong for how much she had slept. Mira, sensing the tension, pressed a hand to Aria’s forearm, a touch meant to anchor, not to warn. Aria relished the warmth, even as her own pulse spiked in resentment at needing it.

Kellen was first to break decorum. He stood, not bothering to wait for a nod. His face was flush with the vigor of a man who had found his courage only because someone else was bleeding for it.

“Majesty,” Kellen began, “we have all read the border reports.” He let the pages fall from his hand, a showy flourish. “It is plain the wolves cannot hold the line as we are. The Summer Prince’s offer… ” he paused, just long enough for the phrase to settle on every tongue, “ …may be the only chance to save the city. At least until we are able to retrain our ranks and repair the wards.”

Several juniors nodded, Sira most obviously. The boldness in the room was contagious. The old rules, the ones that said a junior noble must defer and wait his turn, had been scrubbed away by the last week of terror at the border.

Aria leaned back in her chair, making a show of considering the proposal. Beneath the table, her knuckles blanched as she gripped the armrests. Her fingers itched for the solidity of her old sword, something that had never questioned her authority. Instead she had only Mira, and the feel of her nails digging crescents into her own skin.

Kellen went on, emboldened. “The fae have magics we cannot match, Your Majesty. Prince Dain offers not only truce, but protection, wards stronger than ours, spells to heal the wounded and to reinforce the old city stones. We should at least consider… ”

Mira’s voice cut him off, quieter than Kellen’s but loaded with more threat. “And at what price, Lord Kellen? The last envoy from Summer Court returned to his realm with the faces of three dozen wolf children and a promise never to set foot in this city again. Perhaps the magic is different now, but the fae appetite is the same.”

Kellen shrugged, a show of false humility. “No one is asking for surrender, Lady Mira. Only negotiation. Our people are tired. They want peace. They want to believe in a future.” Sira jumped in, “We hear the border wolves every night from the north wall. The howls sound closer. The city is starting to panic, and the council can do little more than argue among itself. If Dain means to help… ”

“He means to conquer,” Mira snapped. “And you, Sira, are naïve if you think the border will be any less dangerous with the Prince at our gates.” The volley was too fast, too practiced. Aria wondered if they had rehearsed it the night before, or if they simply knew their lines by now.

She forced herself to speak, tongue thick as if the words themselves were growing resistant to leaving her mouth. “Lord Kellen, the Summer Prince’s offer comes at a time of weakness. If we accept now, we bargain from the floor, not the table. What stops him from glamoring the court in its entirety once we let him in?”

Kellen had his answer ready. “He has not done so already. He could, but he comes openly, with gifts, and asks only for a seat at the council. Why refuse the hand that is offered?” Several in the room nodded, some reluctantly, others with the raw enthusiasm of those who believed they were witnessing a bloodless coup. Aria’s breath shallowed. The pressure in her head mounted, behind the eyes, like a migraine she could not blink away. Mira leaned in, her mouth a private line to the Queen’s ear.

“They’re afraid, Aria. If you hold hard, you lose them. If you yield too soon, Dain eats us alive. There’s no winning, only surviving.” Aria nodded, once, her jaw locking. She lifted her chin, set her eyes to the back wall of the chamber, and spoke for the record:

“This council will not decide its future on the word of a foreign Prince or on the whim of a single night’s terror. We investigate Dain’s offer. We test the spells on the outer wards first, never within the city. We make no promise, no pact, unless it is approved by every bloodline present. Is that clear?”

It was not a request for consensus. But she heard, in the silence that followed, how little her old power now meant. She looked from face to face. Mira’s eyes were wet, not with tears, but the shine of a wolf watching her pack prepare to cede territory. Sira looked away, unable to meet the Queen’s gaze. Kellen merely inclined his head, satisfied that he had set the game in motion.

Aria wanted to scream, to hurl the entire table through the council windows. Instead, she dug her nails into the velvet armrests, leaving behind a crescent record of her failure. “We reconvene tonight,” she said. “You are all dismissed until then.” The benches emptied faster than ever before. Nobles clustered in pairs and trios, some already whispering, glancing over their shoulders as if expecting glamour to seep through the cracks. Kellen and Sira left together, conspiratorial, their confidence swelling now that they had tasted real power.

Mira stayed behind, waiting until the room was empty. “You held well, Aria. Better than I would have.” Aria let her head sink into her hands. “They’re slipping away. And so am I.” Mira knelt at her side, voice a whisper. “You’ll find a way. You always do.” Aria looked up, catching her own reflection in the polished silver of a fallen cup. She barely recognized herself: eyes bruised and desperate, skin sallow with hunger and doubt.

“They need hope, Mira,” she said, “and I can’t even find it for myself.” Mira offered a wan smile. “That’s the trick, Majesty. Sometimes hope is just a bluff you hold long enough for it to become real.” Aria wanted to believe it. She wanted to believe in anything. She stood, wavering for a moment, then pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. The crown, now back on her head, felt like an anchor rather than a weapon.

She pushed open the council doors. The corridor outside was crowded with retainers and spies, each watching, each waiting for a crack. As she walked through them, Aria caught the glances, the unguarded looks of skepticism, the more cautious calculations of those still afraid of her. The pack was divided, the city slipping from her control, and every wolf here could scent the change on the wind.

She walked back to her solar, every step harder than the last, every hallway darker. She could feel the city’s eyes on her, the way a predator feels the eyes of the scavengers waiting for their turn. By the time she reached her chambers, Aria Vale knew she was more alone than ever.

~~**~~

The day’s chill had not yet left the air, but the palace’s west wing thrummed with an energy that felt foreign, as if some unseen hand was tuning the world to a new, discordant frequency. The runner had delivered Dain’s summons with the rehearsed deference of a page used to royal whims; Aria had ignored it for the better part of an hour before finally walking to the appointed room, every step accompanied by the inner throb of dread and a faint scent of roses.

The reception antechamber was a ghost of its former grandeur. Once, it had been the pride of the palace, full of light and laughter and the polished shoes of courtiers jockeying for a glimpse of the future Queen. Now it was a mausoleum of power: the chandelier missing half its crystals, the brocade seats gone threadbare, the only sound the faint crackle of ice on the window glass.

Dain stood at the window, perfectly composed, his silhouette limned in the coldest blue. Even here, without his usual retinue of court-honed sycophants, the fae prince seemed capable of occupying the whole room with nothing but breath. He wore a cloak spun from midnight, the hem trailing over the marble, and every time he moved, the color shifted, indigo, then gold, then the violet of a healing bruise. His hair was artfully disarrayed, as if a thousand servants had spent a hundred hours perfecting the illusion of neglect.

As Aria entered, Dain turned. He didn’t bow, but the incline of his head was enough to suggest deference, or at least its most intoxicating approximation. He let his gaze travel the length of her body before settling on her face, where it lingered a fraction too long. In the next instant, the antechamber’s colors intensified, the red in the rug now arterial, the shadows inkier, every detail in the world edged with extra hunger.

“Majesty,” Dain said, voice pitched perfectly to the smallness of the space. “You honor me with your time.” Aria stepped into the room, refusing to show her discomfort. “Your summons were rather insistent, Prince. Is the matter urgent?” He smiled, just enough for it to feel like a compliment. “The world is always urgent, Aria. But this, today, is for you alone.”

He motioned to the small table in the center of the room, upon which two glasses of wine had been poured, their surfaces trembling with the anticipation of consumption. She did not sit. “Say your piece, then. The council expects my report within the hour.” Dain drifted closer. “The council will survive your absence. It is time you learned to survive, too.”

He moved with the softness of a well-kept animal, circling the table and closing the distance until the hem of his cloak grazed her boots. The effect of his glamour was subtle but cumulative: every word he spoke seemed to slip inside her skin, each breath of his reshaped the air so that it tasted sweeter, sharper, more necessary.

“These burdens would challenge even the most seasoned ruler,” he said, plucking up his wineglass and rolling it between two fingers. “It is a testament to your strength that you have not collapsed under them.” Aria snorted, unable to contain her irritation. “You came to flatter? If so, your timing is poor.”

Dain’s expression flickered, the mask of concern replaced by something dangerously close to sincerity. “Not flattery. Compassion. Your city is eating itself from the inside. Your wolves grow restless. The border is lost, and your council cannot agree even on how to mourn it. Your mate… ” here his voice softened, the note landing with cruel precision “ …remains away when you need him most. I do not envy you, Queen.”

She felt the sting of it, the way the word mate seemed to unhook something just behind her ribs. The urge to bare her teeth, to show him the ancient fangs of her dynasty, was almost overwhelming. Instead, she gripped the back of a chair, fingers gone white. “You know nothing of my mate, Prince. And you know even less of my kingdom.”

He leaned in, close enough now that his breath blurred the boundary between her lips and his. “Perhaps. But I know what it is to carry a future on one’s back. I know what it is to see your own pack doubt your every decision.” Aria could feel the invisible web of his magic, the way every word was a thread seeking to bind her. She hated that part of her that wanted to be caught.

Dain set his glass aside and reached for her hand. She pulled away, but the gesture was enough; the heat of his skin lingered, impossible to shake. “You need not face this alone,” he said. “Alliances are not weakness, Aria. Sometimes they are the only proof that a ruler truly cares for her people.” His eyes, storm-gray, caught every bit of light and held it captive. “Let me help you.”

She heard the echo of Mira’s words: If you hold hard, you lose them. If you yield too soon, Dain eats us alive. There’s no winning, only surviving. “I have not yet decided to trust you,” she said, voice thin and brittle as old glass.

He bowed his head, gracious. “Nor should you. But consider this: the wolves are alone, and the Summer Court is offering its hand.” He let the sentence linger, allowed its implications to crawl across the furniture and into her blood. “Would you rather watch your city devour itself, or see what beauty might be made of its ruins?” She looked away, unable to answer. The colors in the room swam, the line between real and unreal melting into something softer.

Dain moved behind her, so close she could feel the echo of his heartbeat against her back. He set something in her hand, a rose, crystalline, its petals impossibly perfect, refracting the light in a thousand illicit ways. The stem was cold, the bloom warm. “A gift,” he said, “from one sovereign to another. Consider it a token of what our alliance could bring to your people.”

She stared at the rose. It was wrong, every part of it, too beautiful to have been made by nature or art. The weight of it was immense. “Your magic poisons everything it touches,” she whispered. Dain smiled, stepping back, giving her space. “That may be true. But is there a single thing in this palace, or in you, that hasn’t been changed by poison already?”

He bowed, just enough to let her feel the implied intimacy, then left, his footsteps perfectly silent. As the door clicked shut, the air returned to normal, and the world seemed shabbier for it, less alive. Aria stared at the rose for a long time, her pulse throbbing in her palm where the stem pressed.

She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to crush it or let it bloom.

~~**~~

Night made the palace an echo of itself: every hallway a tunnel, every chamber a cage. The servants moved with the desperation of people trying to outrun bad news, their footsteps never quite vanishing from the stone. In Aria’s bedchamber, however, the only sound was the faint sizzle of tallow as she lit candle after candle, arranging them in a circle on the cold mosaic of the floor.

She sat cross-legged at its center, robes pooled around her like the wings of a dead bird, and tried to forget the shape of her own failure. The old seers said that the soul-call required neither spell nor incantation, only the unguarded surrender of one’s heart. Aria had been taught the technique by a dowager aunt, who’d claimed to once summon her mate from across three continents by nothing more than the scent of his pillow and the memory of his laughter. Now, with the air thick and the hour well past midnight, Aria wondered if her bloodline had failed her, or if she had failed it.

She steadied her breath and reached, not for words, but for the memory of Caelan: the feel of his hand over hers, the press of his forehead against her own, the way his voice always slid past her defenses and left her aching she craved. She pushed harder, picturing his camp beyond the border, the ruined tents, the wolfish silhouettes hunched over frostbitten rations. She forced her longing into the night, every heartbeat a beacon, every inhale a plea.

“Answer me,” she whispered, voice cracking on the second word. “Please.”

Her fists knotted in her lap, nails scoring the flesh. A tear slid down her nose, followed by another, until her cheeks burned with the salt of exhaustion. Nothing. The bond held, but it was deadweight, a taut, silent wire that refused to sing. She dug her heels into the floor, shaking now, and let out a breath that was closer to a growl than a sigh.

“Answer,” she demanded, one last time.

The chamber shuddered as a knock split the silence. She blinked the tears away, hastily wiping her face with the back of her hand. “Enter,” she called, unwilling to be caught weeping but unable to gather herself fully. The runner stood in the doorway, his youth all the more obvious against the sepulchral quiet of her rooms. He clutched the dispatch with both hands, knuckles blanched to white.

“Majesty,” he said, voice barely above a whisper. “A report from the border.” She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, and took the paper from his trembling grasp. The words blurred at first, and she forced herself to read them aloud, as if to prove she could still perform the duties of her station.

The southern outpost has fallen. Survivors in retreat. Commander Draven is alive, but beset. Advises caution and holds the line at the risk of all. There was a postscript, hurried and unfinished, Cannot return as planned. Winter closing in. Fae advancing. Will hold.

She folded the dispatch, letting it crumple in her palm. The runner lingered, eyes darting around the room as if to confirm that no glamour had crept in during his passage. “You’re dismissed,” Aria said, her voice too rough to be regal. He bowed and vanished, the relief in his shoulders unmistakable. For a moment, Aria could only sit and breathe, listening to the thump of her own heart. She stared at the candle flames, watching their tips waver with the draft, each a tiny witness to her shame.

Slowly, she got to her feet and crossed to the window. She pressed her forehead to the glass, letting its cold sting sink through her skull. Below, the city sprawled out in monochrome, the streets empty but for the moonlight and the feral glint of eyes that belonged to neither wolf nor human.

She remembered the last time Caelan had stood at this window with her. They’d made impossible promises, of peace, of unity, of a future where neither of them would have to die for the crown. Now, with her mate gone and the walls closing in, those promises tasted like poison.

The glass fogged beneath her breath as she traced a finger through the condensation, drawing the rough outline of a wolf, then let her hand fall away. The weight of the city, the crown, and the war settled on her shoulders, heavier than before. Heavier, perhaps, than she could bear alone. She wondered how long before even the moon would turn its back on her.

~~**~~

The city never truly slept. Even after the last torch guttered out and the bells had long ceased their hourly confessionals, Aria’s window admitted the restless shimmer of moonlight, thin and spectral, but unrelenting. She sat at the edge of her bed, elbows propped on knees, and turned the crystal rose over and over in her hands.

In this light, the flower’s perfection was almost cruel. Each petal caught and scattered the glow, laying bands of blue and gold across her fingers, sometimes fracturing and rebuilding her own reflection on the pane of glass. She held it up, marveled at the impossibility: no seam, no blemish, as if Dain had pulled it from the marrow of a star and bent it to his will.

The rest of the room felt abandoned. Her armor hung neglected from the wardrobe’s hook, smelling faintly of old battles and lost promises. The only other objects that commanded her attention were the crown, heavy, real, and scratched with the history of wolves who had worn it before her, and the mess of unsealed letters, their ink faded but their urgency still sharp.

She set the rose on the bedside table, right next to the crown. The two objects seemed to repel one another, refusing even to touch. Aria could not help but see the metaphor: one, all weight and inheritance; the other, dazzling, delicate, but spun from the ambitions of someone who would sooner see her throne empty than unbroken.

She pressed her palms to her face, kneading the ache from her temples. The skin there was too thin, betraying the veins beneath, the fatigue that had come to define her. The hands that should have commanded armies or cradled lovers now trembled, not from fear, but from exhaustion so deep she wondered if her body would ever remember what ease felt like.

She risked a glance at the mirror. The woman who looked back at her was not the Aria she remembered from years before. This Aria was hollowed out, her eyes lined with bruises the world would call regal but which she recognized as surrender. She reached for her own gaze, as if to shake herself awake, but the image remained stubborn, remote.

She thought about Caelan, wondered if he was even alive, wondered if, in this moment, he felt her searching for him. The bond had grown weak, the line thin as a single hair, but the compulsion was too strong to ignore. She tried, for the thousandth time, to call him, not with words, but with longing. A whisper, sharp as flint, carried into the night.

“Caelan.”

Nothing. The name vanished into the shadows, swallowed by the silence that ruled the city now. She let the disappointment settle in her bones, then reached for the rose again, cradling it in her palms. The coolness of the crystal soothed, then stung.

“Perhaps compromise isn’t surrender,” she murmured, the words foreign and yet alluring. Mira would have called it cowardice. The old Aria would have called it blasphemy. The woman sitting here now could only wonder if it was simply the price of survival.

Her eyes drifted to the crown, the symbol of everything she was supposed to be, then back to the flower, the promise of something new and unknown. Her hand hovered, uncertain, over the two objects, caught between them in a gravity she could not escape.

She closed her eyes, let her shoulders slump, and exhaled a breath she felt she’d been holding for years. Maybe tomorrow she would be strong enough to choose. For now, she let the light from the rose scatter across her skin, feeling for one brief moment almost beautiful again.