Azalea
Slowly,Ibecomeawarethat I’m not floating in the darkness of the Great Abyss. My eyes are just closed. But how could that be possible? I’m dead, right? Do the dead need to blink?
I peel open one of my eyes and look around at the stone walls. My chest ignites with a burning pain, and my mouth falls open instinctively sucking in a lung full of air to ease the ache. Nope. Not Dead. Definitely not dead. Somehow still very much alive.As the dizziness evaporates from my mind, I take in the gothic sconces and cold bareness of where I am. If this is the afterlife, it desperately needs a dedicated interior decorator.
Something rough and wet slides across my cheek, leaving a damp path in its wake. Pushing past the stiffness in my muscles, I turn my head and find Luna hovering over me. I try to sit up, but every small movement is laced with indescribable agony. When I breathe, it’s like I can still feel the wound that was there, but when I slowly drag my fingers to the stinging sensation sending pulses of pain through my body, there’s only a scar in its place.
My slip is still sticky with my warm blood, and there’s a slight tear where my incinerated flesh should be, but I’m completely healed. Except for my throbbing head, which only seems to intensify when I turn toward the voices growing louder in the not-so-far-off distance.
“I don’t know what you find so funny.” I hear Braxton’s voice rumble. He doesn’t sound quite like himself. “Now that you officially have no magic left, there’s nothing that will be able to save you from what I’m about to do to you.”
“Ooh,” Dianthus mocks, wiggling her fingers at him. “Like I have anything to lose.” She spits a mixture of saliva and blood at Braxton’s feet before pushing herself up. Her frail frame sways momentarily before she leans her body against one of the nearby table legs. It’s becoming more apparent the toll losing her magic is taking on her.
“Really? Because I see two eyes, two ears, one tongue, one nose, ten fingernails, ten toenails.” With everything he names off, Braxton takes a step closer. Though she tries to keep her hardened expression, there’s no mistaking the way Dianthus pales further with each thing Braxton lists off. “From where I’m standing,” he leans down so that his face is mere inches from hers, “you have a lot to lose.”
“Braxton,” I croak, finding my voice. It’s weak and unsteady, but Braxton hears me perfectly. His eyes go wide, and he spins to see me lying on the floor. I know I must look pathetic as I try to push myself up off the floor. Luna, thankfully, grants me the kindness of using her as my support to hold myself up.
“What?” Dianthus shrieks, her eyes flicking up and down my body. “But how?!” Her face reddens as her eyes bore into me.
Braxton is frozen in shock, and I see the slightest hint of fear pooling in his dark irises. I wonder if he thinks this is some kind of trick.
“How?” he asks, his voice a whisper.
I shake my head and shrug, not entirely sure how any of this is happening. I try to replay our last moments. He told me the truth. He was holding me. I told him I forgave him. I finally told him that I loved him. I needed to make sure he knew both of those things before I died.
As painful as discovering everything that happened that night was, I understand why he made the choices he made, and I can see how the ghosts of those decisions continue to follow him. He was stuck in an improbable situation with an impossible choice.
I will choose you over and over again.His declaration echoes in my head, but these were not just words. They were a vow. A vow he made to me when we married each other. A vow he made to me when he got the symbol of our love that I created tattooed on his back. A vow he made when he got us trapped in a castle together. He vowed to always choose me. And I know in my heart I will always choose him, too.
That’s when I realize what happened. I slowly feel my body coming back to life, and groan at the stiffness in my muscles. Braxton races over, slinging one of my arms over his shoulders and lifting me to his chest. His lips brush my forehead and then the top of my head.
“You’re really here. You’re really alive,” he murmurs into my hair. Pulling back, his hand reaches up and cups my jaw, his thumb gently brushing the side of my face. “This is real. It isn’t a trick.”
“It isn’t a trick,” I confirm, a soft smile painting my lips.
He pulls me closer to his chest to an almost painful extent, but I know telling him to let me go would be futile. And I don’t wish to be anywhere that isn’t in his embrace.
“We broke the curse.” I explain, although I’m not sure he really cares how this came to be just that I’m in his arms and alive. “When I said I loved you, we broke the curse. And like any curse, once it’s broken the magic becomes undone. Since it was thesame magic she used to deliver that fatal blow to me, it also was undone when the curse was broken.”
I don’t know if Braxton is listening as he holds me closer to him, and I decide to let myself bask in his warmth. To stop trying to solve the puzzle, and simply accept the gift that’s been handed to us. After a short while of staying frozen like that and breathing each other in, I finally ask for what I wanted since Dianthus stole me from that carriage.
“Braxton, take me home,” I murmur against his chest.
Needing no further instruction, he whistles for Luna to follow us and begins carrying me out of the room. Before his foot can pass the threshold, Dianthus’ rasped voice slides toward us from across the room.
“I thought you were going to kill me,” she taunts. When I look at her over Braxton’s shoulder, I take in the way she’s folded in on herself, her platinum hair slowly becoming more grey and faded with each passing minute. The death of her magic is taking a far faster toll on her than I would have expected, and seeing her like this with a serene acceptance on her face, I realize that she wants to die.
“No,” I say, my eyes connecting with hers over Braxton’s shoulder. “If you want to be reunited with your daughter, you can take care of that yourself.”
My words are cold, but I can’t find it in myself to feel any empathy for this woman. Perhaps I might have a long time ago. A different version of me would have shown her compassion in whatever form that might have taken, but I’m not that person anymore. Time has been the cruelest and most enlightening gift in shaping me into who I’ve become. I mourn the part of me that once would have shown Dianthus mercy. But in part, I’m the product of her cruelty, and even though we went through the Abyss and back to get to this point, I bask in the person I’vebecome. She’s brilliantly flawed in a beautiful way, and I love her.
“Leave me here all you like. I will find you. I will make you miserable! That I promise!” A hacking cough follows Dianthus’s threat.
Braxton turns, his arms tightening around me protectively. “If I ever see you again, I will kill you. That’s not a taunt or a threat. It is a promise. It will be slow and agonizing. So, for your pitiful sake, I sincerely suggest you steer clear of me. Live out the rest of your miserable days however you wish, but leave me and Azalea the fuck alone.”
Turning back to the door, Braxton never falters as he carries me the entire way to the edge of the forest. His lips brush my forehead intermittently during the short journey out of the woods. When we breach the threshold of the magical forest, his horse is waiting for us. After helping me onto the giant creature, he mounts himself behind me and once again cages me in the safety of his arms as he grips the reins.
Lying the back of my head against his chest, I let the rhythmic sway of the horses steps lull me to sleep as it takes me back home.
