It wasn’t enough.
She couldn’t give him what he wanted. She couldn’t even give him what he needed.
He probably wouldn’t even get the honor of being turned into a fond folktale. No. He’d be a cautionary one. So the next generation and the one after that and all throughout time knew better than to rely on an alchemist, and certainly to never marry one.
Just another Sun Elf tragedy.
The king with a rotting heart and his alchemist wife without one.
Just over a week before the eclipse, and after several weeks trying as many different ratios as she could, Hellebore and Taiyo walked into her lab and she let out a choked gasp.
Taiyo quickly wrapped his arm around her waist as his head whipped around, but she grabbed at his arm, shoving it away and racing toward the table. “Look! The iris!”
Taiyo raised an eyebrow but followed her. “What about it?”
She picked up the pot and practically shoved it at him. She gestured to the leaves. “Look! Its color is back! This was the third dose, and the rot is gone and the iris is alive!”
He looked up, a smile twitching on his lips. “You did it.”
She set the pot on the table and turned back to him. She whispered, a smile tearing across her face, “I can cure the irises before the eclipse. I can save you before the eclipse.”
Taiyo stared at her for a moment. She opened her mouth to repeat herself to ensure he understood what that meant, but then his lips were on hers and she was stumbling back into the table to catch herself from the force. One hand of his caught her, palm splaying out against her back as his other tangled in her hair, cupping her cheek and steadying her.
Before she could even rationalize her own actions, her hands found his waist as she kissed him back, heart racing and elation flooding her.
It was a wild rush.
The success of her alchemy. Finally having something to prove she wasn’t worthless. Taiyo’s devotion. It was overwhelming, it was too much all at once and not enough.
She’d never felt anything like this before.
Would she ever feel anything like it again?
Why was she kissing him back? Why did she never want to stop? Why did she so desperately want this—want him for the rest of her days?
She was breathless when he finally pulled back, thumb brushing over her cheekbone as that intense longing was fixed wholly upon her, and she had nowhere to run from it now.
He breathed out, “Do not speak. Do not breathe a word to me, sunshine. Let me have this.”
She did not. She stayed silent.
“Let me have—” He leaned in again, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth before dropping to her jaw. “—this one moment—” Then her neck. “—where I can pretend my desperate, aching love for you is met with the hope you can return even just a fraction of it.”
He pulled back up to look down at her once more. “You know… Hellebore, you must know I love you with every beat of this rotting heart. And you must say nothing. You will not say anything to me, do you understand? You will not pretend a heart is just something that pumps blood when you hold mine in your hands. You will just… Just let me love you.”
“Taiyo—”
He kissed her again, and whatever she’d been about to say was gone. All she could feel was him and his heart beating beneath her fingers and the certainty that within a week it would be twice as strong.
But her heart was beating against her ribs, and if she wasn’t an alchemist, she would swear that she could hear it screamingat her, begging her to let it out. To let her husband take it and keep it all the days of her life.
He pulled back once again, this time eyes closed and forehead resting against hers as he whispered, “Please, wherever you have hidden yours, at least let me give you all of mine.”
And she did as he asked. She said nothing. She just closed her eyes and tried to steady her own heart back to where it should be. Could she? When this was over, could she finally be able to tell him something more than “I don’t know”?
Could they be something more than a tragedy?
None of it would matter if she didn’t finish the job and save him anyway.
