I thought it went away.

I wasn't sure when it'd happened.

Maybe it was with the first thump of his fists on my back, behind the ear, on the inside of my thighs-- always somewhere prying eyes wouldn't dare to venture.

Maybe it was that day I'd chosen to stay inside, rather than risk running into someone who knew me, knowing they'd see the unspoken shadows in my eyes.

Maybe it was that fourth of July when I didn't bother to light up a sparkler because I knew it would only burn brightly for a fraction in time.

Maybe it was the day I pulled my hood up, sheltering perfectly quaffed hair from glittering rain.

Or perhaps it wasn't one day at all, but the culmination of many: many minuscule decisions that slowly chipped away, until nothing was left at all.

Until I was hollow.

Maybe, I killed it on purpose.

Maybe it hurt too much.

Maybe I knew the world would try to take it if I didn't do away with it myself.

I don't know how or when or why, but one day I realized it'd gone quiet.

And I was relieved.

There was a hole in my heart, but that only made it easier.

Easier.

It was easier to never be disappointed.

It was easier to crinkle my eyes at the corners, to scrunch up my nose, to emulate the titter of laughter only felt in my throat.

It was easier to wave a dismissive hand at the things that might've caused me pain.

So I relished the hollow ache and didn't try to fill up that empty space.

Yes, I was glad it was gone, in the way one who feels nothing at all can be glad, anyway.

And then.

I thought I saw it one day, out of the corner of my eye.

I shoved it away.

Shoved it down, down, down, so far inside my spirit that I thought I'd finally smothered it for good.

But then, it began to haunt me in earnest.

It lingered in the steam rising from a cup of liquid chocolate.

It whispered in the wind, stirring eddies of sand between my toes.

It spoke in soft tones in the crackling of a fire, the smooth rub of a soft blanket on my legs.

It sang, a tickle on the shell of my ear, as calloused hands explored the planes of my stomach, so inexplicably gentle that a tiny fissure formed in the hardness of my heart.

It clanged like a gong in the spaces between the stars where untold galaxies beckoned.

It shouted with each tickling leg of a ladybug, dancing on my naked knee.

And then it roared, louder than a tidal wave, crushing the brittle walls around my heart, as I traced a finger across the translucent skin of an unfathomably tiny ear, as little fingers curled with surprising strength around my pointer finger.

I thought it'd gone away.

But as those fingers held mine, the empty well inside my soul overflowed,

and the world was technicolor.

I think it might be even brighter, now that it's back.

You know how the saying goes: “Whatever can go wrong… will go wrong.”

It's an apt slogan for my existence thus far.

But perhaps that oversimplifies the thing. The phrase shouldn’t end there. A more accurate descriptor might go something like this: “Whatever can go wrong…will go wrong…. except when it doesn’t and goes bafflingly, marvelously right in the most awkward way humanly possible.”

Yes, that’s a better way to surmise my life thus far, because as I sit here and clatter away at the keys, I’m aware that calling my life a failure is a falsehood. I’ve got some pretty great things going on. I’ve got cute kids, a dedicated husband, a home, and a day-to-day existence so sickeningly sweet it’d give your neighborhood pessimist cavities. Alas, you’re not here to read about that part– that part is boring. The things that go right usually are. And hey, I’m here to tell ya that boring isn’t always a bad thing. Boring leaves some space for peace. If you’ve found that (peace, I mean), please let me know– ’cause I’m still searching. So, let’s dive in, why don’t we? I suppose we should start where all good stories do…

At the beginning.

It began before I can remember. It began with a woman much stronger than I, a woman who overcame, a woman who inspires me to be the best version of myself every single day (It’s my mom, duh). Yes, my mother. She is a rare woman. She is the strongest person I know, but not in that harsh, horrible kind of way. She is strength in her gentleness, in her caring spirit, in her meticulous cleanliness, in her arms that encircle with warmest embrace. She is the reason I’m writing this. I hear her soft alto whispering in the back of my mind even now, “You have got to write a book about your life, Pearl– No one would believe it!” But before there was me, there was her. There was him.

He was handsome. He was tall, and lanky but well-muscled with darkly tanned skin and striking blue eyes. His teeth were a little crooked, but he couldn’t help that. He was meticulously well-groomed, almost as if he were trying to make up for something…and, well… he was. His childhood reeked with the hallmarks of parents still caught in the lingering strife of the great depression. Everything you’ve ever heard about the worst-case scenario of growing up poor? It was true for him. He wore it wonderfully well. He drove fast cars and rode motorbikes and blared rock and roll from his custom record setup. He womanized and fist-fought and was recently divorced– twice over. He was a man on a mission. He was a man with something to prove. He wanted so desperately to be what the world had always told him he never would be: a success. A family man. And so, when he saw mama from across the roller skating rink, her auburn locks glittering in the light of the disco ball- so beautiful, so alone... and wrangling three small boys, he just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. He’d tried to start a family with his first two wives, and had one kid by each before the relationships ended, but here was a woman with kids in tow, and boys nonetheless. Instant family. And he could be the hero. They were married less than a year later.

Mama says he showed his true colors for the very first time on the night of their honeymoon. She’d thought she’d found her knight in shining armor, but instead, she’d leapt headfirst into her worst nightmare. When they got married, there were already five kids between the two of them. Mama’s first marriage had ended in divorce, too, and she liked to think of her family with her new husband (my dad, if you hadn’t caught on) as their own little Brady Bunch...But with a darker bent that mama happily swept under the rug, along with the rest of her baggage. The abuse escalated with each day of the marriage, and I think Mama might’ve fooled herself into believing that giving him another baby would fix it. Along came my brother, and she saw a different side of the man with striking blue eyes. She saw him love with reckless abandon.

He loved my brother more than anything he’d ever seen, more than any of his other children, certainly more than my mother or me. But the abuse didn’t stop. Instead, it escalated. Now she wasn’t just doing things wrong with the house, and her clothes, and her hair… Now she was tainting his precious son. She did what she must– she got pregnant again because he didn’t hurt her so badly when she was pregnant. And thus, I came screaming into the world with a tuft of violently red hair upon my brow, more bruises on my infantile body than seemed humanly possible, and a fire in my soul that smoldered, but didn’t burn. And of course, the undeniable truth that guaranteed a torturous existence: I was female, and my monsters equated that to being less than dirt. So begins our story.

Don't tell me you love me.

When tears fall and my heart is sliced to bloody ribbons

When the foundations of the world quake beneath my feet

When I stumble

and fall

When my soul lies rent upon our stained bedroom floor

When the darkness devours

and the call of that final step off the edge of a cliff beckons warmer than embrace

When my screams refract in eyes and lips sewn in a tight line

When a beacon of hell-fire holds more allure than the drudgery of days beneath an unforgiving sun

When the words won't cease their devouring stir

When the quiet is louder than ten thousand voices raised in song

When I cannot even hear the echo of those voices upon the cathedral walls

and the entire earth is painted in shades of sickly gray...

Don't tell me you love me.

Don't sell me the empty promise of those pathetic words.

Don't pat my hand and murmur assurances and treat me like a bird with broken wings.

Weep with me.

Ride upon the waves of ground bucking beneath our feet.

Fall beside me and clutch me to your chest. I promise to hold you right back.

Bring the cleaning bucket and glue and we'll spend the afternoon washing away the stains and sticking the broken parts of each other back together until we're whole.

Step with me into the darkness. I don't need a flashlight, so long as I can feel your hand in mine.

Leap into the sea at my side and we'll laugh as we sink beneath the waves.

Open your eyes and see that sometimes we both need those silent screams.

Walk with me through the gates of hell and help me seize our dormant dreams.

Be the paper upon which I might spill the words in a hurricane of poetic rain.

Sing with me, so that our voices might drown out the sound of that terrible silence.

Sit with me and let me hurt. Let me paint the world in crimson shades of my pain. We'll hurt together. Heal together.

Don't tell me you love me.

Tell me you understand.

And maybe then, I'll believe you next time you say those three pathetic words.

Show me you love me

and together

we'll soar.

*I swear I meant to follow the prompt. Alas, I wrote this...content warning-ish, I guess*

You told me I was ugly.

Worthless. Brainless. Pitiless.

You told me I would never amount to anything more

than the sad shadow of a dream you'd predestined for me.

You told me I was small,

and then when I outgrew you,

you cut my legs from beneath me.

You told me I was talent-less,

unworthy of investment.

You told me not to reach, not to strive, not to build myself up.

You even taught me that it wasn't worth the effort.

Why become at all when the world only seeks to destroy?

I listened.

That scrawny, pathetic, witless child listened.

I drank down your bitterness and convinced myself it was sweet honey.

I forgave every transgression.

I offered myself up onto your altar,

allowed you to mold me into your dream.

I didn't fight back.

I didn't ask for more than the pittance you gave.

I stagnated.

And I reveled in every shred of praise.

I stopped caring about my conscience.

I ignored the inner voice that screamed

to be more than a slave.

Yes, the child I was

forgave.

And then,

I was suddenly awake

and full of hate.

I hate what you made me.

I hate that I let you convince me to be nothing.

My conscience is screaming now, motherfucker--

and it's telling me that you committed a travesty.

You heinous, insidious, shriveled little prick-

you stole that girl's soul.

You saw her.

You saw that she would've rattled the very core of the universe if given half a chance.

And you were terrified.

So you crushed her- crushed me- like the ember at the end of a cigarette butt.

I became ash beneath your feet.

I am no longer a child.

She may have forgiven you,

but I don't.

Most certainly not when I went and fulfilled your dreams for me.

When I pumped out children like some prized brood-mare

because it was the only thing I'd ever been taught to be.

I became that mother.

I became that wife.

I became that live-in maid you always wanted me to be.

But your plan backfired.

Because the moment I looked into my child's eyes,

I felt more powerful than you'd ever allowed me to be.

And I knew

I would burn the world for that little girl.

I would even burn you.

She will never doubt for a moment

her immense worth.

And as she grows, I feed that fire in her.

Intelligence that was quelled in me,

looms iridescent behind her cunning eyes.

She will rattle the very core of this universe.

And I will be there

beside her

a battle cry on my lips,

as she conquers every dream she ever dared to dream.

And you will still be dead

Ash beneath our feet.

Chapter 2 of the Novel I'm writing for Booktok. They recently voted for a dual point of view, the female main character's name/ physical attributes, and an enemies to lovers to enemies arch! Find Chapter 1 in my previous post.

CHAPTER 2

Greyson

I find her at the foot of a towering Mirthwood tree. Foolish girl. She’s curled into its woody embrace, legs wrapped loosely in feathery roots. The Mirthwood would simply have to pinch, and Caera could be crushed to death. For some odd reason it doesn’t. I honestly don’t know how these witches survived this long. Caera is the most reckless person I know. She is everything a ruler should not be: rash, impulsive, stubborn, and brimming with searing, volatile anger. She’s sloppy with it. And this is who my father thinks will heal the realms? It’s all hogwash.

She looks terribly young when her brow isn’t wrinkled in the special scowl reserved just for me. I can almost take it as a compliment. Almost. I would if I hadn’t seen her smile the one time. If I hadn’t seen the way it transformed her face into a revelation, into the face of a Lunar Witch from legends, so beautiful it was pain, so alluring, I’d nearly dropped my sword and bowed at her feet. Instead, I remembered. I remembered the other lovely face I’d glimpsed when I was barely into my eighth year– the witch who had cut my mother’s heart out and stuffed it into her satchel before turning her to dust, unaware of the eyes that watched. Yet another insult, that Caera has to look like Artemis, though I suppose she can’t help that they are family. Unfortunately, the more I get to know Caera, the more I see that she is her own kind of monster.

The Mirthwood tree reaches questing roots for her hair, entwining its deep magenta brown with her own, ready to tug her awake, to alert her of my presence. I flip my sword free and silently slap the roots away with the tip. I need another moment to ground myself before she wakes. This hour we’re forced to spend together each morning is pure torture. I’ve never met someone so stubborn, so wretched. You’d not know she is a princess, if you hadn’t been told. She behaves a lot more like the band of Fae Ravingers I met once–all female, all utterly feral. They were ruthless, like her. A small part of me admires her. The larger part loathes her.

I’ve spent every moment of my life being trained in propriety, in the ways a ruler ought to behave, in tradition. She spits on it. All witches spit on it, actually. And something about her causes me to behave with the ill manners of an intemperate youth. I can’t seem to help myself. She gets under my skin, and the little line that forms between her brows when I say something particularly vile, has words flying from my lips I know much better than to utter. She flusters easily, and the sight of it fills me with sick glee. Her attempts to kill me have been laughable at best, though, in fairness to her, she doesn’t fully understand who she’s up against. The same could be said for me, I suppose. I often wonder why she keeps her power on such a tight leash. Surely that would be the quickest means to her ends. Perhaps it frightens her. It should. I can sense it even now, pulsing beneath her skin, mighty and boundless, restless, but somehow subdued. It’s a testament to her control, that she can keep it in check when not fully conscious. It must have taken years of training to achieve that level of restraint. It seems uncharacteristic to Caera, to exercise control, but what do I really know about her? She’s a puzzle.

I nearly jump out of my skin when Caera croaks, “Ya know, that’s creepy as hell.”

I smooth my expression into passivity, “What is?”

“You standing there, leering over me while I sleep,” her hand drifts toward her boot, to the dagger I have no doubt is stashed there, “You come to finish the job?” She taps the side of her neck, where blood from the cut I gave her crusts rusty brown on lightly tanned skin.

“A bit of a hypocrite, aren’t we? You forget, Caera,” I spit her name like a slur and revel when she flinches, just the merest bit, “I am not the one trying to commit murder here.” The truth is, I’d like nothing more than to end her right here– to end this ridiculous notion of my father’s. I don’t want to marry this… creature. But father says the seer’s visions were clear. Only with this woman at our side can we heal our lands. And she has to come somewhat willingly. Gods know it’d be easier if I could just kidnap her and be done with it. I was the idiot who suggested using a witch-boon to secure her. When word had spread about her challenge, I’d leapt on the opportunity, knowing I could defeat her in a duel, thinking I’d just compel her into helping with the boon. It was Father’s idea to tie us together in… unholy matrimony. He’d been smug when he made the demand, “Greyson, my boy, I’ve always promised you a princess. So, a princess you shall have. Make the witch your wife. Secure an alliance for me, son. It may well end the war.” I disagree, but one does not argue with my father. I must simply do as I am bid. More than that, I have no choice, but to comply. Father is not like me. He does not let himself be swayed by a heart that remains stubbornly soft, no matter how much I try to quell it. No, Father is not ruled by emotion, but knife-sharp logic and relentless determination. I wish it were so for me. I will make it so, even if I hate every moment of it. Even if it forces me to get into bed with my greatest enemy, I will make it so. I will steal this witch's affection, if it’s the last thing I do, and then, I will crush it into dust. I will wither her the same way her aunt withered my mother. I must simply bide my time.

With all of this in mind, I extend a hand in peace offering, “Come on, little dove, I’m not going to kill you today– and you aren’t going to kill me, either. Let’s talk about why you continue to fail to do so.”

She slaps my hand away and snarls, “Don’t speak for me,” before leaping to her feet, agile as a cat, “And stop calling me that.”

I smirk, but ignore her request, steering the conversation back to the matter at hand, “So, are you ready to give it up?”

“What?” She groans, limping slightly as feeling returns to her legs and she stalks away.

I catch her in two strides. I know that irks her, too– that I dwarf her in height. I often make her jog a little to keep up. Today, I match her gait. It’s time to move past this pettiness, if for no other reason than the fact that I have to report to father this afternoon.

“Are you ready to give up trying to execute me?”

She stops and turns to me, swiping tendrils of long hair behind an ear and tapping her chin thoughtfully, “Yeah… I don’t think so.” She turns on her heel and continues to the sparring ring. I follow doggedly behind.

A half-hour later, I’ve pinned Caera in the dirt more than a handful of times. She has yet to land a blow. She fights like a rabid squirrel, relentlessly flinging herself at me in a string of vicious attacks, using teeth and nails and shrieking all the while. It’s almost funny. It’s been six months, and her anger with me hasn’t cooled in the slightest. She flies at me, sapphire eyes flashing with that mysterious power she refuses to wield. I step to the side and kick out my heel, catching her in the shins, sending her sprawling into the dust. She flips onto her back and glares up at me where I stand over her, hands braced on my hips. I lift a hand and read the time by the slant of the sun, “By my count, we’ve got another… fifteen minutes of this? Are you going to keep acting like a child, or are we going to spar?” She sucks in a breath, ready to hurl a glob of spit up at me. She’s done it before and I quickly clamp my hand down on her mouth. She sputters and claws at my wrist, digging sharp nails in until she draws blood. I hiss at the gouging sensation, but don’t let go. “Caera. This has got to stop. Stop fighting me and fight me already. I know you can. Let me train you.” I’m surprised to find I mean the words. I watched her cut down a slew of warriors all those months ago. She moved like quicksilver then, all calculation, none of the rage. As much as I enjoy pummeling the witch every day, I itch for a proper opponent, and with the slightest bit of effort, Caera could be that. Instead she hides behind her hatred. She wastes it, when it could be used for so much more. I move my hand from her mouth murmuring, “Let go of the rage.”

As I go to pull away, her nails bite impossibly deeper into my skin. She smiles, but it is not the thing of beauty she unwittingly revealed once before–no– this is a grin of pure malice.

“Oh, my sweet fiance,” she purrs, slicing my wrist with her claws until blood drips down in a steady rhythm onto her hair, “I will never forget what you took from me.” She twists her nail, carving the soft flesh just above my palm. I bite my tongue to stifle a wince. The blood flows now, coating her forehead, painting her face into a vision of a queen of some macabre masquerade. I should stop her. I should step away, or incapacitate her, or…something. I should do anything but let her continue to rip into me. But I don’t. I stand there, transfixed in fiery blue eyes she keeps locked on me, barely breathing. They say blue fire burns the hottest. I believe them. Caera could burn the world with a gaze.

I see the decision in her eyes a breath before she acts, too late for me to stop her. She strikes, pulling my arm down to the dirt, trapping the elbow at a painful angle while swinging her knee up to slam into my nose with a sickening pop. She continues in another smooth motion, tucking her legs until she’s curled smaller than seems reasonably possible. Her feet impact my stomach and then I’m airborne. I hit the dirt with a dull thud, any breath left in my lungs leaves in a ragged gasp. And then I’m laughing. I wheeze, trying to suck down enough air to fuel the hysteria. “Bra–vo,” I gasp as Caera moves to stand over me, brow quirked in annoyance at my outburst. She grins that malicious grin once more, and then she raises her boot, pressing the toe of it over my mouth, just as I’d covered her mouth with my palm. It’s a vulgar gesture, but everything about her is.

She leans closer, voice lowering to a whisper, “I will keep my rage.” She presses her boot harder into my jaw. I let her. “You assumed you had the right to claim me,” she laughs bitterly, “Did you think I’d just give you my heart? You thought you’d show me your pretty eyes and I’d throw myself at your feet, thrilled by the opportunity to wed one such as you?” That is what I’d thought, actually. It had always worked before. I will the thought not to show in my eyes. Too late, she's seen it. She chokes on the absurdity of it before continuing, “You assumed you had the right to claim me, so I will assume I have the right to do the same.” She removes her foot from my face and crouches in the dirt, bringing her lips to my ear, as I’d done to her the night before. The hair rises on my arms, sensing what she’ll say before the words slither in. “I claim you, Greyson. I claim your heart.” A thrill spears through me at the words. This is an unexpected development. I still hate her guts, but at least I’ll have something to report to father. Before I can celebrate, though, Caera hisses once more, “I claim your heart. I will cut it out… and I will eat it.” I feel as though I will retch. Visions of the witch carving my mother’s heart pummel me in relentless flashes of too bright color behind my eyelids. A low, choking sound involuntarily emits from my throat. Caera leans back on her heels and punctuates her sick sentiment by dragging her tongue across the tip of her finger, still coated in my blood. Her eyes flare wide, as if she’s shocked by the flavor, but before she can continue with her sordid speech, a voice like rumbling thunder booms across the ring.

“Caera!” Kath bellows her name in reprimand before lowering his voice into his customary buttery tones, “Come. Join me for lessons.” Kath extends a palm and Caera rises, wiping my blood onto her filthy pants before placing her hand in his. They fade into the shadowed arch to the palace courtyards and I lie on the ground, panting. I will myself not to vomit as I slowly put the images of my mother’s death back into their proper box in the back of my mind. But Caera’s words echo, I claim your heart. I will cut it out– and I will eat it. My cut wrist throbs in beat with the words, flaring pain ruthlessly sears through my veins and lodges somewhere in the vicinity of my heart. I lift my hand to examine the vile wound. A jagged letter C is carved into the underside of my wrist. C for Caera. C for her claim on me, my life, my heart. I shiver, ignoring the crowd that gathered, piecing myself back together. Her words ring on repeat, and for the first time in a long time, I am afraid.

~

I’m still in the dirt when a familiar cadence of steps approaches, followed by a wry chuckle, “I never thought I’d live to see the day that the noble heir of–” I kick Con in the shin so hard he cuts off abruptly, cursing low and filthy. When I look up at him, he’s clutching the offended limb and hopping rather dramatically on one leg. He settles and offers me a begrudging hand up.

I swing to my feet, draw Con close with a slap on the back and whisper, “You forget yourself, Con. We have an audience.” I flick my gaze to the handful of witches, warlocks, and human-hybrid soldiers standing at the edge of the training ring, still attempting–and failing miserably– to stifle their laughter at my rather embarrassing defeat. Con follows my gaze and his cheeks stain scarlet. He ducks his head and falls into step beside me as I make a hasty exit, careful to fix each snickering fool with a glare that promises retribution.

“Forgive me, your high–” Con starts, but I cut him off with a sharp elbow to the ribs.

I can’t help it when my eyes roll skyward as I grit out, “Falcon, for the love of the gods, shut up before you get us both killed.” He clamps his mouth shut and has the decency to look abashed. Why they sent Con, of all people, here is beyond me. He has no grace for this kind of subterfuge. Still, I’m glad to have him. I love Con like a brother, more than that, maybe, because we chose one another. We’ve been best friends since my ninth summer, when his family visited our estate for Sun festival and Con crashed into my life like a drunken idiot in a room made of glass. To be fair– he had been. He’d been gulping down generous glasses of wine under the table while the adults droned nonsense for long hours over a meal of countless courses. I’d been ready to fall head first into oblivion on my plate of lightly toasted peapods, when Con had burst from beneath the tablecloth, vomited in the shrubbery lining the balcony on which we sat, and then turned and hopped upon the table, kicking goblets and crystal and slurring a bawdy tune he most definitely didn’t learn in the private music tutoring befitting a child of his status. I’d burst out laughing despite myself, and in a rare show since my mother’s untimely demise, I’d seen a smile twitching on my father’s lips. At the sight of that quiver of a grin, I’d decided then and there that I’d make this blessed boy my friend– for surely he had immeasurable power, if he could make my father smile. Falcon’s mother had nearly keeled over from embarrassment, but her husband had laid a hand on hers, and they’d both looked to my father, whose shoulders shook from barely restrained laughter. And then, we were all laughing, chanting Con’s unwholesome ballad along with him, until his father had caught sense and hauled him off the table and chucked him into the fountain. He’d been extracted from the water moments later and given a proper tongue lashing before being sent to bed without so much as a poultice of posey to treat the wicked hangover that was already brewing.

I eye my friend, now a man grown, though his face still holds a quality of the mischief that is boyhood, despite the sharp cut of his jaw. I hope it always will. There is a small constellation of scars along his right temple, the results of a disastrous encounter with lichen lice on our first foray into the Bramblewood when we were twelve, and a smattering of freckles dust his golden cheeks under a mop of sun-kissed brown curls. Con is tall, though not so tall as I, and lean, covered in ropey muscles and more scars from our many adventures– and our less favorable encounters within the legions. One look at my friend and it is clear he is a warrior, but he still wears every emotion on his face as if he’s written it in ink upon his brow. Now he is gnawing his lip, and he’d slipped up in his speech, twice. Something is amiss.

When we’re out of earshot of the others, I grip his forearm and turn him to face me, “Alright, out with it– what’s going on with you? You’re not one to use my titles… unless…”

He meets my eyes with a dispassionate silver stare, “It’s not really a what…but a who, my dear friend.” Now it’s Con’s turn to slap me on the back and stride off into the forest, “You coming?” he calls over a shoulder.

I jog after him, “I thought the meeting was at dusk.”

Con laughs cynically, “It's not gonna change your report, is it? The witch won't hate you any less in a couple of hours, Grey.” He fixes me with a knowing look. I groan, but I know he’s right. A few hours won’t make any difference when it comes to Caera. I’m not sure a few centuries would be enough time to make a difference with Caera. If only I could make father understand that. I tear my fingers through my hair and helplessly attempt to wipe the dust from my sleeves. It’s no use.

“Lead the way, Counselor.” I sigh, gesturing to the tangle of trees. Con chuckles at my use of his title, but ducks his head and leads on. Dread curls in my gut with every step. Time for a visit with dear old Dad.

I think it's only fair I share this here, too. I've been polling my "Booktok" followers on what they want from a novel. So far we have a fantasy-romance setting, the enemies to lovers trope, and spice. They are voting on character attributes, names, tense, point of view...basically everything. It's a good bit of fun. They ask for it... I write it. So, without further delay, the first chapter of the Booktok masterpiece, working title of Manifest.

________________

My fingers are slick with sweat on the hilt of the dagger I pilfered from Uncle Kath’s armory. My uncle has been less an uncle and more my drill sergeant since I could walk–not that I’ll ever be allowed to see combat. No. That privilege is reserved for…well, anyone but me. The fact that anyone can serve in our legions, but I am sequestered behind the safety of the palace walls causes a hot flare of anger to lick down my spine. It doesn’t matter how far I've risen in the ranks. Until my witch gifts manifest, it is too great a risk, I am too great an asset to put into the field. That’s what they tell me, anyway. Uncle Kath often speaks to me of duty, of honor, of all the little ways one might serve their Queendom. “Have patience, child, your gift will make clear the path. Your path may yet not be one of war. Only time will tell. Focus instead on the other ways you might serve. Your duty is to the Queendom first, young ward.” Uncle Kath likes to hear himself talk, and unfortunately for me, he is rarely wrong. There are few things I can do before my gift manifests. No one dares speak the hard truth that I might never manifest. I am already five years late. Most witches get their gifts around the time of their eighteenth sun cycle. I’ve just crept past my twenty third, and not even an ember of power has shown. So, I am forced to focus on other things. My duty lies elsewhere, for now. My duty lies softly snoring in a bed that is outrageously too small for his massive frame.

Greyson is the most ridiculous man I’ve ever seen, all long lines and toned muscle and silvery scars that shine in the light from the window. At the moment, it looks as though he’s lost a battle with his sheets. They are twisted fitfully around his long legs, wadded at his hips. My gaze lingers on the naked skin there, tracing the cut lines that disappear beneath the sheets. I’ve seen him shirtless before, but there is something about looking at him so utterly defenseless in the moonlight that has a different kind of fire snaking down my spine. And the fact that he looks like that just makes me hate him more. Here is the man who stole everything from me. Here is the man who bested me in the ring, who pinned me in the mud and stripped away my future with a gentle press of his blade to my neck. Here is the man who utterly wrecked my life in the span of less than a minute. Everything had been riding on that duel. I’d finally gotten my uncle to agree to the wager I’d spent months crafting, one that I’d written in my own blood upon binding parchments. If I could best the greatest warriors under uncle's command, it would prove I was ready to take over a legion of my own– that I could stay alive, even without a witch-gift. I’d spent two days cutting them down with brutal efficiency. Many of them were considerably larger than I, many had killed more men and seen the battles of which I could only dream, but they lacked something I had in generous heaps: rage. I’d made it to the final duel, the final test standing between me and the freedom, the bloodlust I craved. And gods-damned Greyson Emory chose that moment to saunter into my life. I hate him. Gods, I hate him more than I imagined I could hate. And I’d imagined it was a good bit– I hate a lot of things. I hate the Faelings who prowl the abandoned witch mines of Farthwood, using them as entrance points into Riath to lay siege on Witchkind. I hate the giants who terrorize the mountain peaks of the North. I hate the Deamontics who dwell beneath the soil and send puddles of rot to the surface to infect our beasts with the Black Dread. I hate the heir of the Bog-Witch clan, who dares threaten my ascendency. I hate and hate and hate. Yes, I hate a good many things, but none so much as him. While I was still pinned in the dirt that fateful day, uncle slapped Greyson on the back in congratulations and fixed me with a glare that said, See. I told you. You aren’t ready. Then, he’d asked Greyson, as was customary when one defeated a member of the Regency witch clan, “What be your boon, warrior?” Greyson had stood, twirling his blade without a care in the world, as if he hadn’t just burned my dreams to cinders. And then he’d done the most terrible thing of all. He’d pointed the tip of his saber at me, still reeling on the ground, and chuckled, “Her. I’ll have her for a boon.” My head had gone hollow at that. Every sound drowned in the roaring that descended upon me. No. NO. NO. Everything within me roared. But honor demanded that I accept. Only if I bested Greyson in a rematch or he was killed could I be released from the boon. I’d willed my power to manifest then, to allow me to strike him down, to leave him as nothing but a smoking corpse in the ring, or perhaps to wither him into dust at the touch of a hand, like Aunt Artemis’ gift, but of course, that didn’t happen. I’d just glared. And he’d glared back, lips tugging into a self-righteous smirk, like he knew I’d tried to kill him then and failed. Fucking Greyson.

I glare at his sleeping form and flip him off with my free hand, silently cursing as I adjust my grip on the dagger…again. Just get it over with, damn it. I chastise myself and take a step closer on silent toes. I hold my breath as I stare down at him. His hair is splayed across the pillow in a wave of inky black. It looks longer like this, lying on the pillow instead of swirling around his ears in the perpetual breeze that seems to follow him everywhere he goes. The harsh lines of his face are softer in sleep, too. His lips almost look… well, not cruel when deprived of their usual sneer for once. I can do this. I need to do this. I hate him. I take a quiet breath through my nose and square my shoulders, rooting myself through the floor like Uncle Kath taught me. I’ve killed before, plenty of times. I just need to apply enough force. Human flesh is tougher than it looks and I have a feeling the skin of Greyson’s neck is going to be especially difficult to get through. The room is deathly quiet, a harbinger of what is to come, as I lean in and bring the blade to his throat. My hands shake. Eyes the color of evergreen shoot open, and before I can deprive him of his stupidly handsome head, Greyson’s hand wraps around my wrist and he flips me beneath him in a maneuver that crushes the breath from my lungs. My fingers splay in shock and he deftly catches the dagger and brings it to my neck, pinning my other arm above my head on the pillow. I couldn’t move if I wanted to. I can barely even breathe. His face etches with familiar cruelty as recognition lights his gaze. A slow smile blooms on his lips and he clicks his tongue, “I am surprised, little dove, that this is how you’ve come to be in my bed.”

“Fuck. you.” I gasp, forming the only words that really matter with my limited breath.

Greyson only laughs and leans closer, “When I do that, I’d rather not have a knife in the bed...and I’d rather you were wearing less clothes,” he eyes my thick, pocketed uniform vest and his brows rise, “going somewhere?” I struggle to suck in another breath and Greyson adjusts his weight, allowing air into my lungs, but not releasing me.

“The only reason I’m here at all is to put that knife in you,” I spit.

His eyes burn green embers at that, and he leans closer still, the knife biting painfully into the soft hollow beneath my jaw. Hot blood rolls down my neck and pools behind my ear. Greyson’s breath joins it as he whispers, “Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that.”

Faster than I can track, Greyson is off of me and across the room, sheet clutched around his hips, Uncle Kath’s dagger dangles from his long fingers. He isn’t even in a fighting stance. That’s how confident he is that I can’t hurt him. Prick. We stare at each other for a long minute, hatred so palpable, I can taste it in the air, before Greyson clears his throat and I tear my eyes from his, only for them to land on the white knuckles he has fisted in the sheet. My nostrils flare with derision, “Are you–” I swallow, “Are you naked?”

“Why? See something you like?”

I make a gagging noise, shoot out of the bed and fling open the door. I stomp down the hall, heedless of the soldiers sleeping behind the many doors. A few poke their heads out and promptly disappear again at the sight of the wrath that must surely be brewing on my face. This was my third attempt at killing him since he’d claimed my hand those months ago. The first time, I tried poison. The brute had taken a sip, cringed, and pushed the waterskin back into my hand, whispering those same damned words, “Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that.” I’d cocked my leg back and kicked him in the balls, hard. That was the last time he’d let me get a hit in. The second attempt, I’d thought, was particularly clever. I’d set a series of nooses, woven of the transparent silk of Etherworms, directly at head level, matching trip wires at the feet on the path through the Weeping Woods he liked to run in the mornings . I’d hoped to snare him like a rabbit, and then choke the life out of his muscled throat. No luck. One of the Bog witches had narked on me and Greyson had crawled the path on his stomach, flinging his middle finger at me in my perch on a wide branch. He’d called the words up to me, panting, “Nice try, but you’ll have to do better than that.” A sane person would have just skipped the run, or brought a blade to cut down the traps, but Greyson is certainly not sane. He seems to enjoy taunting me more than anything else. This time, I’d been certain I would succeed, and I suppose that was my downfall. I’d climbed the tree outside his second-story barracks window and slipped into his room without a sound. I figured that, until I had my witch-gift, the only way I’d best him would be to kill him in his sleep. I’d figured wrong.

“See a healer about that cut,” Greyson calls after me, not one drop of actual concern in his voice, “if you’re not careful it’ll scar.”

I flip him off again over my shoulder and reply, “I'll wear it as a reminder of the love of my betrothed.” The sound of Greyson’s dark laugh haunts my every step. I exit into the cool air of an autumn night, but feel none of its bite, my skin is so flushed in the heat of my shame. A small part of me wishes Greyson had just cut my throat and gotten it over with. The gods know one of us will kill the other sooner or later.

I skitter down the stairs and flee into the night, turning into the subterranean tunnel that connect the barracks yard to the palace training grounds. I don’t bother to be discreet like I was on my way to the pathetic assassination attempt. Everyone will know about it soon enough. Greyson will make sure they do. And then he’ll make sure that we go over all of the pitfalls of my attempt in the private training sessions I’ve been forced to attend since he bested me a little over six months ago. My Uncle says that If some random stranger can walk into the dueling ring and defeat me, I don’t deserve to command a force of my own. I hate that he is right. I also hate that Greyson is now anything but a stranger. My betrothed. My stomach sours at the thought. So, I veer away from the path that would lead me to the palace, to my bed so piled with pillows everyone believes them to be an actual joke–they aren’t, I like comfort–, and make my way to the training yard. There, I unleash my rage on an unfortunate training dummy, and when my fingers are throbbing with numbness, I run. As if I could outrun fate itself, I run, until my legs collapse beneath me and I drag myself into a wobbly heap at the base of a tree and fall asleep, blood still crusting behind my ear. The heat of Greyson’s breath is a soft taunt of remembrance on my neck as I lose myself to dreamland.

I lied about watching Yellowstone.

I'd made a new friend and I panicked.

She loves Yellowstone.

I'd refused to watch it on principle.

She didn't know that.

One night at dinner she made a joke with a punchline from the show, and damn me... I figured it out and went along with it, and she squealed with delight, "Oh MY gosh! You watch Yellowstone, too!"

And because I'm too desperate to be liked and the friendship was barely budding, I replied, "Well, duh. Who doesn't?"

We proceeded to talk about the show for half an hour (well, she talked and I bullshitted) and I realized two things:

1. My friend is stupid.

2. I either had to binge-watch Yellowstone or continue to lie to her about it forever.

And because I am an actual asshole, and because a small part of me enjoys toying with people, I decided then and there that I wouldn't watch Yellowstone. I would instead see how long I could keep up the ruse.

It's been two years since I made that resolution.

She still thinks I've seen every episode.

She still texts me, gushing.

I still shoot back theories based on nothing but the breadcrumbs she so charitably litters amongst her texts. I won't even google- that ruins the fun for me.

It's become a game I just can't give up.

So,

I lied about watching Yellowstone.

The lie rolled off of my tongue like smooth whiskey.

And I liked the taste.

It was a little lie,

but now that I've started,

I think I might

Like to lie a little more.

I miss the stars.

When I was a girl, you could see them from town.

Now, only a few are able to wink through the layer of smog and city lights.

Where there were once shooting stars, there are only satellites.

I mourn the stars.

I long to live in a place where they might exist, too.

I used to look at them every night.

I'd look and look and look.

And I'd wonder about who else might be seeing them.

There is something about looking at the stars that makes one feel so wondrously small.

There is something about looking at the stars that makes one feel so wondrously significant, too.

Stars connect us to times and places we'll never truly get to visit. So vast. So familiar.

My father was the one who taught me to look up.

He was a troubled man, but in those moments we stared up at the gaping maw of the universe, he was able to set aside the terror in his heart. He was able to just exist, to be the purest version of himself- the one untainted by the cruelty of this world.

The stars were his escape.

He made them mine, too.

He told me once, that he'd sometimes climb onto the rickety roof of his childhood home to see them. He'd sit under the glory of starlight and pretend that he was anyone else, that he were anywhere else. He said when he looked at the stars, he could convince himself that he was some other boy, one who was loved and fed and whose clothes weren't filthy and tattered. He could pretend that anything was possible.

I liked that.

On clear nights, father would haul out his and Ma's frayed wedding quilt. He'd spread it on the grass and lie down, patting a spot beside him. I'd curl into his warmth and he'd stroke my hair. And then we'd look at the constellations. We'd wish upon the shooting stars. We'd wonder where planes blinking red against the backdrop of galaxies were taking their passengers. And he'd tell me stories.

Stories about before he became a monster.

Frogs he caught with his brothers.

How he'd torment the turkeys on the farm.

The way he'd run barefoot in the grass.

The candy he'd buy for a penny at the corner store.

How his father had loved cameras and radios and tinkering.

How his mother had planted flowers and crocheted.

He'd tell me about growing up poor and filthy and rotten.

About how he got a job at the mill and bought a T-top Corvette with his sixth paycheck. How the women had swooned for a chance to sit in the passenger seat. It's how he'd won over his first wife.

He'd tell me about our family. About the golden retriever he bought to celebrate my birth, the playhouse he built, the pool table that had a permanent place in the sun-room of our family home.

And all the while we'd lie beneath a blanket of stars and mourn.

He mourned the life he lost.

I mourned the childhood I would never have.

The version of my father who held me and whispered stories under the stars was the only version I could ever really love.

We could both pretend.

I could pretend he didn't hit me and scream and tell me I was worthless.

He could pretend I didn't hate him for it.

We'd lie there until the blanket turned soggy and reality came crashing back in.

There was always a moment when I could see he was entertaining just staying the way we'd been... when he was considering shirking the overcoat of evil he wore to guard his heart and just becoming the father I so badly wanted him to be.

But the moment would pass, and the coldness would settle back into his steely eyes, and we'd go back to the truth that neither of us could escape.

He'd stalk inside with the wet quilt draped over his shoulder like some kind of dead animal.

I'd stand in the yard awhile longer and look up.

And I'd wish.

And my heart would ache for the tremendous possibility that hid in the blackness between the stars.

My heart still aches for that possibility.

My heart still aches for everything that could have happened but didn't.

I miss the stars.

I miss the world of only a decade ago, where I could see them from my bedroom window.

I want them back.

I want to fill up all the empty spaces inside my heart with stars.

So as long as there is even one, I'll keep looking up.

And I'll wish.

*AI art image.