ARIS BROUGHT THEM TO THE TOP OF A LUSH HILL, WHERE BLADES OF ripe grass
and poppies as red as rubies scratched greetings against Blythe’s calves. The sky was an impossible shade of blue so lovely that it seemed magicked from a painting and was filled with clouds so perfectly constructed that Blythe wondered how much had been painted by Aris’s hand.
Balmy wind swept through her hair and kicked up her skirts, a welcome pairing to the sun that bore down on them. Blythe tipped her head back to welcome it.
They overlooked a tiny town built into the cliffside, set upon thin roads and switchbacks pocked with wildflowers. In the distance stretched endless acres of farmland—fields of crops and sprawling pens filled with animals. Blythe tried to take a step toward one of the red-roofed barns only to wobble, off-balance since their arrival. As much as she appreciated the ease of it, Blythe wasn’t certain that she’d ever become adjusted to Aris’s method of transportation.
As he reached for her arm to help steady her, Blythe noticed he was dressed differently than he’d been moments ago. Simpler than she’d ever seen him, his black pants casual and his white tunic loose at the collar, top buttons undone. At any moment he looked ready to pick up a shovel and begin turning the fields, and as she stared at the sculpting of his arms and the way the sunlight cast a sheen of gold across his tanned skin, Blythe thought of their prior night together and the way her body had burned for his touch.
She would speak with Signa that night. She would confide in her cousin,
share all that she knew, and determine a plan to face Chaos. But in the event that she got it wrong—in the event that Chaos won—Blythe would not spend her final moments stuck alone in her bedroom suite counting the whorls in the wallpaper. This time when she faced her impending doom, she would spend it traversing the countryside with a handsome man.
“This place is as beautiful as a painting,” she said, bracing herself against him as they started across a stretch of grassy plains and toward the town. Her steps were slower and her breathing a little unsteady, but at any moment Aris could whisk them back to the comfort of Wisteria if need be.
“It is,” he agreed. “But we’re not here for the town.”
Aris slowed to a leisurely stroll to help guide her. It would have been so much easier to appear directly in the distant village, but she was glad for the view. Not to mention that trying to explain to someone how they’d arrived out of thin air didn’t seem like the most fruitful way to spend the day.
Like Brude, this town was unfamiliar to her. Despite how many times she tore through her own memories, Blythe couldn’t place ever seeing it depicted in any book or museum portrait. The entire town fit along one long stretch of road, and it didn’t feel oppressive in the same way the giant factories and industrial buildings an hour outside of Thorn Grove did. She tried to place where they could be by the language of the townsfolk who watched them with the keen eyes of those who didn’t often have visitors, but she couldn’t quite place it.
“We’re far north, in a town called Hateno,” Aris told her, ducking under eaves as he led her through a small alleyway where grass sprouted between every sporadic stone. It seemed that at one point someone had tried to turn the streets into a cobblestone path only to give up halfway through. Blythe stepped gingerly, not wanting to trample any of the new growth.
“Have you visited this place often?” she asked as she fought to keep up with Aris, who navigated the streets with expert precision. “You seem to know it well.”
They were getting deeper into the village, passing through the streets as they made their way toward the farmland. Each step had Blythe’s chest growing hot and her cheeks flushing from the mildest exertion.
“I’ve woven the fates of all who have lived here,” Aris told her, offering Blythe an arm to loop her hand around. “And thus I know these streets as well as if they were my own. I’ve visited once or twice in recent years, but
the village is small and I haven’t wanted to draw attention.”
Knowing all that she did about Aris, Blythe guessed that whatever he’d brought her to see must be remarkable to hold his interest. She squeezed his arm tighter, wishing she had the energy to hasten her steps. At this rate, though, she supposed she should have counted herself lucky to still have the energy to even be out of bed. She drew each breath slowly, trying not to let on to just how winded she was or how her ankles had swollen. Her thighs were burning with the exertion, and while she knew that staying in bed was the smarter option, she couldn’t bear it. For as long as she could, she would live, no matter how exhausted she was.
Aris helped her over rolling hills dotted with cattle, pausing while Blythe petted each and every one and laughed as a small herd of sheep followed behind them. Soon, she and Aris came across a collection of withered old buildings, one of them a small house and another a large shed with a roof half sloped from the weather.
The world quieted as she approached, so still that it felt as though its embodiment was right there with her, bowing its head to listen as someone in that shed began to sing. It was music unlike any she’d ever known, a voice as smooth and free flowing as a summertime stream.
“What is this?” Blythe whispered as Aris maneuvered her closer, pulled toward the voice in a way she didn’t understand. Blythe could spend an eternity rooted in that spot, lost to time for as long as the man inside continued to sing. She had never believed in angels until that moment, for how could a mere human ever sound so enchanting?
Aris gestured to a small hole in the shed, and Blythe pressed close to peer inside, though it was too dark to see much other than a man who shoveled hay as he sang. It seemed a few sheep had followed him, bleating happily every so often, but other than that, he was alone. For the life of her, Blythe could not understand how.
A voice like his should fill theaters and be written about in every paper throughout the world.
“This is who we came to see.” Aris tucked an arm around Blythe’s waist and drew her closer. She tried to ignore how her breath hitched at his touch. “He’s incredible,” Blythe told him, though such a word hardly did
justice to the man’s talent, for he slipped effortlessly into a new song that reminded her of the summer sun upon her skin. The language was not one
she knew, but there was no need for words when emotion seeped into his every breath. “He should be on a proper stage.”
Aris hummed low in his throat. “He dreams of that. Some days he wonders what it might be like to sing beneath the burn of lights and capture the attention of a crowd of hundreds. He slips into his shed and imagines it’s a theater filled with people who paid for the privilege of hearing him. Other nights, he wonders whether it would be worth it to turn his passion into a job and uproot his entire life and family to chase a dream. He’s content in this place, with this life and these people. Who is to say what future might await him, should he decide to take the risk?”
It seemed so unfair that Blythe should get to hear this man when the rest of the world could not.
“And what will he decide?” she pressed, needing desperately to know. “Will he risk it?”
It was a long while before Aris answered, for both his attention and Blythe’s were captured by the most effortless crescendo. Blythe hadn’t realized her cheeks were damp until Aris brushed a thumb across her skin, soothing tears away.
“He will stay here,” he said as a veil of quiet befell them. “He could have the entire world in the palm of his hand if he wanted it, but he chooses confirmed happiness rather than the gamble. Fear will stop him from taking a risk, as it does with so many.”
Blythe felt each word like a blow to her gut. “But he could still change his mind, couldn’t he?”
“Why should he? He will have a content life here, and you said yourself how wonderful that can be.”
Her heart stuttered at the words. Because yes, that was wonderful, and she had meant it, but there was a void in her soul as the man stopped singing. He had ruined all other music for her, and she didn’t understand how fear could keep such a talent from shining the way it was meant to.
She clutched Aris’s hand, understanding now what he’d meant several weeks ago when he’d been so dissatisfied with one of his tapestries. How difficult it was to watch the most talented people allow fear to stop them from becoming all that they could be.
Still, she tried to tell herself that he was going to be content with his life. Always curious and wondering what could have been, perhaps, but happy
all the same. And that counted for something.
Aris peeled away from the shed, pressed close enough for her to feel the rise and fall of his chest. His eyes skimmed down her body, taking in their situation before lifting to meet hers.
“I’ve been thinking a great deal about fear these days,” he told her. “About how even I fall victim to it. Perhaps I have been rash in my judgments; from the outside, it’s easy to see all the possibilities. To view someone like a chess piece, and know precisely where we might place them on our board.” He lifted a tentative hand and set it against her cheek. Blythe stilled beneath his touch, not daring to breathe out of worry that it might scare him away.
“But when you are that piece, you see only what’s in front of you. A looming king ready to call checkmate with no way to avoid the loss. For years I have felt bitterness toward every soul who bows to their fear. And yet I now find myself ruled by my own. You have bewitched me, Sweetbrier, and for that I am terrified.”
Blythe wished for her feelings not to be true. Wished that she could still despise this man that her body yearned for. It would be so much easier that way, if he never learned the truth of who she was.
Blythe, too, was terrified. And yet she couldn’t help but wonder what it might feel like to ignore that terror and give in to the desire to press against him. To give herself, body and soul, to a man she knew would care for it.
This time, she did not let the fear push her away. This time she acknowledged it, giving it the space and consideration it deserved without bowing to it as she lifted onto her toes to claim Aris’s lips with hers.
Aris’s touch was tentative at first, hesitant as his fingers splayed over the curve of her waist. Only as the kiss deepened did his hold on her tighten, those fingers eventually curling into her dress, pulling her against his body with a desperate want.
Blythe peppered soft kisses above the collar of his tunic. “You’re always so put together. So polished. I like seeing you undone.” Blythe gasped as he took hold of her hips, pressing her against the shed.
“Good, Sweetbrier.” His voice was a raw husk, the brogue of it thicker than she’d ever heard. “I want to be undone by you.”
His hand inched up the burning skin of her thigh, and suddenly they were in a room she at once knew belonged to Aris.
There were no lakes of midnight. No constellations pressed so low that she could reach out and snatch one from the sky. Instead, it looked as though they were in a shop. One gilded wall was filled with countless trinkets—strange coins, stacks of leather-bound journals, vases that appeared to be from an age long ago.… Another wall was made entirely of mosaic, bathing the room in a rainbow of diffused light as the midday sun shone through it. The bed was something out of a storybook, its back posts spiraling into a wisteria tree that canopied them. Aris set her upon it as a petal fell loose, gliding down onto the duvet.
Blythe hadn’t thought his room would be so hypnotizing. But then again, Aris always did surprise her.
“I can stop,” he whispered, and Blythe wondered if he felt the same fear that coursed through her—a fear that she was too thin, too bony, and would never measure up to the wife he once had. A fear that this was a mistake.
But she thought of the singer—of the dream he longed for but was too afraid to pursue—and pushed those fears aside.
She wanted him. Wanted this. So she guided Aris’s hand to the back of her gown, helping him slip it off.
For years, she had avoided serious courting, preferring fleeting whims and impulsive trysts because no one had ever truly captured her interest. It always felt like something was missing, as though a small part of her had been carved out and she had been searching for a way to fill it.
Now she understood why. All this time, she had been waiting for Aris.
He removed her chemise and she his tunic, peeling off layers until they were skin to skin. Her breath relaxed as their bodies connected, her back arching as she savored his touch. The hands that roamed over her body, gripping her tightly, not concerned with her fragility. The rhythm of his hips against hers, and how he drew pleasure from her lips with every movement. Golden threads ensnared her wrists, pinning her to the bed.
Thumb brushing down past her navel, to the most sensitive part of her, Aris asked, “Still despise me, Sweetbrier?”
In his ear Blythe whispered, “Don’t get cocky.”
His laugh was a throaty, brilliant sound that pushed her over the edge as
he went deeper. There was no fear as she lost herself to him. No hesitation.
This was what had been missing. This was what her mind, her soul, her body, had been waiting for all this time.
With Aris, nothing had ever felt more right.
