The sun slithers behind the mountains. Darkness trails in, not far behind. Fireflies blossom along the surface of the lake. The moon, larger and more intrusive than ever, glares down.
“Rose-” he starts.
“Not yet,” I reply, and snuggle into his chest.
“It's time.”
I nod silently, and pack up our things. There is no point in going back to the castle; we head straight for the crypt. I haven't told him yet, but I am not planning on leaving him tonight. I will wait, safely, by his side, all the way to morning. Just for a few more hours. I will bring my sewing and a dozen candles down and work by that pale light, whiling away the hours until Thorn returns to me.
A storm rumbles overhead. Bramble growls.
“Head back to the castle, boy,” I rub his head.
Bramble looks up at the sky doubtfully, and then at Thorn, as if weighing up his options.
“Go on,” I urge. “It's all right.”
He soon scampers off, his head bowed slightly, as if he's ashamed of abandoning his mistress.
“Perhaps you should join him,” suggests Thorn. “You don't want to get caught in a storm.”
“I don't mind.”
Thankfully, he says nothing else about leaving him tonight. I hope he was serious, about me helping him. I hope he wants me there. I am more a lick-your-wounds-in-silence, type. I do not like to share my pain. That doesn't mean I don't want to help elevate others'. Specifically, his. I don't think I've ever felt another person's pain so keenly before.
Lightning splits through the sky, followed shortly by a downpour. The day has been so hot that it sizzles on the stone. We are still five minutes or so from our destination.
“Quickly, over here-” Thorn pulls me into a little bandstand, sheltering me under his board arms. I do not mind getting wet, but I do not mind being here, either.
We do not have long.
“It might blow over soon,” he says assuredly.
I place my head against his chest. “I'm in no hurry.”
We wait as long as we dare, the lightning and thunder growing closer and closer, and then finally we race out. Thorn holds my hand as we dash towards the graveyard.
I see the flash seconds before he does.
“Thorn!” I scream.
Lightning strikes a nearby tree, as straight and sure as an arrow. The whole thing comes crashing down. In an instant, Thorn's hand is yanked from mine. The whole of him vanishes, swallowed under branch and bark. I smell the smoke before I see the flames rising at the roots.
My scream is lost under a roar of thunder. I dive into the foliage, hands searching madly for him, touching nothing but lifelessness.
“I'm... I'm all right-” comes his muffled reply. I see a hand reaching for me, a face. “I'm... I'm stuck. My leg-”
“Thorn, the tree is on fire.”
“I know. Don't worry. I think I can get myself out-”
“It's really on fire!” I search desperately for the rest of him, breaking what I can. Finally, I find his leg. It is trapped firmly under the trunk of the tree, a thick branch is wedged right into it. Even in this light, I can see the blood pooling onto the ground.
“Oh, oh no...”
“Rose, Rose! It's all right.” He fumbles desperately for my hand, clutches it closely. “In a few minutes, I'll change. I'm stronger then. I can get myself out. But listen- you cannot be here when that happens.”
I can taste salt in my mouth. I think Thorn is shaking, but then I realise it is me. “I am not leaving you like this!”
“Rose, you have to.”
“The tree is on fire and you are bleeding really badly-”
“I'm aware. It's fine, I can't feel it-”
“I can.”
“Please,” he groans. “Go back to the castle. I need to know you're safe.”
“Thorn... you could die.”
“Please, Rose!”
His voice is becoming more taut. Suddenly, his face contorts. He curls inwards.
“Rose!”
I nod because I cannot speak, and then I close my eyes, because there's no way I can move unless I can't see him. His barely-contained screams rip through the air between us as I run, and it feels like my bones are breaking.
Crash.
Another tree swerves in front of me, cutting my path. I turn left. I can get in through the kitchen.
Lightning strikes the steps before I can reach them. A chasm opens between me and the door. This cannot be happening-
I wheel back towards the graveyard. I can hide in the dungeon. I am mere inches from the door when the statue beside it explodes. I crush down on my knees and try to pull apart the wreckage. The stone is white hot.
Against the pounding wind, I hear something growling. A dark shape darts behind a tomb. Another flash of lightning illuminates a trail of blood. As least I know he's escaped.
There is a ruined chapel a few yards away. It has no door, nothing the lightning can attack. If I can get in there, I should be safe from this weather. I can barricade myself in the crypt there, wait it out till morning-
I make a dash for it. The storm is relentless. Each statue I pass explodes, rubble litters my way. This is not natural.
Thorn is following me, but I don't turn to look. I mustn't. I dive into the chapel, cursing its lack of doors, and charge towards the crypt entrance.
A window shatters. Pews skid. My foot hits a seat and I go flying, wrenching myself up just in time to see Thorn sailing over me. He lands in front of my escape. Not thinking, I move backwards, tripping into the debris. My back hits wall. There is nowhere for me to go.
“Thorn-” I hold up my hands. “It's me, it's Rose. You know me, I know you do.”
He does not appear to. He creeps towards me, his back leg dragging. Snarling, growling. No trace of the real him. Not a flicker of recognition.
“Thorn, you don't want to hurt me. You were willing to risk your life to keep me safe... I was willing to risk mine to save you.”
He does nothing but move closer.
“Thorn, dearest, just listen-”
He is so close, I am running short of ideas. I am terrified. I can't let him hurt me. I don't want to die, but if given the choice, I would choose any death other than this. He will die if he kills me. I know, because I feel the same.
Do something. Anything!
When he was chasing me before, nothing stopped him. Not my screams, not the door, not even me slicing his arm. He continued his pursuit all the way to-
To the chamber. He stopped hammering against door when the music box was playing. I do not have the music box now, but I remember the tune.
I start to hum.
He slows, but does not stop. I raise my voice against the crescendo of the storm, louder and louder with each crash of lighting. Another window shatters, then another. The wind tears at the building, howling, screaming, but he plays no attention. His eyes are fixed on me, like a sailor's eyes might fix on a lighthouse.
There is the tiniest, faintest flicker. He pauses.
“Thorn?”
For second, his eyes look blue. His mouth opens, not snarl, but as if to speak.
I keep singing.
Thorn shakes his head, as if trying to wriggle the song out of his mind. He snorts, splutters. I call out his name.
He looks at me, somewhere between monster and man, and then leaps out the window.
I sit in the dark, covered in tiny shards, the rain still battering relentless against the roof. I hear him howling in the distance, louder and more lonely than any storm.
Slowly, carefully, I have to get up. I shake the glass of my clothing. I am unhurt, bruised at most. There is no way I can risk returning to the castle, no way I can help him now.
As I walk towards the crypt, I feel like I am stepping into my own grave. When I close the gate, it makes a sound like a nail against a coffin.
Chapter Nineteen: The Choice
Somehow, I grab a few hours of sleep, but it does not
feel like rest. I half-wake continuously, treading the lines between sleeping and waking. I think I dream, but I cannot be sure. My thoughts are jumbled, but my heart is pounding, and my cape coils around me.
I wake at dawn. A blue, watery light filters through the bars, swamping the flagstones. The minute it is light, I get up and leave my makeshift prison. The chapel is awash with glass, and dotted with dark droplets of blood. I follow the trail outside. It is a little hard in places, obscured by the gravel and glass. I know I should be relieved -this means he is not bleeding badly, right?- but fear stills gnaws at my insides. I shall not be relieved until I find him.
I hear Bramble barking in the distance, and call out to him until he appears. He does not come to me, but continues to yelp until I follow him into the orchard. A dark shape lies slumped under one of the apple trees, in ragged, blood-streaked clothing. He moves a little, lifting up his head until his eyes rest on mine, but no relief comes.
“Oh, Thorn...”
He is still when I approach him, still when I reach out to touch his matted hair. His eyes are deep blue now, but they are far away and glazed over. He is damp, clammy, and completely unaware.
“Rose?” he croaks eventually. “W-what happened? Are you all right? Why am I-”
“I'm fine,” I say quickly. “You're fine. You are going to be fine.”
I wrap my arms around his neck and hug him gently. He does not hold me back. I am terrified of hurting him, but tug gingerly at his arm and pull him up. He follows my motion, rising to his feet, but collapses seconds later, whimpering. His leg is bloody and oozing. He cannot place any weight on it.
“Thorn!”
Bramble circles round to his other side, slips under his arm, and licks his cheek. Thorn lacks the energy to even acknowledge him. His eyes keep circling back into their sockets.
“Help, please!” I call out.
In a matter of seconds, the three little fairies appear out of nowhere. They buzz under his arms, and together, the four of us somehow pull him to his feet. It is a long, slow limp back to the castle, and several times Thorn stops, completely lost, as if he has forgotten I am even here.
I finally get him into his room and sit him down on the bed, where he goes limp, resting against the bed post with a dazed, unfocused gaze. It is impossible to get him into the bath, but the little sprites summon a basin of hot water, presumably from the fountain. They hover uselessly by his side, while I pick out glass from his wounds with a pair of tweezers. Every so often, he makes a slight moan when I remove a particularly large piece. It is the only sound he makes.
I clean the wounds as best I can, smearing them with ointment provided by the fairies, and bandaging the worst of the ones. His leg is a horrible, pulsing mess. My basin is dark by the end of the process. He looks almost like a mummy, swathed in bandages.
He did this to himself for me. He is hurt because of me.
I reason and justify that this is the lesser of two evils, that this is what Thorn would have wanted, that it is not my fault. But that does not change the fact that he is hurt. Because of me.
I take one of his hands in mine and kiss it.
“Thorn,” I whisper. “Thorn, my dearest, I am so sorry. If I had only-”
A finger reaches up and wipes a tear from my cheek. “You're safe,” he says softly. “You are all that matters.”
“You matter,” I say. It hurts to speak. I'm going to start sobbing soon and if I do, I will not stop. You matter so much.
I put my head against his neck and breathe him in. A soft hand presses against my back. I refuse to let myself cry any more in front of him. He is in more pain than I am. My tears are useless.
“I'm just going to get something,” I say, easing back. "I won't be long.”
Thorn nods. I know he does not want me to leave, but I need to collect myself. I go back to my room, change my clothes, tidy myself up. I barely recognise the girl in the mirror, covered in dirt and dry blood, hopelessly pale. I take a minute to freshen up and erase any trace of my tears, before grabbing a book and heading back.
Thorn is still resting against the bedpost when I return, and I have been gone much longer than I expected. He startles when I walk in. Bramble is lying at his feet, head in his paws, looking incredibly helpless and forlorn. He is a perfect reflection of how I feel.
Thorn blinks. “You came back.”
“Where else would I go?” I touch his cheek.
“Elsewhere,” he mumbles. “I'm always... so scared... that you will go.”
I'm not entirely sure what he means by this, so instead I pull back the covers and ease him towards the pillows. He says nothing, eyes circling up towards the ceiling. He is burning, and I know that means I should try and keep him warm.
When I turn around to grab an extra blanket from his nest beside the hearth, I see the fairies have bought in a tray of hot soup, enough for two, and a bone for Bramble. They hover cautiously around the bowl, faint in colour.
“Thank you,” I say.
They move over to the mantelpiece, and I know they are watching him too. They always have been.
I bring the tray over to Thorn's bedside and take a spoon towards his lips. He manages a few mouthfuls, but no more. I can only do a few myself. Thorn slips into an uneasy sleep, shaking and muttering incoherently. All I can do is be here.
I read my book aloud, because I haven't the strength to read it silently, listening to him. This keeps me focused, distracted. It is Tromeo and Lessida, his favourite. I finished re-reading it months ago, but kept it beside my bed, for some reason.
I wonder why it is his favourite? It is not a wholly remarkable story. Tromeo is a rich young nobleman, and Lessida is an intelligent healer. They are from very different worlds and are very different people, but despite this, find themselves falling in love. Then a war comes and separates them both for several years. Both believing the other to be dead or far out of reach, they attempt to move on with their lives, never forgetting each other despite the time and distance. They are only reunited with each other after several decades, when their other halves have died and their children have grown. I suppose there might be something romantic in the longevity of their love, but it never sat well with me that they lost so much time together.
Some time later – the minutes blur together- Thorn wakes with a start.
“What? What is it?”
Thorn is on the other side of the bed, pressed against the poster, breathing heavily. His eyes are wide in fear.
“Thorn?”
“You're all right,” he breathes.
“Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? It's you I'm worried about.”
The fear in Thorn's eyes slowly dissipates. His shoulders relax. “I thought... I must have been dreaming...”
My heart a little tighter than it was a minute ago, I sit up and inch forward to place a hand on his hot cheek, stroking his hair.
“I'm fine,” I tell him. “You aren't. Lie back down again.”
He makes no motion to move. His eyes are glazed over, his thoughts far off. It scares me a little, to see him so helpless, and I want so badly to help him. My heart feels like it's spread to every corner of my body, and each part of it aches.
I notice Thorn's hair is all stuck up, down one entire side of his body, the side that was pressed to mine.
I smile a little. “You have bed hair,” I tell him, making a feeble attempt to pat it down. “It's sweet.”
Thorn's eyes slowly, briefly, catch mine. “Why aren't you afraid of me?” he asks. “Why are you so sure I won't hurt you?”
I swallow. The question hurts me. I hate it when he hates himself.
“Because I know you,” I say, and this time, I lean forward and pull him carefully into my arms. I kiss the top of his cheek, smooth his hair. Slowly, he loosens, allows me to lie him back down. He feels as small and weak as a child.
I lie down next to him, a little apart, even though I want desperately to take him in my arms again.
; His hand reaches out and closes around mine feebly. “Rose?” he says.
“Yes?”
“Please don't leave.”
I stroke his face with my free hand. “I'm not going anywhere.”
It is night time when I wake. The clock reads two in the morning. Thorn is still sleeping, although it looks far from peaceful.
Having only had a bowl of soup in past twenty-four hours, I find myself hungry. Luckily, there is more food laid out for us. A bit of cheese and bread. I couldn't handle much more.
I walk around the room to stretch my legs, then I sit by the window and wait for the dawn. Any more attempts at sleep would be fruitless. Black turns to blue, the night thins and pales, and faint, watery light falls from the heavens.
Thorn wakes shortly after.
“Have you been there all night?”
I give him a smile almost as liquescent as the sun this grey morning. “I slept,” I tell him. “Have no fear.”
I cross the room to check his forehead, and pretend he feels a little cooler. “How do you feel?”
“A little better,” he says, not all that convincingly.
“You seem a little more coherent today.”
“I'm sorry if I worried you.”
“You did,” I say honestly. “But I'm all right as long as you're all right.”
I bring over the breakfast tray, and we eat a little together. Thorn can still only manage the smallest of amounts.
“My leg hurts,” he tells me.
“I'll change your bandages for you.”
A fresh set is summoned, along with more warm, tingly waters. I inspect some of his other injuries first, finding them healing to my satisfaction. The leg, if possible, looks worse.
“Does the fountain water heal infections?” I ask, trying to sound light-hearted.
“Usually,” Thorn replies. “Why?”
“Just wondering if I should boil the water first, is all.”
Thorn smiles a little at this, and I finish cleaning the wound as best I can. I wish there was more I could do for the pain.
“Any better?”
“A little, thank you.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Just... stay with me.”
“Well,” I say breezily, crawling up onto the bed beside him. “That I can manage.”
The Rose and the Thorn Page 18