The Secret World of Briar Rose(106)
In the remains of an empty castle, she paced the floors with worry.
“This was a mistake,” she cried to Malicine. The demon rubbed their forehead, their headache growing both from Amelia’s constant panic attacks and the frequent noise of hammering in the background. Workers had volunteered to tear down the castle and make room for town houses. The idea sounded romantic in her mind, but in reality, she spent every day surrounded by rubble and destruction. She nearly tripped over debris before Malicine grabbed her by the shoulders.
“Rebuilding isn’t going to look as pretty as your dreams,” they snapped. “We don’t know if things will get better until we see it through.”
“What if it doesn’t matter in the end? I can’t stop a war. I can’t end poverty. It’s impossible.”
She remembered the stories Corin told her in their dreams. Skies filled with smoke, streets teeming with rubble. Man-made machines that could fly and release weapons that turned bodies and homes into fire. The future would create atrocities beyond her imagination. She could not end the tragedies, for she was only one person, and not even a brave one.
Malicine glanced out a cracked window, where mobs formed outside the castle to protest its destruction. Red-faced noblemen spat curses, while farmers swung pitchforks to riot. A sigh expelled from the demon’s lips.
“It is inevitable that humans will do terrible things. But we’ve learned that there will be humans like Corin and Elly, as well. Perhaps the smallest changes could make their lives a little better.”
“I can’t change people’s lives,” Amelia said.
“You changed mine just by being born.”
A warmth slowly filled Amelia’s chest. Her fingers fidgeted with her necklace. The pendant felt small in her palm, yet its future held a heavy weight. She pictured a child who would learn how to paint from her mother, a small joy that would remain tucked inside that child’s heart even as life sharpened her edges with age. She remembered calloused hands holding her own, and how, even in their rough grip, she could still feel that girl’s gentleness.
She had learned the answer was not isolation or a lonely throne. For the same reasons that common people had changed Lilith’s life, Amelia, too, needed others to depend on for a better outcome.
? ? ?
IN THE END, they did not become heroes. Such were the fates of a frivolous former princess and a wicked demon.
Instead, they left Gyldan to live on the outskirts of civilization. A quiet cottage nestled in the forest, where white crowns of honeysuckle grew through the cracks of windows, their climbing tendrils growing into the light. The grass grew so high they created a wall of green that blinded the porch. Amelia allowed the vines to grow wild, covering the stone walls as if they were encased in their own fortress. They had the occasional animal visitors, a rabbit and cat that wandered through open doors, often paired together.
More frequently came the human visitors, arriving with baked goods and news about Gyldan. The republic had formed over the years, where a council of citizens argued over the kingdom’s future. Amelia never had passion for politics, but she’d found people who did. There were craftsmen like Jasper, who started communes for other artists. Translators like Levu and Inya, with rich accents and multiple languages, who traveled between the borders of Gyldan to assist asylum seekers. Apothecaries like Sybil and midwives like Nessa who distributed medicines for the sick. People who reminded her of Lilith so much sometimes that Amelia wanted to cry.
The human visitors rearranged tables and smoothed the linens. Malicine brewed tea over the hearthstone and Amelia mixed her bowl of squash and sunflower seeds. Their friends asked about the flowers blooming in her garden while Talon pecked grapes from their palms. On a warm afternoon, they shared meals with mismatched plates. Between laughter and anecdotes, Amelia scanned the faces of everyone in the room, taking in the friends she never would have made had she decided her life would end at eighteen.
In the evening, crickets chirped outside the window in belated farewell to their guests. Soon, Amelia knew, it would be time for Malicine to say goodbye as well.
“Where will you go after I’m gone?”
Amelia had been washing the dishes when she asked this. Soap bubbles floated toward the exposed wooden beams overhead, where moonlight cast upon the silver streaks in her hair. Her skin had turned thinner, her eyes blurred with a cloudy hue. Time brought changes to her body that she’d never imagined at eighteen. She had become a spinster, a life of peace she had always wanted. She reveled in the variations that came with age, how they proved she’d survived every impossible thing she once feared. Meanwhile, throughout the years they lived together, Malicine’s appearance remained the same.
“I see your morbid thoughts haven’t disappeared,” they replied.
“They’re not morbid. It’s been a good life. But I’m not leaving until I know what happens to you.”
Fire crackled in the stone hearth. Memories flitted by of afternoons nestled in Malicine’s overstuffed armchair and Amelia’s tufted pillows. Books with crinkled pages lined the shelves, jars filled with jam and marmalade sat on countertops, every relic revealing decades spent with one another.
“I don’t know where I’ll go. Perhaps that’s the thrilling part,” Malicine said. “It’s a big world, and we only live in one of them. I want to see what Talon and I find next.”