Medieval 03 - Enchanted

through
clenched teeth. “It wasn’t worth your life. Nothing
is!”
    He kicked aside the spices and priceless gems. Then
he held Ariane hard against his body, willing her to awaken, to
look at him, to smile.
    To live.
    All that awakened were a thousand soft tongues
whispering the words Simon had once spoken.
    I am not Dominic or Duncan. I
will never give that much of my soul to a woman. I will never see
the rowan bloom .
    Yet Ariane had come to Simon with her ravaged
innocence and shocking bravery. She had burned wildly for him,
giving him more than she had believed she had to give; her trust,
her body, her very soul.
    I love you, Simon .
    Simon’s gift to Ariane had been his body.
    And now she was cold beyond his warming.
    Petals stirred, whispered, shaping words from
stillness, murmuring to Simon, repeating his own words, wounding
him until he bled the very tears he had fought against crying. More
than he knew had died with Ariane. More than he had believed
existed.
    With great gentleness, Simon wrapped Ariane in his
own mantle, saw her hair once more black against the soft white
fur. Slowly he lowered Ariane to the ground, removed his sword, and
set it between her hands.
    “No warrior ever had more courage than
you,” Simon said as he kissed her cool cheek. “Your
bravery humblesme. Wherever you are, may the
rowan bloom for you.”
    Then Simon bent his head and wept as he
hadn’t since he was a child. As he wept, fragrance drifted
down over him, softness brushing his cheeks like kisses.
    Open your eyes .
    Slowly Simon opened his eyes and saw an ancient
rowan blooming in the midst of winter. He saw, and knew that the
truth he had seen too late was his own.
    Blossoms drifted into his hands, petals from a tree
that could not exist, blooming in a place that could not be.
    Yet he saw the rowan bloom. He held its blossoms.
He touched their transcendent beauty. He breathed their impossible
fragrance as though it were life itself.
    It is .
    You saw too late. Now you are
as she is, between two worlds, warmth bleeding into
cold .
    You may hold my tears and live
as you did before, trusting your soul to no one. Or you may release
my tears and accept what comes .
    With a shudder, Simon opened his hands and let the
rowan’s tears drift over Ariane, giving everything to her,
more than he had ever believed he could give.
    And he feared only that it would not be enough.
    When the first flower touched Ariane’s cheek,
she seemed to stir. When the second blossom caressed her, she
shivered and drew a sharp breath, as though she had been too long
without air. The third and fourth and fifth flowers rained down,
and then there were too many to count, a swirl of warmth and
fragrance permeating everything.
    Simon sensed life rushing through Ariane’s
body as certainly as it pulsed through his own. She stirred as
though awakening from sleep. Then her eyes opened, and they were
amethyst gems reflecting the beauty of a sacred tree blooming in
the midst of winter.
    “Simon?” she whispered.
    He gathered Ariane’s living warmth into his
arms, felt the strength of her arms circling his neck.
    “I give to you the gift of the rowan,”
Simon whispered against Ariane’s lips.
    And the gift was love.

Epilogue
    B aron Deguerre stood at
Blackthorne’s moat bridge and saw the rowan’s triumph
riding toward him, borne on the backs of horses that followed
Ariane with neither lead rope nor groom to harry them into
obedience. Each horse carried a burden of sacks filled with spices
and silks, with gold and silver, with precious stones, with all
that had been taken from Ariane by treachery and betrayal.
    But it was not the dowry that convinced Deguerre of
his defeat. It was the pommel of Simon’s sword, a crystal as
black and clear as Simon’s eyes. Held impossibly within the
crystalline midnight was a single luminous blossom.
    Baron Deguerre looked at the rowan flower within
the sword, called for his horse and led his knights away from
Blackthorne Keep, for he knew no weakness remained there for him to
exploit. Nor would there be any in the future. Even Charles the
Shrewd had never discovered a way to undo love.
    Carlysle Manor became part of Rowan Keep, home of
Ariane the Beloved, a woman whose hands drew joy from her harp and
whose gift assured that no child wandered lost and alone away from
the keep’s safety.
    Simon’s sword came to be called the Rowan,
after the uncanny blossom encased within its black crystal pommel.
In time,