The Ghost of Adsophel

Six.

Our wedding came in spring, when the gardens were just blossoming green again. Thea was the maid of honor. She'd cried when I told her about the engagement, which I took as approval. Mina and the rest of our family came to the wedding, along with other noble families my parents used to know. I spoke to them in passing. Everyone else was a stranger; some were Zach's acquaintances, but most came because a prince's wedding was big news. It was such a catastrophe of unfamiliar faces, gaudy clothes, and golden alcohol that I hardly remember it.

There are two details I cling to: the dress and the king. My dress was handmade, a puddle of silver silk and flowers. The bodice laced up in the back, and my collarbones were left bare. It emphasized my small chest, made me seem older. Hundreds of real white lilies were stitched to the skirt. I was a walking garden. A pretend woman. Someone even managed to wrangle my hair into an elaborate swath of braids. My neck prickled, exposed.

Then the king, Eric. I'd never properly met him before the wedding; kings and kitchen staff didn't run in the same circles, I suppose. My first impression was that he looked like Zach, except stockier and older. He also wore brighter clothes - a cream suit, soft green lapel. He'd cupped my hands in his, and I shivered at the encompassing strength of his palms. There was a strange sadness in his eyes, just for a moment, as he leaned down and said, "You'll make a lovely queen, my dear. I'm honored to call you my daughter. I just pray he proves me wrong."

"Zach?" I whispered. We were standing away from the commotion, where Zach was schmoozing with various elites, a wine glass dangling between his fingers. The sky was bloody with twilight. Eric didn't answer. He just patted my hand, gaze distant, and shifted away.

It only took a year for me to find out what he was praying for.

That night, Zach and I slept together for the first time. I was nervous, but Zach was patient and kind. Afterward, I brushed dark strands of hair from his sweat-slick forehead, and I thought about how easy it was to belong to him. I liked it. I liked him. But a ball of nerves still sat low in my belly, and the nerves quickly spiraled into trembling fear which made it difficult to breathe. There was something I needed to do.

I traced the bare muscles of his back until he fell asleep. Then I slid from bed, pulled on his dress shirt, and padded, barefoot and unseen, through the palace corridors to his office. I'd been studying the journals of his which documented old-world herbs, so it didn't take long to find what I was looking for: a wooden box filled with circular brown leaves. The box was tagged, in his looping script, as "Fae's fawngrass." It was a cruel herb, but Zach had left it right here for me to find. I dumped a mouthful of the little leaves onto my tongue, letting them dissolve. It was difficult not to gag against their bitter, muddy taste. I set the box back exactly where I'd found it on the shelf and returned to Zach's bedroom. In bed beside him, I cried myself silently to sleep. I'd be violently ill in a day or two, but I told myself it would be alright.

There were two certainties which drove me to this choice. The first was that, although it was far from his mind now, Zach would one day want a child. He would need one, both for the practical purpose of a blood heir and the selfish purpose of having a vessel to carry his pride. I knew enough about important men to know that, in many fractional ways, Zach was quite like my father; and I knew my father hadn't sired two daughters out of love. Zach would need a child, and he would need it from me. The second was that I would give him everything. Anything he asked for. A promise. Understanding. My body. The only exception was a child.

It's not that I feared motherhood. Not at all. I wanted it so much it ached like a bad tooth. In a few years' time I would make myself sick over it. I'd lay in the gardens and weep, just dreaming of cradling a baby in my arms, its little hands and little beating heart. I wept because I'd taken it away from myself.

The Fae's fawngrass would make me barren, invisibly, even to Zach's heightened sense for illness. By the time he realized, it would be too late for him to pinpoint the cause and too late to reverse it. And once he realized, I would beg for him to fix me, in spite of myself.

He would make my sacrifice useless anyway, in the end.