Six Scorched Roses

Because I want only you, Lilith. Whatever of you I can have. I’ll take one night. One hour. One minute. Whatever you want to give me. I’ll have it.

Time, Vale,” I said. “Time is the most valuable resource of all, and some of us are perpetually short.

Whatever you need," he said. "My blood. My books. My knowledge. Anything. It is yours.

It must be hard,” he murmured. “To bear the weight of so much affection in a life so short.

It’s just… something being difficult is not a good reason not to do it.

No, logic doesn’t matter in the face of fear and emotion. Logic falls to its knees before hatred, and hatred flourishes in fear—

And when the days passed, and my exhaustion and my enthusiasm led me to loosen my typically-closely-held control over my socially unacceptable attitudes, my raw enthusiasm leaking through as I talked excitedly to Vale about some theory or another, I turned to see him staring at me, brows drawn. His expression made me freeze, my face flushing—because I’d let down a wall I shouldn’t have and wasn’t sure what I might have revealed beyond it. “I—” I started. But he just said, calmly, “You are a very beautiful woman.

Because here, in this moment, with me on the right side of death and her on the right side of living, lost in a tearful embrace hello instead of goodbye, we met each other on level ground.

Run, a voice inside me whispered. Stay, another begged.

Whatever you wish to give me,” he repeated, slowly, like he wanted to make sure I understood. “I’ll have it.

Time is the most valuable resource of all, and some of us are perpetually short.

Here’s the thing about the God of Abundance. Abundance wears many faces. The god of plenty is also the god of decay. There can be no life without death, no feast without famine.

I can’t imagine that ever being true,” he murmured. “Because I want only you, Lilith. Whatever of you I can have. I’ll take one night. One hour. One minute. Whatever you want to give me. I’ll have it.

May I write to you?” he asked.

It smells like honey. Like… nightshade. Sweet. Perhaps with a bitter bite.

I had never been enough. I had never been able to give any of them enough—enough time, enough love. Everyone gave up so much trying to get more from me, and now I did the same for them. From the moment I was old enough to understand my eventual fate, I made every decision knowing this. Knowing that I couldn’t be enough. Knowing that I would wither too fast, like a flower in an early frost.

You want more than I can give you,” I whispered. “I can’t imagine that ever being true,” he murmured. “Because I want only you, Lilith. Whatever of you I can have. I’ll take one night. One hour. One minute. Whatever you want to give me. I’ll have it.

I suppose that once someone has seen my bare ass, we can drop the titles.

Maybe he was used to being cowered at. I did not cower. Why should I? I’d already met death three times now. So far, the fourth was a bit of a disappointment.

You… you came back,” I said. “I know it wasn’t what you wanted me to do. But I was a general because I was better at giving orders than following them.

Vale held me tight to his chest, cradled in his arms, forehead to mind. There were tears in his eyes and blood on his lips. 'I want to stay,' I choked out. 'I know,' he whispered, as his mouth lowered to mind, and I faded away there in his arms, surrounded by withering roses.

Men from upper-class families were welcome to be openly delighted by their craft. It made them interesting and eccentric, committed and passionate. When women did it, it made us vapid.

I knew death even before I could name it.

You don’t know what it feels like to watch yourself die.

You should be afraid, a voice whispered in the back of my mind. But I’d never been afraid of death.

Maybe they want some part of me I have already given to someone else.

He was decoding me, solving me, the way I had solved him. I was being projected onto the wall like I had projected his blood, and I knew with a strange, terrible kind of certainty in this moment that he found me just as remarkable. He wasn’t the only one. Because even though he had let go of my chin, I didn’t look away from him, either.

A life I couldn’t live. A heart I couldn’t free. A role I couldn’t play.

But I was used to being judged—too used to it to realize when judgment became dangerous.