Shaz’s look could kill, but she spun towards him in desperation. “Where is he? Grave, please! If there’s anything you can tell me, tell me!”
Grave grunted, “A shooting. In the old yard.”
She ran. The winter air pierced her lungs, threatened to swallow her, but she ran. Ran across the castle lawns that common feet were not allowed to cross, ran past the chapel, past the barracks… To the old execution yard. Townsfolk were clustered for some after-Christmas entertainment. Sick bastards.
He was there, blindfolded, the seconds of his life being counted down. Shooting and beheading were favored execution for those who had killed with the sword or with knives... or with butcher’s blades.
She had seconds.
The arrows glinted in the morning light, sharp and about to fly.
“David!” She raced before them, and threw her arms about his neck.
Arrows flew.
She wasn’t sure how many. All she knew was that one struck the ground beside her foot, one struck somewhere above her shoulder, one struck past, and all of them flew amiss over her sudden intrusion.
And then there was blood. Blood that was not hers, spilling from above her shoulder.
“David!” she shrieked. He was shrinking in her arms, and she shrank with him, cutting at his ties with her knife.
Blood was everywhere, and she could not see the source. “David, I am so sorry…”
He seized her hand and she lifted the blindfold that they might gaze into one another’s pained eyes.
The guards approached, most of them cursing at her, accusing her of insanity.
“You must help him,” she sobbed. “I can prove that he didn’t commit the crime you mean to kill him for!” She set to applying pressure to where she thought the wound might be.
“Sophia!” his voice rasped. “Beautiful Sophia. I am glad you came back.” His voice dropped, just for her. “But please. Don’t do this. Let me die.”
One of the guards eventually stooped, and finally began to help her.
“Will he be all right?” she pled.
“He may,” said the guard, cutting shirt linens away to see the source of the wound. Praise to Heavenlies, it seemed nearer his shoulder than his heart.
She seized David’s hand, drew closer to him. “You are not going to die, and I am going to prove your innocence,” she whispered. She kissed him.
She felt him stiffen for dread. “Sophia, no. Please no!”
“David,” she whispered, brushing the blur of tears from his eyes.
She had dropped the painting. She lifted it, and passed it into his trembling hands. He didn’t have to see it. He felt the canvas, and questions filled his eyes. To anyone else, it was a lavender field. But his eyes searched hers, and she gave but one nod. Less than a whisper, she breathed, “You had to know I’d keep your most valuable possession safe.”
His graze brimmed with tears. “Sophia,” his voice trembled. “You are one incredible woman.”
She kissed him. “Do you know? I have never in my life been loved for who I am.”
In her new life, she’d like to grow accustomed to it.
“And if you don’t know it already, I love you too.”
* * *
It was one of those riveting, fiery winter sunsets. A sunset that felt of freedom. Smelled of that wintery dusk spice, sunshine and melting snow and freshness. A world fraught with possibility.
She grinned as she watched him desperately fumbling to sketch it all – sketching the outline of a cardinal amongst winter berries and melting snow, sketching icicles as they dissolved and dripped into sunset, sketching her…
It would take a fine artist to capture her sort of glow, just now.
How had she not savored the freedom to extend her arms to the sky before? “There are so many more options in this world than I limited myself to,” she hummed, half to herself, spun, and then faltered. “And that’s rather daunting.”
“Or it’s rather... an adventure of the finest sort,” said David, his gleaming eyes upon her, upon his wife. He cringed slightly as he sought to move, and his wounded shoulder restrained him.
She blushed beneath his gaze. Standing here with a life stretching before her, a life with the man whose blue eyes were even now chilling her.
“We ought to move inside,” she said. “This cold can’t agree with you.”
He only smiled, “Any air is better than no air at all.” But then, slowly, with as little movement to his shoulder as possible, he made his way to her side and began to make for her mother’s house with her.
“Will we find a house here in the capital, Sophia? Or should we make plans to travel straightaway?”
She darted before him, and proceeded walking backwards, placing one gloved hand upon his chest. “Let’s go somewhere right now, today. There’s no time to put it off. Let’s throw a dart at the map, and we’ll set off to honeymoon wherever it lands. Unless, you know, it lands in the middle of the ocean or something.”
He smiled at her. And then… he almost – blushed? “I suppose now...” He looked shyly to the ground. “We ought to begin getting to know each other.”
She struck her gloved hand in his. “We have a lifetime.”
The End
Sterling Rose
Sterling Rose writes romance, but has never been in love. She loves pink, but can't wear it. Her first published short story won a YA story contest, with 47% of the votes – out of seven stories. She has since been published in internationally circulating magazines, served as head writer on a campu and community newspaper, and won several short story contests. A Christian gal who drinks way too much Irish breakfast tea and eats way too much dark chocolate, she has an inordinate fascination with domestic discipline.
Visit her blog here:
http://srosebooks.blogspot.com
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