Wisteria (Belladonna #3)

by Adalyn Grace

Life followed every twitch and pull of his deft fingers as they wove a lifetime into a tapestry. There was a glimmer in his eyes as he worked, one that Life wished to forever commit to memory.

She hoped she remembered the way all the light in the world seemed to pool toward him at any given moment, and how he would bask in it. Whether it was midafternoon or an hour when only the crickets sang, her husband was radiant.

Fate was her summer sun—too intense for most to bear, while she tipped toward him like a flower, craving his touch.

If there was passion to be found, Fate would weave the most glorious stories out of it. For he, too, was a man of great passion.

Passion made people forget themselves. It kept them from feeling the change of seasons upon their skin or curling their toes into the grass. Passion stole their health. It made both time and families slip away as people lost themselves to their pursuits.

Life slipped her fingers through the silk of his golden hair, wishing it could be the two of them here forever, rooted beneath the wisteria. She would sustain herself on his lips and would make her home within his voice, never tiring of his touch.

“I am not the only one in this world who matters, my love.” Fate’s fingers curled against her waist. “You are to me.”

“She is my wife. You have taken from me everything that I’ve ever cherished, and I have never stood in your way. I have never asked you for anything. But I am asking you now, brother, to make an exception. You cannot take her from me.”

IT’S SAID THAT THE WISTERIA VINE IS A SYMBOL OF IMMORTALITY. Blythe Hawthorne had often admired the flower—as deadly as it was beautiful, and resilient enough to thrive for centuries even if left forgotten.

“Hello, love.” Aris may have whispered the words, but his voice was a weapon that slipped through Blythe’s skin and struck to the hilt. “I hoped you wouldn’t make it.” She squeezed his hand, forcing her own smile onto a face she hoped looked half as vicious as his. “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world, my darling. Though do feel free to divorce me tomorrow.”

“Hello, wife,” Aris spat, voice too low for anyone else’s ears. Blythe smiled through the pain, curling her hands around his so that she could dig her nails into his palms. “Hello, husband.”

Leave it to the girl in love with Death to be optimistic about Blythe being bound to Fate.

“If you hadn’t pretended to be a prince in the first place, there would be no guise to keep up with.” Aris shrugged. “Perhaps. But with a face like mine, what other role do you expect I might play?”

“But know that you are my world, Blythe. You are my proudest accomplishment, my heart and my soul. Should anything happen to you—” “It won’t,” she promised. “It’s marriage, Father, not murder.” Though she tried to say it jokingly, Elijah’s eyes held storm clouds. “I put a knife in your travel chest,”

“Do not make yourself small. Do not change yourself to suit him. Teach him how to treat you, and remember that you deserve everything this life has to offer.”

And she had, she supposed, for she was now married to Fate. Married to a man who, without batting an eye, could give her a dining room made of midnights. A man who looked entirely unimpressed by his own creation, one who, Blythe realized, must have spent a hundred thousand nights just like this one, alone beneath an impossible sky.

She could feel the painted moss against her bare soles and the pulse of the autumn forest that surrounded the two lovers against her skin. Heat from a waning sun bore down on her as fallen leaves crunched beneath her heels. There was music, too. Music that Blythe swayed to as she shut her eyes and let the story play out in her mind’s eye. She watched as Aris smiled and drew her into his chest, able to feel the firmness of his body. The heat of his touch as he pulled her close, and—

The lie seared her tongue the moment she’d said it, for the truth was that she knew no one as romantic as Aris. The man was more than capable of love; he was fueled by it.

“I believe Aris to be a man who would do anything for the person he loves, no matter the cost. Truth be told, I have admired him for it. There’s no excusing what he’s done, but I know that if I were him, I would do whatever needed to be done to get Death back.” Signa inclined her head toward the sea, her last few words a breath on the wind.

Something about Aris’s anger and the burn in her belly felt familiar. Almost… expected. So much so that she did not lose her voice but told him sternly, “Burn as brightly as the sun if you wish, Aris, but I will not look away.”

She was too enamored by the sound, for this laugh was not like his others. This laugh was the first light of dawn, warm and pleasant as it shuddered across her. It was a sound that lasted only a second, but in that second Aris became another person entirely. One she did not recognize, but found herself unnervingly curious to know.

What must it be like, Blythe wondered, to be able to weave an entire world from one’s fingertips? What must it feel like to let one’s imagination run rampant, knowing that every impossibility was within reach? It was wondrous. And for a sliver of a moment, as the barest hint of a smile crossed his lips—not a smirk nor any hint of smugness, but a true and proper smile—so was Aris.

Yes, Aris wanted to impress her with his magic and to maybe even scare her a little. But if Blythe didn’t know any better, she would have guessed that what Aris really wanted was someone to share it all with. Someone who would delight in the art and the splendor, and who would revel in all the grand things that he reveled in.

Looking at him, Blythe knew she’d been right. Aris didn’t want to be alone; he wanted to share his life with someone. Perhaps that was why Wisteria remained so bare—so that he would not be reminded of the world’s splendor when he hadn’t a soul to share it with.

“Your tapestry became a mystery to me the moment your life was spared. I don’t know when you’ll die, if that’s what you’re asking. I don’t know what you’ll do, or the person you’ll become. Not anymore. I wove your fate as I once knew it, which had you dying by your brother’s hand. But you’ve changed your fate several times over. You are a mystery to me. A sweetbrier, full of thorns in my side.”

“Poetry and process aside, there are many joys to be found in partnership. There is friendship and trust. A joy of knowing that there is a person in the world who knows you truly, to the depths of your soul.”

I am not trying to take you away from your family, Sweetbrier. I am not trying to pull you from the life that you know. All I’m trying to do is show you a world that you deserve to see.”

It held a rare sense of wonder—one that made Blythe want not to stand and explore but to settle herself in the thickest tuft of grass she could find and lay her head against the earth to soak in the stillness of this thriving land.

And now, as Blythe stared up at the wisteria tree, she understood why. It was not her cousin who Aris had been searching for all this time.… It was Blythe.

She was the one who Aris was searching for, not Signa. She was Life.

“Speak one more word to my wife,” Aris growled, “and I will tear your tongue from your throat.”

Burn was too casual a word, for Blythe did not burn for this man; she incinerated. And in that moment, she knew there would be no getting it out of her system. No satiating the hunger.

As many fates as I have woven, I have never seen my own. But I do not believe in coincidence, Sweetbrier, and after all that has happened I am not so foolish as to believe that you aren’t a part of my story. I have watched humans fight against their fates for a millennium, and I have no intention of doing the same to my own. We are bonded, you and I.”

Confirming what Blythe had already known for a long while—in every sense of the word, she wanted him. And she knew at that moment that he felt the same.

From the time he awoke crafting plans for that day’s adventure to when he set his head upon his pillow and let his mind replay memories of her laughter, she engrossed him, stuck in his head like an inescapable song.

This girl had dug herself a home beneath his skin, and his body burned every time he earned a smile from her lips. He despised her for it, and yet he could not pull himself away.

He would spend every minute plucking the stars from the sky to deliver a bouquet of constellations if that’s what it took to please her. Because the truth of it could no longer be ignored. For the second time in his life, Aris Dryden was falling in love. Only this time, he prayed that fate would be on his side.

For years I have felt bitterness toward every soul who bows to their fear. And yet I now find myself ruled by my own. You have bewitched me, Sweetbrier, and for that I am terrified.”

With each passing day, Blythe felt more and more like a sun and Aris the earth, content to revolve around her every whim.

“That is all well and good,” Elijah said with a quiet ferocity. “But what of Blythe? Would you burn the world for her, as well?” It was not the question that surprised Aris, but how easily the answer came, the words spilling from his tongue before he realized what he was admitting. “I would.”

But Blythe held the passion of fervent flames. She was a fire, all-consuming and never satiated, and Aris could not stop himself from some compulsive need to be burned.

He wanted her. Her mind, her body, her time. He wanted her.

The threads were as silver as the stars, and they drew a cry from his lips as he folded against the tapestry and hugged it to his body with great desperation.

Life’s tapestry was the most breathtaking that he had ever laid eyes on, and he knew without a sliver of a doubt who it belonged to. The woman he had not stopped thinking about. The one his very skin burned for. His wife. His wife. There before him all this time.

After all this time, Life had found him. Blythe had found him.

This time, his wife needn’t die. This time, Aris knew how to save her.

This was his wife. His lover. The missing half of his soul that he’d searched the entire world to find and had been too foolish to realize was right there before him. She was the sun to his moon. The promise of warmth after an eternal winter.

“But I loved you even before I did.” Love. That was what he felt for her. What fear had made him avoid for so long. How foolish he’d been to avoid something as precious and fleeting as love. It was not something to be had in secret, or to be held close to his chest and shared only in the safest depths of his mind. If Aris could go back, he would love her abundantly. Recklessly. He would hold on tight and never let go.

Although Blythe kept her smile, its edges drooped. “You won’t have to search for me this time, Aris. One day, I promise that I will find you beneath the bend of a wisteria tree. Wait for me just a little longer.” He would wait until every last star in the sky had faded from existence.

“Silly Signa,” Blythe said by way of answer, tucking Signa’s hair behind her ear. “Remember what I said. You are the girl who cannot die, and I am the one who will forever be reborn. Do not think you can escape me so easily.”