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H ellebore woke up the next morning like every other morning as of late, curled up in Taiyo’s arms, listening to his heartbeat. However, this time, when Taiyo ran his fingers through her hair and whispered her name, she did not respond.

She could not save him with useless tears. She could not turn his blood red again by almost kissing him. These feelings were distracting her, and he was the one who would pay the price.

If the pain she felt at failing the iris was any indication of what she would feel if he died…

Hellebore needed to put a stop to this now.

So it was for his sake she untangled herself from him with only a cold, “I need to get to the lab.”

“Hellebore—”

But she was already in her room, locking the door behind her.

Thankfully she did because she heard the knob rattle as she shed the nightgown she’d never even finished buttoning.

“You locked —Hellebore, can we just take a minute and talk? It’s not your fault! It was a miracle there was even an iris out there that hadn’t caught the rot in the first place. It was only a matter of time before the rot reached it. You couldn’t have prevented it.”

She steeled her heart and focused on tucking her blouse into her waistband.

“I know I made a big deal about taking care of the iris in the beginning, and—I wish—sun above, Hellebore, I wish I could explain. This was out of your control. You haven’t failed me or our marriage or anyone because it’s sick. Hellebore? Sunshine?”

She buckled her belt, hands trembling.

“Are you in there? Will you please say something?”

Hellebore finished buckling her belt and whirled around, throwing open the door. He was still dressed only in his trousers from the night before. She looked him over with a cold, calculating edge. The same way she examined a vial. “You should get dressed. Or take the sedative and go back to bed if you’re in pain. Either way, I don’t need you this morning. I’ll be in the lab.”

Then she shut the door in his face, grabbed the newly rotting iris, left through her main door, and told herself the panging sensation in her chest was simply imagined because all that was there was an organ pumping blood.

Hellebore spent the morning in blissful silence, mixing a new variation of her last tincture that had brought healing but had not been strong enough to rid the plant of the rot entirely. She also snipped off a still healthy bloom and a few leaves to examine. That afternoon as she was distributing it to her potted test irises, her wedding iris right beside them to also receive a dosage, the door to her lab opened. She lifted her dropper and tilted it up to avoid any unintended droplets from falling as she looked at the door beneath her goggles.

Taiyo stood in the frame, mouth open but eyes locked on their iris waiting for a dose.

His voice came out frigid as he said, “What are you doing?”

“There’s nothing special about it now. Now it’s just another iris to cure. So I might as well start using it. It’s early on in its rot, the earliest I’ve had my hands on. It could be the key to cracking this whole thing.”

Taiyo took a small step into the room. “What is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Hellebore said, turning back to her first iris and finishing the dosage.

“Last night you were sobbing in my arms about it, and now it’s just another test subject to you? You’ve spent months taking care of it and the first hint of rot had you unravelling but now you supposedly don’t care?”

Hellebore set the dropper aside and recorded in her open notebook the dosage she’d given her first subject. “I wouldn’t go that far. If I didn’t care, would I be trying to save it before the rot continues to eat away at it?”

Taiyo didn’t respond, jaw clenching as he stared at her.

She ignored him and moved to administer the dosage when a hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled it back. She gasped as Taiyo pushed between her and the iris, twisting her wrist just enough to force her to let go. The dropper hit the ground, liquid spilling slightly as she stared up at him.

Hellebore took a deep breath, pushing down the burning sensation rising as the precious tincture lay on the ground. “What is wrong with you?”

“Me? The first chance you get, you’re the one ready to tear our iris to pieces. I spent last night trying to comfort you and convince you it wasn’t your fault, but you were just upset you didn’t have a perfect specimen, weren’t you? Have you been sneaking pieces of it away and studying all along? Is anything sacred to you? Does anything actually matter to you?” Taiyo hissed, letting go of her wrist. “Or is it just the second something finally does mean anything to your frigid, steel heart, you get scared and you’d rather destroy it than let it have any chance of hurting you?”

His words cut right through her.

She couldn’t let them.

“You came to my country, demanding my hand in the hopes I’d be able to cure your irises. You got me. You don’t get to complain now about getting exactly what you asked for. What do you want more, for me to let that iris rot and not touch it simply because you tell me it’s supposed to matter to me? Or would you rather I use it while I can to save the rest of your irises, your people, and your life?”

Taiyo pointed to the blunt marks where she’d cut off a bloom, voice burning. “You swore. You swore to me on our wedding night you would not hurt it. You would not turn it into an experiment.”

“I kept my word, even though this isn’t a real marriage.” Hellebore reached for her goggles, pulling them down so he could see her whole face. “Until now.”

“Until it wasn’t convenient.”

“Convenient certainly isn’t going to all this trouble to save the life of the Sun Elf who kidnapped me and forced me to marry him and is now yelling at me because I’m prioritizing practical measures to do so over some silly little tradition that came about because two elves were foolish enough to believe they were in love.”

Taiyo made a noise in the back of his throat, then grabbed the edge of the table behind him. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you ask me this morning about using our iris?”

“The thought didn’t occur to me. Besides, your answer wouldn’t have mattered.”

He gestured at her. “That. That right there is exactly what I’m talking about. You and your walls and your impossible pride! At every turn, you refuse to let me in! Just when I thought—” Taiyo cut himself off, hand falling to his side. “I thought…”

“I will own my mistakes when I’ve made them. I should have been clearer as of late. I should have made this evident the moment I discovered your condition and that you are intrinsically tied to all of this. Here is the truth. We alchemists will study living creatures and organisms. My specialty, as you know, was plants, but I have also done more than my fair share of study on creatures in a lab. You think I knew how to separate the sedative from your body while it was already in your stomach by luck? It took me three dead rats before I managed to successfully master the technique. You think I could have learned as much as I have about rot if I cared about the plants I introduced it to? Back at the academy, I never once saved a sick plant. I killed them. I have been valiantly attempting the opposite in this case, but the principles that guide me now are the same as back then.”

Hellebore came to a stop right in front of him. He gripped the table tightly, leaning back from her.

“The most important principle for alchemists working with living creatures? Never, ever get attached to them. An attached alchemist is no alchemist at all. They won’t have the stomach to do the terrible things they need to in order to advance.”

She hadn’t seen that horror in his eyes in so long. The turning of her stomach and sweeping chill over her wasn’t real. The sensations would pass.

“That’s what I am to you? An experiment you can’t afford to get attached to?”

Hellebore nodded.

“And what about thinking of a future with me? What’s all this been about then, if you insist there is no possibility you could care for me?”

“Purely practical thinking. As for the rest… I’m putting in the work to try to keep you from dying. That should be enough.”

“It’s not.” Taiyo let go of the table, reaching for her arm. His fingers gently curled around her bicep as his voice lowered. “I want more.”

“I am afraid I don’t know what you mean.”

He grabbed her other arm and pulled her closer, bringing his forehead down to hers. “Don’t pretend to be stupid. You know exactly what I’m talking about. I want a real marriage. I’m tired. There’s still the strong possibility I’m going to die. From before I laid eyes on you, I knew I would marry you and die. If I don’t have long left, I don’t want to spend it in a sham of a marriage.”

Her breath hitched despite her iron will.

“Why, you can ask. Why have I been doing this, all of this all this time? Knowing who you are, who you are so similar to in so many horrible ways, I still could not help myself. I could not stop myself from wanting this to be something real. I don’t want to die —”

Taiyo’s voice cracked and his grip on her tightened. He was trembling against her.

All this time, even as she’d been insisting upon saving him, he had an air of peace about him. Any time he talked about his possible death, never so much as a crack.

She wasn’t the only one who’d been trying to be emotionless.

She reached up, placing her hand on his side. He took a deep, shuddering breath. The orange ends of his hair brushed the collar of her blouse.

“I don’t want to die,” he whispered again, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if it was the first time he was truly letting himself say it and mean it. “But… I especially don’t want to die before ever having a real marriage.”

If he’d said this any other time, or if he were human, she would have understood his meaning far differently. But this wasn’t about consummation.

“Taiyo…” Hellebore whispered. “I can’t… I… What I can give you is your life. That’s the hope. I succeed, and I save you, and all of these fears of yours are for nothing. Because I’m going to die, and at worst, you’re only going to have to wait about sixty years, and to you that’ll be so little time. You’ll have half of your life for you to have a real marriage. You don’t need to force yourself to make do with me. You’ll marry a beautiful Sun Elf, and you can tell her she has me to thank for the fact that you’re even alive to be the wonderful husband you will be to her.”

Taiyo opened his eyes, taking her face in his hands, eyes burning once more. “Is that supposed to be a comfort? Do you think I’ve been holding you in my arms every night and I’m not tormented? Can you not see how desperately I want you to save me so I can be with you a little longer? And, yet, at the same time I’m torn because if you do, it means one day I will lose you and have to spend decades mourning you. I do not want some marriage with someone else. I want this marriage. I know the difference between wanting to be a husband and wanting to be your husband.”

“You just…” Hellebore breathed out. “You just believe that because you’ve convinced yourself of it. You’re a good, loyal elf. You think these things because you feel like you have to. Eventually, you won’t be able to convince yourself any longer. You can dress me in your people’s clothes all you want, but that doesn’t make me a Sun Elf.”

“I don’t want you to be.” Taiyo’s fingers slipped from her cheek to her ear. She shivered as he gently ran his fingertips over the rounded curve. “You are the one who needs to be convinced. For someone so smart, you are so willfully blind. Do you not see how beautiful you are to me? Do you not realize the power you have over me? Have you not seen how any time you come before me in my people’s clothes and colors, you bring me to my knees? Not because you look like an elf, but because you look like you are mine.”

“Is that all you want? Possession? Is that what will satisfy you?” Hellebore couldn’t stop her voice from turning into a weak, breathy sound.

“You’ve made yourself clear today. So have I. You know what I want. I know what you think you can’t give. But you don’t have to be Palladia. You don’t have to shut me out. You don’t have to fear any attachment to me. I’m not your experiment. I’m not one of your plants for you to desiccate. I am your husband.”

Taiyo pulled his hand away, letting his fingers drag across her skin until they finally parted. His hand hovered in the air for a moment as he walked backwards, away from her and the rotting irises. He curled his fingers in and then let his hand fall, eyes burning into her.

“And since you refuse to accept it, and you’re afraid of caring for me because you fear you’ll lose me, take the iris. Use it. Save them. Save me. Once you no longer have to fear losing me, I will be here so you can finally show me where you’ve hidden your heart.”

Hellebore was alone again, useless organ pounding.

She took a deep breath. Focus. Once she’d saved him, she could prove to him he was wasting his time trying to wish her into a wife that could love him.