“How lonely I first found my longing for you. The sweet and tender embrace, the warmth in gentleness of the caress—”
“Your words are scripture, Sabine. I never know if you speak of a true love, or if you desire for something else entirely romantic that only you can comprehend.” Henry’s low voice rumbles in the silence between them as they sit inches apart, nestled in the growing grass under the ancient oak tree in the furthest corner of the furthest field from the farm. They could disappear here, and no one would think to search for them. It is the perfect sanctuary from their reality.
Sabine turns to face him, rejecting the gaze of the cornflower blue sky and fluffy méringue clouds, instead focusing on the gaze of a man with dirt-smudged cheeks and flamelike curls licking the beaded sweat along his brow. She settles herself deeply into the damp earth, her skirts piled high around her waist to allow the tickle of the grass blades to tease her bare legs. It had felt like centuries since she had felt the blaze of the new sun or the scent of blooming flowers on the wind; she had missed it, but without its absence, she would’ve never known the love for long, smoky nights at the fireside, stolen kisses, and promises of more with her winter angel, her Henry.
A chorus of melodic birdsong turns her attention back to the sky and brings forth the sigh Sabine had been trying to hold in, desperate for Henry to not sense the melancholy beating through her veins. Of course, nothing passes him so easily. “This winter has taken more and gifted me greater than I could ever imagine. Now, new birth, the spreading of green, and blooms peeking through the earth; Henry, I fear this sadness unlike anything. I wish to lay here with you forever.” She threads her long, elegant fingers through the soft strands of the grass until they plunge into the dirt beneath. The young, spritely leaves above flicker in dance on the breeze, and she cannot fight the smile that pulls up her lips at their performance.
“You know what springtime brings, Sabine.” Henry’s gaze burns her cheeks rouge. “My love,” he whispers, and the oak tree whispers it too. Henry places a featherlight touch on her perfectly pointed chin, and it unravels her completely, turning her to face him once more. The sunlight filters through the branches above and melts his eyes to honey. Sabine drowns in them, willfully—she needs his soul to be hers like the moon longs for the sun—but her reality is thrusted upon her painfully with the next words he speaks. “With the first days of springtime comes a year of learning hardship, humility, and obedience.” It is not his earthly voice that echoes in her ears, but her father’s as he abandoned her at the farm, which she has come to cherish more than she ever could her family home in the city.
Henry strokes her temple, her golden threaded hair, traces the beauty marks along her jaw and finally flutters over her petal pink lips. “Your penance has been paid my love.”
Sabine’s lashes flutter closed. “My penance was simply being a girl. My brothers faced no exile for their disobedience or dishonesty, and I…” Her mossy eyes open once more. “I hadn’t known such happiness could ever exist in such a period of darkness. I hadn’t known true joy until you.”
Every word was a vow. She was sent away for punishment, but where she was meant to find a prison, shackles, and chains was only freedom, passion, and love. A farmer’s son and a lord’s unruly daughter, destined to intertwine with the changing of the seasons.
With a start, she jumps up, her hair unfurling from its pin, layers of skirts falling ungracefully to her ankles. “Let’s run away from here.” She turns and looks out at the vastness of the fields, newly dressed in pastels, and a glow of liquid sunlight. It is a painting; it couldn’t be real. Any moment she would reach out and feel the oil and rough canvas meet beneath her fingertips. Or be pinched out from a dream and be brought back to the drab, grey city she loathes. Under control of men she scarcely knows and that never leave her alone, for fear she may dream of something better for herself. She whispers for the earth beneath her feet, for the trees, flowers, and all creatures to hear her plea. Firm hands find her waist and settle, as though they will never leave, sculpted to the curve there, crafted perfectly for her hips, and heat draws down from her throat, dancing to the beats of her heart, coiling and simmering in her lower belly. She leans into him, pressing against hard muscle and finding safety there. Finding at long last where she belongs.
The moistness of his breath tangles with her hair and settles on the rounded tips of her ears. “You have the beauty of a delicate daisy and the heart of a princess not from these lands. I will follow you through worlds, from winter until spring, over and over. Let us fall into a faerie ring and dance with the sprites forever. My spring, my love, my Sabine.”
Eliza Wilson has always had a wild imagination and a need to share it with the world. As a Creative Writing graduate, she spends most of her time working on her fantasy trilogy, Secrets of Pinewood. You can usually find Eliza sitting in a cozy corner of a cafe, oat milk, iced vanilla latte in hand, hunched over a notebook, and escaping into the world at the tip of her pen.
Featured image by Robin Mathlener on Unsplash.
