(Myth by Sage)

It’s nearly been a year and you love your King with every ounce of your being. You never thought such a love were possible, the kind that burrows under your skin and makes its home there, as much a fact of the universe as gravity, as the sunrise in the east, as the endless trickle and stream and flood of ink that stains your fingers and your mind. And in your mind, your King has become inseparable from both her Orchard and the personal library in her home. (Not the Library, because you don’t think you could bring yourself to go back through those wide oak doors, back into the home that nearly killed you. You do not think you have it in you to face the spirits who had once been your siblings and now share no more commonalities than you do with Alynah.)

You spend days and weeks and months learning the taste of tea she blends just for you. Elderflower blossoms and maple give way for cranberry and sage leaf with the turning of the seasons. When she finds your adoration for jasmine it’s all she brews for a straight month and neither of you grow weary of it. She spends her days writing in journals bound in leather whose origins you know better than to inquire about; you spend your days reading, curled against her side and tucked beneath her chin, sneaking kisses of that smattering of cinnamon dust across her bare shoulders when she doesn’t seem to notice. She notices of course, because that’s what she does, and together you are lost in the sheer miracle of the written word.

You love your King and she loves you and the simple elegance of this balanced equation startles you at times. She is not by your side all the time or even most of the time because she is a King and has an entire realm to rule. It’s not that you were expecting differently; you know that besides an entire other host of lovers that your King has a Lady and that their love, quite literally, created the West. And because you love your King and the lands of Western Faery that have been your home since you stepped beyond those wide oak doors for the first time in your life, you do not have it in you to be jealous.

Embarrassed sometimes, however, yes. You do have it in yourself to be downright mortified. How does one react when one of the King’s first lovers – a kind, sweet-faced woman with a perfume every bit as fragrant and wistful as the last drops of cherry and anise tea – wakens you as she hauls herself from a chair of crystallized fire and lightning with two strong arms that she then proceeds to wrap around the King’s? Make no mention of the fact you both had been stark naked, or that this strange woman had rolled into bed as though she’d bought it herself. (You find out later she had, as an anniversary gift.)

“Love,” the woman whispers softly in the half-light of the early morning hours, “aren’t you going to introduce us?”

Your King grumbles sleepily and waves a gently clawed hand in your direction. Though you are close you cannot hear the whispers they share. Your King settles back into heavy sleep – you have never known her not to be weary – and the new woman looks at you from across the lump of divine royalty beneath a goose-down comforter.

“Epiphany,” the woman says slowly, tasting your name, and you wonder if one can both like and be afraid of another spirit at the same time.

“Hello,” you try, and then, “do you want coffee?” Because it’s polite to introduce yourself and offer guests something to drink, you’ve learned, and because you’re quite sure all you want to do is scamper away and leave your King and this woman who loved your King probably long before your soul caught fire and burned away what little sense the world used to make.

“You don’t need to leave.”

You settle down and cautiously loop your arm back around your King as the woman lays her head against your King’s shoulder. The same shoulder you had kissed not long before, marveling at the warm beneath your lips and the way your King started to squirm if you kept up your ministrations for too long.

“I love her,” you finally say, though whether it is justification or an apology or something different, you don’t know.

“That much is obvious.” The woman yawns and closes her eyes, leaving you in a crowded bed with a mind full of crowded thoughts.

(You do fix coffee for the three of you, later, after your King has slept her fill and fully realized the joy of having this woman in her bed with her. And though you know the King’s heart is full of you just as you are, you cannot help but wonder in escaping to the kitchen if your King ever regrets taking a lover she cannot touch and please in return. But the new woman is gracious as she accepts a cup from you later and your King looks at both of you with adoration, so you muster what trust you can and return the gaze.)