Chapter Text
In just twelve short hours, you are to be wed.
The bells will toll, the people will cheer, and the last piece of your raging soul will be trodden into the ground by the approving looks of those you once held dear.
Because you know none of it is for you. This engagement, this marriage, this life set out for you is not of your design. It is only to please those in power, and to give your partner-to-be more of it, and you have caught yourself more times than you can count just wondering if any part of who you were would contribute to your partner’s happiness, or if it were all merely a cosmic joke.
You have tried many times for freedom, for even an ounce of control. Every frustrated cry, every attempt at a bargain you have thrown out into the universe: they have all fallen on deaf ears.
The Gods, the wind, the magical realms: they do not wish to hear you.
In the witching hour you are on your knees, surrounded by herbs and bloodied marks and chalk outlines on the floor of your shop.
Waiting, always waiting, the seconds ticking by as you watch the space where the magical being you have summoned is to appear.
But they do not.
You growl. You scream. You lash out at the nearest things and send them scattering around you in a fit of quickly collapsing rage.
And then: a voice from behind you.
“I have always enjoyed the fiery passion of the human race.”
You turn. It’s…you don’t know what. But he is the most beautiful being you have ever seen, in all your years of traveling the world.
High cheekbones kissed by golden skin. Plumes of white hair that fall into his deep violet eyes which, even half-obscured, seem to shift in hue as they take you in. Two sleek horns curve back from his hairline, and you can spy a flicking obsidian tail with an iridescent spike at the end that seems to shift along with his eyes.
He is watching you with an inscrutable gaze, arms folded as he leans against the frame just in front of your very closed, very locked shop door.
You swallow and stand, feigning your boldness. “How did you get in here?”
He just smiles at you.
You shift on your feet and take a step closer. “I asked you a question!”
“And I don’t suffer questions the answers to which are already known.”
You hesitate. Your eyes scatter over him once more, before slowly, very slowly…
…going to the array of magical items at your feet.
The corners of his lips flick up. “There we go.”
“You’re not the Arcana I summoned.”
“Actually, you’ll find I’m not any of them.”
“Then how did you—?”
He steps further into the room, eyes traveling over the items placed out for sale. He plays with a few of the nearby trinkets as he walks, nimble fingers glancing over them as he answers you.
“I’ve been known sometimes to intercept messages from mortals that…pique my curiosity.”
He stops in front of one of your many shelves, lined with herbs and powdered flowers and every other manner of ingredient.
You bite down on your tongue when he begins picking up bottles, reading the labels and giving indecipherable hmmms as he places them back. When he picks up a particularly expensive and rare one, you take an emboldened step forward.
“If you break it, you buy it,” you snap.
This brings his attention back to you. He turns to glance you over his shoulder, his eyes a new shade—lilac, you think—as his lips curve into a smile.
He places the bottle in question back, then with a slow drag of his eyes down to your balled fists, he continues his perusal of your shop.
“I would rather you leave,” you tell him, watching as he approaches your collection of tomes and novels. He fingers the spine of a forest green one, the words inlaid in a bright gold. “I was actually busy before you barged in here. Uninvited, might I add.”
“Oh, I’m never uninvited, cherub,” he answers.
Your cheeks heat at the name, an angry flush that you quickly cover by turning away and beginning to gather your things.
“Well, you were this time,” you mutter angrily under your breath.
Your fingers fumble on the dried rosemary, the bottle of Elk blood, as you stuff them all into your linen satchel. Somewhere behind you, the click of his boots stops, and you can feel his searing gaze on the back of your neck.
“Were you not after someone to save you from your looming, impassive marriage?”
You freeze, fingers grasped around the edge of your book. Your gaze becomes a little unfocused, barely able to see the words on the page before you.
It didn’t matter now. You had tried many times to save yourself, and no mystical being or god or any of the Major Arcana had deemed you worthy enough to answer your calls.
You were not worthy of being helped, it seemed. You should have realised it from the beginning.
“Cherub?”
He repeats the name softly, tentatively, breaking you from your thoughts.
You shake your head, clearing the haze and stuffing the book into your satchel. Rising to your feet with a shake to your limbs, you sling the bag over your shoulder and begin toward the exit.
“Please make sure you lock the door when you leave,” you tell him.
Your hand is inches from the handle when he appears before you, blocking your escape. His hands are tucked behind his back, and his eyes—those damned eyes—have changed their shade once more.
Amethyst, swirling with shadows as they take in your expression: the bags under your eyes, the twist of your lips, the tightness of your jaw. All the empty hollows inside of you that had been left by your pathetic fight, always doomed to fail.
“You called for help, yes?” He asks. His voice is so quiet, almost inscrutable. You nod. “Then allow me to help.”
You swallow, then immediately back track with a soft shake of your head. Your gaze drops away as you speak, a whisper you can barely force out.
“I can’t pay you,” you tell him. “Every offering I had was for—”
“We will figure out payment later. You wish to be free of this impending marriage. You wish to be happy. Free to choose?”
You hesitate. Of everything you have learned in all your time dealing with the Arcana, with all things magical and otherwise, one of the first was what to look for in the makings of a murky bargain.
No bargain without explicitly outlined payment was ever worth making. The payment could come at any time, and in any form, and more often than not the being in question was merely after a profit—the payment was always too steep for the reward.
And you’re about to shake your head and deny his offer. About to take the safer option; perhaps you can summon your patron Arcana after the vows, perhaps there is still a way out after you have been wed.
But…
Your eyes flicker up to his. They are a deeper amethyst now, no shadows, with flecks of wisteria. You are quickly coming to understand that each colour means something, and a strange part of you aches to know you might never understand exactly what.
“Why?” You ask, finally breaking the silence.
You watch his expression shift again, some of the lightness clearing from his eyes as his brows pull down to cast shadows over them.
“Why what?”
“You said you intercept messages that pique your interest. Why was mine so interesting?”
The corners of his lips flicker up as he tilts his head at you, and you feel another flush coming to your cheeks, though this one is not angry. In your mind, you begin creating a list for the shade of his eyes: lilac, amusement.
“I said ‘sometimes’,” he corrects you softly. “And sometimes, when I don’t choose, the choice is made for me. The universe has been known to be more of a trickster than I, and this time…”
He trails off, his eyes dropping to your lips.
Wisteria: lust.
“…this time,” he murmurs. His eyes move back to yours. “It was less of a trick and more of a catastrophe.”
You swallow. He has come close, so close.
“A catastrophe?” You whisper.
He nods. One hand comes up to push the hair from your face, then dips down to trace your lips. You watch the movement, breath held in your throat.
“In that, I’m afraid that if you say no to my bargain,” he says. “I may just pretend I did not hear you, and whisk you away to your freedom anyway.”
Your eyelids flutter shut as he shifts forward, and you are enveloped in the scent of him. Lavender. Sage. The musk of incense, ones you’re sure you’ve been burning in your room since you could light a fire at your own fingertips.
A shiver envelopes your entire body when his lips make contact with your forehead. They linger there, warm and soft, with his hand cupping the back of your head.
“Please, cherub,” he murmurs against your heated skin. “Honour me by letting me take you away. You will only be with me for as long as you are happy.”
“And then?”
“And then I will take you to wherever you need to be to be happy still.”
Your eyes open as he pulls back to find him already staring down at you. A new colour, one that is so barely there you have to search for it.
But the answer comes to you after a moment, almost as easily as breathing. You can feel it swirling in your chest as it shifts, wisteria into orchid, and you know: power. A promise.
He will not force you into his bargain. But, should you say no, he will still watch over you. From his knees, he will still do whatever is necessary to keep you you, to stop you from becoming suffocated and lifeless.
Nothing is beyond his power, and you are the being at its helm, allowed to direct it in any way you so need.
“I don’t even know your name,” you tell him. You receive a soft laugh in response, a twinkle to his gaze as it lightens.
“I am Asra.”
“Well then, Asra…I should like to make a bargain.”
“Mmmmm. I thought you might.”
He kisses your forehead once more, and then dips down a little lower to capture the tip of your nose. You crinkle it, and he laughs, and at the sound of it you quickly realise that the payment might not be the part of the bargain that undoes you.
“We will seal our bargain with a kiss,” he tells you. “Would you allow me to kiss you? Properly?”
You nod.
You loose a breath.
And then he kisses you.
And it’s the softest, the most glorious, his power and desire and affection wrapping themselves around your very soul as he cups the back of your head and swirls his tongue through your mouth.
You gasp against his lips, a hand to each of his wrists, as though that might steady you.
But the world still spins.
And your heart still sings.
And before he whisks you away in plumes of shadows to a better world, you add one final colour to the list in your mind.
Amethyst: love.