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It had not taken Briar long to realize she had no useful skills whatsoever.
To the fae, that is; Briar could beat a rug or mend a sock as well as anyone, but every time she tried Viviane got a little pinched around the mouth. Not that she ever said anything; the Lady of Winter was too kind for that. Kinder than Briar deserved, really. The female would just smile tightly at dinner, eyes unnaturally blue, skin glinting, ask how she was sleeping, and nod understandingly at the answer. Never a hint of pity; that was the only reason Briar stayed.
That and the bit where she had nowhere else to go.
It made things worse, when she stopped. Surfaces glinted too brightly in the corner of her eyes, iridescent as bug wings, as mother-of-pearl.
That was new, for Briar: mother-of-pearl. The High Lord of Summer sent ships and ships of it, laid carefully into wood or stone. Viviane said it was because of an alliance, when she asked, bright as ever. Her husband - Briar cannot bring herself to think of the male as Kallias - frowned deeply when she said it, reaching for her hand like a lifeline.
She’d watched it, quiet as a mouse, the way her white knuckles paled around his fingers, the way he looked at her like she might float away to the heavens - no, the sky, the sky alone - if he let her go. She watched them often; they forgot she was there easily enough. It was entrancing, strangely entrancing: two predators, two creatures entirely different from Briar, entirely different from the beasts, looking at each other like they might fall to pieces if they spent a single second alone.
Anyway. Viviane gave her a wardrobe (gave was a strong word; one night she tossed and turned until she was firmly cocooned in the furs they’d given her, and the next morning it was there when she opened her eyes, which seemed odd but then Briar had never been given much of anything, so perhaps it was normal and she just didn’t know. Or perhaps it was normal for the fae; the difference hardly mattered). It was supposedly of teak, dark and strong, and mother-of-pearl gleamed around each of its edges, thick spirals that made Briar dream of the sea she had never freely seen.
A gift, unearned. If there was a way to give it back Briar would’ve, but the next morning the High Lord himself asked what she thought of it, and she could hardly look into his eyes - cold and smooth as glass, indescribable in the wrong light - and ask for it to be taken away. So it stayed. And it was pretty, even if her stomach sank every time she looked at it.
Then Viviane got pregnant, and things changed. She was around more often - the Lady hadn’t said, but Briar was fairly certain her husband had wrapped her in so many spells it was more efficient to stay inside than to leave and manage all of them at once. He left, just for a week, and by the second day Viviane lost all the color in her skin, walked around the halls like a faded flower, drooped as a birch in winter, thin branches weighed down with snow.
Briar knew little of fae health, but plenty of pregnancy; like any mortal girl, she’d been prepared for her expectant battle with death since birth. Perhaps monochrome was normal for high fae; from the glances of the servants that seemed to trail the Lady everywhere, too far to annoy but just close enough to rush to her side should she call, it wasn’t.
They were strange, the servants: tall and ice-thin, razor-sharp and silent. Opaque, but other, or sleek and dark and strangely spotted, brown eyes wide and shining.
(Briar hadn’t been brave enough to ask when she came, and now she couldn’t, but if she could - oh, there were so many things she wanted to know.)
On the third day she summoned her courage and swept to Viviane’s side; took her arm like a sister and asked if she’d thrown up yet. The Lady brightened; yes she had, twice, and behind her, one of the servants looked at Briar, brown-eyes unsettling, unblinking.
It didn’t matter. The Lady needed companionship; needed it like a compulsion, evidently. And Briar could do that. So she did.
Even once the High Lord returned, pale himself, clutching at his wife like he could stop it all if he held her long enough, it did not matter. Viviane was white as birch bark, white as snow, bloodless; she chattered constantly like long-ago birds in long-ago trees, when Briar was young enough to listen. Briar tried to leave her, thinking she should, but when Viviane rose carefully from the dining table the High Lord looked at Briar with nothing short of desperation, and, well. She might’ve been a fool - might be a fool, now and forevermore, trapped beneath the weight of her mistakes - but Briar was not cruel.
Privately, she was sure the Lady was going to die. Everyone seemed sure: the servants trailed her for weeks, healers visited on the daily; she could not go ten paces alone. Briar had seen harsh pregnancies; her sister, Amata, died at sixteen carrying her second child. By the end she had been nothing but a stick, thin and brittle and bloated.
Briar prayed, then. She ran for her brethren, gathered everyone together, as many as she could, everyone who could be found. They slipped on their cloaks and chanted, made up words supposedly known only to the fae. The fae, who could save her sister.
Amata died the very same day, not six hours after Briar returned, cloak hastily rolled up like she could hide her foolery.
Viviane never said she thought she might die. No one did, Briar noticed, not outwardly. They spoke only of her health, how the babe brought out her beauty, which was funny because the courtiers of Winter seemed to have no adjectives for their Lady other than beautiful. Before, when Briar had quietly listened after court sessions, they called her beautiful even as they bemoaned the loss of income due to a new plan she sponsored, the drain of resources, the benefits and disadvantages; now she was beautiful, too, colorless as the ghosts in stories of Briar’s childhood.
It was wrong. All of it was wrong, and more importantly hopeless. Amata died; so would Viviane.
And yet she could not help herself.
Please bring mistletoe, Briar wrote, carefully scratching the letters out on parchment she found in her drawers, another gift she never asked for.
Ironic; she’d thought nothing the Children of the Blessed taught her was helpful. None of it had been, except for the writing: it is the first and last time Briar is thankful, the one gift among their many lies. She can write, and so she will not have to stumble through asking.
(The scars on her back have not faded; they never will. Obviously. She is not fae, and will never be shining or perfect. Her freckles have faded, though, which is interesting in the dull sort of way all her body is interesting - because it is not.)
Viviane did not look at her strangely when she handed her clumps of the waxy plant. She did not protest when Briar made her sit down so she could string the leaves through the braid wrapped around her head, silver hair so heavy sometimes Briar notices Viviane rubbing her neck when no one is watching.
Briar crowned the Lady of Winter in green leaves, white berries like dull little stones in her hair, notable because they were stark, because they were not diamonds or pearls, because they were other in every way Viviane is not. Because, in truth, they matched the very color of her skin, yet more luminous by far.
It did not matter what they looked like, Briar knew. She could still hear Mother, humming softly in some distant dream, running the brush through her hair: no mistletoe, no luck. Remember that, my Briar Rose.
No mistletoe, no luck. Briar wrapped her Lady in it, head to toe. The High Lord grimaced when he saw his perfect mate, pale and drawn and covered in a mere plant, as if it were a spell, as if it could protect her.
Briar trembled when he walked in, knowing in her heart: he would laugh. He would laugh, and call her foolish. Stupid, even: a stupid girl trying again, after her first attempt proved her the greatest of idiots.
He didn’t, though, and the next day Briar had more ready for Viviane, but when she arrived it was already twisted into her hair, a small sprig tied around her waist. It was more than Briar would have thought anyone capable of noticing - really, of caring - but when she sat down for dinner, the High Lord gave her the smallest, most strained of smiles.
Briar hadn’t known he could, anymore.
After a month, though, it was clear: the mistletoe did not help. Or it did not help Viviane; Briar felt fantastic, which was worrying. Instead, she wrote, careful and even: Please bring sow-thistle. The leaves, please. I do not need the plant. But fresh, it must be fresh. Please.
The next morning a note lay on her wardrobe, right over a wide swoop of iridescence: Will have to import. This might suffice.
Next to it is a plant Briar had never seen in her life, spindly and tough, waxy as anything. But the leaves curled as they ought, and the flower at the top was thin, yellow petals dull and bright.
It was not her sow-thistle, but then Viviane hardly needed to run and never grow tired, as Grandmama whispered so long ago. Just to survive a baby.
Briar stripped the leaves from it, every one, and tied them around Viviane’s waist. She did not particularly seem to notice.
The next day, though, she ate more at dinner, thick rolls and potatoes and two of the cranberry cakes they served at every meal to tempt her. Briar smiled at her plate when she reached for a third; the High Lord smiled at her, though she did not see.
Viviane in her eighth month of pregnancy was spindly and thin, paler than she had any right to be, so pale that the berries in her hair outshined even the spark of her eyes. Amata, again; Amata reborn.
Briar noticed it one day, her fortieth consecutive day of picking thistle leaves off the ground and tying them back around Viviane’s waist. Viviane walked with her, arm-in-arm, chattering like tree branches in the wind. Briar did not have to speak, and she did not try to. Amata had been silent.
And so, that evening when all was quiet, when no spirits of ice wandered the halls, when every courtier was tucked up in the warmths of their rooms, Briar got out of bed. There were many places in the palace she never went, even with Viviane, but only one she avoided.
No longer. She had to go.
Her robe was long and gray and thick, so soft Briar imagined it was like she had wrapped herself in a cloud. If she closed her eyes, though, it was Mother’s blanket, the one she had worked five years to make, patchwork and thin and still the most beautiful thing Briar has seen.
She could not navigate the entire way to the shrine of the Mother with her eyes closed, but Briar managed most of it. The room was silent, quiet and fine and empty but for a single figure, leaning forward before the altar.
“Viviane?” Briar whispered. The figure did not turn, but it was her, Briar knew it was her. Hair unbound, mistletoe swept away, sow-thistle untied, left to dry in some brazier or another. The knowledge, all of it, hit her like - like - like a whip. Briar was brave enough to think it: like a whip.
She came forward, quiet as she could, sneaking with footsteps that echoed in the chamber. Viviane did not turn.
Briar sat next to her, robe pooling on the floor. Something shone on Viviane’s cheek, glinting in what little there was of light.
She leaned forward, lifted her thumb to wipe the wetness off of her cheek.
“How strange,” she said, not realizing she was speaking until the words hung unbroken in the air. “We cry the same.”
“Do we?” Viviane asked, very quietly.
She did not look over; Briar wrapped her thin, human arms around her anyway. They did not fit around the baby, but Viviane leaned into her side so strongly Briar hardly noticed.
“We do,” she murmured.
They sat in silence for a long time. Briar did not once bother to look up at the Mother, veiled and gleaming in her polished statue.
Viviane, dull and small, shaked in her arms. Her hair moved with her, sweeping around her shoulders, almost fabric, almost thread.
“She will not help me,” Viviane whispered.
Briar smiled, weak and thin. “Nor will my leaves.”
They hadn’t helped Amata, not at all. Briar will never forget.
“Did you believe it?” Viviane asked, twisting slowly so they faced each other. Her eyes were not as dull as they had been, once, but lined with such deep fatigue Briar felt tears pricking at the edge of her eyelids.
Briar sighed, and it came out like a groan.
“I cannot help it,” she admitted. Viviane squeezed her arm.
“Me neither,” she whispered. “Sometimes I wish I could.”
Briar smiled, because she knew, because quite possibly no one in the world knew better than she. And then there was nothing left to say, so she squeezed Viviane a little tighter, rocked like a ship on gentle waves. The fae moved with her, tears dripping down ageless cheeks.
Eventually sleep tugged at her eyelids, and Briar knew it was time. Viviane was light, lighter than she had any right to be, easy to pull upwards and guide out of the room.
The High Lord found them before Briar led her all the way back, tense and moving quickly, clad in nothing but thin pants for sleep. His entire body relaxed the moment he saw Viviane, Briar noticed.
He did not spare a glance for her; gently pulled Viviane into his arms, wiped the tears from her cheeks.
In the morning, though, Briar found a different blanket lying on a chair by her bed, quilted and thick. It was nothing at all like Mother’s; Briar sobbed over it anyway.
She wrote her last note when she finished crying: hazel, please, and twigs of any sort.
They come before the end of the day, and with Viviane near-catatonia next to her, Briar sat and wove the thin twigs into a little basket while a gaggle of healers tutted over their lady. Kallias watched, still as a statue, holding the pale little thing that passed for his wife’s hand.
He blinked when she handed him the cup, twigs poking oddly out the sides and stuffed to the brim with hazel. Briar frowned and plucked a piece of mistletoe from Viviane’s hair, stripped it of everything but stalk so she could tie the cup around his wrist. It hung oddly, bumping against his skin.
Kallias did not protest, though, and the next day she saw it hanging on his belt at dinner, strung around a little cord. Briar could not help but hope against all reason that the stories would hold: that for once, it would be real, that a wish would come true.
By the time Viviane went into labor, Briar considered it a miracle that she was alive at all. She had taken to stringing mistletoe around herself, too, stringing it through her own black hair; Briar knew very well that she had a cloud of bad luck to ward off.
Childbirth, Mother had said, is never a time for taking undue chances.
Kallias held her hand the entire time, twenty hours of sweating and grunting and curses so strong Briar dared to hope her friend would survive. Occasionally he shook it out; once he grimaced at the pain and Viviane said something so acerbic he laughed, actually laughed with something a little like joy. Briar could not remember if she had ever heard him laugh before.
In the end, the squalling baby - gray, for the love of whatever hapless god was watching over Briar, if there was even anyone there, gray and oddly wrinkled with a shock of white hair - was slipped into Briar’s arms as quickly as someone thought to wrap it. The chamber swarmed with healers, buzzing like bees around Viviane, Kallias silently gripping her hand so hard Briar wondered if he would break it off. It was left to her, then, to marvel at the child, the blinking odd eyes, the tiny feet and tinier toes.
Morana, Viviane called her in the few moments they let her hold her baby, so that was what Briar whispered to her, counting her ten little fingers, marveling over silver eyelashes so thin they might as well not exist.
Briar, for perhaps the first time in her life, could feel nothing but wonder at the creature in her arms, at the tiny yawn. Or she could feel nothing but wonder until Morana opens her mouth wider than Briar would’ve thought possible and started absolutely squalling.
That was not the worst thing, really - Briar had siblings, once - so she bounced on her knees, carefully supporting the small, gray head, humming in the back of her throat. It did not work; Morana yelled louder, if possible, and grew freezing in her hands, so quick that Briar swore for the first time in her life and nearly dropped her.
“Give her to me,” Viviane croaked above the din of the healers, and Briar gently handed her off, quickly approaching a physical inability to hold onto the girl.
Viviane sang a wordless tune that Briar decided she couldn’t identify if she tried. Morana quieted as if by magic.
Kallias looked up at her and smiled, tired but sure. Beside him, Viviane looked down at her daughter, and her eyes sparkled as they had not in months. Bells rang outside the window, clanging so high and brassy and bright it went right through the window and got Morana screaming again.
She lived, of course. Briar did not and would never know why, but she did.
Maybe it was enough.