the first time you tell someone that you’re not magic, they laugh. they tell you that you’re being humble. they act like announcing your utter lack of ability is modesty akin to a saint. they tell you that they’ll always believe.
‘don’t,’ you say. your hands are so empty. ‘don’t.’
the second time you say it, you say it over the crown of your best friend. he’s asking for a blessing on his way to the war. you’re so powerful, after all, a little magic on him isn’t anything you can’t afford to lose.
you whisper that, if you had any magic, it would all go into the golden strands brushing your lips. the sun catches on his shining hair.
he gives his hair away in chunks, that first month on the front lines. no one gets hurt. no one dies.
magic, they say. your hands shake when men bend at the knee to thank you for the small bits of blessing your best friend gave them.
you have not given them any part of what they carry.
the third time you say it, it’s barely a whisper dropping from your numb lips. your best friend is gone, again, and your family is serving tea to the king’s knight, the highest ranking warrior in the land. he’s heard of you. he wants you by his side.
men are disappearing, he tells you, and not coming back. even if your magic is nothing more than words, they need it. they need it.
your family assures him it’s not words. it’s not words.
it’s power to change the world.
(the world is war. war doesn’t change.)
the first time you feel magical is with the king’s knight, his hand in yours. he is looking at you like you’re the best parts of homecoming. he is looking at you like he loves you.
magic, you whisper into the lines darting across his palms. you’re magic.
‘no,’ he says, ‘darling, that’s you.’
(you have nightmares for a week. you don’t know why even he won’t believe you.)
the fourth time you say it, you say it over your best friend’s grave. he’s been dead months while you’ve been playing wizard for the king’s knight. he’s been rotting in a cave on the front line, his own golden hair locked in his fists as if it could heal the blood sickness that took his life.
magic, they tell you, runs out on mortal flesh. not your fault. not your problem.
‘but, i’m not,’ you say into your lover’s chain mail. ‘i’m not.’
‘darling,’ he says, ‘it’s not your fault you are.’
you scream the fifth time you say it. the sky is dark with clouds and lightning. there is blood on the ground in front of you. your sword is black with it, dripping with carnage and death.
the king’s knight lies at your feet. he died believing in magic.
he died believing in you.
you scream because dying with belief in your heart doesn’t change anything. you scream because, even with magic, this war was always going to end here for the both of you. with mud sinking into the creases of your armor and the people you care about dead. dead. dead.
you scream and the sky screams back, a roar of thunder and the shriek of metal against metal. no one dares get too close to you in your grief and rage. no one dares get so close to the one who’s calling chaos from the rioting storm above them.
i wish, you say. the world trembles around the words. the ground buckles. you extend your hands out over the battlefield and let the first drops of hot, hot rain pull at the blood staining your skin. i wish no one had ever heard of magic.
your ghosts, your lover and your best friend, howl. they beg you to stop. they beg you to see how very full your hands are. they are full, for once in your life. they are full with golden light, trembling with the heat of the world held in your palms.
you don’t care. you don’t care.
i wish for all the curses to just be words, you say. the rain begins to pound down, whisking the sound of your voice into the depths of the earth. the soldiers around you clap their hands to their ears as if to block you out. they’ve already let you in when they came to you for magic. i wish for all the blessings to just be prayers. i wish the only shine in the wind came from the lakes and the rivers and the oceans.
darling, your lover’s ghost whispers. don’t.
but, just like he once did, you refuse to hear the word.
there are arrows raining down on you now, flaming arrows. they know what you are. they know what you’re doing. you invite the tips into your flesh and speak your final, damning words.
the world rocks, arrows and flames racing across the bloodied ground. men are screaming, scrambling away from the fissures that open under their feet. just as suddenly, it stops. the rain stops. the screaming stops. the earth stands still.
the story ends here, you know it does. when love is enough, there isn’t a need for poisoned apples. the prince kisses you of his own volition, without prophecy, without compulsion, without magic.
with love enough, no one needs blessings on golden hair or cursed swords. they just need each other. only that.
so maybe you were magic after all. because the second magic disappears, so do you.
it’s okay though. your ghosts come with you.
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