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Steve slipped away from his tutor while the woman was busy talking with the washing maid. He fled the estate and slipped into the forest, running wildly and with abandon. A branch tore his jacket, which Miss Claudia was sure to scold him for, but he was so bored with the estate and its grounds. He needed some place new.
When he was out of breath, Steve stopped to catch it. The river here was shallow, the water cold. Steve ducked down at its bank, gathering the icy water in his hands. As he brought them to his lips, a voice said, “I wouldn’t do that.”
Steve dropped the water and turned to face the speaker, realizing only as he caught sight of his face that it was a boy around his age. “Why not?”
“My mother is washing the baby’s diapers just upstream.” He pointed, and when Steve leaned around the bushes growing along the bank, he saw a woman washing laundry with a baby on her back.
Steve stuck his tongue out in disgust, then said, “Thanks.”
“I haven’t seen you before,” the boy said, picking up a stick from the ground and peeling off the bark with his fingernails. “Are you visiting?”
Steve shook his head. “I live up at the estate house.”
The boy’s eyes went wide. “You’re Lord Harrington’s son?”
“Unfortunately,” Steve admitted. Then he shifted closer to the boy and whispered, “I’ve run away for the afternoon.”
“Just for the afternoon?” he asked with an amused lilt in his voice. “Why would you run away at all?”
“There’s no one to play with on the estate.” He grinned, then darted toward the boy, tapping his shoulder. “You’re it!”
“Hey!” the boy laughed, his footsteps following Steve’s through the woods. His voice was distant when he said, “What?”
Steve frowned and turned around. “It’s tag. You’re supposed to chase me.”
“No, look,” the boy said, pointing to the ground between them. Delicate white and blue flowers bloomed along the forest trail as he watched, popping up every second. Eventually, they slowed, leaving a bed of flowers connecting Steve to the boy.
“Where did they come from?”
“From you, I think.” He walked toward Steve, a trail of tiny yellow flowers following him. “Me too?”
“Is this forest enchanted?”
The boy stopped, his eyes going wide with surprise. “You don’t…have magic?”
“I… My exercises with Miss Claudia never go well.” He tried to conjure a flame but got a blue flower instead. “Ahh!” He dropped the flower to the ground. “That doesn’t usually do anything.”
“No?”
The boy bent down, holding his hand over a bare patch of earth until a golden dandelion sprouted and blossomed. “My father hates this kind of magic.”
“Mine too.” Steve bent down and encouraged another blue flower to sprout. The magic flowing through him tickled and one flower became half a dozen. He picked them into a bunch and held them out to the boy. “What’s your name?”
“Jonathan,” he said, taking the flowers from Steve and sniffing them. He held his hand over the bunch and tendrils of yellow grew between the blue blossoms. “What’s yours?”
“Steve.”
Jonathan’s magic pulled a red rose out of the bunch of yellow and blue flowers. He took it out and handed it to Steve. “For you.”
Steve took the flower, feeling warm all over. “It’s beautiful.”
Crouching down, Steve held his hand an inch above the ground and concentrated as closely as he could. The flower he pulled from the ground was the same red rose as the one Jonathan had given him, except one petal near the center of the blossom was white. Disappointed in himself, Steve held the flower out to Jonathan. “Sorry. It’s not right.”
“It looks right to me.” He touched a finger to the rose in Steve’s left hand, and the color drained out of one of the petals. “See?”
Grinning, Steve held his rose next to Jonathan’s. “They match!”
“They do.”
Jonathan met his eyes and Steve felt frozen, unable to look away from him. His heart fluttered and ached. He opened his mouth to ask if Jonathan was using magic on him, but before he got the words out, the woman down the stream called out, “Jonathan! Jonathan, come back, please!”
“I’ve gotta go,” Jonathan said, giving Steve a sheepish smile. Then he darted closer and pressed a quick, dry kiss to Steve’s cheek. “See you later.”
Steve watched as Jonathan ran away, back toward his mother.
That night, after Steve had returned to the estate house and let Miss Claudia find him, he changed from his day clothes into night clothes. He noticed a mark on his left side, over his ribs, halfway between his armpit and his hip. When he used his mirror to look at it, it was a simple picture of a red rose with one white petal. Steve pressed a finger to the mark, smiling as he remembered the boy from the forest.
Instinctively, Steve kept the mark covered in the presence of adults. It was only after his sixteenth birthday that his father allowed Miss Claudia to tell him about soulmarks. As soon as she showed him the cat-shaped mark on her calf, he knew his rose could be a soulmark. He asked her, “When does it appear?”
“Usually soon after you meet your soulmate. Sometimes it takes longer if you don’t make a magical connection right away.”
Miss Claudia’s young son, Dustin, had been accompanying her to the estate house increasingly often since his father had passed away. He spoke up, saying, “Aren’t soulmates supposed to have matching magic?”
“That’s what they say,” Claudia said with a soft smile, petting Dustin’s hair fondly. “Your father was good at familiar magic, like I am.”
Dustin turned to Steve and asked, “What kind of magic are you good at?”
Steve shook his head. “Nothing much, really.”
“Steven,” Miss Claudia said, leveling a no-nonsense look at him. “That rose of yours,” she pointed to the vase sitting on the table of his sitting room, “has been alive for five years. That’s your magic.”
Hanging his head in shame that he’d been so obvious, Steve said, “Father doesn’t want people to know.”
“Listen to me,” Miss Claudia said, approaching Steve and taking him by the chin until he met her eyes. “Your magic is a reflection of your soul. We can’t change who we are, but we can choose how we feel about ourselves.”
He nodded, and when she let his chin go, he rubbed it. Looking over at the rose in its simple vase, one petal stark white against the others, Steve asked, “How old do you have to be to get a soulmark?”
“I don’t know, exactly.” She sat back down on the sofa and took up her knitting. “For most people, it happens when they’re teenagers or young adults. I met Robert when I was twenty-five, then got my ‘mark that very same day.”
“Okay.” Steve pondered this and concluded that the flower on his ribs was a soulmark. It had to be.
As often as possible, Steve made excuses to spend time in the village and away from the estate house. He helped Miss Claudia with the things her husband used to do before he died. When she took him to the village pub for a thank you meal, he met some other boys his age. Jonathan wasn’t among them. There was a man named Jonathan at the pub, but he was too old to be the one Steve belonged to.
What if Jonathan didn’t live here in the village anymore? Why couldn’t Steve remember his last name? Or remember better what he looked like? He’d had a baby sibling, but Steve didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl, so that didn’t help him come up with questions he could ask without looking like a lunatic. Asking around about a boy who could be his soulmate?
Father would not approve.
As he got to know the villagers, and they got to know him, Steve learned about some of the policies his dad had enacted, and how unfair they were. He spent even less time at the estate house and spent more time helping around town. One day, not long after his twentieth birthday, Steve was digging post holes for Mr. Clarke’s new fence when a royal messenger came tearing down the road. “The Flayer army has attacked Roane! King Martin calls all able-bodied men and boys to service!”
The messenger kept riding toward town, so Steve looked at Mr. Clarke. “What do we do?”
Mr. Clarke took the shovel out of Steve’s hand. “Go back to the estate house. Your father is going to want you safe there.”
Steve scoffed. “I don’t want to be safe. I want to help.”
With a wince, Mr. Clarke looked up the road toward town. Finally, he sighed and said, “We’ll meet in the town square. Bring any weapons or armor you have.”
Steve nodded. “I’ll be there.” He jogged toward the estate house. His father had trained him how to use a sword and a bow and arrow, so Steve had both in his quarters. He didn’t have any armor, but when the war came to you, it was your duty to stand up and fight.
Steve got into and out of the house as quickly as he could, snatching a loaf of bread, a few apples, and a flagon of water to fill his pack. He was halfway down the path to the road when his father called after him. “Steven!”
“The kingdom is under attack,” Steve called back, slowing only when he realized his father was on horseback and would catch up to him, anyway. “I’m going to fight.”
Lord Harrington pulled his horse to a halt beside Steve, saying, “You can’t. I don’t have any other heirs.”
“The king has called everyone. Anyone able-bodied.” He nodded at his father’s gout-stricken right foot. “Unless you want to replace me?”
“No,” Lord Harrington said. His horse took a step back. “Just… don’t let them put you in the infantry. You’re trained as an archer.”
“I’ll make sure they know.”
Lord Harrington got a look in his eye that Steve had never seen before. It almost looked like…pride. “Godspeed.”
“Thanks.” Steve gave his father one last nod and left.
Most of the men who showed up knew how to hunt with a bow and arrow. They’d make fine archers. Very few knew how to wield a sword like Steve did. He marched with the other men of Hawkins to the battle thirty miles from their home. By the time they got there two days later, the Flayer army had destroyed most of the city of Roane. Though King Martin’s army consisted of people, the Flayer army was made of monsters, magicked from the deep recesses of an evil imagination.
Though they seemed almost invincible, Steve found that the monsters could die when he beheaded one with his sword. More of them came. When his unit was relieved by a new contingent of men, Steve staggered off the field of battle. As the excitement of battle faded, the pain of his wounds sank in. The worst was on his left thigh, and he began to limp.
“Here!” said a woman who rushed out to meet him. “Wounded in here.”
“I’m not wounded,” he said, trying to pull away. “There’s men dying out there. I just need to sit down for a minute.”
“Quit being stupid,” she scolded, dragging him into one of the tents. With a flick of her wrist, a clean sheet covered the cot nearest the door. “Jon! Bed five! Should be an easy one!”
Then she put Steve on the cot, gave him a pat on the shoulder, and left. Steve winced, scooting back and putting his left leg out straight. His pants were torn as was the skin underneath. Red blood oozed from the wound and the ground lurched under him.
“Whoa,” said a voice as sure hands steadied him. “It might be best to lie down.”
“Sure, okay,” Steve said, warmth filling his body. When he looked up, the speaker was a young man with brown hair falling over his dark eyes. “Do I know you?”
“Maybe, I don’t know,” he said, focused on Steve’s leg wound. “I’ve been keeping soldiers alive all day. Everyone’s starting to look the same.” He put his hands over the wound and frowned with concentration.
It burned as the wound stitched itself up, making Steve hiss. “Shit! Shit, that—” He cut himself off as the pain suddenly vanished. “Oh.”
The healer poked and prodded at him, uncovering wounds and healing them up. He found one on Steve’s shoulder, which wrapped around to his back. “Get this off,” he ordered brusquely, pulling at Steve’s shirt.
Steve helped him get it off and turned to give him better access to the scratch.
With a gasp, the healer traced the ‘mark on Steve’s side with a gentle finger. “Steve?”
Steve whipped his head around to look closer at the young man, who drew the hem of his own shirt up, revealing a soulmark in the shape of a red rose with one white petal.
“Jonathan?”
He nodded, putting a gentle hand on the side of Steve’s face. “You look so different.”
“So do you,” Steve replied, studying his face. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“I…” He shook his head. “No, I have to finish.” He put his hands over Steve’s shoulder and sealed the wound like he had the others.
“How do you do that?” Steve asked. “As a kid, you made flowers.” He gestured to the ‘mark on his side.
He shrugged. “Instead of making the flower grow, I make the skin and tissue grow back. My mother taught me.”
Steve frowned, looking at a scrape on the back of his sword hand. Jonathan took Steve’s left hand and positioned it over the scrape on his right. “Close your eyes. Feel the wrongness of the injury. Bring good flesh up from the body like pulling a flower from the ground.”
Steve didn’t think he’d feel anything, but the way Jonathan explained it made sense. It all clicked together in Steve’s mind. He pulled the skin up and closed the wound. When he opened his eyes, it wasn’t the flawless healing Jonathan had done. “There’s still a scar.”
“Pretty good for a first attempt,” Jonathan replied, smoothing the scars away.
“Thank you.” Steve looked up into the eyes of his soulmate, drawing him closer. “I still have the rose you gave me.”
“Dried and preserved?”
Steve shook his head. “In a vase on my table.”
“Still alive?”
Steve nodded, then shrugged. “I’ve gotten good at keeping it that way.”
Jonathan swayed forward and kissed him. Steve returned the kiss, wrapping his arms around Jonathan and holding him close.
As their lips parted, Steve said, “I wish we’d found each other before the war.”
“With any luck, we’ll have time after.”
“Knock on wood.”
Jonathan gave him a lopsided smile and reached over to the wooden pole supporting the cot, knocking on it three times. “Come on. Let’s get you some food, and then I’ll teach you how to do the sort of healing that keeps soldiers alive.”
“Okay.” Steve let Jonathan take his hand and lead him through the healers’ tent and into the mess tent next door. If his father could see what Steve’s “silly flower magic” could really do, Steve knew it could change things between them. Between Steve volunteering for battle and now finding his soulmate and gaining a better understanding of his magic, Lord Harrington might admit to feeling pride, out loud for once.
Steve couldn’t wait for that day.