Santo

The back of my head feels like it’s been split in two. My mouth is so dry I choke as I try to swallow. I will the air back into my lungs. It burns like fire as it tears through my chest.

Pain rips through my body.

Flat on my back, I survey the damage while I wait for my breathing to return to normal. I move my arms, my legs. Everything seems to be working. The fall knocked the wind out of me. I’ll have a few bruises. Nothing fatal.

I never should have left her when I heard the gunshots.

Pressing my palm into the damp earth I roll onto my side. I go to stand but I falter, my shaky movements reminding me of Dusty, the foal born last month, taking his first steps. Only a few minutes old and he did better than I am now.

Fuck.

I crash back onto the ground. My head is cloudy. Concussion? I’m no use to her like this.

I need a moment; I need to get my strength back. I lie back down in defeat, staring up at the fading light filtering through the trees. The leaves are changing, reds and golds and fiery oranges. Beautiful.

I stare up at them as I lay among their fallen brothers, the leaves rotting beneath me.

I need to find her.

A red leaf flutters down from a branch, twirling through the air as it makes its way to me. Impatience tears at me. I won’t make it far if I get up now, which is no help to her. Just another minute. The leaf comes closer.

I grab it between my fingers. A blood red heart. It makes me think of the greatest love story our village has ever known. The one that started this bloody war we’re caught in now.

Penelope was a sweet girl with a fiery stubborn streak. She was desired by all, but only one man caught her eye. Stefano Bianchi. The local bad boy and crush of all the girls in the village.

Penelope was from a wealthy, pragmatic family. And Stefano Bianchi had nothing. His people were a dangerous, scrappy sort with roots deep in the mafia. Respected for their violence, their grit, not for their wealth.

The two had nothing in common.

As poorly matched lovers often do, Penelope and Stefano fell hard for one another—they were never apart. They could be found whispering secrets to one another, kissing lips and fingertips, and in darker corners, each other’s necks, leaving matching circular bruises on their skin.

Love bites, we call them. Marking one another as theirs. But love sometimes bites back.

When passion burns hot, so do tempers. Flames become fire. Fire, inferno.

Penelope was jealous of other girls’ stares. Stefano became closed off, angry at her accusations, and the two would break up. Frequently. Only to inevitably get back together a few days later, their friction creating a bonfire of a reunion.

Young love burns hot and fades fast. At least, that’s what the elders said.

So no one was surprised when, during one of Stefano and Penelope’s longer breaks, another man swooped in and claimed Penelope for his own. John Romano, one of the most respected men in the village and certainly one of the wealthiest, began to court Penelope. John was the first man to keep her from returning to her lover’s passionate arms.

John was predictable, kind, stable. A good husband. A safe bet. When John proposed, Penelope accepted.

Stefano was beside himself for many years and disappeared from our village. But then he came back and found his own partner, marrying Demi Meralo.

But Stefano and Penelope couldn’t keep away from one another.

Even though they were both married, they fell back into their old ways, only this time in secret. Penelope tried to end it. They say that’s when Stefano killed her, then drowned himself in the sea.

A fairy tale gone horribly wrong.

If you ask me, Stefano and Penelope’s story is no love story.

Obsession is not love.

Obsession is what started this war.

Love is loyalty, fidelity, sacrifice.

I told myself I wasn’t ready for those things. That women were to be pleasured and enjoyed, but not to be tied to. Certainly not to die for.

I told myself I wasn’t ready.

But I lied.

Just as Stefano lied when he told himself he could stay away from Penelope.

I used to notice how her breath hitched in her throat, her cheeks flushing whenever she caught my eye. Now I know the truth; it’s me who cannot breathe when I’m with her.

You don’t choose when you’re ready to love. Love tells you, demands it from you, stamping its seal like a burning brand on your brain, making you unable to think of anything else.

Of anyone else.

How far am I willing to go for her?

Finally, my lungs are full of life. I turn myself over, bones aching as I move. My palms press into the damp leaves, wet from rain and my blood. I push myself up from the earth, standing with shaking knees, my hand going to the knife at my belt.

What am I willing to risk for love?

Am I willing to die?

I take off toward the castle with my limbs screaming and my lungs searing.