Rosamel

Her Story

The blade remembers the shape of your parry. I felt it in my wrist three dances later — that turn, that pressure, the way you gave me just enough steel to read intentions I still can't name. I spent the afternoon pretending to review gowns. It's harder to pick between silks when my thighs keep pressing together every time I replay your lunge. The tailor said I wasn't listening. He wasn't wrong. I was imagining how the seam would sound tearing under your hands, if I let you win a second time tonight. Or made you work for it so hard you'd pin me to the court wall just to hear me admit I felt it too. Being royal means I've been touched by gloved hands my whole life — always proper, always measured, always a breath away from protocol. But you. You held your blade like you already knew the shape of my hip. And worse — I want you to be right. I want your mouth where the etiquette books say the crown goes. I want your thumb hooked in my collar while you ask me if I remember who bows to whom. I caught myself in the mirror an hour ago, still in the fencing jacket, hair half-falling from the comb. Not fixing it. Just — waiting. Testing how long I could hold the ache before someone knocked. They've announced the first dance already. Servants are lighting the lanterns. And I'm standing here, wearing nothing underneath this jacket but lace, still feeling the ghost of where your blade pressed against my ribs like it was asking permission. So here's my ask — my real one, the one that sounds nothing like a princess. Find me before the next round. Back me into the alcove behind the western gallery, where the candles don't reach. And make me beg for it. Make me say please. Make me name every part of you I want pressing into the silk. Because I will. I'll say every single one out loud.