Aoife awoke to the clamor of the call bell ringing and the maids shuffling next door, heart pounding and a fine sheen of sweat on her brow. The first rays of morning sun barely peeked through the windows of the servant's quarters, not quite yet reaching the dark corner of the small room where her bed rested. Her head felt fuzzy from dreaming, distantly trying to recall a face she'd never properly seen.

The events of her escape still haunted her dreams, even a year after she'd made her way to her new life. The next thing she remembered clearly after waking from her fever in that tower room was arriving at the border of the Rimsilla estate, leaning on a crutch she didn't remember having due to an injured ankle she didn't remember bandaging. She had a sack of something she didn't remember bringing slung over her shoulder. Though she was still dirty, she wasn't frozen stiff, and she was dry.

At the time, it felt like there were eyes on her, someone watching as she staggered forward, but there were only the trees behind her. The gash on her arm from the arrow had bandages around it, and another bandage wrapped around her head. From there, the kitchen staff spotted her first. She looked a mess, but upon hearing she was skilled as a healer and needed a place to stay, the lady of the house hired her on the spot. The position included her own tiny room, meals, and a small stipend... along with the fresh start she'd so ardently desired.

Some distant part of Aoife's mind realized that her memories must have either been muddled by the head injury or fuzzy from the fever, though she highly suspected the former. The sack she didn't remember carrying contained a note and a rich, wine-red cloak. The note simply read,"My debt is repaid. Keep the cloak."

Of course, she couldn't wear it. Only Enchanters, court-employed and registered Touched and Fae, were allowed to wear red in Quilland. However, the cloak was sturdy and warm, and somehow always managed to smell like decaying leaves and cinnamon. It was comforting. It also made an excellent blanket in the colder months, a beautiful souvenir from days that truly felt like a dream.

Stretching and stifling a yawn, Aoife wondered how long it would be before she truly needed to get out of bed. With luck, she might have a few minutes to herself to go over the details of her dream once more, to see if any new details appeared this time around.

That was a futile hope, though.

The door to her room burst open only moments after she woke, the cook whirling in like a middle-aged tornado with a basket of flowers in her arms. Her blue dress and white apron looked crisp and pressed, like she'd already been awake for an hour or more. Aoife groaned and rolled over, surreptitiously pulling on the pair of brown leather gloves tucked under her pillow.

"I swear, you sleep like the dead!" Lizzie huffed, brushing back flyaway strands of her blonde hair. "It's the day of the Rose Festival— I'd think even you would be excited enough to wake up early."

Lizzie was a ball of boundless energy and a morning person— two things that absolutely did not apply to Aoife. While Aoife possessed curiosity in spades, she lacked focus, and she never, never wanted to rise from the bed in the morning. The blankets were too nice.

Red cloak included.

"I'll be up in a minute," Aoife mumbled, grumpily extricating herself from the blankets.

"You even sleep in those?!" She gestured to Aoife's gloves, shaking her head. "That can't be good for you, honey."

"It's fine," she said softly, flexing her hands in the soft leather. They were worn at the seams from hard daily use, and she'd need another pair soon.

"What color rose would you like for today?" Lizzie asked, holding out the basket. Aoife gazed longingly at the basket of pink, white, and yellow blooms, but didn't reach for one. She wished for a rose as red as the cloak tucked away in her closet, but that wouldn't be appropriate for this kingdom., The restrictions on the color red even extended to the flowers.

She wished to be able to have a rose at all.

"You know I can't wear that," Aoife said softly, even as she itched to touch the flowers. She couldn't, though.

If she touched them, they would wither in an instant, gloves or no.

"Then it's good that I brought this, isn't it?" Lizzie said with a smile, reaching into the basket to pull out a narrow ceramic vase. Aoife grinned at the sight— it was kind of her to think of that.

"Pink, please," she said softly, thinking that it was closest to the color she wished for. "Leave it there for me?" Aoife nodded towards the bedside table, and Lizzie smiled brightly.

"I'll meet you at the front gates with the others in an hour. Come and get breakfast as soon as you're dressed." That said, she bustled back out the door, basket overflowing with flowers, to outfit the other girls.

The Rose Festival was a grand holiday for Quilland, celebrating the Spring Equinox and the return of longer days. The whole holiday was based on banishing darkness in favor of love, joy, and light-- thus the symbol of the rose.

... And the reason why Aoife never felt like she deserved to participate in the festivities.

Aoife had not touched human skin in eight years. She tried to avoid touching animals at all, except for rare cases where the poor, injured things might benefit from a quick death. Plants withered and died at her touch, even if she wore gloves or shoes. Fresh spring grass never stood a chance around her.

Her theory was that the stronger the life force, the harder it was for something to die from her touch. Iron plates sewn between layers of fabric in her gloves helped block her magic, but they could only do so much.

The rash of things dying when Aoife touched them began when she was small, and it started with flowers. She and her two sisters used to bring bouquets to their father, but she never made it home before hers began to droop in her hands. He called them beautiful all the same, and her sisters only teased her that she must be picking the wrong flowers, but Aoife knew something was wrong. She expressed her concerns to her father, who held her close and assured her that death did not follow in her wake.

The next morning, he was sick.

Three months later, he died.

Since their mother had passed away bringing Aoife into the world, the girls were taken in by the village wisewoman, which was where Aoife had learned her trade... and when she started to consciously shy away from any kind of touch.

She did not always succeed, and there were many mishaps before she successfully found gloves that suppressed her Touch. Now she was twenty-two, a resident of the Rimsilla estate, and waiting for the world to lose the rest of what little color it had left for her.

She kept a careful distance from the rose on her table, looking at it fondly from across the small room. Aoife would rather look at it than touch it, knowing the soft petals would turn dry and brittle under her fingers in less than a heartbeat. She dressed slowly, mechanically, pulling on a white blouse, plain green bodice, and a brown skirt without much thought as to how she looked. Her iron pendant still dangled around her neck, and long leather gloves covered her forearms after the blouse ended at her elbows. Iron patches sewn inside pockets in the fingertips and palms allowed her to touch most humans without issue, but she still tried not to. The iron prevented any accidents, but it was not a cure.

Combing through her wavy, dark hair with her fingers, Aoife took a brief look in the mirror to make sure her silvery Mark was covered by the blouse's neckline. She wanted to avoid being identified as Touched, and the silver vines trailing across her left shoulder and down her arm would give her away immediately.

The Mark takes the shape of the magic. That was the rule.

Aoife didn't quite understand why hers took the shape of flowers running across her skin, of all things, but she kept it hidden all the same. It was better to hide entirely when she could.

Fastening her lightweight green cloak securely around her shoulders, Aoife turned away from the mirror, grabbed her basket, and bustled downstairs.

In years past, Aoife had simply elected to sit out the festival. It was a day she could spend by herself, without worrying that someone would come around the corner for her to accidentally touch. She didn't have to be on pins and needles, and sometimes she took long walks outside down the bare dirt footpaths.

However, Lizzie was determined this year. Aoife couldn't get away from the pestering, and she'd finally agreed to go for the sole purpose of avoiding any more badgering. She could find a quiet corner somewhere and spend the day, enjoy the nice weather, and stop in town for supplies. Though many herbs and types of useful fungi could be gathered in the forest near the estate, some were more difficult to find, and the town herbalist often bought her potions to sell ready-made.

Aoife absently traced her gloved fingertips over the design on her pendant she made her way downstairs. It was a roughly carved rendition of the constellation Elina, her grandmother's namesake. The pendant belonged to her, the only full Fae in Aoife's bloodline, and it passed to Aoife's mother in time.

Originally, the pendant was passed from Aoife's mother to her eldest sister, but when the other two sisters left home for good, they passed it to Aoife as a keepsake of their old lives. She looked at the pendant with more than a few mixed feelings. After all, her grandmother was responsible for the Fae magic in their blood, the very reason they were all Touched.

The reason she was cursed.

In other places and other circumstances, their Touch might have been a source of pride, even a dangerous one like Aoife possessed. The term went all the way back to when people with magic said they'd been touched by fairies or had a touch of fairy blood. Legend said that those with a Touch were once highly respected. sought after as skilled workers and valuable community members.

However, after the Fae Wars two centuries ago, fear of people with Fae blood ran rampant in small towns. Suspicion from fully human residents drove away most of the Touched in lands near the Fae population, and many Touched were killed in the process. Some whispers said they went to live with what was left of the full Fae after the War.

Aoife couldn't blame them. She'd thought about it many times, but she simply had no idea where to start. If they had any sense at all, the Fae wouldn't accept her, either. Not with this magic.

After all, what kind of future would a person with a Touch of Death have anywhere they went?