BROKEN

It was a safe haven, a paradise—one he'd made for the woman who was his very heart, amidst the last of the sacred wildwood forests, away from demon-savaged city. Unicorns slipped and shimmered like moonbeams between the trees, though they didn't come near the palazzo itself. Robins and blue jays, meadowlarks and goldfinches sang their songs for her; they weren't bothered by mindless screams late in the night or heartbroken weeping as dawn broke.

Crocuses pushed through the earth in bursts of gold and purple and lilies filled the air with their fresh, sweet fragrance—it blanketed the subtle sting of blood that sometimes hung in the air. There were no roses, though the heavy rainbow of blooms would've comforted Juliet. Romeo could not risk roses. Not after what she'd done the last time with the thorns.

For a moment, all he could see were white roses stained with crimson. Her skin, so very pale, stained with that same crimson.

He shook the memory away.

Prince Romeo—oh, yes, he was sovereign of their fair city now; all had been forced to bow before the sorcery that had won him the crown of Verona—Prince Romeo strode up the soft earthen path lined with blue larkspur and pale primroses.

His guards marched behind him, careful not to damage or otherwise disturb the flowers. Not after what had happened the last time, when Juliet had screamed and wept over a broken patch of marigolds and been inconsolable for days. Every one of Romeo's footsteps suddenly seemed to take a Herculean effort. The earth was yielding as flesh beneath his black leather boots.

The marigolds, he thought, were for someone she loved. The shade of Tybalt returned to haunt them yet.

Wherefore villain did you kill my cousin?

Portia, Juliet's nurse, bowed low to him even as she opened the front door of the sprawling palazzo. She'd been the head of this small, sequestered utopia for the last two years, ever since Romeo Montague had swept through Verona like a vengeful ghost and taken control.

Even now he could hear the howling of the wolf-shades he'd set to hunting the Capulets. It mingled with the phantom screams of the dying.

Romeo pushed the sound away. Such nightmare-memories had no place here. This was Juliet's haven. He could not let the charnel-house shades find their way here.

"Portia," he murmured, inclining his head. The nurse fell into step beside him as they moved down the corridor; the shadow of her fear hovered close. Romeo's eyes slid over the tapestries and brightly woven wall-hangings that added color to the hallway. "How is she today?"

"She appears lucid, for the most part, milord," Portia said softly. "Yet her memory has slipped from her grasp again. We caught her digging in the garden again early this morning near dawn, yet now she will not let us near. She has asked for you."

"Has she eaten yet?" It was midday, he thought, but sometimes Juliet did not eat for days at a time, depending on how long her lucidity lasted. And sometimes, when she was fairly lucid if amnesic, she would only eat with him.

Portia shook her head. "Not yet. A meal waits for both of you in the garden. She has been walking there for most of the morning."

Romeo found Juliet in the garden, just as Portia had said, beneath a stand of cypress trees. She wore no shoes. Mud caked her feet. It was spring, and it had rained the night before. Clutched in one muddy hand was a bouquet of snowdrops white as bones. The hem of her simple blue gown was torn and damp. Her hair hung down her back in a tangle. Yet when she turned her head and found his face with her sloe dark eyes, the joy that lit Juliet's face threatened to crack his very heart in half.

"Romeo!" She ran to him. He could do nothing else but hold out his arms to her. When she threw herself into his arms and he enfolded her, he felt her bones pressing into him through dress and easily-bruised skin. Tiny particles of earth sprinkled his black velvet sleeve as she clutched the bedraggled nosegay of flowers. "Oh, you're here! You're here. They won't let me leave," she said, frowning. She pulled back to look up at him. "Why won't they let me?" She always asked him that.

His throat ached and his eyes stung from holding back tears. There was none of Juliet's familiar light in those eyes. Something was missing from her gaze. It hurt him, made him despise himself, yet when she remembered and the light returned it always terrified him. At least when her eyes were dull and soft and brown, she didn't hate him. Couldn't loathe him nearly as much as he loathed himself.

"It is for your safety, cara mia," he murmured, and waited to see if she would understand, or at least accept. Waited to see if his words would trigger her memory, or a psychotic episode. It took so little to send her from mostly-lucid to shuddering with madness.

In the end, she merely nodded.

"What's that you have there?" He asked, forcing a smile that felt as if it would crack his face. He cupped the hand holding the flowers.

"For you," she said brightly, like a child presenting a gift. She held up the flowers. The roots were still attached, slender white veins yet gasping for the nurturing darkness of the earth. "Do you like them? I wanted to do something to cheer you up. You've been distracted lately. Sad. Do you like them?"

If he gave into weakness, she wouldn't understand why he wept, Romeo thought, and it would only distress her, so he forced himself to bear up.

"I love them," he murmured, and took the little bouquet. "Very much." Knowing he could not bear to see that beaming smile for too long without breaking, he asked, "Have you eaten?" When Juliet shook her head, he suggested oh so casually, "Perhaps we could have lunch." He gestured to a little pavilion draped in airy white a bit nearer to the palazzo.

"Alright." Juliet slipped both arms around one of his, heedless of the dirt.

As he'd expected, Portia waited by the pavilion's large white wicker table and chairs. A large bucket of water sat at her feet. A bar of soft amber soap set on a cream-colored dish rested in her hands and she held two washrags and two hand-towels draped over one arm. Romeo laid the bouquet of flowers on the edge of the table and rolled up his sleeves. He glanced at Juliet. She stared at the water, head cocked to one side, eyes vacant.

"My lady," Portia murmured. "If I may—" Juliet jerked back, eyes narrowed . She shook her head. In a gentle, placating voice, Portia tried again. "Come, now, milady…"

"Give me your hands, Juliet," Romeo said. His lady turned to him. He held out one hand, surprised it didn't tremble. "I'll help you get the mud off."

She blinked. Her brow furrowed. "I can do it."

"Let me," he insisted gently. "Please." After a long moment, Juliet nodded and gave him her hands. Romeo pulled off her wedding ring and set it on the wicker table beside the flowers.

As he carefully and gently washed away the caked-on earth, he found some damage to the delicate appendages. A torn fingernail. Cuts from sharp stones that had gone unnoticed while she dug up the flowers. Dried smears of blood were dark brown beneath the lighter brown of the mud.

Blood had been the instrument of Verona's demise. Juliet's blood, he'd thought. Tybalt's blood mingling in the street with Mercutio's. Romeo's own spilled by the blade that had cut down his new-sworn kinsman and ripped all asunder. With that blood, he'd summoned a conflagration that swept through the streets to burn them clean, a pack of wolves, a legion of demons to purge Verona of all who bore the blood of Capulet.

All but one.

When Juliet's hands were at last clean, the cuts cleansed and the short, raggedly-bitten nails white and free of earth, Romeo insisted on washing the dried earth from her feet. Because he was the one to ask, she acquiesced, though he could see she didn't understand why mud on her feet was a problem. He found pale gray-blue bruises marring the soft soles of her feet, and a few scratches. When he was done, she donned her ring again and sat down to eat.

He had to coax her to eat. Not because she wasn't hungry—at least, he didn't think so. More that her mind, anchorless and unable to stay in the present, forgot to keep having her feed herself. She'd become so thin…

So he did his best to coax her through the simple meal of bread, fruit, and cheese, calling her back with soft words every time her mind wandered down some new avenue of insanity and her eyes drifted away to gaze unseeingly at the forest beyond the garden walls.

"One more bite, cara," Romeo murmured near the end of the meal. Juliet jumped as if he'd stuck her with a pin. Her eyes met his. She frowned. Looked down at her plate. The raspberry custard was the last of the food on her plate. He'd managed to get her to eat the rest of it. He knew her nurse couldn't get this sort of result. Keeping that fake smile plastered on his face, he added, "Just one more bite and we'll do something else. How does that sound?"

Juliet scooped up another bite of custard. Stared at the creamy burgundy dessert.

"It's red," she said softly. "It's not supposed to be red." She set the spoon down, staring at it in consternation. "It's supposed to be yellow. I don't know where the yellow is. It's supposed to be yellow but I've lost the colors." Chewing her bottom lip, she glanced around. Turned confused eyes to Romeo. "Romeo…do you know where they are?"

He didn't know where he managed to dredge up the words, or the strength to say them to her. "Amore mio, you haven't lost yellow. It's supposed to be red."

She shook her head vehemently. "No. No, it's custard. Custard is yellow. Like the roses you gave me." The roses with their thorns that had torn her bruised skin the last time she'd remembered what he'd done. "I lost the yellow and I don't know how to get it back." She nibbled on the edge of her thumb. Frowned at her plate. A tear spilled down her cheek. "How could I lose yellow? If I lose yellow I lose sunshine and your roses and—"

"Juliet." It hurt to say her name. How it hurt. Hurt to see her sorrow and her bewilderment. This was his fault—her alarmed confusion, and the madness that had created it. "Juliet, yellow isn't lost. The custard we usually eat is yellow, but this time it is red. I wanted to try something new. It's raspberry, sweetheart. Raspberries are red, remember?"

A frown twisted her mouth. "Raspberry?" She looked up from her plate. For a moment, the cloudiness in her eyes faded a little. "You prefer lemon. It's your favorite. We always have lemon."

"I wanted to try something different," Romeo replied. I'm sorry, he added silently. I'm so sorry, cara.

"Different?" She frowned more fiercely, brow furrowing as she struggled to understand. All at once, her expression cleared. She nodded. "Raspberry. Raspberries are red. I didn't lose yellow. Yes." She nodded again. "Of course." She picked up the spoon again. Took a bite.

Her mind is so broken, Romeo thought, fighting to swallow the custard. Such little things upset and confuse her so much. Raspberry custard instead of lemon. Washing the mud from her hands. Marigolds accidentally crushed beneath his boots. She'd screamed herself hoarse over the dead flowers, he remembered. Screamed as if she were dying. It seemed Tybalt's name had torn from her throat to shatter the world.

Mi amore, my beloved, he thought. He wanted to say the words but they sat heavy as lead on his tongue. Oh, my love…

"I had a dream last night," Juliet whispered suddenly, pulling him from the poisonous sea of his remorse. Overhead, thunder rumbled. "It was horrible."

A stone seemed lodged in his throat. A dream… Every time she had an episode, every time she remembered the truth of what had happened, it was prefaced by a dream, a nightmare of killing and bloodshed and carnage.

"It was only a dream, Juliet."

She shook her head. "There was fire. Screaming. Blood ran down my window like rain." She glanced from the spoon to him. Another tear fell. "The streets were rivers of blood and the dead were everywhere. Dead children. My family. Corpses in the street." The spoon fell to the plate with a harsh clatter. She hugged herself. "And there were monsters. Wolves with devils' eyes and shadows with teeth and roses tearing across throats with their thorns. Monsters butchering innocent people."

Romeo was at her side in an instant, sliding his arms about her. His heart beat mercilessly against his breast. Please, he prayed, not for the first time. Please, don't let her remember. Don't let her remember that day. If I had known…if I'd known the truth, I would have never…

But aloud, all he said was, "It was a dream, Juliet. Only a bad dream."

"Tybalt was dead," she whimpered.

Romeo closed his eyes as grief tore through him like claws. Tybalt. Her cousin who was like a brother to her. And Mercutio, dying in his own blood, fallen at Tybalt's feet…

Turn and draw! Madness fueling rage in the eyes of the man who had been his kinsman but an hour. His sword limned by the light of the setting sun, which had transformed the steel to blood for an instant.

Aye, Tybal was dead. Tybalt, and Mercutio. Rosaline, and Benvolio who had tried to defend her from Romeo's demons. From Romeo's madness that had blazed from Mantua to Verona, fed by his manservant's report that Juliet—sweet, dear Juliet, his wife and his lady—was dead, too.

Another crack of thunder. Juliet didn't seem to hear.

"A monster in red velvet stabbed him through the chest. There was blood. Red, red. Like the raspberries. He fell. He fell," she mumbled, beginning to rock back and forth. "Fell, and wherefore villain did you kill my cousin? Romeo, Romeo—"

"Juliet," he murmured as she rocked and rocked, eyes empty and vague, "Juliet. Mi amore. It's all right. It was only a dream. It is all right. It was only a dream."

"No," she said, "no." She reached up and tugged at a tangled wisp of her hair. Pulled the limp curl straight. "No, it wasn't a dream. Not a dream. Real. It was real. Tybalt fell and his blood stirred the thirst for more, and you…" Thunder cracked violently. She yanked on the lock of hair. "You killed him! Juliet screaming and it's not a dream, Tybalt slew Mercutio, Romeo slew Tybalt, vain vengeance, and you murdered my cousins and my mother and my father and—"

"No, Juliet," Romeo said, fear icing his veins. She rocked faster. "No, that's not what—"

"You killed Tybalt," she gasped the words and it was as if they were fists striking her body. Her voice rose in pitch. The anguish twisted her expression. "You killed Tybalt. You killed everyone. You… you…I remember. I remember! Everyone is dead, Tybalt and Livia and Helena and Rosaline and Sampson and you killed them all, my family, all the Capulets, you Montague wretch—"

"I thought you were dead," he protested. He tightened his grip on her. "Juliet, they told me you were dead—"

She shook her head, keening, struggling feebly against Romeo's hold. Though it felt as if it would kill him to do it, he let her go. She lunged to her feet and scrambled away from him, still making that awful keening wailing sound.

"You murdered my family!" She cried it, sobbed it. A jagged white bolt of lightning struck one of the cypress trees. The mad vague emptiness cleared from her eyes and there was a terrible clarity left in its wake. "You murdered my family!"

He closed his eyes, unable to look into her stricken face. That sin, more than any but Mercutio's death—for was it not Romeo who had come between his friend and his kinsman to part their blades and end their battle? And hadn't Tybalt seized the chance to cut Mercutio down?—weighed on him like a millstone around his neck. To have lost Mercutio and then to have done this to Juliet…

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

"Monster!" She screamed it. The word slapped him across the face, left him hollow. A single tear carved its way down his cheek. Overhead, the sky ripped open. Rain smashed down on the white canvas of the pavilion. Juliet staggered backward into the downpour. "I hate you! I'll never forgive you!"

She turned and ran back toward the sprawling house. He saw her slip in the fresh mud and fall. She was back on her feet in seconds, mud darkening her skirts, blood running down her legs from where she'd cut her knees on garden stones. Romeo started after her. Called to her above the sheeting roar of the rain. Juliet didn't look back; just ran inside. The door slammed.

Romeo stopped at the door. Braced his hands on the frame and took a shuddering breath. Rested his forehead against the smooth rowan wood. He could hear her words ricocheting around in his skull. Murderer. I hate you. They throbbed in his skull. I hate you. I'll never forgive you.

"I am so sorry," he rasped, though she wasn't there to hear him. The rain plastered his clothes to his body, his hair to his skull. It mingled with the single tear that had escaped his rigid control. "I am so sorry, Juliet. I didn't know. I'm so sorry."

He'd thought they'd killed her. The Capulets. In the haze of pain and grief, the single conviction that Lord Capulet had done this to her had burned in him like hellfire.

She hadn't been dead. Juliet had woken to him, to Romeo, ere he could taste of the apothecary's sweet poison. Woken to gladness and tears and disbelieving hope and his embrace, to tenderness and the breaking of the terrible brittle conviction in him.

She had woken to hellhounds and demons licking up Capulet blood from the flooded streets and feasting on the corpses of her kin.

Romeo swallowed back salt and the sting of tears. Opened the door and strode inside. He knew where to find Juliet.

His lady was in her bedroom. She shivered on her bed, water rolling down her face from the rain, blood from her scraped knees smeared across her legs to stain the ivory and gold rug beneath her feet. Her dress was soaked through. The bedclothes were damp. She'd wiped the mud from her hands on her skirts.

Romeo stepped inside. Closed the door. Juliet looked up. Tears rolled down her cheeks the way the blood spilled down her legs.

The agonizing grief in her eyes flared hot with loathing and betrayal as she lunged off the bed, launched herself at him. He caught one fragile wrist, but not the other as she cracked her palm across his face. Blood flooded his mouth. Then he let her go to allow her to pound against his chest with her fists as she sobbed, "You monster, you monster! I hate you!" Her voice was too weak to scream but it felt as if her words crashed against his ears. "You killed my family! You killed them!"

Juliet collapsed against his chest, exhausted. Romeo ached to hold her, to comfort her, but he knew she wouldn't allow it. Not yet. Instead, he murmured, "I would bring them back if I could. For you."

She wrenched away from him. Stumbled to the bed. When her knees buckled, she sank down onto the mattress. Her eyes found his face. "Tell me it isn't true," she begged. The light of true lucidity was in her eyes now. So was a crushing grief. "Tell me it is a lie. Romeo…tell me it didn't happen."

He drew a breath that hurt. "It happened. It's true." The words were jagged stones that left his tongue bruised and bleeding. "Verona is mine. Your family is dead at the hands of my legion." He watched the silent tears come faster, listened to the first muffled sob. "All of them," he said tonelessly. "By my order."

The last bit of her composure crumbled and she dropped her face into her hands and sobbed as if she would rip apart. Romeo could bear no more. He went to the bed. Sat beside her. When he slid his arms around her again, she twisted and struggled for a moment before collapsing against him. Her tears soaked his shirt. He stroked her hair and fought against weeping as she wept. He had no right to weep. This truth had driven her mad—that by her husband's order, her family had been killed. Vengeance, he'd thought. All blood justified. But no. And now…now…

Juliet lifted her head to look up at him with shattered, tearful eyes. Every tear was a drop of Romeo's heartblood and he felt himself slowly bleeding to death. There was a plea in those eyes—a plea to make it all unreal, to undo it, to turn back the sands of time and bring her family back from oblivion.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. How often had they had this conversation? Too many times. She never remembered. It never stopped hurting. "I'm sorry, Juliet."

She stared at him. He knew what she would do next. What she always did next. She might hate him, might even fear him a little now…but he was also still the man she loved. Even the blood on his hands hadn't been enough to shatter that. So he wasn't surprised when she kissed him, a kiss that begged for some kind of comfort, fleeting though it might have been.

His lady was crying as he shifted to lean her back against her bed. She wept silently even as she pressed close and kissed him with savage desperation, needing something, anything but reality, to hold onto. Tears trailed from the corners of her eyes to wet her temples, soak her hair and the damp pillows, while her shaking hands went to the buttons of his doublet, and the hand Romeo wasn't using to hold himself above her went to the laces of her bodice.

It was the same as it always was when she remembered—a frantic, desperate thing, though it wasn't quick. His submission to her silent plea to give her something to drown her memories in. His mouth on hers, kisses that tasted of grief and salt tears and remorse. His hands on her body, rousing a fire she could never resist, even now. Juliet's own hands in Romeo's damp hair, twisted in his half-open shirt, her ragged nails scraping down his back. Tiny beads of blood welled up.

He welcomed that pain as his lips whispered across Juliet's cheeks and mouth. He welcomed the bite of nails and teeth. Did she welcome the soft blue bruises that would shadow her thighs tomorrow? The marks of pale rose, tender to the touch, that his mouth left on her skin? Was this punishment as well as comfort, for her and for him? How long would she remember this before madness smothered the memories?

In the aftermath of passion, in the heartbroken silence after Juliet cried out his name and he whispered hers, as their eyes met, he saw forgiveness and pain and heartache and fear and love in those beautiful eyes. Romeo saw her love for him, saw that it remained unbroken despite how he'd broken her. Unable to meet her eyes any longer, he drew back from her enough to help her completely out of her wet clothes before she caught a chill. Then he led her to the soft fur rug before the fireplace in an attempt to warm her.

He drew the small knitted blanket from her chair beside her window and draped it around her bare shoulders. She huddled beneath it, shivering anew. Romeo realized he was shivering, too. His clothes half-hung from his frame, and they were soaked by the rain. It was Juliet, eyes vivid with memory and sorrow, who helped him out of his wet clothes and silently offered him a place under the black knitted blanket beside her. She laid her head on his shoulder, and a piercing ache shot through him, red-hot and thin as a burning wire. He made a small sound.

"I never wanted to hurt you," Romeo whispered. His cheek rested on her slowly-drying hair. It was the first time he'd spoken anything but Juliet's name since before their joining. "I never wanted that."

She didn't speak for a long time. Finally, she asked, "Have I ever remembered before?"

"You always remember when I visit you. Always."

"But you keep coming."

He looked down at her. "I love you." It hurt to say the words. They were bitter as poison and sharp as an iron razor. Romeo thought he could feel his heart bleeding anew. "I need you, cara. I miss you…so very much."

Juliet gazed up at him, and her expression softened a little more. She touched his cheek, the scarlet mark she'd left with her slap. "I shan't remember any of this, will I?"

Romeo shook his head. She always asked him that. She had never remembered for more than a few hours.

"You must believe me," he whispered. "I thought your father had murdered you for marrying me. I…I went mad when I heard you had died, I…I'm sorry. I am so very sorry, Juliet—"

She touched her fingers to his lips. He fell silent.

"I forgive you," she whispered. The words lanced him. Sometimes she forgave. Sometimes she didn't. It was the one thing that changed. He could never know which she would choose, so he could never know if she'd truly forgiven him or not. Still, the words were a soothing balm against his raw spirit when she whispered again, "I forgive you, Romeo."

"How could you possibly?"

She cradled his face, turning more fully toward him. "Because no matter what you've done, I love you. I will always love you."

He gazed down at her, stricken. She had never said that before while still lucid. Never whispered her love for him in such a sweet murmur while her eyes drank him in as if she would never seem him again. And she was still lucid. He could see it in her eyes.

Overcome, he brought his mouth down on hers. Tasted her grief in the kiss. Then he laid her down upon the silky fur rug and made love to her twice more—once, gently, trembling more than a little, drowning in her, his face pressed against the warmth of her neck while tendrils of her damp hair clung to his cheek; and again, fiercely, while she clutched at the broad strength of his shoulders and pressed her face into the hollow where his pulse beat at his throat, and he was left gasping and grasping for her as they continued to drown in the torrent of grief and need and love and regret.

And when it was over, he laid his head upon her breast, and as she ran her fingers through his hair he wept like a heartsick child for both the pain that would never leave Juliet's eyes and the broken mind that would never truly heal.