Sage took a deep breath and steadied himself. "I'm fine," he said, his hand still exploring the edge of where the wolf got him. The blood had soaked into his chest bindings, and for a moment he wished the wolf had grabbed at his flesh just a few inches lower. It would have been fitting for a wild beast to remove the extra skin and fat that the gods had given him by accident. But then he thought better of it. The gods would rectify their error, he was sure of it.

Violet bunched up her skirts and went to press the fabric to staunch the bleeding.

"Don't," Sage said. "I don't want to ruin your dress."

"Don't be stupid. I need to stop the bleeding." She was insistent.

But Sage didn't want her touching him there. So close to his secret. The extra cloth that hid the mistake in his form.

"Please." Sage looked up at her with lowered lids. "Just help me home. My mother has plenty of bandages."

Violet hesitated, still holding her skirts. But then she nodded and took hold of his left arm, helping him up and together they hobbled down the path from the bluff and towards town.

As soon as Sage and Violet limped into the open courtyard, drops of blood marking their trail along the sloping dirt road, his mother, Telethusa, flew to his side, worry etched on her brow. In mere minutes, she had settled Sage on a stool in the kitchen of their three-room stone house, started soaking fresh rags in a pot of water over the cooking fire, and was opening jars and pouring herbs into her stone pestle.

His father, Phillip, must have seen them as they crested the hill, because he appeared almost as quickly as a god in the kitchen's open doorway. "You're bleeding," he announced, his voice tinged with accusation.

"Wolf attack," Sage informed him through gritted teeth as his mother ground herbs into a paste.

"The sheep?" he asked, a dark emotion shadowing his face.

Of course, the sheep were his first worry. Not Sage's wound. Even if Sage didn't care about the dowry, and would have married Violet no matter what, his father already considered each head of livestock to be part of their family's wealth. Protecting that flock was paramount.

"Hawkeye was still guarding them," Sage said as Violet caressed his uninjured arm.

"Only the dog? What about your father? Your brother?" he asked Violet.

She only shook her head.

"Let's go." Phillip beckoned. "There's no time to waste," he added when Violet didn't instantly stand.

Without waiting, his father turned and started marching in the direction that they had just come from.

Violet looked at Sage with pleading eyes.

"You need to tell your father or brother what happened. I'm in good hands," Sage assured her.

She bent down and kissed his cheek, sending a rush of warmth through his body. "I'll be back as soon as I can," she whispered, and then left to hurry after Phillip.

Sage wasn't distracted from his pain for long. As soon as his father and Violet were beyond the hill's crest, Telethusa ripped at Sage's shirt and undid his bindings. He winced as she smeared a handful of paste and pressed a damp cloth against his shoulder. The smell of garlic and fermented apple that filled the kitchen stung his nose and seared his wound.

"Don't move." Telethusa clucked her tongue and pressed even harder so the mixture of herbs she had slathered onto his skin would draw out any infection before it could set in.

He took a settling breath and tried not to squirm, but it was challenging to stay still while sitting on the wooden three-legged stool with his bindings undone, his breasts bare, letting his mother fuss about his wound.

They were alone, and he wasn't embarrassed by his form when in front of his mother. She was the one who helped him with his bindings when his breasts first budded, and who provided him with absorbent sphagnum moss and clean rags when he suffered his monthly courses. But it felt unnatural to be so exposed.

"You're lucky it wasn't worse." Telethusa assessed as she drew the rag away and grabbed a fresh one from the pot.

"If I was lucky, then there wouldn't have been a wolf in the first place. I've never seen a wolf that close to the coast," Sage scoffed. The movement sent a fresh jolt of pain down his arm to his fingertips, causing him to grimace.

Telethusa clucked her tongue again and shook her head. A few strands of her gray-streaked dark hair fell out of its loose braid from the movement. "You're lucky to be alive. Don't tempt the gods."

Sage suppressed a laugh. The gods. If it wasn't for them, he wouldn't be in such a predicament: living with a man's head, but in a woman's body. He swallowed his retort and kept his mouth shut. He knew that his mother would not tolerate blasphemy in her house. The very house that Aurelia had blessed with her presence while Sage was in his mother's womb.

"Such a storm on your face." Telethusa reached out with her free hand and stroked her son's cheek. "Reminds me of the storm the night Aurelia visited me."

"I thought it was a warm night in April when she visited." Sage interrupted, filling in for his father's absence.

His parents could never agree on the details of that night nearly eighteen years ago, and Sage couldn't hear one version of the story without thinking of the other.

His mother ignored his interjection, instead, keeping her attention on his wound. "Don't worry. The pain will pass." Her hand caressed his ear and ran across his close-cropped hair. Every year, his father shaved his head in April, the same month they sheared the sheep. Sage could practically tell the date by running his fingers over his head to determine how much his dark curls had grown.

"It's not the pain," Sage muttered. "It's where it is..." He gestured at his chest rather than name the location out loud.

Telethusa grabbed a fresh rag and wrung it out. She blotted at the wound a few more times, and then she wrapped bandages over his shoulder and under his armpit. "It will heal," she said.

Sage turned his head away as his mother touched so close to his chest. His ears burned, thinking about how his secret was nearly revealed to his betrothed. "Violet almost saw," he muttered.

Telethusa didn't respond. She turned away from her son, folding his ripped shirt and placing it in the pile of clothes in need of mending.

"Mother." He stood and with his left arm, reached out to her. "When will Aurelia fix her mistake?"

At that, Telethusa's head spun towards him. "Mistake? What mistake did she make? Are you trying to tell me you are a girl?"

The words hit him like a slap. But he knew he deserved it. Instead of responding, he lowered his head silently. If his mother hadn't listened to Aurelia's words that night, then who would he even be? Himself, but trapped not just in a female body but also in a girl's life?

Although his mother and father told the stories differently, the gist was the same. And, being that he hadn't been born when it happened, it was hard for Sage to know whose recollection was more accurate. So it was either in the early evening on a warm April night–his father's version–or, it was in the middle of the night during the first thunderstorm of spring–his mother's version–but they both agreed that Telethusa had been quite pregnant, her stomach so stretched and full that every time Sage kicked inside her you could make out all five toes on his foot.

That night–or evening–Telethusa had been having pains and was pacing around their bed chambers. Depending on whom one believed, Sage's father was racing off to find a midwife, or was uselessly asleep in bed. Either way, Aurelia appeared in front of his mother when she was alone. She just shimmered into existence. Telethusa claimed that for a moment the air looked as it did on a very hot day. As if the very colors were melting. Then, in the next instant, there was a goddess standing in their home. And not just any goddess, but Aurelia, the queen of Mount Ovidia; mother of Marigold, Carmine, and Tawny; wife to Azure.

Telethusa had known who she was immediately by the golden robes with light blue trim she wore and the cow horns protruding from her head. Her beauty was also unfathomable. She had deep bronze skin and hair made of liquid gold, which was worn piled in elaborate braids atop her head.

With a loud gasp, Telethusa, pregnant though she was, immediately dropped to her knees. This sudden noise–or lucky timing–brought Phillip running into the room. Upon seeing the goddess, he too dropped to his knees.

Once both his parents were present, the goddess delivered a message, which was the one detail both Telethusa and Phillip steadfastly agreed on. She had said:

"Within your womb you are growing a son.

Do not fret if he seems undone.

For his form shall be complete

Once he's ready to harvest the wheat.

I promise he'll grow to be strong and wise,

As long as you honorably protect his guise."

With her message given, the goddess disappeared as instantly and silently as she had arrived. His parents had been dumbfounded. What did it mean that their son would be "undone"? Or that they had to "protect his guise"? It sounded like nonsense.

That was, until he was born.

He'd been born mere hours after the goddess left, and without the help of a midwife. It was an easy birth without complications. Except one. The goddess had proclaimed him a son. Yet in her arms, Telethusa held the pink squirming form of an infant girl.

Sage was grateful that his mother had heeded the goddess and raised him as a son.

Turning back to his mother, Sage finally spoke. "I'm not a girl. You know that."

Telethusa looked back at her son. "Of course I know that. I am your mother. I know you better than anyone else in this world."

The wound on his chest throbbed. The beat of his heart pulsed waves of heat out from where the wolf had ripped his flesh. His wrong flesh. "You know what I meant," he muttered, eyes cast down at the floor.

She reached out a hand and thumbed at his knuckles. "Not a day has passed since you were born that I have not prayed for guidance."

He knew she had. It wasn't her fault.

Sage thought again about the upcoming music festival. Would Violet really go with him? The markets would buzz with street vendors, merchants, and traveling priests, which meant he might find someone who could help with his condition. His mother's prayers to Aurelia had gone unanswered for eighteen years. Maybe it was time to seek answers elsewhere.

Violet.

Thinking about her jolted him back to the present moment. He needed to get back to her. Make sure the sheep were all safe.

"I need a clean shirt, mother."

"You need to rest."

"I'll rest tonight. I won't be gone for long. Just need to check on Violet," he insisted.

Telethusa relented and turned to grab her son a clean shirt and helped guide it over his injured shoulder. "If you're not back before supper, I will not let you out of my sight for a fortnight."

"Don't worry," he said and leaned forward to kiss her cheek. Then he picked up his shepherd's crook and walked out the door, hurrying off down the path and over the hill to reach Violet.