The hours slip through my fingers as I write. I should have filled all the walls in this cell by now, but the words only stay for a while before disappearing, each a seed carried away by the wind. I might be writing them; I might be imagining them. Dreamless nights have me questioning the reality of my days.

The guards tell me you're dead, and the dead can't read. All I can do now is conjure you word by word and hope that you will appear. I don't care whether this is real or not. I'm willing to fool myself to see you again, Quinn. If nothing else is real, I know I am—you showed me that.

Our time together made me happier than I let on. You remained the librarian; I kept my regular hours. You talked to me whenever we deemed it safe. I continued to scoff at your attempts even as you became my only friend.

I'd read aloud to you passages from Harvestable fairy tales—stories about adventures in magical lands or battles against giant monsters. And you'd listen. Your gaze felt like the morning sun, heat rising with the hour.

You talked about your home, your parents and sisters. You rarely spoke of Mara.

I told you about growing up in Sprouts House, of a woman named Alma who had shown kindness to me as a child and had cried when I left. I named the flowers that grew on the riverbanks and in between rows of crops in the farm fields.

"I can't marry her," you said one day after I'd finished reading a story about a unicorn and her princess companion.

"Why, what's changed?"

"Everything." Your hands formed into fists. "I know you now."

"You have to marry her, Quinn." My mind spun, imagining impossible scenarios in which you didn't.

You slammed a fist down on a bookcase. "How can I sleep next to someone—with your face—who would sacrifice you for her own selfish desires?"

I held back tears. "We can't prevent that, but if you refuse to marry her, she'll find out about us. What will you dying as well solve?"

"I don't care if I die. I only care that you will."

"Quinn." I'd been taught my whole life that I was nothing but an upper's copy yet here you were, willing to sacrifice everything for me.

I shouldn't have let what was growing between us live, not if it meant we wouldn't. But I was taken with the moment. I stood in front of you, brushing my hand over your cheek. It was the first time we'd touched since that day at the river.

Your breath caught. That gaze of yours, no longer a morning sun but a blistering ball of fire at noon.

"Alma used to say I ran as the river flowed, and so, that's what she called me." I told you before I pressed my lips to yours. "River. I want you to call me that too."

#

I can only imagine your fear when I stopped coming to the library.

It wasn't my choice, as you know. There are many tests and scans that must be done prior to any harvest. When finally, I did return, you weren't alone. Two Rill uppers who moved in the same circle as Mara spoke with you at your desk as I made my way to the stairs.

I only caught the tail end of the conversation.

"She's looking forward to it. Women of her rank normally have that procedure done before marriage."

"It's customary," the second man said. He looked my way. "You won't be seeing that Harvestable much longer."

"What do you mean?" you asked, but your words were drowned out by the others' laughter.

I escaped downstairs, spending the next hour reading words without comprehending any of them.

They never tell us what we're going to be harvested for, only if it's to be the final harvest. The uncertainty made my hands tremble.

I couldn't bring myself to look at you when you entered the reading room.

You knelt, folding your arms around me.

"We have to do something. She's going to harvest your dreams, River."

#

The day before the dream harvest, I was allowed to go about my usual routine. We spent a dangerous amount of time together in the library. This likely didn't matter—she'd already found us out by then.

Dreams are one of the last things to be harvested, unless an upper needed an organ. But Mara was young and healthy. There were two younger Maraclones still at Sprouts House who could fill in if a kidney suddenly failed. What she wanted was to steal something from me that would make my life without it unbearable. And so, she settled for taking two such things, my dreams... and you.

Afterwards, she came to visit me in my room at the hospital.

"It took me a while to understand why you love Liege Quinn, Maraclone."

My heart sped. I wanted to claim ignorance, but my dreams had proven her suspicions.

"After a deep sleep, I get it. Your dreams paint quite an attractive picture of him. How sad." She pouted. "Just as I begin to find him appealing, I'll have to have him arrested."

"What?" My mind felt heavy as a rock. "No, he isn't to blame. I developed a crush, that's all the dreams meant."

"He's already confessed. Even tried to convince me to stop harvesting you." She wrapped a lock of my hair around her finger and yanked at it. "I explained to him that you were born for this. You owe your life to the harvest."

"He's ignorant. Convert him to Rill customs and the treaty between our lands can continue. Please, Mara!"

I'm her clone, but our smiles are not the same. The one she offered me then was cold and cruel. "I'm not sure if he deserves my mercy."

That night I was transferred to this cell, and here I've remained, hoping a merciless person decided to show you some.

Your wedding should have taken place yesterday but there were no festivities. No fireworks. Instead, the war cannons sounded from the direction of Forest Harbor.

I miss you, Quinn. All I have left of you is this river of words flowing from my mind. The final harvest will take place today, and these words will disappear from this wall as though I never wrote them. The mind that produced them, however, will be reborn in the fragments of memories and emotions Mara is harvesting from me.

She believes she is consuming me entirely. I believe I won't be killed so easily, especially if there's any hope you're still alive.

Hidden in the Harvestable books the uppers try to keep censored is the secret for surviving the final harvest.

This is my secret now, passed on to me through generations of Harvestables:

I will become a seed. My memories will sprout roots, and your love will nourish me.

She won't realize what's happening until I've grown strong enough to choke her out.

_______________________

Even when all hope seems lost, love endures. Thanks for reading my #ValentinesContest2022 entry!