The Shape of Fear, the Shape of Love
written by: Patricia Furstenberg
The coat hung from the rafter peg like a memory, its shoulders folded inward as if still guarding a secret. I stepped closer, drawn the way one is to the scent of bread baked long ago; warmth imagined, not felt.
I lifted it from the hook and brushed the dust from its folds.
My old coat.
The wool was thinner than I remembered, threadbare in places, but it still held the shape of me. A faint stain clung to the hem; resin from the pine trees above Bran Castle where I’d crouched beside V., binding a wound too deep for field bandages.
Or perhaps it was foxglove tincture, spilled the day he gashed his palm-splitting wood and wouldn’t let anyone else tend it.
And, there, the uneven seam across the shoulder where I had sewn a dried leaf to patch a tear. A tear made the night we lost too many men and too little ground. I’d pressed the leaf from one of the trees outside Kronstadt, the ones he liked to walk beneath when he needed quiet. Its veins delicate and stiff.
How young I had been. How certain.
I traced the thread with my fingers.
V.
I hadn’t thought of him with such simplicity in years.
Not “my lord,” not “the Voievod,” just V. The man who once walked into my life like thunder veiled in civility; who had trusted my hands when they still trembled with learning; who once warmed this coat with his presence beside mine and his Vitejii, his Brave Ones, shoulders barely touching by firelight.
My breath snagged like thread on a thorn.
Outside, the wind bit.
The sun sagged low over the hills.
At the gate, a bent woman passed, arms folded tight around her chest, her back curved with every year that winter had not spared her.
Something shifted in me.
Without thought, I bundled the coat under my arm.
Without thinking, I stepped over the threshold. I ran.
Her clothes were as thin as onion skins. Her skin looked like bark. A brittle cough cracked through the stillness like a twig under frost.
The wind caught at my skirts.
“Wait!” I called.
She turned, wary, but I offered the coat with both hands.
“Take this. Please. Here,” I said, draping the coat around her shoulders. “It’s warm still. It remembers how to be kind.”
The woman blinked. Her eyes, faded like watered ink, welled.
“Bless you, child,” she murmured, fingers pressing to the wool as if it were holy.
I smiled, half-turned to go, not wanting to see her cry.
“Goodbye,” I whispered. To her, to the coat, to that girl who’d once worn it thinking herself part of something larger than fate.
“This coat,” She patted her new pockets with a curious look, fingers dipping into one. “It’s got kindling paper inside! Bless you twice! Tonight I’ll be warm and have light!”
She pulled something out and waved it above her head, laughing with a lightness that seemed far too young for her bones. A folded sheet. Pale. Sealed.
My breath hitched.
No.
That couldn’t be—
But my gut twisted, instinct bristling like hackles raised in a storm.
“No!” I gasped. “Please,” I called. “That paper. Let me see it.”
She clutched it closer.
“A gift’s a gift. Besides, Paper is dear.”
“It’s a mistake,” I said, stepping closer. “That’s not kindling, it’s—it’s important. I need it. Please.”
I took a step closer.
“There’s writing. It was never meant for flames.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“Old coat. Old paper. All the same.”
“And you may keep it,” I said quickly, “but I will trade you something better for that paper.” I tried again. “I’ll trade you—my gloves. Look—they’re lambskin. And dry.”
Her chin lifted, stubborn.
“Coat had no gloves in the bargain.”
“One of my hair combs?” I offered, tugging it free. “It’s brass. Polished.”
She smiled, but her head still shook.
“No comb needed.”
A pause. Then—third breath.
“Three cloves of garlic,” I added. “And a string for your firewood.”
At that, she hesitated. Then, with a theatrical sigh, she surrendered the paper.
“Three. And I’ll count.”
“You may,” I said and held it to my chest.
Unopened.
Unsent.
His.
A single letter, lost in the folds of a coat worn through winters, now found on the cusp of exile. I waited until I was alone again.
Then I broke the seal.
“V.”
***
To K,
The only one who ever watched, and saw.
They say I feast on blood. Impale the innocent. Gut without cause. Burn. Maim. They whisper it in the dark, like a prayer and a curse woven into one. But they never ask why.
Let them believe I’m the monster they made. I fed their lies until they choked. Until the rumor of my name made silk-clad men piss themselves.
Nothing else worked. Not honesty. Not law. Not loyalty. They spit on truth.
So I gave them fear.
Fear is the only coin they never counterfeit. Once it circulates, they hoard it.
Let them.
I have no use for comfort.
But you, I know you would understand.
I watched cities crumble while lords played chess with foreign crowns. Bartered my youth beneath the Ottoman sun. Learned the language of steel, of betrayal. And when I returned they asked for etiquette. For mercy.
I gave them survival. And, for that, they called me mad.
Do they speak of the fields I sowed with grain? The coin I melted to feed my own, while they fattened on bribes? Of the men I trained, the borders I held, the foreign rot I carved out with my own blade?
No.
They remember the forest of stakes.
And perhaps they should. Because nothing else works. Not reason. Not treaties. Only fear cuts clean.
I do not write to excuse it. I need no absolution.
And I make no promises. Not of peace—I may not live to see it.
But I will say this: I am not what they claim.
And I remember.
Everything you gave. Everything you were. Everything they’ve taken from both of us.
I wrote because I thought of your hands. How they never flinched when blood spilled. How they stitched shut what others turned away from. You looked. You saw. You listened when I spoke and knew I meant more than war. How you bore the weight without asking me to set mine down.
They want a monster? Then let it be so. I chose this shape. Because nothing else protects what I love. If they want a dragon, I’ll give them fire. And when the smoke clears, they’ll understand: it was never madness.
It was precision.
It was duty.
It was love.
For a land no one else would bleed for.
And for you, who knew me best.
If they think their lies can end me—
They never knew me at all.
Tell me you still do.
Tell me you remember.
—V
***
A single letter.
Unsent.
Unanswered.
NOTE:
Based on the Prompt – The Last Letter
- A Bead of Ice - December 5, 2025
- The Light Behind a Lighthouse - July 29, 2025
- The Shape of Fear, the Shape of Love - June 24, 2025
