The Rose Bridge

A royal decree, meant to sort out the ownership of a town’s namesake bridge, throws the lives of eight young people into turmoil: three marriages are going to unite the three leading families and they will all be responsible for it—and, most importantly, for the tolls that are supposed to be paid to the King. The problem is, only one of the pairs actually wants to get married.

When Aelfric’s younger sister Leofeva runs away a few days before the ceremony, the new Queen’s handmaid, a powerful magic-user, decides that Aelf will do as a replacement—and turns him into a woman. If they can find Leofeva and persuade her to go through with the wedding, then the spell will wear off in a few days, but if not, Aelf’s going to be marrying one of his best friends.

The situation, of course, gets more complicated by the day, and they’re running out of time. Is there a way they can come out of this with a happy ending for all eight?

This is a fairly light-hearted romance-ish story—but please remember that it was written by a pansexual, poly, kinky, quoiromantic, autistic, nonbinary woman, so I make zero promises about whether I hit any normal tropes you might be expecting or looking for!

Trigger warnings: obviously, a non-consensual gender transformation and arranged marriage within a very loosely medieval culture. One of the three families, not the MC’s, is abusive; I don’t dwell on it at any length but it’s there, mostly but not entirely in references to the past.