I'm tired of the weight of mortality.
I want to tear it from my bones,
until I bleed silver and gold.
I want to tear it from my bones,
until I bleed silver and gold.
C
aine drapes the shimmering, liquid silk — blacker than pitch — over his wing joints, and thinks of shadows.Shadows darker than a reaper's kiss. Shadows thicker than hours-old blood. Will they come? he wonders, silver eyes narrowed in hesitation. Will they listen? The shadows are not used to being called by mortal boys with magicked scarves. The shadows are not used to listening to anyone but gods, and even those, they sometimes defy. So they resist, until —
"Audierunt autem umbrae," Caine murmurs, tongue gliding over the foreign syllables. May the shadows obey me. He shuts his eyes and thinks of nightmares and constellations. He thinks of a boy with a coat blacker than pitch.
In the sunless spaces of the Elatus Canyon, the shadows begin to stir.
When the first shadow slips against him, pressing into his feathers, Caine shivers. He had not expected for it to feel... cold. But a floodgate has been broken, and he inhales sharply when they rush to him, all at once.
It feels a little like he is drowning. The shadows dance along his spine, prod against his legs. Tap against his mouth, but he snaps it firmly closed. Besides the chill, he does not feel much different. Not like when his illusions writhe in his chest like snakes. Alarm crawls into his throat when he wonders if the spell has failed.
Different magic behaves differently with every user, he reminds himself, silently reciting the opening lines of a grimoire he has memorized by heart. Magic chooses its master, and feasts upon the egos of men who believe the opposite.
Has the shadow veil's magic chosen him? Exhaling, Caine opens his eyes and hopes that it has.
It is nearing full noon now, the Solterran sun ascending to its highest peak. Light reflects off the crags of the red canyons, and, blinking, Caine looks out from the yawning mouth of the cave —
And smiles in boyish delight when he sees the world in black and white. He has succeeded.
Caine wears a cloak of shadows, and a laugh pours from his lips like light.
"Ego liberabit vos." I set you free. He feels the coldness leave him like a blast of frigid breath, and his silver eyes gleam like a mountain cat's when he watches the shadows melt like snow. A nifty trick he has gained.
He is lost in thought, pondering the variety of ways he could spy on Raum's movements now that he has the cloak, when he feels it. The prickling of his spine, the buzzing of his innermost wings, that warn of something ominous approaching. The boy has only felt this feeling a handful of times before, and twice it had ended with a knife in his gut.
Silently, he unsheathes his dagger and keeps it pressed against his shoulder. He won't let a third knife touch any of his valued organs, not when he is so far from the capital. And he'll be damned if his corpse is found cooling in the desert, of all places. (His thoughts cut suddenly to Fia, to the aspilia flowers she had found so easily in the growth of the Oasis. But the Oasis is far, and he suspects that aspilia alone will not be enough for a mortal wound.)
He starts to tuck himself deeper into the depths of the cave, when he sees her.
At first, the red of her pelt is almost indistinguishable from the red of the canyon walls, and Caine's eyes struggle to trace the outline of her in the harsh rays of the sun. His dagger inches forwards, following the curve of his neck. The way she moves is wrong, too swift and leonine to be anything mortal, he almost thinks, before his own ridiculousness catches up with him. He has seen a god, and up close, they look less and less like a god and more and more like something mortal.
He is not afraid. (He has never learned to be afraid.)
So he approaches her, his footfalls silent, his eyes appraising. And the closer he steps, the more she becomes a girl, until she can be nothing else but mortal.
The startling amethyst of her eyes lift towards him, and Caine's breath catches in his throat. It is the first time he has ever seen it staring back at him.
Hollowness.
He stares and stares. Is this what it looks like? And finally, his dagger forgotten, he speaks. "I had thought I was alone." He means alone, in the Elatus.
(He does not mean alone, in the Elatus.)
@Thana | "speaks" | notes: this... was not what I expected to write. but Thana sparked my muse <3
