we cannot simply sit
and stare at our wounds forever
and stare at our wounds forever
When the glass-boned girl pitched forwards with a startled “oh!”, teetering, teetering (like a little fairy on the lip of a rose petal, he'd later recall)—
For a moment, he didn't know it had been him. His intrusion that had pushed her cartwheeling over the edge, blue eyes wider than all the skies. His words that had loosened the stones beneath her hooves, pitching her afloat into crisp mountain air.
A horrific, bone-crunching fear lurched through the space between Caine's ribs when he realized. Blue-eyed fairy toppling over the edge!
Where were your wings, little fairy?
She — “You’re — !” She was going to die.
As a child, Death had been Caine’s constant, closest companion. Who else could've promised him solace, brought him the praise he so desperately sought? Only when fed with ripped-out life had his curse calmed. Only when singing his dagger along the curve of a throat had Agenor smiled. Death had pressed a child-sized scythe into his child-sized grasp, painted his pale eyes shut with scarlet blood, and in return —
It had only asked for his morality. Served fresh every evening, like a cut of tender lamb. For children, morality was a very small price to pay.
But something had changed, along the way. He didn't know what. Only, as he leapt into frantic motion, useless telekinesis grasping for the slippery ends of caramel hair—
Solterra—blood-borne Solterra, golden-duned Solterra, silver-skinned Solterra—had cut it’s heart out for him, and filled the holes eaten away.
He had learned how to be afraid.
(Later, after reconstructing his memories of the event over and over, ripping apart scenes and sewing together conclusions, he would remember most strongly: Time had not stood still.)
Caine knew he had only moments. Thinking became secondary as his limbs sprang into motion. Assassins lived their lives in moments.
He began counting.
One: black wings extending, black hooves following. (Two glass horns, darkness swallowing.)
Two: panicked breath heaving, panicked heart screaming. (Four little hooves, pulled down pleading.)
Three: ‘was I this far?’ pounding through his brain. (One slender body, swirled down the drain.)
He stopped counting when he dived, because all he felt was weightlessness (fear). All he knew was darkness (fear). Until —
Crash! A slender body slammed down upon his left wing. A shout. Hers? His? Both. He’d caught her.
But—he couldn’t slow their descent. Blood flooded his mouth as his teeth sliced open his tongue. He didn’t even taste it, because now the girl was slipping, and his left wings, crushed to the cliff walls, torn and bloodied, shook with the effort of bearing her weight. His right wings pushed down gallons and gallons of air, but he was tilting he was falling he was—
When Caine realized he couldn’t hold her, dread swallowed him whole and spit him back out like a marrow-sucked bone. Panic kills no one, Agenor crowed. Caine understood. Panic saves no one.
He had one choice. He looked at the girl, at those ice-blue eyes. He looked at the ground, so far below.
He said: “I’m going to drop you.”
And he dropped her.
The instant his left wings were free, down he dove after her ribbon-sleek tail. This time, he waited until his nose was almost even with her flank before flaring out his wings, wrapping his inner ones tightly around her body, and beating his outer wings with the fury of hell snapping at his heels.
Slowly, miraculously, they began to rise.
When they spilled back over the edge like drowned sailors dragging themselves to land, Caine heaved out a sticky mass of blood and spit and flipped onto his back, gasping for air.
The girl—where was she?
“Hey,” he called hoarsely, just as he had when she fell. “Little fairy. You alive there?” Punctuated his question with a dizzy, aching laugh.
So this was why he’d been given double wings, he thought. To save cliff-diving girls.
