Far away the water drip, drip, drips from the fat black clouds and Andras hears its voice deep in him, booming. Inside he is booming, too, the kind of voice that aches out of him like a wobbling guitar string and sinks down the old tree to the forest floor where Ipomoea stands, saying nothing, just tipping back his head to squint into the treetops, smeared in forks of blue light.
Andras wonders if anyone sees him and thinks of a beacon. Andras wonders if anyone sees him and thinks anything of him at all.
The Warden tips his own head down and his body chases it, dark wings unfolding to float him toward the base of the old, creaking tree, where everything is sharp: the petrichor, the low branches, the old ferns, the lines of the king's face. Andras knows if he touched that frown he would bleed himself out.
(Andras wonders what Ipomoea looks like, wrapped in rage. He thinks this is close. He knows this is not close enough.)
Ipomoea steps to the side and Andras sees the tracks, deep-set and clean. The clay is wet and soft from the spring melt and the curve of each print is black against the red-brown of the wet, dead leaves that surround them.
Tracks, Andras thinks. Always tracks. Tracks in the woods steeped in blood and the stench of money. He doesn't smile--and they, two boys in the woods with matching, grim frowns--look more alike than I think either would like to admit. The Warden looks up at his king and sizzles as an arc of electricity tiptoes from his brow to the base of his neck.
"No, it doesn't look that way." he agrees, with a sort of measured stillness that is uncharacteristic. His eyes linger for a second longer, just long enough to ask--something, though he isn't sure what, before Andras folds his wings over his back and ducks into the overgrowth, following the trail.
He has seen gods. He has seen monsters. He does not want either.
Andras wonders if anyone sees him and thinks of a beacon. Andras wonders if anyone sees him and thinks anything of him at all.
The Warden tips his own head down and his body chases it, dark wings unfolding to float him toward the base of the old, creaking tree, where everything is sharp: the petrichor, the low branches, the old ferns, the lines of the king's face. Andras knows if he touched that frown he would bleed himself out.
(Andras wonders what Ipomoea looks like, wrapped in rage. He thinks this is close. He knows this is not close enough.)
Ipomoea steps to the side and Andras sees the tracks, deep-set and clean. The clay is wet and soft from the spring melt and the curve of each print is black against the red-brown of the wet, dead leaves that surround them.
Tracks, Andras thinks. Always tracks. Tracks in the woods steeped in blood and the stench of money. He doesn't smile--and they, two boys in the woods with matching, grim frowns--look more alike than I think either would like to admit. The Warden looks up at his king and sizzles as an arc of electricity tiptoes from his brow to the base of his neck.
"No, it doesn't look that way." he agrees, with a sort of measured stillness that is uncharacteristic. His eyes linger for a second longer, just long enough to ask--something, though he isn't sure what, before Andras folds his wings over his back and ducks into the overgrowth, following the trail.
He has seen gods. He has seen monsters. He does not want either.
let this whole town hear your knuckles crack
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
