a cardinal sang just for me
and I thanked him for the song
and I thanked him for the song
Two silk ribbons, their edges frayed and crusted with sand, trailed like a peacock’s limp plumage down either side of Caine’s wings. It was, at first, hard to tell their color under the wash of moonlight that frosted everything a sickly shade of grey. But the ribbons were cut of the same silk as the king’s bed sheets, Solterran-sewn and Solterran-dyed. Would Solis’ golden coat dare weaken to a ghostly grey under Caligo’s moon?
Caine clucked his tongue. Of course not. The sun dimmed for no one, least of all its sister moon.
In the monochrome night the gold and crimson ribbons were as stark as bone against his shadow. Gold, he thought as he turned to look at them, like the billowing capes of the imperial soldiers. And crimson, like —
He sighed as he looked at the bloodstain marring the lustrous gold. There hadn’t been time for him to be meticulous. The soldiers assigned to the ration carts were trained to anticipate attacks, no matter how early they took their shifts. Daylight no longer shielded soldiers of the Blood King from the rage of the starving citizens. Attacks on ration carts were becoming almost as common an occurrence as children dropping dead in the streets, skeletons wrapped in skin.
Even under the shadow cloak, after he’d struck the first soldier down Caine had barely managed to leap away from the flash of silver hissing down where he’d stood, its bewildered wielder hacking frantically at the presence he could not see. It had taken him longer to disarm the three soldiers than he’d anticipated. (He’d done more than disarm them. But didn’t he always?) Longer still to drag the stacks and stacks of food crates into an alley, to be found by a Rebellion member who would receive a strange note by hawk early in the morning, its contents limited to a location and a swirling capital V.
He couldn’t remember why he’d taken the ribbons affixed to the cart, marking it as property of the king. But he had, and had used them later to bind a shallow cut on his leg he didn't recall getting.
The events of yesterday night played back like a reel of damaged film, skipping whole scenes and blurring out the rest. The ribbons were an insignificant detail in a strike he'd planned for weeks. The first item on a list two scrolls long of threats to the Rebellion he had to eliminate, Raum's decrees he wanted to sabotage. The result of sleepless weeks walking on glass under the electric-blue gaze of a man more ghost than flesh, until he'd finally had what he needed.
And then he’d been sent to Denocte. His plans had vanished to smoke.
The Arma Mountains stretched out before him like the mouth of a grotesque beast, the cliffs its jagged, breaking teeth, the shrouding mist its putrid breath. Caine’s hooves moved to a mechanical and weary beat as he continued his ascent up the crumbling face. His wings had given out hours before, forcing him to attempt the climb from the ground.
A reedy cough snaked up his throat from a lethal combination of thin air and lack of rest. The ribbons fluttered weakly behind him, batting at his legs, and Caine dully considered throwing them off the side of the ridge. Touting Solterran imperial colors into Caligo’s hostile court was probably a death wish.
It took him too long to notice the girl.
His breath stilled when he saw the slope of a pale shoulder, the slip of a small hoof. A fragile little shadow leaning into the moon. Quickly, Caine tore the ribbons from where they hung over his shoulders, rolled them into a ball, and threw them into the churning mist below. He didn’t look to see them fall.
Instead, his jaw clenched as he considered how profoundly stupid he’d been keeping them on him for so long. He’d been careful, he was always careful, and he hadn’t run into anyone else when he’d crossed the borders of Solterra that morning (and he’d been in the air up until a few hours ago) but what if she had seen them? He couldn't rule out the possibility of her being Solterran.
His breath streamed out in a plume of white. What was she doing up in the Arma so late at night? Was she attempting the passage like he, ravaged with a similar aversion to rest? From what Caine could tell through the dark, she looked young — far too young to be traveling alone.
And, he realized with a start, she was standing dangerously close to the cliff’s edge. Parts of it crumbled away beneath her hooves, tumbling into oblivion, but the girl remained rooted there like a goddess turned to stone. He moved closer, puzzled, and watched her.
Twin horns of crystalline blue arced through the air, dazzling him with their blinding reflection. He narrowed his eyes and lowered his head resigned to slip past her, he had no reason to stay, until —
Those twin horns pointed down and down and down towards the swallowing blackness hundreds of feet below. Her hooves moved forwards, instead of back. His breath stuck like dry feathers in his throat. Was she going to...
“Hey,” his voice struck out, lightning on rock. “It’s not my place to interfere, but you won't find anything of value down there.” Something wound tight and panicked in Caine's chest. His pupils constricted to slits as he threw his telekinesis out towards her, pressing cold as a knife against her chest. Do not, it said, though his lips remained tightly sealed, his breath heaving clouds of winter snow.
Nothing. Nothing is there.
And then, as soft as a confession, he murmured, “I checked.”
