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She was whole.
45
M ADRIGAL
She is a child.
She is flying. The air is thin and miserly to breathe, and the world lies so far below that even the moons, playing chase across the sky, are seen from above, like the shining crowns of children’s heads.
She is no longer a child.
She slips down from the sky, through the boughs of requiem trees. It is dark, and the grove is alive with the hish-hish of evangelines, night-loving serpent-birds that drink the requiem blooms. They’re drawn to her—hish-hish—and dart around her horns, stirring the blossoms so pollen sifts down, golden, and settles on her shoulders.
Later, it will numb her lover’s lips as he drinks her in.
She is in battle. Seraphim plummet from the sky, trailing fire.
She is in love. It is bright within her, like a swallowed star.
She mounts a scaffold. A thousand-thousand faces stare at her, but she sees only one.
She kneels on the battlefield beside a dying angel.
Wings enfold her. Skin like fever, love like burning.
She mounts the scaffold. Her hands are tied behind her, her wings pinioned. A thousand-thousand faces stare; feet stamp, hooves; voices shriek and jeer, but one rises above them all. It is Akiva’s. It is a scream to scour ghosts from their nests.
She is Madrigal Kirin, who dared imagine a new way of living.
The blade is a great and shining thing, like a falling moon. It is sudden—
46
S UDDEN
Karou gasped. Her hands flew to her neck and wrapped around it, and it was intact.
She looked at Akiva and blinked, and when she breathed his name, there was a new richness in her voice, an infusion of wonder and love and entreaty that made it seem to rise out of time. As it did. “Akiva,” she breathed with the fullness of her self.
With longing, with anguish, he watched her, and waited.
She dropped her hands from her neck and they trembled as she stripped off her gloves to reveal her palms. She stared at them.
They stared back.
They stared back—two flat indigo eyes—and she understood what Brimstone had done.
She finally understood everything.
Once upon a time,
there were two moons, who were sisters
.
Nitid was the goddess of tears and life,
and the sky was hers
.
No one worshipped Ellai but secret lovers
.
47
E VANESCENCE
Madrigal ascended the scaffold. Her hands were tied behind her, her wings pinioned so she couldn’t fly away. It was an u
“That is u
Thiago, the White Wolf, the general, the Warlord’s son and right hand, had ignored him. He knew it was u
He would be disappointed. He could bind her hands and wings, he could force her to her knees, and he could watch her die, but it was not in his power to make her repent.
She was not sorry for what she had done.
On the palace balcony, the Warlord sat in state. He had the head of a stag, his antlers tipped in gold. Thiago was in his place at his father’s side. The seat at the Warlord’s left hand belonged to Brimstone, and was empty.
A thousand-thousand eyes were on Madrigal, and the cacophony of the crowd was sharpening to something dark, the voices cresting to jeers. Feet stamped, thunderous. There had not been an execution in the plaza in living memory, but those gathered knew what to do, as if hate were an atavism just waiting to resurface.