When Bonner and I leave the grounds of the Copper Palace, we pass Zahi Zan and one of the pretty girls—the one dressed in buttery yellow—sitting on a stone bench next to a fountain. She laughs and throws her head back; he is making stupid faces. Neither of them notices us.
It’s not as though I’m being kidnapped or anything.
The trek back across the Jade Bridge is a mixture of trepidation and annoyance. Bonner doesn’t say where we are going, but all I have to do is ask myself, Where would I take a redwing if I captured one? So of course we are heading straight toward the crowds of High Ra Square and the Temple of Rasus.
Bonner squeezes my arm with his sweaty fingers as though he is physically controlling me. Even without my redwing blood, I could shake this bloated slug off me. But I cannot run—he knows where we live, where Jey goes to school. I can’t watch her every minute when it’s impossible for us to be together in public.
We veer off wide Ver’s Way, navigating damp alleys and side streets peppered with dark-windowed shops I would hesitate to explore. We pass a few little brown street gardens whose meager harvests look even more unappetizing than Jey’s tomatoes. Bonner pulls me along, breathing heavily. For all his bravado, I can tell he is afraid.
He chooses to take me along the back ways of Caldaras City rather than the crowded routes—the actions of a guilty man trying to hide his crime. But the result is that we are now alone in the spiderweb of run-down, forgotten lanes, and he doesn’t know what I am capable of. I don’t entirely know myself.
A raptor gleams in a little patch of sunlight, watching me with lazy interest. Scientists tell us raptors and great stritches and little parakeets are all strange, new versions of the terrible creatures that used to roam the land before human beings and Others, maybe even before Mol exploded out of the fiery depths. They are as ancient as the gods themselves, but they have not endured because of temples and worshippers and supernatural powers. The raptors, with their hollow bones and streamlined bodies, have survived because they adapt. They see reality for what it is, not what they wish it to be.
We’re getting closer to High Ra Square and the Temple of Rasus, and I don’t expect to be welcomed with open arms by the priests there. Or the guards. Mol’s blood, I hadn’t even thought about all the Temple guards. And there will be throngs of people in the square, and innocent worshippers in the Temple.…
I’m going to have to kill Bonner. Here. The realization jolts me.
He gives my arm a particularly zealous tug and I dig my heels in. We come to a stop. Four or five dirty stritches peer suspiciously from the shadows of a roughly soldered pen.
My feet burn with the power below them, roiling in the ground. The ball of energy at my core snaps and arcs.
Do I really want to do this?
“Come on.” Bonner wrenches my arm. He gives me a hard look, but I see the fear beneath. He is afraid of me, and he is right to be.
“Don’t do this, friend,” I say, looking deep into those arrogant, watery eyes, trying to see into the soul of a person who could profess to love my sister and then threaten to break her neck. A person who could kidnap someone who has never done him any wrong and hand her over to those who would kill her.
My fingers start to tremble, tingling with fire. The stritches shuffle quickly to the back of their pen, clustered in the shadow of a grimy metal half roof. Bonner is frozen, staring, finally aware of the perilous position he has put himself in. I could dull those watery eyes for good right now, and my sister would never have to know what happened. I could boil the blood inside his veins.
Do it now, I tell myself. My fingers are so hot, I could peel his skin with a touch.
“Let’s go, creature,” he hisses, puffing himself out like a rock thrush looking for a fight. “Get moving.”
Do it. I extend a hand. Bonner looks at it, wide eyed.
But suddenly, the dirty alley mist is disturbed by a small sound. A cough. I turn, ears prickling. There—so close, it’s amazing we didn’t see him—is a ragged man with shallow breath and hair like fine, junk wire. He sits in filth against a back wall, legs splayed as though they are no longer really a part of his body. A huge, ancient raptor with tattered feathers and its one eye closed is perched on the man’s bony shoulder, two old friends forgotten by the rest of the world.
The man looks up at me with blank, pink eyes, all memories of fear or anger or happiness long since evaporated. But through the emotionless haze, I can tell he is waiting to see what I will do next. He coughs again, and the big raptor opens its faded, golden eye and finds me. Does he know of redwings, this man? I will be the first one he has ever seen, and the last.
Bonner doesn’t even glance at them. “That’s enough, you. Move along. What’s the problem?”
“The problem?” I give him a stony glare, feeling three eyes on me all the while. Now I lean in close to my kidnapper and whisper, “The problem is that you’re on fire.”
In an instant, I grab Bonner’s hands and permit a small burst of flame to pounce through my fingertips. He screeches—dramatically, I think, since it’s just a small fire—and staggers, falling to the ground. “By all the—! What did you do?” He pats his raw hands against the greasy black dirt of this back lane.
For a moment, I think I hear more raspy coughing from the old man, but when I turn, his pink eyes are sparkling. He is laughing. I meet his gaze and can’t help but laugh along with him.
Bonner rises drunkenly. “Don’t—don’t you dare run, you monster!”
I cross my arms. “I won’t run. Not while my freedom is payment for my sister’s life. So you can keep your bloody hands to yourself.”
His eyes flash. “You’re going to die, redwing. The Beautiful Ones are going to rip your flesh from your bones.”
“If it keeps you away from my sister, let them do it,” I say. “That’s what love is, I suppose.”
“Love!” He looks genuinely astonished. “Love is protecting innocent people from evil! As if a thing like you could know anything about love.”
The skin on my face turns cold. I almost don’t recognize the fearsome voice that comes from my own throat. “What I do know,” I snarl, “is that I could kill you right now if I wanted. And it would be easy.”
We set off again, and Bonner doesn’t say another word. I glance back at the ragged man, but he and his companion have closed their eyes. They sit motionless in the dirty fog, and for all I know, they may go on like that until the end of time.
Now I have complicated matters. We step into a wide, noisy street and the just-brighter-than-shadows diffusion of light that passes for sunshine here. Since I did not kill Bonner in secret, I’ll have to escape once he has deposited me at the Temple, and pray I can make it back to Saltball Street to warn Jey before he realizes I’m missing. A slightly more delicate operation, I admit.
Moments later, we finally ascend the marble steps that lead to the great Temple of Rasus. The vestibule beyond the front doors is cavernous enough; I can’t imagine what the actual sanctuary is like. Bonner bows low as we enter, then gives me a look. I give him a look right back, all venom. No way. I’m not bowing. He squints as though he should have known I wouldn’t have the decency to thank the god who is about to smite me. Then he motions for me to follow him, even though that’s just what I’ve been doing for the last half hour. My work boots clop on the clean floor, white marble tiles that gleam with patches of sapphire, gold, and ruby from the light shining through stained glass windows.
A purple-robed priest, a rank above the blue lower priests, stands near the entrance to the sanctuary, but Bonner ignores him and pulls me to the side. There we wait for what feels like an eternity. Priests and civilians come and go, but Bonner pays them no attention. Eventually, another purple priest emerges from the sanctuary—the same one from the Jade Bridge and the murdered man—and Bonner is finally interested. They speak in low tones while I pretend to give a critical eye to the celestial scene carved into one of the vestibule’s sandstone pillars. The priest eyes me, then disappears through a modest door I can just catch sight of behind a large gold curtain. I wonder how long it will be before the Temple guards arrive.
It is not long.
* * *
Like any self-respecting temple, this one has a dungeon. I’m sure they have another name for it, like Righteous Correctional Detainment Area and Exercise Facility. But as someone who has read more than her fair share of penny pulps, I recognize the iron bars, dirty stone floors, and pieces of equipment that look extremely specialized without the nature of their specializations being immediately evident. The dim light from a few fat candles set in the walls creates the kind of gloom that gives rise to unwarranted panic.
Or completely warranted panic.
Bonner was ushered away, the purple priest’s hand on his back, a couple floors up. The guards and I continued to descend until bright gaslight, marble, and gold velvet were replaced with yellow flickers, bare stone, and suspicious stains.
My feet still burn, toying with invisible tendrils of flame that snake up from the earth under the floor, but as far as I can tell, escape is impossible from this room. One door, one staircase leading up, and probably fifty people I’d have to incinerate between here and the outside. Not ideal. I’ll have to wait a bit longer.
The Temple’s one-size-fits-all iron collar is fastened heavily around my neck. The attached chain must weigh nearly as much as I do, and I hunch forward to avoid it pulling my throat back and strangling me. And I realize I may be a blight on society, but is a chair too much to ask?
The two black-clad guards, a rugged, bearded man and a skinny, hollow-eyed woman, scowl at me from under their spiked iron helmets—representative of the sun’s rays, an idea that would work beautifully if the sun were black and terrifying.
“All right, what are you in for?” the bearded guard asks. “Fabrication or heresy?”
I frown. “They don’t tell you much, do they?”
“Fornication?” the hollow-eyed one offers.
“Now you’re making me blush.” I cross my arms. “Do you really not know why I’m here? How are you ever going to torture me properly?” Jey would be proud of how completely I’m concealing my fright. Well, almost. Just have to keep that loud heartbeat in check.
Sweat drips down the sides of my face. The dungeon is stifling. But the anticipation of my punishment, the mystery of it, is the worst part. My insides feel like they’re being squeezed by the very air in here.
The strange thing is how unafraid the guards are. Here they have a redwing, an ancient creature of evil and destruction, in captivity, and there are only two of them? As I look at their expressionless faces and spiritless movements, I sense an air of mundanity about the whole thing. According to legend, I want nothing more than the death of every human being in Caldaras, and I have the supernatural power to do it. Don’t they care? Shouldn’t they be terrified?
Not that I’m feeling very supernatural right now. I am hot and sticky and nervous. I have to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep my jaw from shaking.
The bearded guard says, “All right, then, off with her clothes.”
“Now, wait a minute—” I start, but the hollow-eyed guard already has her bony fingers on the buttons of my green gardener’s jumpsuit.
I can’t believe I was ever enthralled by human interaction, ever wanted someone to touch me. Human interaction is terrible. I elbow the bony fingers off, and the bearded guard says, “Ah, don’t rip your suit!”
They’re planning to—to I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it, and all he can say is don’t rip your suit? Does that mean the priests would be angry if they knew what these two guards are up to?
The bearded guard goes to a low shelf and retrieves a nasty-looking stritch whip. Sweat runs in rivulets down my temples now, but I don’t move.
The hollow-eyed guard puts her hands on her hips. “You want a lash across the face, miss?” she says. “Stritches are big birds. You know what a whip can do to a little thing like you? Slice your nose right off your face, or pop an eye out of its socket.”
“I’m not little,” I say, but the guard just puts a finger in her mouth and makes a pop! sound.
The bearded guard looks askance at her. “Rasus, what kind of mind do you have? Stop being creepy.” He turns to me. “That said, miss, I will ruin your face if you don’t cooperate.”
My throat tightens. Cruelty is much creepier wrapped in politeness. I edge away from the bearded guard into the shadows between candles.
“We need you to remove that uniform, miss,” the bearded guard says. “Just the top bit is fine.”
“No.” My hand flies to the topmost button of the slit that runs down one side of the jumpsuit’s front. I take another step back.
The hollow-eyed guard sighs and gives the other one a weary glance. “I’ll give her the choker.” The bearded guard pauses, but then nods, candlelight flickering in his eyes.
The choker is not creatively named. My collar is designed with a clever spring and lever mechanism that someone so inclined can use to apply and relieve pressure to my throat. The hollow-eyed guard holds the trigger, leaning casually against the blackened stone wall as though she has better things to do.
She only has to squeeze once. The shadowy dungeon becomes a haze of painful red sparks dancing before my eyes, and I know I would rather remove the jumpsuit than get choked again.
I don’t give the bearded guard the satisfaction of undoing my buttons himself. I slide my arms out of the sleeves and let the top half of the suit fall. I know I should feel shy—I know about modesty and nakedness—but truthfully, nothing feels as shocking or invasive to me as simply being seen, acknowledged, clothes or not. Even now, with half the jumpsuit around my waist, what bothers me most is that these two guards know I exist.
“Turn around,” the bearded guard says, businesslike. Hesitantly, I turn. I feel him approach from behind, hear the stritch whip dragging on the gritty floor behind me. Then he pauses. “Is this some kind of joke?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Unless I really don’t get it.”
“What’s the matter?” the other guard asks. I try to turn back as she crosses to us, but the bearded guard pushes me back in place.
The hollow-eyed guard runs her hand down my back. She grabs a fat candle off the wall and brings it closer, illuminating my thousand scars. “What in wet hell is this?” she says.
Don’t these people attend Temple? Do they know anything?
“These scars are old,” the bearded guard says. “Look, they’re all healed up.”
“Damn it all.” The hollow-eyed guard traces the ridges on my back with her finger.
“The problem with this organization—and I’ve been saying this for years—” the bearded guard starts.
“I know, I know,” the hollow-eyed guard jumps in. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“A lack of communication,” the bearded guard says.
“Would it kill them, I mean would it kill them to keep track of these things?” The hollow-eyed guard sighs heavily. “I was eating my evening meal, you know.” She moves away from me, and I turn around, the heavy chain swinging awkwardly.
“I know,” the bearded guard says, then looks at me. “All right, get dressed. Hurry now. The Onyx Staff wants to see you.”
Well, I think as I start to do up my buttons, this may have been the oddest torture session ever to take place in the Temple of Rasus.
* * *
The fearsome high priest known as the Onyx Staff is probably the last person in Caldaras City most people would expect to find reading aloud from Merry Mother May’s Big Book of Fairy Stories for Well-Behaved Children. But I am harder to surprise than most people. I don’t even raise an eyebrow when he starts in on “The Tale of the Blind Miller” as we stand before a group of twenty or so priests of varying rank in an almost oppressively warm candlelit room.
Not that the Onyx Staff would have made a good First School teacher. There is no comfort in his deep voice as he reads to the gathering. “But the Miller,” he intones, “though he could not see the two men, was not fooled by their disguises, for he heard the likeness of their voices and knew them for what they were.” He gives me a hard stare clearly meant to be meaningful. From his perch on a high, wooden chair at one end of the small room, the Onyx Staff reminds me of an illustration of the wild raptors on the cliffs of Drush, their white feathers smoothed against the wind, their beaks dulled by the gritty air.
For all the stairs the guards and I climbed, we must be somewhere near the top of the Temple, but the room’s one meager, brown window offers little insight into the world outside. The priests, their faces obscured by bandannas, are quiet. I don’t look at them, these people who have nothing better to do today than watch this nonsense. Instead, I keep my eyes focused on the face of the Onyx Staff, his white hair shining in the gleam of the small window. The light does little to soften his cruel edges.
I stand at the other end of the room with my wrists chained to the floor. Indistinct shapes crowd the room’s shadows, spiky iron devices and asymmetrical structures I don’t really want to think about. Behind me, the wall is carved with a relief of Rasus, the many-handed sun. “Are you familiar with the story of the blind miller, Beloved?” the Onyx Staff asks.
I clench my fingers. The iron cuffs are starting to chafe. “Yes, Your Benevolence.” My voice is muffled by the still, hot air of this cramped room. “My father read me fairy tales just like everyone else’s parents did. And he did the voices much better than you, although I’m certainly willing to hear your Harko the Happy Bat if you’d like another shot.”
Someone snickers, but quickly stifles it. Maybe some of them will feel bad for me. Hey, remember that girl? She was feisty, wasn’t she? I mean, unspeakably evil, yes, but haven’t you always wanted to give the high priest a bit of lip?
The Onyx Staff continues to stare at me with all the warmth of a dead maggot. “The miller in this story discovers the secret the merchant and the tailor are hiding,” he says. “What is that secret, Beloved?”
“I plead silence, Your Benevolence,” I say, “so that I might not spoil the ending for these good priests.”
Scattered laughter bubbles from underneath a few bandannas. Nervous eyes glint in the gloom. Are the faithful starting to wonder if the Onyx Staff will raise the actual onyx staff he holds in his right hand and bash my head in with it before a verdict can be reached?
But he doesn’t. Instead, he gives us all his sourest frown and says, “I do not accept your plea of silence in this instance, Beloved, and if you want to have any hope of convincing the Temple of your innocence, I’d advise you to answer all questions simply and truthfully.”
My lungs expand, stretching my skin tight. The scars on my back seem to writhe like living things trying to burn themselves off my body. Convincing the Temple of your innocence. It’s possible, then. Maybe I’ll make it out of here with everyone in one piece after all.
“Then the simple truth,” I say, “is that I have not been accused of a crime.”
Two or three priests mutter in protest. The Onyx Staff leans forward into the light from the dirty window. “I will repeat my question: What is the secret of the merchant and the tailor?”
I grow weary of this game. Everyone knows this story. “They are twins.”
“Twins?” He arches a feathery brow. “And why should that be kept secret?”
I snort in derision. “For a high priest, you are awfully unfamiliar with mythology.” One of the priests in black lashes my head with a stritch whip I didn’t know was there, slicing my ear. Warm blood oozes under my hair. I can’t lift a hand to rub it, and its tickling bothers me more than the pain.
“Pardon me,” the Onyx Staff says lightly. “I didn’t catch that.”
You don’t have to enjoy this, you wicked old beetle. I don’t say it aloud. Instead, “The merchant and the tailor are not human twins, and so do not bear the mark of a priest on their foreheads. They are the offspring of a human being and an Other.”
“Ah, fairy tales,” he says to the others. “Children’s stories. Isn’t that what these are, Beloved?” He holds the storybook up as the group murmurs hesitant assent. “Drivel with no place in a court of law.”
This isn’t a court of law. For one thing, there is no judge, jury, or scrivener. There is no list of charges signed by an officer of the Commandant. There is only the Onyx Staff.
The high priest lets the storybook fall to the floor with a thud. “Yes, as children, we all heard the old stories of Other princes and princesses, and as adults, we abandoned them. After all, this is the modern age, one of machines and locomotion and equality. Surely we have outgrown fairy tales. Yet…”
At his pause, the priests shuffle their feet nervously.
“Yet,” the Onyx Staff continues, “to this day, twins are marked with a priest’s razor so that we may know them as human and good.” He turns to me. “Beloved, what is a redwing?”
“It is a type of flower,” I say, “that can cure forty-seven different ailments.”
My answer is technically true, but the priest in black flicks his stritch whip again anyway, now across my back. The crack is more impressive than the injury this time, but I don’t want to press my luck further. Next time it could be my eyes.
“You are absolutely right to scorn such a question, my dear. I doubt these learned people need such a thing explained to them.” The Onyx Staff takes a step, his white robes catching patches of brown light. “Of course, everyone knows redwings do not exist. The beings known as Others have not lived in Caldaras for a thousand years, isn’t that right?” He spreads his arms and smiles at the gathering. “In any case, surely no one who gave birth to a creature as monstrous as a redwing would allow it to live.”
“Surely not,” I say darkly.
“But,” the Onyx Staff goes on, his voice suddenly quiet and eerie, “despite what ‘everyone knows,’ there are those of us who remember a different story. We remain vigilant, beautiful in the eyes of our god.”
The Beautiful Ones.
Now the Onyx Staff addresses me. “You do not bear the priest’s mark, Beloved, and we know you to be a twin.” A few contemptuous exclamations rattle the thick air. The Onyx Staff looks to one of the purple-robed priests. “Brother Bonner, would you step forward, please?”
My kidnapper detaches himself from the shadowy group and slouches toward me. Not too close. I resist the urge to spit at him.
The Onyx Staff speaks in a calm voice. “This is the brave young man who discovered the unmarked twin in our midst—the monster.” He turns to Bonner. “All of Caldaras owes you a debt of gratitude, Beloved. Now, if you could do us one more service.”
Bonner nods. “Anything, Your Benevolence.”
“I would like you to answer a question,” the high priest says. “How can we identify a redwing?” Bonner’s eyes flick to the black-clad priest with the stritch whip, but the Onyx Staff chuckles and says, “Do not fear, Beloved. You have done nothing wrong. I am merely giving you the opportunity to prove your case to our brothers and sisters.”
Relief floods Bonner’s face. “Scars,” he says.
The Onyx Staff looks at me. “If you would be so kind as to kneel, Beloved,” he says gently, and in a split second, I’m struck again with the stritch whip, this time on the back of the legs. I fall hard onto the floor, smashing my knees. The chains around my wrists jerk, making terrible clanking sounds that fill the quiet space. I am coughing when the Onyx Staff says, “Are you prepared to provide the evidence for this, Brother Bonner?”
I can see Bonner sweating. He doesn’t know if I have scars or not, and it’s possible he’s been wasting everyone’s time. I glare at him, glad he gets to stew a little before this is all over. His turnip face glistens.
Seriously, Jey, this clod?
He approaches me hesitantly. The Onyx Staff motions for me to turn around, and the priest in black pulls on my chains. I comply, and soon feel the timid scrape of a blade at the back of my neck.
The little dirtbag, he’s actually going to slice my clothes off. I hear the fabric of Jey’s green gardener’s jumpsuit slowly ripping. He doesn’t have to rip it all the way down, but he does anyway, and my naked, scarred back is on thrilling display for the whole room.
“Behold the righteous scars forever carved into the back of every wicked redwing! Behold the proof of the gods’ eternal anger!” The Onyx Staff’s voice cuts the stale air as the room erupts in shouts and cheers and anger. “Now we strike for the second, and final, evidence.” The black-clad priest prods me to turn and face the room again.
“Let us see,” the Onyx Staff bellows, “what flows through the veins of this creature!”
One of the purple priests approaches, wielding a shiny dagger set with stones that sparkle. Bonner, eyes wide, steps aside as the purple priest takes my hand, extending my arm and pushing the sleeve of my jumpsuit up to my elbow. He rests the blade of the dagger against my skin.
“My ear’s bleeding already,” I offer. “I can’t quite reach my hair, but you could just lift it up and show everyone if that’s easier.”
“Be quiet,” he snaps, pressing the blade. With a quick motion, he slashes the dagger across my forearm. I feel nothing, but blood gushes out—more than I would have imagined.
Bonner steps back, horrified. “It … it really is black,” he murmurs as the liquid drips down my fingers and pools on the dimly lit floor. I stare at my wound, slightly perplexed. It doesn’t even sting.
“What did you expect?” I ask. Then, just to be nasty, I give him a good snarl. He jumps six inches into the air. I can’t help but laugh. It comes out as a strangled cough.
The room is in a frenzy now. “The blood of evil!” the Onyx Staff says. “No human goodness resides in the veins of this creature! Brothers and Sisters, look upon this redwing, and look upon your doom!”
Breathe, I think. They don’t know how much doom I could bring them.
And I find myself waiting for it. I want to lose control. I want to blame my evil blood for the mayhem I will rain down upon this sanctuary.
“I am condemned, then?” I say. “You’re certain of that?”
“One does not condemn a monster to death.” The Onyx Staff raises one thin eyebrow. “One only has to capture it, and give it what it deserves.” He motions, a twitch of his fingers, and I hear gears clank somewhere behind me.
The places where the stritch whip struck me ache in earnest now, but I raise my chained arms as best I am able. Hot spikes of power find their way through the bones of the Temple, up through this metal floor, up through my legs. “Then I condemn you.”
My first burst of fire almost hits home. I see a distinct flash of surprise contort the Onyx Staff’s face as flames erupt from my hands. Priests dive and shout.
But before I can strike fully, I’m knocked backwards by harsh jets of water that come javelining out of what I now realize are large pipes edging the room. The torrent pushes me back against the carved wall, and as I thrash, I see the assembly regaining its composure.
Damn it to wet hell. If I’d attacked only moments earlier, they’d all be smoldering piles of righteousness by now. But I just had to know that I was to be condemned, that I was out of options, didn’t I? Imbecile. I had to be able to justify. As if a raptor needs to justify its talons, or a volcano its lava.
I struggle to stand, thick jets of water forcing me ever backwards, my chains slicing into my wrists as I writhe. The Onyx Staff shouts above the din, and priests scramble to pull levers and turn valves. I’ve got to regain control, call back my fire.
Then, with a groan, the floor begins to tilt.
I slip, liquid over smooth metal, sliding away from the priests and the Onyx Staff. Through gasps and rushes of water, I see them illuminated by white sun instead of dingy secondhand window light. That can only mean—
I twist to find open air behind me. The mechanisms in the floor are winding it down away from the wall, a jaw opening as the priests watch from their level platform. I’m sliding toward sky.
My feet scrabble for purchase, but the floor is too slick. I wrap my fingers around the chains at my wrists, the only things between me and the high mist, as the outside pours in.
Soon the floor is gone entirely. The jets of water stop. And I hang.
Through the glare, my eyes register the delicate emerald rainbow of the Jade Bridge stretching into the mist far to my left. My gaze travels upward, into the blinding white fog behind which a sun must surely burn somewhere, then down.
I am two hundred feet above boiling Lake Azure Wave. The back of the Temple juts out over the water; there is nothing below me but bubbling aquamarine.
“Breathe easy, Beloved.” The Onyx Staff leans out from the dark opening above me. “May the Long Angel guide you to the Eternal Garden.” And he turns, disappearing once again into the recesses of the temple.
How long do they intend to leave me out here? My arms are already sore. I need a plan. The scars on my back crackle and burn, but I swing my legs, trying to connect with the hanging flap of what used to be the floor. I kick at it, but my boot just slides.
Maybe I can climb back up my wrist chains. I grab one and hoist with every drop of strength I can muster. The little room is only about ten feet above me. The chains grow tighter as I make what little progress I can, closing the distance.
Then another metallic creak sounds from near my head, and the manacles open. It is all I can do to grab a chain with my now free hands and cling.
I’m not meant to hang here after all. I’m meant to fall.
No matter. Same plan. I hang on with my left hand and reach with my right. But the chain is surprisingly rust-free and smooth, and there’s nothing I can do to stop my fingers from sliding along its wet surface.
I remember the words I scratched into my journal as a child, when I first started trying to understand myself: Fact: Redwings don’t actually have wings.
That’s too bad, I think as the chain slips from my grasp. I manage to make one last grab at it before I plummet two hundred feet into the boiling water of Lake Azure Wave.