by Laini Taylor
54
MEANT
“My lord,” Madrigal’s throat went dry so her words were a rasp, near enough a throaty whisper to be mistaken for one.
Nwella and Chiro crowded behind her, and Thiago smiled, lupine, the tips of fangs appearing between his full red lips. His eyes were bold. They didn’t meet hers, but roved lower, with no effort at subtlety. Madrigal’s skin went hot as her heart grew cold, and she dropped into a curtsy from which she wished that she never had to rise and meet his eyes, but rise she must, and did.
“You’re beautiful tonight,” said Thiago. Madrigal needn’t have worried about meeting his eyes. If she had been headless, he would not yet have noticed. The way he was looking at her body in the midnight sheath made her want to cross her arms over her chest.
“Thank you,” she said, fighting the impulse. A return of compliment was called for, so she said simply, “As are you.”
He looked up then, amused. “I am beautiful?”
She inclined her head. “As a winter wolf, my lord,” she said, which pleased him. He seemed relaxed, almost lazy, his eyes heavy-lidded. He was entirely sure of her, Madrigal saw. He wasn’t looking for a gesture; there was not the smallest kernel of uncertainty in him. Thiago got what he wanted. Always.
And would he tonight?
A new tune struck up, and he tilted his head to acknowledge it. “The Emberlin,” he said. “My lady?” He held out his arm to her, and Madrigal went still as prey.
If she took his arm, did that mean it was done, that she accepted him?
But to refuse it would be the grossest of slights; it would shame him, and one simply did not shame the White Wolf.
It was an invitation to dance, and it felt like a trap, and Madrigal stood paralyzed a beat too long. In that beat she saw Thiago’s gaze sharpen. His easy lethargy fell away to be replaced by… she wasn’t sure. It didn’t have time to take form. Disbelief, perhaps, which would have given way in its turn to ice-cold fury had not Nwella, with a panicked squeak, placed her palm in the small of Madrigal’s back and shoved.
Thus propelled, Madrigal took a step, and there was nothing for it. She didn’t take Thiago’s arm so much as she collided with it. He tucked hers beneath his own, proprietary, and escorted her into the dance.
And certainly, as everyone thought, into the future.
He grasped her by the waist, which was the proper form of the Emberlin, in which the men lifted the ladies like offerings to the sky. Thiago’s hands almost completely encircled her slim midriff, his claws on her bare back. She felt the point of each one on her skin.
There was some talk between them — Madrigal must have asked after the Warlord’s health, and Thiago must have answered, but she could scarcely have related what was said. She might have been a sugared shell, for all that she was present in her skin.
What had she done? What had she just done?
She couldn’t even fool herself that it was the product of an instant and Nwella’s tiny shove. She had let herself be dressed like this; she had come here; she had known. She might not have admitted to herself that she knew what she was doing, but of course she had. She had let herself be carried along on the certainty of others. There had been a piquant satisfaction in being chosen… envied. She was ashamed of it now, and of the way she had come here tonight, ready to play the trembling bride, and accept a man she did not love.
But… she had not accepted him, and she thought now that she wouldn’t have. Something had changed.
Nothing had changed, she argued with herself. Love is an element, indeed. The angel coming here, the risk of it! It stunned her, but it changed nothing.
And where was he now? Each time Thiago lifted her she glanced around, but she saw no horse or tiger mask. She hoped he had gone, and was safe.
Thiago, who up until now had seemed satisfied with what his hands could hold, must have sensed that he was not commanding her attention. Bringing her down from a lift, he intentionally let her slip so he had to catch her against him. At the surprise, her wings spontaneously sprang open, like twin spinnakers filling with wind.
“My apologies, my lady,” Thiago said, and he eased her down so her hooves found the ground again, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her. She felt the rigid surface of his muscled chest against her own chest. The wrongness of it stirred a panic that she had to fight down to keep from wrenching herself from his arms. It was hard to fold her wings again, when what she really wanted to do was take flight.
“This gown, is it cut from shadow?” the general asked. “I can barely feel it between my fingers.”
Not for want of trying, thought Madrigal.
“Perhaps it is a reflection of the night sky,” he suggested, “skimmed from a pond?”
She supposed that he was being poetic. Erotic, even. In return, as unerotically as possible — more like complaining of a stain that wouldn’t come out — she said, “Yes, my lord. I went for a dip, and the reflection clung.”
“Well. Then it might slip away like water at any moment. One wonders what, if anything, is beneath it.”
And this is courtship, thought Madrigal. She blushed, and was glad of her mask, which covered all but her lips and chin. Choosing not to address the matter of her undergarments, she said, “It is sturdier than it looks, I assure you.”
She did not intend a challenge, but he took it as one. He reached up to the delicate threads that, like gossamers of a spider’s web, secured the gown around her neck, and gave a short, sharp tug. They gave way easily to his claws, and Madrigal gasped. The dress stayed in place, but a cluster of its fragile fastenings were severed.
“Or perhaps not so sturdy,” said Thiago. “Don’t worry, my lady, I’ll help you hold it up.”
His hand was over her heart, just above her breast, and Madrigal trembled. She was furious at herself for trembling. She was Madrigal of the Kirin, not some blossom caught in a breeze. “That’s kind of you, my lord,” she replied, shrugging off his hand as she stepped away. “But it is time to change partners. I’ll have to manage my gown on my own.”
She had never been so glad to be handed on to a new partner. In this case it was a bull-moose of a man, graceless, who came near to treading on her hooves any number of times. She barely noticed.
A different sort of life, she thought, and the words became a mantra to the melody of the Emberlin. A different sort of life, a different sort of life.
Where was the angel now, she wondered. Yearning suffused her, full as flavor, like chocolate melting on her tongue.
Before she knew it, the bull-moose was returning her to Thiago, who claimed her with his clutching hands and pulled her into him.
“I missed you,” he said. “Every other lady is coarse next to you.”
He talked to her in that bedroom purr of his, but all she could think was how clumsy, how effortful his words seemed after the angel’s.
Twice more Thiago passed her to new partners, and twice she was returned to him in due course. Each time was more unbearable than the last, so that she felt like a runaway returned home against her will.
When, turned over to her next partner, she felt the firm pressure of leather gloves enfold her fingers, it was with a lightness like floating that she let herself be swept away. Misery lifted; wrongness lifted. The seraph’s hands came around her waist and her feet left the ground and she closed her eyes, giving herself over to feeling.
He set her back down, but didn’t let her go. “Hello,” she whispered, happy.
Happy.
“Hello,” he returned, like a shared secret.
She smiled to see his new mask. It was human and comical, with jug ears and a red drunkard’s nose. “Yet another face,” she said. “Are you a magus, conjuring masks?”
“No conjuring needed. There are as many masks to choose from as there are revelers passed out drunk.”
“Well, this one suits you least of all.”
“That’s what you think. A lot can happen in two years.”
She laughed, remembering his beauty, and was seized by a desire to see his face again.
“Will you tell me your name, my lady?” he asked.
She did, and he repeated it—“Madrigal, Madrigal, Madrigal”—like an incantation.
How odd, Madrigal thought, that she should be overcome by such a feeling of… fulfillment… from the simple presence of a man whose name she didn’t know and whose face she couldn’t see. “And yours?” she asked.
“Akiva.”
“Akiva.” It pleased her to say it. She may have been the one whose name meant music, but his sounded like it. Saying it made her want to sing it, to lean out a window and call him home. To whisper it in the dark.
“You’ve done it, then,” he said. “Accepted him.”
Defiantly, she replied, “No. I have not.”
“No? He’s watching you like he owns you.”
“Then you should certainly be elsewhere—”
“Your dress,” he said, noticing it. “It’s torn. Did he—?” Madrigal felt heat, a ripple of anger flashing off him like a draft off a bonfire.
She saw that Thiago was dancing with Chiro, and was staring right between Chiro’s sharp jackal ears at her. She waited until the revolutions of the dance brought Akiva’s broad back between them, shielding her face, before answering. “It’s nothing. I’m not used to wearing such fragile fabric. This was chosen for me. I crave a shawl.”
He was tense with anger but his hands remained gentle at her waist. He said, “I can make you a shawl.”
She cocked her head. “You knit? Well. That’s an unusual accomplishment in a soldier.”
“I don’t knit,” he said, and that’s when Madrigal felt the first feather-soft touch on her shoulder. She didn’t mistake it for Akiva’s touch, because his hands were at her waist. She looked down and saw that a gray-green hummingbird-moth had settled on her, one of the many fluttering overhead, drawn to the expansiveness of lantern light that must seem like a universe to them. The feathers of its tiny bird body gleamed, jewel-like, as its furred moth wings fanned against her skin. It was followed shortly by another, this one pale pink, and another, also pink, with orange eyespots on its lacework wings. More floated out of the air, and in a moment, a fine company of them covered Madrigal’s chest and shoulders.
“There you are, my lady,” said Akiva. “A living shawl.”
She was amazed. “How—? You are a magus.”
“No. It’s a trick, only.”
“It’s magic.”
“Not the most useful magic, herding moths.”
“Not useful? You made me a shawl.” She was awed by it. The magic she knew through Brimstone had little whimsy in it. This was beautiful, both in form — the wings were a dozen twilight colors, and as soft as lamb’s ears — and in purpose. He had covered her. Thiago had torn her dress, and Akiva had covered her.
“They tickle.” She laughed. “Oh no. Oh.”
“What is it?”
“Oh, make them go.” She laughed harder, feeling tiny tongues dart from tiny beaks. “They’re eating my sugar.”
“Sugar?”
The tickling made her wriggle her shoulders. “Make them go. Please.”
He tried to. A few lifted away and made a circle around her horns, but most stayed where they were. “I’m afraid they’re in love,” he said, concerned. “They don’t want to leave you.” He lifted one hand from her waist to gently brush a pair from her neck, where their wings fanned against her jaw. Melancholy, he said, “I know just how they feel.”
Her heart, like a fist clenching. The time had come for Akiva to lift her again, and he did, though her shoulders were still cloaked in moths. From above the heads of the crowd, she was grateful to see that Thiago was turned away. Chiro, though, whom he was lifting, saw her and did a double take.
Akiva brought Madrigal back down, and just before her feet touched ground they looked at each other, mask to mask, brown eyes to orange, and a surge went between them. Madrigal didn’t know if it was magic, but most of the hummingbird-moths took flight and swirled away as if carried by a wind. She was down again, her feet moving, her heart racing. She had lost track of the pattern, but she sensed that it was drawing to its conclusion and that, any second, she would come around again to Thiago.
Akiva would have to hand her back into the general’s keeping.
Her heart and body were in revolt. She couldn’t do it. Her limbs were light, ready to flee. Her heartbeat sped to a fast staccato, and the remnants of her living shawl burst from her as if spooked. Madrigal recognized the signs in herself, the readying, the outward calm and inner turmoil, the rushing that filled her mind before a charge in battle.
Something is going to happen.
Nitid, she thought, did you know all along?
“Madrigal?” asked Akiva. Like the hummingbird-moths, he sensed the change in her, her quickened breath, the muscles gone taut where his warm hands encircled her waist. “What is it?”
“I want…” she said, knowing what she wanted, feeling pulled toward it, arching toward it, but hardly knowing how to say it.
“What? What do you want?” Akiva asked, gentle but urgent. He wanted it, too. He inclined his head so that his mask came briefly against her horn, sparking a flare of sensation through her.
The White Wolf was only wingspans away. He would see. If she tried to flee, he would follow. Akiva would be caught.
Madrigal wanted to scream.
And then, the fireworks.
Later, she would recall what Akiva had said about everything lining up, as if it were meant. In all that was to happen, there would be that feeling of inevitability and rightness, and the sense that the universe was conspiring in it. It would be easy. Starting with the fireworks.
Light blossomed overhead, a great and brilliant dahlia, a pinwheel, a star in nova. The sound was a cannonade. Drummers on the battlements. Black powder bursting in the air. The Emberlin broke apart as dancers shucked masks and threw back their heads to look up.
Madrigal moved. She took Akiva’s hand and ducked into the moil of the crowd. She kept low and moved fast. A channel seemed to open for them in the surge of bodies, and they followed it, and it carried them away.
55
CHILDREN OF REGRET
Once upon a time, before chimaera and seraphim, there was the sun and the moons. The sun was betrothed to Nitid, the bright sister, but it was demure Ellai, always hiding behind her bold sister, who stirred his lust. He contrived to come upon her bathing in the sea, and he took her. She struggled, but he was the sun, and he thought he should have what he wanted. Ellai stabbed him and escaped, and the blood of the sun flew like sparks to earth, where it became seraphim — misbegotten children of fire. And like their father, they believed it their due to want, and take, and have.
As for Ellai, she told her sister what had passed, and Nitid wept, and her tears fell to earth and became chimaera, children of regret.
When the sun came again to the sisters, neither would have him. Nitid put Ellai behind her and protected her, though the sun, still bleeding sparks, knew Ellai was not as defenseless as she seemed. He pled with Nitid to forgive him but she refused, and to this day he follows the sisters across the sky, wanting and wanting and never having, and that will be his punishment, forever.
Nitid is the goddess of tears and life, hunts and war, and her temples are too many to count. It is she who fills wombs, slows the hearts of the dying, and leads her children against the seraphim. Her light is like a small sun; she chases away shadows.
Ellai is more subtle. She is a trace, a phantom moon, and there are only a handful of nights each year when she alone takes the sky. These are called Ellai nights, and they are dark and star-scattered and good for furtive things. Ellai is the goddess of assassins and secret lovers. Temples to her are few, and hidden, like the one in the requiem grove in the hills above Loramendi.
That was where Madrigal took Akiva when they fled the Warlord’s ball.
* * *
They flew. He kept his wings veiled, but it didn’t prevent his flying. By land, the requiem grove was unreachable. There were chasms in the hills, and sometimes rope bridges were strung across them — on Ellai nights, when devotees went cloaked to worship at the temple — but tonight there were none, and Madrigal knew they would have the temple to themselves.
They had the night. Nitid was still high. They had hours.
“That is your legend?” Akiva asked, incredulous. Madrigal had told him the story of the sun and Ellai while they flew. “That seraphim are the blood of a rapist sun?”
Madrigal said blithely, “If you don’t like it, take it up with the sun.”
“It’s a terrible story. What a brutal imagination chimaera have.”
“Well. We have had brutal inspiration.”
They reached the grove, and the dome of the temple was just visible through the treetops, silver mosaics glinting patterns through the boughs.
“Here,” said Madrigal, slowing with a backbeat to descend through a gap in the canopy. Her whole body thrilled with night wind and freedom, and with anticipation. In the back of her mind was fear of what would come later — the repercussions of her rash departure. But as she moved through the trees, it was drowned out by leaf rustle and wind music, and by the hish-hish all around. Hish-hish went the evangelines, serpent-birds who drank the night nectar of the requiem trees. In the dark of the grove, their eyes shone silver like the mosaics of the temple roof.
Madrigal reached the ground, and Akiva landed beside her in a gust of warmth. She faced him. They were still wearing their masks. They could have stripped them off while flying, but they hadn’t. Madrigal had been thinking of this moment, when they would stand face-to-face, and she had left her mask on because in her imagining, it was Akiva who took hers off, as she did his.
He must have imagined the same thing. He stepped toward her.
The real world, already a distant thing — just a crackle of fireworks at horizon’s edge — faded away entirely. A high, sweet thrill sang through Madrigal as if she were a lute string. Akiva took off his gloves and dropped them, and when he touched her, fingertips trailing up her arms and neck, it was with his bare hands. He reached behind her head, untied her mask, and lifted it away. Her vision, which had been narrowed all night to what she could see through its small apertures, opened, and Akiva filled her sight, still wearing his comical mask. She heard his soft exhalation and murmur of “so beautiful,” and she reached up and took off his disguise.
