Daughter of Smoke and Bone

45 MADRIGAL

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—