“I did not force you to come with me,” said Demelza.
“You are my pupil!” huffed the wyvern. “Rogue knowledge is a dangerous thing when one is clearly charged with emotion!”
“Dangerous,” muttered Demelza. “Is that why she wants me gone?”
Get rid of her.
Demelza did not want to think of her mother’s smell. She did not want to think of her cool hands checking her forehead for fever. Or the little boxes Araminta would hide under her pillow, full of candied aphids and sugar beetles.You are beyond precious to me, my little one.When had that changed? Demelza had read tales of heartbreak, but she had never known it. She had thought heartbreak was loudas a thunderstorm, but what she felt was far more quiet. Sinuous. It was a venom slipping into the cracks of herself, corroding memory and shadowing words. Bit by bit, the poison exposed a gleaming and terrible question:
What if Araminta was right? What if Demelza was a stain upon her family? What if she was better off… gone?
“You have not finished your thought!” said the wyvern. “Who wants what gone?”
“My mother wants me gone.”
The wyvern huffed. “Don’t be foolish, my dear.”
“I know what I heard, wyvern,” said Demelza.
“Let us assume you heard correctly,” said the wyvern. “Let us also assume that your thoughts on incinerating a parental figure after an argument remain outside the realm of possibility?” It looked at her almost hopefully.
“You assume correctly,” said Demelza.
The wyvern looked disappointed. “Well then, why haven’t you confronted them?”
“Who said I wasn’t going to?”
“You are marching with great determination toward a dried-up pond,” said the wyvern.
“It’s tradition,” said Demelza.
“I suppose you expect me to say something wise here, considering my status as an ancient, mythical being and whatnot,” said the wyvern.
“Are you ancient?”
“Oh yes,” said the wyvern. “I take great care of my fur though, so you would not be able to tell.”
Demelza touched her bare neck, imagining the weightof a small, silver key. A few years ago, one of Demelza’s sisters, Evadne, had been caught pretending to sing during morning music practice. Evadne had been complaining of a sore throat that morning and so instead of singing alongside her sisters, she merely opened and closed her mouth and figured no one would notice. But Prava saw. As punishment, he twisted her key and would not let her turn into a swan for a month. Evadne was scared of heights and she often complained that flying through the cold, thin air made her eyes water. But when Prava twisted her key, she wept every day. She wept when she walked to breakfast with Demelza and she wept as she rubbed her back along the stones as if she might coax out her wings by sheer force alone.
“But you don’t even like being a swan,” Demelza had said, trying to comfort her.
“I know,” said Evadne, miserable. “But now I feel wingless, Demelza. I feel like someone has manacled my feet and told me to fly. I feel like time has forgotten about me and refuses to pull me from one hour to the next and so I am trapped in this airless purgatory.”
Obviously, Evadne was their poet. Although she was prone to exaggeration, Demelza felt the truth of each word.
She was trapped. Not in her body, but in her spirit. Trapped in a way that made time seem terribly endless.
Demelza had excelled in her studies. In some areas, she had even surpassed her sisters. But where Demelza’s accomplishments were impressive, her sisters’ skills were important.
Each of her sisters had been sent on assignment to further their father’s pursuit of everlasting life and endless power. Her sisters were powerful, their lives full of purpose. And in her heart of hearts, Demelza did not simply want to join their ranks, but soar beyond anyone’s imagining. She dreamt of dragging renown in her wake. She dreamt of being looked at, instead of overlooked, to be draped in jewels and not reeds and for her name to be exhaled on a gust of wonder.
Do not fear, my strange little bird, her father had promised.I will find use for you yet.
But it seemed her father had lied. Demelza would never have the chance to prove all that she could do. She would be sent away and all for the crime of not being enough.
“What is it, child?” asked the wyvern.
“I feel… wingless,” said Demelza, at last.
