I hate those moments. With all I am, I hate them! Would that I could forget the creature that came before me. That his perfect young reflection would be stricken from my mind. I am thankful I never experienced soaring through the clouds outside of my dreams, that royal guards fell upon me before I could have the chance to take flight. I’ve lost enough. To be familiar with the taste of the rivers of the wind only to be further denied would be too much. I could take no more.
Better to know there was nothing before. I have been a slave for nine years. Before that, I was nothing. That prince? That wasn’t me. He was carefree, blissfully ignorant. Arrogant. Happy.
Yet, as I watched Xenith from afar, I couldn’t help but see the prince I used to be. In every movement, he was confident. Xenith was not cruel to the lesser around him, nor did he notice them. He came and went from his chambers, free and the rightful heir apparent. Fairy monarchy is chosen by their beauty and their ability to reproduce that aspect in their offspring. Xenith earned his position. I did not.
Like Xenith, I had been a beautiful child. Perfect in every feature. My royal parents did not need to be concerned. I should have realized they had their doubts when Xenith was born during my eighth year. He was doubtlessly the hedging of a bet—though I didn’t know it then. Indeed, from his birth until my rebirth, I rarely left his side. I loved him more than my own life. I was selfish in every way, save him. And in return, he adored me. Of course, all that changed, as surely as my clear, useless pupa wings of childhood transitioned into those of a swan. It would not do to have contact with a malformed brother. Quay was no more. I was dead to my parents, to the fairy population, and to Xenith.
At least that was what should have been. And with one exception, how it had been.
Unlike Xenith’s rebirth, there had been no mating celebration to welcome me into adult life. Before my wings could lift me into the air, they were upon me, my mother’s guards pinning me down in front of the horde that would have been my subjects. Their riotous cheers drowning out my cries of agony as the royal guards ripped my silvery white feathers out of my wings, leaving them nothing more than bloody, fleshy spikes jutting out of my back. Even my screams during my castration could not be heard over the tumult. They branded the left side of my face, the side that hadn’t been malformed, marking me a servant to all. As if their burning brand was not evidence enough, the brutality of their public rape confirmed that I was no longer royal, no longer a prince to rule, but a being to be used by whomever crossed my path.
While I’d had only the slightest worry before my rebirth, nothing more than a fleetingwhat-if, even if I’d given more than a momentary thought to the possibility of not retaining my status, I wouldn’t have understood where my fate would leave me.
A rebirth that leads to physical imperfection ends in exile. They are left to be nothing more than the forgotten of our society, save for the New Moon celebrations, which includes all of fairy descent. They truly are the forgotten. Before my own transition, I’d only had a vague awareness of their existence. They did not affect my life to any degree. They were below even my thoughts. I was beautiful. I was royal. I was a fairy. They were… other.
After my rebirth, the outcasts of our society are still other. For them, I feel jealously. I covet what they have. I am not an outcast. I am the abomination, the failure, the vile. I am the fallen. As such, I am punished.
I failed my family. I betrayed their blood. As a result, I live only to serve witness to their purity.
Though I wish for death, long to escape my torment, my reflection is all that is required to confirm that I have earned my fate. It was weeks after my rebirth before I saw my transformation. The branding had healed, leaving its puckered mark over the only part of my features that gave testament to the beauty I’d nearly had. I almost wept as I gazed into the reflecting pool. My dark skin was splattered with pinkish white, puffy, starbursts over my forehead, cheeks, and jaw. The creases of my right ear were folded in upon themselves. I’d been able to feel their malformation, but seeing it was worse.
I nearly allowed myself to see what I would have looked like had the right side of my face matched the left. I barely stopped myself. Should I have witnessed that perfection, I would never have been able to see anything else. However, as I stared into the pool, gazing at the boney goose-fleshed protrusions on either side of my back, I willed my wings to show what they would have been. What they had been for those few brief moments.
Their shimmering beauty nearly concealed the imperfections of my face. Nearly. I willed the illusion to take life. As I watched, snowy feathers sprouted from the bare skin. I folded my wings about me, creating a glowing cocoon. Running my hands over the stiff strong feathers, I wept. Tears had not come since my rebirth. There had been too much agony for tears. But in the shelter of my wings, the tears came at last.
I unfolded my wings and prepared to take my first flight. I could flee. I could truly be the outcast. Never seen again. I would no longer be the symbol of the royal family’s devotion to purity. I would live out my days alone, however many they would be until I was discovered.
Then Xenith’s young face invaded my mind. His child’s adoration and love filling me.
I could not betray him. I could not leave him. I would not.
As my tears dried, I pulled the feathers from me once more. Using the pain as a promise to never abandon him.
By the time I snuck into my beloved brother’s chambers that evening, I’d healed the bloody stubs of my back, and Xenith noticed no change.
Three
“Surely now that I have confirmed my right to ascend the throne I can change the law.”
I tried to smile at him, but I couldn’t quite force the expression. Not even for him. “Xenith, I don’t wish to have this conversation again. Things are how they are. Can we not leave them be?”
“Mother and Father will listen to me. I’m their rightful heir.” Frustration flitted over his features as he glared in my direction.
We’d had the same conversation every night since Xenith’s rebirth ceremony ended three months earlier. The fact that he continued to simply argue about it and had yet to defy my words and actually approach our parents—hisparents—told me that he knew it was hopeless. Whether he realized it or not.
“Is Flesser still coming to see you?”
My cheeks heated at his sudden change of topic. “I shouldn’t have told you about him.”
Xenith’s grin was so big and innocent that for a moment he looked like he had as a child when I would sneak into his chambers to see him. “Of course you should have! You’re falling in love with him.”
It took me a second to respond. “No, I’m not.”
The laugh that Xenith let forth betrayed his naivety, despite his transition into adulthood. I coveted his ease. “Your hesitation says otherwise. Where did you meet this time? Did he admit his feelings for you?”
“He doesn’t have feelings for me, nor I him. Such would not be allowed.”
He rolled his eyes. “Well, neither is starting a relationship between the two of you, but it’s still happening.”
