“Neither will my dress be made whole. But still, it’s pretty, isn’t it? And more practical to wear because it won’t catch on things. You wouldn’t need to bind your wings if the torn parts were stitched together. It won’t look like plain-stitched patchwork. I can embroider anything you like.” She held her breath, hoping.
Finally, he jerked his head in a single nod. “If it will please you.”
They moved to their private sitting room, where the furniture could be rearranged to provide the best lighting for the task. Hannalinde directed him how to reposition two lamps, angling them so the light fell across the low, backless couch. Once she fetched her sewing things, Rikard sat facing away from her, his wings spread.
She had never seen them fully extended.
He always kept them bound or folded, the shredded membranes held against his back. When he occasionally stretched or shrugged, she’d seen a bit of their span, but it was nothing compared to this.
They were enormous. Even ruined, their architecture was breathtaking. Bowed struts of bone formed the frame, remnants of the membrane stretched between the joints like tattered sails. Dozens of tears marred them, ranging from small punctures the size of her thumb to long, jagged rips that split the skin from edge to bone.
Where the tissue was intact, it was translucent, a dusky gray that the lamplight turned to pink amber. The edges of each tear had scarred into thickened ridges. Those would serve as sturdy anchors for her stitches so they wouldn’t pull through the thin membranes.
She stood behind him and took a few deep breaths to steady her hand before threading a clean needle with new silk. She stepped closer and touched his right wing, assessing where to begin. The texture was not so different than heavy fabric. It twitched under her fingers, a shiver that ran the length of the wing and made the shredded edges flutter.
“Tell me if it hurts, and I’ll stop.”
“I will.”
“Good. I don’t want to make you suffer.” She selected a puncture near the trailing edge of the wing, roughly the size of a coin. A practice piece, small enough that a mistake wouldn’t matter but large enough to test the technique. “Ready?”
He grunted in the affirmative, so she set the needle.
The membrane resisted at first, the scar tissue denser than she’d expected, and the needle needed more pressure than she liked. He flinched, and her needle slipped, finding purchase in her thumb and drawing a drop of blood. She sucked in a breath, willing away the sting. It was no worse than what she was doing to him.
“Am I hurting you?” she asked.
“No. Keep going.”
She pushed through, using her thimble. The needle pierced the scarred edge and emerged on the other side, and the silk thread followed. She anchored the stitch with a second and third and tested the tension. It held, and the wing membrane didn’t tear. Only the smallest bit of blood marred the site, and she suspected it was hers. “How did that feel?”
“Like someone pricked me with a needle,” he deadpanned.
“Was it tolerable?”
“A small price to pay for beauty.”
“And you claim to have no sense of humor.” She relaxed fractionally and set the second stitch. Then the third. The needle’s familiar cadence translated easily to this new canvas, as though Rikard’s skin were just another fabric like linen or wool. The principles were the same:anchor, bridge, pierce, pull. The geometry of repair.
Since he expressed no preference, she chose a design that came naturally to her: trailing leaves, like the ones on the wedding dress. The silvery thread caught the lamplight and gleamed against the granite-colored membrane, and where the stitches bridged the tear, the gap filled with a web of silk that caught the light like lace.
So pretty.She hoped he liked it.
Rikard sat still as stone while she worked, and she couldn’t tell if his frozen posture was due to discomfort or regret.
“Talk to me,” she said, pausing. “I need to know you’re still in there. Am I torturing you?”
He shifted, huffing a laugh. “Quite the opposite. You have put me under your spell. I have been holding back my purr so I don’t jog your arm again, but it’s quite pleasurable, in fact. It’s a bit like being groomed.”
She was familiar enough with gargoyle grooming practices. In the eyrie, she’d seen Roul and Cléa oil each other’s horns and braid each other’s hair and remove bits of moss and lichen fromareas they couldn’t reach themselves. It seemed quite intimate and loving.
With a pang, she realized she had not done these things for him. He hadn’t asked and she hadn’t offered. All her efforts to be a good mate to him, and she’d neglected one of the most basic tasks.
“I could groom you, if you’d like,” she offered quietly, her needle flying.
She heard him swallow. “I would like it very much, if you would let me do the same for you.”
She stitched another leaf, and then a flower. The tear was nearly closed now, the silvery pattern filling the gap with a tracery that was both structure and ornament, each stitch pulling the scarred edges closer without forcing them to meet. The design was organic, following the shape of the tear, so the result looked like something the wing had grown on its own. A scar that had blossomed.
