“That is not possible.” The words came out rough. Guttural. “You cannot disappoint me. Do you understand? That is not…you are…” He stopped. Searching for words. Fighting for them. “Everything. You are everything.”
“Then why hide?”
“Because everyone runs.” His hands tightened on my shoulders. Loosened immediately. He was trying so hard to be gentle. “They see what I am. What I am becoming. And they run. They always run.”
“There’s nowhere to run. We’re on a mountain.”
He stared at me.
“That is not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“You were. You are.” He made a sound. Frustration and disbelief and something that looked like amusement if it hadn’t hurt so much. “Why are you not afraid of me?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
The blood was the worst part.
Not because it frightened me. Because I’d missed it entirely.
He’d turned away after our exchange on the balcony. Tried to. I’d grabbed his wrist to stop him, and my fingers had come away wet.
“What?”
And then I’d seen his shoulders properly. The feathers, yes. But also the skin around them. Raw. Torn in places where the shafts had pushed through too fast. Dried blood crusted along the edges.
“It is nothing.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“The feathers come in quickly. The skin does not always adjust.” He stopped. Shrugged, and I watched him flinch when the movement pulled at the wounds. “It is nothing.”
“Come inside.”
“I am fine.”
“Come inside. Now.”
He looked at me. Surprised, I think. I’d never given him an order before.
“Now,” I repeated. “I need to clean this.”
“You do not have to do anything.”
“Yes. I do.”
The bathing chamber had a basin. Hot water from the spring. Cloths that were probably meant for other things but would work well enough for this.
He sat on the edge of the stone pool, hunched forward, wings, no, not wings yet, just the feathers, the beginning of something, shivering in the cool air. I stood behind him with a wet cloth and tried to figure out where to start.
“This is not necessary.”
“Stop talking.”
