“Guess that makes us equal,” I finish, remembering how he jumped after me.
His grin widens. “And her name is Lark.”
Hell, yeah. That is the best thing I’ve heard in the past three seconds.
This earns another round of silence. Questions jumble in everyone’s minds.
Where do they go from here? Since the Fae have an instinctual kinship with the fauna, some corresponding through signs in the wind, communication won’t be a problem. But will they advocate for more human sacrifices to restore the fallen? What would they propose instead?
I want to know those answers, but it’s too much at once for this crowd, and the right solutions need time. Besides, this mob is a hobbling, bleeding mess. Wounds need tending, egos need healing, and minds need rearranging. Everybody’s hungry and cranky.
As for me and Cerulean? Regardless of the animals’ support, most of the Faeries sneer at our forbidden bond, while several battered faces glance with intrigue. Not that I give a fuck what they think at the moment. And not that I’ll be staying.
The Fae bid their retreat, prostrating themselves again to the fauna before backing away. Exhausted, they dissolve or flutter homeward to bandage their injuries.
Tímien swerves to Cerulean, nudging him with parental devotion and worry.
Moth rushes to Cerulean’s side as well. “You idiot! Your wings need enchantment, ointment, and rest if they’re destined to regrow properly. As if I don’t have enough to do at the tower.”
“Go,” he insists, arguing over her protests and my curses. “Enough, both of you. I haven’t died in the past hour, and Tímien is here. I need to…speak with Lark for a moment.”
“Is that all I’m worth?” I try to joke, worried that he’s being stupid. “We can talk after—”
“Here. Now.”
Dammit, Cerulean. Moth and I share hesitant looks and then glance at Tímien, who waits cautiously but patiently. He raised Cerulean, and I trust the owl, so that’ll have to do.
“Three minutes,” I say.
“Seven,” Cerulean bargains.
Moth points at him. “If you’re not back in seven minutes, I’m calling in The Watch of Nightingales.” To me, she shrugs. “You didn’t see him after The Trapping. This is nothing. He’ll live, so long as you get him home in—”
“I heard you the first time,” Cerulean says with haughty affection. “Off you go, meddler.”
On a huff, she slingshots into the clouds and zips toward The Fauna Tower.
Once sensing he’ll be safe, the wildlife leaves next. The fleet of hawks, bats, and hummingbirds swarm into the blazing sun. The cougar slinks around Cerulean’s limbs, gracefully defiant of her missing paw, then joins the mammals prowling down the slope. I wonder if the feline will cross paths with the other cat that fought me on the bridge.
The second they’re gone, Cerulean buckles. Tímien hoots, flapping his quills with concern, but I catch his son, and we hunker to the grass. The sun illuminates his sickly pallor and every gorge that stings my flesh. I straddle his lap, reminding myself that we’re not entirely abandoned. Tímien resides on the fringes, in case we have to leave sooner rather than later.
Strapped together beneath the windswept rowan tree, we hold each other for a while. Dust glimmers from the boughs. I run my fingers across the tattered filaments of Cerulean’s wings, my touch dragging his eyes closed.
At last, he regains the strength to speak without heaving. “Amazed, awestruck, aghast,” he murmurs against my throat, his breath sketching my pulse. “Oh, the irony.” He angles his face to meet mine and tucks a lock of white behind my ear. “That a human comprehends their fauna better than they do. That a human would recognize the fauna as rulers, while the Fae remained blind to such an obvious fact. That a human would prove her kind possesses a greater understanding of animals—ours and yours—than we’ve given mortals credit for.”
“Welllll, we might learn a thing or two from you,” I joke, even though it’s the truth. “Neither of our cultures have exactly demonstrated tolerance for each other, but you’ve shown that magic doesn’t always make an evil soul.”
“Perhaps the Fable we’ve created for ourselves is a spark. Perhaps our story marks a beginning, whether or not our bond ends happily. Perhaps the change alone was worth it, however long it takes from here.”
Seems we all lost our way for a while and forgot the saying,For the eternal wild. Maybe we can help each other remember what it meant.
Faeries call humans inferior for not having magic, saying we’ve got no real connection to nature, nor any respect for it. After The Trapping, that conviction was reinforced—magnified, in fact.
Humans call the Fae corrupt, saying they’re abominations of nature because of magic. We assumed as much about the Fae fauna, too. If we took a damn second to sit at one another’s table, to share a meal, to learn about our cultures, and to see how we live amongst the wild, we’d realize our relationships to the earth are similar. No matter what, every being comes from the sky, the roots, and the water. Each of us dwells among animals, and we’re all are creatures of the land.
That’s the bridge. That’s magic. That’s reality.
If we worked to understand that, maybe we’d find a balance in our worlds. We could live in harmony, without hate or hierarchies.
