Page 47 of Kazimir

The first tear was a bright, liquid rip—not of meat but of some membrane I couldn’t name. There was a split-second of pain so clean it stunned me silent, and then a roar of relief like surf. Something unfurled from me—first on the right, then on the left—exploding outward into space with a rush of displaced air around me.

Feathers. Not white. Not anything so obedient.

They were purple, the color of late twilight and good wine, lit from the inside with an oil-slick iridescence that caught the dim and threw it back in impossible colors—amethyst, cobalt, a flash of peacock green that wasn’t green at all. They were wide and beautiful, trimmed in gold. The scent in the room shifted—ozone, stormwater, something clean that had nothing to do with linen.

Kazimir knelt in front of me. He stayed, an anchor at the center of the hailstorm.

Another spasm seized me; my body bowed again, a drawn bowstring about to be loosed. A cry tore loose—no words, just the sound of something beginning. Light sparked behind my closed eyelids. Then the worst of it ebbed, and the pain resolved into fierce, breath-stealing fullness. My shoulders throbbed, raw and holy. The new limbs trembled and then steadied, instinct older than memory arranging shafts and vanes into order.

I collapsed into his arms, every muscle emptied, my cheek pressed to his chest. I couldn’t open my eyes yet; tears slid, hot and certain, across my cheeks. If someone had asked me to stand, I would have wept with laughter. It felt like being hit by a city bus and then waking up in a body that was finally mine.

The nightmare had been of being small and weaponless. This was the opposite. Weight spread behind me—warm, alive, mine. I shivered once, not from cold but from the shock of relief. I lifted my face on a long delay and found his, that impossible mouth, those eyes I could drown in. I managed a smile that was more truth than expression.

“You’re mine, King of kings,” I whispered, voice wrecked and triumphant.

Something like prayer moved through his features. He bent as if to answer me with his mouth, and my wings—which had always been better at sense than I was—curved down and around us both, a purple, iridescent tent against the dark.

Chapter 14

Kazimir

Iawoke to the peculiar sensation of not knowing whether it was morning or night. The blackout curtains had let through a slender blade of gold, cutting across the floor and glancing off the edge of the bed. Beside me, Devon was buried half under the duvet, a tangle of white-blonde hair and long limbs, her face pressed so deeply into the pillow that only the upturned slope of one cheek was visible. For a moment, I simply lay there, cataloguing the changes. The room smelled different—less of my own chill, more of her: rainwater, ozone, and the faintest charge of something supernatural, as if the air itself now bent to her presence.

I expected to see her wings—a pair of them, in yesterday’s memory, vast as banners, gleaming purple and edged with gold. But there was no sign, not so much as a feather or a swelling at the shoulder blade. I reached out gently and traced the length of her spine down through the sheet. The skin was smooth, unbroken, though I could feel the heat and pulse of the force sleeping just beneath.

She stirred, burrowing deeper, then let out a low, satisfied groan. “Is it morning?” She mumbled, her voice muffled by linen and exhaustion.

“Yes,” I said. “Or dusk, same difference.”

She rolled onto her back, blinking up at the ceiling. Her eyes were clear and untroubled, no longer haunted by the storm of pain that had seized her the night before. She ran her hands over her torso as if surprised to find herself intact.

I propped myself on an elbow. “You are healed,” I said.

She grinned, then made a motion as if to stretch wings that were no longer visible. “Am I? I feel like I got hit by a truck. Twice.”

“Good,” I said, and pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “That is how you know you are alive.”

She snorted. “I guess that makes me very, very alive.”

I rose and pulled on a shirt, then offered her one of my own to wear. She slipped it on; the hem hanging nearly to her knees, then followed me out of the bedroom and into the corridor, padding barefoot over the rugs.

The house was quiet—unnaturally so, given the usual bustle of Tilden and the kitchen staff. I’d asked for privacy this morning, and my instructions had been followed with military precision. In the dining room, the table was set for two, the windows open just enough to let in the dusty pink of early evening.

Devon wandered to the sideboard, lifting lids and peeking beneath at the offerings: piles of pancakes, fruit sliced into diamonds, and an array of smoked meats that would have sated an army. She fixed herself a plate with a deliberation I found both endearing and alien; it was sort of fascinating to watch an angel eat breakfast.

I poured coffee for us both, then sat at the head of the table. Devon slid into the chair to my right, tucking one foot under her.

For a while, we ate in silence, the clatter of fork and spoon loud in the hush. Every so often, she’d glance over, as if expecting me to interrogate her about what happened last night. When she finally spoke, it was with her mouth full of toast.

“So I guess I need to think about logistics. Of my wings, I mean.”

I wiped my lips and set down my cup. “They are fully retracted now, it seems, yes?”

She nodded. “Yep. So, to anyone who didn’t know any better, I’m just an ordinary woman. But, should I need to quickly have use of them…”

I was thoughtful. “I could see that being a problem. We will just need to have garments tailored to accommodate your wings. If you wish. I will see to it today.”

She looked at me with a bemused twist of her mouth. “You mean like…wing slits? Velcro panels?”