Seraphina(116)

I did not know where to begin, so I just started talking. I told him about collapsing under visions, about building the garden, and about my mother’s memories falling all around me like snow. I told him how I’d recognized Orma as a dragon, how the scales had erupted forth out of my skin, how it felt to believe myself utterly disgusting, and how lying became an unbearable burden.

It felt good to talk. The words rushed out of me so forcefully that I fancied myself a jug being poured out. I felt lighter when I had finished, and for once emptiness was a sweet relief and a condition to be treasured.

I glanced at Kiggs; his eyes had not glazed over yet, but I grew suddenly self-conscious about how long I’d been talking. “I’m sure I’m forgetting things, but there are things about myself I can’t even fathom yet.”

“ ‘The world inside myself is vaster and richer than this paltry plane, peopled with mere galaxies and gods,’ ” he quoted. “I’m beginning to understand why you like Necans.”

I met his gaze, and there was warmth and sympathy in his eyes. I was forgiven. No, better: understood. The wind rushed between us, blowing his hair about. Finally I managed to stammer, “There is one more … one true thing I want you to know, and I … I love you.”

He looked at me intently but did not speak.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, despairing. “Everything I do is wrong. You’re in mourning; Glisselda needs you; you only just learned I’m half monster—”

“No part of you is monster,” he said vehemently.

It took me a moment to find my voice again. “I wanted you to know. I wanted to go on from here with a clean conscience, knowing that I told you the truth at the last. I hope that may be worth something in your eyes.”

He looked up at the reddening sky and said with a self-deprecating laugh, “You put me to shame, Seraphina. Your bravery always has.”

“It’s not bravery; it’s bullheaded bumbling.”

He shook his head, staring off into the middle distance. “I know courage when I see it, and when I lack it.”

“You’re too hard on yourself.”

“I’m a bastard; it’s what we do,” he said, smiling bitterly. “You, of all people, understand the burden of having to prove that you are good enough to exist, that you are worth all the grief your mother caused everyone. Bastard equals monster in our hearts’ respective lexicons; that’s why you always had such insight into it.”

He rubbed his hands together against the cold. “Are you willing to hear another self-pitying ‘I was a sad, sad bastard child’ story?”

“I’m happy to hear it; I’ve probably lived it.”


“Not this story,” he said, picking at a patch of lichen on the balustrade. “When my parents drowned and I first came here, I was angry. I did play the bastard, behaving as badly as such a young boy could contrive to behave. I lied, stole, picked fights with the page boys, embarrassed my grandmother every chance I got. I kept this up for years until she sent for Uncle Rufus—”

“Rest he on Heaven’s hearthstone,” we said together, and Kiggs smiled ruefully.

“She brought him all the way back from Samsam, thinking he’d have a firm enough hand to keep me in line. He did, although it was months before I would submit. There was an emptiness in me I did not understand. He saw it, and he named it for me. ‘You’re like your uncle, lad,’ he said. ‘The world is not enough for us without real work to do. The Saints mean to put you to some purpose. Pray, walk with an open heart, and you will hear the call. You will see your task shining before you, like a star.’

“So I prayed to St. Clare, but I took it a step further: I made her a promise. If she showed me the way, I would speak nothing but the truth from that day forward.”

“St. Masha and St. Daan!” I blurted out. “I mean, that explains a lot.”

He smiled, almost imperceptibly. “St. Clare saved me, and she bound my hands. But I’m skipping ahead. Uncle Rufus attended a wedding when I was nine years old, to provide a royal presence. I went with him. It was the first time they’d trusted me out of the castle walls in years, and I was anxious to show I could handle it.”

“My father’s wedding, where I sang,” I said, my voice unexpectedly hoarse. “You told me. I do vaguely remember seeing the pair of you.”

“It was a beautiful song,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten. It still gives me chills to hear it.”

I stared at his silhouette against the rusty sky, dumbfounded that this song of my mother’s should be a favorite of his. It glorified romantic recklessness; it was everything he scorned to be or do. I could not stop myself. I began to sing, and he joined in:

Blessed is he who passes, love,





Beneath your window’s eye





And does not sigh.





Gone my heart and gone my soul,





Look on me love, look down





Before I die.





One glimpse, my royal pearl, one smile





Sufficient to sustain me,





Grant me this,