27. Architecti
Architecti
I t’s our thirteenth birthday. A special celebration in any angel’s life. When we’re born, a moth egg is placed against our mouths, and our first breath gives life to it. The breath reshapes its genetic structure and bonds the egg to our soul, forming the source of our magic.
While we’re babies, our parents nurture the eggs, but as soon as we’re walking, we’re taught to care for and nurture these eggs. It was a challenging task for Interitus.
It’s in her nature to break things, not care for them. This, it seems, was the one exception she made. Probably because she understood that if it died, so would her magic.
The eggs turn to little larvae by the time we’re five and spend the next few years growing and developing until our twelfth birthday—the last day we spend with them as they cocoon themselves in a pupa, sealing them, and our magic away for an entire year.
Penance, the elder angels call it. The year when we discover what it’s like to be mortal—of a sort, anyway. When we understand what it’s like to be powerless.
Interitus did not like it.
Not one bit.
She changed. The visceral anger she carried beneath her skin mutated. Grew like a tumour, thick and fibrous until she became nasty.
Bitter.
Feral.
I found the first dead rabbit three weeks into our powerless year.
It didn’t get better.
I don’t want to make out like Interitus is all bad. She isn’t. The morning of our Emergence Ceremony, she trotted into my bedroom with a replica pupa. She handed it to me, a smile wide on her lips.
“It’s for you,” she says.
I take it from her, and I’m amazed at the delicacy of the stone. It’s been carved and chipped out of some kind of crystal.
“I didn’t think you liked art.”
She shrugs. “I got to break pieces of the stone off to make the shapes. That felt satisfying, so I kept going. And I figured it looked more like your pupa than mine. I tried obsidian for mine but it didn’t work out as well, so I threw it against a wall.”
I clutch the carving to my chest, understanding how, for once, she created something through destruction.
“Do you see, sister?” she says.
“See what?”
Her wings ruffle, the tips have grown darker this year. The ends are almost black as night now.
“That even though you were born to destroy, you are still powerful beyond measure? You can still create.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Not all power comes from creation, Architecti .” She spits my name.
I’ve annoyed her.
I should have been more careful with how I spoke, the words I used.
My eyes sting with tears. I wanted to be nice, to make her feel good.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. I think what you’ve made is wonderful, and I adore it.”
But I can tell it’s too late. She’s shut down, the coldness of her eyes hardening as she retreats out of the room.
My heart sinks, a coiling low in my belly that tells me she will punish me for my mistake.
* * *
Dozens of angels congregate in the great hall to witness the emergence of our moths.
Our pupae sit on a plinth in the middle of the room.
We stand a few feet away. It’s been a year since I held my power.
Since I felt the thrum and light of magical energy.
My fingertips ache to hold the swelling rise of power again.
The pupae look flimsy, as they should. At last, the silk has worn thin enough our moths can emerge. My stomach won’t stop somersaulting with excitement.
Murmurs ripple around the room, poorly disguised whispers that compare our pupae, that note the differences. I hate that they only use kind words to describe mine and ugly words to describe hers.
I stand next to her and slip my hand into hers. “Don’t listen to them,” I whisper.
But she grips my hand, squeezing harder and harder until my knuckles grind against each other, and I have to bite down a yelp and yank my hand away.
“That’s how it feels,” she says.
“How what feels?” I cradle my bruised fingers.
“Them. Their words. It grinds me down. Wears me thin. They don’t want me here. It doesn’t matter what lies you try and whisper into existence. I know it’s true.”
I’m about to answer, but the high elder angel steps in front of our pupae.
“Welcome, angels, to another magnificent Emergence. This rite is significant in every angel’s life. For a year we are stripped bare, cut off from our divine right to celestial magic.”
The angels clap, only it’s a fluttering of wings rather than slap of hands. It’s a light ruffling sort of sound that feels like bubbles and sunshine.
“The pupa does not falter, it does not yield to will nor pride. It shapes only what was always there—hidden, waiting, growing.”
My skin heats with excitement and my wings bristle up and down when I can’t contain my energy.
There’s a soft crackle, like the breaking of an egg. The elder stops speaking and turns to the pupa, a smile of delight breaking across his expression.
“So it begins.”
Our pupae move, their surfaces undulating and pulsing as the moths try to wriggle their way out.
Mine glows from within, a sun-like orb forming at the peak. As the light blooms so too does the heat in my belly. Magic thrums as my moth emerges.
Interitus’s pupa cracks and crinkles, like the crunch of feet on gravel. Pieces of the cocoon flake and flutter to the floor. Her fists ball and flex by her sides. She’s as keen to get her magic as I am.
Both our moth casings split. Wings protrude. We turn to each other. Both holding distinct expressions.
Mine bold and rounded with joy. Hers narrowed and darkened with chaos.
My moth pokes its head out, wriggling and pushing until finally she frees herself, and the crowd gasps as her body unfurls.
She is glorious.
Infinite.
Radiant.
I’m hit with wave after wave of magic flowing into me. The more her wings uncurl, the more the magic flows until I buckle under the weight of it. It fills my body until it’s all that I can see and breathe and feel.
It tingles through to my toes and right to the tips of my wing feathers.
Finally, my moth flutters off the plinth and flaps her way across the room to me.
Her wings are magnificent. They shimmer like woven constellations. Her body is delicate like spider thread glistening with dew. When she reaches me, the elder kneels at my feet and proclaims:
“The Crowned Moth. The bearer of infinite threads. For one hundred millennia, we have not seen such a powerful moth. She has returned to us.”
She perches on my shoulder and the rest of the angels kneel before me. I don’t understand what’s happening.
Interitus’s moth snaps her pupa in two. The shell clattering to the plinth. All eyes fall to the dark little creature.
Its wings are not made of starlight like my moth’s are. They’re serrated and sharp like shards of obsidian. It does not flutter to Interitus, it stalks and skitters and hunts its way across the room until it lands proud on her equally proud shoulder.
The elder angel’s eyes widen. But it is another angel that whispers its name.
“The Severed Moth, bearer of finality’s end.” The speaker’s voice is strained. I can’t find her in the crowd, but it doesn’t matter because a cacophony erupts.
“What does this mean?” one angel shouts.
“Are we doomed?” another screams.
“Enough,” the elder knelt below me says. “We must consult with the celestial table.”
Interitus strides out of the hall, a path forming either side of her as the angels move away.
“Wait,” I say to the elder.
He pauses, rounding on me.
“What aren’t you saying?” I ask.
His eyes draw down, a softness that makes my gums itch.
“Angels aren’t meant to be twins,” he says.
“Why not.”
His lips draw thin and he presses them together as if he’s trying to hold the truth in.
“Tell me.”
“Our magic is powerful. But it is supposed to be contained inside one vessel. Not split between twins.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t always split evenly.”
I frown, scratch my temple. “You mean like fallen angels?”
He nods. “Sometimes one angel goes bad.”
He leaves me standing there with my moth fluttering above my head. As the hall clears, a thread coalesces in my chest. It bears the markers of the same broken little shard I kept from that castle I built as a child. Frayed and sharp-edged. Tainted. Ominous.
I don’t understand. He didn’t say Interitus was bad. Did he? I feel like that’s what he meant. That Interitus is bad. But she isn’t. She’s my sister. And I love her.
This isn’t right.
This feels all wrong.
This is going to end badly.
Very, very badly.