Epilogue
THE GUARDIAN
Redemption is near.
The nectar of salvation is sweet on my tongue, welcoming me home like a long-lost friend. I have been in the shadows for too long, suffering in agonizing pain. It’s part of me. Baggage I carry wherever I go.
There’s a certain comfort in embracing what you know. Even if all you know is pain and darkness. But if that’s all one has ever experienced, it makes the light feel like an unforgiving fire. Just the smallest kindness will burn you from the inside out.
Pain hasn’t been my entire life, but it has been since I lost her.
Her presence haunts me. Her face is a reminder of a time when things were simpler.
When I was simpler and had no delusions of grandeur.
My pride, the one thing I put above all else—above everything else—took me down a road I didn’t know how to come back from.
Looking back, I don’t think I would have. Not even for her.
I stand in the small bathroom at my house with nothing but a towel on.
Something has changed after Isabelle. She was the fourth girl.
Only two more remain. My body feels foreign, and anything I try to put on feels like a million sharp knives rubbing against my skin.
My back feels tight, full of knots I cannot relieve.
Something is happening. Another punishment? Or something else?
Just as the thought takes up residence in my brain, a sharp, hot pain erupts in my back. It takes me by surprise, and I drop to my knees. The pain grows more intense and becomes all-consuming. I grip the bathroom counter hard enough for my knuckles to turn white. It’s the only thing keeping me up.
A low, guttural growl escapes my throat as pain rips through my back, sharp and searing.
My body arches as a wave of nausea hits me with the intensity of a thousand suns.
I buckle over with a gasp. The contents of my earlier breakfast rise in my throat, and I vomit all over the floral rug.
Specs of blood splatter below, and my mouth fills with the taste of bile and copper.
Is this death? Was this all some cruel joke to present me with the hope of salvation and ability to find her, only for it all to be taken away from me when I’m so close? Only two girls left. Just two. So close to finding pieces of my heart to make me whole once again.
No, it can’t be. This is…
Pain erupts in my back again, and I roar. My screams thunder around me, and in this distress-induced fog, my brain is slow to realize the transformation taking place.
My body trembles as the first jagged spines push through my skin.
My nails rake the tile beneath me, leaving deep gouges as another scream tears from my lips—a sound equal parts agony and triumph. Triumph because the gods have not yet forsaken me. No, this is a gift.
I accept the pain, letting my screams mix with the laughter of a schoolboy. If anyone were to walk in, they would think me deranged. I certainly feel deranged as my laughter takes on a manic tone while the transformation continues.
My wings—yes, wings, limbs that were taken from me the day of my punishment. I still remember the terrible tearing sound and the raw pain that made me pass out, only to awake missing a huge part of me.
The wings begin to take form—raw, skeletal frames that stretch outward, dripping with dark blood.
Feathers, likely as gray as a stormy cloud, sprout slowly, painfully.
Each one a testament to the price I’m paying for redemption.
The muscles in my back twist and spasm as the wings grow, unfurling inch by agonizing inch, until they loom above me, massive and beautiful.
My breaths came in ragged pants, chest heaving as I collapse against the sink, body trembling. The pain lingers with me for a long time, and I sit in my bathroom embracing it. The pain is progress. A gift.
Soon, it subsides to a dull ache, replaced by a strange, nearly alien sensation.
I’ve forgotten what the weight of wings feels like.
It has been centuries since I lost them, though I’ve lost count of the exact number of years.
Learning how to use the muscles again for long periods of time won’t be an easy task.
Flying is complex and takes time to perfect.
As a child, it was easier. I weighed less and feared nothing.
With shaky legs, I pull myself off the bathroom floor.
For the first time in years, I look directly at my reflection in the mirror.
I’m quite a sight to behold, vomit and blood splattered across my chest. Naked as the day I was born because somehow between now and the transformation, the small towel covering my body fell free.
But it’s not the nakedness or the mess on my body that I care about.
No, it’s the magnificent, otherworldly wings protruding from my back.
They are nearly identical to my old wings. Gray, but with black feathers as dark as obsidian sprinkled throughout. They are heavy, but it’s a comfortable weight, like an old blanket draped around me on a cold night. They feel both brand-new and like I haven’t been apart from them a day in my life.
Tentatively, I flex the massive appendages.
The sound of the wings moving, leathery and sharp, echo in the bathroom.
It’s music to my ears. But this bathroom is small, far too cramped to truly experience the full effect of my wings.
I stumble out of the bathroom to grab pants, lacking all the grace and poise I typically possess, and make my way out of the house.
The moment I’m out in the open, I spread my wings out as far as they’ll go.
They ache, but it’s a good ache. It means they're as strong as my old ones.
But that has yet to be tested. Humans have a saying I once found quite odd.
They always compare a vastly unrelated task to riding a bike.
It took me a great deal to understand what that meant, but I think I finally do.
It’s all muscle memory. Things you don’t learn, but rather come as naturally as breathing. I hope this rings true now. I access the muscles that have been lost to me for so long. It’s painful, but like I said before, I’m not a stranger to pain. It’s easy to ignore.
The leathery wings began to thrash until I’m able to control the speed to a simple flutter. My eyes close, feeling the sensation of the wind and world around me. Listening to the sounds of the restless forest and smelling the cedar of the trees, mixed with toxic gasoline from the cars in town.
When I open my eyes, my cottage is below me.
The lush expanse of the forest is for my viewing.
A curious bird flies close but quickly retreats from the strange gray man in his skies.
I’m so overcome with emotions that tears stain my cheeks.
Crying is something I never do, but it seems like the only logical response to such a tremendous and world-changing gift.
I’m no longer grounded on earth. The skies are open to me once again.
A battle cry forms in my core, and I shout to the heavens, for once praising the mercy of gods instead of scorning. But my job is far from done. I still have two more girls to go. If this is my prize for four, she most certainly will be my prize for six.
With thoughts of a life that could potentially be mine once again, I take flight to the next destination—to find the new future fae queen.
To be continued…