sparrow and lion

Finale: blue

Perhaps the worst thing about rage is how useless it is. One feels rage because something occurred that should not have. But the rage does nothing to undo the happenstance. It does not make someone cleverer. It does not grant that person powers that they did not have before. It only serves to make their helplessness more pronounced. It distracts. It weakens. There are stories, of course, of people becoming so overwhelmed by fury that they gained superhuman strength and saved those they cared about from impossible situations. In stories, it is that moment of hopelessness and anger that precedes the hero's inevitable rise to victory. But this was not a story. Emotion is weakness.

Leo was weak.

Wren was her weakness. He had always been that. Since the moment they had met. In that instant in a putrid alley. Pressed up against rotting cow corpses. Bare feet slapping against sharp stone and every minute since. Fingers clutched together in the night. Hands pressed to the closed doors that separated them. Bleeding fists and bloodied noses. Promises made. Promises broken.

Leo remembered the day Wren had gifted her the hound. So tiny and timid and wrapped in a bow. The lord had already demanded they be kept apart. She had not left her bed in days. Wren had sent word to meet him in the stables. The pain in her head felt like a tunnel she walked through. Every step she took towards him felt like a salve on burnt flesh. It was wrong, she knew. To go to him. If their roles had been reversed, he would never have come to her. He would have stayed far away. He would have let the agony cleave him in two before he brought fate even a step closer to her. Wren would have walked on red hot nails on her behalf, yet she approached like a noose looped round his neck.

He had been standing in the lamplight that night. He was beautiful. So beautiful it all but took her breath away. It made her heart beat. It made her footsteps falter. It made her want to turn around, to run away and never come back. It made her want to do the right thing. It made her want to be good. And then she had been standing in front of her and he had been looking at her, really looking at her, and she realized she had been invisible for days, weeks, years, but not anymore. He could see her. Being with him was like cool water against a parched throat. The pain was gone. It could be so easy. They were two halves of a whole. They were supposed to be together. That's how it was supposed to work. That's why it hurt so bad to stay away. No matter what the lord said, Leo knew, it was not him who kept them apart.

Wren had pressed the puppy into her hands and told her happy birthday. He had smiled at her and, in that moment, she had almost given up the pretense. But then she met his gaze and he looked at her like she was magic and she knew she could not do it. It was not the lord who had placed this gulf between them. It wasn't Wren. It wasn't even the weather witch. Leo was the only one who could close the distance. But she couldn't. She wouldn't. She must never do that to him. Pain arced through her, but she did not allow even a flick of it to show through.

An odd look had passed across Wren's face. "Look at you," he had whispered. In his voice was something that sounded like awe. "You look like you're dying." He had tugged her to him and held her tight. His lips pressed against the top of her head and she had felt his breath fluttering her hair as he whispered words she could not hear. She had felt a strange sort of warmth in that moment. A sensation like safety. And then, abruptly, Wren had shoved her away. "It's late," he said. "You should return to your rooms."

They had never touched like that again.

Leo came back to herself. She did not know how much time had passed. The moon was bright overhead, almost at its peak, mere moments from marking her coming of age. There was a blade made of bone clutched in her fist.

Its tip was pressed to Wren's throat.

Leo jerked away from him with a startled shout. But she did not move, and she did not make a sound. Wren was on his knees. He stared up at her with wide, clear eyes. The dazed expression from earlier was gone. So, too, was the wound on his head. Time had passed and things had changed, but Leo had no memory of any of it.