Page 54 of A Love of Wrath and Rapture

Leaving the cart at the door, I find some shears and cut from old sheets. Then I find my mortar and begin to gather what ingredients I can find.

I need to stabilize him. There’s unimaginable power in medicine if you know what you’re doing.

I can still hear the commotion of passersby, the door wide open. But not a single soul offers to help me lift him. Not even after the ingredients have formed a solid paste, and I’ve applied it to the wound, then wrapped the bedsheet over the gaping wound on his torso.

He’s still breathing. As long as he’s drawing breath, there’s hope.

I think I always kind of knew.

These people will never accept Xeros. I’m not even sure if they ever accepted me.

I grab him by the arm and begin to drag him over the hardwood floor, feeling every muscle strain. Before today, I never realized how heavy Xeros was. It’s like he’s made from a different material entirely.

When I’ve gotten him through the door, I shut it behind me, hoping to pretend for a minute that the world outside doesn’t exist. I don’t care about the waira anymore.

What I care about are the thoughts filling through my mind as I bring him through the living room, almost giving up halfway.

I never expected to see anything in him. Perhaps I was blind when we met. I imagine I saw the same things they did. He was a monster, who would rip my limbs from my body the moment I misspoke.

I reach the bedroom and I gasp, a cough sputtering from my lungs. Briefly, I consider just treating him from the floor beside the bed, rather than lifting him upon it. It seems impossible to lift him.

“I always thought I’d be in your position,” I mutter, taking a deep breath. “But I guess us feeble humans aren’t so bad after all.”

Maybe I put too much faith in them, expecting them to see what I see when I look at him.

I’m not going to let him die. Maybe the world doesn’t see the terrible loss it would be, and maybe I can never really convince them.

But without his beauty, the world would be so much darker.

24

XEROS

“What—?”

I open my eyes, feeling a sharp pain radiating through my chest. Above me is a long and tangled stretch of rope, connected to the ceiling by a metal hook.

Fuzzy shapes and outlines barely portray the room to my blurred vision, and my right leg is lifted and bound.

Have I been abducted?

It’s possible somebody decided they might try their luck and imprison me in the hopes of acquiring power or wishes. I doubt many people understand what I am.

The shapes become more solid as my eyes constrict, and I see the floral decorations on the wall, realizing I’m back in Evangeline’s home.

Briefly, I feel at peace, confident that I’m safe from the battle. But there’s a loud, constant noise to my right and just below me that irritates me.

Thinking I might be trapped in Evangeline’s home with a wild animal, I grip my leg and free it. Any wounds I might have sustained on my leg have healed, due to our superior healing capabilities. But if I’m devoured here while I’m weak, it will all be for naught.

I roll on my torso, expecting to find that perhaps, I’ve been locked in here with a monster. The logic of trapping me in here with a monster makes sense as some form of torture.

Evangeline sleeps on the floor beside the bed, sitting propped up against one of the legs. I can see the puddle her drool has formed on her shirt.

I hate to admit it. But seeing the fierce Evangeline in such a helpless, vulnerable position melts my heart.

And slowly, it comes back to me.

I remember the battle, and how I was overtaken in its final moments. I remember the cold feeling of their claws driving through my torso.

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