Page 27 of Lux

It would be unseemly and rude. As if I asked to touch her eyes or stick my fingers in her nose. As beautiful as they are, I must content myself with watching the shimmering almost-wing. All while longing I had something even remotely close to the same.

“I’m guessing you don’t have a mark,” she says, frowning. “I didn’t check before. Do you mind?”

She gestures for me to spin in a circle. I do, and she gingerly peels back the silk custom from my skin, peering at the flesh beneath.

She doesn’t gasp in awe, shock, or remark sadly at my lack of wings. She hisses through her teeth instead.

“Fucking monsters! Oh honey, I’m so sorry.” Her voice is choked. She’s genuinely disgusted, but not because of my deformity. Something else makes her breathing hitch and her hands shake. What is it?

I don’t realize I’ve asked out loud until she raises an eyebrow at me, her eyes wide. “You mean you’ve never seen what they did to you?”

Did?

“Here. Look—” She takes hold of my shoulders and gingerly steers me back before the tall mirror. Then she makes me contort my neck much like she had, so I can view my back in detail.

Caspian viewed me in this way once. I will never be able to forget it. The shock in his tone. The subtle disgust he couldn’t hide. I’d always assumed…

I’d assumed it was me. My abominable deformity. Perhaps the scars left by the Lord Master from my punishments. It didn’t matter.

Whatever he saw that disturbed him so, didn’t matter to me.

Minchae's pity reveals a darker truth. One that slowly starts to creep in as I make out pale flesh and a ropey spine. Under icy, pale skin, bluish veins creep and crawl, but that is not the alarming visual.

Neither are the scars, though they are numerous: several neat lines from years and years of accumulated sin.

The sight of them isn’t what makes my stomach turn. I can feel something raw and cruel clawing across my chest and burning my eyes. It’s shame. Regret.

Regret for never looking before. For never being curious. Maybe if I had, if I was…

I would have left much sooner.

Seeing what they did to me, I would have rebelled without a trace of painful guilt. My sins were not enough to justify their lies. A horrible, twisted lie.

Once, I had wings.

So long ago that very little remains of them but shorn nubs on my shoulders. I know it instinctively, the way I know my heart beats in my chest. After cutting them out, they left wicked wounds behind.

Then, year after year after year, they punished me. Nothing can hide their work, not even scar tissue. Through blurring, searing tears, I can see now. I can remember… Something that scratchesat my soul and makes me sob openly without caring for who sees or hears.

I was whole once. My true nature was not an abomination, but afae.

I was robbed of that right.

They stripped me bare.

Then punished me for their crime.

CHAPTER 13

Caspian

“Altaris Ipsum,” a woman sneers from behind a partially opened door. “Don’t you know how late it is? I stop seeing clients after six, you see.”

The vamryre beside me grins. He is all charm and smiles. “Ellarika, my darling. As young and spry as always. I know it’s late, but could you squeeze me in for a teensy, weensy little contract? Then I’ll be out of your hair in a jiffy.”

The woman scoffs and sighs. The door she holds is pulled wider to reveal her plump frame, dark eyes, and round mass of coiled black hair. She eyes the vamryre in my shadow warily and shakes her head at what she sees. “Fine,” she mutters, stepping back into a dull, drafty room. “But just this once.”

“Of course, my darling,” Altaris trills, leading the way inside.

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