Page 110 of The Crown of a Fallen Queen
Falling
DEVI
I’m falling.
It’s a sensation I’ve grown used to. After all, I’ve been falling for the better part of eight decades. Fallen Queen. Ever falling. Never reaching the ground. Never hitting bottom. Still waiting for the inevitable crash, for my body and soul to finally becrushed.
Only this time, I’m falling faster than the storm.
The wind tears past me, tugging at my burning clothes, tangling my hair, roaring loud enough to drown out everything else. Fire bites my ribs. Rain stings my eyes. The sea below swells like a dark, furious beast foaming at the mouth, ready to swallow me whole.
Maybe I should let it.
My fingers are numb, my soul even more so.
The last twenty-four hours are a blur. A cold, gray place I don’t want to revisit. The kind of memory you look away from.
Humiliation.
Self-loathing.
Despair.
I’m not sure how I survived any of it.
I went so far inside myself, I might as well have left my body behind.
But I’m back.
I remember how I got here. The mistakes I made.
I remember who I am.
A tremor of magic crawls through muscle and bone. The first sharp, aching pinch between my shoulder blades burns hot and raw. The truth of my flesh, the secrets of my birth, and the tragedy of my fate stir and stretch deep within me.
I wrap my arms around myself, tears mixing with the onslaught of rain, as the tender skin of my back pulses and folds outward. The feathers grow, soft at first, then exploding. A liberation.
Black feathers. Strong bones.
They’re not just wings.
They’re part of me.
Part of my destiny.
A brutal reminder that I am my father’s daughter.
These wings are the only truth my mother could not face nor endure. The ultimate proof of paternity that drove her to suicide.
I was proud of them once.
Proud when they saved me from a cliff not so different from this one.
Proud when I discovered I could fly.
I remember grinning down at my mother as she knelt at the edge, screaming for help, for the healers, for anyone to come and save me...
But when she looked up and saw them—saw me—she smiled.
