Lumen Read Free

as his mother looked from that to her son whose wings were now flapping hard against each other. His left wing flopped to his side and swung on a ligament, becoming loose and flying off over into the forestry of the Lowerlands. The soft sound of its crash against the branches brought Daniel back to the searing pain on his back as he spun around in circles.
    “Daniel,” his mother said.
    He dropped, the remaining wing batted against the up thrust as he fell from the sky. He landed on his knees with a thud and several snaps from his body; he let out a small cry before falling quiet.
    “Daniel!” His mother rushed over to him and knelt by his side. Her hand hovered above the large fleshy cut on his back showing the muscle tissue beneath it. She sniffled and wiped her eyes on her blouse. “Hush,” she said, and bit her tongue, she couldn’t feel anything from him, he wasn’t healing, he would’ve started already. “Hush, baby,” she said, stroking his hair.
    “This seems to be a sign that his power wants to kick in, it’s a shame that blood must be shed for it to happen,” Reuben said. “His death is more likely.”
    “Can you help?” she whimpered.
    “I cannot intervene, and neither can you.”
    “He said he’ll know how to handle  this  change.” She sniffled and wiped her nose on her arm.
    “If he pulls through, he’s accepted, but if he dies, then my condolences.”
    “You- You- You’re not staying?”
    “No, Mrs Satoria, I have two more boys to see in the local area,” he said, materialising his coat over his arms. “I do wish you the best of luck.”
    “What – should – I – do?” she asked, her breaths now hooked at the back of her throat. “What should I do?”
    “Be there for him. Everyone has their purposes – some are born twice to live, while others are being sacrificed for the first lot.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave a crooked smile. “Adieu,” he said before tipping his head at Daniel’s mother and disappearing.
    She burrowed her head in her arms and burst out into a sob. The wound on her son’s back had started to bleed and coat his skin, even the smallest of cuts and grazes started to open up and bleed out into the dent he’d landed in. She shook her head and covered her eyes, taking one peek through the space of her fingers, she couldn’t stop looking. The wing on his back propped up like a white flag, rotting at the tip; the feathers dropped from the bone, and the bone crumbled over his sallow skin.
    “Do this,” she said, and wiped her eyes again. She combed a hand through her hair and tied it back into a ponytail. “You can do this.” She inhaled, and then sighed, wiping all the tears out of her eyes.
    “I can help,” she choked, and picked up her son’s t-shirt. She wrapped it around her hand and held it above the wound on his back, cooing as she dabbed at it softly. “It’s going to be fine. Everything will be fine. You’ll go to school and live in the Upperlands, everything will be better.”
    “Mum,” he said, his voice weighed down with phlegm. “We win?”
    She sniffled and her eyes started to well. “Yes son,  you  won.”
    “It h—hurt.”
    She opened her mouth to say something back and instead smiled. She rubbed the back of her hand against his arm and felt the goose pimples layer his skin. “No.” If her memory served her well, which it did, she knew that she wasn’t to alert him. She closed her eyes and firmly placed her hand on his arm, but there wasn’t enough will in her blood to teleport them both. Her hands shook as she plied them from him. “It’s already in motion,” she whispered.
    She clambered backwards to her feet and pulled her son’s blood stained t-shirt from her hand. “Eric” she said and sniffled, looking out over the canopy of trees in the Lowerlands. “Eric!” she shouted, throwing the t-shirt.
    She looked down at her son and the small black bugs that had started to fly around him.