Chapter One
Holy shit—this boy was going to jump.
He was pacing back and forth to the edge of the stone, as if testing how much control he’d have over his descent. He looked about eighteen, reckless, hungry—hungry for whatever would meet him at the bottom of the fall. I’d seen this look enough to know it. His motions were paint-blurs of loose clothing, soft black hair, open desperation: a tender portrait study of the moment before death. Just like so many pilgrims before him, he’d trekked to Serenity to trade in his mortal life for the chance that he’d get an immortal one in return.
I crouched and waited. I was the only one here today to count how many bodies there’d be, to see if any would actually get back up. The living trickled here to the arc of the stones, solitary or in clusters of pilgrims. I didn’t know where they all came from, but each season brought more. They appeared to either be seeking the many wonders and opportunities Serenity had to offer, or a way to bargain with death. Something moved them to brave the ice waste around the city. To Ancestor Rock, the mountain face of Serenity, the city where the immortal and eternal came to rest. The sun fell free on these stones, statues commemorating whatever fragile souls had once dared make this a home.
Many of them came to jump. From statues shaped like saints’ hands, like gods and demons and the wreckage of the last thousand years. Here was where immortals dwelled forever, immune to the cold. The idea—it seemed—was that if a mortal died here, the immortal city might look on their death and grant them resurrection. Make them into a living-again, returned from death and infused with immorality. Then they’d rise up with wings of doves, or with tails of cats, blessed by the moon to never suffer again.
I’d hate to be the one to break the news to them about the “never suffer again” part.
The pilgrimages seemed to always be trickling in, though any given month had a meager flow of fresh faces, and I only saw a portion of them come to the rocks. Yesterday, there had only been a woman in a red robe, and she hadn’t jumped. Just sat in meditation, singing and weeping as the arctic wind drowned out her grief. She had to be a pilgrim of a different kind, one I happened on even less: those that traveled here to find their dead loved ones, people who might now be ghosts or living-again, drowned in Serenity’s peaceful swath of amnesia.
But today there was this boy, smiling like a child about to dive into a pond.
Strangely enough, I could bear the sight of the sad ones dying. The ones who wailed the whole drop down, like they were trying to purge out as much pain as they could before the impact. The ones who went quiet as soon as they hit. There was a tidy, animal logic to that. They would be in pain and then it would stop. I would feel relief for them, praying that if they rose again, their afterlives would be kinder.
But one smiling, brave, almost joyful—fuck. To think a tumble off the rocks would be the highlight of his life.
Then his slim neck turned up. His eyes met mine.
And that smile widened like a sunrise.
I stiffened. Could he really see me that clearly? I knelt far above him, on the stone lip of Solemnity, the gates around Serenity. It was a gate built into the mountain, indistinct except for the age-worn surface of green and blue rock. It was a wall made to endure time. And it towered over the icy plain, over Ancestor Rock, where winged forms like mine floated in the snow. Only the nakedness of the mountain face, and my supernaturally keen sight, let me make him out as well as I did.
And yet he looked almost like he’d expected an audience.
His hands waved in an arc. Through the air came his cry, small against the wind. “Hey! You there!”
An astonished laugh escaped my throat. Please, please tell me that he didn’t want someone to watch his final moments. I was the wrong guardian angel for that.
He was hopping up and down now, arms circling wider and gesturing at his own back. “Hey!”
Ah. He’d seen my wings. And he was motioning in a way as if to signal that he liked this. Well, that was a bit more in the realm of the usual. I relaxed. Perhaps I had gotten too used to solitude; being admired felt rather spicy.
May as well put on a show. I began to preen my wings, stretching out my broad feathers. Spotted with gray and tan like smooth beach stones, catching the starlight. “You like?” I called back. I couldn’t restrain the amusement in my tone.
He clapped. He fucking clapped, like I’d made his goddamn day. A clawing image came to me, of this boy in his death-pilgrim’s ecstasy, aching to see angelic wings over him as he fell. But then, he shouted: “Catch me!”
His meaning snapped into place, all but stopping my heart—he wasn’t after some ritual death.
“Are you drunk?”
Delicate, unfettered laughter rose from him. He clapped once more, then skittered to the lip of the statue. If he was drunk, that precipice would surely murder his balance. But for a second he teetered on one foot, acrobatically, arms spread at his sides like he played at having wings himself.
And then he hurtled off the ledge, head first. Twisting once in the gale as he fell.
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. It was like a string being pulled, ripping me down with him. In the next instant I was in the air, gathering speed under me to snatch him back from death.
A second passed in which I was just straightforwardly falling. Then I seized the wind again with my wings, and he crashed into me with unceremonious grace. A sudden, almost impossibly light weight. Laughter streamed from him, sweet and childlike in its vigor. And his arms clenched me tight, face burying in my chest. The heat of his body was like a knife cutting through me.
And for a moment the earth spun, the night air a spiral paring Serenity away. We fell into the clear air, the sky lit up with sparks. He laughed until I was laughing with him, and I caught myself breathing in the warm human scent of his hair and clothes.
Next I was settling down on the rocks at the foot of Solemnity, bracing against the sliding dirt. The boy’s breaths came fast, unspeakably loud, sucking in the entire night. I held him to me long enough to be sure he was safe, and placed him on his feet.
“Let’s try the path with actual soil.” My voice rasped in my own ears. I had one hand steadying his shaking frame. “Not putting you where you can do that again.”
Vapor plumed over his face, uneven with residual laughter. The biggest smile lingered on his features. Up close like this, he looked older than I had guessed, probably around twenty. Bright black eyes, blackest black hair that fell straight above his ears. Soft mouth, faint dusting of freckles. A dark brown coat was sashed over him, trimmed with pale fur. He was garbed as I had come to expect pilgrims to dress, in hardy travel robes and trousers. At the collar, a bit of naked shoulder showed where the garment had tugged down. The bag hanging from him looked hefty, but I’d hardly felt it.
A story flashed into being between the gaps. He was definitely no death-seeker. A simple thrill-chaser. Or someone who simply wasn’t afraid of his joy.