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2
LILIN
The first time it happened, I thought I was imagining it.
Nothing was different, at first glance: identical white houses lining pin-straight pedestrian lanes, each neatly boxed in by a manicured green lawn trimmed with perfect pink flowers. The sky was the same shade of crystalline azure it always was, and the celestial light on my face held the same hue of mid-day that it had for millenia.
“Are you all right?” Charmeine was looking at me curiously.
Something had shifted—I was certain of it. One moment I’d been listening to her nattering about yet another Manifest of the Order, and nodding, and trying my best to look as though I cared deeply about the Equilibrium—and then I had blinked, and everything had changed. It was as though, for a split second, something dark and ominous overlaid the orderly perfection of our City.
I blinked again, the afterimage of dark skies and crumbling facades still lingering. “Of course,” I said, forcing a smile and rubbing a hand across my eyes. “I merely—what I mean to say is, I agree with you. Indisputably.”
She looked slightly put out. “You say that,” she said, “but you’re going Earthside, aren’t you?”
I frowned at her. “Why would you say that?”
“The—” Charmeine pointed at the ruby ring on my finger. “Is that not your talisman for protection outside of the City?”
“I don’t take it off,” I said, tightening my hand into a fist.
Charmeine’s eyebrows lifted. “Never?” she said. “But…why?”
I shivered, thinking of Serafina’s expression when she’d placed the ring on my finger. The City walls may not protect you, she’d warned me. Demons have crossed our borders before.
“No reason,” I said.
Charmeine peered at me suspiciously, then sighed. “Do stop by the forum later,” she said. “I’d be grateful for your sanction in person.”
“I will,” I assured her.
She gave me one last odd look, then turned and headed down the lane toward the city square. On any other day, I would have followed her, if only to deliver the requested endorsement as expediently as possible and have Charmeine out of my hair. Instead, I stood in the middle of the rows of houses, turning slowly, peering at every detail and trying to recall what I’d seen in that split second. But the image was fading, and all too soon, it seemed as though I really had fallen victim to some sort of strange daydream.
I turned toward home, my steps slightly quicker than usual, a knot of unrest in my stomach as I twisted the ring between two fingers. I was very nearly there when it happened again. This time, though, it wasn’t just a lightning-flash of a vision. The unsettled feeling turned into what felt like a knife’s blade in my stomach, and I doubled over, dropping to one knee in the middle of the street.
“Damned…humans!” I gritted out, tears of pain stinging my eyes as I forced myself back to standing.
Was it the effect of humankind? I had never experienced anything like this before—but what else could it be?
The pain vanished as abruptly as it had appeared, and I sighed heavily. Charmeine would have to wait, as would all my other tasks. Tipping my face to the sky, I spread my hands and let my wings stretch to their full span.
“This had better be quick,” I muttered, and let myself be pulled away.
When I opened my eyes, it was nearly dark. Of course, Earthside always seemed dark compared with the perpetual daylight of the City. Truth be told, I rather liked the contrast. It wasn’t that the City was boring, it was just that things were never different.
This, though—this was a bit too different.
I was standing in the village from my vision. The cottages around me were not, in fact, in disrepair; though humble, they were clearly well cared-for. There were children playing near me in the street, blissfully unaware of my presence, thanks to the celestial shroud I wore when I was in the human realm. An old woman, perhaps a grandmother, sat nearby, minding them. It was an idyllic twilight scene, but something felt terribly, terribly wrong.
Nothing was crumbling, nothing was aflame, and yet a current of discontent ran through the heart of the village. I began to walk, feeling the stones in the road beneath my feet. Around me, voices laughed and shouted; I felt a burst of love as two of the humans embraced, a wave of sadness from somewhere to my left, a flare of anger just ahead. But it was all darkened by that strange feeling of unease. It wrapped itself around me, entangling me in its grip, propelling me ever further. Come, it seemed to say. Come and see.
Slow. Innocuous. Until it wasn’t.
I stumbled, yanked forward as though by an invisible rope. My knees hit the ground, and when my gaze lifted, my very core turned to ice. Two of the children had been running together down the lane, laughing, playing a game of run-and-chase; abruptly, they went as limp as rag dolls. Their momentum propelled them forward and they tumbled, their small bodies folding in on themselves, their heads and limbs hitting the dirt with a series of nauseating thumps.
Movement at the corner of my eye made me turn my head, and as I did, I saw the other humans around me collapse as one. The grandmother slumped over in her chair. A pair of lovers crumpled on top of one another in a garden. A baby went still and silent, sliding slowly to the ground from its motionless mother’s arms.
“No,” I whispered.
