Page 305 of May: Bloom & Bane

look at what he kept

—EDEN

They give us an hour before anyone knocks. I know it’s Therael’s doing—I can feel him at the bottom of the stairs, holding the whole eager, buzzing weight of our family at bay.

“Let them have this,” he murmurs.

Vaelína figures out nursing the way she seems to figure out everything so far: instantly, greedily, with both fists. She takes after both of her fathers, what can I say. The first pull startles a laugh out of me, and then the strangest warmth spreads through my chest. This is what the níva was always for. Not the boys, for all their devout thievery. Her.

“She’s stealing your breakfast,” I whisper to Ashán.

“She can have anything of mine she wants,” he rasps, watching her as if she’s rearranged the stars. “Including that… mostly including that.”

“Ashán,” Sage groans.

“I said mostly.”

Sage has wound one orange curl of her hair around the tip of his claw. He hasn’t moved in ten minutes, like the curl might be load-bearing.

When she finally unlatches, níva-drunk and blinking her wide mismatched eyes at the ceiling, I take pity on the house full of held breath below us.

“Let them up,” I murmur. “Therael first.”

The floorboards outside the room sigh beneath a careful step. I feel it before he’s fully through the doorway. The ache in him is ancient. Carried so carefully, I wonder if anyone besides another empath has ever noticed it. The leaves of his halo have dimmed to a soft yellow. One of his sleeves is still stained from my birth, and his collar is hanging open so low I catch a peek of something emerald moving beneath his robe. His eyes fall to Vaelína, and his breath catches.

“You can come closer,” I whisper.

“Are you certain?”

I shift against the pillows and hold one hand out to him. “Therael. Come meet your granddaughter.”

His arms make the shape before he reaches us. There’s no fumbling or hesitation, elbow curved, palm ready to cradle a skull the size of a peach. The practiced arms of a man who has rehearsed this many times. Ashán watches him with the wary intensity of a beast allowing another hand near its young. Sage is no better. His wing curls forward until it nearly blocks Therael’s path.

“Sage,” I murmur.

“I know.” His wing doesn’t move.

Therael wisely makes no comment. He stops beside the bed, looking down into the open petals. Vaelína blinks up at him—one violet eye, one endless black—and her tiny nose wrinkles. Then a chunky green hand slips free from the cradle, her fingers curling around the end of Therael’s. His face buckles as a deep pink rose blooms at his throat. Then another. Then dozens, spilling over his shoulders, winding through his hair, and down his arms. Vaelína makes a pleased little sound. Therael laughs, and I think it may be the first time I’ve ever actually heard him make such a sound.

“Well,” he whispers. “You certainly know how to make an entrance, ømi.”

Her shadow uncurls from beneath one petal. It stretches toward him, sliding beneath the neckline of his robe.

Therael sighs. “Arteus…”

“Curiousss little cherub, isss’t she,” a low, raspy voice hisses.

“Who—who was that?”

Sage’s wing snaps fully rigid. Shadows gather at Ashán’s knuckles as their body angles between the bed and the sound in one smooth step.

Therael blinks once before the corners of his mouth twitch. “It’s alright.” The collar of his robe stirs, and emerald head emerges, broader than my two hands together. It’s scales shimmer from deep green to bright jade in the lamplight, golden eyes with razor-slit pupils never leaving Vaelína.

“Therael,” I murmur. “I love you. But are we certain a giant snake belongs this close to the baby?”

“I’m exsssellent with hatchlingssss,” he hisses. His mouth curves into a sly grin. “Jussst asssk Therael.”

Therael’s jaw tightens by a fraction of an inch. “He is… very gentle… with children… specifically.”