Page 40 of May: Bloom & Bane

“It’s okay,” I coo. “I won’t hurt you. Come here, little one. Let’s get that wing fixed.”

It shivers, hopping clumsily toward me.

Nook groans behind me, the glass door slamming shut and then opening again.

The bird freezes. Every feather lies perfectly flat as it tilts its head.

“Eden.”

I look at the bird in disbelief, but the voice comes from the dark space just beyond the porch’s edge, where shadows have started to coalesce into a shape.

My breath hitches. “Come on, little bird. Let’s get inside… now.”

What steps into the moonlight has every instinct inside me screaming to run.

A colossus of bronze and raw, scarred muscle towers at the edge of the porch.

His chest is impossibly broad, tapering into hard-packed abs riddled with silver-white scars that branch out like lightning across his skin.

He has on heavy, leather breeches slung low on his hips, tucked into massive boots that somehow aren’t crushing the ground.

And where his face should be, there is a massive, oxidized bell. Its surface is pitted with age, patina creeping through the bronze between symbols I don’t understand. There are no eyeholes. No mouth. Just the imposing, silent weight of metal.

The small bird slowly begins to expand. I scramble backward, my heart hammering against my ribs.

It lets out one last, pained chirp. Then the sound cuts off. Bones crack.

The tiny body twists in on itself, wings stretching far beyond what they should. Feathers blacken before erupting into ash-gray smoke and flickering crimson fire. Limbs lengthen and its spine arches with a series of wet pops.

When the smoke finally thins, a hulking warhorse stands where the bird had been, its coat the color of dried blood and charred wood. The creature lets out a plume of steam that reeks of gunpowder and hot iron. Its eyes are twin pools of liquid fire, staring directly at me.

It stamps a massive, steel-shod hoof against the stone porch, and the bell-headed figure steps forward, taking the reins of the nightmare he just summoned.

“I knew you would not be able to resist something broken,” he says.

“What are you?” I gasp.

He takes a single step forward, dropping to one knee.

“I am here to see if your mate is as strong as Therael claims,” he says. His bell tilts slowly to one side like he’s studying me. “If the Beast of Fertility cannot protect a single flower… how will he ever protect one more?”

“What does that⁠—”

With a speed that defies his massive size, he reaches out a hand the size of my thigh and closes it around my wrist. The moment his skin touches mine, a snarl erupts from inside the house. The stones beneath me shake violently. Glass shatters somewhere inside the house.

He pulls me forward, dragging me into the meadow. He doesn’t stop until we reach the waist-high grass.

“I should have guessed something without a face would lack a brain.”

He chuckles and releases my wrist.

Three other figures are waiting in the moonlight. The first one slides through the grass like a fever, his bone-beak catching the silver moonlight. He looks like a gigantic predatory bird. He makes no move to touch me, but his eyes study me like he’s assessing a carcass.

“He moved you from one glass box, just to trap you in another,” his voice slithers into my ears. “This one just has a better view.”

“He did no such thing.”

“Mm.” He walks a wide circle around me. “If he truly trusted your bond, why hasn’t he sealed it?”