Jonathan Wayland looked up from the ancient symbols decorating the pages of the large, leather-bound book open in his lap, peering out of the latticed, cloudy window pane. He shuffled, repositioning himself on the low window sill, where he was perched. If his father were here, he thought, he would tell him to stop fidgeting. Concentrate. But he was restless; bored and frustrated with his lack of progress in Ancient Greek—he knew his father would be displeased with him if he found out. He would cease to talk, or even look at him for days, save for necessary formalities—such would be the depth of his disappointment in his son. Jonathan could not let that happen.
Jonathan felt resentment rankle him as he stared longingly at the rays of sunshine gleaming over the manor's vast grounds. It was luring him, but he knew he could not be out in it. He must satiate his appetite for the open air with looking.
Disturbing the silence was the sound of footsteps, approaching. A light, graceful step, long-strided: his father. He heard the sound of his shoes pounding the thick rugs that lined the halls.
He heard his father enquire of the servant—"Where is Jonathan?" Her answer: "In the library, sir, as you left him this morning."
His father appeared in the doorway. "Jonathan." He said, expectancy weighing down his tone.
In a swift, practised movement, Jonathan shut the book, laid it aside, and stood to attention. He recalled the servant's remark yesterday—"by the angel, Jonathan, you are growing tall for your age! Your poor father will have to buy you a wardrobe of things soon, I expect,"—so Jonathan paid careful attention to lifting his head and sticking out his chest. He hoped that by his seventh birthday, he would be even taller. Surely that would please his father? To be tall, like he was? "Yes, father?"
His father did not smile, of course. He never did, but his dark eyes glinted like gems in something akin to anticipation. He had never seen his father look so strangely at him; as if his father could see something, something that delighted him, that Jonathan could not. Jonathan again lamented the butter-light colour of his own eyes—so disparate to his father's, and wondered why he could not look more like him. "I have something to show you, Jonathan. Come with me."
As always, he turned on his heel, and disappeared, expecting that his son would scurry along after him. Jonathan did so.
He led him to the barn, just outside the manor. "It's for you,"
'It' was a large bird, its sharp-clawed foot tethered by a long chain. Its front was white; its wings and back the colour of dead wood. It flapped its wings, and toddled back and forth on the wooden block in agitation. It had shiny, jet black eyes that seemed venomous in its gaze, serpentine, constantly looking for potential prey. His father did not look at the bird, now squawking loudly, but concentrated his gaze on his son, who was staring with alarmed eyes at the bird's beak, which curved downwards into a knife-sharp point. "You see how frustrated it is," His father continued softly, "Its first instinct, in danger, stress, is to fly; but it cannot. I want you to train this bird, Jonathan. I want you to make it so that this bird's first instinct is not its own, but your will; I want it so that if you so wished it, this bird would starve itself at your behest. Falcons," he gestured to the bird eyeing his suspiciously behind him, "are raptors—killing birds. This bird is born to kill; just as we Shadowhunters are. These birds, Jonathan, are the Shadowhunters of the sky. You must train it and make it obedient. Do you understand me?"
His father looked at him with almost beseeching eyes as Jonathan considered the task before him.
His father said, "I will not help you, Jonathan. It as vital a lesson for Shadowhunters to rely on themselves as it is to rely on one another. You must, and will, do this alone." In a reassuring tone, his father said, "Do not be afraid of it, Jonathan. Shadowhunters never let their fear conquer them. Regard this as an opportunity. Though you do not know it, you will learn a great lesson from this,"
Jonathan swallowed, feeling his forehead furrow while he watched the bird. It eyed him maliciously, its head jerking forwards in its examination of him. "Will it…make me a better Shadowhunter?" He asked his father, his voice trembling.
His father crouched down, so low that he could look his son in the eye. Jonathan felt instantly uncomfortable; he could discern the exact, fine shape of his father's nose, the dark, ebony glow of his penetrating eyes, the texture of his pale skin. Jonathan wanted to take a step back, but curiosity stayed his small feet.
Then, his father moved his hand to Jonathan's face. His son's eyes followed its journey warily—and then his fingers touched Jonathan's face, gently moving a partition of hair away from his face. Jonathan felt a thrill at this unexplained contact—he barely stopped himself from flinching. He racked his mind for things he might have done wrong—perhaps this was prelude to a chastisement? That was all Jonathan knew: touching was for making pain.
His father said, "Yes, it will make you better—it will make you great,"
As his father left his stunned son in the barn, alone with the killing bird, it cocked its head — and abruptly, flew straight for him.
Jonathan Wayland was sitting on an old wooden stool, his wrists and hands bandaged from where the bird had slashed its talons across his skin. His legs dangled — not long enough to hook his feet around the bar in the stool. He stared at the white plate on the floor, on which was a slab of raw meat for the falcon. His staring was solemnised by piercing squawks to his right, where the falcon was chained to the pole. The barn smelled of hay, the mustiness of the bird's plucked feathers, and its copious excrement.
For the past week, Jonathan had had precious little success with the bird: the falcon had not let him come anywhere near it, flying straight at him whenever he attempted to do so, jarring its chain to its maximum length, claws protracted.
Jonathan had tried playing music to it in a futile effort to calm it. He had quickly discovered the only way the bird would stop its horrid racket, was to take himself from its sight and hide outside. Frustrated, he'd considered taping its beak together, but was at a loss as to how he would achieve that without having his hands gored. The manor was silent as a tomb, the moonlight in his room keeping him awake, when he'd thought of a better idea.
In the night, Jonathan had stole down to the barn, and tied a black shred of fabric around its eyes.
This had not calmed it in the slightest.
Since Jonathan had severed its precious eyesight, though, the bird had seemed less savage: more resigned, its squawks more affrighted than fierce, its steps wobbling and hesitant. But still, every time the bird him heard him approach, it flew at him.
So Jonathan had graduated to exhausting it, in order to gain some control over it—when Jonathan had left his bed, it was one o'clock in the morning. His eyelids drooped irresistibly, his body swayed forwards—until he caught himself, commanding himself to stay awake. The bird had eaten hardly anything since its arrival, only scraps of meat which Jonathan had thrown at the bird, partly bitter at his sense of failure and partly trying to starve it into submission.
Jonathan rose from the stool, and abruptly, the bird descended into silence.
Disturbed by this new behaviour, he picked up the plate, grasping the slimy chunk of cold meat which was too big for his small palm. Quietly, slowly, he advanced, waiting for the bird's wings to explode, for it to launch. Jonathan imagined making this exact meticulous approach when his father finally allowed him to kill his first demon. When I am a Shadowhunter, I must be soundless, graceful. It cannot know I am there, he thought, remembering his father say that there was an art to killing demons. I will make him proud.
His fingers trembling slightly, Jonathan unfastened the shred of fabric tied around the bird's small head. He let the material drift to the ground, watching the bird carefully for any signs of impending attack.
The bird seemed stunned. Bewildered, it blinked once. Twice.
The bird did not move; it did not even seem to breathe. Its form was as still as stone, as if it had been stuffed. Jonathan raised his hand, uncurling his fingers from around the meat. He felt absurdly brave, adrenaline shooting through him. His hand was positioned beneath its beak, now.
The bird did nothing, that night.
It refused to feed out of his hand the night after that as well, and the night after that.
And then, one day, the bird swayed, like a horse's head lowering to the ground, then jolted forwards—ravaging the meat convulsively, frenziedly, with its incisive beak. Jonathan watched the bird swallow the hunks of ribboned flesh with relish. He felt it jab straight into his palm again and again, viciously tearing away, unheeding of the fact that the meat was gone.
Jonathan's flesh was dessert. Jonathan squinted, tensing his muscles against the pain, determined to withstand it. If this is what it takes, he thought.
Eventually, the bird stopped, and resumed its stolid position.
Jonathan distantly marvelled at his own recklessness as he held out his uninjured palm, and stroked the birds' feathers on the back of its head. The bird jerked, turning—but let him do it—its inscrutable eyes boring into his own.
In a flash, Jonathan danced away, careful not to push his luck.
Before he left, though, he went around the bird, which it did not like, released the chain from its catch—and ran out, cradling his hand, shutting the door rapidly behind him. He could hear the bird flapping inside, flying.
Over dinner the next day, after another arduous day training the bird, Jonathan's father smiled wryly at his son's maimed hand, now bandaged.
Jonathan had returned to the manor and shoved his hand straight under running water, watching as the gushing, ice cold water flapped the ragged bits of skin. The blood dyed the water rose-pink, and had stung at first, but after a while had thankfully numbed the biting pain. He had spent the next morning learning the equipment that he'd been trying to use with the bird all day: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist.
"You're lucky she didn't have young to protect, otherwise it might have been worse," His father observed.
Jonathan looked bemusedly at him at the other end of the table. "She?" he said, as if he'd spoken a word in a foreign language.
"Yes, of course," His father chuckled slightly. "The females are the fighters; so naturally, they are much larger than their male counterparts."
Jonathan ate in stunned silence, thinking of how strange it was that the bird, so ferocious, could be female – he felt as if the simple fact of its gender estranged him from it yet again—made his task of training the bird seem even more insurmountable. Jonathan did not know how females behaved, how they were different, what to expect. He had always thought of the female sex as something distant, irrelevant and disturbingly alien to the isolated life he and his father lead. He would never admit to himself—indeed, he barely recognised— how much he wondered about the hazy figure in his head that represented his mother, whom he knew was dead, whose existence his father never spoke of. But Jonathan knew he must have one—everyone else seemed to. Or perhaps he was the exception? Perhaps he had come solely from one person—his father. But I look nothing like him, a voice in Jonathan's head despaired. Perhaps he came from somewhere else entirely, then? Perhaps he was not really a Shadowhunter at all, but a Downworlder; the product of some horrible, evil experiment.
Once, many years ago, he had asked his father about his mother—what was she like? The next thing he remembered was the pain: the back of his father's powerful, runed hand, slamming across his small, smooth cheek. "Never," he had hissed, "Ever, speak of your mother to me, ever again. Do you understand?"
So the identity of his mother had been left entirely to his imagination. He dreamt about her sometimes, this fictive non-entity that was his mother.
But that night, he dreamt about his falcon.
Jonathan felt guilty about disobeying his father, but looking at the falcon now, who returned his gaze inquisitively, without fear or hostility; he could not bring himself to train it blind. His father never, usually, interfered with Jonathan's training—and he was glad of it. It meant he did not have to face him, and confess to his father's pitiless eyes, that he didn't have the heart to distress the bird any further. He stretched out a hand to the bird's wings and lightly stroked, willing it to trust him.
The bandages had become a permanent fixture—on both of Jonathan's hands. Every time Jonathan fed the bird, using his palms as a platter, he imagined his father behind him, watching him, what he would say; how he would disdain his son. But Jonathan continued regardless. At first, the bird would not eat, but now it did, and he felt that proximity would surely help them grow accustomed to each other. By degrees, Jonathan became intimate with all her movements, he felt as though he pictured the way she breathed—the tiny, soft flutter of her sides—whenever he closed his eyes. And slowly, very slowly, the bird became less vicious and his skin began to heal.
Jonathan had been contemplating taking the falcon outside the barn for a while. On the one hand, he thought, he should have done it weeks ago; he felt acutely sorry for the bird, imagining her discomfort at not being able to stretch her wings, imprisoned in a dark, still barn. On the other hand, he was petrified that if he let her roam freely in the skies, she would disappear into the clouds and never return; and he would have failed his father. Jonathan knew he needed to be confident that the bird depended on him enough for her food, and decided that today was as good as any other for it.
Jonathan unlinked the chain, and proffered his arm out to the bird. It hopped on without any hesitation, and he tensed the small muscles, still unused the extraordinary weight of her balancing on his forearm. Very carefully, so as not to jostle her, he unlatched the door slowly—the vast, green fields surrounding the manor came into view as the warm breeze swarmed around Jonathan and the bird. She made a cawing sound.
Immediately, he felt the bird's claws contract, push down—and then, the bird was rushing into the sky, letting the wind ferry it upwards and upwards. Jonathan jogged along, and stretched his neck back, trying to keep track of her—she was high now, a black speck against the clouds. He watched her soar, dropping and rising in circles, riding the swell of the air. Jonathan retrieved a chunk of meat from the pouch he'd brought, hoping, hoping, hoping, that she would return for it.
Eventually, he noticed he could descry her figure—she must be losing height.
Jonathan grinned rapturously, nearly shouting with delight, as she drifted carefully down to him, circling, and he thought about how imposing she looked, the marvellous, yet delicate width of her wingspan built for the speed of flight. Graceful, he thought, a Shadowhunter of the sky, recalling his father's words. How had he ever thought she was monstrous—ugly? She was beautiful. The bird dived, as quick as light, and Jonathan briefly bound her to leash as he fed her, and then let her take off again.
She was right at the ceiling of the sky, blending and appearing, in and out, in and out, of the pillowed clouds. Caelina*. Of the heavens. The name occurred to him unexpectedly – Jonathan had not realised that he had even been thinking about naming her – but it seemed right now; irremovable, now that he'd thought it. She could not be anything else.
After much internal battling that night, he released the words that had been on the edge of his tongue for hours, facing his father: "I've given her a name—the falcon." His father threw his son a dubious glance as he looked up from the book he was scrutinising, and disinterestedly enquired what it was, resuming his reading. When he told him, his father slammed the book into his lap and levelled him a look that made Jonathan's body go rigid. He continued to stare, cocking his head at him as if he was calculating a frustratingly difficult puzzle; Jonathan swallowed uncertainly, wondering what he had done wrong.
At last, his father simply snorted, giving Jonathan a quick once-over with his inscrutable black eyes. As he got up and strode away, guilt —exacerbated because he didn't know why he ought to feel it—settled over Jonathan like film of dirt. It clung obstinately, refusing to wash away for days.
Three weeks later, and it was time. It was the end of summer, the beginning of autumn; the hinge of seasons. The Idrisian wind was powerful and fresh, the white clouds skittering across the sky, letting in dapples of sunlight.
Caelina was perched on Jonathan's shoulder, her beak nestled familiarly in Jonathan's light yellow hair as he walked out, onto the field where his father was waiting, arms crossed. He was excited, anticipating his father's reaction when Jonathan demonstrated how well he'd trained the bird. He was certain he would be pleased. He had not just tamed her, but perfectly tamed her.
Jonathan had fantasised about this moment for a long time. What would he do—would he smile? Congratulate him? Say he was proud? Give him presents? Or perhaps he was hoping for too much, Jonathan thought. He consoled himself by imagining Caelina and himself when he was older, a proper Shadowhunter, with her perched on his shoulder, constantly together.
Then, Jonathan showed his father the selection of tricks he'd taught her— to potter after him when he turned his back to her; to copy his movements when he stepped towards her; to return to him with a flick of his fingers, to circle his head before she landed gracefully on his small shoulder. She put her beak in his hair again. Absently, Jonathan stroked her head.
He grinned at his father, waiting.
Something tipped the corners of his father's mouth as he came towards Jonathan, but it occurred to him, with crushing bewilderment, that it wasn't happiness.
Jonathan felt Caelina's alarm before he saw it—the way her small head jerked back slightly, her beak apart; but thankfully, his father only stroked her; harder than he, but Jonathan was relieved.
Then, his father grabbed Caelina roughly from Jonathan's shoulder—she made a loud squawk— and with a horrendously effortless twitch of his fingers, broke her neck. As easily, quickly, as unscrewing a cap; her head hung vulgarly against her now-lifeless body, her eyes wide and depthless, her beak asunder, her claws limp in his father's hand. "I told you to make it obedient," his father said, an incomprehensible fury in his voice, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. It made a thumping sound. The falcon's head was twisted unnaturally around, staring upwards. His father continued, "Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets. They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken."
Jonathan did not see his father leave—his eyesight was too blurred for that, as his eyes flushed with ready tears. He went to his knees, tears coursing fast down his face, and gently, incredibly gently; he fingered its soft, smooth feathers.
He did not know what else to do: he stayed there, beside it, on his knees, and cried. Jonathan realised that he had not only loved the bird; it had made him a companion. Before the bird, he had not thought, he had not known, what loneliness was—but now he did. He knew it burned. Now, he knew, his future stretched before him, as gaping and unending and merciless as the skies above him; the skies that Caelina had been named for. His face felt feverishly hot; he choked on his tears, sliding over his soaked face, and he stared at the sky. For a fleeting moment, the tears stopped as he imagined Caelina flying again. His knees ached—he considered retreating inside the barn—but that would be too painful. The manor? He decided he couldn't face his father, either. Jonathan had failed him and he didn't want the shame.
Evening light was swirling and dying the clouds candy pink, orange and purple, the cold wind stirring the curls in his hair, by the time the servant came, a towel in her hands, and carefully gathered the bird up into it and hurried away, burying it. Jonathan stared after her, his throat sore, his lips cracked, his cheeks tight, his eyes dry, and he realised that there was gnarled, volatile part of himself that hated, hated—his father. For what he had taken from him.
Jonathan got to his feet and watched the servant drop the bird unceremoniously into a hastily dug hole. With his last glimpse of Caelina, his father's words replayed punishingly in his head, and suddenly, he knew his father had been trying to tell him something— something vital. After failing him time and time again, Jonathan felt as if he finally, thankfully, understood—his father had broken her neck because Jonathan himself had already broken the bird. Shadowhunters of the sky, he had said. Shadowhunters were not made to love; they were made for death. They were made to be strong, swift and fierce, just as Caelina had been. Jonathan had taken that from her. Loving her, he realised, forcing her to love him back—that was what had actually, truly, killed Caelina:
To be loved is to destroy…and to be loved is to be the one destroyed.
He felt something inside himself, something molten and alive, go cool, shifting and departing with Caelina's dead body.
As he walked back to manor, he promised himself that he would never again break anything with love and it would never break him. He would be strong and inflexible, as his father was. He would be a Shadowhunter.