Chapter 1
my little hawk
Daphne sat perched at the oriel in her bedroom, and she'd flung the windows wide open, heedless of the gentle rain settling damp upon her nightgown and the velvet cushioning. It was early yet and the heavy rain clouds made the dawn even darker. She stared across the lawn towards the gloomy forest. He waited out there, in between the dark spiny pines and twisted briar patches. The trees stretched like skeletal fingers towards the low grey skies, disappearing into misty rain.
She sighed, he felt so far away.
Daphne knew it was quite silly of her to think of him as a "him" at all. In fact, it was quite silly of her to spend any bit of time thinking of him, really, especially since she didn't even know his name...
But she called him her Fallen.
She found him when she was quite young, only eight years old. At first, he had terrified her: a large, cruel looking statue, foreboding and untouched in the murky woods. The forest was always suffocating, but it was the only place she had to flee to once the Dark Lord began snaking his way into her home, whispering in her parents ears, slithering and creeping into their lives.
She was only eight when the Dark Lord began his slow requisition of the manor and into her parents' circle of influence. Daphne immediately disliked him—Motineni, he called himself. He scared her even more than the monstrous statue did. So she would grab her sister's hand and they would scamper into the woods like little mice, burrowing amongst the roots. They explored ever deeper into the forest the longer Lord Motineni stayed in their home. She never understood why he was there, what he was doing in their manor.
The Lord would lead sermons most evenings with her parents and their many friends, plenary sessions always, full and crowded with high-society's best. They'd arrive by fire and sit in the candlelit parlour, the large oak doors swung shut, the high tenor of Lord Motineni's voice echoing around the hall.
One time, Daphne had peeked into the crack between the doors, her curiosity getting the better of her fear. What did they do there? What could the Lord possibly have to say that had her parents so twined and twisted in joy? She gasped aloud, a small squeak of sound escaping the hand clasped over her mouth. Her parents and all of their friends were abased and kneeling before Lord Motineni. He was cast in vibrant surrounds, illuminated from the setting light, dazzlingly scarlet cast through the tall stained glass window. There he stood, a dark figure limned in red. His eyes glowed with their own foul light, arms raised in gleeful hauteur, hubristic and vile. His neck and fingers were too long. Everything about him looked wrong, like a sun-bleached branch, brittle, like chalk. He was frightening and inhuman, a monster made flesh.
She fled at the sight. What else was there for her to do.
Clasping at Astoria's shirtsleeves, she dragged them both out of the manor and hurtled, heart pounding, across the pristine lawn into the silent forest. Perhaps solace might be found there. Her sister was so confused, begging her to slow down, to stop lest they fall. But she couldn't slow down. No, they had to get far away from whoever, or whatever, that her parents had invited into their home. But finally her mad dash came to an end as they stumbled. Daphne tripped upon a jutting root and they both tumbled, in a whirl of skirts, petticoats, and shoelaces, to a stop on the ground.
Groaning from the fall, Daphne slowly sat up, then stopped, staring up at the monstrous figure hulking above them, perched upon a large pedestal.
"What is it, Daphne? What's going on?" her sister pleaded and whined, still sprawled out on the forest floor. But Daphne just stared up at the massive statue, taken aback by its presence. What was it doing here? In the middle of their forest?
Astoria sat up then, looking around and catching sight of him as well. "Wh—what is that?" Her voice trembled. It was enough to pull Daphne out of her daze and turn, to worry over her sister.
"Astoria! Are you alright? Are you hurt?" She grabbed her by the shoulders and twisted and turned her about, looking for any scrapes or scratches.
"I'm fine," whined Astoria, "leave me be!" She swatted at Daphne's hands.
Mollified, Daphne sat down at the foot of the statue with a huff.
Astoria sat next to her. "Who… is he?"
Daphne glanced up at him. He was quite monstrous, a fearsome creature. He looked like a fallen angel, with his high cheekbones, his spiny halo, and his stained claws. The socle was unmarked, no name or date inscribed, so she had no choice but to shrug.
"I don't know"
She sighed and blinked away the mist settling upon her eyelashes.
She was now, these many years later, quite enamoured with Fallen. She had taken to sitting upon the plinth, sequestered beneath his cloak, resting under his protection. She'd lay there and stare up at him and allow herself to let down her guard.
Lord Motineni took up residence in their guest wing many years ago and just having to sit at the dinner table with him every night put Daphne fully on edge. When her presence wasn't expected in the manor, she spent all of her time in the dark woods. The bony fingers of the pines have long since lost all eeriness; instead, the lingering mist and cool hollows sheltered her and hid her from the outside world.
Mother called her downstairs, breaking her out of her reverie. She sighed again, but shut the window, etching a quick spell to away with the damp on the cushions. Perhaps the Dark Lord had left for the day already and she could eat a peaceful breakfast with her family.
But it wasn't to be.
The imposing figure of Lord Motineni sat like a spectre at the head of their table. Why her father abased himself further by allowing that creature the seat of honour, escaped Daphne. She could barely suppress a shudder at the Lord's presence. In the ten years since he first came to them, he began fashioning himself a facsimile of a halo, magicked into a hovering glow encircled in slow rotation behind his head and shoulders. It was a violent silver and reeked of ozone. She hated it. It put her off her breakfast, so she sat, only picked at her food, pushing it around the plate.
Astoria and she ate in silence at the far end of the long table whilst Father and Mother talked with the Lord. They took every meal in the formal dining room now that the Lord was their continual guest.
But Daphne always liked the room anyways. The tall stained glass windows depicted hedonistic scenes of cavorting creatures: satyrs and fauns in revelry; unicorns and centaurs circled in gleeful canter; feasts and orgies piled one atop the other, all in vibrant glasswork. And when the morning light came streaming through the window, rainbow beams of lights refracted, variegated across the walls and black walnut table, across the cornucopia and candelabras that sat upon the brocade runner.
Her parents and the Lord were discussing the Ritual. They'd been planning it for years, and there was little else they could talk about these days. Her parents spoke of it with reverency, the same sort of insipid worship they bestowed upon the Lord.
It made Daphne's skin crawl.
From best she could tell, the Ritual was violent, requiring a sacrifice of some sort. But the outcome, their goal, was a mystery to her. They never said it outright, leastwise while she or Astoria were in hearing distance.
"I believe Orelius and Bruce are ready, m'Lord," her father was saying.
"Mm, perhaps."
"Their sects are the most… primed. Fervent, in fact."
"A seven point cross, then?"
Father closed his eyes for a moment, as if running through a calculation. "Yes."
Lord Motineni smiled. A terrible sight.
"May we be excused, Mother? Lessons, you know." Daphne spoke up loudly. She didn't miss the flicker of anger across the Dark Lord's face. A tremor of fear thrilled through her.
Her mother stared at her blankly for a moment, then nodded. "Of course, dear."
Astoria hurriedly shoved back her chair and made for the door all before Daphne could even stand, but she cleared her throat quickly before Astoria could go too far, halting her sister in her tracks.
Astoria turned toward Lord Motineni. "At your release, my lord." She bowed.
Daphne followed with her own bow and mumbled, "at your release, my lord."
The Dark Lord smiled then, a grimace that stretched over his skull-like face, a black crack across his chalky skin. In the years since she'd been flung into terror after spying on his parlour sermon, he had only gotten more frightening. His fingers elongated further into spidery like claws, blanched a pale red, as if perpetually bloodstained.
"Go forth, my dears, your release is nigh," he whispered, in his ominous tenor.
They fled at that.
They took lessons at home, in the upstairs study. It neighbored the library, a cosy room clad in dark wood panelling with a towering fireplace and heavy oak tables.
When she was a child, before their lives had been upturned by the Dark Lord, her parents used to tell her stories of a great castle, a school where all magical children were taught wondrous things by witches, wizards, ghosts, centaurs, goblins, and giants, all. After The Fall, when most institutions had crumbled and the Everrain had begun, all children were to be taught from home.
At eighteen, Daphne was upon her last year of education before she had to decide a path of life to follow. For several years now, she'd been favouring Enchanting, and the library provided her with more and more books on the subject, creating lessons for her.
But today, she wasn't going to stay in lesson. He called to her. She missed Fallen, no matter how foolish of a girl she may feel at admitting that to herself, but she missed him, her monster. Her angel. So whilst Astoria got down to her own lesson (the library today had provided her with sheet upon sheet of runic translations), Daphne flung open the brass latched windows and stepped out on the millstone Juliette.
"Daphne! You can't! Not again." Astoria sounded petulant and whiny.
But Daphne just grinned back at her sister. "Cover for me," she called and then, clutching at her notebook, she hopped off the balcony to the gardens below.
The Everrain brought a cover of mist that hid Daphne's dash to the woods. She was dressed only in her night-shift and a simple corseted house dress. She'd pulled on a shawl before breakfast to protect against the morning chill, but hadn't time to put on boots, and thus still only wore her simple velvet slippers. They were her favourites and possibly a bit too thread-bare at this point but she adored them too much to exchange them for a less worn pair. They were embroidered with the Vergram house crest: a small green skull entwined with laurels underneath an open-beaked hawk. They'd been a gift from her mother and Daphne was quite fond of them. They reminded her of a more pleasant time in her life, when her mother still cared for her and not only Lord Motineni's blasted Ritual.
This is all to say, she was not dressed quite warmly enough for the morning chill and her clothes soon became damp and clung to her as she ran freely through the mist towards Fallen. The woollen shawl helped slightly, but she was heedless of her state of dress. She was free with Fallen—and, anyways, he was but a statue. She never had to worry about modesty around him.
She tried not to dwell on her growing obsession with the statue, but ever since that moment ten years ago, when Astoria and she stumbled at Fallen's feet, she saw him as her protecting angel. Astoria had held onto a fear for the beastly statue, but Daphne knew there was nothing to fear from him.
She stopped, panting, resting a hand upon Fallen's stony foot.
The woods were dark, the manor's lights far gone behind her. Heavy clouds scudded across the sky, blocking out the weak morning sun. Her house dress was soaked from the rain. But there under the trees, the tightly woven canopy only let a light drizzle fall, a slight hiss upon the pine needles that carpeted the forest floor.
She laughed, the knot in her chest unwinding now that she was far from the Lord's sinister presence.
She draped her sopping shawl over Fallen to hopefully dry out a bit, and pulled off her house dress, struggling for a moment with the cinches before tossing it up with the shawl to dry off as well. In only her shift and velvet slippers, she lifted herself up onto the plinth, and resumed her favourite position—lounged across the rough stone leaning upon Fallen's bracing hand, feet tossed over his crouched leg. Cradled here by Fallen she let herself imagine (if only for a moment), that he held her just so gently. She giggled. Enough of those foolish thoughts… and withdrew her notebook.
Flipping to a blank page, she began her sketch, tracing the outline of Fallen's features across the page. The whole notebook was filled with studies of her angel. He was quite the subject for her: his pose powerful, his face regal and full of expression.
He was larger than any man, as best she could tell. He was in a crouch, one hand braced upon the socle, the other pointing a long gnarled wand at an unseen foe. That alone made him old, from some time long past. No magical had used a wand in... well, ages. Spells were structured as enchantments now, and etching was a more permanent cast than anything a wand could do.
He had one foot braced firmly on the ground whilst the other was set back, readying him to lunge at his adversary. His feet were bare, but she supposed that because his feet were more clawlike than human. His hands were as well, his long elegant fingers tipped with black-stained claws. He was dressed in a harnessed robe, in what was perhaps a dated fashion from whatever time he was from. No one wore robes anymore, magicals had long since left vintage styles behind. He was wrapped in a delicate stonework chain. It draped in a harness, following the shaped robe, but dangling beyond his body. If it were not carved from marble, she assumed it must have been exquisite work. Constructed with a unique rune (triangle bordering a circle, bisected vertically by a line) set in each circlet and then beaded into a long chain, she had long theorised it was some sort of ceremonial chain, or perhaps a signal of his station or rank.
She could find nothing of the rune in any of her textbooks, and the library seemed quite unwilling to provide her a lesson even when she submitted a very thorough sketch. She eagerly dug through old history books and any records that may cover Fallen, but no matter her query, the library never produced answers. She could find no trace of the rune or chain. She'd even gone as far as to search for ancient ceremonial dress, but without knowing exactly what era he came from, she kept coming up empty.
The rune was also etched like raised scars upon Fallen's forehead, hands, and feet.
He had another scar, breaking his scowl in two from brow to chin. It looked like lightning, possibly from spell damage, he looked like he could have been a warrior of some sort.
The most unique feature he had, however, was the spined halo rising from his wind swept hair. It too looked ceremonial, but as far as she could tell (she'd even gone so far as to clamber to the top of Fallen, sitting upon his shoulders, to take a closer look) the decorative feature grew directly from his head, and was not some sort of unique form of dress. The spines were intricate and sloped back slightly like horns. Each spine flared at the base and had a ridged scaly texture. An impossibly thin piece of stone encircled the whole structure, weaving among the spines.
From his size, even though in a crouch, she thought he might stand well over eight feet tall. She wondered if that reflected his true size, or it too was the artistic interpretation.
Whoever the sculptor had been, they were a master at their craft. Fallen's clenched muscles were visible, straining on his arms and legs, even through his robe. She could see each individual hair on his head. The only place the artist had not gone into extreme detail, was his eyes. They were flat voids, staring in a blank scowl into the forest.
She sighed, turning the page. She had sketched every part of Fallen (even, in a moment of weakness, peeking beneath his robe in the tiny gap available, to see what the sculptor had… captured… there), but he still remained a subject of unique fascination for her.
The cloud cover had drawn away whilst she'd been sketching, and a unique moment of sun shone down on her. She stretched and sat up to see if her clothing had dried off enough. She supposed she should head back to the manor and lessons... poor Astoria, studying all by her lonesome.
Graphite was smeared across her hand, she noticed, and she absent mindedly wiped it on her shift, groaning when she realised she'd now stained it. Mother would be insufferable about that.
About to pull the house dress over her head and struggle with cinching the corset again, she paused. Was that a scream?
She stood still, in a state of half-dress, when she heard it again. It was definitely a scream, it sounded like…
"Astoria!"
She bolted back towards the manor, ignoring the thorns and brambles grabbing at her skin and shift. She crashed off of the hidden path and barrelled as fast as she could through brush and briar towards her sister. She left her there, alone, for far too long.
She didn't trust the Dark Lord in their home. Why was Astoria screaming? A sob tore at her throat as she ran, tripping and stumbling over the uneven ground.
She dashed through the front doors, slamming them open.
"Astoria!" she yelled, "Astoria, where are you!"
And then her heart plummeted.
The hall was full.
Every acolyte gathered and dressed in their ritual wear. The flagstone floor was carved in a detailed ritual circle—a seven pointed cross, runes glittering. It glowed and hummed with a wicked light, but Daphne didn't see any of this.
She couldn't year her eyes away from Lord Motineni.
He stood at his full eldritch height, towering above the congregated magicals. He too wore the ritual dress, black and wildly gilt in silver thread, the sleeves cut short to leave his chalky arms bare. And his blanched red fingers were now a dripping blood red and she couldn't hold the sob back. In one hand, he held Astoria, dangling over the floor. He clutched at her face, holding her as easily as if she were a rag doll, her arms and legs hung limply at her sides, a full metre off the floor. She was still dressed solely in her white shift, never given the chance to dress properly for the day. She was so white, so pale, besides for a trickle of blood dripping from beneath the Dark Lord's grasp upon her face. It ran down to drop slowly off of one hanging foot to splash onto the etched cross.
Whimpering, Daphne crashed to her knees. "No, no, no, no, no." Her pain whispered out of her. This wasn't happening. How could this be happening? How could her parents allow this!
They were somewhere in the crowd. This was The Ritual, the one thing they'd been planning for years, there was no way her parents didn't know who the sacrifice was.
She retched, heaving drily, nothing but bile burning at her throat. She hadn't eaten since breakfast and there was nothing in her turning stomach to throw up.
The Dark Lord didn't even pause, just continued on with his chanting, the false halo glinting and sparking behind his head.
Two acolytes pulled out of the crowd towards Daphne, silver encased hands raised in an etching pattern—
With a low moan, Daphne pushed herself up from her boneless slump on the floor.
She had to run.
She couldn't let them cast and trap her here as well.
There was no desire left for her to stay in this wretched manor. There was no hope here. Nothing left for her. Poor poor Astoria, my sweet Astoria.
So she ran, she ran faster than she'd ever run before, her hair streaming behind her as she disappeared into the forest.
The woods were dark, the manor's lights distant behind her now, barely a flicker between the trees.
Night had come fast as she fled.
Heavy clouds scudded across the black sky and the woods were dark. But she ran still, crashing with reckless abandon over the twisted roots and rough ground. She ignored the sharp burn of thorns tearing at her arms and legs through the thin cloth shift and angrily dashed away the tears clouding her eyes. A sob ripped from her throat as she tripped at last over the uneven ground and collapsed, finally, at Fallen's feet.
The air hung heavy with the scent of impending rain.
The image of Astoria's lifeless body dangling from the Dark Lord's grasp was seared in perpetude behind her eyes. Her tears wet the ground as the Everrain began again. Clenching at her arms, she dug her nails in until her fingers were damp with her own blood.
The pain shot clarity through her, hoisting her out of despair and straight into a vibrant anger. How did this happen? How could this happen? She'd burn everything down.
Motineni would regret the day he ever thought he could use her sister.
But, there was nothing to be done now. She was safe here with Fallen, no one seemed to be able to find him besides her. She gathered her dress and shawl, still strewn around Fallen's statue and hoisted herself up onto the socle and arranged her clothing into a somewhat makeshift blanket.
It wouldn't be the first time she'd fallen asleep whilst sitting beneath Fallen.
With her anger simmering in a knot behind her breast, she let herself cry once more, to mourn her sister, and the life she would never have.