gray briar
They speak of him in whispers,
their voices thin as smoke.
The one who dared defy the Bloodweb’s hum,
its voice low and guttural,
like the breath of a god just waking.
The First, the Winged,
His name, long devoured,
is a bitter taste on the tongues of the devout.
Once, he stood above the rest,
a man with eyes like dying suns,
who sought the heavens in a world
where even light bends to fear.
But he was not content to kneel,
to chant, to bleed as all others bled.
No, he craved more.
Wings to fly to heaven,
to walk upon soil that did not crack.
They say he drained the life from others.
Their blood a river, his hands the dam.
Feathers of flesh and blood he wove,
until wings stretched wide behind him,
dripping with the weight of a hundred lives.
The priests call it blasphemy,
but they say it with awe,
for who but the damned
could fashion such terrible beauty?
He leapt, and the world gasped.
Upward he climbed,
past the towers, past the choking clouds,
higher than God could reach.
But blood is not air,
and sin cannot lift what faith denies.
The wings held, until they didn’t.
Until the weight of his wicked sins
dragged him screaming from the sky.
He fell, and he didn’t stop.
Through the first reflection,
where shadows stretch long
and whisper the names of the dead.
Through the second,
where the air turns to glass
and shatters in your lungs.
And deeper still, to the third,
to the fourth—
to mirrors darker than black,
where even the gods dare not look.
The priests warn he did not fear the sleeping God
so he falls even now,
his wings of blood unraveling,
his heresy an anchor.
His screams echo still,
a warning for the devout:
Carve your prayers,
into your supple flesh
until your wrists sing with holiness.
They tell us this as they tighten the straps,
as they whisper the sacred words,
as they cut into our skin
and let the Bloodweb drink.
Better to bleed, they say,
than to fall.
rain shuttle
tawny grove