Prologue: The Bird

I WAS seventeen years old when I brought a bird back to life.

I never told anyone about it.

I had felt particularly sorry for myself that day. There was a knight in the castle I’d been harboring a crush on, but he didn’t even know I existed. And there was a rumor going around that he was dating the Prince. I thought (hoped) that was just gossip amongst the staff in the castle, but then I’d stumbled across the two of them in the library, heads bent close together. The Prince’s hand had been on the knight’s thigh, and the knight had this look on his face, this soft expression I’d never really seen on him before. It was directed at the Prince, and I’d felt this furious curl of jealousy in the pit of my stomach, acidic and hot. It rolled through me like nothing I’d ever felt before. I was young and stupid and had a crush on a man who had never looked at me, not even once. And why would he? The Prince was everything I wasn’t: powerful and beautiful with a future that was certain.

I was this scrawny kid who’d been pulled from the slums because he accidentally turned a group of teenage douchebags to stone. I was grateful for everything I’d been given. My parents were living a life they never thought they could have. I had the best friends in a hornless unicorn and a half-giant. I thought my mentor was the best thing that had ever happened to me. I was healthy. I was happy. I was whole.

But there were also days when I was a little sad too. I was a teenager, so of course I thought the best thing for unrequited love was to mope about it. I kept a journal (diary, the unicorn would insist, it’s a diary where you write your depressing little teenage thoughts, Sam. Don’t try to call it otherwise) under my mattress filled with such asinine meanderings that only seventeen-year-olds are capable of, like I would love him as deeply as the ocean and His eyes are as green as the grass in summer and I want to lay on that grass and rub my face in it and get grass stains on my face and S.H. + R.F. = TRUELOVE 4EVA.

So, naturally, I was devastated and utterly convinced that I’d be alone for the rest of my days, having to watch the Prince and the knight grow more in love with each other and then eventually marry. I’d have to witness it every hour of every day because I was going to be the King’s Wizard, and their love would bloom right in front of me for the rest of time. They would be happy together, eventually have a family, and I’d always be skulking in the background, emo as shit in a black robe, dyed black hair, and thick black eyeliner, giving enigmatic advice that wouldn’t look out of place in a Gothic horror: Oh, you want my opinion on the crops? I shall give it to you. The crow flies inverted to peck out the eyes of its enemies and lament its existence in the face of such bourgeois conformity. This is lame. Everything is lame.

And since that was my inevitable future, I decided to start practicing by brooding along the edges of the Dark Woods outside of the City of Lockes. My mentor had sent me on an errand to collect something or other that he probably didn’t even really need. My best friends volunteered to come along, but I flipped up my collar, thrust my hands in my pockets, and said I needed time to reflect on my own mortality and that it was best if I did that by myself, like I always did.

“Oh boy,” the unicorn said. “You do that, Robert Smith.”

I frowned at him. “Who?”

The unicorn shook his head. “This guy I knew. Crazy hair. Sad all the time. Used to sing about it. It got old real fast. Before your time.”

Whatever. It was probably stupid old people music, anyway.

So there I was! Sad and despondent and alone and in the Dark Woods, which was a pretty terrible combination. No one understands me, I thought to myself as I kicked a rock into the trees. No one appreciates me for who I am. My life is hard. I have deep feelings and everything hurts. I’m seventeen years old and everything I think matters and I will feel this way for the rest of my life.

It probably would have gone on for quite a bit longer in that ridiculous teenage vein had I not stumbled across the bird.

I was about to kick another rock when I saw it.

It lay on its back in the grass beneath a tree, wings spread out underneath it, the left crooked at an odd angle. Its feet stuck in the air, yellowed and curled, little black talons at the end. Its plumage was white on its chest, with a gold stripe on the underside of its tail. From the wings and the top of its head, the rest of it was black, with little specks of white dotting the feathers. It must not have been dead long, as the ants hadn’t yet found it. I didn’t know if it’d hit a tree or if it’d been attacked by something larger than it, but it’d died here, in this spot.

I didn’t know why I cared so much. I didn’t know why it struck me as poignantly as it did. One moment I was sulking over something that would never be mine, and the next I was on my knees, hunched over this little bird, hesitating to reach out and touch it. In the grand scheme of things, this was nothing. Things died every day. It was the way of life. This was absolutely nothing.

But I reached for it anyway.

The bird wasn’t stiff when I picked it up from the ground, meaning it’d died even more recently than I first thought. There was a little wetness on the back of my hands, and I felt the gash near its neck through the feathers where it’d been slashed by some creature that had left it here instead of swallowing it whole. It wasn’t breathing. There was no heartbeat. It was dead.

I held that bird in my hand and I thought to myself, It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair. And it was the thoughts of a seventeen-year-old boy who believed his heart to be broken, though in the grand scheme of things it might not have mattered. There was the sharp sting in my chest that only worsened when I saw his face, that happy smile when he looked upon the Prince, like the Prince was everything he could ever hope for.

And who was I to ever compare?

It isn’t fair. This isn’t fair.

I cupped my hands together, hiding the little bird away.

I didn’t think of anything else.

No wishes upon the stars.

No ancient words in the tongue of those that came before me.

And there was this pulse, and I thought maybe I cracked, just a little, the pieces jagged and sharp. There was green and gold, the colors of the forest around me. It was almost effortless, really, more so than magic had ever been before. It started in my heart; I knew that for a fact. I felt lightning-struck, the beat erratic and heavy.

The colors whirled around me, a spinning corona of light that pooled between my cupped hands, so bright I almost had to look away. It began to cascade downward, like a waterfall, the drops of light spreading along the ground, pulsating slowly. The forest faded around me. The sky above darkened. Everything else melted away.

I thought, It isn’t fair.

And then something hooked itself into my head and heart and pulled.

The air sizzled around me.

The lights grew brighter, and I had to—

There was a flutter of wings against my palm, the barest of touches.

I took in a great, gasping breath.

The magic around me began to fade, the light and sounds of the Dark Woods returning as if they’d never been silenced at all.

And from my closed hands came the smallest of chirps.

I looked down as I lifted my fingers away.

The bird blinked slowly up at me.

Its feet opened and closed.

The crooked wing moved back into place even as I watched, the feathers scraping against my fingers.

It took a moment, maybe two, before it righted itself, the talons digging lightly into my skin. There was a little smear of blood across my palm. The bird hopped around, looked up and down, to the left and the right. As it turned its head, I saw the ruffled feathers on its neck, but the skin looked intact. It chirped again.

And then it flew away into the trees, lost amongst the branches and leaves.

I sat there for a long time, in those Dark Woods.

Eventually I decided to head for home. My heart was still heavy, but it no longer felt shattered in my chest. I could do this. I could be who everyone wanted me to be. I didn’t need the knight. He had the Prince, and I… well. One day I’d find someone made for me. And I would show them why I was made for them. It was going to be okay.

I put my hands in the grass to push myself up and—

I stopped, because the grass crunched under my fingers.

I looked down.

It was blackened. Burnt.

All around me. In a large circle. And everything in that circle was charred. The ground. The shrubbery. The trees. Everything. It was as if I’d burned the life out of it. To… to give—

I stood, my legs shaking, breath hitching in my chest. I took a step back. And another. And another. And then I turned and ran toward home.

I was seventeen years old when I brought a bird back to life.

I had taken life from the earth to do it.

And I never breathed a word of it to anyone.