1564024802

To that place within him where all those
truths had dwelled, where it became warmth
edged with sharpest pain.
And then the world grew and expanded, the
trees rising, the ground approaching—
He made to touch his face, but found he
had no hands.
Only soot-black wings. Only an ebony beak
that allowed no words past it.
A raven. A—
A soft inhale of air had him twisting his
neck—far more easily in this form—toward
the trees. Toward Manon, standing in the
shadows of an oak, her bloody, filthy hand
braced against the trunk as she stared at him.
At the transformation.
Dorian fumbled for the thread of power
that held him in this strange, light form.
Instantly, the world swaying, he grew and
grew, back into his human body, Damaris cold