It had been an unexpected danger to his family, since he'd been swimming since he was three, and trotting off to find some solitude in the quiet grove and the mud-filled waters since he was about eight, often on his own. Considering how much his parents feared the knowledge that would come with independence on a greater scale [something he only understood many years later, after he'd been disowned and forgotten] they had been surprisingly adamant about their children taking care of themselves on a micro level, in the day to days. They did their own laundry, and all of them could cook. They took care of the goats and the chickens between lessons, and each knew how to mend the basic elements of their clothing. They could swim, and they could go off on their own.
There had been nothing exceptional about this particular outing. He'd had a book, and a stick, and he'd caught a frog and let it go before he'd stripped down to nothing to duck down into waters still cool from spring, just as the heat of summer became enough that he wanted a bit of reprieve. The first dive and wander had been nothing, easy and familiar as he'd ducked under the surface and had come up with fair hair dyed dark from mud.
When his foot stuck at the bottom, for a moment he hadn't quite understood the danger. Ever had never feared this little oasis from home. He had never had cause to worry that anything bad might happen to him, here, unless his brothers followed him out and tossed him kicking and screaming into the heart of the lilies.
But when the breath went out of him in a great gasp and water came in to fill its place, then it had become a different story.
And when Nest split into a swarm of fluttering wings that clouded and filled his vision, that clogged his throat and stole away his breath, all Ever could think of was this moment of betrayal, when the certainty of faith faded away to nothing and, instead, was replaced with fear. Until this, he had always been certain that their victory was an inevitable thing; soldiers lost along the way but on the whole they could win, their forces enough to drive back those of the supernatural.
It was a lie. A story like those his parents used to tell him, like the story that death came with light and a warm embrace instead of a misery of pain and a wash of darkness -- a thudding in his ears and a stillness in his chest.
Continuation from here.
