Seraphim

a gothic, fragmented, flash-fiction piece.

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My eyes fell to the ugly carvings in the wood. I watched him carve the symbols, his knife whittling away at the aged, soured oak until a strong, burnt smell—like blood meeting metal—roared to life in the tiny space between us.

The smell rose into the air, his other hand drawing quick, fevered symbols into the wood. The chalk ghosted his fingers like age-old dust, his eyes a wild, erratic haze.

“Stand back.”

The sigil, now completed, began to glow a faint, orange color—like the dulled embers of a fire. The smell was so strong it made my eyes water, and I brought a handkerchief to my nose.

I watched as he began murmuring incantations, his eyes closing in remote, serene concentration.

I stepped forward.

“Don’t touch the lines.”

Startled, I watched as the candles all snuffed out, one by one. My heart hammered against my ribs as a shadow appeared inside the sigil—inside the circle.

The voice that greeted us made my bones rattle. The tiny bit of light inside me flickered—as if something ancient and primal inside me urged to run before it too, would be snuffed out.

But it was too late—its form began to unravel inside the white, powdery lines of chalk, the bleak carvings in the wood. The creature’s bones expanded outward to form a pair of silvered mothwings, his teeth razor sharp, his eyes a red, crimson flame. He had silver-white hair that glowed like moonlight in my brother’s darkened alchemy room, and on his head were two large, curved horns protruding from his scalp— in the shape of a ram.

They were gilded, like they were once carved and fashioned out of golden ore.

I dropped the candle I was holding—its wick long snuffed out.

“You dare to summon me?”

When it spoke, my skin crawled, leeching back towards the bone. Everything about it was wrong—an abomination. And yet it commanded reverence. We fell to our knees before it, and I kept my eyes lowered, too afraid to speak.

“I summon you, Kavios,” Atticus said behind ironed teeth, “to bind you to my servitude.”

⋆~⋆ ~☾~⋆ ~⋆

Two silver wings fluttered onto my fingers, and I bent towards the moth, its crimson eyes watching me fervently.

“Caius—” I bit my lip, his antennae bristling. “Caius, help Atticus.”

Atticus lay in tangled sheets on the four-poster bed inside his room. His fever had flushed his pale-white skin to a sickly red, the sweat clinging to his brow. I pressed a cold, wet rag to his forehead, dabbing it away.

Caius had crawled his way to the front of my frock, his antennae twitching as he watched him.

Suddenly, a tall, slender man appeared at Atticus’ bedside, his vermillion eyes sharp and calculating. He turned to me with a small tilt of his head, his intelligent eyes watching me.

“And what will you give up to save your brother’s life?” Caius’ words were quiet but razor sharp, and they sent a chill down my spine.

My lips twisted into a frown as I stared at him, the rag still in my hand.

“Anything.”

“Are you sure?” His icy stare bore a hole into my retinas, and I felt the light in the room dim, just slightly, from his gaze.

“For my brother’s life, anything, Caius.” I gritted my teeth, my brow furrowing. “You know that.”

He laughed, and it sounded like birdsong, though he was anything but. “The boy has already given me half of his life—what will you give me in return?”

He approached me on silent feet, his marbled skin beautiful and terrible all at once.

“What will it be, Seraphina?” He took my hand into his, his thumb gently rubbing the back of my palm, his eyes almost tender. He pressed his lips into my skin to give a searing kiss.

“Your life would be too easy,” he said, his voice like velvet, “perhaps I require something more.”

I tore my hand from his, my eyes full of fire.

“I am not afraid of you, demon.” I moved to the side, dipping the rag back into the bowl. I shifted back towards a moaning, whimpering boy below me, my face instantly softening.

“How cruel it is,” Caius murmured, “that magic only flows to male heirs, when your power is far greater.” His voice rang in my ears as I brushed aside Atticus’ unruly head of curls.

“He bound you because he was desperate. And you know that. He would have never bound himself to a demon otherwise.”

Caius only laughed, his voice featherlight. “And who is to blame for your family’s misfortune? You knew what you were waking from its eternal sleep. You knew better than that foolish brother of yours.”

“Caius, if you refuse to help me, then get out.”

He stared at me, his marble face entirely expressionless, his calculating eyes razing their claws into my back.

“Bind yourself to me.”

I laughed, the laugh coming out as a harsh, abrupt scoff. I turned to him, placing the rag back into the bowl.

“No.”

“I thought you said you’d do anything.”

I bit my tongue until it bled, the words strangled and dying behind a curtain of iron teeth.

“Release Atticus from his contract.”

Caius smiled, his expression wicked.

“For yours? Alright.”

“And you…you will ensure he is restored to full health. And that nothing else…that no more of your tricks will come to harm him.”

Caius smiled, and every single hair on my body rose at the sight. I felt a deep unsettling, a wrongness, hollow out my stomach.

But he merely bowed, his silver-white hair curtaining his alabaster features, ever the gentleman.

“I swear it.”

The room darkened again, and a chill swept through the room, the candles extinguishing one by one.

“Up you go, lad.” Caius raised a long, clawed finger to Atticus’ lips, a strange, ancient language flowing from the tip of his tongue.

Atticus moaned, and the doors rattled on their hinges, the water sloshing dangerously in its bowl at his side.

Caius only smiled, his voice as gentle as a lullaby.

“I unbind you, Atticus, from our former covenant.”

⋆~⋆ ~☾~⋆ ~⋆

I heaved myself from the water basin, the blood I emptied into it staining the porcelain a crimson-red.

My vision blurred, dark spots flickering across it like illuminations, leaving blinding, white images in their wake. I bit back a sob as I crawled into my bed, the cold sweat drenching my clothes until I was shivering.

Caius materialized above me, at the foot of the bed, his crimson eyes watchful.

“Get out.”

I grabbed the grimoire that had been lying on my bed, and threw it at him. He sidestepped elegantly, his face twisting into an expression of mock-pity.

“It will pass. My power is flowing through your veins now, Seraphina. It would have killed your brother—but you will survive it.”

He smiled.

“I told you that your power is far greater than his.”

“Out!” I roared, and fire spewed from my fingertips, aimed straight at his head. My eyes widened in shock.

I sat up, my pale eyes examining my fingers in choked, body-curdling fear. Smoke wafted from the ends, the fingertips singed black. Soot-coated.

I screamed out, the pain at last registering, and Atticus ran into my bedroom, a second later.

“What? What is it?” His terror-filled eyes searched for the cause, his eyes roving across the bed. He took in my state— my disheveled hair, the red, blotchy patches crawling up my skin like a death-gripped sickness, my eyes wide in fear, my fingers black.

He brought his hands to my fingers, his lips muttering out a soft incantation, and instantly, my fingers healed before my eyes. The new skin was pink and raw and I cried out—half in fear, half sorrow.

My younger brother held my head in his hands, shushing me quietly as I cried.

He glared at the demon at my bedside, his dark brows and angular features turning his handsome face into something terrible.

“I will banish you, you foul-born, carrion-hearted parasite.” His voice was grim as he spoke, his words an omen. “And then I will destroy you.”

Caius only laughed; his laughter rang out like bells throughout the small, dimly-lit bedroom.

“You?” He raised his eyes, and his silver moth wings appeared behind his head, bathed aglow under the pale moonlight. “Don’t make me laugh, Atticus. You’re only just a boy.”

He gestured a guileless hand, his eyes bright. “Your magic is but a plaything compared to mine.”

⋆~⋆ ~☾~⋆ ~⋆

I danced in a moonlit ballroom, alone at midnight in nothing but a nightgown.

My feet bled with every step that I took, my body twirling of its own volition. Tears fell and dried countless times across my salt-stained cheeks, but the spell held fast, deaf to my grief.

I danced, unable to stop, the mirrors doubling my pale, ghostly reflection. I was a shell of who I once was, and yet, a fire blazed inside me— brighter than the moon.

My hands extended outwards, my movements lithe and full of grace, and when I twirled again, a form appeared beside me, his silver mothwings glinting in the night.

“Very good, Seraphina,” he murmured into my ear, and my gentle cries splintered to sobs, my once fire-hearted pride reduced to nothing more than a flicker.

We danced, like lovers, under a mothlight moon.

My brother lay a few feet from us, his hands and feet bound in wire, a terror-laced look carving out his features. Caius had kept his promise. No mark marred his skin—but the helplessness he felt as he watched us withered his mind, little by little, night after night.

“Very good, my darling,” Caius praised, and spun me across the room. I twirled endlessly, unable to stop my movements, my bones on the verge of breaking. There was no music, only the sound of my breath ravaging my panic-strewn lungs, exhausted, the fire in my veins keeping me from death.

His hands were gentle, like gossamer and silk, as he brought me back into his arms, our never-ending waltz his favorite game to play.

“You, my darling, were always meant for more.”

I watched in horror, as my bones expanded in the mirror, as they bent, broke through the skin—the awkward, sharp angles unfurling until—

I blinked, my eyes rimmed red and bloodshot, as silver-laced mothwings unfolded across my back, rose above my shoulders, expanding into full-flight atop my spine.

My body felt light, as if I could let go and float away into the darkness, as if there was something earthly keeping me tethered here. For one suspended moment, the mirror held another image— an ancient, feathered creature, crowned in a pool of light.

My eyes watched Caius, and he smiled—and this time, there was no cruelty there. A tender reverence bled from his eyes as he extended out a palm.

“My seraphim—my burning one— let go, and let yourself take flight.”

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Seraphim: the highest order of celestial beings; the name meaning “burning ones” ; associated with pure light, fire.