Shards

Exhaustion was so deeply set in Zane’s body that he’d forgotten what it was like to be awake, well and truly awake. It hadn’t been long since the days had started to blend together, nights stretching into days as the dark sky never seemed to lighten. Winter was a harsh and cruel thing in Ashenport, even worse with the sudden rise in storms. 

He shouldn’t have been surprised when his hands had started to shake trying to piece together the torn paper of whatever recipe had been torn out of the book he’d found. It had to have been important for Madame Rosevin to task him with something so menial, anyone on the island, and in Ashenport, could stick a bit of paper back together. But she’d been so insistent that he had it done by the time she returned from whatever parlay she’d been invited to. They both knew she wasn’t going to touch it until the morning. Hells, it wouldn’t surprise him if she never touched it again. 

It was just one more task to keep Zane out of the way. He’d begged, pleaded, for more work, and she’d given him just that. Meaningless tasks to preoccupy his time and stop him from asking for actual work. 

If she just gave him the chance to prove his worth. He could do all of the experiments she’d put aside for another day, he could categorise all the effects each of the ingredients they carried had, if only she let him. 

But that was too difficult for an apprentice, too complex for him to understand. As if she even knew what he was capable of. Talathion knew what he could do, knew just how much effort he could pour into every study handed his way. The late nights he’d spent bundled up in front of the fire in the Botanist’s study, paper strewn across the floor and a mug of hot tea steaming away beside him. 

Tal had offered, of course. An apprenticeship not dissimilar to the one Madam Rosevin provided, but they both knew of the weight her name carried, of the opportunities that lay beyond. Opportunities that would ultimately be nothing if she refused to teach him.

What was it that made her look at him in such a way? The pitying eyes when Zane asked for anything, the gentle pat on his arm as she said he just wasn’t ready yet. Four years of the same look, but it felt different now. There was a soft smile that followed, a whisper to a fellow magi that resulted in that same sad look. 

Most of the elder magi gave him that look, treated him as though he could crumble to pieces at any given moment. Zane wasn’t sure which look he hated more, that one, or the sickening gaze of disgust that most everyone else had. 

Zane dropped the piece of paper he was matching up and stood. He couldn’t deal with the fiddly nature of it right now. He needed food, he needed warmth, he needed anything else but this.

As he crossed his room, Zane caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, the draft from the window rustling the curtains he’d so carefully lay in front of it. He knew better than to look; it never ended well. But there was a reason people looked at him like that, the scorn, the disgust, it was all because of something. Something he couldn’t see.

Standing before the mirror, Zane looked at himself for the first time in weeks, really taking in every detail of his battered body. To him, there wasn’t much difference to the last time he looked, his clothes still fit the exact same as they had done since he’d first been given the robes. They were perfectly tailored to fit him, an expense that Madame Rosevin hadn’t even thought about–a pouch of gold she’d dropped in the tailor’s palm to cover the heightened cost of tailoring enchanted fabric. 

But that wasn’t what people looked at, it was his face that drew the most attention. The pale skin stretched thin over his cheekbones, freckles dappling his nose and cheeks. His horns were waxed and polished, one of the few things he spent time in the evenings. A simple, easy shine that made him feel more…distinguished. 

His hair took more work than he cared for, the white streaks having become more prominent, an early greying? Clovara had suggested that it was stress, a childhood riddled with nothing but fear and abandonment could do that, with fires and floods and far too much pressure for a frail little thing like him. It had taken him years to feel safe in Ashenport after everything, and he’d only just found himself comfortable enough to exist in a place with so many memories. 

Madam Rosevin had suggested it was magic exposure, though the specific kind of magic had always slipped her mind the second he’d asked for details. No books in the library had mentioned such a thing, even the few magi he’d come into contact with would neatly skirt around the topic like they all knew something he didn’t.

Merrin didn’t know either, and Zane believed that. How could he know? He wasn’t versed in the effects of magic, or the intricacies surrounding the complexities of all the different schools. And Merrin wouldn’t care for them, all magic had a price, and if that price was white hair, then Zane would simply live with it.

He seemed so…normal. The blue of his eyes was no different to Merrin’s, the sharpened fangs in his mouth no different either. They were twins, same face, same eyes, same teeth, same everything. 

Sure, Merrin had more muscle from years at the dock, his nose more crooked from the countless breaks. But they were the same. Just no one looked at him the way they looked at Merrin. 

What was so wrong with him?

Zane didn’t even know what he was doing, his body moving without input. The sound of cracking glass echoing through his room as the mirror shattered. Thick shards fell to the floor beneath his feet, the sudden burning pain across his knuckles bringing him to his knees.

Deep crimson ran in small rivulets down the side of his hand, and he watched it begin to slowly drip to the floor. It would just be another stain set into the wood, nothing that he would have to explain away. But the bruises, the cuts, he couldn’t explain that to Merrin. He would ignore them, and he would beg everyone to do the same. 

The pain throbbed in his knuckles, and Zane trembled as he tested that none of his fingers were broken. They weren’t, and he hated how a part of him wished they were.