merryfates:

I was created of beeswax and honey, with a butterfly for my heart. He should have used a spider or iridescent beetle.

My master gave me hair from strips of ash-tree bark and lips of rose petals. Violet-black chokeberries became my eyes, and he sculpted the planes of my face with kid-gloves until it was as perfect as perfect could be.

He named me Melea, for it is the word to invoke the power of the Ash.

I breathed a breath of life and rose to my feet, more graceful than the rippling clouds that were my first sight through his chamber window. Master touched my chin with his cold fingers. He was sharp and bright like the sun on ice. He said, “Welcome, Melea. Here is your order: find my rival August Curran, make him love you, and rip out his heart.”

The butterfly in my chest cavity fluttered as the command settled into my ashwood bones.

***

Master’s housekeeper dressed me in an elegant gown of violet with cream lace and black-pearl buttons. My hair was lifted onto my head and pinned under a cap that frothed with netting and spilled over my eyes. The housekeeper sighed and whispered, “Such a sight I never saw. No need for color on your lips or cheeks, Miss Melea. ‘Tis life and beauty glowing through you like a sunset.”

She shuffled me out the door with a parasol, and boots buttoned up my ankles. The street was damp from an early morning rain and the air smelled of water and oil and dank horses. But also, the breeze hinted of sun-warmed brick and window-box flowers. And the teasing scent of those high-up graceful clouds. I tilted my face and saw the billows of white fluff spread in strips and ripples against the bright sky.

And I began to walk.

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