These Infinite Threads (This Woven Kingdom, #2) — In the Beginning

In the Beginning

ONE NIGHT WAS BORN

a royal child

Windows shattered the rain was wild

The queen rejoiced

The king ran inside

He looked at his son his eyes went wide

The baby had hair

the color of milk

His body was healthy soft as silk

Still the father was frozen

He did nothing but stare

at the white of his lashes and the white of his hair

You’ve birthed an old man

was all he could say

This child is cursed and he tore him away

The mother then cried

The babe did, too

He cried in the way babes often do

Amid protests and screams

that terrible king

strapped the child to his back and did a terrible thing

He climbed a mountain

his arms growing stiff Left the baby to die

at the top of a cliff

The wind was screaming

the child was, too

He screamed in the way children often do

when their parent

is vile

and stupidity reigns

when delusion

wins and intellect wanes

From on high watched a beast

who didn’t like what she heard

Simorgh, Simorgh, a magnificent bird

Her heart was unmatched

her magic unknown

She snatched up the child to raise as her own

With four other chicks

the boy grew in her nest

He was happy and loved and knew he was blessed

She warned him that

one day

he’d have to return

to a life he’d not known to a role he’d not learned

He rejected this warning

but Simorgh insisted His destiny was written

it could not be resisted

News reached him one day

that a woman still cried

That an empire was failing that his father might die

Simorgh brought him finery

that he wore without joy

to return to the palace he’d not known as a boy

He said his farewells

with an ache in his heart

to the family he’d chosen whom he’d loved from the start

Then he seated himself

on his mother’s back

and she tore through the sky with a deafening crack

Color exploded

when she took flight

She landed at the palace in a shower of light

None would forget

the day Zaal had returned

The way the world brightened the way his father had burned

Zaal took the throne

he was always meant to claim

But he would never forget his true mother’s name