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The Emperor sat behind a long mahogany desk filled with papers and baubles.

Three glass bottles of varying sizes were set in a pod with small intricately painted boats in each one.

Two pale green eyes, the shade of budding leaves, peered at me above a skull laden sail.

The chair scraped against the wood as the Emperor sat back and took me in.

“Welcome to the Divine Palace, Splendor.”

His thin lips lifted into a smirk, gaze trailing over my tail feathers that had wrapped themselves around my torso, camouflaging into the plumage adorning my breasts.

The vein on his forehead ticked, dark brown brows becoming two stiff lines when he looked slightly past me.

I knew right away when he’d noticed and my feathers rustled in response, chest pinching tight.

“So it’s true…” He tapped his chin thoughtfully.

“You’re wingless.”

I bowed my head, both to answer his question and hide my shame.

Tiny pricks tapped at the back of my eyes, but I held the tears at bay.

It did not bother me much that I had no wings.

How could you miss something you’d never had to begin with?

But something about when others looked at me, that pitying stare, as if solving a puzzle as to what I lacked, that was what burned behind my eyes.

“How remarkable… Would you grace me with a song?” The Emperor’s rich silk tone glided over me, like a calm breeze over the leaves of my fig tree.

My tail unfurled before brushing back and forth over the wooden planks of the floor, the uneven edges reminding me of bark.

Of safety.

He clasped his hands together.

He didn’t look old enough to have ruled for a century, aside from the waxen hue of his fingers, thick veins protruding around his wrists and running up beneath the sleeves of his midnight velvet coat.

Beads of sweat were raised on his palms.

“You must have made an impression on the Empress. She was not thrilled that I sent these two in search of your rare majesty, but here you are, more than I could have hoped for.”

Reverence painted his face and that hollow lacking that had carved its way into my chest was replaced with pride.

I lifted my chin, reaching my palm across the desk, tentatively.

“What kind of song do you wish for?”

“Life has been unkind to me these last few turnings. I’m afraid it has weighed on my spirits.” His hand quivered as he placed a moist palm gently atop my own.

“Renew my spirits with your rarest ballad.”

I swallowed thickly.

Staring up at me, those leaf-laden eyes held so much hope.

The Emperor appeared more like a young boy than a middle-aged ruler with such acclaim.

So delicately human.

I knew what he wanted, truly wanted .

It wasn’t just any passing tune or melody to assuage his woes.

A wordless whisper caressed the shell of my ear.

This Emperor—this man—was dying.

He’d sent his guards in search of my kind, finding only me, presumably the last of them.

And while I had no wings to call my own, I did have the one thing all splendors did: my canthymn.

“Of course.”

Once upon a time I believed my soul’s song would bring my family back to me.

That maybe they would hear it and come searching.

If our canthymn was so magical, couldn’t it summon my fellow splendors back from wherever they’d migrated to?

When our tail plumes came in and our hearts felt a secondary beat, that was when our canthymn came.

At least that’s what the nymphs had explained to me.

There was a low pulse, a sacred rhythm that carried a song that defied Death.

But with each canthymn, that rapping softened, and softened, and softened, until after seven times it eventually hushed.

Forever silent.

I barely knew the ruler before me but he stared at me imploringly, a desperate man.

It was hard to believe he’d held so much power for so long within the world.

Who was I to deny him this and dismiss him into Death’s cold embrace?

Closing my eyes, I stepped back and inhaled.

I centered my breathing, focusing on that rap, rap, rap pulsing beneath my breastbone.

The rhythm never faltered, never shifted.

It was my constant comfort.

A sign that maybe I wasn’t truly alone.

Rap, rap, rap.

Rap, rap, rap.

Between it were thick thuds I tried to ignore, even as their pace grew rapid.

A dense drum beat of my heart I pushed to the background.

Rap, rap, rap.

It vibrated down through my abdomen then back up through my chest, my throat, my mouth, until my lips parted and I began to croon.

Each note layered upon the next, growing with intensity as I swayed back and forth giving the excess energy somewhere to roam.

Pale pink clouds lifted from my lips, burning down my throat as the canthymn’s magic poured from me.

It sifted through the air, before descending with my crescendo and into the Emperor’s sternum.

His body jolted in its seat as he stared down at the faint glow coming from between his ribs and his large palm slid up to the spot, eyes coming back up to me.

A radiant smile burst from his mauve lips.

His skin no longer held its waxen hue.

It was like smoothed sandstone and when he sprang from his chair and rounded the desk to hold my hand in his, it was soft.

The veins on his wrist had receded and even his pale green eyes were now flecked a richer shade of emerald, like a fresh patch of grass.

“I have no words,” he said in gratitude, beseeching me, “only a pressing need to beg you to stay here and make the Divine Palace your home.”