What the Vent Hides
Marigold was not easily bothered.
She had endured flaming storms, lightning rituals, and once, a thunderous tantrum from the Firebird himself when his cloak caught on a chandelier. Many strange things happened in the Veil of Pillars, the home of the gods.
She napped through all of it.
But this?
This she could not ignore.
The sound came from the northeast hallway—the one lined with old flame-etched mirrors and that tapestry stitched with symbols she wasn’t supposed to understand (but absolutely did). They underestimated what she could do, even if she was a cat.
There it was again. A faint flutter. A whisper. The tiniest beat of something against metal.
It came from the vent.
She crouched low on the stone floor, her ears perking forward. The scent was dust and warmth... and cheese?
She pressed her face to the vent’s metal grate. Definitely cheese!
Images of the golden food, the springy texture, the bliss on her tongue. But then she heard it again.
Flutterflutterflutter.
Then gone again.
A lesser creature might grow frustrated. Her? She flicked her ears and stalked off. Indifference. Naturally, she knocked over a bowl on her way out, just to feel better.
The sound returned the next day. Then vanished. Then returned again. Like it was teasing her.
“I am the shadow of the Firebird.” She perched on the incline of a windowsill later that night. “The one who walks between sparks. I am his most graceful trick. His last true whisper.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“And yet this thing drives me to madness.”
A moth? Surely that's what it was. Something soft and ancient and wrong. Something that had no business living behind a wall.
What vendetta did it have against her?
She returned to the hallway at midnight, when the glowstones dimmed and Zharko slept. He’d taken his Firebird form again—massive, resplendent, sprawled across the main hall like a god too tired to smite anyone.
Not that he did a lot of smiting.
Marigold wished she could change like he did.
She crept past the mirror hall. Her tail twitched. Her paw pads whispered across the stone. She reached the vent again, settled into a crouch, and stared.
She couldn’t help the thought that crept up then. “If I had a true form—one with arms, with breath, with a voice—I could tear this vent open. I could step inside. I could ask what the moth wants from me.”
But she didn’t. She had claws, not hands. Teeth, not a tongue for speech. She was only a sliver of Zharko’s soul. A whisper in his fire. And fire does not wear skin.
Not like he could.
Sometimes, when he shifted, she imagined doing the same. Letting her form inflate, stretch tall with purpose and presence. Eyes blinking into human sight. A mouth that could laugh or curse.
But she didn’t change.
Instead, she waited. Pressed close to the vent, fur puffed, breath still.
And then she heard it.
A whisper.
“Marigold.”
She bolted. Her tail grew three sizes larger.
The next day, the sound did not return. Nor the next.
She stalked through the estate like a dagger waiting to be unsheathed. Napping, snapping at passing wisps of magic, ignoring her plate even when Zharko left a sliver of roasted honey-mouse beside a slice of his enchanted cheese.
Nothing.
Until the seventh day, when she passed the hallway again and paused.
The vent was... open.
No breeze. No smell of cheese. Just shadows. She stepped close. Peered inside.
Behind the grate, the wall gave way to a narrow crawl space. Dust floated like breath held too long. And in the center of it all, something soft lay on the floor.
She reached in, paw brushing the object.
A single, torn moth wing, fragile and shimmering faintly, like old embers. Veins of faint light.
She batted it once.
It turned to ash.
And that was it.
No more sound. No more flutter. No more whispers.
Just absence.
Later that evening, she curled beside Zharko’s Firebird form, her tail draped over one flame-colored wing. He stirred in his sleep, then spoke without opening his eyes.
“What secrets have you stolen today, little one?”
She didn’t answer.
She simply purred.
And dreamed of shimmering wings.
