Cilia

The stage below is drenched in lantern glow, all warm gold and fluttering paper hearts, and I stand above it on the catwalk where the smoke from fireworks drifts like soft fog. My boots are steady on the metal beam, my shoulders relaxed, posture perfect, because perfect posture makes perfect shots. I roll my wrist, feel the rune bow settle into my grip, and the cow-patterned inlays along the limbs answer me with a faint, obedient hum. Another confession down there wavers at the edge of courage, so I draw a rune-heart arrow into existence and let it throb with a tiny heartbeat of light. My lips curl into that familiar smirk as I line up the angle, calculating the crowd’s movement, the wind, the timing of the music swell. I tap the bow limb twice, superstition and ritual, then pull the string back to my cheek and hold my breath in calm control.

Then a pair of eyes catches mine through the veil like a hook through silk. My ears jerk back, my tail flicks hard, and my stomach drops like I have stepped off the beam. “No, no, no,” I breathe, because nobody is supposed to look up and find me. My fingers twitch, the string slips, and the glowing rune-heart snaps free with a bright streak I did not mean to release. I lunge forward too late, watching my flawless record shatter in a single, stupid heartbeat as the arrow dives toward the one person who should never have been able to see me at all.