“What’s your name?”
They were sitting inside the Seraphim complex, haloed under the floodlights. She’d never seen lights so bright; they made her eyes ache. The soldiers had wrapped a fleece blanket around her body, swathed a stinging salve across her burns.
The Seraphim who’d held her now knelt before her. “Your name,” he said again. His voice was slow and soft.
Still, the sun-girl did not respond.
“Are you alone?”
She looked up, considering. Nodded.
“Your mother and father?”
She shook her head.
A shadow passed over his face, leaving a heaviness she startlingly recognized as sadness. His gaze swept across her fragile form, her bloodstained skin, her bloodshot eyes. “I wish I’d found you first,” he said quietly. Slowly, so slowly it seemed he was moving through honey, he pulled som
