Birds of Paradise by Oliver Langmead (read any book .TXT) 📗

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Prologue

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

XII

XIII

XIV

Acknowledgements

About the Author

“It’s tremendous. With echoes of Charles De Lint’s Someplace to be Flying, it’s fresh, fast-paced and wholly immersive. Love it!”

Joanne Harris, author of The Gospel of Loki, Chocolat and many more

“Astonishing, riveting. Powerful mythic fiction that makes you remember why you read this stuff in the first place.”

Ellen Kushner, author of Swordspoint and many more

“Birds of Paradise sits in a place between Plato and John Wick, a place which frankly I didn’t know existed. And it is profoundly human too: whoever has ever known loss will resonate with it.”

Francesco Dimitri, author of The Book of Hidden Things

“A beautifully written novel by one of the UKs most exciting new voices.”

R. J. Barker, author of Age of Assassins and The Bone Ships

“A meaningful tale told with style, subtlety, and a deep understanding of the world and all its ways, Birds of Paradise joins the past to the present, the oldest stories to the new, without putting a foot wrong. It’s a beautiful, thoughtful read.”

Aliya Whiteley, author of The Beauty and The Loosening Skin

“This is a profoundly felt and richly imagined novel; a fragment of myth from an older time which, as you turn it around in your mind, you know instinctively must be true. A beautifully executed and original work of art.”

Una McCormack, New York Times bestselling author of Star Trek: Picard – The Last, Best Hope, The Undefeated and many more

BIRDS

OF

PARADISE

BIRDS

OF

PARADISE

OLIVER K. LANGMEAD

TITAN BOOKS

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Birds of Paradise

Print edition ISBN: 9781789094817

E-book edition ISBN: 9781789094824

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: March 2021

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© Oliver K. Langmead 2021

Illustration © Darren Kerrigan 2021

Oliver K. Langmead asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

The king! With beak and talons

The king! In the form of man

Nothing escapes those eyes

He sees everything

Cult of Luna – ‘Ghost Trail’

PROLOGUE

Adam tends to the garden. He works among the flowers where the bees dance. Around his ankles, and up his legs, and across his shoulders coils the snake, its tongue flickering in his ear. Beyond the grove a hill rises high and the twin trees stand at its apex, knowledge and life overlooking all, with their roots buried deep in Eden’s rich earth. The birds overhead are of every colour and they fly high above the trees and call out to one another, and beneath them in the river and the lake swim and play the shining fishes, and among the trees wander the beasts and fowl that walk the earth, and all and everything belongs to Adam; the earth and the plants and the trees, all made for him, so that he might love and care for them; his paradise.

The low-hanging branches of the trees at the edge of the grove shift and Eve appears, her hair so long and dark, her eyes bright. As she approaches she digs her fingers into the skin beneath her breasts, beneath her ribs, until she pierces her flesh and she can grip hold of her ribs. Her ribs she pulls upwards, outwards, until they jut from her in glistening red and white nubs, and her skin tears away, revealing her lungs inflating and deflating, and her beating heart, thudding its own rhythm besides. From her open chest she tears her heart, pulling the arteries from it, dripping blood with every pulse of it, holding it out to him.

Uncoiling the snake, Adam lets it drop and takes hold of his own chest, digging his fingers into his flesh just as she did. He has one rib less and has to worm his fingers around to find purchase, but he manages to get a good grip and rips himself open. For Eve, he tears his ribs aside and reveals his own lungs and heart, so that they are both exposed to each other, breathing and beating in rhythm together. By touch he finds his heart and pulls it from himself, twisting each artery until it breaks and the pulsing organ is free. It is a heavy heart, bigger than Eve’s by far, but he offers it to her just as she offers hers to him, and in that way they make their exchange, their blood pouring into Eden’s soil and feeding the twin trees.

Eve’s heart is so small. Its beat is the fluttering of the wings of a butterfly. He presses it into his open chest tenderly, pulling his arteries and knotting them around the heart until it stays in place. Then, one rib at a time, he pushes his chest closed, and smooths his ragged broken skin over the hole. Eve