Excerpt: Raise These Arms, These Scars, This Light

Such a perfect baby, such a beautiful boy. A mother is permitted to say such things; even a bug is beautiful to its mother. But he was beautiful, more so than other babies. This I knew even though he was my first, for what girl has not laughed with delight while watching the babies of her tribe? What young woman has not shared astonishment at the swelling belly of a friend recently married, watched in wonder at the wrinkled monkey-child who emerges into the light of our world?

Mashti is what I called him, named for the light that splits into the seven sacred colors as it passes through the veil that separates the worlds.

Nardoun is the name he should have been given, I know that now; but still, what mother would have allowed such a thing?