26. Ayna
Ayna
The estate is quiet when we sneak up from the back where the hedge has grown high enough to shield even the tall Crow males. After hours of watching the coming and going of Flames, spying no longer seems like enough to find out whether the missing fairies are locked up somewhere in a dungeon. I hope Herinor’s torture chamber isn’t where they are holding them; the memory of my first encounter with the male is enough to make my hair stand on my neck and an onslaught of nausea to assault my stomach.
Instinctively, I reach for my shoulder where Herinor sliced my skin to send a message to Myron that I was alive and where to find me.
When I glance to the side, Herinor’s eyes are on me, conflict muddying their otherwise light green. He inclines his head, and so do I. It’s not like we’ve become real friends—the deal he made with Ephegos won’t allow that—but we’ve gotten closer. I no longer fear him the way I did when I first fled Erina’s palace, but I know I can’t rely on him for help, even when he wants to help me.
It’s fucked up that Ephegos managed to trap him like that. Fucked up and unfair.
“ How do you think I ’ m feeling about that?” Kaira throws in, and I jerk up the shield I’ve been working on to keep my thoughts private—even from my sister.
“ Like you can ’ t trust him?” I suggest through our mental connection.
Her dark laugh resonates in my head. “ No, that comes with the territory of Crows in general. I hate that he could be turned against my sister at any moment.”
“ He ’ s already been turned against me,” I remind her.
To my left, Clio and Myron are whispering with Royad while Herinor’s making space for Kaira to better see through the gap in the wall of leaves.
“ He seems to like you a lot, though.” I imagine winking at her, and the feeling seems to come across because she glares at me for a brief moment before returning her attention to the massive male at her side.
We stay in our hideout a few moments longer before Myron and Clio deem it safe for the Crows to shift and take a brief flight across the grounds, and when they turn into their feathery selves and take off, my heart doesn’t stop racing the entire time they are gone. Long minutes pass, my imagination supplying me with all sorts of horror scenarios of what could have gone wrong. Only when I spot four black birds descending from the roof once more do I take a full breath again.
Royad is the first to land—I’ve learned to distinguish the four Crows in their bird forms—but he doesn’t shift. Silas comes in next, hopping a few steps before he settles beneath the hedge right in front of my boot. Myron and Herinor are last, but only Myron shifts back into his fae form to explain what they’ve found.
“The hole in the roof is still there.” He means the one where they broke through old tiles when hunting down my scent months ago. His retelling of what happened here still haunts my nightmares. How they’d been trapped, captured, and their magic taken from them.
Swallowing the rising nausea, I focus on Myron’s report rather than on the ball of anxiety raging in my stomach.
“If we’re quick, we might make it in through there. We can start searching on the top floor and make our way down.”
Clio doesn’t have anything to say other than, “I’ll site-hop them to the roof.”
The glance Myron gives me as I reach for Clio’s outstretched hand is both warning and encouragement. My tattoo tingles and heats as he shifts so fast he’s nothing but a blur of feathers.
“If we measured the intervals correctly, we have about a half-hour window to do our search. Be thorough and don’t waste time. If you come across Crows or Flames, make sure they don’t raise an alarm. Do what you need to do.” Her instructions are cold and precise like a seasoned general, but her eyes dart to Kaira as if in apology for giving the order to hurt, potentially kill, her people.
Dismissing the gesture with a shake of her head, the part-Flame takes Clio’s other hand, and the world blurs before my eyes as Clio drags us through it on her magic.
We hit the roof half a breath later. A breath now lodged in my throat as I find myself at the edge of a massive crater gaping in the spread of age-worn tiles. Myron is standing on the opposite side, back in his fae form, Royad and Silas flanking him with tight expressions on their faces. This is madness. The chances we’ll find the fairies here are slight, but where else are we going to start searching? If they’re not here, someone will know where they are, and we’ll get the information out of them.
My magic is drawing taut in my body, readying for a fight, but if I haven’t learned full control over it while using it, I’ve made great progress at holding it in. It tosses like angry waves as I tell it to stay put. One of these days, I’ll need training, or I’ll keep stumbling through this war.
At least, I’m swift with my daggers and light on my feet, my new senses and strength granting me advantages in combat I didn’t have as a human.
My ears tell me there’s no one awaiting us below the open roof, so I don’t hesitate to follow when Royad and Myron hop down, landing on their feet silent as cats. When I leap after them, Myron catches me around the waist, setting me down lightly, eyes serious and full of anticipation of an ambush.
Clio has Kaira by the hand, site-hopping the part-Flame down onto the weather-worn wooden floor. It must have recently rained; the streaks of old blood covering the patterned wood have been washed out to near-invisibility.
We step further into the large space, making sure not to stumble over heaps of debris as we make room for Herinor and Silas, both of them drawing their weapons as they seem to float from where the jagged tiles end. Herinor points toward the narrow wooden door at the far end of the room, gesturing for us to follow as he makes to open it.
Nobody speaks, our silence—despite the shields Silas and Herinor have thrown up around us—imperative to slipping in and out of this place undetected. In the hallway, we split into groups: Royad heads out to the left together with Kaira, who knows this estate like the back of her hand. Silas and Clio head off to the other side, leaving Myron, Herinor, and me. We’d debated leaving Herinor behind, just in case we’d be caught and he might fall back into Ephegos’s hands, but the mighty warrior declared that, if we were caught, he’d rather be at our side than sitting by in a treetop. But that’s not all; Myron wants to keep an eye on the Crow now that we’re entering enemy territory again.
We head down the staircase, listening hard for any sign of life along the hallway lined with carved doors. Faint voices sound from the end, near the window, but they are cheerful and frequently interrupted by the sound of something clacking over wood.
Herinor cups his hands together, shakes them, and mimics throwing something onto a surface. It takes me a moment to understand he’s telling us they’re rolling dice. One by one, Herinor opens the doors that don’t betray their interior with sound, shaking his head each time Myron and I stand ready to attack. Besides a simple bed, an armoire, a chest of drawers, and a wooden stand serving to hold armor, they’re all empty, the only sound remaining that from the room at the end of the hallway.
By the time we make it near that door, I can make out at least two distinct voices.
“Fifty coins,” a female voice declares, followed by the clinking of metal. Imagining a pouch of silver poured onto a table, I take one measured breath after the other, forcing my nerves to stay strong. I have Myron and Herinor with me, but if the wrong creature lurks behind the door we stop in front of, it won’t matter who fights at my side.
One hand in the air, sword in the other, Myron waits, listening.
“You lost half of your salary last time we played, Chali. You sure you’re ready for what comes if you lose the rest?” A male voice chuckles, but his words are slightly slurred.
The bubbling of liquid followed by the slide of a glass along the table confirms they must be drinking.
“I’m ready, but I’m not convinced you are.” Innuendo floats on the female’s tone, making my cheeks blush even when I don’t even know what they’re playing, but I’m almost convinced she plans on paying her debts with her body.
Myron rolls his eyes, gesturing for us to take the next staircase down, and we follow his lead, Herinor’s brows knitted and my stomach in knots. The daggers in my hands weigh nothing, my feet light and fast as I keep up with the two males.
A few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed I could achieve near soundless paces, but I’ve spent my time wisely, practicing and honing my other fae abilities if I couldn’t train my magic. I’ve been studying them—all of the Crows. Their stealthy movements, the way they roll their soles to avoid noise, the patterns of scanning their surroundings.
My body might be human, but it follows Crow instincts now. Power hums in my veins, and I could turn into smoke and feathers if I wasn’t so damned scared.
“ Find anything?” Kaira’s voice in my head nearly startles me to death, my hand stupidly grasping for the handrail as we sneak down the stairs.
“ Nothing of use,” I inform her, focusing already on the next set of doors ahead, this one wider and one of two on a short segment of hallway before it ends in a large, open sitting area. I might have liked the design of russet and cream had this not been an enemy home where I was held captive. “ You?”
“ Nothing. Only empty sleeping quarters. Seems they ’ re all out training.”
“ Or burning down more of Askarea,” I suggest, wondering how many people the Flames have killed .
“ That for sure. It doesn ’ t take a whole house of Flames to do that, though. Most of the rooms we ’ ve seen haven ’ t been slept in for days. Some for weeks.”
“ How do you know?”
Kaira seems to hesitate. “ I ’ ve stayed in one like these most of my life. Simple soldier quarters in a fancy home.” There’s a sting to her words that has nothing to do with our search for the fairies or with the fact that she’s been at the bottom end of the food chain in her own people all her life. How I can tell, I’m not sure, but I don’t pry.
“ We ’ re entering a sitting room,” I narrate, sending over the image of the grand arrangement of uncomfortable-looking brocade chairs and brass-adorned table. Fresh flowers are sitting at the center of it, bending their colorful heads this way and that.
In front of me, Myron shakes his head, pointing back toward the hallway, and we circle around before all of us have fully entered the room.
“ Nothing there,” I report while Kaira sends me the image of an empty hallway from their side of the estate.
The third group must have found nothing either, or we’d have heard signs of battle. Why the silence is so reassuring, I don’t even try to unpack. Perhaps I’m not ready to face the enemy, or I’m just glad my friends aren’t in immediate danger.
Not that sneaking around the Flames’ home isn’t the highest degree of dangerous.
For long minutes, we check one room after the other for signs of missing fairies. Personally, I would have started with the place of assault and gone from there, but with everything burned to ashes, there are no tracks and traces of life where the Flames captured Recienne’s soldiers. Clio herself has visited each and every scorched battlefield to confirm.
“ Anything?” Kaira prompts as we make it to the second floor without coming across more Flames. It’s like the house has been abandoned without us noticing. I could swear we saw at least twenty Flames come and go, and as many Crows; there should be more people in this place.
All we find is the empty main hall and reception room. And inside the next room?—
My stomach folds in on itself as I recognize the heavily ornamented walls and ceiling, the russet brocade and cream filigree. And there, covered in impeccable sheets speaking of the innocence of a welcoming guest room, the bed I’d been sleeping in for long, long days stands against the opposite wall. Nothing speaks of the torment I’ve endured in here, but it doesn’t matter that they’ve cleaned away every visible trace of me.
Myron’s nostrils flare, grip tightening on his weapon as he scents the air. A low growl rumbles in his throat, and even Herinor has the good sense to stand aside as Myron prowls into the room, squinting as if struggling to keep his eyes open, and rams his blade right into the pillows resting at the head of the bed. With a powerful tug on the pommel of his sword, he slices through the length of the bed, covers, mattress, down to the wooden frame, until it splits apart with a marrow-freezing creak.
“ What was that?” Kaira’s voice barely breaks through the sound of Myron’s anger breaking the bed where I’d once been stuck .
“ Nothing.” Determined to console him, I follow Myron into the room, sheathing one dagger as I reach for his hand.
He rips it away, rounding on me, breath ragged and eyes wild. I’ve never seen him like this. Even when he realized Ephegos had betrayed him, he hadn’t been boiling with rage like he’s boiling now.
“ Didn ’ t sound like nothing.” The obvious alarm in Kaira’s tone catches my attention. “ Do you need reinforcements?”
She’d be there in a heartbeat if I said I needed her, but I shake my head at myself, at Myron, and at her. “ Just keep your eyes open in case the noise attracted any attention. We ’ re safe for now.”
At least, that’s what I hope when I reach for my dagger once more, gesturing for Myron to leave.
With a last, hateful glance at the room, he crosses the threshold, Herinor and me following suit. I don’t dare look back over my shoulder for fear of what the ghosts of my past will show me if I allow my thoughts to wander there.
My tattoo is heating anyway, claiming my focus as we wander down a familiar set of stairs—the one the Flame guards dragged me down to visit Herinor’s torture chamber.
The tension is palpable, rolling off both males the closer we get to the fateful door behind which Herinor first alerted Myron to my location by hurting me. I try not to think about it, but the pain has permanently settled into my memory, and I suck air through my teeth not to drift back into those moments of agony altogether.
One slow exhale. One inhale. Another steady exhale .
I can see the ostentatious entrance hall again, the set of stairs turning away from the main corridor to our right. Herinor leads us straight there, and my heart pounds like a traitorous drum.
I ’ m not afraid of you.
I haven’t thought that sentence in a long time. But now, I need it, or I’ll crack apart.
The corridor is lit by eternal torches left and right when Herinor guides us past the door to his torture chamber into a dark tunnel which I can’t remember from last time. What I know immediately is that we’re on our way to the dungeon. Within a few paces, iron bars come into view. I instinctively keep away from them, remembering the magic-draining substance painted on the bars at the palace in Meer.
Myron hasn’t left my side since we exited my old bedroom, his muscles taut, features grim, and cold rage simmering beneath the surface that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone—except for Ephegos and Erina, perhaps. They deserve it.
It’s become unnerving that no one has come to investigate what caused the noise on the second floor, but who am I to complain? If we get in and out of this house without being detected or confronted, I’ll be a happy person. If we get to bring a bunch of missing fairies along, I’ll be ecstatic. It will ensure us the alliance with the Fairy King and potentially help us win a war.
I keep my mind away from the fact that Recienne will have to fight this war whether or not he works with us. Erina is determined, and Ephegos won’t be satisfied without his share in the whole plan .
A shiver runs down my spine at the mere thought of fairies at the Tavrasian king’s feet, their strength and powers gone.
We’re halfway down the line of empty cells when I see them in them.
Tall, beautiful shapes, hanging from the ceiling like slaughtered deer. My breath catches as I smell the tang of iron and decay.
“They killed them all—” I can’t help the words from slipping out while Myron and Herinor seem to have lost their voices.
Detaching from Myron’s side, I rush ahead, sheathing one of my daggers so I’d have a hand free in case there is a way to unlock the cell. At first, it’s mere outlines, long and heavy bodies, tied by their wrists to steel rings screwed into the stone ceiling, their bodies sagged and motionless. Blood covers their bare arms and faces—such beautiful faces distorted with grimaces of pain. Puddles of urine are drying up under their feet where their bladders loosened the moment life left them. The stench hits me as if the wind just turned to shove it in my face. But there’s no wind down here. Only stale air carrying proof of the fairies’ suffering.
“Guardians—” Covering my mouth and nose with my free hand, I catch my breath, trying to count the number of corpses.
“What the fuck happened here?” Herinor’s tone could cut through solid rock, and he looks nothing like the seasoned, ruthless warrior I know him to be as he takes in the cruelty inflicted on the fairy captives.