Chapter 14
The world isa kaleidoscope of colors in this part of Askarea. Rolling hills smooth out toward the coastline in the distance. Emerald trees and lush bushes scatter along the landscape in clusters like someone splattered blotches of paint. The air tastes of magic and wildlife; a herd of deer jumbles toward a patch of trees, attuned to the dangerous creatures walking these lands. As a Crow Fairy, I’m not the regular creature walking their territory, but the leather-clad, auburn-haired fairy male next to me is.
As if sensing me measuring him, Astorian lifts his gaze, a crease forming between his brows while he studies me without the slightest sign of deterrence. I might be a king—one without a people—but he is a general in the mighty fairy realm. He has the support of King Recienne of Askarea, and Recienne is not amused that his sister hasn’t returned to court.
Now that I’m thinking about it, I’m almost certain it would have been a matter of time until Recienne showed up on my—no longer existent—doorstep and demanded the whereabouts of his sister. The commander of the Askarean armies going on a search in his stead speaks for itself in a very different way.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Astorian earns a growl from Silas and a sideways glance from Royad, who both haven’t left my side—like the fairy I made a bargain with, who might stab me in the back any moment.
“Your hair?” Silas asks with his signature dry tone that makes me thirsty immediately. “It’s a sight to behold. If you’re into redheads.”
Royad laughs quietly, his hand on his weapon and his gaze on the road ahead. Without the fairy general, we could have shifted and crossed the lands high up in the air—wings sure have their advantages. But with Astorian on our asses, I’m nowhere near in a mood to expose my cousin and the Crow I’ve come to call friend. Wings have their disadvantages, too. Shifting into our smaller bird form makes us agile, yes. It also makes us more vulnerable. A small arrow can tear through our bird bodies and shred us to pieces while our humanoid forms have no problem surviving a stab in the heart—as long as our magic works, we survive almost anything.
Astorian grumbles what could have been a bitten-back chuckle, I can’t be certain. “Oh, I love redheads.” His grin is so broad it turns his features into a mask of threats.
“I’m sure you do. Since you’re mated to one.” Using what I think could be my diplomat tone—I can’t be sure, I’ve never had the need to play the diplomat—I turn my gaze to the sheep-shaped clouds hiking the skies. “Cliophera is a lovely female, by the way.” Before he can growl at me to let me know he’ll gladly tear off my head if I ever imply that loveliness is something I’d do more than admire from afar, I add, “I never really thought about my own preferences, you know, not having a choice in who I marry and all. Somewhere within the whole process of losing one bride after another, I lost the ability to get attached to a female.”
Royad clears his throat while Astorian shakes his head, loose auburn strands sliding over the metal bits on his shoulders. “Liar.”
It’s my turn to shake my head. “I can’t lie the way Eherean fairies lie, Astorian. I’m not an Eherean creature. We function differently.”
“You sure got attached to Wolayna,” Silas throws in for nobody’s benefit, saving me from immediate questions about our origin and the exact nature of our species. I’m not ready to spread more than the need-to-knows of Crow history at an Eherean fairy’s feet. We might be allies, but I sure as Hel won’t share all the gory details of my people’s past just because we’ve joined forces for what might be a moot rescue mission. My stomach flops uncomfortably.
“He said he lost the ability to get attached. Not that he never regained it,” Royad rushes to my defense, ever the loyal cousin. “And of course he got attached to her. She is an incredible female. I’m attached to her—not in the same way,” he quickly amends when I tense at the mere thought of anyone developing feelings for my Ayna. Royad gives me a pitiful smile. “Myron fucking fell in love with her. That’s what broke the curse.”
“That and the unlikely whim of fate that allowed her to fall for me, too. Or we’d be still walking around with permanent wings and uncontrollable beaks and claws.”
It takes a few hours to fill Astorian in about the basics of our existence—not a detailed history, of course—that’s for people I trust, but I manage to give him the bare bones of the curse and how Ayna broke it. It’s a small relief that his face draws into lines of distress when he learns what my people used to be capable of—still are. Enough Crows have chosen to follow Ephegos’s traitorous ass into battle against me and my own. If anything, the hatred he holds for my species must be growing while we make it through the thinning bushes and trees into the Plithian Plains.
The mostly flat lands defining the Tavrasian north are everything I remember from those early days of my life in Eherea when the Crows weren’t confined to the Seeing Forest yet. I’ve flown my rounds over the fields of grain and lush meadows often enough to know each hill, each stream cutting through them. Yet, it’s an entirely different world from the last time I’ve been here. It’s mid-summer, neither harvesting season nor sowing season, so the humans working these lands are safely tucked away in their farmhouses and scattered villages, staying among themselves. A part of me wonders how many of them still know the tales of the winged fairies who will steal their women—only, it’s not a tale.
I follow Astorian’s glance to the only well-kept fence along the path we’re walking.
“What is this place?” Silas is the first to comment on the tall estate mostly hidden behind a manicured hedge and rows of trees as if to keep it from prying eyes.
A gravel path leads up to a set of stairs I recognize to be of south Tavrasian granite—the russet and cream shimmering in the afternoon light are unmistakable. Memories of my father sending me out with some of his trusted Crows to bring home a few women for Ret Relah push to the front of my thoughts, and my stomach twists as echoes of their screams fill my head.
Too many humans have died because of him, because of all of us.
“Just another human home,” Royad answers, taking the burden off my shoulders when I have trouble speaking from the guilt piling up inside of me.
To my right, Astorian is oddly quiet, his gaze trained on the segments of windows visible between heavy branches. I wish I knew what he was seeing there with his fairy eyes. My fae senses pick up the scents of blossoms, horse sweat, and freshly cut grass, but I can’t make out a human scent.
“There’s no human in there,” Astorian says without turning toward me?—
And my heart plummets to my knees. Did he just?—
Royad and Silas exchange a glance of concern as they both reach for their weapons while I merely shoot more of my power into the provisional shield I’ve built around myself. I probe it to make sure it’s woven tightly around my thoughts as much as my skin. Rumors of Askarean fairies plucking thoughts from people’s heads reached the Seeing Forest long before the last Crow War, and I can’t help but feel nervousness at the mere thought of becoming transparent for the enemy.
“It’s not abandoned, though.” Royad leans toward the fence where obvious traces of recent repairments betray the otherwise silent appearance of the premises.
“So, who’s hiding in there?” It’s Silas’s undiplomatic tone that challenges us all, reminding me that I’m no longer a cursed Crow but a fae capable of shifting into my bird form at will, a fae with senses and powers beyond what I’m used to employing from centuries and centuries of disuse. From never properly learning how they work and understanding how to use them to my advantage. Royad is the same. He was as young as I was when the curse fell upon us. We need to learn how to be proper fae while, for Silas, it’s like coming home—he’s said it himself.
In reflex, my gaze shoots toward him, studying his features as his focus seems to drift ahead of us to where his trained ability to use his Shaelak-given senses and uncover truths I yet need to learn.
Gods, I wish I had time to become the predator he is, to become comfortable in my own skin the way Astorian is. I wish the sun on my face wouldn’t constantly remind me that I’ve failed at saving the woman who saved me.
“You won’t like what’s in there,” Silas says, giving me a brief glance that I have come to interpret as a harbinger of mayhem.
“What’s in there?” Astorian is brave enough to ask a heartbeat before he goes still like a rock, nostrils flaring. “Fuck the Guardians.”
I’m about to demand what’s going on when her scent drifts into my nose. A growl rips from my throat, so unlike the hisses and caws I’m used to. It’s pure animalistic rage welling up inside of me as I taste Ayna on my tongue—wildflowers and summer heat. And blood.
“I’m going to rip his throat out.”
Royad’s and Silas’s aren’t the only hands landing on my shoulders and arms, restraining me as I strain to charge through the fence and hedges, straight to the source of the scent. Astorian’s magic locks around my ankles, holding my feet in place while his hand lands on my chest with the force of solid stone.
“Don’t.” It’s all he says while Royad is doing his best to calm me with about a hundred reasons why it is foolish to barge into the enemy’s home and demand for my bride. My queen. My—everything. She’s my everything.
I loose a cry of frustration, and it turns into a hiss, then a caw as I shift into my bird form under their fingers and flutter out of their grasp, wings beating like I’m fighting a flood threatening to drown me.
Royad’s curses follow me as I take off across the trees, and even Astorian’s fairy magic isn’t enough to keep me from finding the missing piece of my heart.
By the time I make it to the front of the building, Royad and Silas are both at my tail, and I have the distinct feeling Astorian isn’t far behind. Perhaps he can’t shift into a bird, but if he has the same ability as his mate, he can site-hop through the world like it’s a spiderweb of magical gridlines taking him wherever he pleases. I don’t care. Ayna’s scent is like a hook in my chest, drawing me closer and closer and closer. My pulse pounds in my veins, fueling my wingbeats as I make quick work of the last feet of open ground before I circle above the roof. She is there. She has to be in this house. The entire fucking building radiates her scent. No matter how many times I’ve buried my nose in her hair or scented her skin, this is different. More potent than anything I’ve ever experienced.
Like a silver thread, the tang of blood mixed into her scent pulls me in. If she is hurt. If Ephegos harmed a hair on her head. If he laid even a finger on her body?—
My wings are shaking, feathers dissipating into inky mist as I land beside one of the many chimneys, hands braced on the age-worn roof tiles. I don’t care that they seem brittle in places. It’s not my fucking problem if their roof collapses under my weight. They stole her from me. They took my life and my heart. Vala returned the first to me. I’ll take back the second in the name of all that I’ve suffered. That she has suffered. “Ayna!” My voice rips from my throat in blind panic as the smell of her blood begins to overpower the notes of wildflowers.
I’m vaguely aware of Royad landing at my side, his muscled form unfolding as he shifts back. Silas follows suit, his sword drawn and ire tearing at his features.
“Wait,” Royad urges. “Let’s think this through.”
“She’s in there.” I don’t bother waiting for a response as I blast through the roof with the vast power collecting beneath my skin. Like a detonation, it radiates in all directions, shoving Royad and Silas toward the edge, almost pushing them off. Royad catches himself on the elevated tiles above a roof window, his gaze locking on mine in warning.
A part of me knows I should be concerned, should be careful, but Ayna is all I can think of. Like a primal need, her name pounds in my blood, driving me on and on into a frenzy I know will only stop once I lay eyes on her and I know she’s all right.
It’s too late for second thoughts anyway. My magic has torn a crater into the structure carrying our weights, and from below, a woman with a warm, brown, lined face and a braid of fire-red hair is staring up at me, the smirk on her mouth telling me that I’ve made a fundamental mistake.
“It could be?—”
“A trap.” Royad finishes for Astorian as the male appears at my side, his arms locked around my chest from behind as he keeps me from tumbling over the frayed edge of the hole gaping at my feet. I’m surprised I haven’t tumbled into it.
Silas shifts into his bird form to prevent himself from falling off the roof and flutters closer. Once back at my side, he shifts into his fae form, his sword in hand, and glances at the sight beneath. “Fuck.”
It’s all there truly is to say.
At the woman’s feet lies a heap of blue and cream fabric smeared with blood—Ayna’s blood.
“We need to get out of here.” Royad is the voice of reason, and he’s right. But my body won’t move, and it has nothing to do with Astorian locking me in place. It’s something more. It’s like every cell in my body is determined to stay here where there is at least hope of finding her. Where I have people to interrogate. People who have Ayna’s blood on their hands.
“Looking for this?” The woman’s voice is husky like she is partly made of black smoke and crackling fire. The little flames dancing at her fingertips inform me that it just might be the truth.
This is a Fire Fairy female. A powerful one, judging by the air of magic and suppressed heat swirling around her.
“Shift,” Royad orders. My cousin never orders me, but he is right to do it now. He is right; we need to get out of here.
“We can take her on,” Silas says from my other side, bloodlust in his tone. He’s eager to sink his blade into someone, be it not in revenge for what the Fire Fairies did to us or for Ayna.
“Perhaps we—” Astorian is cut off by a blast of fire shooting up at us. Our shields take the brunt of the impact, but the roof isn’t stable, and four massive males are too much to support for the singed beams crumbling away under our boots. I don’t have time to shift before I fall. The fire would only take my feathers like it did Ephegos’s, so I choose to take the impact on the hardwood floor with my shoulder instead.
Astorian is the only one not to groan at the impact, his site-hopping abilities keeping him from falling alongside us. When he hits the floor beside me, it’s by choice and on his feet. In his hands, he holds two fistfuls of rocks, and they are already melting at the touch of his power.
“Seize them,” the female shouts at the doorway behind the fading fire.
Before I can wonder how the room remains untouched by the fading flames, at least ten Fire Fairies charge the room. Ignoring the throbbing pain in my shoulder, I’m on my feet in a heartbeat, ready to meet an attack with my shield or with my magic while I fumble for my sword.
Silas is the first to attack. He leaps at the nearest Fire Fairy with a battle cry, slicing clean into the male’s shoulder. He was right. There are over ten of them, but we’re fighting in closed quarters, and the four of us have magic of our own. One fairy and three Neredynian fae. Power surges in my chest like a thunderstorm, straining for release. I hold it until I find a target close enough. The female has moved toward me as if expecting to grab me and restrain me herself. In her hand, she holds the fabric with Ayna’s blood. It’s fucking burning.
Everything inside me revolts as if it were Ayna burning between her fingers, and my blood boils with all-consuming rage.
“I will end you,” I growl. “With my claws and beak, I will break you apart.” It’s a promise.
The female merely smirks at me as she halts just out of reach. “I’d like to see you try. I have something you want, and you won’t risk her, will you?”
It’s torment to fight the need to eviscerate her with that storm of magic brewing inside my chest. She’s right, and she knows it. I will never risk Ayna. Never again.
A glance at Royad tells me he knows it, too. He’s locked in battle with a Fire Fairy, his shortsword driving back the elegant silver blade of the male he’s facing. He’s holding the male off but not going for the kill, making himself vulnerable as he waits for my order.
Astorian’s liquid rock has melted a hole in a Fire Fairy’s chest, leaving the female splayed uselessly on the ground, and it is aiming for the next enemy. His mind is clearer than mine with Cliophera’s scent missing in the equation. For a heartbeat, I wonder if he’d act the same if it was her blood instead of Ayna’s. If the seemingly stoic fairy general would lose control the way I just did.
My gaze lands on the smirking Fire Fairy again. “What did you do to the Crow Queen?”
The female has the nerve to smile—wide like Ephegos would. My stomach turns.
“What. Did. You. Do. To her?” Menace laces my tone. The pain and fear and anger of millennia accumulating at the thought of being too late.
“Your queen is fine, Myron. Don’t worry.” She knows me. And she isn’t surprised in the slightest that I’m alive. I tuck that thought away for later.
Royad has disengaged himself from battle by knocking out the Fire Fairy at the tip of his sword and has stepped to my side, while Astorian is wielding liquified rock from my other side.
“If I were you, I’d hand over the woman he’s ready to destroy the world for or he might let you live just long enough to see the rest of it crumble to pieces before he takes you out slowly and painfully.” By Shaelak, Royad is a master at being visual when it comes to threats; I’ve always known that. But he isn’t being visual right now; he’s being literal. I am ready to do just that.
“Wolayna is safely on the way to Meer.” The female waves her hand in the general direction of the door, and I think she means Ayna is just across the threshold. The storm of magic strains to break loose.
Not yet. I need to know where to find my queen first.
When I take a step forward, drawn by that same blind need to find her, something wet hits my back, and I gasp as all strength leaves me. Astorian’s curse is the last thing I hear before two Fire Fairies grasp me with brutal hands and kick my legs out from under me.
At least, the floor isn’t marble. My kneecaps scream at the impact anyway.
“What’s goin’ on?” Silas is the first to ask from beside me where he’s being forced to his knees as well. “Why can’t I?—”
“Use your magic?” The female stalks toward us, lowering her dark brown eyes to meet mine even when she’s speaking to Silas. She reads the questions on my face as well as I try to pull up the unrelenting power that threatened to burst me open at the seams a moment ago.
There’s nothing left. Not one ounce of magic roiling or coiling or even slumbering.
“What did you do to us?” Even my growl is less threatening without the reassurance of that power at my disposal. It’s like someone took all air from my lungs and all that’s left is a wilted leaf in the Fire Fairy’s wind.
She gestures at the liquid soaking my shirt, dripping from my hair. “You mean this?” Her smile broadens as she watches me strain against the Fire Fairies’ hold, watching all four of us tear and thrash for freedom. “It’s a little invention Ephegos and I have been working on for a while. Quite useful.”
“I hate to break it to you,” Astorian murmurs from behind me, “but nothing good ever comes from things the Crows touch—or the Fire Fairies,” he adds before I can take offense. “And worst of all if they touch something together.”
The way he says it… Like it’s a joke. But when I listen more closely, there’s fear in his tone. The Askarean general is afraid.
If nothing else, that’s a reason for me to know that we’re in serious trouble.
I’m not certain it is smart to admit to what extent that little invention worked and reveal that I’ve lost access to all of my magic. It’s obvious I’m weakened enough for the Fire Fairies to bring me to my knees, for them to restrain me as sweat beads my skin from my efforts to break free. I haven’t felt this helpless since Ayna was dying next to me. At least then, I had the choice to give myself up to save her. Now, there is nothing I can do. Nothing I have to give that could satisfy the Fire Fairies. So, I hold my tongue.
“We’ve been working on it for a while, and it seems it has the best effect if administered orally, but it’s hard to force something down your throats if you’re all magically shielding, so our best guess was to dump the drug over your heads and see what it does.” The female leans in closer, and I still as realization hits me.
This is a trap. Ayna isn’t here. She might have been at some point, but this—the blood-soaked fabric holding her scent—is the honey laid out to trap a bear. They must have been anticipating I’d eventually come across this estate on my search for my queen. All they needed was a little patience—and some drug that could smother magic.
Gods, if Ayna was treated with the same drug, she might not be able to use her own powers either. She’s as helpless as I am.
There is truly only one question for me to ask—the same question I kept urging Ayna to ask over and over again. The only question that ever matters. “Why?”
The female glances at the Fire Fairies holding the four of us in place. Even Astorian and Silas have followed my lead and stopped fighting a battle they cannot win—for now. Behind Royad’s eyes, I can see the wheels turning. Instead of drawing attention to him by getting involved in the discussion, he’s assessing the brass and cream wallpapers decorating the room, the carved chairs tossed over the polished floors. We’re in a sitting room, not that it makes any difference. Royad is already calculating how to best get out of here, freeing my focus to negotiate if there is anything to negotiate with.
“Oh, Myron,” the female says, too excited for a dire situation like this, except, for her, it must feel like a win to have the Crow King kneeling before her. She’s a Flame after all. “Haven’t you heard? The King of Tavras is eager to announce his engagement to a recently recovered Tavrasian noblewoman, and Ephegos and I helped him retrieve his bride for him—in return for our own conditions, of course.”
Everything crumples inside of me. She can’t mean?—
“What conditions?” Astorian demands in that cold general’s tone I am familiar with, and now that I’ve seen a different side of him, it’s hard to consolidate those two versions of him in my mind.
The sound of a fist hitting flesh comes from his general direction, followed by a groan, and a Flame hisses, “You only speak when spoken to, fairy scum.”
I manage to turn my head enough to spot the blood trickling from the corner of Astorian’s mouth.
“You are mighty curious for an all-knowing fairy,” the female taunts as she steps past me to take a closer look at him. “Not so powerful without the King of Askarea and his armies at your disposal, are you?”
I don’t know if they’ve met before, but the enmity is one to last for eons if the hatred in Astorian’s eyes is anything to go by. He spits out the blood to the side, nearly hitting one of his captors.
“The conditions are between Ephegos, King Erina, and me.” She turns on the spot, pivoting toward me and shoving the fabric with Ayna’s blood in my face without warning. My fae reflexes are still there, allowing me to avoid the full impact as I turn my head to the side. There is no escaping the devastation spreading in my stomach as I realize there is only one reason they would lure me here: Ephegos knows I’m alive, and he isn’t done with his revenge.