Chapter 68 – Rowan
ROWAN
He’s close.
I can feel it.
Some instinct screams at me from deep within my bones.
He’s out there.
Hunting me.
Wind whistles through the steep cliffs, blowing the hair out of my face as I frown at what lies ahead.
Going south may have been a mistake.
Hours of walking and not a bridge in sight. The ravine is still too wide to even think about trying…
Up ahead, it appears to narrow as I approach a bend. But with my growing exhaustion and lack of food and water, I’m not quite sure I trust my perception of the distance.
I stop for a second, catching my breath and letting the warm sun hit my cheek, and I momentarily panic over my decision to go south. Perhaps it’s not too late to—
Stealing a quick glance back over my shoulder, I freeze. A figure stands atop a rock cropping far to the north.
His silhouette dark against the setting sun, Ayer sits tall atop Dash with his sword and bow strapped across his back. He looks every bit the demonborn monster he is.
My heart stutters when I feel his gaze fall on me.
He shouts something, urging Dash abruptly forward into a gallop, and I’m already running. Hearing nothing but the sound of my own heartbeat in my ears.
Turning around, I run, blindly sprinting for the narrowing of the ravine that I maybe—maybe— can make it across. My boots skid across loose stone, sending the rocks skittering into the deep ravine below.
I don’t look back. Too busy measuring the distance of the gap as I get closer to the bend. From here, it looks to be at least eight feet across, if not more.
Too far.
But I’m out of options.
The forest thickens again beside the ravine, swallowing me from view for a few precious seconds. I risk a glance back.
Nothing.
Somehow that’s worse.
Tearing out of the trees, I sprint across the grassy plain that runs to the end of the bend, checking behind me once more.
Ayer explodes out from the trees right behind me, his bow in hand. On foot now. The thick vegetation would have only slowed Dash down.
Shit.
He calls my name, but I ignore it, ignore him, throwing everything I have into reaching the cliff first. There’s a chance—the smallest of chances—I can make it.
If he catches me— No.
I propel myself forward, hitting the cliff’s edge at full speed, and leap. But the second my feet leave the cliff, I know.
It’s too far.
Terror rips through me—at the rocky cliffside just out of reach, at the empty air stretching beneath me for hundreds of feet, and at the jagged rocks waiting for me at the bottom.
No, no, no—
I’m not going to make it.
I start to fall, my body twisting desperately in the air, hands reaching out like I can somehow reach the other side—
Something tears violently free from my back. Pain explodes between my shoulder blades, and I scream as something buried deep beneath my skin finally forces itself out. Heat floods my spine, wind catching beneath me instead of around me, and for one disorienting second, my fall slows.
Dark wings burst open behind me. Massive. Spreading wide on instinct. The force of them jerks me upward, and I choke on the breath caught in my throat.
My wings.
I’m yanked into the air as they catch hold of an updraft, panic breaking through the shock.
The muscles in them feel foreign—weak, unpracticed. I have no control over the sudden stretch of them as they catch upon the rushing wind, swinging me sharply right. One wing dips abruptly, and I scream as I plummet straight down again before instinct forces another frantic beat of them.
It’s clumsy and graceless, but it’s enough.
The rising cliffside rushes toward me too fast to stop. I hit the ground hard, slamming shoulder-first into the rocky edge before tumbling violently across the dirt and grass. A cry of pain escapes me when my knee slams hard against a small boulder, and I finally collapse down onto my stomach.
Pain explodes—everywhere. My shoulder, my ribs, my knee…
I’m teetering on the edge.
My hands claw furiously at the ground, dragging myself further to safety, my body shaking after everything…
Alive.
Holy shit, I’m alive.
A sharp gust of wind rustles through the feathers at my back, and I tremble from the unfamiliar sensation, one I had all but forgotten.
My wings.
Oh, gods.
Pushing myself up on shaking arms, I steal a glance back at the dark feathers, ruffled and uneven from the crash. They twitch weakly behind me as I just stare at them in horror.
No-no-no. Not here. Not now. Not in front of him.
My gaze jerks up—across the ravine.
I find Ayer standing on the ledge I just leapt from. Staring at me. And even from this distance, I can feel his shock. His dark silhouette is motionless as his gaze locks onto the massive black wings trembling behind me.
Void, take me. He saw.
He knows.
Terror unlike anything I’ve ever felt before claws up my throat.
Only heirs bear wings.
It’s the oldest law among the fae kingdoms.
And Fel is the heir to Sitara.
Not me.
My mother knew. From the moment they first appeared when I was little, she taught me how to hide them. Swore my brothers to silence.
No one can know.
No one can ever know.
The fear in her eyes when she said those words... I’ll never forget it.
No one.
Not my father.
Not my friends.
No one.
But now he knows.
Panic pulses through me as I try and force them away. I don’t know how to control them. I haven’t let them free in years—not fully. Not since I was a child, sneaking into hidden corners of the castle just to stretch them out—to take in their glory in secret before hiding them away again.
They scared my mother.
They scare me.
Ayer hasn’t moved. He’s just standing on the edge of the cliff, staring down at me like a dark shadow.
My chest heaves as I meet his eye.
Shock… confusion… realization.
My stomach drops when he reaches for the bow at his back.
Move. MOVE!
A tear leaks out as I force myself upright, ignoring the agony screaming between my knee and my shoulder.
My wings flare out behind me, throwing me off balance before a burning pain erupts between my shoulders. And just as soon as they appeared, they’re gone.
Gone—as though they never existed.
My shock costs me several seconds, and by the time I look up, Ayer’s already got an arrow nocked. He draws the bowstring back, his dark eyes locked on me.
I dive forward.
The black arrow whizzes past, right where my head had been only seconds earlier.
Ayer’s already reaching for another arrow, and I don’t dare look back as I haul myself up, stumbling as my knee gives out in blinding pain as I half-sprint, half-limp for the cover of the tree line.
I’ve nearly made it.
I flinch when a sharp pain rips my ear, the arrow splitting the oak to my left.
He missed.
Darkness swallows me as I disappear into the tree line, collapsing only seconds later.
And though I realize he could still pursue me, perhaps those shadowy powers of his could carry him across the ravine. I don’t move. Shaking violently where I landed at the base of a tree.
Ayer missed.
I sit in stunned silence, until my own heartbeat, from inside my knee, drags me back to the present.
I don’t know how long it’s been, but Ayer hasn’t followed.
Night has fully fallen now, and I prop myself up better, resting my back against the nearest tree before rolling up my pant leg to inspect the injury.
My knee is already swollen; deep purple and blue bloom already from where it hit.
Perfect.
But not life threatening.
I let my head fall back against the tree trunk. And with no one around to see, I let the tears fall. Hot, messy—draining. They continue to soak my cheeks and the dirt when I curl up on the ground below, falling until there’s nothing left inside me except cold and exhaustion.
Sleep comes, but it’s no mercy.
Nightmares of the Raven plague every precious second. Watching the way his shadows stream out, swallowing soldiers, destroying my home. And when I look into the monster’s face—
I see Ayer staring back at me.