Chapter 2
When I makemy way to the bathing room, a set of clothes has already been laid out for me. For a moment, I stare at the elaborate blue and eggshell silk and the myriads of golden and russet blossoms embroidered into the fabric of the bodice. My feet are unstable, as are my hands, but I lock the door behind me and strip out of the plain linen shirt and pants I’ve been wearing the past days, focusing on the task at hand. The bruise on my jaw has turned a shade lighter since I last looked at it, but it hurts like the wrath of the Guardians when I run my fingers along the tender spot. It will be a challenge to bathe myself with the hundred ways my body is inclined to fail me, but my strength of will is the best weapon I have—against Ephegos and against my own weakness.
So, I take a stabilizing breath and untie my hair, running my fingers through the long, ash-blonde tresses while I brace one hand on the edge of the clawfoot tub to stabilize myself.
If Ephegos is dead set on my being presentable, it must be someone important coming to take a look at me, or he wouldn’t have placed a dress fit for a queen in here. A silent part of me wonders when he did it, if he sometimes sneaks into my room when I sleep. The thought alone makes me want to scream in horror. I’ll have nightmares of a different sort for sure now.
Getting into the filling tub is an exercise in self-control, but I manage. Since Ephegos didn’t give me a time limit, I don’t rush as I submerge myself in the hot water. I haven’t felt clean since the moment I woke in this place, and I’m reluctant now to wash away the last of the battle stuck under my nails and in my hair, but if there is one thing I’ve learned during my time at the Crow Palace, it’s that appearance impacts greatly how strong or weak one is perceived. Whomever Ephegos is bringing to visit, I’m inclined to look my best, to wear whatever clothes he provided like armor and my smile like a shield. As long as I can keep that up, Ephegos hasn’t won. As long as I don’t break, I haven’t let Myron down.
For a heartbeat, I imagine his deep voice rumbling his agreement, that I can take whatever comes my way. Then I remember that I’ll never hear that voice again, and my heart splinters all over again, a million pieces that not even my steel will can hold together.
It takes me three rounds of soap to get all the grime and suds out of my hair, but when I get out of the tub, I smell of lilies and rosewood, and I’m clean in a way that makes me want to check if the bath washed away my memories as well.
They are right there, striking with a vengeance as I conjure Myron’s death-pale features, the strong, featherless arms I got to see only once. The blood smeared on his chest where Clio tried to close his wound with her healing magic.
Tears fall onto the white marble of the floor, mingling with the water dripping from my hair, and I pretend I’m not crying. I pretend that I can put on that dress and be fine long enough to convince Ephegos that torturing me will not do anything to Myron’s ghost. That there is no such thing as anyone’s ghost, and if there were, Myron’s would certainly not care what happened to me.
Ghosts don’t need to exist for Myron’s memory to haunt me. It will until the end of my days, and whatever Ephegos has in store for me can’t be half as bad as watching Myron die in my sleep over and over again, knowing he chose my life over his.
With a shaky breath, I comb out my hair and pull it up into a tight bun—there is no way I’ll make a shred of effort for Ephegos and whatever mysterious visitor he’s expecting—before I pick up the heap of silk and blossoms on the carved wooden stool.
In another life, I might have appreciated the dress. The bodice is tight and covers my breasts in a sweetheart neckline before it continues in a nude fabric ending in an ice-blue silk high collar. The long, sheer sleeves are wide enough to slip in easily, but when I turn before the mirror to take in the pattern of flowers embroidered all over my torso and arms, it’s something else that catches my attention.
On my right shoulder blade, stretching to my neck and spreading on the back of my upper arm, a large black form covers my skin. Instead of buttoning the high collar at the back of my neck, I pull the shoulder of the dress down to take a closer look and gasp as I recognize what I’m looking at.
A crow is inked into my skin, its outline a swirl of black and its shading like blotches of ink spreading on wet paper.
How it got there, I can’t even begin to understand, unless Ephegos took the liberty to tattoo me while I was knocked out after the battle. But if this was a fresh tattoo, I’d know. The skin would have been raw and painful in the hot water, and sleeping on it would have been painful. I remember from when the guards at Fort Perenis inked the slender chain that is a sign of all inmates around my right wrist. I was in pain for days.
Whatever this is, it’s not new. It can’t be old either. I’d remember if I’d gotten a tattoo at the Crow Palace.
Before I can panic, someone knocks, and Ephegos’s voice sounds through the heavy wooden door. “Time to get ready, Ayna. Your visitor is approaching.”
Jerking into motion, I almost rip off the sleeve of my dress, and it’s all I can do to hold onto the edge of the cupboard as the world starts swaying before my eyes like a nutshell on the ocean.
“Are you still in there?” There isn’t a hint of concern in his tone, only smooth coldness. “I don’t like to let people wait.”
Different from the bathing room I tried to escape from on my first day in Myron’s palace, this one doesn’t have a window. “There is nowhere I could go, is there?” I snap with more strength than I expected to muster. “I’ll be done in a moment.”
Smoothing out the eggshell-hued silk layers of my skirts, I straighten then close the two buttons of the collar behind my neck. When I open the door, I try not to let my hatred show—or my despair. Keeping my face devoid of all emotion is the best I can do to give Ephegos as little as possible to work with. But he’s known me for too long to understand how to land a hit, and so he does when he looks me over with a grin laced with malice. “Myron never deserved you, Wolayna. You were always too beautiful for a monster like him.”
I bite back that he’s the monster because, if I start down that path now, I might end up with another bruise on my face. I also don’t think of the tattoo on my shoulder. Ephegos hasn’t been known for giving answers. At least, not since the day he tried to tell me the Crows couldn’t fully shift. That was right before the first Fire Fairy attack. The attack where he faked his death and joined his new allies.
“Too bad he’s dead…” Clicking his tongue, he holds out his arm as if expecting I’d even consider touching him. “It would have been the best of entertainment seeing him study you with that starved hunger of his. You know, the way he always looked at you when you turned your back.”
I cringe at the implication of his words. Before Myron and I had gotten close, all he ever showed me was his cold indifference, a cruel Crow King who cares for nothing and no one. Then we made the pact about him setting me free at the next Ret Relah if I managed to survive until then. Knowing how long he’d been waiting for me burned like a white-hot iron in my chest. We could have had more time together had I not been so blind. Had I been able to admit to myself how I felt, I might have broken the curse sooner and saved them all before the Fire Fairy attack.
“It doesn’t matter now, does it? There can always be someone else to admire you.” The way he says it sends a shiver of wrongness down my spine, and there is something about the way my legs are unsteady that tells me falling and pretending to faint might be a good idea. Then, I wouldn’t put it past Ephegos to slap me awake or dump a bucket of ice water over my head just to watch my terror and pain.
“It doesn’t,” I confirm. “And I don’t need any admirers.”
At that, Ephegos whirls on me, his warm brown eyes sparking with amusement, the expression so much the courtier I got to know at the Crow Palace that my heart aches for a beat. But I catch myself before I can return the smile he gives me.
“Good. Because I most definitely don’t admire you, Ayna. You’re a pathetic creature. Not magical, yet not human enough anymore to just die like you were supposed to.”
“What do you mean not human enough?” My heart picks up pace at what could have been a slip-up or a deliberately dropped comment.
“Ah … wouldn’t you like to know…” He paces ahead, gesturing at the small sitting area of russet brocade chairs and a carved table that could be of any origin in Eherea, but the wood is dark enough to remind me of the furniture in my father’s old merchant office.
I try not to allow it to distract me from the obvious bait Ephegos laid out for me. Another truth he owns and that he can now dangle before me like a tool of torture of its own.
“What do you mean not human enough?” I repeat, tone so sharp it could cut through ice. I grip the bedpost with one hand, placing the other one on my stomach to stabilize the nausea churning in my belly.
Ephegos considers me with those eyes that betray nothing if he doesn’t want them to, and what they are saying right now is that he is enjoying seeing me fight retching all over the floor. He’s enjoying seeing me like this—weak, defenseless, behind on information, and wondering until my head spins. “Maybe another time.” He dismisses my question with a wave of his hand, but I could swear his fingertips flicker into claws for a heartbeat before he tucks it behind his back and strides for the door. “Why don’t you sit down, Ayna? We don’t want our guest to make a wrong assessment of your state.”
“And what state is that?” I spit, wishing I had more lentil soup to throw after him as he gives me a pitying smile.
“The obvious one.” With those words, his magic creeps around my shoulders, dragging me to the chair and pushing me down like a doll, and tying me to the backrest with invisible bonds.
It doesn’t matter that I try to kick out with my feet; his magic circles my ankles, securing them to the legs of the chair. I don’t give him the satisfaction of screaming and clawing at his magic. After what I’ve seen during my time at the Crow Palace, there is no mistaking this for a situation I could get myself out of on my own, even if I had my full strength and magic. I know, and so does Ephegos because he shoots me a wide, satisfied grin.
“Time to play the sad little widow, Ayna.”
His words are another slash to my heart, but I swallow the pain as I swallow the need to scream and cry. Instead, I lift my chin, willing the nausea to settle as I focus on the embroidered blossoms on the ice-blue corset of my dress. “Don’t widows usually wear black?”
Ephegos halts, hand on the brass doorknob and eyes narrowed as if finally I’ve landed a blow of my own, though I have no idea what I said that would upset him so much. I don’t have time to celebrate my tiny win before his magic slaps across my face, right on the already bruised side, and I wince, teeth cutting into my cheek at the shock of the searing pain.
If the smirk on Ephegos’s features is anything to go by, he doesn’t care how many hits I might manage. He already won the battle.