Chapter 6
Herinor reaches for his belt,draws a small, simple knife with an efficient blade and smooth, leather-wrapped hilt, and points it at me. His gaze locks on mine, that menace back that has softened over our conversation, and with it, my panic returns in full force.
He’s going to hurt me after all. He’s going to slice me open, torture me so Ephegos doesn’t need to dirty his hands.
“Are you scared, Ayna?” His voice is a rumble echoing off the walls, and by the Guardians, I am. I’m scared out of my wits. I’m not strong enough to fight, let alone a Crow. I can barely stand on my own feet. “You should be. You should be afraid for more than your life.”
Don’t break,I tell myself. Don’t show weakness. Don’t believe for one second that anyone here will help you. Don’t trust a soul.
Herinor’s mouth splits in a feral grin that has my breath catching as terror floods me, making my resolution to keep strong fly out the non-existent window.
He pulls the knife up to my chin, placing it at my throat, ready to slit it and end me then and there.
A part of me is ready for it to be over, for this life where I have lost everything I ever loved to end. But something inside of me refuses to break. I can’t give up. Not when Myron gave himself up to make sure I lived. I cannot throw that gift away—that curse. It’s my curse to bear now.
I steel my spine, balling my hands into fists to stop them from shaking.
“I’m a fool, Ayna. I should have known the day you woke in Myron’s palace that you’d be the one to save us. But I was blinded by centuries of failure. I was blinded by the desire for freedom and Ephegos’s vision. I gave up when I should have had faith—in my king, in his queen. In the gods themselves.”
I try to make sense of his words, but the knife scraping along my skin is distracting me from grasping a clear thought. If he moves a fraction of an inch, the blade will nick my artery, and that will be the end of it. So, I don’t even swallow the lump in my throat. All I do is breathe, panting through my nose as I hold Herinor’s steely gaze.
“I made a bargain with Ephegos that, if the curse wasn’t broken by the time of the Flame attack, I’d join his ranks. And you know how fairy bargains are very specific.” His hand quivers the slightest bit, the tip of the knife jerking away from my skin, allowing me to take a moment of reprieve. “The curse was broken—but not before the attack. It doesn’t matter how I regret ever agreeing, doesn’t matter that you loved Myron in the end. The curse hadn’t been broken when Ephegos and his allies attacked. And I’m bound to do his bidding now. The new King of Crows—of all Crows who remain,” he adds quietly, the veil of menace lifting, and all that’s left is a broken male as he lifts his hand yet again, setting the knife to the side of my neck as if ready to stab me, but doesn’t move from there.
His words register, and my entire system floods with horror all over again. “What do you mean, all who remain?”
Royad…
“It means there is no one left except for the Crows who joined Ephegos. Or there won’t be once the Flames find them and end them.” The warning in his eyes doesn’t leave room for questions or even desperate pleas to stop the hunt for survivors. “I’m bound by the bargain I made, and Ephegos told me to hurt you, Ayna.”
I shrink back in my chair, but there is nowhere I can go. He’s right in front of me, blade scraping along my skin as his magic wraps around my arms and ankles to pin me in place.
“Please don’t.” I’m not beyond begging. Not when I see the time for conversation is over. This is real.
Herinor shakes his head. “I don’t want to, Ayna, but the magic of my bargain demands it, or I’ll pay with my own life.”
He doesn’t want to. The expression on his features doesn’t betray if he’s telling the truth, but the slight drop of his shoulders tells me this isn’t his choice. There’s no reason for him to lie. He told me about the gods and the curse, answered my questions. If anything, this male has been more forthcoming with information than any of the Crows I’ve encountered before. What irony that the one most inclined to help me now is the one obliged to torture me.
“Don’t worry, Ayna.” He shakes his head at me as if forbidding me to panic when my mind has long checked out of any rational thought. All I can do is try to detach myself from my body as best I can as I prepare for the pain that’s coming without question. “I have a plan. One where I don’t need to break my bargain and where the pain will benefit you.”
Readying myself, I grit my teeth. “And what plan would that be?
Stepping around me so I can no longer see his face, Herinor tightens the bonds of his magic and slides the blade to the back of my neck. “I cannot tell you, Ayna. The bargain with Ephegos forbids it. But if there has ever been a time in your life when you needed to trust someone unconditionally, now is the moment.”
There is no warning before the blade slides through the fabric of my dress, slicing into the skin next to my spine, and drawing a slow, curved line all the way to my bicep. My cry of pain isn’t enough to express the breath-arresting agony. No matter how hard I try, his bonds hold tight, his hand on top of my shoulder unyielding as he pins me in place while he carves me open.
By Eroth?—
“Please—” I gasp between screams.
Herinor leans in close to my ear, whispering as he drives his blade down the side of my arm. “Be brave for him, Ayna. He gave everything for you. Don’t let him down.” I don’t know if I imagine the remorse in his tone or if it’s wishful thinking that there is any meaning to his words, that he might actually have a plan that doesn’t include the mere destruction of whatever is left of my sanity.
By the time he lifts the knife from my skin, my face is tear-streaked, and all I can feel is the throbbing wound on my shoulder. Herinor’s bonds are the only thing holding me in my chair, and had I not heaved up my guts earlier, I’d empty myself out right here, on the silken folds of my skirt. At least he’s no longer cutting into me, but as he steps around me, bloodied blade in his hand, I can tell he’s not done with me.
“Hate me if you must, Ayna,” he whispers as he leans in to grab the fabric covering my other shoulder and tears it off with one harsh tug. “But this is the best I can do.”
He lifts the knife to my bare arm, and I fight with all I have to get out of his reach. If I can tip over the chair, perhaps I can free myself from his magic. Maybe I can kick out and catch him by surprise…
I don’t get as far as to try it, for he has my arm in his grasp within a heartbeat, lowering the knife to my skin. But when it connects, it’s not the sharp edge biting into my flesh, it’s the flat of the blade he slides along my biceps, tracing the same line as on my other shoulder.
“I’ll make it look like I cut both sides, he explains as he traces his fingers along the tender area beneath the gashing wound on my other side with surprising gentleness. “If I smear enough blood and etch a thin line on your skin—nothing as deep as on the other side,” he throws in when I flinch under his touch, “I can make it look like I partly healed you, and no one will question why I carved the line on your other shoulder.”
“Why?” It seems it’s the only question that ever matters with all those Crows. It was the question Myron wanted me to ask; it was the question I should have asked when General Katrijanov first let me live instead of killing me off like the rest of the Wild Ray’s crew. “Why are you doing this to me?”
The bargain, he said. Hurt me or show mercy for me, a nobody to the Crows now that Myron is dead, and pay with his own life for breaking the bargain with Ephegos. But there has to be more. There is a meaning to his words I can’t fully grasp with pain clouding my thoughts.
“Because I did wrong by Myron. I didn’t trust him enough to believe when he said he knew what he was doing, bargaining away the right for new brides in exchange for the fairy princess’s help with your magic.” He shakes his head, gesturing at my forearm. “I need more blood.” He doesn’t ask, simply slices into my wrist.
The new pain shocks me into silence, and he makes quick work of smearing the welling blood along my arm and neck, letting it spill over my skirts, before he places his hand over the wound. Warmth spreads where his magic knits the tissues back together, and before I can comprehend what’s happening, he’s done, stepping back, and assessing me like a particularly difficult piece of craft he’s been working on. A frown is etched between his brows, giving him an expression of strain as he takes in the sight of pain and devastation.
The bonds of his magic fall away, and I almost tumble out of my chair. He catches me with a strong, efficient arm.
“I’m sorry, Ayna. It’s the best I can do for you.” His hand smooths back the hair that’s fallen into my face, and I’m certain I have a trace of blood along my hairline as well. “I’m your ally. Probably the only one you have in this place, so play along. Pretend to hate me and curse me to your Guardians and back, to Eroth and Shaelak and even Vala. Just don’t be stupid enough to tell a soul I spared you.”
A pained chuckle escapes my lips as I try to comprehend what just happened. “I wouldn’t call carving me open sparing me.”
“It doesn’t matter what you’d call it. If I did everything right, you’ll understand soon enough.” He doesn’t look at me as he turns and gently leans me back into the chair, careful not to rest my weight against the injured shoulder. “Just trust me. Trust me like you trusted Myron.”
With those words, he strides to the door, knocking his large, bloodied fist against it, and his expression turns back into that cold and menacing one he wore when I first entered the room.
It promptly swings open, the Flame guards’ curious faces appearing on the threshold as they peer inside to make out the mess Herinor left on my skin.
“Take her back to her room.” It’s an order, and judging by the way the Flame guards flinch under Herinor’s stare, they don’t want to upset him and end up on the receiving end of his particular skills.
Wordlessly, they scramble down the small flight of stairs and grab me by the arms. My scream of pain isn’t an act when they lift me out of the chair, dragging me across the dusty floor past Herinor, who gives me a warning glance. But his eyes are soft when they track the smear of blood along my forearm right above where he cut into my wrist.
Before the pair of guards shove me over the threshold into the hallway ahead, I dare a last glance over my shoulder.
Herinor simply places a finger over his lips as he watches them drag me away.