Chapter 11
The lackof pain in my shoulder is a small reprieve while my panic hasn’t eased for even a moment. It’s the second time the tattoo felt like someone was trying to cut it off with a burning knife, and I have yet to learn what exactly that pain means. The only thing I know is that it’s somehow connected to my Ayna.
We’ve combed over every last inch of ground on our way out of the Seeing Forest—not one trace of her. She isn’t here, and the uncomfortable sensation lingering in the intricate tattoo covering where feathers once met the skin of my shoulder blade keeps calling me forward.
The decision to bring Royad and Silas along was the right one. The rest of my people— not even twenty now—will have to hold out in the Seeing Forest while we run for their queen’s rescue.
“How much farther before we rest?” Royad wants to know.
I cut him a glance suggesting, if he even considers resting before we’ve found her, I’ll shift into my bird form and bite off his head. I am about to voice that thought when the air ripples a few paces in front of us, and the tall, broad form of the Fairy King’s general appears, auburn hair bound at the back of his hair and eyes of a similar shade finding mine across the small distance.
Beside me, Royad and Silas draw their weapons while I merely stand, calling upon my fae magic and summoning it to my fingertips. The last time I saw Astorian in leathers and fully armed like this was on the battlefield over a hundred years ago when he fought alongside his king and Princess Cliophera. For a heartbeat, I wonder if the female made it out of the Flame attack alive. Royad said Ephegos took Ayna, but no one saw what happened to the fairy who helped train her.
Guilt stirs in the pit of my stomach. I asked for her aid, made that bargain with her to make sure Ayna would be adept enough with her magic to survive a Flame attack.
“Lord Astorian.” I address him by the social title he holds in the fairy ranks, not his position at the fairy court. “To what do I owe the honor?”
To my left, Royad grunts his disapproval of my manners while Silas draws a second blade from his belt.
The fairy general doesn’t lift a finger toward his weapons. He doesn’t need to. Even with all fae powers having returned to the Crows with the breaking of the curse, the Askarean fairies are still strong and skilled. His magic is nothing I care to test the limits of my own powers against.
The male tilts his head, studying my unruly state, the ripped and dirty leather pants, my bare chest and wind-torn hair. “You are about to leave Askarean soil.” It’s an observation and a warning. “You left the Seeing Forest a while ago.”
“I haven’t forgotten my bargain with Recienne.” Whether he believes it or not.
Astorian waves away my reassurance, gesturing at our surroundings. “Yet, here you are, ready to risk everything for a human.” I’m not sure I imagine the approval in his tone, but his eyes light up with a challenge I’m more than willing to meet if it means speeding this up and continuing on my quest. The tug in my shoulder has become nearly unbearable, and if I don’t follow it, I fear Ephegos will have damaged Ayna beyond repair by the time I find her. I can’t let that happen, no matter how many fairies stand in my way.
“If Recienne has a problem with my leaving, he can come after me himself.” The bite in my voice gets Astorian’s attention, and he studies me—really studies me—those vigilant eyes wandering my feather-less arms, my shoulders, until they land on my eyes.
“So, it’s true.” He gestures at where the last time I saw him feathers were sprouting. “The curse is broken.”
I don’t need to ask how he knows about the curse. Of course, Princess Cliophera told her king and his general about the weakness of their enemies. But I don’t see them as enemies anymore. Cliophera helped save Ayna. I’ll be forever in her debt.
A simple nod is all I give him. “Lower your weapons.” I glance left and right at my cousin and Silas, who both give me incredulous looks. “Our quarrel is no longer with the fairies of Askarea—at least not with the high fae.” Meeting Astorian’s eyes takes more courage than I expected, but when I do, a wealth of understanding is brimming there. He knows. He knows what happened at the palace in the Seeing Forest. Knows that the breaking of the curse means the Crows no longer require brides—all our bargains are moot.
“There is no more need for brides, and whoever of my people are remaining in the Seeing Forest won’t harm anyone.” It’s a promise I can easily give since these few Crows are all loyal to me. The traitors have all gone with the Flames and Ephegos to wherever cowards run off to. And they’ve taken my Ayna. I exhale a controlled breath to prevent my fury from clouding my judgement. It’s a futile effort.
Astorian gives me a nod of appreciation, his powerful arms folding over his chest. I’ve seen him fight with those arms and have no desire to be on the receiving end of that menace. And that’s just his physical prowess. I’ve also seen him use his unique magic—melting stone. Besides the Fairy King, he’s one of the most dangerous creatures in Askarea.
“Recienne is happy to see you leave his lands. Don’t come back. I’ll relay the same message to the Crows remaining in the Seeing Forest.” He turns on his heels, ready to march away, but before he takes a step, Royad raises his voice.
“Have you heard all of what happened in the Seeing Forest?”
Astorian spins around to face my cousin, murder in his auburn eyes. With two long strides, he’s in front of Royad, one of his countless blades in his hand and pointed at Royad’s throat.
“I don’t care what happened between you feathery lot and the ones who can’t keep their fire under control. All I care about is that my mate hasn’t come back since she returned to the Seeing Forest to help your human bride.” He throws me a sideways glance, cataloguing the way I’ve raised my hand to direct my magic at him if he moves the knife at Royad’s throat even a fraction. Beside me, Silas has drawn his sword once more, ready to take on the fairy general who shakes his head an inch.
“Where is she?” The earth shudders beneath me.
Silas swipes at him with his sword, but a string of liquid rock rips from the ground, slinging around the blade and ripping it from the Crow’s grasp.
By Shaelak?—
The fairy princess is missing. She either never made it out of the explosion or she ended up in the Flames’ claws. I can’t tell which option is more terrifying—not because I care excessively about the female who helped save Ayna but because the male before me does. His mate—Cliophera is his mate. And we all know what that means.
He won’t rest until he finds her. He won’t spare anyone standing in his way. If the fairies of Askarea are anything as relentless when it comes to their mates as my kind, it doesn’t matter that he’s facing three powerful Crows. He will eviscerate us with strength fueled by his need for vengeance.
“I don’t know.” The truth isn’t what Astorian wants to hear, but he recognizes it as such anyway. At least, he doesn’t suspect us for holding his mate captive. “If you got your information from the right sources, you’ll know that your mate isn’t the only one who’s gone missing. My wife is gone as well. Taken by the traitors working with the Flames.”
There is no logical reason to give him this additional information other than the anguish, the terror, the panic I recognize in his eyes as they snap to mine. We might have been enemies for longer than either of us can remember, but when it comes to this sort of loss, he and I are the same. We both won’t rest until we get back the females who were taken from us.
As this small moment of recognition passes between us, Astorian lowers his blade from Royad’s throat. Heaving a deep breath, my cousin staggers back, leaving Silas the only one at my side, trapped by the solidified rock Astorian wove around his sword. It melts away, setting the older male free as well. Astorian releases my wrist and vanishes into thin air the way his kind like to do before popping up a few paces away, blade sheathed and conflict written on his features.
What a convenient and utterly annoying skill.
“I know what you gave up to save your queen, Myron. And so do Cliophera and Recienne, or they wouldn’t have agreed to aid you.” He turns his head to scan the bushes and trees at the seam of the forest, unbothered by the three deadly Crows he just attacked, and grinds his teeth as if fighting a whole flood of words he isn’t supposed to speak but needs to get out anyway.
It’s enough to trigger the sort of compassion in me kings are supposed to show, even if Astorian isn’t part of my people. Not even an ally. And most definitely not a friend.
“I’m sorry.” The words slip out so fast I can’t even think them through, what they might entail if the fairy male interprets them as an apology for my involvement in the disappearance of his mate.
His gaze snaps back to mine, and the rage brimming there is more than I can handle.
Bracing myself against the onslaught of his anger, I reach into my magic and draw it to my fingertips, the vast power buzzing and sizzling as it aches to break free. I haven’t used the full extent of my abilities since I woke from the dead, so there is no way of telling what I’m actually capable of. I’m not sure if now is a good moment to find out either.
Royad and Silas don’t seem to have any such reservations as their magic flickers through the air, weaving together in a shield protecting the three of us from one wildly upset fairy male. A shield. I haven’t thought of creating one of those since I died. It didn’t stop me from being stabbed last time. It didn’t stop Ayna from getting hurt.
The guilt washing over me has nothing to do with my apology toward Astorian and everything with the part I’ve played in Ayna’s sacrifice.
“Don’t be.” Astorian’s words surprise me more than another attack would have as he folds his arms over his chest in a clear gesture that the time for weapons and fighting is over—for now. “My mate is as stubborn as she’s brilliant. No measure of warning could have stopped her from returning to the Seeing Forest to help save the human in your claws. From you, preferably, not for you,” he adds with a grim expression on his features. There is no mistaking the despise, the centuries of enmity and hatred between our peoples. Clio, however, had taken on the harrowing presence of the Crows to help a human. That’s more than any of my people could have said for themselves. My people preferred to let people die.
A shiver as the wrongness of everything the Crows stand for crawls through my system.
Astorian gives me a glance that tells in all detail what horrors he would have in store for me had I been the one to harm or abduct his mate. “For once, you’re not to blame for the disappearance of a fairy female.”
Beside me, Silas gives a humorless chuckle, his curtain of black hair swishing over his shoulders as he slowly shakes his head. “You say you don’t hold us responsible, yet you’re ready to rip our throats out.” He speaks out of turn, and we all know it, yet nobody reprimands him since he’s addressing an obvious truth.
“Oh, I’d be happy to rip your throat out,” Astorian hisses, the sound reminding me of the half-human forms we used to be trapped in so much I can’t suppress a shudder.
Vala lifted her curse from us and allowed us to return to our normal forms. She even gave us back our ability to shift into our bird forms.
“Silas, don’t.” I lock a band of invisible steel around his arms as he twitches for an attack once more. The grunt of anger is nothing compared to the horror in Royad’s eyes as they meet mine.
It takes me a moment to understand why he shakes his head at me. Drops of crimson fall from Silas’s fingers as if I’ve sliced open his skin with my magic. I reel it in so fast it lashes back at me like a whip.
“Seems like your abilities have improved since that last battle,” Astorian notes with the cool assessing tone of a general. I can’t place the expression in his eyes, but it’s something more than hatred. It’s something more than the centuries we’ve been fighting each other. “Perhaps you could be useful to the Fairy King, Myron.”
“I want nothing to do with the Fairy King.” The words are out too fast again. I need to learn to control myself better, or they’ll one day be the end of me.
I know Royad and Silas agree, even when Silas is currently sneering at me despite my lifting the magic binding him in place. The hidden wounds stop bleeding immediately
“All I want is to find Wolayna.” Another truth, one that I am not ashamed to speak when Astorian feels the same about his mate.
Astorian takes a step closer, leaning in as if sharing a secret. Beside me, Silas and Royad tense for battle. “Get your fucking people out of Askarea. Recienne has had enough of you.” A breeze stirs loose strands of auburn hair framing his face. “Get them out today if you can. And then, for fuck’s sake, we’ll need each other’s help to find our females.”
Much as I loathe to admit it, he’s right. The Crows shouldn’t remain in the Seeing Forest where Flames are hunting for them. They should flee to the coast and take the next best ship they can find to sail East. Homeward to Neredyn where the gods no longer despise us.
If the heaviness of my heart is any indication, this would be a bad decision. Yes, the Crows are in danger from the Flames if they remain in the Seeing Forest much longer, but they can also take out those bastards little by little with every hunting party they eviscerate. However, if they’re gone, I won’t have a people to support me in a fight against the Flames if we ever come to face them again in battle.
Apparently, Royad knows exactly where my mind has wandered because he plants himself closer to me and grabs his sword like a guard rather than the next in line for the Crow throne. “I’m not leaving you.” His own guilt resonates in every word as does his determination.
Part of me battles to tell the fairy general I’m not taking orders from him while the other part wants to tell him the aid of one of the most skilled fairy warriors I’ve ever seen is exactly the help I need.
So, I heave a breath of unease at the decision I have to make.
The air smells of remorse and defiance, and a fair lot of clematis, as I pin Royad with a gaze only he could understand then turn to Silas, who seems as ready to march into battle with me as my cousin. They both nod, and I know I have their support, no matter what I decide.
“How about a bargain, Astorian.”
The male cocks his head, his predatory focus turning lethal. “What do you propose?”
Swallowing my pride, I pour my own magic into a shield around Royad and Silas just in case Astorian is unhappy with my suggestion. “Odds are that, if Clio didn’t come back to you after the battle, she was taken captive by the Flames.” The general cringes at the thought of his mate in the Flames’ hands, and right he is, but I continue. “She certainly hasn’t crossed behind Eroth’s Veil, or you’d feel it in your bones that she’s no longer breathing.”
A quick dip of his head is all the confirmation I need.
“So, here’s what I believe.”
He goes so still I could swear he is nothing more than a handsome pillar carved, colorful stone as he listens.
“Wherever they took my queen, they must have taken your princess. Find one, find both.” It’s a wild theory but the one making the most sense. If Ephegos wanted Clio dead, he’d long have killed her and, as her mate, Astorian would have known. The traitor must have plans for both of them, and I’m not eager to find out what they are. I’d very much prefer to see both of them alive and safe instead.
“Those are mere suspicions, Crow.” Astorian’s hands have wandered to his hips, fingers grazing the hilts of two daggers I truly don’t have the patience to knock out of his hands. We have more important matters to deal with. “No bargain.”
“If you work with me to find them both, I’ll take my people and leave Eherea.”
The fairy general tilts his head as if measuring each of us for the worth of his own mission as he contemplates my offer. His brows slant, eyes narrowing, and I think he’s going to turn on his heels and disappear into thin air as he sets out to find his mate on his own. But his expression smooths over, and all three of us startle with surprise when Astorian claps his hands, spinning toward the edge of the forest. “Let’s go, Crow King. And you better be right. I’d hate for Recienne to tear my head off for agreeing to a foolish bargain that won’t guarantee to get you off his lands in case you’re wrong.”