Chapter 35
Wrappingmy arms around my stomach, I retch into a corner for what feels like the hundredth time. Nothing is coming up anymore, but that doesn’t keep my system from rebelling.
“Another few hours and you should be good,” Kaira chirps from her place by the window where she has a clear view of the street and the yard. “If you only ate a few pieces of bread, your body should have processed most of it and will be clean by sunrise.”
“Sunrise sounds like a year away,” Clio croaks, yielding groans and grunts alongside her dinner in the other corner as the detoxification process sets in for her as well. “I don’t know how anyone can develop an instrument of torture such as that drug. Not even a fairy wine hangover is that bad.”
“That’s because you’re a fairy,” Kaira points out. “I’ve vomited for hours because of that draught you call wine.”
“Hey, you’re a fairy, too.” Clio buries her face in her hands as she waits for the next wave to hit her.
“Barely. I have but a spark of fire.” Kaira glances at the darkening sky. I can see it from my place on the dirt floor, and it mirrors the way I feel.
“Don’t forget the mind reading,” Clio reminds us all, and Kaira shoots me a look that I can only interpret as punishing.
“You didn’t need to tell her,” she says into my mind, tone laced with a sort of hurt I hadn’t believed the female capable of.
“I told her because she is my friend and our ally. You were already sharing all the personal details in front of her.”I don’t mean it to sound like an accusation, but with the constant nausea, it comes out that way. “Sister. I would have preferred not to have that sprung on me on a flight from a hostile palace.”
Kaira’s eyes flash in the silvery light glimpsing through the clouds. “I always wondered what it would be like to have a sibling. Now I know everyone was right.”
“What did everyone say?” I shoot quietly, wondering how long it will take Clio this time to catch onto us having a mental conversation.
“That I’ll know what it’s like to hate someone and love them at the same time.”She turns back to the window.
“And what is that like?”Because I don’t love her right now. All I feel is frustration and the ache in my head that is becoming a throb.
“The best feeling in the world.” I think Kaira’s mouth curves into a smile, but I can’t be certain with the next assault of nausea making me dry-heave, hand braced on the crate beside me so I don’t slump into the puddle of vomit.
Aloud, she says, “If I understood what Ephegos and Erina are doing correctly, there are two types of drugs: The magic nullifying ones like the deep sleep and the basic one that I had to put in your food every day.”
Clio moans at the mention of the deep sleep. “They injected me with that one so often I’m not sure my powers will ever return. But they gave me the basic one as well… The one that takes out our fairy senses, too.”
Kaira nods. “You truly got the short end of the stick here.”
I’m less surprised by Kaira’s acknowledgement of Clio’s pain than by Clio’s acceptance of it, at the brief smile they share before Clio returns to spitting bile.
“Then there is the antidote that lifts the effects of the drug. The one they gave you, Ayna.” Her face doesn’t show a sign of our silent conversation from before as she meets my gaze, but her eyes do. The softness there has nothing to do with the warrior I met that first day at the Flame estate. “You really should be fine soon.”
“Did that one turn me into a Crow?” I can’t help asking even when it sounds ridiculous.
Clio shakes her head. “I don’t think there is any substance capable of turning you into something you aren’t already.”
“Truth.” Kaira is quick to agree. Too quick, and I groan in frustration as another surge of nausea hits.
“How do you know?” I demand after breathing through the assault, forcing my stomach to keep it in since there is nothing left to expel.
Kaira’s cheeks turn darker—or it might have been the clouds pulling tighter. “Herinor and I have a theory.”
“A theory?” I prompt, unable to muster the patience I’d usually have for someone who’s already in the middle of explaining.
“Let the female speak,” Clio interjects, and of course, she’s right.
“So, the theory,” she says with a sideways glance at the fairy, never pulling her attention from the streets for longer than a few breaths, “is that you’ve been a Crow for a while.”
My mouth opens then closes, no words spilling from my tongue even when I have a million thoughts about how that’s impossible.
Welcome to the world of the fae,Ephegos had said. Not as in, welcome to a new world, but welcome to a world I could finally see now that my senses are cleared of the drug. It makes a painful lot of sense.
“Think about it,” she responds to all those thoughts at once, encompassing the main issue. “The antidote took the blanket off your powers and your senses. You started perceiving the world differently—like a fairy.”
“Or a Crow,” Clio chimes in, getting on board with that theory way faster than I could have imagined.
“Right.” Kaira nods, gesturing at me. “The tattoo on your shoulder is a mark of Vala, a reminder of what you did and who you are.”
“And who am I?” I’m no longer sure I know.
“The Queen of Crows, breaker of the curse, and chosen by the Crow King,” Kaira recites as if she’s been studying these lines for exactly this moment. “Or, in other words, Myron’s mate.”
“We already know that,” Clio interrupts, her patience spread as thin as mine. “Get to the interesting part.”
“Herinor believes Vala wasn’t the only one involved in the mercy of bringing Myron back from the dead.”
I don’t breathe because it’s easier not to get sick from the stench of my own vomit all over again if I don’t. And I can’t miss a word.
“He thinks, as their maker, Shaelak might have been involved in creating the marks on both your shoulders and gifting you more than just a mate.”
Herinor’s words come back to me in a flash. Vala gave you a mate to fight for. Shaelak gave you wings to match his. Now go and fly, little bird.
He didn’t mean that metaphorically. He meant it literally.
“Herinor thinks Shaelak made me a Crow?” The disbelief is hard to hide.
“Herinor has been alive long enough to know the gods interfere rarely, but when they do, things are brutal and final. But if a deity deems you worthy, they will grant you something to mark you theirs as well.”
“Water magic from Vala,” Clio says with a nod as if it’s the most logical thing in the world.
“And Crow wings from Shaelak,” Kaira adds. “You redeemed his creatures and saved them from Vala’s curse. It’s his way of thanking you.”
“By making me one of them?” I am suddenly cold, shaking like a little child waking from a nightmare. It might be the drug or the news or both.
“By making you Myron’s equal,” Kaira corrects, much to Clio’s chagrin, because the female whirls around on her knees, baring her teeth at Kaira in the first real fairy move I’ve seen her make since the battle in the Seeing Forest.
“Don’t for a second try to make her feel like she was ever any less than his equal. Ayna was born his equal. Survived hardship just like he has.” Green fire flares in her eyes. “She fucking saved him. Saved his entire people by deeming him worthy of her love.” Her fingers curl at her sides. “If anyone was made anyone’s equal, it is him.”
Not daring to speak, to even move at such a display of fierce loyalty, I hold my breath as I wait for Kaira to respond.
The part-Flame blows out a breath. “I wish I had friends like you, Clio. I’d never again feel like I’m worthless.”
That takes Clio off guard, and her anger cracks, turning into something different—not pity but a warmth I haven’t seen in her before. “Don’t betray us, and you might.”
Kaira smiles, and so does Clio. Nausea hits, and I vomit on the floor right between them.
So, I’m a Crow… Not that it matters. Nothing does as long as we get back our magic and retrieve the males before anyone can notice we’re gone. Rather than bemoaning what seems to be a fact, I grab the canteen Kaira placed beside me and rinse my mouth before gulping down a few swallows.
By the time the first droplets of rain fall from the dense clouds covering the sky outside, I’ve curled up by the side of the stack of crates near the center of the room and closed my eyes. I don’t wake until Clio’s and Kaira’s whispers drift into my consciousness.
“Where do you think you got your mind reading from? Mother or father?” Clio asks. Something rustles as if the female is sitting next to Kaira by the window.
“Since my mother wasn’t magical, it has to be my father. He never said anything though.”
“Sometimes it jumps generations.” Clio’s tone is wistful even when she’s lowered her voice to nearly inaudible.
“Do you read minds?” It’s bold of Kaira to ask, but by now, I’m used to her being straightforward and unafraid.
Clio’s quiet laugh fills the room like a memory of better days. “No. But I know someone who does. It’s an annoying power,” she amends. “If I ever see him again, I’ll ask him to help you learn to control it.”
The pounding in my head, combined with exhaustion, drags me back to sleep before Kaira’s whispered response fills the room, and I welcome the darkness. It’s a place where worry and pain don’t torment me. A place where I can summon images of a Myron without bruises and cuts covering his skin. A place where no magic is holding me back when I touch him. A place where Erina doesn’t exist, or tomorrow. Just us.
His scent fills my nose, earth and moss and brine weaving together in a texture I want to use as a blanket as I nestle deeper into my dream where his form becomes near tangible. My shoulder tingles as I murmur his name, the sensation like a summoning, but I’m too exhausted to follow, so I hold onto it, relishing the sense of connection where pain and silence dominated for so long.
I’ll get him out. A few hours of rest and I’ll be ready to get him out.
Reality rushes back to me much faster than I’d hoped when a pair of hands pins me to the ground so hard the breath is stolen from my lungs. My eyes fly open, and I find myself staring at endless, fathomless wrath.