Chapter 44
Debris rainsdown from where Myron blasted half of the wall around the door, and where forbidding silence was dominating, coughs and curses now penetrate the space. My knife weighs nothing in my hand as I hold it ready to stab whoever comes at us through the settling haze.
Myron is already sneaking to the side of the opening, gesturing for me to follow. It’s clear he wants me out of harm’s way should anyone attack without seeing who actually tore down the wall. Not that I don’t appreciate his concern for my safety, but I have magic and a blade. And if one of us dies, I’d rather it be me.
“I’ve been wondering when you’d show up,” Ephegos’s voice snakes through the settling dust like a viper, making my pulse speed with fear and wrath.
He’s the one responsible for all this misery. He’s the one who kidnapped me and brought me to this palace, the one who captured Myron and Clio and Royad and Kaira. The one who didn’t care whom he damaged on his path to revenge.
Slowly, he stalks closer, dark eyes like pits of night as they assess my disheveled state, the dirty clothes, the blade in my hand, and a smile tugs on his lips.
“You came alone? Where is the weakling king you love so much?”
Myron stays at the side of the hole, hidden while he gathers his power. I can feel it rising beneath my own skin as he readies to strike.
“You mean the fabulous male who saved his own people—including your sorry ass—and came back from the dead because the gods willed it so?” I put on my best smirk, praying to Shaelak and Vala to give me strength. If there is anything I’ve learned, it’s that the Guardians didn’t bother to do shit when I was drowning in despair, when I was fighting for my freedom, for my life. But Vala did. Vala guided me, gave me her power, gave me back Myron. And Shaelak bestowed upon me the power of the Crows. I only wish I could use it at will. So far, nothing stirs beneath my skin when I draw upon the energy that gave me feathers and made me shift. “Because if you’re talking about him, I can assure you it’d be better for you if you never saw him again.” I lift my knife, listening hard for every single tell of presences in the room where I can’t see behind the gap framing Ephegos. With horror, I recognize the walls though. This is the room where I was strapped to a metal table, pierced with needles, and forced to watch Myron fight pain and helplessness. If I never see this room again, it’s soon enough, but there is no way around it. Royad is still here, and I won’t shy away from my fears.
Ephegos shifts, his fine sepia shirt crinkling as he adjusts his stance into a defensive one. A shadow moves behind the wall, tall and broad in a way that makes me believe I found Herinor. And the slow, rattling breaths?—
Royad is still alive. I know on instinct that these are the failing lungs of my friend, and if we don’t hurry, this sound will haunt me forever.
Myron is ready to strike, hand lifted at his side and focus on me. I incline my head an inch and step aside, making way for Myron to lunge, which he does. With powerful grace only a Crow can master, he lands in the opening, magic ripping free from his palm and soaring through the air. Swirling streaks like hot and cold air meeting in a visible glimmer brighten the air as I see his power for the first time.
A scream tears from Ephegos’ throat as the blow hits its mark, but it’s not Ephegos’s skin and flesh the power pierces, it’s the shield Ephegos conjured in front of him rattling with the impact. Sparks fly like when a hammer hits an anvil, and the sound is thunder and lightning cracking the sky.
Shit—
“You think I didn’t see you there?” Ephegos shoots him a wide grin, that of a friend—and a traitor disguising himself with ease.
Myron comes to a halt in front of me, the muscles in his back flexing as he lifts his hand, and a glimmering, translucent layer wraps around both of us when he conjures a thicker shield of his own.
“I think it doesn’t matter what you think.” Myron’s growl fills the room, and Herinor appears behind Ephegos, his gaze trained to the side where an edge of the torture table is visible, and hanging limply over it, Royad’s tan arm—or what’s left of the skin is tan. Most of it is raw flesh dripping blood.
My stomach twists as I try not to allow nausea to steal my focus. Inhaling through my nose, I take a step forward so I see better past Myron’s shoulder and father into the room.
Katrijanov is there, and so are three guards, each of them grasping a sword and wearing various expressions of horror as they take in the Crow King on the loose. And by his side, their own king’s betrothed. Separating us is the long, steel table covered in Royad’s blood draining from his limp form. Tangles of brown hair stick to the side of his face as if someone turned him over from where his cheek had been pressing into his own blood and couldn’t be bothered to smooth the strands away. The scar running upward from the corner of his mouth is bleeding, and on his other cheek, a mirror of it has been carved into his skin as if to mock the sign of weakness. His bare, bruised, and blood-streaked chest is still rising and falling but barely. I don’t even want to think what cruel torture has created the pattern of wounds and bruises, or I’ll forget every caution. If we don’t get him out of here soon and heal him, he won’t stand a chance. I’ve seen enough people die to know.
Myron knows too, for his head has turned to Royad as well, taking in his cousin with the ire of the gods on his features.
“You’ve come to take back your friend?” Ephegos asks even when we all know that’s the only reason we’re still here.
Myron doesn’t deign to respond. Instead, he sends another blast of his power at Ephegos’s shield, and I watch sparks spread all the way to the other side of the room. Ephegos has enclosed them all with a barrier of magic, and there is no way for us to get past unless we bring it down.
Fear and frustration fight for the upper hand as I draw upon the sources of water I’ve noted along the path, pulling the liquid toward me with silent concentration. If I manage to wash a hole into his power, I might get to do what I swore I’d do if I ever laid eyes on Ephegos again.
The thought of murdering another creature shouldn’t excite me all that much, but this is Ephegos, and he deserves every last moment of suffering. It’s the determination that keeps me going when the amounts of water feel like too much and my arm is tiring from the effort as I force the water to stay out of sight so I can spring it on him in a surprise attack while Myron does the debating. He’s better at it anyway. I’d just provoke Ephegos, and he’d slit our throats instead of letting himself be sidetracked.
The strategy worked in the Seeing Forest after all.
Until Ephegos nearly killed me and Myron killed himself by saving me.
The panic clogging my throat is real, as is the pounding of my heart that drowns out all other sounds.
“It doesn’t matter why I came as long as I get to rip out your throat before I leave.”
It seems Myron isn’t one for diplomacy today either.
Unfortunately, there is little we can do without risking Royad, whose throat is now at the tip of Katrijanov’s blade. The Tavrasian general has used the moment of our regrouping to make the three strides toward the table and show us exactly how powerless we are. This won’t be a big battle—or even a small one. This will be a test of willpower and patience, of wits and strength of magic. One wrong step and Royad is dead, it’s implied in the way Katrijanov is glaring at me past Myron’s shoulder with too much of that vicious glee I’ve seen flare there before when he sold me to the Crows, then when he came to see me at the Flame estate. He has something up his sleeve that we can’t anticipate.
I wish I could speak to Myron mind to mind so I could tell him to watch out for the general, but the Crow is a master of battle. He knows how to keep an overview of a situation.
The three guards have inched closer to the door as if ready to bolt any moment, but Herinor is blocking their path, his mere presence inducing dread.
He’s your ally,I remind myself even when I know that there is nothing he can do for me.
“You brought your little Crow woman, Myron.” Ephegos appraises me as I step to Myron’s side. I won’t hide. I won’t run. I won’t balk from the danger. This is about all of us and I’d rather make myself useful before it’s too late.
Besides, I can aim much better from here than from behind Myron’s muscled body.
“She has a bone to pick with you just as much as I do.”
That’s putting it mildly.
I draw the water farther and farther in, moisture kissing my fingertips as I pull on the humidity in the air, the trickles of fluid from buckets in cells, and even the spill of Royad’s blood on the floor where it seeps through the barrier Ephegos has put up. I don’t care where it comes from as long as it hits Ephegos in the face.
“Is that so?” Ephegos cocks his head, features shifting into those of a bird, sharp beak and all, and hands turning into claws. His voice becomes a hiss, all black eyes tracking my movements as I shift on my legs for better balance.
Using the knife in my hand to distract his focus from my magic-wielding, mangled one, I take a slow step toward him. Myron follows, putting his shoulder between the Crow and me, and Katrijanov’s hand twitches closer to Royad’s throat.
“And there I thought I’d given it all to you. A kingdom, a king, a throne.” Ephegos pauses, unsheathing his own sword as he studies the ire in my eyes.
“I already have a king.” I stand beside Myron, my shoulder brushing his arm as I remind both of us who and what we are. Crow King and Queen. We are the Crow Court, the Crow Kingdom, the future of the Crows. If we fall—if Royad falls—everything Myron fought for will be in vain.
“Oh, but Myron is the past, Ayna. His court is dying. His people despise him, allying with the Flames his father once ordered killed. You’re wasting your time with him. While Erina is the future. He might be only a human king, but his reign will expand to the magical lands in no time.” There is more to this than what he’s saying, but those few words are enough to put my self-control to the test.
“Erina is a monster, just like you.” It’s a challenge in itself to keep my voice level, but I manage that cold calculated tone I’m going for. If Myron can handle standing rooted to the spot, I can handle keeping my emotions off my face.
Letting my gaze drift across the room, I collect myself, but only for a brief moment until my eyes meet Herinor’s, and the apprehension there speaks deep to my soul. He looks away, widening his stance as he takes in the guards in front of him instead. It would be easy for him to cut them down with one, powerful swipe of his sword. Easier even to knock them out with his magic. But would that count as aiding me? Would such a gesture cost him his life?
“Erina is a fool to believe he could ever take Askarea.” Myron’s tone is completely devoid of emotion. “You have lived through the Crow Wars. You know how powerful they are even in smaller numbers.
“Erina has found a way to speed up the production of the nullifying drug.” The smirk on Ephegos’s face makes my stomach turn. Why is the water taking so long to collect? Why isn’t there more? At least, no one has noticed the thin trickle splitting from the pool of Royad’s blood where crimson powder remains on our side of Ephegos’s shield.
But if what he says is true… I don’t want to think about what that means for the fairylands, for Clio and her family. For all of Eherea—because, once he has Askarea, who says he’ll stop there. Cezux is human territory, as is the Southern Continent. Easy targets once he commands an army of fairies by controlling their powers.
My stomach is full of lead, but I keep my head high and my magic flowing. The water is nearly there. I can feel it in my veins like a tide.
“Unfortunately, we’re at an impasse here.” Don’t look at Myron or at Royad. Don’t look at Herinor. Keep your focus on Ephegos. “I have no interest in a new husband—see, since I’m already married.” To my mate. But I don’t add that.
As if in response, the tattoo tingles with power. Myron is raising his own defenses once more. His defenses and the sort of power that can blow up walls. A memory of explosions in the Crow Palace floats into my mind, and I wonder if this is something all Crows can do and it has nothing to do with the Flames. Perhaps it was the breaking of the curse that gave the Crows back their full powers and they simply weren’t able to handle them properly.
That would mean Ephegos wields that same magic.
It’s a little late to worry if it was a good idea to come here at all. There’s no running now. We need to push through the barrier and grab Royad before his life is forfeit. That will leave only one of us to fight with our full attention and both hands free on our way out. A part of me wishes she’d thought it through better.
“Not yet.” Ephegos is still smirking, the bastard. “But you will feel a dramatic urge to marry him once Myron is back on this table”—Ephegos taps the empty metal surface beside him where Myron’s blood is still crusted below layers of that of Silas and Astorian. What kind of sick person does that—“and your only way to spare him the pain will be to say yes to Erina of Tavras.”
I shudder at the mere thought of it. Of course, Myron dives right through the threat, demanding answers rather than cowering with fear. “What do you get out of it, Ephegos?”
That’s the one question I’ve been dying to get an answer to. It can’t be merely the reestablishing of the Crow Court as their king. Ephegos is too power-hungry to be satisfied with whatever few Crows are left to rule.
Claws bending into fishlike gestures, Ephegos steps closer to the magical barrier. I swear I can see the air shift, a sign that his power isn’t impenetrable everywhere. There are weaknesses, and I need to use them—after I take down Katrijanov. Because I can’t touch Ephegos as long as Katrijanov holds a blade to Royad’s throat. My friend will be dead before the water reaches the Crow. It has to be the general first.
“You are too short-sighted for a king, Myron.” Ephegos lifts his fists at his sides. “That’s always been your problem, or the Crows would have followed you until the end. But they didn’t. They followed me. Even your friend Herinor followed me.”
I try not to pay attention to the way Herinor shrinks an inch or how Myron’s muscles bulge in his arm. It’s only a matter of moments until this situation blows up—literally, if Ephegos doesn’t hold his beak.
A shudder runs down my spine at the sight of his feathered face, his sharp claws, his featherless arms where burn marks mar his skin. His jacket has disappeared the way all their clothes disappear when the Crows shift into their bird forms—a trick I yet need to master or I’ll end up naked every single time I shift. If I ever shift again.
“Whoever followed you is doomed.” Myron’s tone is dead ice in a colorless desert, and I believe Herinor’s eyes are widening, but I don’t allow myself to take a closer look.
“So here is my proposal for the two of you. You give yourselves up. Royad goes free. I don’t track down the Askarean general and won’t kill Silas purposefully. How does that sound?” With a twitch of his claw, he has the barrier withdrawing a few inches toward him, as if tightening the shield when he knows he’ll need his strength for offensive magic, the glimmering dimming into a visual hum. Royad and the table he’s strapped to are still behind the wards though.
The wards…
Our magic started unweaving the wards on our kingdom, and Crows started roaming the fairylands again.
It’s been a while since I was told about how the Crows managed to escape the Seeing Forest first, even when wards had been placed around it to lock them in by the Askarean fairies, but now that it sprang to my mind, I can’t ignore the urge to test the theory quickly forming in my mind.
If Herinor is right and Shaelak made me something resembling a Crow—the first female Crow since the curse—that sort of magic might apply to me as well as to the rest of the Crows in this room. The shield is thin enough where Royad’s blood is leaking through. If only I could break it a few inches wide and sneak the water kissing my fingertips into the enemy part of the chamber, I could tear Katrijanov’s knife from his hands.
I don’t wait for Myron to continue his debating. Instead, I pray to Shaelak that he gifts me quick mastery of those powers he bestowed upon me and shove my magic against the weakest point in Ephegos’s shield.
The wall of energy thrums at my invisible touch, pushing back and sizzling, the glimmer intensifying, but Ephegos doesn’t seem to notice what I’m trying to do, and I call that a win. The longer my efforts remain undetected, the better the chance I have of taking down at least one of them before they openly attack.
A sideways glance from Myron informs me he noticed, though, and he twirls his fingers, sending a wave of power at Ephegos regardless of the chances of simply blasting through. “Never.”
It’s a distraction, though. While his brute power flares in front of the traitor’s face, a thinner, more subtle thread of his magic twines with mine, guiding and stroking it until it reaches the spot in front of the table where the wards are thinning. Like a delicate blade, his power peels back layer after layer of the shield while simultaneously keeping Ephegos engaged in a conversation I’ve stopped paying attention to. What use is it listening to someone whose sole goal is to undermine you until he can trap you again?
The string of water tickles my palm, straining to be released, but I don’t allow it past my shadow. It’s too soon, and I don’t want to risk Royad.
Soon,I tell it, stroking it into submission.
The glimmer fades right beneath the torture table, forming an opening for my magic, and I almost stumble at the strain of keeping control while simultaneously pushing a magic I am only beginning to familiarize myself with. I don’t wait for Myron to pull back his power but lunge. A streak of water rushes in a straight line like fire blazing along a trail of oil to the hole we’ve peeled into the shield. Myron strikes at the same time, but he chooses to attack with his sword, shoving his straight against the barrier right where Ephegos’s heart is waiting to be silenced. It buys me a moment for the water to reach Katrijanov before my attack is noticed, but not enough to make it to the general’s hands.
Ephegos blocks Myron’s blow with an earsplitting crack, and I almost stumble as Myron shakes with the strain of pushing against the traitor’s force. Katrijanov’s eyes are on the wet trail on the ground, and he shifts his knife even closer to Royad’s throat in a warning, a trickle of blood running from the tan, grime-covered skin right beneath the male’s stubbled jaw. One wrong breath?—
Focus. I need to focus, or we will all soon be strapped to a table and sliced open.
The image of that potential outcome infuses me with more courage than I thought I was capable of, and I go for Katrijanov’s calves instead, wrapping my water around the back of his knees and tugging hard enough to bring an exclamation of surprise from his throat as he sways—sways but doesn’t fall. The blade slides down Royad’s throat, cutting along the front.
Shit. Shit-shit-shit.
Blood gurgles from the Crow’s throat, and I could swear, his lids flutter once from the pain. He has moments like this. If I don’t get to him in time, his life is over.
With all I have, I tear at the general’s legs, but this time, he’s prepared.
“Herinor,” he shouts for the warrior, and Guardians be damned, he follows the order, coming up to the general’s side, still avoiding my eyes as he stares down at the male bleeding out on the table.
He doesn’t lift a finger to fight me, though. All he does is place a firm hand under the general’s shoulder to stabilize him. What I notice a mere moment later is Herinor’s other hand drifting to Royad’s arm closest to his side of the table and placing the back of his sword-clutching fist against it.
Before I can see if he’s trying to heal his fellow Crow or simply comfort him during this hour of death, power explodes on Ephegos’s side of the chamber, and debris rains from the ceiling where Myron’s power blasted through the magical barrier.
“Grab him and run,” Myron orders—not me, I realize as I clutch the edge of the wall in hopes of catching my balance.
My water is still working to bring down the general, but at least, his blade is out of reach from Royad’s throat. If Herinor would let go, he’d fall easily, but the Crow is standing there with war in his eyes as he makes his choice about whether to risk his life by allowing my efforts to come to fruition or to follow Myron’s order. Letting Katrijanov drop could be interpreted as aiding me, and that…
I don’t look as he hesitantly slides his hand away from the general then presses his mouth into a thin line of resolve, darting to cut the binds at Royad’s wrists and ankles before lifting him into his arms and bolting to our side of the room.
“If you set one foot out that door, I’ll make sure you don’t live to enjoy the freedom you seek so desperately,” Ephegos shouts his warning, but Herinor’s steps don’t falter as he brushes past me in the blasted doorway, taking Royad hopefully far, far away from here and healing him.
“Coward!” Ephegos’s voice echoes through the room, but I quietly think that Herinor is braver than any of us to risk his life for us and that—if his bargain doesn’t take him down on his way out—I need to thank him if we ever make it out of here.
Before I can finish the thought, Katrijanov struggles free from my grasp, reaching not for the blade he dropped but for the small syringe on the sideboard behind him. “What are you waiting for,” he yells at the three guards by the door who look like they are about to piss their neat uniform pants any moment. “Grab the king’s fiancée.”