Page 2

Two

Ayna

I’m up before dawn, fluttering my wings a few times before hopping across the cream-and-blue pattern on the pillow, one eye on Myron’s sleeping form. He didn’t bother to change out of his pants and tunic when he returned to this room last night. I can still smell the faint scent of incense clinging to the fabrics. Myron is lying on his stomach, one hand tucked under his cheek, hair tangled around his head. The winter dawn paints him in grayscale, the contrast of his black lashes against his skin so stark he could have been a painting.

It’s the only time during the day when I allow myself to appreciate the beauty of the male I’m supposed to hold in my arms. The one I’m supposed to kiss and love and never let go of. But I’m a bird.

In his sleep, Myron has shrugged off the covers, his tunic exposing the strong column of his neck corded with muscle and covered in faint scars. There should have been whorls of black ink peeking out from under the collar, but our mate mark is gone since Erina tried to un-mate us with a torch to my shoulder. Phantom pain singes my shoulder, right where my wing is attached to my bird body, and I shake it off with a powerful beat, propelling me right for the window, which Myron always keeps open for me to come and go as I please.

Even now—even when there is nothing I can give him, he makes sure I feel comfortable in what he still calls our room.

The sound of my wings rouses Myron from sleep, and I glimpse a flicker of blue as he opens his eyes; then I’m out the window, fluttering toward the window of the room next door where my sister sleeps with a weapon under her pillow. I caw my greetings before clicking my beak against the glass, the sound making Kaira leap from her bed, knife in hand and a sour expression on her face as she spots me instead of an enemy army.

“How many times have I told you not to do this?” She scrambles to the window, half-asleep even in her readiness to kill, and unlatches it so I can hop inside. “It’s too early.”

“It’s never too early,” I protest through our mind connection, nudging her outstretched hand with the side of my head when all I want to do is give her a hug. I haven’t embraced her since the battle when she was sprawled on the ground, a gushing wound in her thigh and life fading from her eyes.

“Oh shut your grumpy beak, and I’ll get us some breakfast.” Dropping her blade on the rumpled bed, Kaira grabs a set of fleece-lined leather pants and a thick woolen shirt and disappears inside the adjacent bathing room only long enough to have cleaned her mouth and washed her face before changing into her attire. When she reappears, fully dressed, her brown hair falls over her shoulders in tangles. “I know, I’m a hopeless case,” she says as she combs her fingers through her waves, knotting them even more, wincing as she gets stuck in the lengths. “Maybe I should cut it off.”

I shake my head at both statements, wishing I could use my hands to brush out her hair, to braid it for her, but my claws are good for hunting and killing, not for showing affection.

When I merely give her a look, Kaira rolls her eyes and sets off for the door, grabbing her knife from the bed on the way out. I follow, ignoring the looks of the guards spaced out along the hallways. It’s not like they mind seeing me in this form; they all know who I am and what I am, and Recienne has ordered them not to harm me even if I land on their shoulders on occasion. But I mind. Every day I flutter through the palace, I’m painfully reminded that I’m stuck in my bird form. “Are you musing the merits of kicking Vala’s ass again?” Kaira prompts in my mind.

“I don’t think you can kick a goddess’s ass.” Even when that’s exactly what I want to do for her putting me in this position.

At least Kaira treats me like a normal person, ignoring my feathers and lack of human … well, anything … entirely.

“Do you regret it?” She asks that question every day, and every day, I have the same answer for her.

“I will never regret buying you a chance at winning that battle.” That godsdamned battle with the Flames that got us where we are now. “I’d do it all over again.”

“How long do you think she’ll let you be stuck in this form?” Out of all my new family, she’s the only one with blind faith in my recovery from Vala’s newest curse.

“Eternity, probably. Good thing I’m not immortal.”

That costs Kaira a morning-grumpy chuckle. “If there’s one thing we know, it’s that you’re a Crow now—literally. I’d be surprised if the Brother Guardian hasn’t thrown in a few benefits for you when making you his creature.”

“Don’t remind me.”

After the initial shock of my being stuck in bird form, Kaira and Tori made sure they spent enough time with me to get the full story and translate it to the others. The fact that Vala unveiled to me her identity as the Sister Guardian and Shaelak her brother, both Eroth’s children, was the milder shock where my Crow court is concerned.

When he learned I couldn’t shift back, Myron immediately shifted to see if we could communicate when we were both in our bird forms to the only effect of my tearless crying when that tiny hope was smothered by the absence of his voice in my head as he cawed at me.

We turn the corner into the hallway leading to the kitchens, a path Kaira walks more often than the rest of us, it seems, with her affinity for at least two breakfasts before starting the day. I duck behind a glimmering green column, tucking my wings in tight as I dive through the narrow space and, when Kaira shoots me an alarmed look, I call it flying practice.

“You need to stop doing that,” she scolds in my mind. “You’ll scare the guards into eventually putting a spear through your wings.”

She’s not wrong, but there’s little I can do in this form. I can’t even use my Crow abilities, that silver power remaining dormant the way it does with all Crow Fae while in their feathered form.

Only, I’m not fae. I’m human at my core—and I want to feel my arms and legs again. Want to walk so long my feet hurt, want to sit on my ass and complain about a too-tight belt after a filling meal.

The tip of my wing brushes the shoulder of the guard standing at attention by the next door, and he does flinch and grab for his sword, ready to attack.

“It’s just the Crow Queen,” Kaira calls at him as she darts after me to where the scent of freshly baked goods and fried bacon beckons from the door at the end of the corridor.

“Apologies, Your Majesty.” The way the guard bows as I speed past and sheathes his sword at his hip is almost comical. There’s no humor in it, though. I traded my promise to pay any price to be able to bring the force of the clouds down on a burning battlefield, and Vala named her price: my human form.

I’m a crow now for good, and even telling myself that things will be all right, that I can contribute to saving my family and this kingdom won’t change anything. I’m useless without my daggers and my magic, and not even my sharp claws can help any of them when we face Erina’s armies.

Second breakfast is crowded. The long oak table in the Fairy King’s dining room is loaded with plates of breakfast meats, cheeses, and fruit, and baskets of breads sit at the center. Clio, already in her fighting leathers, is digging into a helping of eggs, monitoring Silas and Herinor, who sit next to each other, talking about the strengths and weaknesses of our fairy allies. They’ve been training together for the past weeks, each day one of bruises and minor cuts when both fairies and Crows fight without their magic to get a taste of what it will be like to face Erina’s soldiers without their supernatural abilities.

Next to me, Myron is eating quietly, his gaze on me as I hop around my plate, picking at the slice of bacon Kaira dumped onto my plate after I asked her for it in my mind. He hasn’t uttered a word about how unfair it is that I can’t talk to him without Kaira or Tori translating. He hasn’t complained one single time about my avoidance of him. All he’s done is tell me again and again that, if there is a way to trap a Crow in their bird form, there is a way to set them free, that I proved exactly that when I saved him from Vala’s ancient curse.

It’s not the same. Even with Vala’s curse, he was at least mostly in his fae form when I first met him. He could speak through his own mouth and touch me with his hands, talons or no, whereas I… I am a bird. No words, no hands, no lips. What’s the use of having Kaira play messenger about how much it hurts to not be able to wrap my arms around him? How much it pains me to see him waste his time on someone he can’t be with? How it agonizes my heart that he’s bound to me through the mating bond? Perhaps it would have been a blessing had Erina’s attempt to burn him out of me worked.

Tori’s warning look from where he sits next to Recienne by the head of the table is enough to tell me he heard every thought and is disapproving greatly.

“I’m not going to abandon him.” Reassurance that will lead nowhere but the truth nonetheless. I won’t abandon Myron. I won’t abandon my family.

Kaira nods and reaches across the table from her place next to Clio and shoves a piece of bread onto my plate. “Honestly,” the fairy princess drawls. “Stop having those silent conversations when I’m around. It’s rude.”

“It’s none of your business,” I snap in my head, but she doesn’t hear me. Tori, however, grips his fork harder, clearing his throat as if to smother words he’s trying to hold in.

At the head of the table, Recienne lounges in his chair, a cup of tea in one hand and a missive in the other, seemingly oblivious to our conversation. As the expression on his face darkens, Astorian leans over his loaded plate, reading along with the Fairy King, brows knitted in an auburn line of concentration and almost crushing the bread roll between his fingers.

“Bad news?” I ask into his mind, waiting for a little tell that he’s heard me. He doesn’t as much as blink.

Royad plucks a slice of bread from the basket closest to him, his leathers whispering with the movement. “Another message from the border?”

Too many of those have been coming in lately, all of them reporting the same disconcerting quiet in the borderlands. I guess it’s a good thing Erina isn’t sending in the brunt of his legions before we’ve had the chance to prepare. If our victory against the Flames was enough to buy us a few weeks, staying in this form forever is worth it.

I tell myself that, but a selfish part of me yearns for my human form anyway.

“No new sightings at the ruins of Jeseida’s estate.” Recienne’s golden eyes lift from the missive to meet the male’s gaze. “The army gathering in the borderlands hasn’t grown.”

“Why the worried face then?” Silas prompts, the Crow warrior spearing a piece of apple and popping it into his mouth.

He’s right. Recienne has been staring at the paper in his hands for much too long for such a short message.

Slowly, deliberately, Recienne leads his glass cup to his lips, sipping from his tea then sets it down. “This”—he holds up the paper—“is a list of potential names for my child.”

Before any of us can comprehend what he said and take a peek, he folds it away and tucks it into the breast pocket of his black velvet jacket.

Herinor almost chokes on the mouthful of bread he’s chewing, and Royad’s eyes grow as large as the blue-and-gold saucer Recienne’s teacup is now sitting on. Beside me, Myron shows no reaction, so I control mine, too, even when I’m bursting with curiosity.

I haven’t seen the pregnant queen since I ran into her before we set out to intercept the weapons delivery in the borderlands, but my entire body chills at the thought of new life growing to be born into this world of terror and war.

Shoving the thought aside, I focus on the small smile spreading on Recienne’s lips that I’ve learned to interpret as a sign of happiness.

“Have you decided on a name?” Silas asks, and I’m surprised the usually sarcastic warrior is showing any interest.

“She’ll be named after her aunt, of course.” Clio folds her arms, and Tori leans back in his chair to drape his arm over her shoulders.

“Your brother and his mate will decide on the name of the child, the gender of which we don’t know.”

If looks could kill, Tori would fall off his chair at the way Clio peers at him. At least that draws a soft chuckle from Myron, the sound running through me like summer rain, and my entire soul ignites at the sudden awareness of my own mate so close—and me in my bird form.

I only realize I’ve been staring at him as his ocean eyes meet mine and my heart stutters.